Get The Internationalist No. 50! (tags)
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Revolutionary Internationalist Youth Founded (tags)
This past August, the Revolutionary Internationalist Youth was founded as the youth section of the Internationalist Group, U.S. section of the League for the Fourth International. One hundred years after the 1917 October Revolution, the RIY aims to be a training ground for young revolutionaries, as part of the common movement of the IG/LFI, to carry through to victory the genuine communist program of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky. The formation of the RIY has involved extensive study of the history of Marxist youth groups going back to the Communist Youth International, founded in 1919 on the tradition of Karl Liebknecht and the Leninist principle of combining study with action. It is has been forged through sharp political struggles against the class-collaborationist politics of Maoism and the various brands of social democracy and for the program of revolutionary Trotskyism. We publish here the Founding Declaration of the RIY.
Back to Trotskyism! Revolutionary regroupment with the League for the Fourth International (tags)
On April 16, the Better-Late-Than-Never (BLTN) Faction of the International Communist League (ICL) put forward its Declaration of Faction calling to “Return to the Road of Genuine Spartacism” and to “Regroup with the IG/LFI on the Basis of Their Revolutionary Continuity!” The very next day they received a response from the Spartacist League’s Los Angeles local, falsely claiming that the declaration was written in collaboration with the IG and cynically saying it considered the declaration a statement of resignation. The BLTN responded that claims they couldn’t have written the document were not only untrue but an insult to the intelligence of the ICL membership. The Faction notably exposed how the party that had uniquely waged a principled struggle to defend the DDR (East Germany) and USSR responded to defeat by dumping Trotsky’s analysis of the dual nature of the Stalinist bureaucracy and whitewashing the role of the bourgeoisie and its social-democratic agents in the capitalist counterrevolution. It also independently investigated key political differences between the ICL and the LFI on Brazil and Mexico, as well as challenging the SL on key issues concerning the class line and black oppression in the U.S. The Better-Late-Than-Never Faction Declaration is a challenge to those in the SL/ICL who truly want to make a revolution. The report on the latest conference of the Spartacist League/U.S. makes clear, the SL is a dying party. It is crucial to understand that the decline of the SL/ICL is a direct result of its political/programmatic degeneration. An agreement between the BLTN and the IG/LFI calls for carrying out common work aiming at an early fusion.
Free collection of articles.
The Left, Labor and Occupy (tags)
Barely half a year after it burst on the scene, the Occupy Wall Street movement is splintering left and right. This was inevitable in a movement that was united only in what it opposed and could never put forward a positive program, whether of reformist "demands" on the capitalist state or of revolutionary action against it. Liberals, who latched onto Occupy hoping it could pressure the Democratic Party in a more populist direction, want to expel "black bloc" anarchists. Reformist social democrats rail against "ultraleftists" in Occupy and cozy up to the labor tops. On the other side, many (but not all) anarchists oppose unions. Some are simply arrogant petty-bourgeois labor haters. Others are grappling with real problems, but with skewed analysis and dead wrong conclusions. Discussion of recent workers' struggles, from Wisconsin to West Coast longshore, underlines that the key question is leadership, but not just replacing one set of bureaucrats with another. Unions have always faced vicious anti-labor laws, but we have the power to defeat them. It is necessary to drive out the pro-capitalist bureaucracy, the labor lieutenants of capital, in order to turn the unions into instruments of revolutionary class struggle.
Lynch Law U.S.A.: State Defends Murderer of Trayvon Martin (tags)
Outrage over the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin compounds daily as the killer remains free, facing no criminal charges for gunning down the unarmed black youth from Miami Gardens, Florida. On February 26, George Zimmerman, a white self-appointed captain of a "neighborhood watch" team in a gated community in the Orlando suburb of Sanford, shot Martin, a black high-school student, who was returning to the home in the development where he and his father were staying. Police and local prosecutors never charged Zimmerman and accepted his cynical claim that he shot the unarmed youth in "self-defense." Thousands have demonstrated around the country, particularly after police tapes of 911 calls by Zimmerman were released, showing that he was stalking Martin. But the main thrust of liberals is to divert the protests into a movement for gun control laws and to get rid of "Stand Your Ground" laws such as Florida's which make it legal to shoot in self-defense. The ruling-class response deliberately tries to obscure the key fact that this was racist murder. Trayvon Martin was killed for the "crime" of "walking while black."
Longshore Workers, Truckers: Shut the Ports, Coast to Coast! (tags)
Following the nationally-coordinated police evictions last month of Occupy Wall Street and encampments across the country, on December 12 the Occupiers struck back. Ports up and down the West Coast were blockaded, from Seattle to San Diego. Despite a barrage of hostile propaganda in the media, opposition from union bureaucrats and heavy police repression in some places, overall the blockade was successful -- this time. The blockade was called in solidarity with longshore workers fighting a union-busting assault in Longview, Washington and port truckers seeking union recognition in the ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach. This support should have been greeted. But now the class war on the West Coast docks is coming to a head, and it can't be waged from the outside. Bay Area labor has called for a caravan to Longview. The goal should be a real occupation of the terminal by the workers to prevent the loading of the scab cargo. Longshore militants have called on the longshore unions to shut down every port on the West Coast, and the East and Gulf Coasts, to smash EGT's union-busting. Can it be done? Yes, but only though sharp struggle against the pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy.
'The Egyptian Revolution enters a new stage' and more (tags)
"The struggle that is now unfolding in Egypt will be of a protracted character. The responsibility of revolutionary Marxists is to develop among workers, as they pass through colossal political experiences, an understanding of the necessity for an independent struggle for power. The revolutionary Marxists must counsel workers against all illusions that their democratic aspirations can be achieved under the aegis of bourgeois parties. They must expose ruthlessly the false promises of the political representatives of the capitalist class. They must encourage the creation of independent organs of workers’ power which can become, as the political struggle intensifies, the basis for the transfer of power to the working class. They must explain that the realization of the workers’ essential democratic demands is inseparable from the implementation of socialist policies. Above all, revolutionary Marxists must raise the political horizons of Egyptian workers beyond the borders of their own country. They must explain that the struggles that are now unfolding in Egypt are inextricably linked to an emerging global process of world socialist revolution, and that the victory of the revolution in Egypt requires not a national, but an international strategy. After all, the fight against the Mubarak-Suleiman regime and the Egyptian ruling class is, in the final analysis, a struggle against the entire Arab bourgeoisie, the Zionist regime in Israel and American and European imperialism."
Are We Witnessing the Start of a Global Revolution? (tags)
"Understand that the “War on Terror” is a complete lie, a concoction meant to obscure the imperial attack on the worldwide insurrection of the people’s revolt the imperialist ruling class knew would be coming. Of course 911 was a false flag attack perpetrated largely by imperialism to serve as a defense against this revolt. But before that the outlines of this “defense of the system” was likely behind the crash of a jumbo jet in the ocean when an Egyptian pilot, with no record of radical ideas, supposedly crash dived a fully loaded passenger plane shouting, “God is great.” One can review and study these manipulations and begin to see the strategy and heartless efforts being waged by our rulers in a desperate attempt to maintain our world in bondage. The U.S. will claim to be defending democracy and human welfare while attempting to utterly crush both."
French Students Mobilize: "Sarkozy, You're Screwed, The Youth Are In the Streets!" (tags)
From our correspondent in France
Not Heard on Grace Aaron/Ian Masters, Free Speech Radio KPFK (tags)
The Ann Arbor Socialist Equality Party Congress Presents: The Breakdown of Capitalism and the fight for Socialism in the United States: Program of the Socialist Equality Party
Today in the United States, under the Democratic administration of Barack Obama, xenophobic and racist violence is escalating. The criminal agents of the Border Patrol have reached the point of killing in cold blood, before the eyes of hundreds of witnesses. On May 28, construction worker Anastasio Hernández Rojas was beaten to death by some 20 agents of the U.S. Border Patrol. Then on June 7 in Ciudad Juárez, across the river from El Paso, Border Patrol agents fired into a group of youths on the Mexican side of of the border, murdering 14-year-old Adrián Hernández with a shot to the head. These crimes are part of a policy of racist repression looking for scapegoats, typified by the legalization of xeonophobia and police use of racial profiling in Arizona’s SB 1070 law. But while Obama criticize the law, “Obama, listen, we are in the struggle,” his thugs are killing on the border. It is an illusion to think that the commander in chief of U.S. imperialism, or his counterpart and semi-colonial underling, Mexican president Felipe Calderón, will defend the workers. It is necessary to mobilize the power of the working class to defend immigrants.
Haiti Earthquake: Capitalism, Occupation and Revolution (tags)
The earthquake that wrecked the capital of Haiti and surrounding areas on January 12 produced human tragedy of almost unfathomable proportions. It has been termed “the most destructive natural disaster in modern times.” Five months later, Haiti is no longer in the headlines or on the nightly TV news, but for the hard-hit Haitian population the scene has hardly changed. Now a new disaster is in the making as the hurricane season begins. This was a calamity made by capitalism: the earthquake was predictable and was predicted; the inferior construction methods are the result of Haiti’s poverty, and the swollen slums were the result of U.S. policies that have destroyed Haitian agriculture, forcing peasants off the land. On top of everything, Haiti is under imperialist occupation: Washington makes sure it has ultimate control of the strategically placed island, as it has throughout the Cold War and since. Haiti's devastation is not the result of “natural” causes or even “neo-liberal” policies – it is the product of the oppression of this semi-colonial country by the imperial masters ever since black slaves rose up to abolish slavery and throw out the colonialists two centuries ago. No new “economic model” can resolve this: what’s required is a new Haitian Revolution, a workers revolution overthrowing capitalism throughout the Caribbean and extending into the heart of imperialism.
Puerto Rico: Beatings at the Sheraton (tags)
On the evening of May 20, the notorious Shock Force of the Puerto Rican Police brutally attacked a demonstration of hundreds of students and workers protesting against Governor Luis Fortuño. The assault took place in the luxurious Sheraton Hotel, where the privatizing, anti-worker governor was presiding over a fancy fundraising dinner. As our reporter recounts, the police brutally beat demonstrators with riot clubs and pepper-sprayed everyone with tear gas and pepper gas. This was the response of the government to the workers strike two days ago in support of the student strike at the University of Puerto Rico, which has lasted almost a month. It is urgently necessary to translate the worker-student unity that was on display on May 18 into powerful strike actions that shut down key sectors of the economy of the U.S.' Caribbean island economy. We publish here the on-the-spot report from our correspondent who witnessed and participated in the protest.
Open Letter from the Internationalist Group to the Spartacist League and ICL (tags)
The Spartacist League/U.S. and the International Communist League it leads are in deep political trouble. On April 27, the International Executive Committee of the ICL issued a statement “Repudiating Our Position on Haiti Earthquake,” headlined “A Capitulation to U.S. Imperialism.” After three months of “zealous apologies for the U.S. imperialist military intervention” in the name of humanitarian aid, the ICL suddenly declared that this was a fundamental “betrayal” and the Internationalist Group had been right all along in demanding U.S./U.N. troops out. While agreeing with the IG’s characterization of the ICL’s policy as “social-imperialist”and calling for a “savage indictment” of its own line, the ICL’s explanation for this betrayal – failure to have a formal discussion – doesn’t answer how an entire organization which proclaims itself revolutionary Marxist and Trotskyist could swallow this support for imperialism for months. Its origins can be found in years of capitulation to U.S. imperialism, notably by abandoning the call for its defeat in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. The Open Letter by the Internationalist Group urges those in the ICL who do not wish to continue gyrating in centrist confusion to examine the real record of their organization’s adaptations and capitulations to “its own” bourgeoisie over the past years.
Defeat U.S. War on Afghanistan and Iraq! (tags)
On December 1, President Barack Obama officially announced a massive escalation of the U.S. war on Afghanistan, tripling the number of American military personnel there since Obama took office. This move marks a decision by Washington to continue the colonial occupation of Afghanistan indefinitely, and with it the bloody slaughter of the Afghan people. Obama’s claim that he would “begin the transfer” of U.S. forces by mid-2011 was just sucker bait for gullible liberals. “Afghanistan Is Now Obama’s War,” proclaimed the media from New York to London to Mumbai. But Afghanistan has been the Democrats’ war since the moment it was launched, in September 2001, and together with the war on Iraq, it is a bipartisan imperialist war. No one in Washington thinks the Afghan puppet army will be able to handle the Taliban. The actual U.S. strategy is not to defeat the Taliban but to weaken it enough so that elements of the Islamists can be brought into a political deal. It is striking that in the United States, a majority of the population is turning against the war even though there hasn’t been a major national antiwar march in more than two years – ever since the start of the last presidential election campaign. At protests following Obama’s announcement of more troops to Afghanistan, organizers carefully avoided any signs mentioning the president by name. Our Internationalist contingent, in contrast, carried signs including, “Hey Obama, How Many Kids Did You Kill Today? Defeat Imperialist Slaughter in Afghanistan, Iraq.”
Mumia’s Life Is On the Line: Mobilize Labor/Black Power to Free Him Now! (tags)
The threat to Mumia Abu-Jamal's life is increasingly ominous. His lead attorney, Robert Bryan, warns: "There is an escalated effort by the authorities to see him die at the hands of the executioner. This is the most dangerous time for Mumia since his 1981 arrest." The U.S. Supreme Court has turned down Jamal's two appeals. If it were to rule in favor of the prosecution's appeal, this would open the way for Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell to issue a third warrant of execution, which he has vowed to do. Contrary to the misplaced expectations of many, the Obama administration is not about to save Mumia. Around the world, hundreds of thousands have marched for this courageous champion of oppressed. Trade unions representing millions of members have rallied to the defense of Mumia. It is urgent to expand this support into powerful labor/black action, appealing to the integrated union movement to join with the black, Latino and immigrant poor to demand that he be liberated.
Mass Protests Rock Iran: No to All Wings of the Mullah Regime! (tags)
For more than a week, Iran has been convulsed by mass demonstrations denouncing election fraud. Hundreds of thousands have repeatedly taken to the streets to denounce the government, which is now threatening, and beginning to carry out, a bloody crackdown. This time around, imperialist intervention is veiled: the White House feigns neutrality, the Western media go all out for the opposition, while in the background various agencies provide vital technical aid. In reality, all candidates in the presidential vote swear allegiance to the Islamic Republic, and the supposed moderate reformers are no less butchers and enemies of poor and working people than the conservative "populist" government. The situation cries out for revolutionary leadership independent of all factions of the theocracy, to wage a struggle for workers revolution against imperialism and clerical reaction.
Zionist Mass Murder: Break the Siege, Defend Gaza! (tags)
At midday on December 27, Israeli warplanes launched a massive bomb attack on the densely populated Gaza Strip. More than 270 Palestinians were killed as wave after wave of U.S.-supplied F-16 fighter jets and Apache helicopters dropped more than 100 bombs. The Israeli military said they were targeting Hamas installations, but numerous civilians were killed, including a number of children, as schools had just let out for lunch. The Zionists' attack on downtown areas was deliberate mass murder. The Israeli slaughter was carried out with the full knowledge and a green light from its imperialist patrons in Washington, as well as U.S. client regimes such as Egypt. The Internationalist Group and League for the Fourth International condemn the Israeli mass murder in Gaza and call for action by the international working class in defense of Gaza and the Palestinian people, including efforts to break the siege.
Leftist Union Leaders Assassinated in Venezuela (tags)
On November 27, three leftist union leaders in the Venezuelan state of Aragua – Richard Gallardo, Luis Hernández and Carlos Requena – were gunned down by an assassin. The murder came hours after the unionists had led a workers occupation of a Colombian-owned milk plant which had been brutally broken up by state police. All three were leaders of the UNT (National Workers Union) and of the USI (Socialist Left Unity), a party which has opposed attempts by the government of Hugo Chávez to impose state control of labor, and has fought the rightist opposition backed by imperialism. They may have been murdered by assassins hired by the Colombian company, by elements connected to the police of outgoing state governor, a former Chávez ally, or by supporters of a current official of the governing United Socialist Party. In any case, despite Chávez’ socialist rhetoric, the reality of the bourgeois Bolivarian “revolution” in Venezuela today is that leftist unionists are murdered while the forces of capitalist state repression back up the bosses. While many leftists have called on the Chávez government to investigate, Trotskyists call for organizing workers defense guards and imposing workers control of production. Venezuela today is stuck at a crossroads. Building a Bolshevik-type workers party based on Trotsky’s program of permanent revolution is key.
A Critique of the Fourth International (tags)
Correcting our political perspective
Philippine Government Launches New War on Muslim Groups (tags)
War officially came to southern Philippines again as the government of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo unilaterally put an end to eleven years of negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) September 3. A month early the government abruptly broke off talks with the MILF on the eve of signing an autonomy pact. There are numerous reports of U.S. Special Forces accompanying Philippines Army units on their deadly sweeps in the Bangsamoro (land of the Moro people) region. More than 100 people have been killed so far and half a million refugees have fled from the fighting. Bourgeois liberals and the petty-bourgeois left lamely call on the government to resume the “peace process,” which in any case was only intended to wear down the insurgents. Revolutionaries instead seek to mobilize Philippine workers to drive out all U.S. forces, whatever their legal status; to force the withdrawal of the AFP from the contested southern areas; and to defend the Bangsamoro people and their right to self-determination.
What Will It Take to Defeat the War? (tags)
On June 28-29, an “Open National Antiwar Conference” was held in Cleveland, called by a newly minted National Assembly to End the Iraq War and Occupation. Over objections from the conference organizers, centrally Socialist Action, the assembly voted to change the name to include reference to the war on Afghanistan, and to emphasize the connection with U.S. backing for the Zionist occupation of Palestine. (The sponsors of the confab were so right-wing that they feared losing “unity” with Democratic Party supporters of Israel and the Afghanistan war!) What did not change at all was the popular-front character of the new outfit, tying it to the bourgeois parties despite the fig leaf of electoral “independence.” Making this utterly clear, it was decided not to call a national antiwar mobilization prior to the November elections explicitly in order to court those forces who wish to aid the Democrats (and therefore want to avoid making problems for the presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama). Here is the leaflet issued by the Internationalist Group at the conference.
While Suppresing Voices from UCLA ISSE Students, Jim Lafferty States Their Message Well (tags)
Suppressing Voices from UCLA International Students for Social Equality (ISSE) Students on the Station Listener Web Forum, KPFK General Manager Jim Lafferty Nonetheless Articulates Their Message Well.
May Day Strike Against the War Shuts Down All U.S. West Coast Ports (tags)
On May 1, every port on the West Coast of the United States was shut down to demand an end to the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The historic May Day walkout by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) is the first time ever that an American union has struck against a U.S. war. The union ranks defied the rulings of an arbitrator, who twice ordered them to go to work. They overcame the capitulations of the ILWU leadership, which didn't want the work stoppage in the first place, tried to water it down and cowered before the threats of legal action while waving the flag. The employers' Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) declared the May 1 port shutdown an "illegal strike." But after all the huffing and puffing from the bosses' mouthpieces, the dock workers pointed the way to defeating the imperialist war by mobilizing working-class power. In the end, it was more than a work stoppage. The dock workers' May Day strike against the war was a first step, a show of what it will take to bring down the warmongers in Washington. Their "symbolic" action was felt all the way to Iraq, where dock workers in two ports stopped work in solidarity with the ILWU. But it was only a beginning. What is needed is not only industrial action but a political offensive against the Democrats and Republicans, the partner parties of American imperialism, to build a class-struggle workers party.
On May 1, all 29 ports on the U.S. West Coast are to be shut down by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) in protest against the U.S. war on Afghanistan and Iraq. This is a historic event of international significance: labor action against imperialist war by a major American union. The strategically placed port workers in the ILWU can bring commerce with Asia to a grinding halt, and they’re about to demonstrate it. The maritime employers are already screaming, and you can bet it’s got the attention of the warmongers in Washington. All labor should take up the challenge this poses: For workers strikes against the war! Meanwhile, immigrants’ rights groups are once again mobilizing on May Day. And on April 30 and May 1, the independent truckers who move cargo to and from the docks may play an important role in a shutdown. The imperialist war on Afghanistan and Iraq is also a war on immigrants, minorities, working people and democratic rights “at home.” We need to defeat this attack here and abroad, in opposition to both the capitalist war parties. The “antiwar movement,” whose aim has always been to pressure the Democrats, is at a dead end. What’s needed is working-class action independent of the bosses. What that takes is a fundamental break from the Democratic Party and the pro-capitalist politics that infuse the labor bureaucracy.
For Workers Strikes Against the War! ILWU to Shut Down West Coast Ports May 1 Against War (tags)
In a major step for the U.S. labor movement, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has announced that it will shut down West Coast ports on May 1, to demand an immediate end to the war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Middle East.
Ruling Against Mumia Shows: No Justice in the Capitalist Courts (tags)
On March 27, the U.S. appeals court in Philadelphia reaffirmed the frame-up conviction of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the former Black Panther Party spokesman and world-renowned radical journalist who has been locked up on Pennsylvania’s death row for more than a quarter century. After previously rejecting Mumia’s request to present evidence of his innocence, as well as a host of issues showing that he was railroaded by a racist court, the Court turned down Mumia’s request for a new trial. It upheld the 2001 ruling by a federal district judge that ordered a new hearing on the sentence, but limited the “choice” to the living hell of life imprisonment without parole ... or execution. Mumia is innocent. He was declared guilty and sentenced to die because of his revolutionary politics and because for years he had been a thorn in the side of the racist rulers of the misnamed “city of brotherly love.” Around the world, millions have come out in defense of Jamal. This latest ruling, like all those that preceded it, shows that the exploited and oppressed must have no faith in the racist injustice system. We call on the workers movement to mobilize its power to free Mumia now!
ILWU to Shut Down West Coast Ports May 1 Demanding End to War in Iraq, Afghanistan (tags)
In a major step for the U.S. labor movement, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has announced that it will shut down West Coast ports on May 1, to demand an immediate end to the war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Middle East. This is the first time in decades that an American union has decided to undertake industrial action against a U.S. war. The action announced by the powerful West Coast dock workers union, to stop work to stop the war, should be taken up by unions and labor organizations throughout the United States and internationally. And the purpose of such actions should be not to beg the bourgeois politicians whose hands are covered with blood, having voted for every war budget for six and a half years, but a show of strength of the working people who make this country run, and who can shut it down!
Puerto Rico: All Out to Defend the Teachers’ Struggle! (tags)
We are on the threshold of a major class battle in Puerto Rico. Every day new preparations are announced for the coming strike of the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation (FMPR). With 42,000 members, a majority of them women, the FMPR represents almost all of Puerto Rico’s teachers and is by far the largest union on the island. The Shock Force of the Puerto Rican Police and National Guard are being readied to go after the strikers. The struggle of the Puerto Rican teachers affects everybody. The working class as a whole, students and parents, teachers and defenders of workers’ rights around the world must come out in defense of the FMPR! If there are mass arrests, the response must be massive blockades and spreading the struggle to the point of shutting the island down. In order to win this strike, it is necessary to prepare for a struggle not only of the teachers but within the whole workers movement against the pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy that sabotages the workers’ struggle. Above all, it is necessary to fight against illusions in and ties with bourgeois parties and politicians. It’s high time to begin building a revolutionary internationalist workers party.
Picket line in New York City protests repression of striking miners in Cananea, MX (tags)
NEW YORK, 12 January -- The attack by over 800 state and federal police and Mexican army soldiers, aimed at dislodging striking miners from Cananea (Sonora state), was answered with a protest picket in New York. In front of the Mexican consulate, some 20 demonstrators proclaimed their solidarity with the mineworkers, who have been on strike since July 30 against terrible safety conditions at the Cananea complex and against government attacks on the workers.
Longshore Workers Honor Picket Line, Shut Down War Cargo Shipper in Oakland (tags)
This can be an important first step toward the mobilization of workers power to shut down the war machine, but that requires a sharp struggle against the bourgeois politics of the antiwar groups and union officialdom. The OEA calls for money for schools not for war, as if it were a matter of budget priorities, and the PAC poster made a social-patriotic pitch to “Bring the Troops Home Now, and give them the care they need.” Such “peace is patriotic” rhetoric is a staple of the UPFJ, but all the antiwar coalitions make similar appeals to garner support from Democratic Party liberals. Revolutionaries and class-conscious workers, in contrast, emphasize that this imperialist war must be opposed by class war.
Pinochet, chief of the mass murderers, dies (tags)
His death does not mark the end of Pinochetism. People are declaring themselves admirers of his work. Some more shamefully than others, they declare themselves his admirers, his followers, his heirs. They must pay for his entire legacy. The indictment for the crimes of Pinochet's dictatorship, which the human rights organizations have upheld valiantly and tirelessly for years, against his civilian and military collaborators, does not expire with the death of their leader.
Brazil: CONLUTAS congress (tags)
A new setback for the Brazilian and Latin American workers at the hands of the ex-Trotskyist left of the World Social Forum
France: Government launches assault on immigrants (tags)
A demonstration called by a broad alliance of anti-racist organisations has been called in Paris today, assembling at the Place de la République at 2 p.m. The French government has launched a major racist offensive against immigrants. Despite the tenacity and extent of the protest movement against the First Job Contract (CPE—giving employers the right to fire young workers at will), which continued throughout February, March and much of April and witnessed days of action bringing up to 3 million university and high school students and workers onto the streets, the government is continuing its programme of reactionary legislation with the Immigration Bill. This bill, which will greatly increase the social and job insecurity of immigrants, is to be put before parliament May 2, without any disruption in its parliamentary schedule.
THE ABC'S OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION, 1917. (tags)
THIS IS A REVIEW OF LEON TROTSKY'S HISTORY OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION, ORIGINALLY PBLISHED IN 1930-23, BY AN UNREPENTENT DEFENDER OF THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION
The Iraq war and the eruption of American imperialism (tags)
In the field of politics, there are events which mark a fundamental turning point in the historical process. There is no doubt that the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which began three years ago, was one of these. In September 2002, with the decision to invade Iraq having already been made, the Bush administration published its National Security Strategy (NSS). This document set out clearly and unambiguously that the United States was now reserving to itself the right to use military force pre-emptively in pursuit of its national interests and objectives on a global scale.
A socialist strategy for workers’ power: the only answer to France’s “First Job Contract” (tags)
The month-long struggle against the Gaullist government’s “First Job Contract” has brought to the fore the fundamental class and political issues facing workers and young people not only in France, but across Europe and internationally. The needs of youth and workers—decent-paying and secure jobs, education, health care, a future without war or repression—are in irreconcilable conflict with the interests of a financial elite who represent a failed political and economic system. This oligarchy of wealth and power is determined to make the working class pay for the crisis of the capitalist system.
Full Citizenship Rights for All Immigrants! (tags)
Down With Racist U.S. Imperialism! For Socialist Revolution on Both Sides of the Border!
Spain Betrayed (by the anarchists) (tags)
For the first time in history Anarchists had the possibility of applying their theories on a grand scale. They enjoyed an unparalleled authority in Catalonia, the decisive and most industrialised region in Spain, and had the unconditional support of the overwhelming majority of the proletariat. The truth of a theory, like the efficacy of a remedy, is verified according to experience. What remains of the theories of Bakunin, Kropotkin and Malatesta [131] after the Spanish experience? For decades we Marxists have demonstrated the limited and petit-bourgeois character of Anarchist concepts.
CRFI Declaration on the youth uprisings in France (tags)
November 7 Declaration of the Coordinating Committee for the Refoundation of the Fourth International
Marc Cooper Red Baits Peter Camejo (tags)
Marc Cooper demonizes Peter Camejo, Ralph Nader's running mate, for his "Trotskyist" ties, an honest cricitism or yet another example of Cooper's demonization of the Left?
Second Conference of the Trotskyist Faction-International Strategy (tags)
read more in www.ft.org.ar
Rebuild the IV° International! (tags)
TROTSKYIST FRACTION INTERNATIONAL STRATEGY. To the organizations of the Movement for the Refoundation of the Fourth International:
The Permanent Revolution: Battle cry of the 21st Century (tags)
On the trotskyist review Marxism Alive 2 - October 2000
Call for an International Congress of the IV International (tags)
This call for an international congress of the Fourth International comes from the Movement for the Refoundation of the Fourth International.
A Revolutionary View of the California Recall and Bipartisan Budget Crisis (tags)
Don’t Throw Your Vote Away by Giving It to the Democrats or the Republicans! OUT WITH THEM ALL! DON’T VOTE YES OR NO ON THE CALIFORNIA GOVERNORS RECALL The Recall is a Trap to Make Workers Pay for the Capitalist Crisis! VOTE FOR THE SOCIALIST CANDIDATE C.T. WEBER for GOVERNOR! PEACE & FREEDOM PARTY Organize Now to Build a Workers Party!
Workers Action Says: DEFEND IRAQ! DEFEAT IMPERIALISM! (tags)
Workers Action Says: No to Layoffs at Home, Bombs and Sanctions Abroad! Not A Penny, Not A Person To The Military! DEFEND IRAQ! DEFEAT IMPERIALISM! Two Years of Bush: Two Wars and Two Coup Attempts! Is the U.S. Planning Permanent War?