"All talk to the effect that historical conditions have not yet 'ripened' for socialism is the product of ignorance or conscious deception. The objective prerequisites for proletarian revolution have not only 'ripened,' they have begun to get somewhat rotten.... The historical crisis of mankind is reduced to the crisis of the revolutionary leadership."  -Leon Trotsky, The Transitional Program W elcome! The Internationalist Group, section of the League for the Fourth International, fights for international socialist revolution, the conquest of power by the working class, led by its Leninist party, championing the cause of all the oppressed. After a decade and a half in which the ruling class trumpeted the supposed “death of communism,” the imperialists are bogged down in losing wars of colonial occupation in the Near East while a global economic crisis shakes the foundations of the capitalist order. With mass unemployment, poverty and hunger ravaging the planet, once again there is talk of socialism and revolution. But as in the past, the key question is that of forging a vanguard to lead the struggle of the workers and the oppressed. Read more... The founding statement of the Internationalist Group is available on this site, as well as the LFI’s declaration, Reforge the Fourth International, in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Tagalog.

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After 5-Month Platinum Strike, 200,000+ NUMSA Members Walk Out Worker Revolt Continues to Shake South African Capitalism Victory to the Metal Workers Strike! South African bosses are worried. No sooner had the five-month platinum miners ended, the longest in South Africa's history, than 220,000 members of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, the largest union on the continent, walked out. Bosses claimed the NUMSA strike was costing them 30 million dollars a day. The miners strike ended with a limited but real victory: facing down police repression and company attempts to starve them out, strikers won a substantial wage increase. Yet mine workers will still be living in abject poverty. NUMSA has declared its opposition to the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and its Tripartite Alliance which has held workers down for two decades and led to the 2012 Marikana massacre. But South Africa’s system of white supremacy was built on the bedrock of superexploitation of black labor, and has not changed under the black capitalist regime. Freedom from apartheid slavery for the impoverished masses requires a sharp break from the “popular front” politics of class collaboration, rejection of the reformist myth of a “national democratic” (bourgeois) revolution and a fight for a black-centered workers government to begin the international socialist revolution. Worker Revolt Continues to Shake South African Capitalism (July 2014) A Victory for Workers Solidarity Flash: Wyatt McMinn Not Guilty! At a trial today, June 27, in Clark County District Court in Vancouver, Washington, Wyatt McMinn, the vice president of Local 10 of the Painters Union and a class-struggle trade unionist, was found not guilty of first degree criminal trespass. He stood up to an anti-union lobbying outfit which under the phony slogan of “right to work” would take away workers’ right to unionize. This is a victory for labor rights, democratic rights and workers solidarity. Wyatt McMinn Not Guilty (27 June 2014) Obama’s Back-to-Work Order Is a Trap SEPTA Workers: Strike Together to Win!  Just past midnight on Saturday, June 14, over 400 unionized workers of the Southeast Pennsylvania Transit Authority walked off their jobs, following four years of fruitless contract negotiations with the SEPTA administration. But within a matter of hours, the Democratic administration of Barack Obama issued an executive order forcing the strikers back to work and barring IBEW and BLET from striking for 240 days. Obama’s back-to-work order was a body blow to SEPTA unions. Yet it was hailed by the leadership of the striking unions (BLET/Teamsters and IBEW). The union tops had repeatedly called for increased government intervention in negotiations with SEPTA. SEPTA workers have enormous power in their hands, but they are stymied by a leadership that divides the workers and looks to the bosses’ government rather than the power of workers solidarity. To overcome this, Philly mass transit workers should elect a joint strike committee and prepare for industrial-strength action against SEPTA and the federal straightjacket. SEPTA Workers: Strike Together to Win! (June 2014) For Proletarian Opposition to U.S./E.U./NATO Imperialists’ Cold War Drive! The Bugbear of “Russian Imperialism” In the global crisis unleashed by the battle over Ukraine, the imperialists are preparing a new Cold War. Meanwhile, quite a few social-democratic groups echo the Western media, railing against “Russian imperialism” for incorporating Crimea and accusing Moscow of fomenting unrest in eastern Ukraine. Many of these outfits have repeatedly backed all sorts of nationalists and ultra-reactionaries sponsored by Western imperialism. Not everyone on the left is repeating the imperialist refrain over Ukraine, but among those who don’t there is little clarity about the nature of the capitalist states that arose out of the counterrevolution that destroyed the multinational Soviet Union. Is Russia imperialist? A detailed analysis of capitalist Russia and the other post-Soviet states shows that  the relation of Russia and Ukraine today is not one of imperial overlord and semi-colonial vassal but of two intermediate level capitalist states, despite differences in their relative power. Today, the main threat to working people in the clash over Ukraine is the imperialist-backed junta of ethnic-nationalist fascists and free-market rightists in Kiev, not “Russian imperialism.” While supporting the Crimea’s exercise of the right to self-determination by joining Russia and the right of eastern and southern Ukraine to self-rule, Trotskyists fight for proletarian internationalism against all the capitalist exploiters, and particularly against the imperialists, their Ukrainian bourgeois puppets and fascist attack dogs. The Bugbear of “Russian Imperialism” (May 2014) From the Current Issue  The Internationalist No. 37 (May-June 2014)  click above or on image for full list of articles Get the Hell Out of Afghanistan and Iraq – And Stay Out! From Ukraine to Middle East: U.S. Imperialism Strikes Out Instigating Ethnic/Religious War in the Name of “Democracy” After the February coup d’état that installed a Ukrainian nationalist/fascist junta in Kiev, its U.S. and European backers were thrown for a loop by Russia’s swift and bloodless takeover of Crimea, to the applause of the local population. Kiev’s military offensive against pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine provoked massive popular opposition. Now with Ukraine coming apart at the seams, suddenly Iraq appears to be disintegrating as well, as the sectarian Shiite regime loses ground to Sunni Islamist jihadis. The quagmire in which Washington finds itself is of its own making: U.S. rulers have pursued a bipartisan policy of promoting ethnic and religious war in order to maintain world domination. The arrogant Yankee imperialists sowed the wind, and now they are reaping the whirlwind. In Ukraine, internationalist communists recognize the right to autonomy and self-determination of the Russian-speaking regions and defend the anti-Kiev rebellion while opposing both Ukrainian and Russian nationalism. In Iraq, U.S. troops must be opposed while supporting none of the contending factions. Everywhere we fight for socialist revolution. From Ukraine to Middle East: U.S. Imperialism Strikes Out (20 June 2014) Organize Workers Defense Committees to Defend the Favelas, Protests and Social Movements Brazil: No to the World Cup of Repression! On the 50th anniversary of the civilian/military coup that overthrew the government of Jango Goulanrt and began 21 years of bloody military dictatorship, of torture, of disappearances, of epression against the working people and poor, several of the favelas of Rio de Janeiro were subjected to occupation. This outright war against the most impoverished neighborhoods is intimately linked to the preparations for the World Cup of soccer, beginning on June 12, when the local, state and federal governments, and the bourgeoisie of Brazil as a whole, want to put the “Marvelous City” (nickname for Rio de Janeiro) on display. Contrary to the claims of many reformist leftists, this escalation of repression is not fascism but bourgeois democracy, which was born bathed in the blood of blacks, indigenous peoples and the poor. The Comitê de Luta Classista (Class Struggle Committee) and the Liga Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil (Fourth Internationalist League of Brazil) call on the entire workers movement to mobilize its forces against the bourgeoisie’s World Cup of Repression. In April, the state-wide unions of teachers (SEPE-RJ) and health workers (SINDSPREV-RJ) approved motions put forward by the CLC calling to  “Drive out the pro-imperialist occupation troops from Haiti, the favelas and social movements” and to build workers defense committees to unite the favela with the factory and the protests in the streets. Brazil: No to the World Cup of Repression! (May 2014) Don’t Fall for Democrats’ Campaign Promises Fight Low-Wage Slavery, Mobilize Workers’ Power For Class Struggle Against Capitalism, Build a Revolutionary Workers Party! We are well into the sixth year of a capitalist economic crisis with no end in sight. The bosses are making money hand over fist, while we the workers pay the price – low-wage workers most of all. The fight against poverty wages must be the fight of all working people – and it must be waged first and foremost against the Democratic Party. In recent months there has been a groundswell of calls to raise the minimum wage to $15. That is still a poverty wage. Beyond the numbers, the rulers will use every trick in the book to whittle it down, delay it and load it up with all sorts of exemptions. Yet the various campaigns all focus on pressuring the Democrats. Even when led by ostensible socialists, they are basically electoral gimmicks. The “strikes” that have been called are purely symbolic. What’s needed isn’t appeals to “elected officials” but to mobilize union power. A class-struggle fight against poverty wages would seek to build fighting unions, beginning with assemblies of low-wage workers. It would insist on mass mobilization and independence from the Democrats and all capitalist parties and politicians, and would not limit itself to narrow “bread-and-butter” economic demands. Fight Low-Wage Slavery, Mobilize Workers’ Power (June 2014) Seattle’s “$15 Later” Law – A “Historic Victory”? Hardly (June 2014) Fascist Pogrom in Odessa, And the Aftermath The protests that began last November in Kiev were soon dominated by right-wing Ukrainian ethnic nationalists and outright fascists. While Western governments and many on the left hailed the “democratic” uprising, we and others warned that the fascist/nationalist coup regime backed by the U.S. and European imperialists was a threat to the Russian-speaking population in East and South Ukraine. On May 2 came the indelible, horrific proof. By official count, at least 48 people were murdered in the heinous massacre and hundreds injured. The stage was set as paramilitary squads were brought in for a “march for Ukrainian unity.” This was a deliberate provocation by the Kiev junta. After clashes with anti-Kiev militia members, neo-Nazis of Pravy Sektor along with other fascists burned tents of pro-Russian protesters, then set fire with gasoline bombs to the House of Trade Unions where they had fled for safety. The Ukrainian nationalist crowd sang the national anthem as they watched dozens being incinerated. Police did nothing to stop this, then arrested the survivors of this pogrom. The Odessa massacre of May 2 is the ugly face of Ukrainian fascism backed by state power. Fascist Pogrom in Odessa, And the Aftermath” (May 2014) Victory to the Platinum Miners! Elections and Miners Strike: South African Popular Front in Crisis For a Black-Centered Workers Government! For a Revolutionary Workers Party with a Trotskyist Program! South Africa heads to the polls May 7 in the most important election since the 1994 vote which marked the formal end of the apartheid system of white minority rule. The cold-blooded massacre of 34 platinum miners in Marikana in August 2012 has galvanized opposition to the Tripartite Alliance. Last December, the National Union of Metalworkers (NUMSA), with 340,000 members the largest union in South Africa, denounced the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and South African Communist Party (SACP) as nakedly pro-capitalist and came out against electoral support to the ANC or any other political party in the 2014 elections. Meanwhile, 70,000 platinum miners are in the fourth month of a bitter strike not only against the companies but also against the policies of the ANC government which has backed the mine bosses to the hilt. The intersection of these two events could pose an explosive challenge to capitalist rule in the economic powerhouse of Africa: the non-white masses are fed up with the black capitalist regime which has kept them mired in poverty, while the corrupt rulers have no answers but bloody repression. Yet a key ingredient is lacking to provide a positive outcome to this crisis: revolutionary leadership. Elections and Miners Strike: South African Popular Front in Crisis (30 April 2014) U.S./European Union Anti-Russia Drive Backfires Self-Determination for Crimea – Oppose Sanctions! Down with the Imperialist-Backed Fascist/Nationalist Coup in Ukraine! Against Russian and Ukrainian Nationalism and Anti-Semitism – For Workers Revolution! Since late November, Ukraine has been convulsed by a right-wing nationalist and pro-imperialist mobilization culminating in a coup d’état that drove out the widely despised president Viktor Yanukovich and has split the country in two. Within hours of seizing power, the usurpers decreed that Russian would no longer be accepted as an official language, enraging the Russian-speaking east and south of the country. The mobilization, falsely portrayed in the Western media as nothing but “peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators,” from early on was led by ethnic nationalists, fascists and outright Nazis. The U.S. and European Union were up to their necks in financing and backing these sinister putschists. Russian president Vladimir Putin correctly saw the coup as a blow aimed at Moscow by the Western imperialists, and struck back swiftly, taking over the Crimean peninsula, home of the Russian Black Sea fleet, to the applause of the majority Russian local population. Now Washington and the E.U. are sputtering, with the U.S. threatening economic sanctions and worse. The League for the Fourth International calls for self-determination for Crimea and would oppose any attempt to prevent or undermine that, whether imperialist sanctions, military threats or cutting off vital supplies. We demand that the U.S./EU/NATO imperialists get out of Ukraine and call for close collaboration by Ukrainian and Russian workers fighting for international socialist revolution. Down with the Imperialist-Backed Fascist/Nationalist Coup in Ukraine! (12 March 2014) From the Previous Issue  The Internationalist No. 36 (January-February 2014)  click above or on image for full list of articles Break with the Tripartite Alliance Popular Front – Build a Revolutionary Workers Party! South Africa: Workers Slam ANC Neo-Apartheid Regime The August 2012 massacre of mine workers at Marikana marked a turning point in South African history, intensifying class struggle and opening what could become a revolutionary period. If the Sharpeville massacre of 1960 drove home the murderous nature of the apartheid regime of white supremacy, Marikana laid bare the deadly reality of its successor, the neo-apartheid regime presided over by the African National Congress (ANC), which is still based on the super-exploitation of black labor. Its role as guarantor of racist capitalism exposed, the ANC’s governing alliance is beginning to come undone in the face of massive discontent among the vast black and non-white majority over the continued poverty, police brutality and exclusion. In December, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), the largest union on the African continent, held a special congress which officially declared its break with the ANC, and with the Tripartite Alliance – a nationalist popular front which also includes the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party. NUMSA called for a political organization to lead the struggle for a socialist South Africa. The question is, what is meant by socialism, and how do you get there? As South African workers direct their anger at their black capitalist rulers, the key to the outcome will be to forge a revolutionary workers party to fight for international socialist revolution. for international socialist revolution. South Africa: Workers Slam ANC Neo-Apartheid Regime (7 January 2014) Nelson Mandela, 1918-2013 South Africa has lost Nelson Mandela, one of the most decisive men in that country’s life over the last hundred years. He suffered every sort of persecution and came to be the biggest personal symbol of resistance in the political struggle against racist apartheid. But history will also register that Mandela, the South African Communist Party and the ANC did everything possible to keep the struggle against racism in that country confined to the framework of capitalism and bourgeois democracy, preventing the socialist revolution that was entirely possible to achieve. As a consequence, the black and coloured population today still lives in poverty. Nelson Mandela, 1918-2013 (6 December 2013) Labor Activist Faces Jail for Protesting “Right to Work” Union-Busting Defend Wyatt McMinn, Defeat “Right to Slave”! No More Wisconsins! Defend Our Unions! This past September 5, Cross Trade Solidarity, a labor group in the Portland, OR/Vancouver, WA area, called a rally to protest a meeting of the union-hating “Freedom Foundation,” which has launched a drive to enact deceptively named “right-to-work” laws in the Pacific Northwest in an attempt to strip away basic union rights. The labor-haters showed their idea of “freedom” by calling the police to kick the union protesters out, and within seconds Wyatt McMinn, vice president of Local 10 of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT), was arrested on charges of “trespassing” in this public meeting. Instead of forthrightly opposing the “right-to-slave” forces, the AFL-CIO officialdom has sought refuge in lobbying and pressuring Democratic politicians. The way to stop the union-busting assault is to organize the unorganized by using workers’ power to withhold their labor, defying anti-labor laws and defeating outfits like the Freedom Foundation. With a trial coming up early next year, we urge all supporters of union rights to take up the defense of Wyatt McMinn. Defend Wyatt McMinn, Defeat “Right to Slave”! (November 2013) Top Local Democrats Back Kshama Sawant “Socialist” Elected in Seattle on Platform of Liberal/Populist Reforms In November, voters in Seattle, Washington elected Kshama Sawant, candidate of Socialist Alternative, to an at-large seat on the City Council, preferring her to the incumbent Democrat. The bulk of the left cheered in unison. The big business press, however, was remarkably nonchalant about the victory for a nominally Marxist, socialist working-class party. In reality, Sawant is a social democrat who campaigned on a straight liberal/populist platform that was hardly to the left of candidates of minor capitalist parties. Her signature issue, a $15/hour minimum wage, was endorsed by both major (Democratic) mayoral candidates. The election of Sawant has been linked, both by the bourgeois media and by various left groups to the election of Democrat Bill de Blasio as mayor of New York. Indeed, the liberal Democrat and the “democratic socialist” campaigned on similar themes, and Sawant was endorsed by former top Seattle Democrats. While reformists talk vaguely about “change,” they only promote illusions in bourgeois democracy. The struggles for the immediate needs of workers and the oppressed must be linked to the fight to forge a revolutionary workers party.  “Socialist” Elected in Seattle on Platform of Liberal/Populist Reforms (December 2013) Free Abortion on Demand! Ecuador: Populist President Correa Attacks Women’s Right to Abortion For Women’s Liberation Through Socialist Revolution! There is an onslaught against women’s right to abortion underway, extending from the U.S. to Central and South America. This is notably the case in Nicaragua, El Salvador and now Ecuador, all three countries under supposedly leftist governments. Ecuador’s president Rafael Correa, a bourgeois populist who came to office in 2007, recently let loose a tirade to squelch any talk of reform on abortion. He thundered, accusing women legislators of his own party of “disloyalty” and “treason” for daring to the minimal reform of permitting abortion in cases of rape. Correa’s tirade was immediately saluted by some of the most reactionary anti-women forces. This onslaught against women’s rights reflected the increasingly authoritarian character of Correa’s presidency, in which all manner of left-wing dissent is subjected to state repression. Against the unholy alliance of right and populist “left” against women’s rights, the League for the Fourth International call for the repeal of all laws penalizing or restricting abortion, and fight for free abortion on demand, in safe, high-quality medical facilities. Ecuador: Populist President Correa Attacks Women’s Right to Abortion (December 2013) Drive Out the MINUSTAH! Workers to Power! Haiti: Women Workers Strike Against Starvation Wages U.S. Unions Must Join the Battle This week the anger of workers in Haiti’s export garment industry over their miserable wages finally boiled over. On December 10, hundreds of workers gathered at the industrial park outside the capital to demand, as they have for months, a minimum wage of US$11.50 per day. They cannot live on their present pay of $5 a day. As the workers, mostly young women, marched into the city brandishing tree branches, their numbers swelled. The next day they were blocked by riot police when they tried to march on the upscale town where Haitian president Michel Martelly lives. On December 12, the bosses locked them out. The workers face bitter opposition not only from the profit-gouging factory owners, but also from Haiti’s bourgeois government, their imperialist patrons in the U.S. embassy and the MINUSTAH mercenary troops occupying the country since 2004. What’s needed is the mobilization of workers’ power in class struggle, but not just Haitian workers. To prevent manufacturers from simply shifting production to even lower-wage countries, it would require active support action by U.S. unions. Against the solid wall of capital, the only road out of grinding poverty for the Haitian masses is an international struggle for socialist revolution, together with Dominican workers and peasants next door and with workers in the U.S. imperialist heartland. Haiti: Women Workers Strike Against Starvation Wages (12 December 2013) Throw Back CCNY’s Racist Eviction – Defend the Morales/Shakur Center! On October 20, the City College administration at the City University of New York sealed off the Morales/Shakur Community and Student Center, carrying out their longtime goal of evicting the many students who use the space as a center for radical organizing. Formed in 1989, the Center was won through struggle by activists who successfully mobilized against a tuition hike and named the center after Puerto Rican independence fighter Guillermo Morales and former Black Panther Assata Shakur. The eviction of the Morales/Shakur Center was clearly linked to the struggle by students and faculty at CUNY to drive out war criminal David Petraeus and the recently reinstated Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC), also headquartered at CCNY. Hundreds of students came out the next day to protest CCNY's racist eviction. The Internationalist Clubs call on students to join in the struggle to defeat and uproot imperialism through world socialist revolution.  Throw Back CCNY’s Racist Eviction – Defend the Morales/Shakur Center (21 October 2013) Outrage! Unprovoked Police Attack on Peaceful Protest by CUNY Students and Faculty Against Ex-Gen. David Petraeus There has been a mounting outcry at the City University of New York ever since CUNY authorities announced last April that they had appointed former General David Petraeus, ex-head of the Central Intelligence Agency and ex-commander of U.S. occupation forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, as a “distinguished visiting professor” at the elite Macaulay Honors College. At the same time, the university announced it was reinstituting the Reserve Officer Training Corps, which had been driven out of CUNY over 40 years ago. With the beginning of the fall semester, the Ad Hoc Committee Against the Militarization of CUNY called protests against ROTC and Petraeus. At the fourth protest, on September 17, police staged an unprovoked attack on peaceful demonstrators outside Macaulay College, brutally beating and arresting six students. This attack on basic democratic rights has been met by widespread outrage, at CUNY, elsewhere in New York City and around the country. We reprint here the press release by the Ad Hoc Committee. Unprovoked Police Attack (17 September 2013) Internationalist Video: Police Attack CUNY Protest Against War Criminal Petraeus Along with other powerful videos, this Internationalist video shows, in an extended uncut segment, how students, faculty and supporters were peacefully demonstrating; how police forced protesters into the street and then charged, singling out individuals; and how police officers and supervisors brutally beat one of those arrested. (Other videos, linked below, show the savage beating of a different protester and other aspects of he police attack.) Internationalist Video: Police Attack CUNY Protest Against War Criminal Petraeus (22 September 2013) Striking Mexican Students Send Solidarity to CUNY Protesters In Mexico City, tens of thousands of teachers have been on strike since mid-August against a government assault on public education. On September 13, police drove strikers out of Mexico City's main square. That night, students at the National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH) occupied their campus in solidarity with the teachers, and continued to do so for the next week. While on the barricades the ENAH students voted a motion of solidarity with the student proteters against militarization at CUNY who had just been attacked by NYC police. Striking Mexican Students Send Solidarity to CUNY Protesters (18 September 2013) RT Video Exposes NYPD Brutalizing Students in Protest Against Petraeus In this report and interview, Denise Ford, one of the six arrested students, explains why the appointment of war criminal Petraeus has provoked angry protest at CUNY. RT Video Exposes NYPD Brutalizing Students in Protest Against Petraeus (21 September 2013) Two Videos Show NYPD Attack on Demonstrators These two videos show demonstrators peacefully protesting, and NYPD officers and a plainclothes cop kidney-punching an immobilized student at the September 17 protest against war criminal Petraeus. NYPD Officers Cuff and Assault Student at Petraeus Protest (18 September 2013) NYPD Attacks CUNY Protesters At Petraeus Protest (18 September 2013) See also our earlier article: Macaulay War College? War Criminal Petraeus, Out of CUNY! The City University of New York has just announced the appointment of ex-general David Petraeus – ex-commander of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars and former CIA chief – as a visiting professor in the university’s Macaulay Honors College. News of this sparked widespread outrage at CUNY. Petraeus is a certified war criminal, who oversaw torture centers and the “collateral murder” of civilians in Iraq, bombings of wedding parties in Afghanistan and Obama’s campaign of “targeted killings” by drones which has murdered over 200 children in Pakistan alone. The Internationalist Clubs call on students, faculty, staff and campus workers to drive war criminal Petraeus out of CUNY with protest and exposure. War Criminal Petraeus, Out of CUNY! (25 April 2013) No to the Trap of “Dialogue” with the Strikebreaking Government! Mexican Powder Keg Turn the Teachers’ Walkout Into a National Strike Against the Reforms Answer Repression with Hard-Hitting Workers Action Everywhere! The CNTE Should Finally Bury the Corporatist SNTE! Since mid-August, the battle-hardened teachers of the National Coordinating Committee of Education Workers (CNTE) have thrown Mexico City into turmoil with furious, massive, combative protests of a kind never before seen in the capital. They reject the privatizing education “reform” orchestrated by the federal government of the “Pact for Mexico” of the three main capitalist parties – the PRI, PAN and PRD – following the dictates of imperialist financial organs. Despite the ranks’ will to struggle, the teachers leaders have fallen into the trap of a supposed “dialogue” with a government that vows that its drive to destroy teachers’ rights is “irreversible.” To defeat this onslaught by the entire bourgeoisie, it is necessary to fight for the complete class independence of labor from the capitalist state, and in the first instance to break the stranglehold of the corporatist SNTE which is acting as the spearhead of the union-busting offensive. At the same time, it is vital to mobilize the “heavy battalions” of the industrial proletariat which can bring the capitalist machinery of production to a grinding halt. The key is to break with all the bourgeois parties, politicians, coalitions and political tendencies and to fight to forge the nucleus of a revolutionary workers party. Mexican Powder Keg (29 August 2013) Impose Workers Control in Pemex and the Federal Electricity Commission (August 2013) Abstentionism, Lies and (Somewhat) True Confessions ICL Clueless and Gutless in the UNAM Strike In Their Own Words In 1999-2000, the 250,000 students of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the largest in Latin America, carried out a ten-month strike that despite massive arrests succeeded in blocking the government's attempt to impose tuition on orders of the World Bank. Tens of thousands of strikers occupied the huge University City day and night and marches against repression brought out hundreds of thousands. Electrical workers mobilized in support of the students and, at the initiative of the Grupo Internacionalista, formed worker-student defense guards that blocked army intervention. It was the most convulsive social struggle in the country in decades. Yet the Mexican affiliate (GEM) of the International Communist League deliberately and shamefully abstained from the strike while claiming in public to be active participants. Explosive ICL documents reveal in their own words how the ICL leadership demonstrated “complete ignorance” of Mexico's social reality, “sabotaged” and “betrayed” the struggle while carrying out “false, abusive, demagogic and humiliating ‘fights’” blaming its Mexican section for a policy emanating from the top. Yet in public the ICL and GEM continue to peddle their lies. ICL Clueless and Gutless in the UNAM Strike (August 2013) Fake Trotskyists Can’t Tell the Difference Between a Workers Union and a Death Squad SL on Corporatism in Mexico: Games Centrists Play The Internationalist has reported on the militant struggles of Mexican teachers against the government and against the corporatist pseudo union (the SNTE), which for decades has acted as labor cops, integrated into the state apparatus, to prevent the rise of independent workers unions. The Spartacist League and its local affiliate have come to the defense of the SNTE even as combative teachers stone its offices. A recent polemic by the SL's Workers Vanguard against the Internationalist Group shows that the latter-day SL can't tell the difference between a workers union and a death squad, and is supporting the main agency for union-busting in Mexico. A detailed exposé of WV's lies underscores how the SL has renounced their own Trotskyist heritage on the struggle for union independence from the state. SL on Corporatism in Mexico: Games Centrists Play (July 2013) Corporatism in Action in Chiapas (30 June 2013) Defend North Korea and China Against Imperialism and Counterrevolution! U.S. War Provocations Push Korea to the Brink For the Revolutionary Reunification of Korea, North and South! Over the last month and a half, the United States and South Korea have engaged in an escalating series of military provocations against North Korea. Simultaneous “war games” have simulated a nuclear aerial bombing of the North, a ground invasion from the South, annihilation of the leadership and the “insertion” of tens of thousands of U.S. troops searching for nukes. While the imperialist media are, as usual, strenuously demonizing the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and playing up blustering statements coming out of the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, the Pentagon has been laying the basis for a military strike against the North. The whole operation is part of detailed plan elaborated by the Obama administration, dubbed “the playbook,” for U.S. shows of force. But this is no football game. The Internationalist Group and League for the Fourth International defend North Korea, a bureaucratically deformed workers state, against the war provocations, economic blockade and any attack by U.S. imperialism and its South Korean junior partners, no matter how it starts. We also defend North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons, its main deterrent against a war by the power which laid waste to the North in the Korean War. U.S. War Provocations Push Korea to the Brink (13 April 2013) Stop the Zionist Witch Hunt! Defend Free Speech at Brooklyn College The CUNY Internationalist Clubs denounce the thuggish campaign of slander and attempted censorship bearing down on Brooklyn College over a panel discussion on the campaign for “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) of Israel. Strident supporters of Israel and its guiding ideology (Zionism) have engaged in witch hunting – reminiscent of the notorious Joe McCarthy – on campuses around the country, and have repeatedly targeted Brooklyn College. Joining this hue and cry were 19 Democratic “progressive” elected officials and ten members of the New York City Council, whose leader went so far as threatening to cut off funding for the public university. As Marxist revolutionaries, we defend the Palestinian people. We see the working people of the entire region – Arabs and Jews, Kurds, Persians, Turks and of all other national and ethnic group – as tthe power that is key to defeating Zionism as well as the other oppressive regimes that enforce capitalist rule with blood and iron. Thus our strategy is very different from that of the BDS campaign, which is ultimately an appeal to the U.S. imperialists (the biggest and most dangerous mass killers on the planet) to get tough on their Israeli junior partners. At the same time, we militantly defend the right of BDS supporters to hold events free of intimidation and threats from Zionist hoodlums and their apologists. Stop the Zionist Witch Hunt! Defend Free Speech at Brooklyn College! (7 February 2013) Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Now! Click here for selected articles from The Internationalist and other  statements from the League for the Fourth International. Redouble the Fight to Free Mumia Now! Death Sentence Dropped Against Mumia Abu-Jamal Mobilize Workers’ Power to Smash the Racist Death Penalty! The Philadelphia district attorney has announced that he is giving up on the decades-long crusade by the state to carry out a death sentence against Mumia Abu-Jamal. But even after three decades in jail, the racist rulers are still dead-set on silencing this courageous defender of the oppressed who became known as the “voice of the voiceless.” Millions around the world have come out in support of Mumia, who has become the symbol of the struggle against the racist death penalty in the U.S. The determined international protest certainly played a key role in saving him from the state executioner. But instead, he is sentenced to life without parole. While the legal lynchers were set back, we cannot proclaim victory until Jamal walks free. Every day that he is in jail, his life is in danger. Rather than looking to the capitalist state with calls for a “new trial” and appeals to the Obama administration, we have called to mobilize the power of the working class to free Mumia Abu-Jamal. The fundamental fact is, there is no justice for the oppressed in the racist, capitalist courts. We must redouble our efforts to free Mumia now!  Death Sentence Dropped Against Mumia Abu-Jamal (8 December 2011) See also: Mumia’s Life Is On the Line: Mobilize Labor/Black Power to Free Him Now! (25 November 2009) Brazilian Teachers Strike Again for Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal (May 2008) “Anti-Austerity” Protest in Portland Capitalism Can’t Be Reformed: The Only Solution, Workers Revolution No Vote for Obama, Romney – For a Revolutionary Workers Party On Saturday, November 3, a “Solidarity Against Austerity” protest was held under the auspices of a number of Portland-area labor, community and left groups, including offshoots of the Occupy movement and several trade unions. The endorsers are politically diverse, some proclaiming “Our dreams don’t fit in their ballot boxes” wwhile many of the unions are supporting Barack Obama and other Democrats in the elections. But independent of their formal positions, the protest amounts to pre-election pressure on Obama and the Democratic Party. A favorite demand of the reformist groups is “tax the rich,” which is also the program of Democratic Party liberals and even multi-billionaires like Warren Buffet. Yet taxing the rich won't stop austerity, because the attacks on poor and working people and the oppressed have nothing to do with a lack of dollars in government coffers. Many also want to return to Keynesian Keynesian “welfare state” policies. But the source of the war on workers, the poor and oppressed is capitalism, not a set of economic policies that can be changed at will. The Internationalist Group calls instead for a class-struggle fight against capitalist austerity. Capitalism Can’t Be Reformed: The Only Solution, Workers Revolution  (3 November 2012) “Hot and Crusty Workers’ Fight Is Every New York Worker’s Fight!” NYC Unions Back Hot and Crusty Workers at Labor/Immigrant Rights Solidarity Rally On Thursday, October 18, one hundred union, immigrant rights, student and community activists came out to the “Labor/Immigrant Rights Rally in Solidarity with the Hot and Crusty Workers.” The immigrant workers have been on the picket line for 50 days after the old owner closed the restaurant on August 31 in reprisal for the workers organizing their union, the Hot and Crusty Workers Association. In line with an agreement signed with a prospective new owner early last month, the workers are fighting to win their jobs back with union recognition and a union hiring hall, crucial to their job security. The event featured speakers and delegations from some of the city’s largest and most powerful unions, including TWU Local 100, Utility Workers Local 1-2, CWA Local 1101, AFSCME DC 37, UFCW Local 1500, PSC, LIUNA Local 78, as well were delegates, organizers and activists from the UFT, UAW, ROC-NY and other labor groups. Activists from community, immigrant rights and left groups also made up a key part of the rally. The impressive turnout showed that the workers have broad support, and reflected the growing recognition that the Hot and Crusty workers’ struggle is a key battle for New York City labor.  NYC Unions Back Hot and Crusty Workers at Labor/Immigrant Rights Solidarity Rally  (19 October 2012) Defeat Lockout, Win Union Recognition... and Agreement to a Union Hiring Hall “Hot and Crusty” Workers Show the Way A groundbreaking and potentially historic step forward has been taken by immigrant workers in NYC’s food industry with the announcement by the Hot and Crusty Workers Association (HCWA) that bakery workers on Manhattan’s Upper East Side have prevailed against an employer lockout. A statement by the HWCA on the tentative agreement with the store’s new owners reported: “The Union announced that the company has agreed to recognize the union immediately and commence negotiations towards a collective bargaining agreement. In addition,the union has negotiated the institution of a hiring hall through which all employees must be referred by the Hot and Crusty Workers Association.” Workers at today’s rally expressed their determination to consolidate a solid union victory that can serve as an inspiring example to the many thousands who face starvation wages, employer abuse and anti-immigrant discrimination in “deli-sweatshops” throughout the city. Activists from several area unions participated in the daily pickets, as well as a number from the Occupy movement. The CUNY Internationalist Clubs, Internationalist Group and Class Struggle Education Workers have also been working with the HWCA and Laundry Workers Center activists. “Hot and Crusty” Workers Show the Way  (8 September 2012) Victory to the Electrical Workers! No Wisconsins in NYC! Turn Up the Heat on Con Ed! Bring Out Workers’ Power to Knock Out the Lockout! The lockout of 8,500 workers by the Con Edison utility monopoly is a crucial battle for all New York City labor. A lockout is always a threat to break the union. Con Ed has assigned 5,000 managers to work as scabs and brought in strikebreakers from Virginia and elsewhere. The profit-hungry Con Ed bigwigs may think they can imitate Wisconsin governor Scott Walker in ripping up labor’s hard-won rights. We need to show them that there will be no Wisconsins in New York. The union has been looking to the state Public Utilities Commission and to federal mediation, and to Democratic Party politicians to rein in Con Ed. But bourgeois politicians will not win this fight for Con Ed workers. Democrats from Barack Obama in the White House to Andrew Cuomo in the State House on down have repeatedly sided with the bosses. The fight at Con Ed is a key battle against the capitalist assault on the unions. If the unions are to survive to fight and prevail in the sharpening class struggle it is urgently necessary to break with the Democrats and build a workers party to fight for a workers government. Bring Out Workers’ Power to Knock Out the Lockout!  (17 July 2012) Portland “Community Assembly to Create a People’s Budget” Why Negotiating the Bosses’ Budget Doesn’t Work for Workers By the Portland Trotskyist Study Group Often in protests you hear the chant, “Workers are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back.” But the question is how, and here there are big differences. In late May, teachers in Reynolds, Oregon struck for five days and won; teachers in nearby schools who didn’t walk out got stuck with concessionary contracts. Earlier, a number of labor unions, community groups, trade unionists and leftists organized “Community Assembly to Create a People’s Budget.”  The notion of a “participatory” budget process is based on the false concept that “the people” can all get together, that the solution is more democracy, when in fact there are fundamental class issues at stake. Suggesting to the bosses’ government how to raise money or what its priorities should be is a dead end. It’s not “our” government but theirs. By accepting budget “constraints,” various sectors try to defend their mouthful of bread. This sets one group of workers against another and makes them complicit in cutbacks.  Instead what’s needed is a program of demands going beyond empty reforms in order to turn defensive struggles into a workers counteroffensive against the collapsing capitalist system.Why Negotiating the Bosses’ Budget Doesn’t Work for Workers  (July 2012) A “Declaration of War” Against the Student Strike Mobilize Workers’ Power Against Quebec Police State Law! The militant Quebec student strike, now in its fourth month, is under massive attack. Up to 300,000 students have struck against a huge tuition increase (originally 75%, now raised to 82%), braving vicious repression, including more than 1,600 arrests. On May 17 the Quebec government introduced Bill No. 78 which shuts down struck colleges and universities until mid-August (a lockout of the students and teachers) and gives police arbitrary power to ban pickets and any demonstrations. It intends to pass the law in one day. This is a frontal assault on democratic rights and a threat to labor: workers’strike pickets are surely next to be banned. Quebec students are in the front lines of an international battle against the capitalist assault on public education. They need our active solidarity and support. The three main Quebec union federations have condemned the new law, but what is needed is action, now, to shut down Montréal and other major Quebec cities over this vicious police-state law. Mobilize Workers’ Power Against Quebec Police State Law!  (18 May 2012) See also the web site of Class Struggle Education Workers on “Solidarity at CUNY with Quebec Student Strike ” (11 May 2012)  Gofers for the ILWU Bureaucracy  SL’s Wrong Lessons of Longview In a recent article, the centrist Spartacist League joined reformists including the International Socialist Organization and Socialist Workers Party in acting as apologists for the bureaucracy of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. The SL goes even further, defending an attack by ILWU bureaucrats against ILWU speakers at a January 6 Occupy forum in Seattle to build solidarity with Longview longshore. We warned that the ILWU tops had made major concessions in the contract that capped that key struggle. Now that the terms of the concessionary contract (which has never been voted on by the Local 21 membership) have become known, it is even worse than feared: it allows the company to choose its workers, and a key clause threatens the very heart of ILWU power, the union hiring hall. SL’s Wrong Lessons of Longview (March 2012) Showdown in Alma: To Win, Mobilize the Power of the Entire Workers Movement Quebec: Lockout at Rio Tinto Alcan On January 1, the bosses of the Rio Tinto Alcan aluminum plant in the city of Alma, in northeastern Quebec, imposed a lockout in order to stifle the will to struggle of the 787 working men and women. By means of a sharp increase in subcontracting, the world leader of aluminum production wants to drastically reduce the wages of several hundred workers to less than half of what they earn today. The locked-out workers have received many gestures of solidarity, but what counts is action. It is necessary to strike and occupy all of the RTA installations in Quebec and the rest of Canada to cut off its profits at the source. For the workers to win, they must break the chains imposed by the bourgeois courts and undertake determined class struggle to impose the law of the workers against that of the bosses. Quebec: Lockout at Rio Tinto Alcan (20 February 2012) Bloody Bogalusa, 1919: When Four White Unionists Died Defending Their Black Comrades In November 1919, black and white workers joined in struggle for their rights at the Great Southern Lumber sawmill in Bogalusa, Louisiana. The company, founded by Northern investors, was determined to defeat unionization at all costs and keep the predominantly black workers down. When a posse of lynchers came for the leading black organizer, Sol Dacus, he escaped and the next day marched down the main street of town accompanied by two white unionists with shotguns. The company dispatched a horde of 150 gunmen from its private army who attacked the union offices, killing four white members of the Carpenters union, J.P. Bouchillon, Stanley O'Rourke, Lem Williams and Thomas Gaines. The company won, but the example of black-white labor solidarity set the background for the rise of the Deacons for Defense and Justice in the 1960s and continues to inspire today. Labor cannot unionize the South without rooting out the bloody legacy of slavery and the Confederacy. Honor the heroes of Bogalusa 1919!! Bloody Bogalusa, 1919 (February 2012) All Honor to Our Comrade Marília, A Communist and Poet of Struggle Sadly, comrade Marília Costa Machado died today, 15 February 2012. It was an irreparable loss of a communist comrade who during her career of 30 years as an educator was always in the vanguard of the teachers of the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Marília had been a director of the SEPE teachers union and as a writer she published two books of poems. In 1997 she was named Muse of Poetry of the city of Rio de Janeiro, notably for her poems against the military dictatorship. As a member of the Liga Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil (Fourth Internationalist League of Brazil) and the Comitê de Luta Classista (Class Struggle Committee), her internationalism placed her in the forefront of the campaign to free Mumia Abu Jamal. All Honor to Our Comrade Marília, A Communist and Poet of Struggle (February 2012) Poems and Photos of Comrade Marília Machado [in Portuguese] (February 2012) Scabs Are Out, But ILWU Concessions Longview: EGT Union-Busting Beaten Back, At a Cost The drive to break International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) jurisdiction on Pacific Coast grain shipping has been beaten back after months of explosive labor struggle. A multinational consortium, EGT, built and began operating a new $200 million grain terminal with scab labor. Last week, EGT recognized the union as bargaining agent and on Thursday the membership of ILWU Local 21 approved a contract. But this has come at a cost, as the union leadership made significant concessions in the bargaining. This could set the stage for future battles as other shippers demand similar terms. Nevertheless, ILWU workers are in the plant and the scabs are out. Credit for this is due to the militancy of Longview and other longshore workers and their supporters who would not be intimidated by the capitalist courts and cops. The showdown in Longview is a harbinger of sharp class battles to come. Longview: EGT Union-Busting Beaten Back, At a Cost (12 February 2012) Open Letter to Supporters of the ISO “Socialist” Excuses for Disruption of Labor Solidarity Forum The January 6 furor in Seattle has highlighted the increasingly charged relationship between the Occupy Wall Street movement and the official leadership of trade unions. The violent disturbance by officials of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) was directed not only against Occupy Seattle but particularly targeted ILWU militants speaking at the forum. Outrageously, several self-described socialist groups took up cudgels for the pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy. The egregious apology for the bureaucratic disrupters by the International Socialist Organization (ISO) has caused an uproar, including inside the ISO. Basically, there was a clash of opportunisms: two different “constituencies” the ISO was tailing after (Occupy and labor leaders) came into conflict. The ISO came down on the side of the labor bureaucracy. From Wisconsin to Washington, these social democrats seek to push the bureaucrats ever so slightly to the left. But when the capitalists and the pro-capitalist bureaucracy crack the whip, the ISO obeys. “Socialist” Excuses for Disruption of Labor Solidarity Forum (February 2012) ILWU Bureaucrats Target Union Militants, Attack “Occupy” Solidarity Meeting January 6: An Outrage in Seattle On January 6, 2012, a labor solidarity forum called by Occupy Seattle was held to support International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 21 (Longview, Washington) in its battle against union-busting by the giant EGT consortium. However, a couple dozen right-wing bureaucrats and hangers-on from the Seattle, Tacoma and Portland ILWU locals physically disrupted the meeting with yelling, pushing, shoving and punches, in attempt to prevent its democratic functioning. The bureaucratic union misleaders seek to intimidate solidarity actions by claiming they would violate the slave labor Taft-Hartley Act, which outlaws most effective strike tactics. Some Occupy activists falsely portrayed this attack as demonstrating the bankruptcy of unions. However, speakers and many in the audience made clear that these bureaucratic thugs did not represent the ranks of labor, chanting "ILWU, ILWU" against the disrupters. The meeting ended with an appeal for all supporters of labor rights to come to Longview to protest the anticipated arrival of a ship to load the scab grain. January 6: An Outrage in Seattle (January 2012) Video: Seattle Labor Solidarity Forum Disruption (12 January 2012) Solidarity with Longview Longshore Workers Protesters in New York Slam Military Union-Busting Chanting “What’s disgusting? Coast Guard union-busting,” some 75 protesters demonstrated for an hour and a half in soaking rain in front of the Federal Building in downtown New York City on January 23. The united-front protest brought together supporters of a number of area unions, student and left groups. They were denouncing the government’s announced plan to use the U.S. Coast Guard against the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) in Longview, Washington. For the last year, the ILWU ranks have militantly fought against an attempt to break their union by a giant consortium, EGT, which has opened a new $200 million grain export terminal in the West Coast port which it is operating with scab labor. This government/employer attack on the strongest and most combative union in the U.S. is a threat to all labor. Protesters in New York Slam Military Union-Busting (23 January 2012) Exchange with Spartacist League on the January 23 Protest (23 January 2012) Following Dec. 12 West Coast Port Blockade Longshore Workers, Truckers: Shut the Ports, Coast to Coast! Class War on the West Coast Docks Ports up and down the West Coast were blockaded, from Seattle to San Diego. Despite a barrage of hostile propaganda in the media, opposition from union bureaucrats and heavy police repression in some places, overall the blockade was successful – this time. The blockade was called in solidarity with longshore workers fighting a union-busting assault in Longview, Washington and with port truckers seeking union recognition in the ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach. This support should have been greeted. Instead, the union bureaucracy attacked the port blockade, although longshore workers respected the picket lines. But now the class war on the West Coast docks is coming to a head, and it can’t be waged from the outside. Bay Area labor has called for a caravan to Longview. The goal should be a real occupation of the terminal by the workers to prevent the loading of the scab cargo. Longshore militants have called on the longshore unions to shut down every port on the West Coast, and the East and Gulf Coasts, to smash EGT’s union-busting. Can it be done? Yes, but only though sharp struggle against the pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy. Longshore Workers, Truckers: Shut the Ports, Coast to Coast! (28 December 2011) BoT Meeting at Baruch: Cops Run Wild Against Student Protesters CUNY Is Not a Jail! Cops Out of CUNY! Abolish the Board of Trustees – No Tuition, Open Admissions! On November 21, the City University of New York unleashed its campus cops on a crowd of several hundred students, shoving, beating and arresting 15.  The protesters were clamoring to attend a “public hearing” of the Board of Trustees dealing with plans for a tuition increase, from which all but a few dozen people (many of them campus administrators) were excluded. Students chanted “CUNY is not a jail” and “Cops out of CUNY.” The police assault, following the NYPD eviction of Occupy Wall Street, is part of nationwide ramp-up of repression, including the sadistic pepper-spraying of student protesters at the Universithy of California Davis campus. CUNY Internationalist Clubs have long called for all cops off campus, for abolition of the Board of Trustees, for student-teacher-worker control of the university and for no tuition and open admissions. To win these demands, we have have called, in signs and chants, “Workers and students, shut the city down!” On November 17, thousands took up this chant. It will take convulsive student struggles in conjunction with a powerful mobilization of the working class and the oppressed to defeat the ruling-class attack. CUNY Is Not a Jail! Cops Out of CUNY! (22 November 2011) “99%” Populism Is No Solution Expropriate Wall Street Through Socialist Revolution Occupy Wall Street: A Marxist Analysis In the two months since Occupy Wall Street burst onto the scene it quickly swept the nation. There have been over 600 occupations in cities across the U.S., and many more around the globe. In New York City, “All day, all week, Occupy Wall Street” is not just a protest chant but an accurate description of local politics. The “Occupy movement” has crystallized a popular mood of anger and frustration as the world enters the fourth year of a full-fledged economic depression. Thousands of students burdened under a mountain of debt and college graduates unable to find work have taken to the streets to protest. Unions have given different kinds of support. But while denouncing the filthy-rich “1%” in the name of the other 99% of the population, it has not put forward any program for what is to be done. And the various demands and proposals floated by Occupy proponents do not challenge the capitalist system. While there are diverse tendencies among the occupiers, the ideological glue that has held them together is bourgeois populism. But in the course of the struggle, particularly under the blows of repression, political outlooks can change sharply. Expropriate Wall Street Through Socialist Revolution (14 November 2011) Revolution Publication of the Internationalist Clubs at the City University of New York (click on masthead to go to Revolution index) Revolution No. 9 (November 2011)  click above or on image to right for full list of articles Outrage! NYC Evicts Occupy Wall Street Workers and Students, Shut the City Down! At 1 a.m. on November 15 New York City police descended on Zuccotti Park in the city’s financial center to shut down Occupy Wall Street. Ordered by billionaire mayor Mike Bloomberg, the dead-of-night police attack is the culmination of two months of mounting pressure from NYC authorities and the recent unrelenting propaganda barrage against OWS from the media, both conservative and liberal. The eviction was part of a nationally coordinated crackdown, coming just a day after a similar attack on Occupy Oakland in California, and weekend raids in Portland, Oregon, Denver and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Democratic and Republican mayors have been united in their determination to put an end to the occupations. In the face of the cop assault on OWS, what is urgently called for is a massive mobilization of labor’s power to bring New York to a standstill over this police-state repression. Within hours of the police attack, the Internationalist Clubs at the City University of New York (CUNY) together with Class Struggle Education Workers and the IG distributed hundreds of leaflets calling for “Workers and Students, Shut the the City Down!” Outrage! N Evicts Occupy Wall Street – Workers and Students, Shut the City Down!  (15 November 2011) Expropriate Wall Street Through Socialist Revolution! NYPD: Guard Dogs of Finance Capital Students and Workers: Shut the City Down! On October 1, the New York Police Department lashed out at the “Occupy Wall Street” protesters, arresting over 700 demonstrators as they marched into a police trap on the Brooklyn Bridge. Coming after the arrest of 85 OWS protesters a week earlier, and the videotaped pepper-spraying of trapped women marchers by a top police official, the mass bust provoked outrage in the NYC population. On October 5, tens of thousands came out at the call of the labor unions in solidarity with the protesters and against the wanton police brutality. CUNY Internationalist Clubs marched, chanting “Students and workers, shut the city down!” Many OWS demonstrators have huge illusions in the police, calling on them to join the protests. Cops are not fellow workers but the armed fist of capital. Despite vituperation in the right-wing media, the vast majority of the protesters are not radicals but angry liberals. The occupation’s list of grievances points toward a slightly reformed, “green” capitalism, whileprotesters have been waving the American flag, symbol of U.S. imperialism. Yet tinkering with financial regulations will not solve mass unemployment, racist repression and imperialist war. Most of the left has written gushing articles about the occupation, refusing to tell the truth, that capitalism cannot be reformed to “serve the people,” it must brought down through a struggle for workers power. NYPD: Guard Dogs of Finance Capital (5 October 2011) Video of Internationalist intervention at OWS protest against mass arrests Isn’t That the American Flag They’re Waving? (6 October 2011) Internationalists Protest Imperialism’s “Dr. Shock” What the Hell Was Economic Hit Man Jeffrey Sachs Doing at Occupy Wall Street? On October 7, economist Jeffrey Sachs spoke at the Occupy Wall Street protest in the New York financial district. High-flying academic Sachs is notorious for implementing free market capitalism with a vengeance. He made his reputation with economic “shock treatments” that produced misery and death for untold numbers of working people in Bolivia, Poland and the former Soviet Union. When Internationalist supporters learned of his appearance at OWS, we rushed to the square to expose this economic hit man and inform those present of his crimes. Here is some of the evidence. The fact that this top capitalist privatizer and imperialist criminal was invited to spout off at OWS says a lot about the agenda of those who invited him. What the Hell Was Economic Hit Man Jeffrey Sachs Doing at Occupy Wall Street?(9 October 2011) Georgia to Carry Out Legal Lynching Troy Davis Case Shows: There Is No Justice in the Capitalist Courts Mobilize Workers’ Power to Smash the Racist Death Penalty! On September 20, the Georgia State Board of Pardons turned down the appeal of Troy Davis to commute his death sentence. Davis was convicted and sentenced to die for the 1989 shooting death of an off-duty Savannah police officer. There have been worldwide demonstrations demanding that he not be executed. Last week more than 630,000 letters were handed to the Board asking to stop the execution of Davis on the grounds that there is “too much doubt” about this case. In fact, massive evidence shows that beyond a shadow of a doubt Troy Davis is innocent. If Georgia carries out the death sentence, it will be nothing less than state murder, a legal lynching. It will show, as a number of black Georgians bitterly remarked to the press, that racist Jim Crow “justice” is alive and well in the state that was the lynching capital of the South in the 1920s. It will demonstrate that for the racist U.S. injustice system, innocence is not a defense –especially for a black man accused of killing a white cop. It will prove, once again, that there is no justice in the capitalist courts. But the legal lynchers can be stopped, by mobilizing the power of the working class. It will take nothing less than socialist revolution to sweep away this rotting system that lives on death. Troy Davis Case Shows: There Is No Justice in the Capitalist Courts (21 September 2011) Not a General Strike, But 30,000 Occupied the Port... And Then the Cops Struck Again Tens of Thousands March to Defend Occupy Oakland Following the brutal police raid before dawn on October 25 and the bloody assault on protesters later that day, Occupy Oakland called for a “General Strike” on November 2. Tens of thousands came out and blockaded the port in the evening, but the union bureaucrats refused to call strike action. This robbed the mobilization of much of its power. Soon after the demosntrators went home, an army of 400 police retaliated, attacking the occupation of an empty building. To answer this naked display of police power, it is necessary to show that the working class has far greater power, by striking at the cops’ capitalist masters where it hurts: the source of their profits. In the face of the continuing police threat, workers defense guards together with Occupy Oakland are needed, as well as real strike action to shut the city down in the face of a new attack. No “reforms” will change the character of the police as enforcers of racist bourgeois order. Since police are the backbone of state power, it will take nothing less than a socialist revolution to get rid of cop brutality, which is endemic to capitalist rule.  Tens of Thousands March to Defend Occupy Oakland(9 November 2011) The General Strike and the “Occupy Movement” Militant Class Struggle Like You Haven’t Seen in Years: ILWUers Defy Federal Injunction, Block Train, “Storm” Scab Terminal Showdown on West Coast Docks The Battle of Longview Since early this year a bitter struggle has been waged in the small West Coast  port of Longview, Washington. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union is fighting a vicious union-busting attack by a new grain shipping conglomerate. The battle got national attention when on September 8, some 800 union supporters “stormed” the new Export Grain Terminal, as the big business press put it. As security guards cowered, thousands of tons of grain were dumped on the tracks and railroad cars disabled. That morning more than 1,000 longshoremen refused to show up for work, shutting down the major ports of the Pacific Northwest. The day before, hundreds of ILWUers blocked a train carrying grain to the scab terminal and held off police. So far there have been more than 200 arrests in Longview. It all harked back to the militant union action that built the labor movement and which has seldom been seen in recent years. It gave a taste of workers’ power that needs to be mobilized in sharp class struggle today. This battle affects the entire maritime industry: to win it, the dock unions must prepare to shut down ports on all three coasts. The key is to build a class-struggle leadership. Showdown on West Coast Docks: The Battle of Longview(4 November 2011) Oakland Port Shutdown Workers Refuse to Work the Docks Today thousands of working people are refusing to go to work in response to a call for a “General Strike” by Occupy Oakland. This includes many port workers who, in response to an appeal from rank-and-file members of International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10, refused to load and unload ships, effectively crippling the port. Many will be joining the late afternoon march on the port denouncing the brutal police attack on Occupy Oakland demonstrators last week, ordered by liberal Democratic mayor Jean Quan. Report from longshore activist Jack Heyman at the Oakland docks.  Oakland Port Shutdown: Workers Refuse to Work the Docks! (2 November 2011) Hands Off Occupy Oakland! Mobilize Labor’s Power Against Racist Police Repression! Workers and Students, Shut the City Down! In the pre-dawn hours of October 25, police in Oakland, California violently evicted protesters camped out in Oscar Grant Plaza in front of city hall, and from a near-by satellite camp, arresting close to 100 people. That evening, facing an angry protest demonstration of several thousand the cops responded with repeated volleys of tear gas as well as concussion grenades, bean bag canisters and wooden slugs and possibly rubber bullets. The Oakland police are the same force that attacked an antiwar demonstration at the Port of Oakland in April 2003, firing the same sort of potentially lethal munitions and injuring at least six longshoremen. This is also the city where Oscar Grant was murdered by BART police on New Year’s Day 2009. The workers movement in the Bay Area, with the powerful International Longshore and Warehouse Union in the lead, should use its muscle against a threatened attempt to evict Occupy San Francisco and to enable Occupy Oakland to reestablish its camp. An injury to one is an injury to all! Hands Off Occupy Oakland! (26 October 2011) This Is What U.S. Imperialist-Sponsored “Democracy” Looks Like The Assassination of Muammar Qaddafi Serial Killer in the White House Carves Another Notch in His Gun On the morning of October 20, former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi was captured, brutally beaten and executed in cold blood by the victorious imperialist-sponsored “rebels” who have taken over the North African country. The murder was quickly celebrated by U.S. president Barack Obama and other NATO leaders, whose warplanes massively bombed Libyan cities under the guise of “protecting civilians.” The victory of the competing gangs of Islamist and monarchist cutthroats armed, financed and “advised” by the Western powers is hardly a blow for democracy but the establishment of neo-colonial rule. The ugly face of that regime can be seen in the grisly cellphone videos of the lynchers as they tormented and then assassinated Qaddafi. The Assassination of Muammar Qaddafi (21 October 2011) Internationalist Solidarity with Chilean Students! The New Battle of Chile For Free, Quality Public Education Workers to Power! Chile is currently experiencing the largest and most sustained mobilization in two decades against the regime inherited from the Pinochet dictatorship. For four months straight, hundreds of thousands of Chilean students and workers have taken to the streets fighting for free, quality public education. They seek to bring down the market-based educational system imposed by the military rulers and the governments of the “democratic transition.” Since May, hundreds of secondary schools and the main universities have been occupied. Hundreds of thousands of people have repeatedly marched in Santiago and the main cities in enormous protests, with thousands of arrests and sharp street battles against the militarized police (carabineros). The response of the right-wing government of Sebastián Piñera has been to intensify the repression and to attempt to divert the protest into a treacherous “dialogue.” In this they have counted on the aid of the reformist leaders of the movement, above all those affiliated to the Communist Party and the “center-left” coalition, Concertación. However, more militant sectors of the student movement have opposed the sellouts by the “moderates”. The students have broad popular support, but the government is not backing down. A revolutionary leadership is required to mobilize the power of the working class to achieve the democratic demands of the student movement in the framework of a struggle for socialist revolution. The New Battle of Chile For Free, Quality Public Education (16 September 2011) Chile: Constituent Assembly and Workers Power (October 2011) Marxism and Education  Pamphlets and Articles from The Internationalist Recent articles on Education: Stop Privatization of Public Schools – Not Corporate Fake “Reform,” We Need an Education Revolution! No to Teacher-Basher McCain and Education-for-War Obama Break with the Democrats – For a Class-Struggle Workers Party From the outset of the 2008 presidential election campaign, teachers and teachers unions have been mobilized to the hilt for the Democratic Party. While the American Federation of Teachers first backed Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries, it and the National Education Association are now overwhelmingly for Barack Obama running against John McCain for the Republicans. Most teachers are going for the Democrats, but the Democrats are not going for them not going for them – nor are the Republicans, to be sure. The fact that for the first time a black man is the top candidate of one of the major parties and could likely be the next U.S. president, and that a woman was his chief opponent in the primary elections, marks a significant social shift in this country that will be widely seen as a breakthrough. Yet this does not change the fact that the Democrats and Republicans are bourgeois parties who govern by and for the capitalist class. Both candidates will continue the imperialist occupation of Iraq and both promise to escalate the war in Afghanistan. There isn’t the slightest doubt that McCain is bad news for teachers and students in every way. The issue is over Obama, who while promising to “ work with ” teachers says he wants to introduce “ merit pay,” increase charter schools, and remove teachers who administrators decide are “doing a poor job.” These points just happen to be the three-pronged attack plan of the corporate interests for whom “educational reform” means union-busting.  No to Teacher-Basher McCain and Education-for-War Obama  (3 November 2008) Hard Class Battle Coming Puerto Rico: All Out to Defend the Teachers’ Struggle! We are on the threshold of a major class battle in Puerto Rico. Every day new preparations are announced for the coming strike of the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation (FMPR). With 42,000 members, a majority of them women, the FMPR represents almost all of Puerto Rico’s teachers and is by far the largest union on the island. The Shock Force of the Puerto Rican Police and National Guard are being readied to go after the strikers. The struggle of the Puerto Rican teachers affects everybody. The working class as a whole, students and parents, teachers and defenders of workers’ rights around the world must come out in defense of the FMPR! If there are mass arrests, the response must be massive blockades and spreading the struggle to the point of shutting the island down. In order to win this strike, it is necessary to prepare for a struggle not only of the teachers but within the whole workers movement against the pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy that sabotages the workers’ struggle. Above all, it is necessary to fight against illusions in and ties with bourgeois parties and politicians. It’s high time to begin building a revolutionary internationalist workers party.  Puerto Rico: All Out to Defend the Teachers’ Struggle!  (14 February 2008) En español: Puerto Rico: ¡Todos a la calle en defensa del magisterio en lucha! Report from San Juan Tens of Thousands March in Puerto Rico on Eve of Teachers Strike “La huelga va, la huelga va” (the strike is on the way), sang thousands of teachers as they marched through the streets of Puerto Rico’s capital today in preparation for the massive strike that is shaping up as a major class battle. Victory to the Puerto Rican teachers! Tens of Thousands March in Puerto Rico on Eve of Teachers Strike  (18 February 2008) En español:  Decenas de miles marchan en Puerto Rico en vísperas de la huelga magisterial “Civic” Revolution or Workers Revolution? Ecuador Needs a Workers, Peasants and Indian Government Forge a Leninist-Trotskyist Revolutionary Workers Party! For an Andean Federation of Workers Republics! For the last two decades, Ecuador has found itself in an almost constant state of upheaval and revolt. Yet practically nothing has changed in the direction the country is headed: it is still subject to the dictates of Yankee imperialism, the dollarization of the economy, the U.S. Southern Command’s occupation of the Manta Air Base... By all accounts, Ecuador needs a revolution. But the question is posed, what kind of revolution? President Rafael Correa, a bourgeois populist, calls for a “civic revolution.” However, he ferociously opposes any class actions, particularly the struggle for a workers revolution to bring down the capitalist system. He called a Constituent Assembly in order to “refound” the couintry. Yet on the very day the Assembly was inaugurated, he unleashed a brutal repression against peasants of the Amazonian parish of Dayuma for shutting down production at an oil well. The Ecuadorian working masses need a struggle for a workers, peasants and Indian government, which launches international socialist revolution. Ecuador Needs a Workers, Peasants and Indian Government  (25 December 2007) En español: Ecuador necesita un gobierno obrero, campesino e indígena  (25 de diciembre de 2007) Craft Divisions Endanger Labor: Build a Single Media Union Don’t Let Writers Stand Alone – All Media Workers Should Join the WGA on Strike! All Media Workers Should Join the WGA on Strike!  (22 December 2007) The World Socialist Web Site, a/k/a Socialist Equality Party, is trying to attract WGA writers. What the WSWS/SEP doesn’t mention is that they oppose unions, even telling auto workers to vote to keep unions out. Far from being some kind of ultra-leftists, these scab “socialists” are doing the bosses’ work. SEP/WSWS: Scab “Socialists”  (22 December 2007) Workers Strikes Against the War! Hot-Cargo War Materiel! Defeat US Imperialism With Workers' Revolution! Boston: How To End The War?  Reformist Movement Leaders Have No Answer The Greater Boston Stop the Wars Coalition (STWC) recently held a meeting on “Ending the War: Peace Movement Leaders Ask, ‘Which Way Forward’?” Good question, to which they have no answer. Although the “movement” is divided between a variety of “coalitions,” they all have the same basic political makeup: one or two socialist groups at the core posing as “just us peace folks”; a minimum “democratic” program aimed at attracting support from mainstream liberals; one or another bourgeois politician dragged onto the speakers platform to gain the desired veneer of “respectability.” These popular fronts for peace chain opponents of the war to sections of the bourgeoisie, that is, the “bipartisan” imperialist war party. What they don’t have is a program to mobilize power to stop the warmongers in their tracks: the power of the working class. immigrants is the “home front” of the imperialist war on Iraq. The Internationalist Group says: The only “anti-war movement” that succeeded in stopping an imperialist war was the Russian revolution of 1917, led by the Bolshevik party of Lenin and Trotsky.  Boston: How To End The War?  (18 May 2007) Button available from Mundial Publications. $1 each (Click here to order)  Button available from Mundial Publications. $1 each (Click here to order)   Button available from Mundial Publications. $1 each (Click here to order)  Philippines Crackdown: Fight Arroyo with Workers’ Power! Not Another EDSA "People's Power" Fraud, Fight for Workers Revolution! Build the Nucleus of a Philippine Trotskyist Party! Once again the Philippine political landscape reverberated from the noise of police banging up their shields and tanks rumbling through the streets, reminiscent of the martial law years of the 1970s. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo proclaimed a state of emergency on February 24, then lifted it a week later. But the crackdown continues as the Philippines is undergoing “creeping martial law.”  Most protests called for ousting Arroyo with “people power” – i.e., for mass mobilization behind the civilian/military bourgeois opposition such as brought down the dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. The League for the Fourth International warns that this is a program for defeat of the working people. The LFI calls to drive the U.S. out of Iraq and Palestine, and to sweep away the Arroyo regime with workers power.  (English) Philippines Crackdown: Fight Arroyo with Workers’ Power!  (23 March 2006)  (Pilipino) Crackdown sa Pilipinas: Labanan si Arroyo sa Pamamagitan ng Kapangyarihan ng mga Manggagawa!  (23 Marso 2006) Palestine: For Arab-Hebrew Workers Revolution Selected articles from The Internationalist and other  statements from the League for the Fourth International.  U.S. Prepares New Desert Slaughter Defeat U.S. Imperialism! Defend Iraq! Pentagon’s “First Strike” Strategy:  Careening Toward World War III Imperialist war criminals are about to launch an Armageddon on the Tigris and Euphrates. The Pentagon now has a “bipartisan” green light to carry out the wanton slaughter that the White House had long since ordered. After the ritual debate and rubber-stamp approval from Congress, there will be a similar charade in the United Nations. The League for the Fourth International and its U.S. section, the Internationalist Group, call on the international working class to defend Iraq and fight to defeat the imperialist war, “at home” and abroad. As opposed to bourgeois pacifism, we communists call instead for class war against the imperialist war. And we warn that the endless “war on terror” proclaimed by the U.S. will be a prelude to a third imperialist world war.  Defeat U.S. Imperialism! Defend Iraq!   (17 October 2002) (français) Pour la défaite des impérialistes ! Défense de l'Irak !  (octobre 2002) (español) ¡Derrotar a los imperialistas! ¡Defender a Irak!  (octubre de 2002) (japanese)  To see the contents of previous issues and read articles available online, click on the buttons below Marxist Readings Iran and the Left: Why They Supported Islamic Reaction  (April 1979)  Index of Marxist Readings     The founding statement of the League for the Fourth International La Declaración de la Liga por la IV Internacional se encuentra aquí en español.  La Déclaration de la Ligue pour la Quatrième Internationale se retrouve ici en français.  A Declaração da Liga pela Quarta Internacional é disponível aqui no português. Deklarasyon ng Liga para sa Ika-Apat na Internasyonal. Introducing The Internationalist El Internacionalista es el órgano en español de la Liga por la IV Internacional.  Vanguarda Operária é o jornal da  Liga Quarta-Internacionalista  do Brasil.  Liga für die Vierte Internationale Artikel und Erklärungen der LIVI auf Deutsch. Contact us at the following addresses: U.S.A. To contact the League for the Fourth International write to: Internationalist Group, Box 3321, Church Street Station, New York, NY, 10008, U.S.A. Tel (212) 460-0983. Fax (212) 614-8711  E-mail: internationalistgroup@msn.com  MEXICO To contact the Grupo Internacionalista/México write to:  Apartado Postal 12-201, Admín. Postal Obrero Mundial, CP 03001, México D.F, México E-mail: grupointernacionalista@yahoo.com.mx BRAZIL To contact the Liga Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil write to: Caixa Postal 3892, CEP 2001-0974, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil  E-mail: eliqb@uol.com.br E-mail: lqb1996@yahoo.com.br GERMANY To contact the League for the Fourth International in Germany, write to: Postfach 74 06 41, 22096 Hamburg, Germany    We would like to hear from you. If you are interested in learning more about the Internationalist Group and the League for the Fourth International, contact us at: internationalistgroup@msn.com