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WfJRNERS 'ANfJIJAR' 50No. 857 28 October 2005

UAW Must Fight GM/Delphi!Delphi. the world's larg-est auto parts supplier. andGeneral Motors. the world'slargest automaker. havelaunched an unprecedentedunion-husting assault againstthe United Auto Workers(UAW). Four years into apurported economic recovery hased largely on massin: layoffs and deadlyspeedup. U.S. workers areseeing the largest decline inreal wages in decades. OnOctoher 8. GM spin-offDelphi. which supplies GMwith parts. went the corporate hankruptcy route alreadytaken by most major airlines.Delphi's \\orkel'S' are threat-ened with destitution. as thecompany demands that theirpay be cut from 27.00 to$10.00 per hour!

On the heeb of Delphi'sbankruptcy announcement.GM bosses demanded massive givebacks from the UAW.The treacherous union topsimmediately surrendered toGM's demands. in the nameof protecting the mammothcorporation's sacred "competiti\eness." Current work-ers and retirees. who brokethei{ backs for GM with six- and sevenday workweeks. are seeing their healthcare benefits slashed to the tune of $1 bil-lion annually. It was "the largest singlecost-cutting initiative ever announced bythe company:' and "paves the way forFord Motor Co. and the Chrysler Group toseek similar cost-savings plans with theUAW" (Detroit Free Press. 18 October).

The capital ists deny bankruptcy protection to their victims while wieldingthe bankruptcy ax to void labor contractsand "reorganize" industry at the cost ofhundreds of thousands of jobs. Earlierthis month. working people across thecountry stood in long lines desperate tofile for bankruptcy before the new lawlimiting protection from creditors wentinto effect. Meanwhile. Northwest Airlines declared bankruptcy two monthsinto a strike by AMFA mechanics. whowalked off the job rather than accepta 26 percent pay cut. The refusal ofthe leaders of the other airline unions toshut down Northwest in solidarity withAMFA isolated the mechanics. whosejobs are being taken by scabs. And no wevery Northwest union is under the gun.

The venality of the capitalist rulers inattacking retirees is as brazen as it isbreathtaking. Dubbed capitalism's "Mr.Fix-lt." Delphi CE O Robert Miller ranworkers at Bethlehem Steel through thehankruptcy wringer to slash their benefits and those of retirees and to massivelyreduce the workforce. Miller blithelytold the Wall Street Journal (17 Octoher): "When you worked for one employer till age 65 and then died at age70. and when health care was unsophisticated and inexpensive. the social con-

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7 25274 81030 7

e eautonlon

osses'usting!

Auto production directly in-volves coal. steel. rubber.rail and trucking. WhenChrysler-now part of theGerman company DaimlerChrysler-threatened hankruptcy in 1979, the responseby the sellouts in the UAW'sSolidarity House was toaccept a seat on Chrysler'sboard of directors. From thislofty height. UAW chiefDoug Fraser ~ h ( ) \ e d concession contracts down worker,' throats with the threatthat they hetter swallow lestthey lose their jobs. So theyswallowed and lost their jobs.In the last 25 years. GM. Fordand Chrysler have shed some600.000johs in the U.S .. andthe UAW memher.,hip hasdropped from 1.5 million toIe " than 700.000.

But it doesn't have tohappen this way. The rottenGM deal is going to theUAW membership for a vote-vote it down' GM andDelphi \\orkers must fighthack. whi Ie they have jobs.In 1998. a walkout at theFlint Metal Center plant.expanding to "tne T'1int"'1":ast

tract inherent in defined-benefit programs perhaps made some economicsense." He continued. "People are livinglonger these days. Of course. that is agood thing. But the question is. how canwe afford if)" Miller's answer? Worklike slaves. then die.

An d the UAW tops' response? le t usdig our members' graves' On October18. UAW officials asked a federal courtin Detroit to approve the deal with General Motors in order to prevent individual

JAWfiI

retirees from suing the company for cut-ting their benefits! GM. naturally. voicedits support for this move. Americansocialist Daniel Deleon captured thetreachery of the U.S. labor officialdommore than a century ago, branding themthe "labor lieutenants of capital."

l ef t unchallenged. the effect of Delphiand GM's assaults on the UAW will beenormous. layoffs and plant closingsare already being threatened. potentiallyaffecting the bulk of the U.S. proletariat.

UAW members in Flint, Michigan walk off the job in June 1998,strike that shut down bulk of GM's North American production.

Delphi facility. quickly re-sulted in the shutdown of 27 of GM's 29North American assembly facilities dueto lack of parts. "I either stand no w andstrike or there may be no tomorrow," oneworker said at the time. The strikebacked the auto giant down and ended ina stand-off. GM failed to deliver a crippling blow to the union. much to the chagrin of Wall Street investors. GM thencontrived to spin off Delphi, and nowthey're back for a second try at guttingthe UAW. Instead of being picked offone by one, the union must prepare itsentire membership for a hard struggleagainst Delphi. GM and all the autocompal1les.Black Rights and Union Rights

In this capitalist society where blackpeople constitute a specially oppressedrace-color caste. every assault on unionworkers hits the black population disproportionately harel. Twenty years ago.one out of every four black workers wasa union member. Today that ratio hasslipped to close to one in seven. This factis directly linked to the massive deindustrializatiol1 of the U.S .. particularly thebig urban centers in the Midwest. Therehas also been a migration of jobs to thelow-wage. non-union South and otherareas in the U.S. and ahroad. Yet the per-centage of black people in unions and inbasic industry is still proportionatelyhigher than that of whites. In fact. theauto industry has one of the most raciallyintegrated workforces in the U.S. Thus

continucd on page 10

Not One Person, Not One Penny for the Imperialist Military!Marxism, Militarism and War ...6

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On Cuba'sCollectivized Economy7 October 2005

Dear Comrades:The article '"Feds: Hands Off ILA'"" in

WV No. 854 (16 September) wronglystates that the International Longshoremen's Association represents dock workers in Montreal. This used to be the case.however several years ago Montreal dockworkers. along with those in Quehec Cityand other smaller ports in Quebec. reorganized as locals of the Syndicat Canadiendc la Fonction PUblique.

In the same issue. the article "Bush BansCuban Medical Aid"" states that "since1991-92,"" the Cuhan regime "has inCI'easingly (1pened up the country to imperialisteconomic penetration."" This was indeedthe case following the counterre\oluti(\nary destruction of the Smiet Union andthrough the 1990s. as the Castro hureaucracy sought to restart a devastated economy through foreign in\'estment from. andjoint ventures with, European and Canadian corporations. At th e same time.individual dollar holdings Vvere legalized.leading. as the article states. to growinginequalities among the population.

More recently, however. following amodest economic recovery. the regimehas moved to curtail imperialist holdings. as well as small-scale private businesses on the island. An article by theChicago hilJlfne's Havana correspondent

(24 June). for example. notes how "'Cubanofficials have closed scores of foreignbusinesses that were welcomed here adecade ago to bailout the nation's faltering economy." It adds that "'about a halfdozen of the more than 350 foreign firmsonce based in Cuba's duty-free zones arestill operating."" From 2002 to 2004. thenumber of joint ventures decreased fromabout 400 to about 300. while Cuba'sForeign Investment and Economic Cooperation Ministry projects that another 67will be closed this year. Meanwhile thego\'ernment has taken the dollar out ofcirculation. tightened controls o\'er stateenterprises doing business with foreigners. and sought to reduce dependence onimperialist investment through enactingsignificant new trade deals with Venezuela and China.

All this has not put an end to imperialist economic penetration. which is stillsignificant in the tourism. nickel and telecommunications industries. or to the significant inequalities on the island. Butto imply that Trotskyists should opposeall imperialist investment. joint ventures. etc. in Cuha or any other bureaucratically deformed workers state wouldhe very wrong. With the collapse ofthe USSR. deals with European andCanadian capitalists are often the onlymeans for Cuba-a resource-poor country that has faced a decades-long U.S.

~ . ' . Imperialist Wa r and

Opportunist "Socialism"

TROTSKY

At the O/lset of World War I, the 4 AugustJ9J4 I'ate by the German Social Democrac,v.f(,r lrar credits f(n< the German imperial-ist state signaled the definitil'e col/apse ofthe Second International. Pointing to theheroic lI'ork of German rel'oilltionarr KarlLiehknecht, Bolshel'ik leader V I. Leninstressed th m the task of Marxists in agitat-ing against imperialist war IHIS to promoteproletarian remlutiofl international/y. LENIN

Any "peace programme" will deceive the people and be a piece of hypocrisy, unlessits principal object is to explain to the masses the need for a revolution, and to support.aid, and develop the mass revolutionary struggles breaking out everywhere (fermentamong the masses. protests. fraternisation in the trenches, strikes. demonstrations. letters from the front to relatives-for example, in France-urging them not to subscribeto war loans, etc . etc.).It is the duty of socialists to support, extend and intensify every popular movement toend the war. But it is actually being fulfilled only by those socialists who, like Liebknecht,in their parliamentary speeches. call upon the soldiers to lay down their arms. and preachrevolution and transformation of the imperialist war into a civil war for socialism ...

That mass revolutionary actions during the war, if successfully developed, can leadonly to the transformation of the imperialist war into a civil war for socialism is obvious, and it is harmful to conceal this from the masses. On the contrary, this aim must beindicated clearly. no matter how difficult its attainment may appear now. while we arestill at the beginning of the road.

2

-V . Lenin. "Proposals Submitted by the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.to the Second Socialist Conference," April 1916

! . f ! w ! ! . f . . l ! J ! . . " / ! f ! l ! . ~ l ! . 1 ! . . IRECTOR OF PARTY PUBLICATIONS: Ray Bishop

EDITOR: Alan WildeEDITOR, YOUNG SPARTACLJS PAGES: Rosemary PalenqueCIRCULATION MANAGER: Susan FullerEDITORIAL BOARD: Kathleen Harris (managing editor), Helene Brosius (letters editor),Linda Jarreau (production manager). Bruce Andre, Jon Brule. Helen Cantor, Paul Cone.George Foster. Walter Jennings, James Robertson, Joseph SeymourThe Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League(Fourth Internationalist).Workers Vanguard (ISSN 02760746) published biweekly, except skipping three alternate Issues in June. July andAugust (beginning With omitting the second Issue in June) and skipping the last Issue In December. by the SpartacistPublishing Co . 299 Broadway. Suite 318. New York. NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 7 3 2 ~ 7 8 6 2 (Editorial), (212) 7 3 2 ~ 7 8 6 1 (BUSiness). Address all correspondence to. Box 1377 GPO, New York. NY 10116. Emall address: vanguard@tlac.net.Domestic subSCriptions: SlO.00/21 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 view pointThe closing date for news in this issue is 25 October.

No.8S7 28 October 200S

economic embargo-to access moderntechnology and develop new economicsectors. In extremis. opposition to suchin-.estment would amount to a programof nationalist economic autarky. guaranteeing that the population remqins miredin poverty.

Our opposition to the Castro bureaucracy fundamentally tlows from its nationalist political program of "'socialism inone country." The article rightly concludes that a proletarian political revolution based on a perspective of international extension of the revolution is theonly ultimate means to defend andexpand the gains of the Cuban Revolution. Rather than fight to win thE working

Lettermasses in Latin America and beyond tothe fight for socialist revolution. theCuban bureaucracy has long fostered illusions in '"progressive"" bourgeois regimes.from Allende in Chile in the early 1970sto Chavez in Venezuela today. Meanwhilethe regime"s bureaucratic monopoly onpolitical power has undermined the consciousness of the Cuban working classwhile producing economic distortionsand inefficiencies. Our perspective isa centrally planned economy based onworkers democracy. That ~ a i d . it is important to be accurate about developments inthe Cuban economy today.

Comradely.John Masters

No on Anti-UnionProp 75!CaliforniaA sinister anti-union initiative is on the

ballot for the November 8 California stateelection. Cynicall) titled the '"PaycheckProtection Act:' Prop. 75 would restricttrade unions' political activities. requiringthat public employee unions receive priorwritten consent from each individualemployee each year before they can collector use dues or fees to contribute to politicalcampaigns and candidates. The SpartacistLeague says: Vote no on Prop. 75! Government hands off public worker unions!

Just like anti-union "'right to work"".laws. Prop. 75 is being promoted as protecting workers' rights. In reality. it ispart of a union-bl)sting offensive headedhy Repuhlican governor SchwaI7encggeragainst teachers, nurses and other unionized public sector workers and morebroadly against education and social senices (see "'Defeat Anti-Worker Assault inCalifornia l "" WV No. 853. 2 September).The initiative also continues a nationalcampaign by the Republicans to cut of ftheir rival capitalist politicians in theDemocratic Party from the millions theyget each year in union money. Similarlaws are already on the books in Washington. Utah. Michigan and other states.We oppose Prop. 75 because we oppose any and all interventions by the capitalist s tate-a machinery of repressiondefending the interests of the tiny class ofexploiters against the working people-

into the labor mmement. The capitalist state has no husiness telling tIlt'unions what they should or should not dowith their 1110ne). State intervention onl)senes to suhordinate the unions to thebosses' gO\ernment and to \\ eaken theirability to wage class struggle.

At the same time. our fight for thepolitical independence of the labor movement from the capitalist state meansstruggling against the trade-union bureaucracy's support to the Democrats. thosewoh'es in sheep's clothing who are noless of a capitalist party than the Repuhlicans. While Schwarzenegger is leadingthe current drive against California's public unions and social senices. it is theDemocratic mayors of Los Angeles. SanFrancisco and other hig cities that are thefront-line enforcers of budget cuts andlayoffs. Prop. 75 and similar measureswould be used to fight any attempt byworkers to organize their own party. independent of the capitalist class enemy.

Some workers rightly resent surrendering their dues money year after yearfor contributions to the Democrats whilethe pro-capitalist union tops do their bestto enforce labor "peace"" and sabotagestrikes when they do occur. But thesequestions must be fought out inside theunions, as part of a political struggle tooust the labor traitors and replace themwith a class-struggle leadership committed to building a workers party. Such aparty is the necessary instrument to leadthe fight for a workers government thatexpropriates the capitalist class.

--- SPARTACIST LEAGUE/U.S.--Local Directory and Public OfficesWeb site: www.icl-fi.org E-mail address:vanguard@tiac.netNational Office: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 (212) 732-7860

BostonBox 390840, Central Sta.Cambridge, MA 02139(617) 666-9453bostonsyc@yahoo.comChicagoBox 6441, Main POChicago, IL 60680(312) 563-0441chicagospartacist@sbcglobal.netPublic Office:Sat. 2-5 p.m.222 S. Morgan(Buzzer 23)

Los AngelesBox 29574, Los Feliz Sta.Los Angeles, CA 90029(213) 380-8239slsycla@sbcglobal.netPublic Office: Sat. 2-5 p.m.3806 Beverly Blvd., Room 215New YorkBox 3381, Church St. Sta.New York, NY 10008(212) 267-1025nysl@compuserve.comPublic Office:Sat. 1-4 p.m.299 Broadway, Suite 318

OaklandBox 29497Oakland, CA 94604(510) 839-0851slbayarea@sbcglobal.netPublic Office:Sat. 1-5 p.m.1634 Telegraph3rd FloorSan FranciscoBox 77494San Francisco, CA 94107slbayarea@sbcglobal.net

TROTSKYIST LEAGUE OF CANADA/LiGUE TROTSKYSTE DU CANADATorontoBox 7198, Station AToronto, ON M5W 1X8(416) 593-4138spartcan@on.aibn.com

VancouverBox 2717, Main P.O.Vancouver, BC V6B 3X2(604) 687-0353tllt@look.caWORKERS VANGUARD

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Our comrade Elizabeth King Robertson died at home on October 12 after asix-year battle with cancer. Over thecourse of more than 30 years as a professional revolutionist. Lizzy excelledas an organizer. propagandist and editor. A patient mentor and inspirationfor younger comrades, Lizzy provideda vital link in the fight to preserve ourrevolutionary heritage going back toLenin and Trotsky's Communist International. At the time of her death, shewas a full member of the SpartacistLeague Central Committee and of theInternational Executive Committee ofthe International Communist League.Her loss is incalculable both to ourparty internationally and to her family-Jim Robertson. Martha and Martha'schildren Rachel. Sarah and K e n n e t h ~ as \\ell as her father Henry and mother\1ary King and the rest of the Kingfamily.

Lizzy gre\\ lip in a large family inNe\\ York City. Following the death ofher mother. Barbara. h e r ~ father Hen'ryKing. a succe,sful corporate lawyer.remarried. Mary King raised Lizzy asher own daughter. and for Lizzy shebecame "mom:' Lizzy attended Brearleypri\ate school for girls in New York.She always yalued the education shereceivcd therc and many of the friendships made at Brearley endured untilthe end of her life. As a teenager shewas sent to Miss Porters. an exclusiyefinishing school for "old money" society girls. Her first-hand experience ofanti-Semitism and class snobbery thereplayed a role in her becoming a passionate fighter against racism and inequality.Lizzy first encountered the SpartacistLeague in the early 1970s while a studentat Boston University. Under the impactof the Vietnam War. Boston campuseswere a hotbed of New Left radicalism.Lizzy was active in the Cambridge Tenants Organizing Committee. a group trying to defend working-classfamilies from being pushed out of their homes as theuniversities expanded. She was recruited to Trotskyism. joining the Revolutionary Communist Youth, theSL s youth group in 1973. For many studenb. thebrush with radical activism was just an episode ofyouthful rebellion on the road to an eventual comfortable career. But Lizzy's recruitment to the fight forinternational socialist revolution was for keeps.Lizzy was accepted into party membership in July1974. She had by then transferred to Detroit, wherethe SL was seeking to intervene among the largelyblack proletariat of the auto factories. She imp ressedcomrades as the youth organizer as well as by herparticipation in the lively debates that took place asthe party began to get more experience in trade-unionwork. Here she also began the difficult training tobecome a legal stenographic reporter. a profession inwhich she was active until her debilitation by cancer.

Around 1976 she transferred to New York in orderto be part of the national leadership of the youthorganization (renam ed the Spartacus Youth League).Lizzv was elected to the SYL National Bureau inJuly 1976 and was a member of the editorial boardof the monthly Young Spartucus from October 1976through September 1978. She served for a year as theSYL National Organizational Secretary. Her experience as youth organizer and leader was crucial '")Lizzy'S understanding of the importance of a youthorganization in the training of party cadre.In August 1978. she resigned her leading positionsin the youth organization in order to take on the jobof secretary of the Political Bureau. Not only didLizzy fulfill the demanding assignment of getting outregular and accurate minutes throughout her years inNew York, but she turned the job ofPB secretary intoa nexus for organizing political discussions. Herclose personal association with SL national chairman James Robertson began at this time, and sheremained his loving companion and closest partycollaborator until her death. After serving on theparty Central Committee as a representative of theSYL, Lizzy was co-opted in her own right in 1979and elected a full CC member at the August 1983national conference. She also took charge of the subject indexing for the bound volumes of our press,which are the documentary record of our politicalline and our work. Lizzy transferred to the Sa n Francisco Bay Area at the beginning of the 1990s. Shetirelessly guided the local leadership. was secretaryof the West Coast CC group and also took continuous responsibility for our local in Los Angeles.

28 OCTOBER 2005

ElizabethKing Robertsonconference that elects the leading body(the CC in the SL or the IEC in the ICL).Lizzy was clear-eyed in seeing theweaknesses as well as the strengths ofcomrades, including her closest friends.and she was renowned for her fairness.This ability is crucial in a Leninist party,which aims to build its leadership as acollective that is stronger than the sumof its individual parts.

(I/;-z' ~ ~ 1951-2005

Robertson Family

Lizzy's strength was in tackling the intersection ofpolitical principle with concrete social reality. coming up with tactics and slogans to express our program. She closely followed the work of Spartaeistsupporters in the trade unions and her cOLlI1sel washighly valued by those involved in such work. Shewas a longtime member of the Bay Area Localexecutive committee and fought to remain on thisbody despite her many other responsibilities becauseshe understood so well that making political decisions real means daily choices of '"what to betray" inorder to focus on the most important things: it meansfinding the right comrades for the concrete tasks andpreparing them politically to carry out those tasks.Lizzy was unsurpassed as a Leninist politicalorganizer. After a party gathering. she was inevitablyinvolved in figuring out how to shift personnelor assignments to make the political priorities justestablished actually happen. She had a profoundunderstanding of how our organizational functioning corresponds to our revolutionary purpose. Fordecades. Lizzy was one of a handful of comradeswho took initiative in formulating. refining and codifying our internal norms and practices as the partycame across new situations or as p roblems were seenwith the existing rules.At the ICL's Third International Conference in1998. she gave a presentation. "On the Origins andDevelopment of Leninist Organizational Practices."Published in Sp(lrt({cist No. 54 (Spring 1998) alongwith our revised "Organizational Rules and Guidelines." Lizzy's presentation educated both youngcomrades and experienced cadres by providing thehistorical background, beginning with the first Marxist organizations founded by Karl Marx himself. toenable the conference delegates to consider theRules. In this presentation, she explained: "Livingorganizational rules are one of perhaps a half-dozenelements that characterize an organization: in thatsense, they are political. But they are not determinate. A sound set of organizational rules is not aguard against political departures. although departures from our organizational norms are generally asignal of political problems. In the absence ofBolshevik practices. an organization is necessarilyamorphous, that is. Menshevik."

Though she rarely raised her voice. Lizzy was apowerful speaker at party gatherings. Her astute judgment and forthrightness made her a uniquely authoritative voice in the deliberations through which theparty selects a leadership. Numerous times she waschosen to chair the nominating commission chargedwith recommending a slate of candidates to the party

Lizzy was also her own harshestcritic. Although in great pain. sheauthored a document on October 7addressing her role in a political fight inthe Los Angeles Local that had heenmarred by extreme characterization, ofcomrades and bureaucratic practices.Her purpose was not a II/'U (': t ijl({ but astatement of conscientious regard forclarity. drawing the political lessonsnecessary to strengthen the party.Beginning in early 1979. LillY \\ asa mainstay of the editorial board ofWOII/,Il ulld R('\"{)/Ulioll. the journalof the SL CC Commission for WorkAmong Women. Lizzy authored or coauthored some of W&R"s articles onthe most sensitive subjects. defendinghuman sexuality and exposing the barbarous cruelty of the bourgeois state asit destro;. s the lives of people whoseonly "crime" is that their sexual proclivities and needs vary from the repressi\e. religion-based strictures of hypocritical bourgeois moralism. She wrotearticles on the AIDS crisis. the crimeof female genital mutilation. the fabricated "child abuse" day-care scandals.incest and the furor over so-called "daterape." When publication of W&R was. suspended after the Spring 1996 issue.Lizzy continued to contribute to thearticles published under the W&Rmasthead in the press of the nationalsections of the ICL. including WorknsvlJllguard. and in Sp{/rt{{Cisl. During thelast weeks of her life. Lizzy was heavily involved inthe editing of an article for the next issue of Sp{{rt(l-

cist examining the debates and discussions in theBolshevik Party over women' s emancipation afterthe Russian Re\'oJution.The final undoing of the October Revolution in1991-92 was a historic defeat for the workers of theworld. ushering in a difficult period for revolutionists. Our difficulties in coming to grips with thenew period have been expressed in political disorientation and corresponding internal difficulties(see "Spartacist League 12th National C o n f e r e n c e ~ A Hard Look at Recent Party Work and CurrentTasks," WV No. 841. 4. February). Nobody has beenimmune to these problems. but comrade Lizzyplayed a forward role in trying to get the party out ofthis morass. Several times during the past five or sixyears. our internal bulletins have featured a document by Lizzy. submitted early in the discussion.often less than one page in length. which became atouchstone for subsequent contributions. Often herdocument would begin from a concrete. seeminglytactical question of a particular projected intervention somewhere. and would p roceed logically to illuminate programmatic and principled issues.After Lizzy's cancer was diagnosed. she undertooksurgery. chemotherapy and. finally. radiation. Herfather ensured that she obtained high-quality care.which was ultimately unavailing. She continued to doher biweekly sales and other public political activity.In April 2003. she was wounded by a "non-lethal projectile" fired from a cop shotgun during the viciouspolice attack on antiwar protesters, longshoremenand port truckers at the Port of Oakland.

Her comrades, family and friends will missLizzy's presence in our lives for as long as we haveconsciousness. We will miss her fine mind, herhumor. her warmth and compassion. We will alwaysremember her beauty and courage. Even in the midstof our grief. we celebrate her life and find comfort inknowing that she lived as she chose to and neverwavered in her belief that fighting for the liberationof all the exploited and oppressed was the right wayfor her to live. For us. she has been a very stronglink in the chain of continuity that goes all the wayback to Marx and Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, andCannon. We resolve to honor our beloved comradeLizzy by carrying on her struggle.

Memorial MeetingsMemorial meetings are planned in New York onNovember 12. for information call (212) 732-7861: inthe Bay Area on November 20, call (510) 839-0851.

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Fifteen Years of Capitalist Counterrevolution:Cynicism, Unemployment, Clerical Reaction

W,\R'-;,\\\ _OCI,)h,'i 2-"---Th,-' r.:,-',:!ll P ~ l " li:ll1l,:'I1Llry and r r c ' , i d e n t i ~ l 1 ekcti(\!1' inP"hnd t'")K p i a l ' ~ ' in the j l 1 l i 1 l C c ! i ~ l t c ullll'L1 1lfrice ~ , ! : , a i n in2()n!. it -:l1l11iJlu-?cilhc' ::!lli-\Iorking-cla,sl 1 l e ~ h U r L " of ,-\\\S, ThL' '-;LD g orStalinist leader Gomulka, \\ho \\a, inpO\\er frolll 1956-70, and his ~ l I c c c " \ l ) r Gierek. Gierek rUlnousl: l1111rtga!:,c:dPoland's wealth tl) \\cstern banker, andah n ruinously drained the ecol1(\I11Y tllsubsidize the landO\\ning pl'a,anh,

When workers exploded in struggle in1980 in respollse to rising price, anelshortages of food and other consumergoods. they lookcd to the pO\\ errul Catholic church as the recognized opposition tothe discredited Stalinist regime, Thoughthe Gdansk strikers initially sang the"Internationale:' this was soon replacedhy thc old national hymn. "Oh God. WhoHas Defended Poland." Walcsa declaredhimself at every opportunity to be a trueson of the Polish church, Walentynowicz.when asked if she was a socialist. saidthat she was a believer. Many of the "dissidents" were openly reactionary-virulently nationalist. anti-communist. antidemocratic and anti-Semitic (despite thefact that there were few Jev\s left inPoland), Former leftist Jacek Kuron.whose Workers Defense Committee(KOR) braintrusted SolidarnosL'. wa , asocial democrat who supported pea,antstruggles for prilate property and claimedthat .Othe Catholic movement is fighting todefend freedom of conscience and humandignity:' When Solidarnosc gained powerin 1989, Kuron became the first laborminister of a now-capitalist Poland, Oneof his first acts was to smash a May 1990rail strike, And Kuron was the darling ofthe Western left, the "socialist . face ofSolidarnosc reaction.

In commenting on the outcome of theGdansk shipyard strike, we raised the callin our headline, "Fight Clerical Reaction!For Proletarian Political Revolution!"(WV No. 263. 5 September 1980). Wewrote of the agreement that ended thestrike:"Ilbofar as the settlement enhances thePolish w o r k e r ~ , ' power to struggle againstthe Stalinist hureaucrac\,. revolutionariescan support the strike ~ n d its outcome,But only a blind man could fail tosee the gros'> influence of the Catholicchurch a ~ 1 d also pro-Western sentiment,amon[! the \lrikin[! workers, If the settlement s t r e n [ ! t h e n ~ the \\orkin!! classorganization'ally. it also strengthens theforces of reaction, Poland stands todayon a razor'sedge:'

Solidarnosc consolidated around a program for capitalist counterrevolution atits founding congress in September 1981.

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This was demonstrated by its calls for"free trade u n i o n s " ~ a war cry of ColdWar a n t i - S o v i e t i s m ~ a n d for "free eJections:' which would have meant capitalist restoration under the guisc of parliamentary government (which is whathappcncd in 1989-90). Solidarnosc wasactively supported by a wide range ofreactionary forces. from the Vaticanunder Polish Pope Karol Wojtyla (akaJohn Paul II ) to union-busting U.S. p r c ~ i -dent Ronald Rcagan and ConservativeBritish prime minister Margaret Thatcher.Joining thcm were the pro-imperialistAFL-CIO labor bureaucracy and anticommunist social democrats like thc German SPD. which actcd as conduits forCIA funding and provided other materialsupport to Solidarnosc.

The international Spartacist tendency.precursor to the International CommunistLeague. raiscd the call "Stop SolidarnoscCounterrevolution!" (sce WV No. 289. 25Scptembcr 1981). To the anti-sociali,tprogram of Solidarnosc. we counterposedthe call for trade unions independcnt ofbureaucratic control and based on a program of defending collectivized property.The demands raised in our a r t i c 1 e s ~ f o ' r strict .separation of church and state. forcollectivization of agriculture. for canceling Poland's debt to the imperialist bankers. for military defense of the USSRagainst imperialism. for prolctarian political resolution to oust the Stalinistb u r e a u c r a c y ~ c o n s t i t u t e d the programmatic core of what a Trotskyist internationalist vanguard party would haveraised in the strL1ggle to defend the Polishworkers state against imperialism andcapitalist restoration. We stressed thatPolish workers needed to appropriatcthc proud traditions of the Polish communist movement. We pointed to the example of the internationalist Jewish womanfighter Rosa Luxcmburg. who was murdered at the instigation of thc GermanSPD during the failed 1918-19 GermanRevolution. which she help lead. We alsopointed to the Pole Feliks Dzcrzhinsky.Luxemburg's comrade in the Polish revolutionary workers movement. who joinedthe ranks of the Russian Bolsheviks andwent on to lead the C h e k a ~ t h e Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counterrevolution and S a b o t a g e ~ a f t c r the October Revolution.

Our support for Stalinist generalJaruzelski's suppression of Solidarnosc'counterre\olutionary bid for power inDecember 1981 was an application ofour unconditional military defense of thedeformed and degenerated workers statesagainst capitalist counterrevolution. Atthe same time we warned that the Stalinists were capable of selling out the Polish deformed workers s t a t e ~ w h i c h theyeventually did in 1989-90. It was theimpact of our Trotskyist program inopposition to Solidarnosc counterrevolution and our struggle against the capitalistreunification of Germany in 1989-90 thatpropelled the militants of the Young LeftMovement (RML) in Poland toward theICL. This resulted in the establishmentof the $partacist Group of Poland. a

A Spartacist Pamphlet $1.00

SolidarnoSc:PolishCompany Union forCIA and Bankers\ .,

Spartacist Pamphlet$1 (40 pages)Make checks payable/mail to:Spartacist Publishing Co.Box 1377 GPO, NY, NY 10116

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Above:September 1981NYC SpartacistdemonstrationexposesSolidarnosc ascompany union forCIA and Vatican.Right: Solidarnoschead Walesa (left)praying withGdansk shipyardworkers, 1980.

sympathizing section of the ICL. whichexisted until 200 I. In contrast to the Polish "left." who all hailed and supportedSolidarnosc counterrevolution. the SGPexposed and opposed the clericalist.nationalist. capitalist-restorationist program which Walesa. Walentynowicz.Gwiazda. Kuron et al. stood for from thebeginning.Pseudo-Left Still TailsSolidarnosc

In the recent elections there was nocandidate r c p r ~ s e n t i n g the working classby running independently of and againstthe bourgeois parties and candidates. Yetgroups like Employee Democracy (PD).affiliated with the British Socialist Wwkers Party of the late Tony Cliff, urgedsupport to presidential candidate MariaSzyszkowska. a bourgeois liberal whoopposes the war in Iraq. PO shares theliberal anti-communist views of Szyszkowska. who criticizes Solidarnosc todaybut praises the Solidarnosc of the 1980s.She opposed making August 31 "Solidarnosc Day:' asserting that "this wouldbe a rebuff to those who have lost by thetransformations:' while stating at thesame time: "I do not put in question thestriving for freedom of 25 years ago.I admire. e.g . Ms. Walentynowicz. Mr.Gwiazda or the sadly departed JacekKuron. They were the pioneers of SolidarnosC" (www.senat.gov.pl). From aMarxist point of view. any electoral support to this bourgeois candidate wasthoroughly unprincipled. Her electoralprogram did not even purport to speak inthe name of the working class. let aloneadvocate anything socialist. Thus to callon workers to vote for Szyszkowskameant subordinating the working class toa political representative of the bourgeois i e ~ a form of class collaboration thatMarxists oppose on principle.SzyszkO\vska failed to get the necessary signatures to run for president. Shethen got put on the slate of the PolishLabor Party (PPP) in the parliamentaryelections. from which she later withdrew.All the groups of the Polish "radical left"promoted a vote for candidates of thePPP. the political arm of the right-wingunion Sierpien (August) 80.Sierpien 80 originated as a split froman outfit called Solidarnosc 80. led byone Marian Jurczyk. At the 1981 Solidarnosc founding congress. Jurczyk wasone of the most rabid anti-communists,garnering a quarter of the votes as a"radical" right-wing opponent of Walesa.At the time. Jurczyk declared that three-

WV Photo

Der Spiegelquarters of the Polish Stalinist leadershipwere really Jews who had changed theirnames and that "a couple of gallowswould come in handy" to deal with these"traitors to Polish society." Sierpien 80split from Solidarnosc 80 claiming to befor "pure economic struggle," but it wasno less prone to populist nationalism.railing: .. It doesn't make sense to oppressa Pole in order to please Italians. Belgians and Spaniards."

The origin of such reactionary tradeunions lies in the fact that with thedestruction of the Polish dcformcd workers state. Solidarnosc had served its purpose as the spearhead for capitalist counterrevolution. Its peasant sector andmany intellectuals decamped. and Solidarnosc (and its offshoots) became moreakin to a trade union in social composition. We observed: "The official Solidarnosc union now poses as a championof working-class interests while revvingup it s anti-Communist demagogy andmaking overtures to openly fascisticforces" (WVNo. 614.13 January 1995).Taking into account only the latter. weargued one-sidedly in a 1998 article inPlatfo/'llU/ Spartaku.I'm\c(hr, paper of theSGP: "The function of Solidarnosc hasnothing to do with 'trade unionism' ofany kind. 'militant' or otherwise:' Thisformulation wrongly denied the fact thatSolidarnosc is both a trade union and areactionary clericalist organization. Itorganizes workers at the point of production, sometimes leading defensive economic struggles: at the same time itfunctions as a political movement closelyallied to the Catholic hierarchy andexplicitly right-wing nationalist panies.Sierpien 80's political ann. the PPP.

originated before the March 2001 parliamentary elections as an electoral blocof the right-wing, anti-Semitic Confederation for an Independent PolandFatherland and the Christian-NationalUnion. as well as the fascist NOP. InMay 2002. they sent a conti!1gent of Polish miners to Paris to join the fascist LePen's National Front in a march againstthe European Union.

In 2004. the PPP refurbished its image.PPP chairman Daniel Podrzycki (whodied in a car accident the day before therecent parliamentary elections) tried topaint the PPP in social-democratic colors.In the recent campaign they put forwardsuch demands as the 35-hour workweekwith no lowering of wages. benefits forall unemployed throughout the wholcperiod of unemployment. separation ofchurch and state. equality of women andmen. tolerance and respect for all minorit i e s ~ n a t i o n a l . religious and sexual. ThePPP also demanded withdrawal of Polishtroops from Iraq. This "turn to the left .meant to provide the PPP with acccss tothe social-democratic s a l o n s ~ a n d . nodoubt. m o n e y ~ o f the Party of EuropeanSocialists in the European Parliament.After Poland joined the EU. the PPP toneddown some of its Polish chauvinism. Butdespite all this newfound "leftism." Sierpien 80 wields anti-communist graphicsand rhetoric in its campaign against theSLD.

The PPP organized an electoral blocwith the bourgeois liberals of the AntiClericalist Party of Poland. the bourgeoisGreens. Solidarnosc-derived social democrats from the Polish Socialist Party andthe ex-Stalinist Communist Party ofPoland (KPP). The candidates of theseparties ran on the PPP slate. which gotless than 0.8 percent of the votes. Judgedby its political program and history, thePPP is a bourgeois formation. To callfor a working-class \'Ole to these Polishnationalists and clerical reactionariesamounts to betraying the interests of thePolish proletariat.

Among the groups supporting PPPcandidates is the Group for the WorkersParty (GPR). Polish section of the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI)of Peter Taaffe. The GPR supported Grzegorz Kupis. a PPP candidate in the townof Radom. highlighting the fact that he isa tram worker and member of Sierpien 80and more "radical" than the PPP. (ThePPP slate listed him as a candidate of thePolish Ecological Party. the Greens.) TheRevolutionary Left Movement (NLR).which describes itself as fraternally alliedwith both the USec and the thoroughlyLabourite and anti-communist BritishAlliance fo r Workers Liberty. called forcritical support for the whole PPP slateand for Podrzycki in the presidential race.They described the PPP coalition as a"great chance" to gain a hearing amongworkers. which would supposedly makeit easier to "build a strong leftist formation in the future that would express thevoice and the interests of the employeeclass in Poland" (www.marksizm.of.pl).Similarly, the Cliffite PO described thePPP program as "the most interesting,the most leftist electoral program" andanointed Podrzycki an "anti-capitalist"(www.pd.w.pl). Just as in the 1980s. allthese groups promote illusions in the "left

continued Oil page 10

Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist League:J $10/21 issues of Workers Vanguard :J New :J Renewal(includes English-language Spartacist and Black History and the Class Struggle)international rates: $25/21 issues-Airmail $10/21 issues-Seamail:J $2/6 introductory issues of Workers Vanguard (includes English-language Spartacist):J $2/4 issues of Espartaco (en espanol) (includes Spanishlanguage Spartacist)Name ______________________________ ____________Address ___________________________________________________

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YODDg SparlaeDSNot One Person, Not One Penny for the Imperialist Military!Marxism, Militarism and War

#"

' ~ J " " < , \ - , , ~ ,,..s, "> . , ,~ % ' W - . i 'AP

MILITARYRCRUITERS_IMPERIALISTLOOTERS

IJFF CAMPl/5NOW.!

Young SpartacusLeft: U.S. troops brutalize Iraqis in Falluja, November 2004. Right: SYC leads protest against ROTC at UC Berkeley, April 16.

The following Young Spartacus arti-cle was issl/ed ill leaflet form Oil Octo-be r 19 an d distrihuted by the SY C at the"011 the Frolltlines" natiollal "COl/llterrecruitmellt" cOllferellce at UC BerkeleyOil October 22-23.

* * *As the barbaric U.S. neocolonial occupation of Iraq drags on, hundreds of thousands rallied for an end to the occupation in Washington, D.C., L.A. and SanFrancisco on September 24. Hundreds ofstudents in San Francisco and Washington. D.C., marched in "College Not Combat. Relief Not War" contingents. Thesecontingents represented students aroundthe country who have waged campaignsagainst military recruiters in high schoolsand on college campuses. broadly knownas the "counter-recruitment" movement.These student protests have been motivated by opposition not only to the occupation of Iraq, but also to the "economicdraft." which drives many working-class,disproportionately black and other minority youth to sign up for the military, aswell as opposition to the military's antigay discrimination.

The U.S. rulers' crusade against Iraqfor more than a decade. under bothRepublican and Democratic administrations. has exacted a huge death toll,primarily of Iraqis: over 1.5 million werekilled by malnutrition and disease as aresult of UN sanctions alone and severalhundred thousand more during bothwars and the occupation. While muchsympathy in the U.S. is directed currently toward the almost 2,000 Americansoldiers who have died in Iraq. the starting point for Marxists is that workingpeople must take a side in the war andoccupation-against U.S. imperialism.Every blow. setback or defeat for thebloodiest imperialist power on the planetis a blow in the interests of workingpeople around the world. Just as westood for the defense of Iraq against U.S.attack during the war. today \ve standfor the unconditional, immediate withdrawal of u.s. troops and for defenseof the peoples of Iraq against U.S.attack and repression. Insofar as Iraqiforces on the ground aim their blowsagainst the imperialist occupiers andtheir lackeys. we call for their militarydefense against U.S. imperialism. At the6

u.s. Out of Iraq Now!Down With theImperialist Occupation!

same time. we oppose the murderouscommunal violence against ethnic, religious and national populations often carried out by the same forces fighting theoccupation.

While much of the activity aroundthe "counter-recruitment" movement isdirected at preventing individual youthfrom signing up for the military, themain campus organizers of many of thecollege protests. the Campus AntiwarNetwork (CAN). which is dominatedpolitically by the International SocialistOrganization (ISO), state: "We believethat it is not enough to convince peopleon an individual level that the military isa bad idea ... We need to build a movement that will force the military out ofour school and our classrooms for good"("College Not Combat: Get the MilitaryOut of Our Schools," CAN Web site).

The question is: Can you actuallyaccomplish that? While it is a very goodthing that student protests may succeedin temporarily kicking the military of fcampus, the reality is that recruiters andofficer training programs like ROTC willkeep coming back so long as the imperialist army exists. During the late 1960sand early 1970s. ROTC was kicked offover a hundred campuses, not only as theresult of student protest. but especiallybecause there was massive social struggle going on more broadly and becausethe U.S. imperialists were losing the waragainst the revolutionary Vietnameseworkers and peasants. But over the years.ROTC was restored to many of thesecampuses again. As Marxists. our goal isnot just to get ROTC and militaryrecruiters off campus for now. but to winstudents to the struggle to organize thesocial power of the working class forsocialist revolution to get rid of imperial-

ist militarism, and the capitalist system itserves. once and for all.Revolutionary Anti-Militarismvs. Pacifist Delusion

The Spartacus Youth Clubs and theSpartacist League have initiated. led andparticipated in many protests to drivemilitary recruiters and ROTC off campuses over the course of four decades. Aswe stated at an SYC-Ied protest againstROTC at UC Berkeley last April: "Military recruiters and ROTC are directappendages of the military machine thatexists to defend the American imperialistruling class" ("SYC Leads ProtestAgainst ROTC:' WV No. 848. 13 May).We understand that the military exists tocarry out imperialist conquest abroadand repression against working peopleat home. We uphold the call raised byGerman Marxist Wilhelm Liebknecht:"Not a man nor a penny" for bourgeoismilitarism.

We vigorously defend all those whohave been victimized by campus administrations and the cops for their actionsagainst military recruiters. includingmost recently. student protesters at Holyoke Community College in Massachusetts who on September 29 were assaultedby police while picketing an ArmyNational Guard recruiting table in theschool cafeteria. We also defend thoseorganizations that have been victimizedby the campus administration for organizing protests. such as the ISO and Students Against War at San Francisco StateUniversity.

As Marxists, we have a program forfighting against the imperialist militarythat is counterposed to that of the"counter-recruitment" movement, whoseorganizers range from religious and Iib-

eral pacifists to supposedly socialistorganizations such as the ISO. The difference comes down to how you answertwo fundamental and related questions:How do you successfully fight to endimperialist war'? How do you fight to endmilitarism? We understand that you cannot end war. imperialist militarism or theeconomic conditions that force workingclass and minority youth into the military without getting rid of the capitalistsystem in which these arc rooted.

In contrast. the program of the "counterrecruitment" movement is to try to reformthe capitalist system to be less militaristand imperialist. This is summed up inCAN's "College Not Combat" pamphlet:

"We believe that the money that is goingto fight the occupation of Iraq and the $4billion spent annually on military recruiting should be spent on real educationalopportunities and job funding. The bestway to win that demand is to build amass movement to get recruiters off ourcampuses for g o o d : ~ This strategy is entirely consistent withthe politics of purportedly socialistorganizations such as the ISO. WorkersWorld Party (WWP) and RevolutionaryCommunist Party (RCP). which havesought to build an "antiwar movement"consisting of "peace-loving" people ofall different classes to pressure the imperialist rulers to stop the war on Iraq. endthe occupation and put resources intoworthy endeavors rather than war. Themain goal for such organizations is toreform the capitalist system. a systemthat can't be made to serve the interestsof working people and the oppressed,

The ISO. WW P and RCP's program ofpressuring the capitalists to make theirsystem more humane serves to demobilize struggles of radical youth. workersand the oppressed. Preaching pacifistreformism. these groups are an obstacleto the development of revolutionary consciousness among those engaged in struggle. A resolution during World War I by aconference of exiled Russian revolutionary Marxists in Switzerland. includingBolshe\ik leader V. I. Lenin. explained:"Pacifism. the preaching of peace in theabstract. is one of the means of dupingthe working class. Under capitalism. par-ticularly in its imperialist stage. wars areinevitable ...."The propaganda of peace unaccompanied by a call for revolutionary massaction can only sow illusions and demor-

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alise the proletariat. for it makes the pro-letariat believe that the bour!eoisie ishumane:' C

- "The Conference of theR.S.D.L.P. Groups Abroad."February 1915

It is precisely such pacifist duping thatreformist "socialist" groups engage in bybuilding antiwar and "counter-recruitment"movements based on calls such as "N o towar!", "War is not the answer." "Hurricanerelief. not war"-the preaching of peacein the abstract with no call fo r revolutionary action by the working class againstthe capitalist system. Such campaignspush the lie that imperialist militarismand war can be ended through meansother than the overthrow of the imperialist order through proletarian. revolutionary. internationalist struggle.The Road to Peace LiesThrough Class War

As the newspaper of the AmericanTrotskyist youth organization of the 1930sfrom which we take our name stated:

"For the youth. as for other workers. it isimperative that he learns the class natureof society and of !ovcrnment and of\\arfare. Vv'hcn he l e ' ~ ' n s these lessons hewill have made headway in the fundamental qucstion. Between classes therecan be no peace till onc or the other isvanquished. The workers han' to under-stand that the road to peaCf lies throughwar: class war. class stru!!.!Ic."-"Disarmamcnt a ~ Z i Pacifism."

}( l/ / lIg 'Spilr/i lells No. -'.February 1932

Imperialist war and militarism are theoutcome of capitalist. class-divided society. in which a tiny minority of the population owns the banks and industry andamasses profit by exploiting the labor ofthe working class. The military is anintegral component of the capitalist state,which consists also of the cops, thecourts. the prisons-forces of repressionand violence that defend the rule of thecapitalist class against the working andoppressed masses.

The drive toward war is inherent in thecapitalist system. In his classic work on thesubject. Imperialism. the Highest Stage ( ~ f Capitalism. Lenin laid out that imperialism is not some reformable policy, but thefinal stage of capitalism in its decay. Contending imperialist powers carve up theworld into spheres of economic influence.as the nation-state proves too narrow andconfining in terms of markets and theavailability of cheap labor and naturalresources. Imperialism is fundamentallyan economic system backed up by massivemilitary force to "settle" the inevitableeconomic rivalries between major capitalist states. These rivalries throw humanity into interimperialist world wars ofmassive devastation, such as World WarsI and II. The drive to control markets andspheres of exploitation also leads topredatory wars by imperialists againstcolonial and semi colonial countries.

Ch Jenks/Traprock Peace"College Not Combat, Relief NotWar" contingent in Washington, D.C.,September 24. Reformist organizersof "counter-recruitment" movementpush pipe-dream of "kinder, gentler"capitalism.28 OCTOBER 2005

Dietz Verlag BerlinKarl Liebknecht in soldier's uniformduring WWI. German bourgeoisiedrafted and then jailed Liebknecht inattempt to silence his revolutionaryanti-militarist agitation.

Revolutionary Marxist Rosa Luxemburgin her 1916 lunills P(/mphlet describedthe true nature of imperialist capitalism.as revealed at that time by World War I:

"Shamcd. di'honored. wadin>! in bloodand dripping \\ith filth-thus stand,bouwcois society. And so it is. ~ l l t as weusualIy ,ee it. P;'ctty and ch'hte. playingthc role, of peace and righteousness. oforder. of philo,ophy. ethics and culturc.It shows itself in its true. naked fo rmas a roarin! beast. as an or!\ of anarchy.as a p e s t i l ~ n t i a l breath. dec\:a,tating cul-ture and humanity."

While this barbaric system generatesdiscontent among wide layers of the population, the only power that students have ontheir own is to register their anger throughvarious forms of protest. However, there isa social force that has the power not just toprotest. but to shut down the whole systemwe live under-the multiracial workingclass. Its social power derives from the factthat it has its hands directly on the meansof production-the mines. factories, meansof transp0I1 and communications-and canshut down production and capitalist profitby withholding its labor. by striking. Onesolid longshore strike during the Iraq wacwould have had a far greater impact on theU.S. government than many millions ofpeace protesters marching in the street. Itis that kind of social power that studentsand the oppressed masses need to look toand ally with.

The working class not only has thesocial power but the objective interest toput an en d to capitalist rule. The workers' interests can never be reconciledwith those of the capitalists who exploitthem. The interests of working peopleand the oppressed can be served only bycreating a socialist society where production is for human need. not the profitof a small layer of exploiters. It is onlythrough class war. i.e . the struggle of theworking class leading the oppressedagainst the capitalist order. that the economic and political roots of imperialistwar and militarism can be destroyed. Thedestruction of capitalism will not happenspontaneously. but requires the intervention of a conscious Marxist leadership. arevolutionary workers party that tightsfor socialist revolution. It is such a partythat the Spartacist League, of which theSYCs are the student-youth auxiliary, isdedicated to forging.

Left Servants of ImperialismIf the idea of mobilizing the workingclass in mass struggle seems far-fetched tomost youth in the U.S. today. it is becausewhat they have seen of class war in theirIifetimcs has mostly consistcd of a capitalist assault on workers. with very littleworking-class struggle in response. It isimportant to understand from a historicalperspective not only that the class contradictions of this system will inevitablylead to future mass struggles by workingpeople. bu t also that the power of theworking class has been kept in chainsby working-class misleaderships. Class

struggle has been demobilized by thefalse ideology pushed by the trade-unionbureaucracy and its \eft helpers: that theillte.rests of labor and capital can bereconciled. that the overturn of this wholerotten. stinking system is impossibleand therefore the best we can do isto negotiate "better" terms of capitalistexploitation for working people. As partof the struggle to uproot the whole profitsystem. a class-struggle leadership ofthe labor movement would fight for free.quality, integrated education for all. freehealth care. decent jobs and housingfor all and against racial and sexualoppression.

The lie that working people and theirexploiters can share a common interest ispushed in practice through the tradeunion bureaucracy's open support to thecapitalist Democratic Party and the promotion of "antiwar" Democrats and pettycapitalist Greens by ostensibly socialistorganizations in the antiwar movement.Pro-imperialist trade-union bureaucratswho support the "war on terror" (in reality a war on immigrants. black people andlabor) and the war and occupation in Iraqare clearly misleaders of the workingclass. More insidious are those who standin opposition to the war but preach a pro-

Panorama/DDR

Revolutionary MarxistRosa Luxemburg.Right: Cartoon depictingLuxemburg, 1914, titled"Militarism StandsAccused."

gram of capitalist reform, a program thatis objectively for the maintenance of thesystem that breeds war-these are alsomisleaders of the working class.Such left-talking misleaders are hardlya recent development in the history ofthe class struggle. Lenin's trenchantpolemics against two "servants of imperialism" during World War I, Karl Kautskyand Filippo Turati, fit today's ISO, WW Pand RCP to a tee:

"When socialist leaders like Turati andKautsky try to convince the masses,either by direct statements .. . or by silentevasions (of which Kautsky is a pastmaster). that the present imperialist warcan result in a democratic peace, whilethe bourgeois governments remain inpower and without a revolutionary insur-rection a!ainst the whole network ofimperialist world relations. it is our dutyto declare that such propaganda is adeception of the people. that it has noth-in! in common with socialism. that ita l ~ o u n t s to the embellishment of animperialist peace ...."Their [Kauhky and Turati 1attention isentircly absorbed in reforms. in pactsbetween sections of the rulin>! classes: itis to them that they addrcss thcmsehcs.it is thcm they seek to persuade.' it is tothem the) wish to adapt the labourmovement:'

- "A Turn in World Politics."January 1917

An example of how the ISO andWW P look to the capitalist class enemy.not the working class. is their promotion of cross-class liberal "antiwar" alli-ances, such as the strategy of working

with Democratic and Green Party politicians to get city council resolutions (inNew York) and ballot propositions (inSan Francisco) passed against militaryrecruiters in schools. Seeking to persuadethe powers that be on the campus level.the ISO appeals to those who administer the colleges on behalf of the capitalists to stop violating their professed antidiscrimination policies and ban militaryrecruiters. We call for a "yes" vote onSan Francisco Proposition I as a basicstatement of opposition to military recruit-ers in schools. However. it is not throughpropositions that you can fight to en dimperialist militarism-only throughworking-class struggle. An d workingclass struggle must be independent ofthe capitalist class enemy. includingthe Democratic Party of racism and war.Revolutionary Politicsand Military Defense of Iraq

The ISO. WW P and RCP's refusal tocall for the military defense of Iraq againstU.S. and British imperialism in the lead-up to and during the war is yet anotherproof of their class-collaborationist orientation. Marxists are not pacifists. In his1915 work. Socialism ({nd War. Leninsummarized the attitude of Marxists to

Verlag Kurt Deschwars between imperialist powers andcolonial or semi colonial countries:

"I f tomorrow. Morocco were to declarewar on France, or India on Britain. orPersia or China on Russia. and so on.these would be 'just: and 'defensive'wars, irrespective of who would be thefirst to attack: any socialist would wishthe oppressed. dependent and unequalstates victory over the oppressor. slave-holding and predatory 'Great' Powers."

The Spartacist League and SpartacusYouth Club applied this program of revo-lutionary defensism in the lead-up to andduring the Iraq war. uniquely raising theslogans: "Defend Iraq Against U.S.lBritishImperialist Attack' Down With U.S. Imperialism! For Class Struggle Against U.S.Capitalist Rulers!" We took a side mili-tarily with semicolonial Iraq against theU.S. imperialist invaders. while politicallyopposing Saddam Hussein's bloody capitalist regime. While fayoring the defeat ofthe U.S .. we understood that given theenormous military advantage of the UnitedStates. the most effectiye means of opposing the U.S. war dri\c was internationalworking-class struggle against the capital-ists. especially here in the U.S.

Forthright military defense of Iraq wasanathema to the ISO. WW P and RCPbecause their goal was not to mobilizeworking people on the side of the Iraqipeople and for the defeat of the U.S . butto build a "movement" for pressuring theimperialists to end the war. In practice this

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Militarism ...(continlledfrom page 7)meant uniting with liberals and capitalistpoliticians like Democrats Jesse Jacksonand AI Sharpton, ~ h o came out against theIraq war not because they are opposed toU.S. imperialism but because they don'tthink the \var/occupation is the best v.ay ofadvancing the interests of U.S. imperialism. That senti ment has grown among alayer of the ruling class who want to extractthe U.S. from the quagmire the Iraq occupation has become. In addition to bein!! thevoice for a section of the ruling class ~ v h o thought that an anti-Communist campaignagainst North Korea made more sense thangoing after Iraq. these "antiwar" politicians arc doing their job for the capitalistsof containing black and working-classanger against this system safely withlllthe confines of bourgeois electoralism.In a seeming about-face. the wryorganizations that steadfastly refused tocall for the defense of Iraq d u ~ i n g the w ~ r . i.e . when it counted. such as the ISO andWWP. are today cheering the "right toresist" the U.S. occupation forces. TheISO has suddenly discovered quotes fromLenin and Trotsky on the need to defendoppressed nations against imperialism.But what is really behind their shift inposition is the hope that \'ictories by theIraqi "resistance" will augment supportwithin the Democratic Party for withdrawal from Iraq. Just as the ISO andWWP practice class collaboration at home.they cheer on Islamic reactionaries andother forces as "anti-imperialists" in theneocolonial \vorld. The ISO writes:"Even if it were true that the resistancewas dominated by Baathists and hard-lineIslamists. this wouldn't be the central issue.Whatever the religious and political affiliations of the different resistance organizations and groupings. the main goal-theone that unites various forces of the Iraqiresistance-is to liberate their countryfrom foreign occupation'" ("Why We Support the Resistance to Occupation: Iraq'sRight to National Self-Determination."Socialist Workel; 4 February).

In fact. the Iraqi "resistance" largelyconsists of disparate and mutually hostileethnic. religious and communalist forcesthat aim much of their fire against rivalcivilian populations. When such forcesdo aim their blows against the occupation forces and their lackeys. we militarily defend them. However. in contrastto the ISO, we have stated: "We do notimbue the forces presently organizingguerrilla attacks on U.S. forces with 'antiimperialist' credentials and warn that inthe absence of working-class struggle inIraq and internationally against the occupation. the victory of one or another ofthe reactionary clerical forces is morelikely to come about through an alliancewith U.S. imperialism" ("The Left andthe Iraqi Resistance: U.S. Ou t of IraqNow!" WV No. 830.6 August 2004).

The class-collaborationist, anti-revolutionary program of groups like the ISO isdefined by their visceral hostility toward

8

Marxism, War andthe Fight ForSocialist RevolutionTwo-part article fromWorkers Vanguard Nos. 795 and 796,17 and 31 January 2003

_---- ______ --!tjrttTiF.,iJ---- - -. - . - - - -Marxism, War and the FightFor Socialist Revolution

$1Order from/pay to:Spartacist Publishing Co.Box 1377 GPO, New York. NY 10116

those countries where capitalism hasbeen overturned. The ISO supportedevery counterrevolutionary movementthat sought to overturn the gains of theRussian Revolution and cheered thedestruction of the USSR in 1991-91.Capitalist restoration has been a disasterfor the working people of the ex-CSSR.resulting in unprecedented devastation ofliving standards and the destruction ofhistoric social gains for women and ethnic and national minorities. In oppositionto the imperialist triumphalism that communism is dead. as well as the widespread \ iew among radical youth thatthere is nothing about the Soviet Unionworth replicating today. \ve understandthat the 1917 October Revolution remainsthe model for social liberation. Thatrevolution. led by Y. I. Lenin and LeonTrohky. established the world's ti N workers state. a beacon fur all those struggling to liberate humanity. Despite laterStalinist degeneration. the USSR demonstrated the power of a planned. collectivized economy, providing free education.health care. inexpensi\ e housing andjobs for all.

The destruction of the Soviet Unionrepresented a world-historic defeat forworking people around the \\oorld. removing the military and industrial power thatstayed the hand of the imperialists andmade possible victories like the overturnof capitalism in East Europe and in Cuba.

military and their families. who areexpected to unquestioningly obey "Godand country" and provide the cannon fod~ e r for the U.S. imperialist war machine.

Notwithstandin!! the working-classbackground of m o ~ t U.S. troops. t h e ~ imperialist armed forces are the instrument ofAmerican conquest and enforcers of thecapitalist system of exploitation. Againstthose who in the wake of HUlTicane Katrina have called to bring the troops home tohelp in the Gulf Coast. we say that theimperialist army is no friend of workingpeople at home. either. There is a Ion!! anddeadly history of the use of troops v;ithinthe U.S. to suppress strikes. repress studentantiwar protesters and crush upheavals ofhlack people against entrenched racialoppression. And while National Guardtroops sent to New Orleans have played arole in search and rescue actions that savedlives. they were sent mainly not to hclp thepopulation but to impose reactionary "lawand order." Democratic Louisi ana gO\ernorKathleen Blanco said as much when 300members of the Arkansas National Guardwere sent to New Orleans: "These troopsknow how to shoot and kill. .. and I expectthey will." They were sent to hunt down"looters:' desperate black people trying tofind food and water. and imposed strict curfews, essentiallv martial law. forcin!! outthose who didn'( want to leme and p r e ~ ' e n t -ing journalists from even photographingthe dead.

" l ~ * : : w , , ~ , ' ~ , ~ ~ ~ ; ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ " ~ ~ t ~ ~ i News ServiceI Gel. v O l c E ~ 1 C.I. . aDCI Black Power

Above: Vietnamese revolutionaries appealedto black Gis during war: "U.S. Negro Armymen! You are committing the same ignominious crimes in South Vietnam that theKKK clique is perpetrating against yourfamily at home." Left: July 1969 issue of' j ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ . J ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ l antiwar newspaper published by Spartacist.. supporters in army.

North Korea. China and Vietnam. We followed in the footsteps of Leon Trotsky byfighting for the unconditional militarydefense of the USSR against imperialismand against the restoration of capitalism,while simultaneously fighting for workingclass political revolution to oust the Stalinist bureaucrats. Unlike pacifists and theanti-Soviet ISO and RCP. we militarilydefend the workers states. despite theirStalinist deformations. against the imperialists. which includes upholding theirright to nuclear weapons. The Sovietbureaucracy's nationalist. parasitic ruleundermined the gains of the Russian Revolution. especially by renouncing thestruggle for international socialist revolution. The anti-Marxist Stalinist dogma of"socialism in one country" meant betrayalof revolutionary opportunities around theworld and led ultimately to the final undoing of the Russian Revolution itself.Race, Class and Militarism

Reflecting the growing oppositionamong the l ' S. populace as a whole to theoccupation of Iraq was the outpouring thissummer of support and sympathy forCindy Sheehan. the mother of an Americansoldier killed in Iraq. who is for ending theoccupation. Sheehan captured headlinesfor weeks with her encampment outsidePresident Bush's Texas ranch. Sheehan'spoignant protest exposed the capitalistrulers' contempt for the overwhelminglyworking-class and minority ranks of the

At the same time that Marxists areemphatic opponents of bourgeois militarism. we recognize the internal classcontradictions of the military. As KarlLiebknecht stated in his classic 1907work. Militarism (Ind Anti-Militarism:

"Thus we are confronted bv modernmilitarism which wants neithe; more norless than the squaring of the circle.which arms the people against the peopleitself. which dares to force the workers .. to become oppressors and enemies.murderers of their own comrades andfriends. of their parents. brothers and sisters and children. and which compelsthem to blight their own past and future.Modern militarism wants to be democratic and despotic. enlightened andmachine-like. nationalist and antagonistic to the nation at the same time:'In addition to the class divide between theworking-class ranks and the bourgeoisofficer corps present in all capitalistarmies. the U.S. military reflects the deeprooted racial oppression of black peoplein this country. The disproportionate number of black and minority youth in today'svolunteer army-driven to join in largepart because they have no jobs and nofuture. or because it is the only way toafford college or learn a skill-representsan Achilles heel for U.S. imperialism. TheAmerican military retlects the racism.anti-woman and anti-gay bigotry of capitalist society in a concentrated way.

Because we uphold Liebknecht'sopposition to a single person or pennyfor the bourgeois army, we oppose vol-

APCamilo Mejia escorted from courtmartial, 21 May 2004. Mejia, sentenced to one year in prison forrefusal to serve in Iraq, has continuedto speak out against the occupation.unteering for the army We likewiseoppose the reinstatement of the draft.The last time the U.S imperialists seriously considered reinstating the draft.during the height of their Cold War IIdrive against the Soviet Union in 1980.we agitated against the draft and indefense of the Soviet degenerated workers state. At the same time. we have noillusions that the U.S. imperialists won'treinstate the draft when they need to. andthey will eventually need to."Individual Resistance":A Losing Strategy

The "counter-recruitment" movementhas drawn inspiration from soldiers. suchas Camilo Mejia and Kevin Benderman.wh o have refused orders to serve in theIraq war and occupation and sought toexpose the horrors of imperialist war.They an d several other soldiers havebeen court-martialed for their refusal toserve. We say: Free Kevin Bendermanand hands off the other "resisters"!"Anti war" reformists have placed greatemphasis on these acts of individualresistance, promoting the idea that ifmore people were prevented from signing up for the military and more soldiersrefused to serve it could throw a monkeywrench in the works of the war machine.This strategy is false because it seeks toparalyze a core component of the capitalist state through pacifist resistance.

It is precisely because the militaryis integral to the capitalist state that ithas very repressive means for dealingwith those who refuse to serve. Insubordinate soldiers can face discipline inmilitary tribunals with punishments thatinclude execution. As we wrote in "OnDraft Resistance: You Will Go!": "Itwould be approximately as easy to directlyoverthrow the government as to deprivethat government of its armed forces"(Spartacist No. II , March-April 1968).In other words. to talk about paralyzingthe military as a repressive force meansthe prelude to revolution. Such a situation is possible only in the context ofmassive working-class and social struggleagainst the capitalist order. Marxists seekto organize for collective victory throughproletarian struggle. not defeat throughmartyrdom in individual. moralistic actsof "resistance." The key task today isto imbue the discontented. exploited andoppressed working masses with the consciousness that they can and must organize to struggle on the basis of theircommon class interests against the warmongering capitalist rulers.

The logic of the strategy of individualresistance parallels the promotion ofdraft "resistance" during the VietnamWar. This is expressed by the youthgroup of the WWP. which supports the"No Draft. No Way" movement thatadvocates "refusal to be' inducted intothe military under any circumstances"(www.NoDraftNoWay.org). The duty of

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re\olutionaries who are drafted is to gowith the mass of working-class youthinto the military. During the Vietnam\\'ar. as youth wcrc chanting "Hell no,\\ e won't go'" we said, "You will go'"Our SplIrlllcist article "You Will G o ~ " addressed antiwar activish:

"I f YOU rcl"u,e induction. vou will eithergo t:, pri,on. or you \\i11 I"lee the country.In both ea,'" \our hod\ \\ ill he exact!)"where the rufers of rlie ['.S. I IWIT if:rcnh)\;,d fH\m ,tru""k ~ l 1 l d rCI1l()\cdfrom CPllla,:t "ith tl;: \ 'llith \\ IlO fightthe \\ dh ."Fo, jl',\l1linClll \ \ ( \ r ! ' : ' l l g - , ' I ~ I " kader, ltld'lcig'" the ell eli"l e ~ l r n , lliel1l the di,rc"jlec"lof th.' \\(\r!,:cr. "nei i, a direct aid ll> till'r u ! i n ~ ,-'Ltv.,_ :1\ it rcI110\':' thenl fruIl1 aT1\Lonc:(' l \\ ilh the \\ t)rker" t l l l _ ~ ) clainl 1 ~ 1 rCjl i" ,. '"Cil:.

C'ur ~ ~ ; L ~ \ . . ' l ; . \ " , , - ' r ; t ~ ,1!! l I . ~ , - ~ \ p l a i n , 'Th..:1! : . i , : ! ~ ~ ; j l , ... ' l i .1' d ; ' ~ : j L _ ' . . , i ~ ~ ~ t ! h z: i.-, t h : ~ : i: \\ill hUi" :h-: L.S,. \ \ ' ~ i r etfllrL Bl l i thi.\L\ nor J ! n i r ; ~ [0 hUj}PCIL .\ ft.'\\. h U i ~ d : , . : ~ ~ r;., . ldi . ."- , ''''','-'' ~ L . \\::!- ~ l u d . . : n t : - ; l l l i ~ h l n :\ . . : > \ C r l \ " ' l ~ : - " r ~ : ; l ' lit;: :-.\..'1'\ i ~ , - ' . but the 1-:11:-.or l h \ . ) L h ~ t : " ' , - t ... ~ ) r nl...k'h Jlld \\ hite \\ ~ ) r ~ i l l 6 , Cicl" ... YUll!i, \' :h ' ,lrc to he drafted \I illlllllr c ~ p o l l d 1._i til>...' ~ u l t : - d ) ' d t t l 'all lpi.l ign It \\-1:--.\1 itll th,_ pe'hp,',""" n:' inlllle:l1cii122 tll('\\ol"kin:,:

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Paramilitaries Attack PicketersVictory to SF Hospital. Strikers!In the early morning of October 13,

a squad of paramilitary mercenariescharged into nearly 200 striking healthcare workers picketing to stop scabs atthe California Pacific Medical Center(CPMC) in Sa n Francisco. Th e thugs ofthe Steele Foundation securit\ firmshoved and punched the strikers. members of SEIL'-United Healthcare WorkersWest (SEIL'-UH\Vl. trying to dri\e themint!) auto traffic. Lorenna Hernandez. adietary ~ l I d e . \\as thnmn to the groundand kicked in the ,tomach. requiring hospitalization. The \\orkers held the lineagainst this \icioll'; attack. \\hich followed \\eeks of thuggery and harassmentby the mercenary goons again,t the mostIy female and III i nori ty picketers.

;\iO\\ in:t> . ' . ~ I l t h \\eek. the bitterstrike pits :'\()() \ocational nurses. dietaryworker,. l'llqodians and clerks ~ l ! . ! a i n s t the union-busting Sutter Corp . t h e ~ larg-'est health care prO\ider in Northern California and one of the most profitable inthe country. The \\orkers are fighting fora greater say in staffing le\els and for thehospital to contribute to the union's train-ing and education fund. .

Sutter Corp. is notorious for understaffing, hounding patients who can't pay

GM/Delphi ...(col1til1l1ed/iwll poge J)hlack worker .. hale tremendous potentialsocial power and can playa \ anguard rolein defending the interests of the entireproletariat through united class struggle.

The question of the unity of the employed and unemployed in this country ist he r ace question. Predatory union-bustersIla,e recruited desperate Hurricane Katrina~ u r v i v o r s for deployment as scabs againststriking hospital workers in San Franciscoand against union musicians fighting wageand benefit-gouging scrooges readyingNew York City's Radio City Music Hallfor its Christmas extravaganza. Unionizedblack workers represent a socially powerful link to the ghettoized poor deemed a"surplus population" by the racist rulers.

Key to turning back the assault on theUAW is organizing the auto assemblyand parts plants that have proliferated inthe South and other non-union areas. Thecrucial need for the labor movement totake up the fight to r black rights comessharply into focus in any dri\'e to organize the "open ...hop" South. where theracist legacy of s12enerated h'\ itscl( then let itperish. 'Re:lii/ahility' ,',r 'unn::aIizabilit y'is in the giwn lI1 tancc a question ofthe reiation,hip of force,. \\hich can bedecided ()nh h\ the ,tru>2>2ic. Bv mean,of this s t r L I > 2 ~ I e . no n ~ ; t t e r \ ~ h a t it-.immediate p ~ , 7 c t i c a l ,uccesses may be.the workers will be,t come to understandthe nece-.sity of liquidating capitalist,lavery:'.

entry into the European Union-animperialist bloc directed against theworking clas .. and all the oppressed.Ou r perspecti\e i, to build in Polandand other countries revolutionary \\orkers parties. which wi II pro\ ide leadership in the struggle for socialist re\()lutions in capitalist countries and forproletarian political revolutions in thedeformed workers states China. Vietnam. North Korea and Cuba. Our recordof fighting against Solidarnosc counterrevolution and defending the Trotskyistposition of unconditional military defense of the degenerated and deformedworkers states constitutes the programmatic basis fo r a revolutionary organization in Poland l

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Corsica ...(continuedfrolll page 12)French capitalist state under LionelJospin from 1997 to 2002. The LTF newspaper, Le Bo[c!zevik, warned against thewheeling and dealing of the pseudoTrotskyist Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR-Revolutionary CommunistLeague), which. having given electoralsupport to the 1997 popular front. nowseeks to take advantage of the distrust andd i ~ t a s t e of many workers for the PS andPCF by giving a "left" face to a newclass-collaborationist electoral coalition.

While the SNCM seamen's militantstrike in defense of their jobs met broadsupport among workers in France. thebourgeoisie immediately sought to portray the struggle as ha\ing been hijackedby a few Corsican nationalish. AntiCorsican chauvinism. smearing Corsicansas a hunch of tribal/clan-based Mafiosiand terrorists. is rampant. including amongthe CGT hureaucracy. The right of nationalindependence for Corsica \vas blatantlyabsent from all the platform speechesthe October 3 Marseille rally. Thus therare joint contingent of CGT union federation and STC workers from SNCM at theOctober 4- demonqration in Bastia \ \ a ~ particularly important and welcome. cutting across hoth French chauvinism andCorsican nationalism.On October II . the CGT bureaucratsgot the dockers to cease their strike. Twodays later, on the 24th day of the ferryworkers strike. COT union leaders cavedin to the threat of bankruptcy and held asecret ballot. As the daily Le MO/lde (14-October) reported. "The question wasposed exactly according to the terms setby the government: 'yes to resumingwork. thus saying no to bankruptcy' or'no to resuming work. thus saying yes tobankruptcy." Faced with the blackmail"offer" presented by their treacherousleaders. workers voted overwhelminglyto end the strike. The government is nowfree to proceed with ib latest proposal.which would privatize the bulk of theSNCM ferry company.

The attack on September 28 by thenational marine and military police [gell-darmerie) with war helicopters against anSNCM ship occupied by strikers of theUnion of Corsican Workers is an act ofcommon state terrorism that threatensthe whole workers movement. With theapproach of the mass strikes and demonstrations of October 4, the governmenthas sent a message to the entire working class that if it dares to defend itselfagainst the increasing attacks from thecapitalists, it will face cop violence andeven the army. The longshoremen of Marseille have now been on strike for fourdays in solidarity with the SNCM workers and have totally shut down the port.The whole working class should join insolidarity against the attack and demandfreedom now for the imprisoned trade

Toledo ...(continued from page 12)County Prosecutor. Lucas County Courthouse. Adams and Erie Streets, Toledo,OH 43624.

* * *The Partisan Defense Committee vigorously proteiits the mass arrests of antiNazi protesters in Toledo, Ohio on Satur

day, October 15.The race terrorists of the NationalSocialist Movement had announced amarch in Toledo at noon on October 15.This fascist rally. built under the disgusting pretext of fighting "black crime."was nothing but a recruitment drive forlynch mob race terror against Toledo'sblack residents. making up nearly a quarter of the city's population.

Understanding the deadly threat posedby these Hitler-loving storm troopers,several hundred mainly black residentscame out in an elementary act of self-28 OCTOBER 2005

unionists and that all charges againstthem be dropped. STC members are facing up to 20 years in jail. Down with theprivatization of SNCM and the otherpublic companies!The announcement on Septemher 26that the SNCM had been given away as a"gift," pure and simple. to a friend of deVillepin. with a hundred million euros

added on top. set off the explosion. Theofficial line is to predict 400 layoffs. butthe workers talk of 1,000 layoffs out of2.400 jobs. and. in fact. the company isthreatened with being dismantled. The

ernment minister) Buffet got togetherwith Zuccarelli, the "Ieft Radical" mayorof Bastia, who's such a French chauvinist that he supported the cop attackagainst the STC sailors. This shows thatthe kind of government the LCR and PCFaspire to build, including capitalist forccssuch. as Zuccarelli's PRG [Radical LeftParty). would be a brutally anti-workingclass and anti-Corsican bourgeois government. like that of Chirac-Villepin.

And it would be just like that ofJospinBuffet-the government that began thecomplete privatization of Air France and

ReutersMarseille, October 4: Ferry strikers and dockers head demonstration as partof million-strong one-day nationwide strike.CGT sailors. who have been on strikesince last week, proclaim their "solidaritywith their imprisoned brothers." butalready their leadership is ready to betraythem. On the day of the state's attack.CGT leader Jean-Paul Israel very plainly.in front of the TV cameras. refused todefend the STC workers. The CGT leadership was cynical enough to talk aboutan "opening" on the part of the government on the very day of the assault! Andthe same evening. Bernard Thibault. thenational leader of the CGT. went to meetde Villepin to assure him that he is readyto accept the privatization of the SNCMprovided it will be "partial." as well as todiscuss how to prevent a social explosion.LCR and PCF Wheel and Dealfor New "Popular Front"

The LCR and PCF have opposed thecop attack against the STC sailors. But atbottom they intend to channel the workers' anger over this issue toward constituting a new "united political power," inother words, constituting a new popularfront with capitalist groupings (see LeBolchevik, September 2005). Their politics as a whole are oriented toward thisend. Thus. at the [PCF) I Humanite Fetethis year [LCR leader) Besancenot and[PCF national secretary and former gov-

defense and succeeded in stopping theNazi march. These anti-fascist protestersalso denounced the role of the blackDemocratic Mayor Jack Ford who hadmobilized his cops en masse to protectthe fascists.In retaliation for this victory in stopping the Nazi march, Ford's cops attackedthe demonstrators, shooting "flash bang"devices and tear gas at the demonstrators.Over 110 people (including at least 17juveniles) have been arrested on boguscharges of aggravated rioting, assault,vandalism. and curfew violations. Echoing the Nazis' racist filth. Ford smearedthe protesters as "gang members," andimposed a "state of emergency" on thecity.In stopping the Nazis. these protestersperformed a great service for all blackpeople. immigrants, trade unionists, leftists, Jews, gays. and all potential victimsof fascist race terror. We demand: Dropall charges against th e Toledo anti -Nazidemonstrators!

France Telecom. It was the Jospin-Buffetgovernment that launchcd the manhuntagainst Yvan Colonna after the murder ofprefet [central state representative in Corsica] Erignac in 1998. though the government had not a shred of evidence (andstill has no evidence) that he was implicated. And it was the Jospin-Buffet government that then named Bernard Bonnetas I J r ~ l e t in Corsica, promoting Bonnetfor his role repressing those defending theCatalan language when he \\as prefer inthe Eastern Pyrenees. Bonnet sent out themilitary police at night to set fire to beachrestaurants in order to terrorize Corsicannationalists. (There was a scandal onlybecause Bonnet got caught and thus discredited the French bourgeois state.)

The alternative is not a new bloc ofclass collaboration between the Zuccarellis, the [PS leaders) Hollande/Fabiusand Buffets, even with a Besancenot onits left, but a fight for the class independence of the proletariat against the capitalists and for the perspective of workersrevolution. We fight to build a multiethnic, proletarian vanguard party to leadsuch a revolution to victory.For the Right ofSelf-Determination fo r theCorsican People!

In order to defuse the crisis. the government and the union bureaucrats counton using anti-Corsican chauvinism.which the French bourgeoisie and thereformists have always sought to use todivide French and Corsican workers. targeting Corsican workers as "terrorists"and so on. To thwart these maneuvers it isnecessary to fight to mobilize the proletariat here in France against the nationaloppression of the Corsican people. Thatis the only way to fight for the class unityof Corsican and French workers againstthe capitalists. Corsica has been maintained in a state of underdevelopment byFrench imperialism. It has a massiveunemployment rate, much higher than theFrench average. The SNCM privatizationscheme would have an even more devastating impact on Corsica's workers thanon those in Marseille and on the continent.No layoffs! For the right of the Corsicanpeople to decide their own fate, includingthe right to separate from the "Hexagon"[France) if they choose! Complete equality for all languages, with no privilegewhatsoever for French! We demand free-

dom for all imprisoned Corsican nationalists, including Yvan Colonna. who is nowin his third year in jail.The whole island has now been placed

under a state