Workers Vanguard No 748 - 15 December 2000

7/29/2019 Workers Vanguard No 748 - 15 December 2000

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No. 748 "'U23 15 December 2000Cll,trical Reactionary' Vicente Fox Inaugurated

exico: NAFTA'sTargets Labor anNo Illusions in PRDFor ProletarianClass Independence!Hailing the inauguration of VicenteFox of the Catholic reactionary NationalAction Party (PAN) as Mexican presidenton December 1, his U.S. imperialist masters will now be watching closely to makesure he delivers on his promises to furtheropen Mexico to U.S. economic penetration. The former chief of Coca-Cola'sMexican operations, Fox has proclaimedhis goal of expanding NAFfA, U.S.imperialism's "free trade" rape of Mexico. Wall Street is particularly eyeing thelucrative nationalized oil, petrochemicaland electrical industries which Fox haslong vowed to sell off.At the same time, Washington is worried that the fall of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) after 71 years inpower will unleash even more convulsiveworker and peasant unrest, particularly bythe Confederation of Mexican Workers(CTM) unions which have been firmly inthe corporatist grip of the PRI. Since theelections in July, Mexico has been rockedby strikes of airline workers, Volkswagenauto workers and, most recently, 450,000CTM sugar workers, who have struck

Inauguration of right-wing PANpresident Vicente Fox posessharper attacks on women's rightsand on combative Mexicanproletariat. Volkswagen workersrally during recent strike.repeatedly over the last six years. Lastmonth, government employees blockadedtraffic in Mexico City to protest therefusal by outgoing PRI president ErnestoZedillo to pay the traditional bonus at theend of .each six-year presidential term,forcing the government to make a partialpayment.

Fox took office with vague promisesof "change," vowing to uplift Mexico's ,-impoverished masses. Yet his populistsounding schemes are to be financedthrough increased imperialist investment,the elimination of sales tax exemptionsthat benefit the poor, anp other such"reforms." Fox's cabinet is chOck full of

businessmen such as former World Bankeconomist Luis Ernesto Derbez and Francisco Gil Diaz, an acolyte of economic "shock therapy" braintruster MiltonFriedman.At the same time, Fox has brought anumber of "leftist" intellectuals into hiscontinued on page 8

-Racist Terror inthe "New South Africa"Report from

JohannesburgThe following is a report, edited for publica-tion, sent by a Spartadst South Africa com-rade in early November.There has been a spate of racist' atrocitiescommitted against black South Africans thatthe proponents of the existence of a supposedly "new, democratic, non-racist SouthAfrica" and their left tails wished they knew

nothing about. A few incidents are selected togive you a feel. Hardly a day goes by withoutsuch reports in the bourgeois media, thoughthe majority of cases go unreported.As I write this letter, the country-including newspapers, radio stations, etc.-is talkingabout video footage broadcast by SABC's[South African Broadcasting Company] TV3Special Assignment show of six white Afrikaner cops goading dogs to attack defenselessblack men. The cops, from the dog unit inBenoni, eastern Johannesburg, were filmed inJanuary 1998 laughing as they used threeimmigrants from Mozambique as training baitto incite police dogs against blacks. The frontpage article of the Sowetan, the bourgeoisdaily widely read by blacks, uses the deliberately misleading phrase, "to incite police dbgsto be vicious on human beings," to describethe scene. This is rubbish, as the white fascistcontinued on page 7

ReutersProtest outside Pretoria courthouse against racist cops whotortured black immigrants with police dogs.


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Moscow, Beijing andthe Vietnam War.Chicago, IL3 December 2000To the editor:

grationism was a slam-dunk. Then andnow, it is simply the only program whichrecognizes the centrality of the blackquestion to the American socialist revolution and does not concede to blacknationalism.

Comrade Diana Coleman's excellentforum on the Vietnam War, printed inthe last issue of WV ["Defend the Gainsof the Vietnamese Revolution!" WV No.747, 1 December], led me to reflect onhow important the SL's program withrespect to that war was in my recruitmentto revolutionary Trotskyism during theearly 1970s. Both the Cleveland MarxistCaucus (of which I was a member) andthe Buffalo Marxist Caucus (with whichwe were closely associated) had as primary concerns the absence of a revolutionary working-class perspective towardthe black question in the U.S. and towardStalinism in any of the self-describedsocialist organizations we had encountered during that period. As for myself,the SL's program of revolutionary inte-

Maoism was then in full flower amongSDS-inspired antiwar activists as the"Marxist" alternative to Soviet-style"revisionism." This perplexed many of usboth because Mao's "Red Boo k" had virtually nothing to say about proletariansocialist revolution and because we wereaware that Mao, no less than Brezhnev,was committed to a policy of peacefulcoexistence with the imperialists whowere then attempting to massacre notjust the revolution in Vietnam but theentire population of that country. Yet itwas not clear to us how to combine oursupport for the victory of the North VietnameselNational Liberation Front ("Viet

For a SocialistUnited States of Europe!.The sharp differences that broke throughthe facade of "unity" at the European Unionsummit in Nice are an expression of the increasing rivalries among the major imperialist trade blocs-headed by Germany,the U.S. and Japan-and among the WestEuropean powers themselves. As Bolshevikleader V. I. Lenin explained after the out-

TROTSKY break of World War I, there can be no capi- LENINtalist European superstate nor any lastingagreements among the imperialist bourgeoisies, whose drives for profits and new areasof exploitation inevitably come into conf lict with each other. Only i nternational proletarian revolution can end the threat of new imperialist wars presaged by trade war andtranscend the outmoded nation-state through the construction of a world socialisteconomy.

A United States of Europe under capitalism is tantamount to an agreement on thepartition of colonies. Under capitalism, however, no other basis and no other principleof division are possible except force. A multi-millionaire cannot share the "nationalincome" of a capitalist country with anyone otherwise than "in proportion to the capital invested" (with a bonus thrown in, so that the biggest capital may receive more thanits share). Capitalism is private ownership of the means of production, and anarchy inproduction. To advocate a "just" division of income on such a basis is sheer Proudhonism, stupid philistinism. No division can be effected otherwise than in "proportion tostrength," and strength changes with the course of economic development. Following1871, the rate of Germany's accession of strength was three or four times as rapid asthat of Britain and France, and of Japan about ten times as rapid as Russia's. There isand there can be no other way of testing the real might of a capitalist state than by war.War does not contradict the fundamentals of private property-on the contrary, it is adirect and inevitable outcome of those fundamentals. Under capitalism the smootheconomic growth of individual enterprises or individual states is impossible. Undercapitalism, there are no other means of restoring the periodically disturbed equilibriu mthan crises in industry and wars in politics.

Of course, temporary agreements are possible between capitalists and betweenstates. In this sense a United States of Europe is possible as an agreement between theEuropean capitalists ... but to what end? Only for the purpose of jointly suppressingsocialism in Europe, of jointly protecting colonial booty against Japan and America.

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- V. I. Lenin, "On the Slogan for a United States of Europe" (August 1915)

!.'!!!!!!! o P . . 4 . ! ~ ! ! . ~ ! ! . 1 ! . . EDITOR: Len MeyersEDITOR, YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Anna WoodmanPRODUCTION MANAGER: Susan FullerCIRCULATION MANAGER: Mara CadizEDITORJAL BOARD: Barry James (managing editor), Bruce Andre, Ray Bishop, Jon Brule,George Foster, Liz Gordon, Walter Jennings, Jane Kerrigan, James Robertson, Joseph Seymour,Alison SpencerThe Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League (FourthInternationalist).Workers Vanguard (lSSN 02760746) published biweekly. except skipping three alternate issues in June. July andAugust (beginning with omitting the second issue in June) and.with a 3-week interval in December, by the Spartacist Publishing Co., 299 Broadway, Suite 318, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 732-7862 (Editorial), (212) 732-7861(Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. E-mail address:[email protected] subscriptio ns: $10.00/22 issues. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send addresschanges to Workers Vanguard, Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116.Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint.The closing date for news in this issue is December 12.

No. 748 15 December 2000

80VIT'wLtCL(thS H ~ [ l D HVSlC O Y ( F ~ C H ! N , ~ . N0 R J H ~ f l 1N}' 1-1'

Letter

National GuardianProtest against Vietnam War, 1965. Against nationalist treachery of Moscowand Beijing Stalinist bureaucracies, Trotskyists demanded united Communistdefense of Vietnamese Revolution.Cong") forces while maintallllllg ourcriticisms Of Stalinist class collaborationwith imperialism.In reviewing the SL's propaganda, wediscovered that, virtually from the beginning of the antiwar movement, the SLhad raised the call to extend the Sovietnuclear shield to Hanoi, cutting againstboth the' craven pacifism of the earlymovement and the desire of the bureaucratic caste in the USSR to appease theU.S. imperialists by "moderating" Sovietmilitary support to the Vietnamese. Whilethe USSR was the main provider of military hardware to North Vietnam, it neverdelivered the SAM-3 missiles (which itprovided to the anti-Communist nationalist Nasser in Egypt) and latest MIG fighters that could have cleared the skies overHanoi of the American B-52 bombers.Thus, the SLraised the cal1 for militaryassistance by the USSR of the "highesttechnical quality" (including the SAMsand MIGs).Many of us were then aware that therupture in relations in the 1960s betweenChina and the USSR had led Mao toblock the transport of Soviet military supplies to Vietnam across Chinese territory.It was true that in the 1960s, the Beijingregime had sent some amount of militaryaid, including troops, to North Vietnam,particularly helping in building highways. But this aid had been withdrawn bythe time Mao toasted Nixon in the GreatHall of the People in 1972 as the U.S.escalated its vicious bombing and minedHaiphong harbor. Mao refused to restorethe assistance in repairing infrastructurein North Vietnam that had been withdrawn, notably the thousands of railwayworkers who could have helped maintaintransport in the face of the countless B-52bombings.It was only the SL that raised thedemand for Russian-Chinese joint military collaboration and united Communistdefense of the Vietnamese Revolution. Itwas this demand that clarified for us thenationalist nature of the bureaucraticcastes that ruled in China and the USSR(and the other deformed workers states)and the necessity for proletarian politicalrevolutions to defend the social revolutions that were in place and that wasat issue in Vietnam. One SL slogan in par-

ticular put this bluntly: "For InternationalCommunist Unity Through Political Revolution, from East Berlin to Hanoi!"As Comrade Coleman pointed out inher forum, the Ho Chi Minh-led bureaucratic caste that ruled in North Vietnamwas no less averse to selling out to theimperialists, usual1y with pressure to doso from both the USSR and China. AfterNixon's re-election and with the beginning of "peace" talks aimed at establishing a "coalition" government and a "neutral" Vietnam, the SL raised the demand"All Indochina Must Go Communist!"a demand that maddened the Maoists ofvarious stripes. That demand, in combination with the demand for labor strikesagainst the war, convinced us that international socialist revolution was the onlyanswer to Stalinist betrayal.With the overturn of the social revolutions in the USSR and East Europe;md with those in China, Vietnam, NorthKorea and Cuba now at risk becauseof the policies of the bureaucratic casteswhose rule is predicated on the nationalist premise of '.'socialism in one country,"the SL's interventions during the VietnamWar seem prescient. Not so. They weremerely the application, at a particularjuncture, of the Trotskyist program ofunconditional military support to thegains of those social revolutions andthe necessity for proletarian political revollItion to ensure the defense of thosegains.Most of the thousands recruited to oneor another variant of Stalinist or socialdemocratic organization during thatperiod have long since given up the fightfor socialism and tetired. Those amongthem who remained active celebrated theoverturn of the October Revolution in theUSSR and are now engaged in the pursuitof the reform of "their" imperialists,Those then inspired to a just outrageagainst racist U,S, imperialism have noweither disappeared or become runningdogs for their imperialist masters. Theprime lesson of Vietnam then and now isthat it is absolutely necessary to forgerevolutionary working-class parties assections of a reborn Trotskyist FourthInternational. Comradely,Ed Clarkson

Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist Leagueo $10/22 issues of Workers Vanguard 0 New 0 Renewal(includes English-language Spartacist and Black History and the Class Struggle)international rates: $25/22 issues-Airmail $10/22 issues-Seamailo $2/6 introductory issues of Workers Vanguard (includes English-language Spartacist)o $2/4 issues of Espartaco (en espana ) (includes Spanish-language Spartacist)Name ______________ '--___________Address

Apt. # Phone (__ ______City State ______ Zip _--. -__. 748Make checks payable/mail to: Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116

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"We Do Not Forget Them!"Earlier this month, the PartisanDefense Committee held its 15th annualHoliday Appeal benefits in New YorkCity, Chicago and the San FranciscoBay Area. The Holiday Appeal raisesfunds for the PDC's program of sendingmonthly stipends and holiday gifts toclass-war prisoners and their families.Thousands of dollars were raised, everypenny of which goes to the 16 imprisonedblack activists, labor militants, members

of the Philadelphia MOVE commune andtheir families. With this act of solidarity,the PDC has revived and kept alive thetradition of non-sectarian, class-struggledefense of those imprisoned for championing the rights of labor and all theoppressed begun by the InternationalLabor Defense in the 1920s.Over 300 trade unionists, students,socialists arid other activists came together to express their solidarity, toorganize and to discuss revolutionarypolitics. As in previous recent years, aparticular focus of the benefits was theclass-struggle fight necessary to stop thelegal lynching of Mumia Abu-Jamaland to free this eloquent and courageousfighter against racist injustice.At the Bay Area event, a speakerfor the Labor Black League for SocialDefense, initiated by and fraternallyallied with the Spartacist League, said,"Mumia's notorious frame-up exposesthe truth about the death penalty andthe racist system of capitalist injusticethat we all live under." Pointing to aJamal defense rally in San Francisco last

Bay AreaHoliday Appealbenefit,December 3.Annual PDCcampaign raisesthousands forthose imprisonedfor championingcause of laborand theoppressed.

,;:;)'I2;X':;'c;:C:;,.s::Il.

laws according to their own class interests. The revolutionary movement is amenace to their system .... Everyone whotakes an active part in the struggle forthe liberation of the working class takesa chance of going to prison."James P. Cannon said this in 1921.Today the ruling class of America, represented by both capitalist parties, Democrat and Republican, are itching to seeMumia Abu-Jamal, outspoken fighteragainst racist injustice, silenced forever.In the hands of the multiracial workingclass lies the power not only to win freedom for Mumia but freedom for all ofus. But if labor's power is to be brought

Young SpartacusRevolutionary Contingent at May 13 Bay Area protest calls for mobilizingsocial power of labor in fight to free Mumia.May, the LBL spokesman contrasted thecall for a "new trial" raised by reformists like Socialist Action-pushing thenotion that Jamal will get justice in thecapitalist courts-with the banner carriedby the Revolutionary Contingent built bythe SL, the LBL and the Spartacus YouthClub: "There Is NQ Justice in the Capitalist Courts! Free Mumia Abu-Jamal!Abolish the Racist Death Penalty!"The LBL speaker was followed bySL spokesman Diana Coleman, whosespeech we publish below.

* * *"Every war has its hazards; the classwar more than any other, for the organized workers wage it for the largest stakesin all the world's history-for the Earthand all its fruits, for the complete expropriation of the present-day ruling class .... _The ruling class today is the capitalistclass.They maintain themselves in powerby force and violence. They make the

15 DECEMBER 2000

to bear on behalf of Mumia, it must bemobilized independently of the veryforces of the capitalist state that haveworked to frame up Mumia. Our Marxist strategy is the independent politicalmobilization of the working class.The Labor Black League speakerspoke compellingly about the "new trial"slogan, which is based on the belief thatcapitalism can be reformed. I want to saya few words about "Refuse & Resist,"who call for a campaign "focus(ed) onPresident Bill Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno .... We must say to them:the evidence is in your hands. The timehas come to act." This is beyond gross.Of course, Clinton, Reno and Gore areall adamantly pro-death penalty. When Ithink of Janet Reno "acting," I thinkof 86 people in an interracial religiouscommune near Waco, slaughtered in coldblood. When I think of Clinton "acting,"I think of tens of thousands of babiesstarving in Iraq because of the U.S.lUNblockade and Serbia bombed back to

the Stone Age by NATO. We fight forsocialist revolution in the U.S., bastionof world imperialism.Think about some of our other classwar prisoners, like the Ohio 7, who mostof the fake left, in their quest for respectability, have turned their back on. Thesecommitted activists were judged guiltyby the bourgeoisie for their alleged rolein a radical group that took creditfor bank expropriations and bombingsagainst symbols of U.S. imperialism.But that was no crime. Trotsky said: "WeMarxists consider the tactic of individual terror inexpedient .. .. But we understand only too clearly the inevitability ofsuch convulsive acts of despair and vengeance .... People come cheap who arecapable only of fulminating against injustice and bestiality. But those who are ableto act as well as conceive, sacrificing theirown lives if need be, are the preciousleaven of mankind." .The bourgeoisie wants Mumia deadbecause they see him as a black revolutionary embodying what they fear most:black and red. Whipping up racial andethnic hatred has long served the capitalist rulers by obscuring the class dividebetween labor and capital. While theforcible SUbjugation and segregation ofblacks at the bottom of this society isthe foundation stone of American capitalism, it is also its Achilles' heel. Blackworkers remain a significant and activecomponent of organized labor, integratedinto strategic sections of the proletariarin whose hands lies the power to breakthe chains of racist oppression and capitalist exploitation. A revolutionary perspective for the U.S. must confront thespecial oppression of black people andthe poisonous racism which divides theworking class and cripples its struggles.There will be no social revolution in thiscountry without the united struggle ofblack and white workers led by theirmultiracial vanguard party. And there isno road to black freedom other than theconquest of power, state power, by theAmerican proletariat.We warn working people and antiracist youth that the capitalist DemocraticParty is no less the enemy of labor andblacks than the Republicans. Malcolm Xsaid, "Either party that you align yourselfwith is suicide. Because both parties arecriminal. Both parties are responsible forthe criminal condition that exists." Thepolitics of "lesser evilism" perpetuate theracist hellhole that is America.Capitalist democracy is nothing but ascreen for the iron dictatorship of capital. Marx said that capitalist democracy means that the oppressed are allowed.once every few years to decide which particular representative of the oppressing

class shall represent and repress themin parliament. In the U.S., do you evenget that? The disenfranchised blacksin Florida, the Jewish Holocaust survivors whose votes were counted for protofascist Buchanan ought to call up FidelCastro, who kindly volunteered to sendelections observers to Florida. Better thanthe Justice Department any day! Peopleshould get the oppressor of their choice.But our job is to smash the illusions in thewhole electoral system, so the workingclass can proceed on the road of classstruggle and revolution.Both labor and blacks have gottennothing but the shaft from Clinton andcould expect nothing more from Gore.Yet the AFL-CIO tops poured millions ofdollars into the Gore campaign, whileseeking to squelch any labor struggle thatmight jeopardize the Democrats' electoralchances. In L.A., a militant and populartransit strike was defused by a combination of Jesse Jackson, black front manfor the racist Democrats, and the treachery of the labor bureaucracy. And theCatholic cardinal in L.A. got into theact, too, in pushing the heavily HispanicSEIU county workers to go back to work.The labor bureaucracy's support to theDemocratic Party is the political expression of its all-sided program of class collaboration, tying working people to theirclass enemy.But there is a sense of resistance andprotest afoot. There haven't been manystrikes, but those that do happen are popular and have won economic gains. Therehave been mass black protests in theSouth, for example against the Confederate flag. A new generation of left-liberalstudent youth has taken to the streets toprotest the WTO and IMF. So far theseprotests have been channeled into support for the Democratic Party or Nader'sthird capitalist Green Party. And the laborbureaucracy, working in the interests ofU.S. imperialism, is working to channel outrage about Third World sweatshops into racist protectionism and antiCommunist China-bashing. But it doesn' thave to be this way.To lead struggle forward, the multiracial working class of this country needsits own party, a revolutionary workersparty that doesn't respect the propertyrights of the bourgeoisie, one which says:We produce all the wealth of this country, it's ours and we're going to take it. Aworkers party which understands thatlabor must champion the cause of all theoppressed, which inscribes on its banner"Finish the Civil War!" A workers partywhich champions the cause of the desperate immigrant, saying anyone who madeit to this country has the right to stayFull citizenship rights for all immigrants! A microcosm of such a workersparty in action was seen on the streets ofNew York City in October 1999 whenthe Spartacist League and PDC led themasses in struggle against the KKK (andthe Democrats and the ISO, I might add).Let me end on a quote from the samearticle by Cannon. Speaking of the classwar prisoners, he says: "They know thatwe, who are on the outside of the jails,have not forgotten them nor our sacredobligation to appeal to the all-powerfulworkers in their behalf. The day is coming when the toiling masses of Americawill. hear that appeal and act upon it.Then the prison doors will be openedand the prisoners set free, for the masseshave an authority higher than that of anycourt. To redouble our efforts to hastenon the day of liberation is the pledge wemake to our imprisoned comrades." FreeMumia! Workers of the world, unite!.3


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Nice, France: Cop-s R a m p ~ g e Against Leftist ProtestersFor aWorkers Europe-For Socialist Revolution!

DECEMBER 12-The French city ofNice was turned into a police state lastweek as the capitalist rulers of Europegathered to wrangle over the future of theEuropean Union (EU). Tens of thousandsof cops were called out by the government of Socialist prime minister LionelJospin to occupy the streets on December7 and disperse the many thousands ofyouth who came from countries aroundthe continent to protest outside the summit. As the assembled heads of state cynically debated the terms of a "Charter ofFundamental Rights," the tear gas fired tobrutally suppress the rights of those protesting outside was so thick that it driftedinto the meeting hall.Police rept;atedly attacked demonstrators with truncheons and stun grenades;dozens were arrested. Two young Basquemilitants from Spain, Jose Ramirez andAnna-Liza Romero, remain behind bars,sentenced to one month in jail in a kangaroo court without even the defense lawyers present. Meanwhile, some of thosearrested-and imprisoned up to tenweeks-at the September protest againstthe International Monetary Fund (IMF) inPrague continue to face criminal charges.The workers movement must demandthe immediate release of Ramirez andRomero. Drop all charges against thePrague and Nice protesters!Revealing the fraudulence of the rightof free passage supposedly ensured by theEU's 1995 Schengen agreement, a trainbringing some 1,500 supporters of YaBasta and other Italian leftists to Nicewas turned back at the French border.When a group of 5,000 in Nice tried tooccupy the local train station to protest the exclu.sion, they were viciouslyattacked by the cops, while Italian copswaded into protesters on the other side ofthe border. Schengen's intent from theoutset was to close the gates of racist"Fortress Europe" to impoverished immigrants from Africa, the Near East andEast Europe. Now border crossings areslammed shut to leftist protesters fromwithin the EU in the name of "nationalsecurity." Down with the racist Schengenaccord! Full citizenship rights for allimmigrants! .As cops bloodied protesters, the bourgeois media railed against "casseurs"(hoodlums)-the racist cry previouslyleveled at militant youth of North African descent-aiming particular fire at theBasque and Corsican nationalists amongthe demonstrators. Paris has waged adecades-long campaign of repressionagainst Corsican separatists. Beginningwith Socialist president F r a n ~ o i s Mitterrand in the I 980s, France has also colluded with Spain in rounding up and terrorizing Basque separatist militants.Down with anti-Basque repression! Forthe right of self-determination of theBasque people in both France and Spain!Many youth came to Nice to protestcapitalist oppression, austerity attacksand anti-immigrant racism perpetrated bythe EU capitalists. These attacks haveprovoked tumultuous defensive struggles by the working class, particularlyin France. The recent truckers blockadesagainst exorbitant fuel prices whichrocked the West European capitalist stateswere widely supported by workers andyouth. In Nice the day before the policedragnet, tens of thousands of workersmobilized by a coalition of Europeantrade unions marched through the streets._A team of supporters of European sections of the International CommunistLeague sold several hundred pieces oflit-4

erature in various languages to these tradeunionists, who particularly welcomed ourarticles in support of the truckers againstthe social-democratic governments.But the pro-capitalist trade-union misleaders, who denounced the truckersblockades as "bosses' strikes," help enforce the austerity, union-busting andanti-immigrant ilttacks carried out bytheir social-democratic colleagues ingovernment. With the blessings of theirmasters in the Jospin governmentwhich kept its cops at bay that day-thelabor tops' aim in Nice was simply toallow the workers to blow off steam andto beg the capitalist governments "for atruly social Europe."In essence, this was the same linepushed by the "leftist" organizers of thefollowing day's protest, which followedon the "anti-globalization" demonstration against the World Trade Organization in Seattle last year and the subse-

must disgust all those who want to do politics otherwise" (Liberation, 8 December). Alain Krivine's Ligue CommunisteRevolutionnaire (LCR) has joined withATTAC in a "Collective for AnotherCharter," which also includes the FrenchCommunist Party and the Greens, both ofwhich currently hold ministerial portfolios in Jospin's capitalist government.Buried inside ATTAC is Socialisme Paren Bas (SPEB)-affiliated to the BritishSocialist Workers Party (SWP) of the lateTony Cliff, which declared itself "overthe moon" when Labour's Tony Blair waselected prime minister.The rampage by Jospin's cops itselfexposed the reformist illusions promotedby the fake left and provided an objectlesson in the Marxist understanding ofthe state as an apparatus of repression tomaintain the profits and rule of the capitalist class. The idea that the imperialist powers can be pressured to ensure

ReutersItalian riot cops attack protesters barred by France from crossing border tojoin demonstration in Nice.quent protests against the IMF and WorldBank in Washington: D.C. and Prague.The radicalized youth attracted to theseprotests want to combat the hideous conditions created 9Y "free market" capitalism around the world. But the protestorganizers seek to channel these concerns and the striving for social justiceinto national-chauvinist appeals to theirown imperialist bourgeoisies. They revelin the "spirit of Seattle," which focusedon appeals to the U.S. government toimpose "humane" labor standards aroundthe world and was politically dominatedby the chauvinist protectionism and antiCommunist China-bashing of the AFLCIO labor tops. In Nice, the Europeanfake lefts appealed to the Labouriteand' "Socialist" governments-which theyloyally support-for a more "humane,""social" capitalist Europe.No Illusions in"Humanitarian" Imperialism

One of the organizers of the Niceprotest was the "anti-globalization" groupATTAC, which despicably echoed theviolence-baiting by the French bourgeoisie. An ATTAC spokesman railed, "Onecan't stop acting for fear of the cas-seurs ... But such paramilitary practices

"human rights" is nothing but vile socialpatriotism. What about the dirty history of French colonialism in Algeriaand Indochina; of British imperialismin Ireland, the Indian subcontinent,Africa and the Middle East; of Germanimperialism's Holocaust of Jews, Roma(Gypsies), Soviet POWs and others during World War II; of the Dutch in Indonesia and the Belgians, Portuguese andItalians in Africa?Imperialism is not a policy that canbe steered in a more benevolent directionby mass pressure. It is, in the words ofV. J. Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik Partyand the October Revolution of 1917,the "highest stage of capitalism." Writingat the height of the interimperialist slaughter of World War I, Lenindenounced the notion of a European capitalist "superstate": "From the standpointof the economic conditions of imperialism-i.e., the export of capital and thedivision of the world by the 'advanced'and 'civilised' colonial powers-a UnitedStates of Europe, under capitalism, iseither impossible or reactionary" ("Onthe Slogan for a United States of Europe,"August 1915).We oppose the EU because it is a blocfor capitalist cooperation against the

working masses and oppressed minoritiesof Europe and for competition for markets and spheres of exploitation againsttheir American and Japanese imperialist rivals. The ICL team went to Nice towin leftist workers and youth to the fightfor new October Revolutions-for aworkers Europe as part of an international socialist society. We fight to breakworkers and leftist youth from the socialdemocratic traitors and to forge revolutionary workers parties.Fake Lefts PromoteImperialist Intervention

The EU summit revealed the growingfault lines not only between the WestEuropean powers and the U.S. but withinEurope as well. The destruction of theSoviet degenerated workers state usheredin increased interimperialist strife, previously held in check by the need for antiSoviet unity. The summit was called towork out terms for bringing in the former deformed workers states of EastEurope and to renegotiate the organizational weight of the respective'imperialiststates inside the EU. Since its counterrevolutionary annexation of East Germany in1990, reunified German imperialismhas demanded a more dominant role indetermining EU policy. The imperiousdemands of the German Fourth Reichprovoked an uproar in other Europeancapitals-especially its enemies in twoworld wars, Britain and France-anddecisions on virtually all major questionsposed at the summit remain up in the air.A major source of conflict with theU.S. was the implementation of a European "Rapid Reaction Force." A panEuropean military force as an alternative to the U.S.-dominated NATO alliancewas first proposed the day after NATO'sterror war against Serbia ended lastyear, reflecting widespread apprehensionamong the European bourgeoisies overWashington's military predominance.Only days before the Nice summit began,U.S. defense secretary William Cohenbluntly warned a meeting of NATO ministers in Brussels that any military operations carried out by the EU must beplanned and overseen by NATO. In ariposte which he later modified, Frenchpresident Jacques Chirac insisted thatthe proposed European military forcemust be "independent" of NATO. TheU.S. warning got little media attention in Europe except in Britain, whosebourgeoisie has long been torn betweenloyalty to its American cousins and pursuit of economic interests on the continent. In the upshot, Blair worked out a"compromise" that simply postponed ashowdown.In a statement for the Nice protestsposted on its Web site, the LCR declaredthat the proposed military force would bedirected "against the people." But the realproblem for these social-chauvinists isthat Europe would be forced to intervenemilitarily "alongside and under the supervision of the United States." The fakeleft's ideological prostration before imperialism reflects their many years' supportto Western hnperialism against the SovietUnion in the name of "democracy" and"human rights." Today, the reformist andcentrist European left is increasingly acting as spokesmen for the interests of theirown imperialist bourgeoisies againstWashington.During the bombing of Serbia, theLCR echoed the imperialist war cry of"poor little Kosovo." Its newspaperRouge (1 April 1999) published a "Call

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In what has been billed as the "reverseElian" case, Arletis Blanco fled Miamiwith her five-year-old son Jonathan onNovember 12 to return to her nativeCuba after five years 'in the U.S. TheFBI and State Department immediatelymoved to get the child back, and localauthorities issued a warrant on Blancofor' allegedly kidnapping her son fromher divorced husband, who did not havecustody in any case. The very idea that aCuban emigre would voluntarily returnhome provoked a mixture of outrageand incredulity on the part of U.S. imperialist spokesmen, their counterrevolutionary gusanos (worms) and the capitalist media.I f the gusano scum did not rampageas they did when Elian Gonzalezwas returned to his father in Cuba afterbeing abducted to "the free world" a yearago, it is perhaps because they have beenpreoccupied with barricl),ding Miamielection comlJlission offices to ensure thepresidential ballot goes to RepublicanGeorge W. Bush. The right-wing Wash-ington Times (4 December) raged that theClinton White House had allowed the kidto be in the clutches of the "Cubandespot" Fidel Castro. The Miami Herald(29 November), a veritable mouthpiece of 'the gusanos, squealed over "a childyanked from a loving parent" and spokedarkly of how he would suffer persecution in Cuba.The anti-Communists are especiallylivid that Blanco-who was accompaniedby her Cuban-born boyfriend and their18-month-old daughter-had the nerveto tell the world that her children willhave a "brilliant" future in Cuba, wherethey, "because of the tranquility, willhave more freedom." She explained thatshe decided to flee when her life wasthreatened after she had uncovered a

by Public Figures" cosigned by LCRleader Daniel Bensaid whose key demandwas for intervention by military forcesunder the Organization for Security andCooperation in Europe (OSCE):"NATO was not the only, and a b o v e ~ l l not,the best, linchpin for an accord, Theconditions for a multinational policeforce (particularly composed of Serbsand Albanians) could be found under theauspices of the OSeE to enforce a transitional accord."A similar statement was signed in Britainby the SWP' s Alex Callinicos.Now these social-chauvinists are calling on the EU imperialists to intervene inthe Near East in the guise of "supporting" the oppressed Palestinian peopleagainst the U.S.-backed Zionist regime.The Cliffite SPEB cosigned a leaflet foran October 28 demonstration in Pariswith the following appeal:"We demand meaningful sanctionsagainst the state of Israel by the Frenchand European governments and a com-plete break in all military, university, cultural, technological and economic cooper-ation. We also demand that the EuropeanUnion break the association agreementwhich ties it to the state of Israel."

Then the LCR signed onto a declarationalong with the PCF, the Greens and thefake-Trotskyist Lutte Ouvriere (LO)which calls on "the leaders of the European Union and the French authoritieswho assume its presidency to exert max-

NOTICEWorkers Vanguard skipsa week in December.

Our next issue willbe dated January 5.

15 DECEMBER 2000

scam by her gusano boss, Juan EmilioSuarez, at a Key Largo petroleum company. Suarez, described as a member ofAlpha 66, the most murderous of theCIA-sponsored anti-Castro paramilitarygroups, sold gasoline used to run boatsinto Cuban waters. He then diverted the

AP

money from these sales, which wentunreported, to finance anti-Castro terrorism and gunrunning. Now, seeking tosmear Blanco, the gusanos claim that sheembezzled $150,000 and is on the lam.Following on the heels of their humiliation at the hands of Arletis Blanco,Washington and the Cuban counterrevolutionaries are now in an uproar over Castro's,threats to suspend phone links withthe U.S. on December 15 because theAmerican telephone monopolies haven'tbeen paying the Cuban tax. The tax wasimposed two months ago after Clintonsigned legislation ordering that a sizablechunk of the $120 million owed Cubafor phone service be used to "compensate" the families of four gusano terrorists downed in 1996 when their planesprovocatively entered Cuban air space.Meanwhile, five Cubans are currently ontrial in MiSlmi, three of whom face life inprison, for alleged espionage which aidedHavana in shooting down the gusano

Arletis Blanco, back in Cuba. Below: Cuban children at July demonstrationdemanding return of Elian Gonzalez carry banner against U.S. blockade.

imum pressure on the Israeli governmentas long as it continues to violate internationallaw and the resolutions of the UN"(Le Monde, 23 November). An earlierappeal for intervention in the Near Eastcosigned by Bensa'id declared: "As forFrance, she must not shirk her responsibility of playing a role which is commensurate with her vocation and her traditions in the region" (Le Monde, 5November).France's "traditions" in the Near East. are exemplified by the brutal crushing ofthe independence struggle in Syria in the1920s, including the 1925 air and artillerybombardment of Damascus. The SPEBand LCR appeal for intervention to thesame French imperialists who joined withBritain in 1956 to launch a war in leaguewith Zionist Israel against Nasser's Egyptwith the aim of reversing the nationalization of the Suez Canal. At the time, theFrenchlBritish invasion was opposed bythe U.s., which asserted its role as chiefimperialist overlord of the Near East (andits huge oil reserves) against the formercolonial masters. Today, with Francechafing at Washington's pre-eminent rolein the Near East, the LCR and the Cliffites promote the ambitions of the EUimperialists against their American rival.Reforge the FourthInternational!

,Despite an occasionally more leftistveneer, the right-centrist British WorkersPower (WP) joined in tailing counterrevolutionary forces from Polish Solidarnoscto Russia's Yeltsin during the Cold Warand in promoting the war aims of theNATO imperialists in the Balkans. WP- openly campaigned for the defeat of Serbian forces by the Kosovo LiberationArmy tools of NATO imperialism, shared

AFP

a platform in London with enthusiasts forNATO bombing and cheered the withdrawal of Serbian troops from Kosovounder the guns of the imperialist powers.This is fully in keeping with WP'sabject Labour loyalism, supporting theinstallation of Blair's goverriment. WPcame to Nice with its own ,alternativecharter of reformist demands. In its caIlfor Nice posted on its Web site onNovember 20, WP spiced its opportunistprogram with the streetfighting rhetoricof the anarchist milieu, declaring that thetask was "to surround the summit and bydirect action prevent them from achievingtheir stated goals." Sounding like ajingoist veteran of trench warfare and mustardgas attacks in World War I, a leader ofWP's French affiliate, Pouvoir Ouvrier(PO), trumpeted in a later posting howtheir attempt to break through police linesin Nice "was like going 'over the top' inI 914-full on charge through the gas intotheir lines."Unlike the LCR and LO, whose platform for a joint slate in last year's European Parliament elections (in which Krivine himself won a seat) did not evenmention "socialism," much less "revolution," WP sprinkles a few "referencesto socialist revolution in its November20 statement. But the vast bulk ofWP's declaration consists of a long litany of reforms addressed to the socialdemocratic governments WP supports. Ifanything, WP is even more explicit thanthe reformists in defending the notion ofa European capitalist "superstate." WPwrites: "Does this mean that the answerfor Europe's workers is to force 'theirown' national states to quit the EU assmall capitalist states or to fight to breakit up? No!" In a parody of parliamentarycretinism, WP even calls for "a sovereign

planes. We say: Drop the charges now!Hands of f the Cuban Revolution!The U.S. government's very real embezzlement of $120 million in Cubanfunus is part of the starvation embargoimposed at the outset of American imperialism's 40-year counterrevolutionarydrive to overturn the gains of the CubanRevolution. In response to the relentlesspressure of American imperialism, in late1960 the petty-bourgeois Castro government expropriated U.S. corporations andtheir local capitalist henchmen. Asreflected in the Clinton administration'srelease of Elian Gonzalez, a growing sector of the American ruling class now seesthe embargo as a failure-not leastbecause other imperialists are moving inon the Cuban market-and looks to "constructive engagement" to foment capitalist counterrevolution from within.The Spartacist League has since itsinception stood for the unconditionalmilitary defense of the Cuban deformedworkers state against imperialism andinternal counterrevolution. Though ruledby the Castroite Stalinist bureaucracywhich denies the working class politicalpower, the planned, collectivized economy has brought enormous gains to theCuban working people, including freemedical care, jobs, housing and education. Down with the imperialist embargoo[Cuba!While the Cuban deformed workersstate has managed to hold out for nearlya decade in the absence of the lifelineonce provided by the Soviet Union, Castro's introduction of the U.S. dollar intothe Cuban economy in the mid-I 990s andgrowing investment by other imperialistpowers have indeed strengthened andemboldened counterrevolutionary forceswithin Cuba. We fight for proletarianpolitical revolution to oust the Stalinistbureaucracy and install a revolutionaryinternationalist government based onworkers (soviet) democracy. Above all,we seek to fDrge a multiracial revolutionary workers party which will smash U.S.imperialism from within through socialist revolution. The proletariat in powerwill extend comradely and generousassistance to the economic developmentof Cuba

European Constituent Assembly"!Previously a diplomatic appendage tothe anti-Soviet NATO alliance, the European Union is today an unstable adjunctto the economic, military and political priorities of the European capitalists,who recognize the need for some levelof collaboration in order to compete withthe much larger American economy.Throughout Europe, social-democraticparties and popular-front coalitions ofworking-class and bourgeois parties havebeen put into government since the collapse of the Soviet Union with the expresspurpose of destroying the "welfare state."The fake left spreads the illusion thatthese governments are a "lesser evil"which can be pressured into serving theinterests of the oppressed. The reformistsand centrists offer a caricature of German Social Democrat Karl Kautsky, whopreached that the capitalist system couldtranscend repeated economic crises andwars through "ultra-imperialist" peacefulcooperation among the capitalist states.Two world wars, countless imperialist neocolonial military adventures andescalating trade war today prove this tobe a lie. In this epoch of imperialistdecay, the capitalist nation-state is anobstacle to the further development ofthe productive forces and of humanity asa whole.We stand for a fundamentally differentprogram and perspective. The SpartacistLeague/U.S. fights to build a multiracialrevolutionary workers party in the bastionof world imperialism to bring down themost murderous power on earth. Alongwith our comrades in Europe and internationally, we seek to reforge the FourthInternational of Leon Trotsky. to lead thefight for new October Revolutions aroundthe world.

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The racist oppression of black peopleis the bedrock of American capitalism.And nothing symbolizes that oppressionmore than- the Confederate flag. When50,000 people marched against the racistbanner in Columbia, South Carolina lastJanuary, we wrote: "They came becausethey' know what the Confederate flagstands for: black enslavement and racistmurder, KKK cross-burnings and churchbombings, the' lynching of any whowould fight for the rights of blacks andlabor" ("Down With the Confederate Flagof Slavery!" WV No. 728, 28 January).Against the racists who uphold this rag asa symbol of Southern "heritage," protesters' signs declared, "Your Heritage Is MySlavery."But the self-styled "socialists" of asmall group called Spark obscenely pander to the racist rabble. While acknowledging the flag's heritage of slavery andsegregation, Spark (24 January) proclaimed in a headline, "The Confederate-Flag: A Double-Edged Symbol," writing:"The Confederate flag became a symbolof the South's resistance to regionaldomination by the North. It is the symbol taken up not only by the former plantation owners, but also by many poorwhites as a distorted expression of theiropposition to the exploitation of industrial and financial capital."One would never know from readingthis article that Marxists, including KarlMarx himself, organized support to theNorth in the Civil War that smashed theslave system. The Civil War was the lastgreat bourgeois-democratic revolution.But the promise of black tfeedom wasbetrayed by the victorious Northern capitalists, who sealed an alliance with theex-slaveholders in the Compromise of1877, overturning the radical-democraticReconstruction period. Wherever theConfederate banner flies it is a reminderthat there is much unfinished businessfrom the Civil War-the second American revolution-'-to take care of. We say:Finish the Civil War! For black liberationthrough socialist revolution!Not so Spark. Spark writes that South-

ern politicians waved the Confederateflag to gain support against the civil rightsmovement. But it echoes their "states'rights" rhetoric, uncritically talking of"sentiments many people in the regionhad that the South was dominated by bigfinancial capital coming from the North,and more specifically by Wall Streetand the New York bankers." "New Yorkbankers"? You don't have to be Woody

WV PhotoSL supporter Richard Bradley cutsdown hated flag of slavery flying inSan Francisco Civic Center, 1984.Allen to know what that means in themouths of Southern white politiciansor, for that matter, of the Nazi skinheadscum from the U.S. to Europe who rallyfor genocide beneath the flag of slavery!Unable to answer our criticism of theirdisgusting defense of the flag of slavery,a leading Spark member physicallyattacked one of our comrades at the University of California at Los Angeles onNovember 14. This attack was successfully repulsed. This is not the first timethis reformist outfit and its French pat ron,Lutte Ouvriere (LO), which occasionallymasquerade as Trotskyist, have substi-

tuted the fist for the brain' to defend theirwretched capitulations to racism andother expressions of social backwardness.When LO assaulted a comrade of ourFrench section in May 1999-breakinghis arm in four places-for exposingLO's social-chauvinist support to its ownruling class in the Balkans War, this gangsterism provoked an outcry among manyon the French left.The political hallmark of LO/Spark isabject workerism-adaptation to and glorification of backward consciousness,including racism, within the workingclass (see the Spartacist pamphlet LutteOuvriere and Spark: Workerism andNational Narrowness, May 1988). Flowing from this workerism is a deepgoingantipathy to struggles against the specialoppression of blacks, immigrants, womenand gays, which are deemed divisive., LO has eX(l'luded the militant gay rightsand AIDS activist group ACT-UP fromits annual fete outside Paris. It longdenied that Le Pen and his gang were fascists, seeking to find common groundwith supporters of Le Pen's NationalFront. In 1994, at the height of a government campaign to brand youth of NorthAfrican descent as "criminals" and "terrorists," LO demonstratively backed theracist anti-Muslim frenzy in a way evenLe Pen's fascists did not dare do. When19 young women were expelled fromschool for wearing Ishimic headscarves,LO organized a counterdemonstration inLille against high school students striking to defend the women (see "France:Racist Edict Targets Schoolgirls" inWomen and Revolution No. 44, Winter1994-Spring 1995).In the U.S., this workerism leadsSpark to justify the most backward racistprejudices. Outrageously portraying theKlansmen who lynched James Byrd Jr. inJasper, Texas two years ago as poor misguided workers, Spark (15 June 1998)presented the following disgustinglysympathetic account of the racist killers:"The three young white men who draggedByrd to his death had already spent time

Free Leonard Peltier!

6

American Indian Movement (AIM) .leader Leonard Peltier, one ofAmerica'smost prominent political prisoners, hasbeen buried alive in federal prison hellholes for over 23 years, unjustly jailedfor a crime the government knows hedid not commit. Peltier was framed upfor the shooting deaths of two FBIagents killed during the Feds' massivesiege of the Pine Ridge reservation inSouth Dakota in 1975. Denied adequatemedical care for an eye dise'lse, Peltieris today nearly blind. Yet the FBI continues its vendetta to keep this courageousfighter for Native American Indianrights behind bars for the rest of his life.With Peltier's petition for executiveclemency finally awaiting review byPresident Clinton after being held up byJanet Reno's Justice Department forseven years, the FBI is lobbying furiously to make sure it is denied. Freedomnow for Leonard Peltier!AIM fell within the government'scross hairs in 1975 because it wasattempting to combat the enforced poverty of Native Americans and the continued theft of their lands by the Fedsand the energy companies, which wereintent on grabbing the rich uraniumdeposits under Sioux land in western

South Dakota. Pine Ridge became a warzone as the hated Bureau of IndianAffairs (BIA) and the FBI trained andarmed thugs to terrorize and crushIndian activists. Between 1973-1976,these killers carried out more than 300attacks, nmrdering at least 69 people.When 250 FBI and BIA agents,SWAT cops -and local vigilanteslaunched an assault against Pine Ridgein June 1975 and the FBI came up twoagents short, Peltier and three otherswere charged with their deaths. Chargeswere dropped against one of them,while AIM supporters Dino Butler andBob Robideau were acquitted in a trialin Cedar Rapids, Iowa, as jurors statedthat they did not believe the governmentwitnesses and that it seemed ~ ' p r e t t y much a clear-cut case of self-defense"against the murderous FBI raid.The government went into overdriveto assure a conviction against Peltierafter the Feds had dragged him backfrom refuge in Canada. The prosecutionconcealed ballistics tests which showedthat Peltier's gun could not have beenused in the shooting, while the trialjudge ruled out any possibility ofanother acquittal on grounds of selfdefense by refusing to allow any evi-

dence of government terror against PineRidge activists. At tile trial, the prosecutors claimed that Peltier shot the agentsat close range; by the time of a'l985appeal hearing the lead governmentattorney admitted, "We can't prove whoshot those agents."The Feds' conspiracy against Peltierand other AIM leaders was orchestrated right from the top, through theFBI's' notorious "Counter-IntelligenceProgram." COINTELPRO was launchedagainst the Communist Party and wasthen deployed to "neutralize" radicalorganizations in the 1960s, particularlythe Black Panther Party, whose members were framed up and imprisoned bythe hundreds while 38 were killed in coldblood. Despite the massive evidence ofPeltier's innocence, the courts haverepeatedly turned down his appeals, justas his requests for parole have beendenied again and again since he becameeligible in 1993. At a hearing last June,in a decision now under appeal to theU.S. Parole Commission, the paroleofficer outrageously turned Peltier downcold without even bothering to look atthe materials his lawyers submitted.Around the world, Leonard Peltierhas come to symbolize racist American

in prison for theft and drug dealing. Likemany other poor wor\}ing class whites,they had little to show for their lives, littlehope for something better. While inprison, they seemed to have responded toracist appeals, to the ideas which are peddled wholesale throughout the whiteworking class seeking to blame blackpeople for the problems that white working people confront in this class society."In tailing after the most backward sectors of the working class with its subreformist drivel, Spark implicitly embraces the notion that all white workersare racist and rejects any possibility of

mobilizing the multiracial ,labor movement in the fight for black freedom.Before attacking our comrade at UCLA,the Spark thug dismissed the 50,000 whoturned out at Columbia, South Carolinaas a "bunch of petty-bourgeois" at a"Democratic Party election rally." Forthem, it mattered not at all that many ofthe marchers were working people,including a contingent of the largelyblack International Longshoremen'sAssociation Local 1422, which threedays later waged a bitter battle againsthundreds of union-busting cops on theCharleston, South Carolina waterfront.The Democrats did indeed try to channel the anger of the Columbia marchersinto support for this party of racist American capitalism; as our headline declared,"Racist Democratic Party Hustles BlackVote." We fight to break workers andminorities from the' Democratic Partyand win them to the fight for socialistrevolution to overthrow racist Americancapitalism. Spark's appeals to the mostbackward consciousness serve only toreinforce illusions in the Democrats. Incontrast to the reactionary workerism ofSpark/LO, we stand with Lenin, fightingto forge a revolutionary workers partythat will act as the tribune of the peoplein combatting every manifestation ofinjustice and oppression. One example ofthat was our successful mobilization in1984 to tear down the Confederate flagof slavery raised by Democratic mayor(now Senator) Dianne Feinstein in SanFrancisco.- One of the first acts of a revolutionary workers government would beto tear down every Confederate flag andmonument, replacing them with the redflag of the working class and monumentsto our heroes, from Frederick Douglass,John Brown and Harriet Tubman to thecountless working men and women whogave their lives in the fight to establishunions in the South.

"

Eli ReichmanAIM leader Leonard Peltier hasbeen imprisoned for over 23 yearsas result of FBI frame-up.repression of this country's indigenouspeoples; more precisely, of the relativefew who survived centuries of hideousoppression and mass murder. The Partisan Defense Committee has repeatedlyprotested his continued imprisonmentand contributed to his defense. For moreinformation contact the Leonard PeltierDefense Committee, P.O. Box 583,Lawrence, KS 66044, (785) 842-5774.

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South Africa...(continued Jrompage 1)kept on urging the dog to "vat die k----r"(get the k----r). This is the racist epithetfor blacks understood by not only copsbut also most dogs owned by South African whites.I have never experienced such crude,naked, barbaric brutality in my life.As the immigrants were screaming inhorrifying pain, the dog handler waswatching any kick or move in response topain, answering with mean punches andarmy boot kicks. The helpless, innocentmen had to defend their lives against bothcops and dogs attacking simultaneously.These guys were left bleeding profuselyfrom multiple dog bite wounds in an oldmine dump "secret location" with nomedical attention.Black life is getting ever cheaper inSouth Africa, "new" or old. How did thevideo cassette get to the media? Theseracist pigs were having a braai (barbecue)and brought the video of blacks screaming for their lives as entertainment. One ofthose in attendance was hard up formoney and sold it to the media.One of the annoying aspects of thisincident is the hypocrisy of the capitalistANC [African National Congress] ministers, expressing shock and demanding thearrest of the racist cops. They were notshocked. They were shown the video wellbefore the broadcast, so their reaction ofshock and anger in front of TV cameraswas stage playing. People's reaction tothis is very widespread, particularly in thetownships, worKplaces and so forth. Ihave even heard unconfirmed reportsabout one of the workers' hostels, whichis mainly Zulu, planning a protest marchby all, irrespective of language group orpolitical affiliation.It is criminal for the reformist SouthAfrican Communist Party (SACP) andthe pro-capitalist COSATU [Congressof South African Trade Unions] mjsleadership not to take up the necessary struggle to mobilise the combative,S_outhAfrican proletariat to protect their international working-class brothers againstthe reaction of the neo-apartheid, ANCled bourgeois state. Keep Left, which isburied in the SACP and is associatedwith the British Socialist Workers Partyof the late Tony Cliff, calls to "lock upracist police" (Keep Left!, November2000). This echoes the national policecommissioner who blames a few "rogueelements." Keep Left support cops in theunions. Preaching illusions that the bourgeois state can be reformed is in linewith Keep Left's unswerving electoralsupport to the ANC,Black or white, cops are attack dogsof the bourgeoisie. Cops and securityguards out of the unions! Spartacist SouthAfrica, section of the International Communist League, demand full citizenshiprights for all immigrants! Workers haveno country!In another recent incident, EugeneTerreblanche, leader of the neo-NaziAfrikaans Weerstandbeweging (AfrikaansResistance Movement), attacked twoblack men working in a petrol station,leaving one of them, a breadwinner, permanently paralysed with brain damage.His assailant spent less than a year of asix-year jail sentence in prison. In September, a white Sasolburg employer tiedand dragged his black employee at the15 DECEMBER 2000

back of a van for five kilometres [threemiles] through the black township atnight, leaving pieces of flesh in thestreets. T h ~ ANC government arrangedfor the case to be heard 70 kilometresaway from the protesting local. blackcommunity. In August, a black girl teenager was painted white and paradednaked in the streets of Louis Trichardt [aresort town in the Northern Province] forallegedly shoplifting.At the formerly whites-only BryanstonHigh School in Johannesburg, a black"intruder," Lindelani Khanyile, nearlylost sight in his left eye and was not ableto write the half-yearly examinationsafter a premeditated attack in June bythree of his white fellow students. Theschool found the three gUilty and suspended them, but the decision was

reversed by the ANC head of the province's education department "becausethey showed remorse."Meanwhile, Andrew Babeile from formerly whites-only, mainly Afrikaner Vryburg High School in Huhudi townshipin the North West Province is languishingin jail following the stabbing of a white

student with a pair of scissors afterBabeile had been pushed from behind.ASowetan article of 18 September reports:"Activists and witnesses in Babeile's trialsaid that the magistrate rejected evidencethat the youth had been provoked whenhe stabbed Christoffel Erasmus in theneck. He was allegedly taunted andphysically attacked by a group of about10 white boys who hurled racial abuseat him during lunch that day." Babeilewas convicted and imprisoned in an ANCgovernment jail in 1998, sentenced tofive years, two of which are suspended.His appeal against the nature of his conviction was rejected this June by theKimberly High Court.In Natal, a white farmer destroyed allthe graves of black people on his property, fearing their use as evidence in land

mn?S

Unemployedgold minersfrom Lesotho.As South Africa'sunemployment ratesoars, ANC regimetargets immigrantworkers.

claims. The list goes on and on. Thisyear, several workers, members of theNUMSA metal workers union, werefired for solidarising with a co-workerwho refused to wash the boss's dog.But what has been even more worrying is the manifestation of these racistattacks in a more organised fashion. A

Free Clark Kissinger-Drop All Charges!The following protest was sent by the

Partisan Defense Committee on Decem-ber 6 to Attorney General JaneiReno.This afternoon, Clark Kissinger, apolitical activist for over 30 years, washandcuffed and dragged away to a Philadelphia jail. His "crime"? Exercisinghis rights, supposedly protected underthe First Amendment, to speak outagainst the threatened execution ofdeath row political prisoner MumiaAbu-Jamal. We demand: Free ClarkKissinger! Drop all charges!Mr. Kissinger was targeted by thestate and federal police for his role as anorganizer and spokesman on Jamal's

behalf. He was one of 96 of Jamal's supporters arrested at a Liberty Bell protestin July 1999, charged with "failing toobey a lawful order," the legal equivalent of a traffic offense. Because theydemanded ajury trial, Kissinger and sixothers were given a one-year "supervised probation," the conditions ofwhich were meant to prevent him continuing his efforts opposing Jamal'sexecution. Today, Kissinger was ordered to jail for 90 days, for violatingthe police-state probation conditions byspeaking at a protest for Jamal outsidethe Republican National Convention(RNC). The protests outside the RNC

. Racist ter ror inthe "new SouthAfrica": televisedvideotape ofsadistic copattack on threeblack immigrantsin 1998.

Sowetan article in October headlined"Racist Thugs Plague Blacks" reported:"A group of white men in Potgietersrushave been stalking and attacking blackfamilies living in the former whites onlysuburbs of the conservative NorthernProvince. The attacks include physicalattacks, shattering windows and paintingthe word 'k----r' on the walls belongingto black residents." At the weekend preceding October 4, a group of white racistcommandos, including cops, assaultedresidents and damaged shacks on a farmnear Mamelodi, a black township nearPretoria. Recently three whites beat a 17-year-old teenager until he excreted. Theyforced him to eat and smear his headwith shit. When cops went to investigate,they were met by uniformed paramilitarycommandos, 300-strong.The ANC's response has been to call aSummit on Racism in August to blow offsteam. This was characterised by ANCcomplaints against continued racism andsome "god-loving" whites tearfully apologising for the "racist past." The fact isthat the material basis of apartheid, whichis rooted in the superexploitation of blacklabour by the white elile and their blackfront men in the ANC/SACP/COSATUalliance, remains unshaken under neoapartheid capitalism. In all of the aboveracist attacks, the ANC consistently conciliated racist reaction. This can be one ofthe signs that they are losing confidencein their ability to maintain their rule overthe black masses through promises, lies,deceit, etc. and are therefore looking forallies somewhere else. For instance, theANC recently recruited Dirk Coetzee,bloody commander of an apartheid deathsquad.The alternatives we laid out in "SouthAfrica Powder Keg" [Black History andthe Class Struggle No. 12, February 1995]continue to unfold: it's either going to bemultiracial class struggle or interracial,intertribal bloodletting. There can be nonon-racial bourgeois democracy in SouthAfrica. It is only through a working-classsocial revolution that racial dominationcan be put to an end. The only salvationis a Leninist-Trotskyist vanguard partyfighting for a black-centred workers government and I}ew October Revolutions allover the world.

were met with mass arrests on bogusfelony charges, with bail of up to a halfmillion dollars imposed.This prosecutorial and court vendettais solely intended to silence Jamal andhis supporters. o prepare the way for hislegal lynching. Shortly before condemning Mr. Kissinger to jail, U.S.Magistrate Arnold Rapoport declared,"A trail of disruption follows this manwherever he goes." The "trail of disruption" haunting the forces of "law andorder" screaming for Jamal's executionis the growing support for Jamal worldwide, including unions representingmillions of workers.The prosecution of Jamal's supporters with such a vengeance is testamentto the fact that the effort to executeMumia Abu-Jamal is supported by thehighest levels of the American rulingclass and its agents of repression. Wedemand hands off all Mumia supporters. Free Clark Kissinger! Drop all thecharges and restrictions! .

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Mexico ...(continued from page 1)administration, including former members of the Communist Party like JorgeCastaneda, the new foreign minister, whopreviously stumped for the left-talkingbourgeois-nationalist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) of CuauhtemocCardenas, but this year cynically supported Fox as a- "democratic" alternative to the PRI. This "left"-right bloc withthe PAN is an expression.of the fake left'sembrace' of the "death of communism"internationally since the destruction ofthe Soviet Union. In an Espartaco supplement (June 2(00) issued before the elections, our comrades of the Grupo Espartaquista de Mexico (GEM) proclaimed:"Not One Vote for the PRI, PAN or PRD!For the Political Independence of the Proletariat!" (see WV No. 739, 28 July).In his first act as president, Foxordered the "withdrawal" of 1,500 troopsfrom positions encircling EZLN Zapatista peasant insurgents in the state ofChiapas while promising to pursue a"peace" agreement. But 60,000 troopsremain there, and those "withdrawn"have simply been moved to their barracks. After years of tailing the PRD, thepetty-bourgeois EZLN now welcomesFox's "peace". moves and is sending "subcommander" Marcos to Mexico City inFebruary. The London Economist (28October) summed up Fox's "democratic"credentials: "He is, say some, a caudillo,a strong-arm ruler with dictatorial instincts in the best Latin American tradition." And standing behind its Mexicanlackeys is the U.S. imperialist colossus,which has funneled vast quantities of military aid to the war of terror against thepeasant insurgents in Chiapas, Guerreroand elsewhere.Since the imposition ofNAFTA in 1994,U.S. imperialism has planted its boot evenmore firmly on the neck of he very dependent Mexican bourgeoisie. Direct foreigninvestment, dominated by the U.S., hasmore than tripled. Mexico is now theU.S.' second-largest trade partner, withnearly 90 percent of Mexico's exportsgoing to the U.S., almost half of themfrom the foreign-owned maquiladora factories that import materials or parts toassemble finished goods for re-export.Since 1994, prices for basic necessitieslike tortillas rose over 400 percent whilereal wages plummeted by some 25 percent and are barely two-thirds what theywere 30 years ago. And the more interconnected the Mexican and U.S. economies become, the more devastating arecession in the U.S. would be for semicolonial Mexico.Fox dreams of a North American"common market," includin g, utopianvisions of an "open border" with theU.S. and equalizing wages between thetwo countries, promoted as well byCastaneda. But while demanding wideraccess to cheap labor in Mexico, theAmerican bourgeoisie is not about to

8

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section of the International CommunistLeague (Fourth Internationalist), has setitself the goal of forging a revolutionary,internationalist party capable of leadingthe working class to power.Break the CorporatistStranglehold over the Unions!

In Mexico, the main trade-union federation, the CTM, has been directly tiedto the capitalist state through the PRI,which propped up its rule for more than71 years with the mythology of the Mexican Revolutipn, trying to pose as theparty that represents the Mexican peopleand their interests. The CTM union, :ifeorganically part of a bourgeois politicalparty, which was moreover the rulingparty of an essentially one-party state.We oppose such corporatism as one ofthe most open forms of subordination ofthe proletariat to the bourgeoisie.Mexican corporatism affects all unions,not just the CTM and other PRI-affiliatedunions. Despite the fracturing ofPRI corporatism, there has not been an openstruggle by the proletariat against controlby the capitalist class. This is due tothe hegemony of bourgeois nationalismwithin the working class, propped up bythe trade-union bureaucracies, the laborlieutenants of capital. As we explainedin Espartaco No. 10 (Autumn-Winter1997): "But in the absence of a revolutionary party fighting for the politicalindependence of the working class, theworkers and their organizations will continue to be pawns of the parliamentaryambitions of bourgeois-nationalist politicians. As Cardenas seeks to generate amore 'populist' and 'national' face forthis regime of bourgeois austerity, he cancount on political support from 'independent' unions" (reprinted in WV No. 672,8 August 1997).The CTM union bureaucrats typicallyrule with an iron fist of repression. Theso-called "independent" unions are indeed more democratic, and we Marxistsare certainly not indifferent to that: However, the "independent" union tops tiethe workers to the Mexican bourgeoisiethrough other means, through nationalistideology and illusions in "democratic"reform of the capitalist state. Revolutionaries seek to intervene in the unions toreplace the bureaucratic and nationalistleaders hips with a leadership opposed toall bourgeois parties.Carlos Mamahua

15 DECEMBER 2000

Left: Lazaro Cardenasutilized nationalism asideological weapon tosubordinate workingclass to his bourgeoisregime in the 1930s.Right: Women workersin 1920s organized byCROM labor federation,predecessor to ClM.

. In his article "Trade Unions in theEpoch of Imperialist Decay" (1940),Leon Trotsky explains:"Inasmuch as the chief role in backwardcountries is not played by national butby foreign capitalism, the national bourgeoisie occupies, in the sense of its socialposition, a much more minor positionthan corresponds with the developmentof industry. Inasmuch as foreign capitaldoes not import workers but proletarianizes the native popUlation, the nationalproletariat soon begins playing the mostimportant role in the life of the country. Inthese conditions the national government,to the extent that it tries to show resistance to foreign capital, is compelled to agreater or lesser degree to lean on the proletariat. On the other hand, the governments of those backward countries whichconsider it inescapable or more profitablefor themselves to march shoulder toshoulder with foreign capital destroy thelabor organizations and institute a moreor less totalitarian regime."Thus, the feebleness of the nationalbourgeoisie, the absence of traditions ofmunicipal self-government, the pressureof foreign capitalism, and the relativelyrapid growth of the proletariat cut theground from under any kind of stabledemocratic regime."

Trotsky wrote the above in part baseddirectly on the case of Mexico at the time.Many Mexicans look back with fondnostalgia on the reforms under LazaroCardenas. What's important to understand, however, is precisely the continuity of the present Mexican state with theCardenas period. Nothing essentiallychanged for 50 years in the way the Mexican unions and state are organized andhow they function. Trotsky explainedthat the fact that the main role in colonialand semicolonial countries is playednot by national capitalism but by imperialist capitalism does not obviate butinstead reinforces the need for direct linkswith the state. This is the most importantsocial basis for the bonapartist and semibonapartist character of governments inthe colonies and backward countries ingeneral. Trotsky emphasized:

"Does this mean that in the epoch ofimperialism independent trade unions aregenerally impossible? It would be fundamentally incorrect to pose the questionthis way. Impossible are the independent or semi-independent reformist tradeunions. Wholly possible are revolutionarytrade unions that not only are not stockholders of imperialist policy but that setas their task the direct overthrow of therule of capitalism. In the epoch of imperialist decay the trade unions can bereally independent only to the extent that

=6ooc

they are conscious of being, in additionthe organs of proletarian revolution ...."As a matter of fact, the independence ofthe trade unions in the class sense, intheir relations to the bourgeois state, can,in the present conditions, be assured onlyby a completely revolutionary leadership, that is, the leadership of the FourthInternational."Permanent Revolution vs.Cardenista Nationalism

With the end of PRI domination, Mexico is experiencing important politicalchanges. For revolutionary Marxists, it isnecessary to draw the lessons of the pastto understand the present and be able tolead the struggles of the proletariat tovictory.The Mexican Revolution of 1910-20was a confirmation in the negative ofTrotsky's theory of permanent revolution.The political and social relationships inthe country were insufficiently mature forputting the proletariat in power as theleader of the masses. Thus the MexicanRevolution produced only very partialresults directed entirely against the working masses. The Constitutionalists, bourgeois victors emerging out of the revolution, were unable to effect the aims of anational-democratic revolution. They hadto confront not only the opposition ofrecalcitrant wings of the bourgeoisie andCatholic church but also the constantchallenge of the proletariat in the citiesand the impoverished peasantry in thecountryside, all the while tacking andveering vis-a-vis U.S. imperialism. Bythe end of the Mexican Revolution,American 'Capital had actually strengthened its economic stranglehold on thecountry at the expense of its imperialistrivals.Both to achieve victory in the civil waragainst [insurgent peasant"1eaders] Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata andto consolidate their rule in the aftermathof the revolution, the Constitutionalists had to lean on the proletariat forpolitical and military support, at thesame time politically subordinating theworking class to their rule. The first postrevolutionary Mexican labor federation,the Regional Confederation of MexicanWorkers (CROM), illustrates this point.The CROM founding convention wascalled under the auspices of and fundedby the government to undercut the[anarcho-syndicalist] Casa del Obrero

APJanuary 2000: Cops beat striking campusworker during yearlong UNAM stu1entoccupation. Mexico City administrationunder PRO of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas(above) repeatedly mobilized riot copsagainst student strikers, workers.

Mundial. While the program passed atthis convention opposed any cooperationwith the government (!), under the leadership of Luis Morones the CROMquickly became a servile ally of the government, dependent on government subsidies for its "dues."Shortly after founding the CROM,Morones and his cronies launched thePLM (Mexican Labor Party) in orderto support the presidential candidacy ofConstitutionalist general Alvaro Obregon.But even before the PLM was proclaimed, the CROM had made a deal withObregon that he would create a laborministry to be run by "a person closelyidentified with labor interests" and thatthe CROM would be granted specialstatus and access to state support andfacilities.Once in power, Obregon did not deliveron his promise for a labor ministry. Nonetheless, he placed many governmentdepartments under the control of theCROM and PLM and permitted the headsof these departments to levy "spontaneous contributions" from their employeesfor the direct benefit of the PLM andCROM, including especially their leaderships. At the same time, Obregonpromptly created the National AgrarianParty (PNA) as a counterweight to thePLM.In 1924, Obregon faced an armedchallenge led by Adolfo De la Huerta, aformer ally, when Obregon decided todesignate as his successor Plutarco ElfasCalles, who was considered a "radical"by the hacendados [large landowners]and Catholic hierarchy. Having lost popularity within the army because of cutsin the military budget, Obregon defeatedDe la Huerta with the support of American arms shipments. Obregon also hadthe support of peasant militias organizedin the PNA and of armed workers fromthe CROM.Similarly, Calles mobilized the peasantPNA to help crush the Catholic fundamentalist guerrillas of the Cristiada[peasant-based uprising against anticlerical provisions in the constitution], atthe same time using his control overthe CROM as a base of support againstrebel bourgeois factions and against allworking-class opposition. During Call es'regime, the. CROM signed a "social pact"with the state: in exchange for parliamentary seats, government posts and government approval of union organizingcampaigns, the CROM aided in the persecution of leftists and dissidents and instrikebreaking, such as in the railroadstrike of 1926.Calles successfully sought to playsectors of the working class against eachother. When the CROM leadership,already discredited by its cynically overtclass collaboration, sought to improve itsreputation among the working class byreneging on its "social pact," the government responded by cutting the CROM'sfunds and supporting-for an extremelyshort period-dissident labor groups.The conflicts ended in armed confrontations between the CROM and the dissident workers groups. Calles, throughhis puppet Emilio Portes Gil, thenattacked the latter. With the Cristiadarebellion contained, any threat fromObregon eliminated and relations with

continued on page 109


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Mexico...(continued from page 9)U.S. imperialism stabilized, Calles hadlittle further use for the badly compromised CROMIPLM. In 1929, Callesfounded the National RevolutionaryParty (PNR), claiming that it was theparty "of the Revolution," regimentingand co-opting within it the majority ofthe rival bourgeois factions.The worldwide depression at the endof the 1920s was an international catastrophe tn the capitalist countries. Theeconomies in countries subordinated toimperialism, like Mexico, were particularl hard hit. The number of unemployed in Mexico tripled between 1929and 1933, while the minimum wage covered but a third of the basic needs ofworking-class families.The new "Six Year Plan" of 1933 reflected the concerns of the bourgeoisie inthe face of an upsurge in working-classstruggles, seeking to reduce Mexico'seconomic dependence on the UnitedStates and offering social reforms tolessen worker discontent. This was howGeneral Lazaro Cardenas, one of thespokesmen for social reforms, came to bedesignated as successor to the "maximumleader" Calles.The Cardenas Myth

Many workers and poor people inthe city and the countryside see inLazaro Cardenas a "progressive" and"anti-imperialist" figure; sectors of the"populist" bourgeoisie invoke his namebefore the workers. However, Cardenas'"legacy" was the consolidation of theMexican bourgeois regime. It wasCardenas who took Calles' PNR andtransformed it from a machine of personal power into an instrument capableof organizing Mexico's political forcesinto a corporatist structure.Cardenas was neither a socialist nor ananti-imperialist. In fact, at the end of hisgovernment in 1940, the Mexican economy was more dependent on the UnitedStates than ever before. His intentionwas to modernize the country for thebenefit of the Mexican bourgeoisie,never to put its rule in question. Giventhe weakness of the domestic bourgeoisie, like his predecessors Obregon andCalles he required the support of theworking class against both the bourgeois factions opposed to the nationalistreforms and the excessive expectationsof the imperialists. Ever since the Mexican Revolution, the bourgeoisie has usednationalism, opportunist anti-clericalismand a socialist-tinged populist rhetoricas an ideological weapon in consolidating its power against competing factionsand justifying its repression of wQrkers'struggles and peasant insurrections. Cardenas was simply its best exponent.Cardenas sought to undercut Callesand his other rivals by winning supportfrom within the PNR and the army.He also sought to repair the relationsbetween the state and the church. Thefamous "socialist education," institutionalized in the constitution two monthsbefore Cardenas took power, had noother objective than to raise the level ofeducation of the poor and workers tomake them more suitable for wage laborand more productive for the bourgeoisie.He took the side of the workers in important struggles in order to gain their confidence, bringing them under the controlof the iron-fisted CTM bureaucracy.Cardenas often called on the workers toorganize in a single federation-under hisinfluence-with the perspective of coopting the federation in his plan for aparty of "sectors": military, worker, "popular" and peasant. This is an illustration ofcorporatist bonapartism. At the sametime, he opposed the organizing of peasants by the workers federations andsought to organize the peasants as a counterweight to the workers. Thus the PRJ'spredecessor, the Party of the MexicanRevolution (PRM), was formed in 1938 -by the PNR, the CTM and peasant, military and "popular" sectors.10

As imperialist oil investments wereconcentrated in Venezuela at the end ofthe Depression, massive layoffs continued in Mexico. In 1935, workers in Tampico conducted three general strikes insolidarity with the oil workers. Strikescontinued until 1940, when Cardenasunleashed the forces of the state torepress strikers at the old Azcapotza1corefinery. This was the context in whichCardenas expropriated the oil industry.The expropriation of the railroadscame about in a similar context. In May1936, 45,000 railroad workers went onstrike. The strike was declared illegal bythe Conciliation and Arbitration Boardand was suspended under threat of armyintervention. Throughout the country,there were protest rallies against thegovernment in solidarity with the workers. The following month, the newlyfounded CTM organized a national 24-hour strike in protest against the repression of the railroad strike. The economycame to a halt: there was no transportation or electricity. A year later, Cardenasexpropriated the railroads.In August 1936, an agricultural workers strike in the Lagunera region broughtout more than 20,000 workers, amongwhom the Communist Party (PCM) hadsome influence. That October, the Cardenas government issued a decree expropriating and distributing the land in thearea and establishing the basis for agrarian reform.We defend nationalized industry againstprivatizations. The nationalizations werea blow against imperialism, and we standfor the right of colonial and semi colonialcountries to exploit their own naturalresources. In "Mexico and British Imperialism" (1938), Trotsky explains:

"The oil magnates are not rank-and-filecapitalists, not ordinary bourgeoisie.Having seized the richest natural resources of a foreign country, standingon their billions and supported by themilitary and diplomatic forces of theirmetropolis, they strive to establish inthe subjugated country a regime of imperialistic feudalism, subordinating tothemselves legislation, jurisprudence,and administration. Under these conditions expropriation is the only effective

Left: Support rally for 1934 oil workers strike, one ofwave of militant struggles that led to Cardenas'nationalization of oil industry. Above: Troops escorttankers to break 1989 oil workers strike protestingarrest of union head.means of safeguarding national independence and the elementary conditionsof democracy."What direction the further economicdevelopment of Mexico may take depends decisively upon factors of an international character. But this is a questionof the future."

The Me'Xican bourgeoisie is subordinated to U.S. imperialism, but it is notjust a puppet. Cardenas took advantageof interimperialist rivalries to maneuverand make lucrative economic agreementsfor Mexico. For example, he infuriatedAmerican imperialism by selling oil tothe Nazis. He also mollified the Mexicanproletariat and tweaked the nose ofAmerican imperialism by giving politicalasylum to Leon Trotsky, founder andleader of the Fourth International, coleader with Lenin of the Bolshevik Partyand organizer of the Russian Revolution of 1917. The left-nationalist posture of Cardenism was necessarily verybrief-just as long as necessary to derailworkers' discontent.In Mexico's case, the struggle againstprivatizations and the bourgeois assaultin the service of the imperialists mustbe linked to a fight for revolutionaryunity with the powerful multiracialAmerican proletariat. The struggles ofthe Mexican and American proletariatare politically and economically linked,even more tightly since the imposition ofthe NAFTA "free trade" rape of Mexicoby American imperialism. The GEMfights to win the Mexican proletariat toan international revolutionary perspective joining their struggles with those oftheir class brothers and sisters in theU.S., through combatting the nationalismthat chains the proletariat to its bourgeoisie. Correspondingly, our comrades inthe Spartacist League/U.S. fight to breakAmerican workers from the reactionarynationalism and racism against blacksand immigrants that infect the workersmovement and serve to tie the workers tothe ruling class.The Main Enemy Is at Home!

The CTM was born out of a workersmovement in ascendancy, which also

gave rise to the great national industrialunions. Founded in 1936, the CTM waspolitically tied to Cardenas and his government from the beginning. In fact,much of Cardenas' initia

Workers Vanguard No 748 - 15 December 2000

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Transcript of Workers Vanguard No 748 - 15 December 2000