"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."
Welcome!
The Internationalist Group, section of the
League for the Fourth International, fights
for international socialist revolution, the
conquest of power by the working class, led
by its Leninist party, championing the cause
of all the oppressed. After a decade and a
half in which the ruling class trumpeted the
supposed "death of communism," the
imperialists are bogged down in losing wars
of colonial occupation in the Near East
while a global economic crisis shakes the
foundations of the capitalist order. With
mass unemployment, poverty and hunger
ravaging the planet, once again there is
talk of socialism and revolution. But as in
the past, the key question is that of
forging a vanguard to lead the struggle of
the workers and the oppressed. Read
more...
On Trump’s “Border
Ruffians”
The mob on January 6 was led by
paramilitaries in camouflage fatigues,
with body armor and weapons. These white
racists are the recognizable descendants
of the “Border Ruffians” that John Brown
and his comrades confronted in the 1850s
in Kansas, defeating their terror
campaign to turn it into a slave state.
After the Civil War, the mob rearmed as
the Ku Klux Klan and continued its
depredations right through the defeat of
Reconstruction in 1877, and beyond.
Historical experience shows that the
political regime and social set-up in
the U.S. under capitalism recreates the
racist mob over and over again. In the
1960s and 1970s, the ultimate leaders of
the KKK wore suits rather than white
robes or blue uniforms. These suited
racists were Joe Biden’s close friends
when he was a senator. Biden was key to
successfully leading the racist fight to
defeat desegregation in the public
schools. On
Trump’s “Border Ruffians” (8
January 2021)
Trump-Instigated,
Fascist-Led, Police-Aided Racist Mob
Assault on Congress Capitalist
“Democracy” Falling Apart – Socialist
Revolution the Only Solution For
Workers Defense Guards Against
Fascist Threats
and to Defend the Rights of All
the Oppressed
Yesterday’s mob
rampage at the U.S. Capitol was the
culmination of Donald Trump’s
campaign of frenzied claims that the
November 2020 presidential election
was “stolen.” The assault on
Congress was instigated by Trump and
his top lieutenants, led by outright
fascists, spearheaded by white
supremacists brandishing the
Confederate battle flag of the
slavocracy, and it was facilitated
by the police. In the media and
numerous politicians the Capitol
attack is described as an
“insurrection,” “coup d’état” or
failed “coup attempt.” Yet this
grotesque rampage by a would-be
lynch mob was not an actual attempt
to seize power (for which they
obviously didn’t have the forces),
nor was it the military trying to
disperse and shut down the U.S.’
highest legislative body. It was a
mob assault aimed at intimidating
Congress into not confirming
Democratic president-elect Joe
Biden, and failing that, to
galvanize hard-core Trumpers into an
authoritarian movement for future
action. It was not a last paroxysm
of Trumpism, but a harbinger of
dangerous times to come. The several
hundred fascists who turned out,
together with tens of thousands of
enraged racists and reactionaries,
are plenty dangerous, but the most
powerful and central dangers come
from the organs of state power of
the capitalist ruling class –
police, military, National Guard –
which brutally repress protests for
black rights and protect the fascist
terrorists. Democrat Joe Biden is
their new boss, and he backs them to
the hilt. Capitalist
“Democracy” Falling Apart –
Socialist Revolution the Only
Solution (7 January 2021)
Immigrant
Laundromat Workers Fight
Intolerable Conditions “¡Union,
fuerza, solidaridad!”
On November 25, defenders of labor and
immigrant rights rallied to support the
workers of the Wash Supply Laundromat on
Manhattan’s Upper West Side as they
delivered a letter of demands to
management. Wearing aprons reading “We
Are the Union,” this courageous group of
Mexican immigrant women gave voice to
the struggle against the intolerable
conditions, wage theft and abuse faced
by many thousands in laundry sweatshops
across the city. The action, called by
the Laundry Workers Center (LWC),
highlighted the workers demands for an
end to wage theft and discrimination,
the right to a break and paid sick
leave, better health and safety
conditions – including providing PPE
needed during the coronavirus pandemic –
as well as earning the city’s minimum
wage. They are also demanding
recognition of the union they are in the
process of forming. The Internationalist
Group (IG) and Revolutionary
Internationalist Youth (RIY) joined in
the action, emphasizing the need to
mobilize the power of NYC labor to
defend immigrant workers. Immigrant
Laundromat Workers Fight Intolerable
Conditions (November 2020)
Voces
del Epicentro Un
folleto de
Trabajadores
Internacionales
Clasistas
(click on
image to download pdf)
As the coronavirus
pandemic erupted in the United
States, the first epicenter
was in the neighborhoods of
New York City with the highest
number of immigrants, where
Trabajadores Internacionales
Clasistas (Class Struggle
Immigrant Workers) has been
active. Read the reports from
TIC activists and teachers in
Class Struggle Education
Workers on the impact of this
capitalist disaster, and the
lessons to be drawn from it.
Also reports from the strike
of packinghouse workers in
Yakima Valley, Washington. (In Spanish)
For Black Liberation Through Socialist
Revolution!
Slavery
and the Constitution: Origins of
U.S. Capitalist “Democracy”
Long ago and far away in the B.C.
(Before Coronavirus) era, bourgeois
politics in the United States fixated
briefly on impeachment. The Democrats
leading the lower house of Congress did
not, of course, impeach Donald Trump for
his crimes against the oppressed, for
example his vicious persecution of
immigrants in the U.S. After all, the
record deportations under the Democratic
administration of “deporter-in-chief”
Barack Obama paved the way for Trump.
Trump was “brought up on charges by the
wrong class for the wrong crimes,” we
noted at the time. One generation after
another is brought up with the mythology
of the Constitution as an embodiment of
“democracy” in general, to be worshiped
alongside the “Founding Fathers.” Yet
the authors of the Constitution
understood very well that they
represented not “the people” in general
but the ruling class of planters and
merchants, and wrote it to safeguard
their interests, in particular to
bolster and uphold the power of the
slaveowners in the newly established
American republic. The U.S. Constitution
established a series of institutions
that are strikingly anti-democratic.
They remained so even after slavery’s
abolition through the Civil War.
Revolutionaries explain the need for a
revolutionary workers party to lead a
socialist revolution to overthrow the
entire capitalist system. Slavery
and the Constitution: Origins of U.S.
Capitalist “Democracy” (August
2020)
Trump Looks to
Cops and Fascists, Democrats
Appeal to Pentagon Brass
Repression
Elections 2020 You Can’t Fight
Trump with Democrats
U.S. capitalism is in a heap of
trouble, and as usual, the
working class and oppressed are
paying the price. It’s about to
get a lot worse. The country is
beset by a deadly plague, the
worst in a century. The economy
is in a new depression, the
deepest since the 1930s. An
explosion of outrage over racist
cop brutality brought millions
into the streets daily in the
largest sustained protest
movement in U.S. history. The
ruling class is sharply divided
after a failed impeachment
process, while U.S. society is
deeply polarized over just about
everything. And now we are on
the eve of an election which
could easily – even likely – set
off weeks of turbulent unrest
and perhaps a constitutional
crisis not seen since 1876. In
answer to Trump’s “law and
order” campaign, Democratic
standard-bearer Joe Biden calls
to shoot “rioters” in the leg
while his running mate, Kamala
Harris, brags she was
California’s former “top cop.”
Neither Republicans nor
Democrats will or can do away
with the terrible scourges
brought upon us by the decaying
capitalist system of war,
poverty and racism which they
represent. We need a workers
party to fight all the bosses’
parties on a revolutionary
program to sweep away the entire
capitalist system. Repression
Elections 2020 (30 October
2020)
Brazil:
Workers Power Candidacy
Against Capitalist Rule
Comrades Carlos Alexandre
Honorato (Cerezo) and Geraldo
Ribeiro of the Liga
Quarta-Internacionalista do
Brasil are running on a Workers
Power Candidacy Against
Capitalist Rule for mayor and
deputy mayor of Volta Redonda,
site of the largest steel plant
in Latin America. They are
presenting a class-struggle
program, including demands for
free and rapid COVID-19 tests
for all, expansion of the public
health care system under workers
control,
teacher-student-parent-worker
control of the schools, union
control of hiring, all police
and military out of the
impoverished favelas,
and the formation of workers
councils as the basis for a
workers and peasants government.
Cerezo is a former steel worker
who played a leading role in the
1988 strike that won the
six-hour workshift in the face
of army occupation. Geraldo led
the historic struggle to expel
police from the municipal
workers union. The bourgeois
courts have banned the
independent workers campaign,
which unlike all the rest
refuses to take one real (the
Brazilian currency) from the
state or bosses, but the
class-struggle campaign
continues. Brazil:
Workers Power Candidacy
Against Capitalist Rule
(28 October 2020)
Close the Camps
– Full Citizenship Rights
for All Immigrants!
Down with Racist Fortress
Europe!
Greece: Moria
Fire Ignites More Racist
Repression
As flames engulfed the Moria
refugee camp on the Greek island
of Lesbos on September 8,
burning it to the ground,
Europe’s “forgotten” crisis was
made visible once more. In the
midst of a global pandemic that
has claimed over a million
lives, Greek authorities locked
down the open-air prison with
its nearly 13,000 migrant
refugees. After protests against
the lockdown, and pushed to the
edge by spending many months and
even years in the squalid
camp, Europe’s largest, some
camp residents set it ablaze.
The desperate act of rebellion
was fueled by years of
humiliation and dehumanization,
carried out under the racist
immigration policies of the
German-dominated European Union
(EU) and its Greek border
guards.With a rightist
government and outright fascists
cooperating in immigrant-bashing
rhetoric and actions, the League
for the Fourth International
calls to close the concentration
camps, free all migrants and
allow them the same freedom of
travel as everyone else while
demanding asylum for refugees
and full citizenship rights for
all immigrants. We also call for
workers action against racist
attacks, and for refugees
fleeing the devastation caused
by imperialism, we say: let them
in! Greece:
Moria Fire Ignites More Racist
Repression (28 October
2020)
In Wake of
Upsurge Against Racist Cop
Terror Democrats’
Pro-Cop Ticket Vies with
Trump Over “Law and Order”
So this is what “democracy”
looks like, USA-style, as
election season enters its final
stretch: a hellscape for the
oppressed, workers and youth.
Unending police murder of black
people, hundreds of thousands
dead of coronavirus, millions
unemployed, fascistic vigilantes
gunning down anti-racist
protesters, and now the West
Coast up in flames. It’s not an
apocalyptic Hollywood movie –
it’s the “death agony of
capitalism” 2020. And after
millions come out in the streets
demanding an end to police
terror; after “progressive”
Democrats (and their echo
chamber on the reformist left)
work overtime to channel protest
into calls for “defunding” the
cops; after these same
“progressives” fall in line
behind the upcoming nominee –
the result is the most
ostentatiously pro-cop
Democratic ticket in decades.
While many organizers of Black
Lives Matter protests this
summer urged people to vote
(Democratic) in November, this
is what they get: Joe Biden, a
“shoot ’em in the legs”
segregationist for president and
Kamla Harris, a “lock ’em up”
top cop for veep. Revolutionary
Marxists call to break from and
defeat the capitalist parties of
racist cop terror, poverty and
war, and to build a workers
party to fight for a workers
government. Democrats’
Pro-Cop Ticket Vies with Trump
Over “Law and Order” (18
September 2020)
As U.S.
Convulsed Over Racist Police
Murder
SL
Silence =
Capitulation to
the Democrats
U.S.
capitalism is mired in
deep crisis, with
200,000 dead from
COVID-19, 50 million
having lost their
jobs, over 1,200
civilians killed by
police so far in 2020,
and now a putrid
election campaign in
which Democrats and
Republicans vie over
who can best carry out
racist repression.
While most of the left
has gone along with
the Democrats’ “law
and order” ticket, who
has been fighting
against the Dems and
all capitalist
parties? The
Internationalist Group
has done so since Day
One of the wave of
anti-racist protests,
in our press,
polemics, placards,
banners, chants and
speeches. The
Spartacist League, in
stark contrast, has
not said one word
about the continuing
pandemic of racist
police murders, and
has been absent from
the mass marches.
Politically, their
absence from the
battlefield destroys
any remaining pretense
of providing
leadership, much less
revolutionary
leadership. These
ex-Trotskyists turn
their backs on youth
seeking to fight
racist oppression. The
latter-day SL provides
no opposition to the
Democratic Party. On
its epitaph, we can
read: when the U.S.
blew up over racist
cop murder, when
Democrats were
misleading millions
into a dead-end, they
did nothing. SL
Silence =
Capitulation to the
Democrats (2
October 2020) Prepare a Joint
UFT/AFSCME/TWU Strike Against
“Doomsday” Cuts NYC
Teachers: Use Your
Union Power to
Make Schools Safe
to Reopen
New York City mayor Bill
de Blasio’s plans to
reopen city schools on
September 10 sparked
widespread unrest among
teachers and other
school employees. The
pressure from the ranks
was so strong that, on
August 19, United
Federation of Teachers
(UFT) leader Michael
Mulgrew held a press
conference in which he
said the union would be
prepared to strike if
union demands for a
checklist of safety
conditions are not met.
As the deadline
approached, Mulgrew and
de Blasio announced a
deal to delay reopening
until September 21, but
the union tops abandoned
their demands for
testing of everyone
entering NYC school
buildings. Class
Struggle Education
Workers calls on the
union and teachers to
ensure that every
classroom in New York
City is made safe, every
school building has to
be approved by a
committee of educators
and families in that
school, thousands of new
teachers and educators
should be hired, and a
joint strike against
layoffs together with
transit workers and all
city employees be
prepared that can shred
the no-strike Taylor
Law. NYC
Teachers: Use Your
Union Power to Make
Schools Safe to Reopen
(6 September 2020)
Defeat the
Bipartisan Capitalist Attack
on Public Education
The Fight Over
Reopening Schools Is a Class
Battle
On July 7, Donald
Trump held a series of White
House events to demand that
schools be reopened throughout
the U.S. for in-person
instruction in the fall, after
they had shut down in March as a
result of the coronavirus
pandemic. The presidential
diktat was part of his
reelection drive. But while
Trump’s aim was transparently
political, where transmission
rates are low, schools should be
reopened, safely, in view of the
damage to the education,
development and well-being of
children resulting from keeping
them out of school. “Remote
learning” is an oxymoron, and
greatly intensifies racial and
class gaps in education. This
article is a detailed analysis
of the issues and class forces
behind the battle over opening
schools. Calls by various
liberals and reformists to keep
schools closed until COVID-19 is
no more are deeply reactionary
and play into the hands of
enemies of public education,
both conservative and liberal,
who want to replace public
schools (and teachers) with
remote instruction, as part of
their agenda to privatize public
education. What’s needed is to
bring out the power of labor
together with all the oppressed
to push through longstanding
demands for quality education
which are now key to safely
reopening the schools. But that
requires a revolutionary
leadership that breaks with all
parties and politicians of the
ruling class to wage a class
offensive. The
Fight Over Reopening Schools
Is a Class Battle (6
September 2020)
Mobilize Workers
Action Against
Racist State Terror!
Los
Angeles:
Outrage
Against Murder
of Dijon
Kizzee On
August 31,
29-year-old
Dijon Kizzee was
gunned down in a
hail of bullets
to the back by
Los Angeles
County Sheriff’s
Department
deputies for
supposedly
riding his bike
in an “illegal
manner.” The day
before the
murder of Dijon
Kizzee, a
whistleblower’s
testimony
surfaced,
shedding light
on a murderous
gang within the
LASD’s Compton
station called
the
“Executioners,”
which recruits
members based on
their “success”
in committing
racist murders
in the streets.
The
Internationalist
Group calls for
labor/black/Latino/immigrant
mobilization
against police
terror. In
contrast, many
liberals and
pretend-socialists
seek instead to
divert struggles
against cop
terror into the
dead end of
trying to reform
the unreformable
police. The is
reflected in
calls to
“defund” and for
“community
control” of the
police/sheriff’s
department. The
idea that the
ruling class –
the capitalists
and their
politicians –
would let those
whom the police
are intended to
repress control
the repressors
shows a
fundamental (and
in the case of
would-be
socialists,
willful)
misconception of
the nature of
the capitalist
state. Los
Angeles:
Outrage
Against Murder
of Dijon
Kizzee (6
September 2020)
Cops
Shoot Jacob
Blake in the
Back, Shackle
Him to
Hospital Bed,
Anti-Racist
Protesters
Murdered by
Fascistic
Gunman Cops,
Feds and
Fascists
Unleash Racist
Terror in
Kenosha,
Wisconsin
For Mass Worker/Black/Immigrant Action!Jacob
Blake lies
paralyzed in
his hospital
bed, shackled
by hand and
foot, after
being shot
with seven
bullets to his
back by police
in the streets
of Kenosha,
Wisconsin on
August 23. Two
days later,
anti-racist
protesters
Anthony Huber
and Joseph
Rosenbaum were
murdered by a
rifle-toting
17-year-old
white
supremacist
vigilante from
Illinois, Kyle
Rittenhouse.
Racist
Republican
president
Donald Trump
has dispatched
hundreds of
militarized
forces to lock
down Kenosha,
while
pro-Trump
fascistic
militias
descended on
Kenosha. But
it was the
Democratic
mayor and
Democratic
governor who
unleashed the
racist police
on
demonstrators,
imposed a
curfew and
brought in the
Wisconsin
National Guard
to suppress
the protests.
Cops,
Feds and
Fascists
Unleash Racist
Terror in
Kenosha,
Wisconsin
(28 August
2020)
Trump
and Democrats Assault
Protesters
Police
State Portland: Cops
and Feds Get Out!
Following
Donald Trump’s attempt
to impose martial law in
Washington, D.C. in the
first days of June to
put down protests over
the racist police murder
of George Floyd, the
racist pyromaniac in the
White House is at it
again. Now he’s seeking
to provoke explosions of
unrest as an election
tactic, in order to pose
as the “law-and-order
candidate.” The
police-state tactics of
federal agents
dispatched to Portland,
Oregon, intended to
terrorize, have instead
escalated the massive
Black Lives Matter
protests. Trump’s use of
his Gestapo of secret
police forces,
assaulting protesters to
sow terror, is an
ominous threat to the
democratic rights of
all. It is a major step
toward the imposition of
direct military/police
rule. But while
Democrats pose as heroes
of the “resistance,” the
reality is that the vast
majority of the
thousands of arrests and
innumerable brutal
beatings of protesters
in the last few weeks
have been carried out by
police forces under the
command of Democratic
mayors and governors.
The Democrats threaten
lawsuits and
legislation, but that
won’t stop Trump and his
stormtroopers. The
Internationalist Group
calls for workers
strikes and
mobilizations together
with all the oppressed,
against racist
repression and martial
law threats. In the
present sharp crisis,
the IG and Class
Struggle Workers –
Portland raise the call:
“Cops and feds get out!”
Police
State Portland: Cops
and Feds Get Out!
(21 July 2020)
PSL
Targeted for Marches Against Cop
Murder of Elijah McClain Defend Denver
Anti-Racist Protest Leaders!
On Thursday, September 17, police
raids were carried out in Denver,
Colorado against the organizers of
protests denouncing the racist
murder of Elijah McClain, a young
black man, by police in suburban
Aurora in August 2019. Six of the
protest leaders were arrested,
including four members of the Party
for Socialism and Liberation (PSL),
which has played a leading role in
the protests. They have outrageously
been charged with multiple serious
felonies, including the absurd
charge of “kidnapping.” Following
Trump’s failed attempt at imposing
martial law in Washington, D.C. and
the subsedquent the dispatch of
federal agents to Portland, Oregon,
and Kenosha, Wisconsin, the Denver
arrests mark a new escalation of
police-state measures that are a
threat to the civil liberties of
all. The Internationalist
Group and Revolutionary
Internationalist Youth denounce this
ominous attack on the right to
protest. We demand that the arrested
activists be immediately released
and that all charges against them be
dropped. Defend
Denver Anti-Racist Protest
Leaders! (18 September 2020)
Revolution Publication
of the
Revolutionary
Internationalist
Youth and of
students from
the
Internationalist
Clubs at the
City
University of
New York (click
on masthead to
go to
Revolution
index)
Revolution
No. 17 (August
2020) click
or on image
for full list
of articles
The
Racist Police
Murder of George
Floyd Only
Revolution Can
Bring Justice!
By
Gordon Barnes
Amidst the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic, the United
States has
been wracked
by nationwide
protests
against racist
police
brutality and
murder.
Nightly we
hear the
helicopters
overhead;
daily come new
images of
police
violence,
repression,
curfews,
arrests, and
the threat of
martial law.
Why is it
that, despite
the waves of
protest and
cyclical
pledges of
“reform,” the
police keep
murdering
black people?
The list of
their names is
endless. As
marchers chant
them, some of
us add “It
never stops.”
Born as a
professionalized
force from the
slave patrols
in the U.S.
South, the
police serve
the ruling
elite and
protect their
property and
social order.
That is the
fundamental
role of the
cops under
capitalism.
What is in
danger of
occurring
again during
the current
cycle of
fervent
protest, is
the funneling
of dissent
into the
Democratic
Party.
Democratic
mayors largely
control the
urban centers
in this
country, and
their police
forces. It is
these
Democratic
mayors who
have
instituted the
various
curfews and
police
crackdowns,
and a series
of Democratic
Party
governors
have, along
with their
Republican
confreres,
deployed the
National
Guard. To
overcome the
racial
oppression
which is, and
always has
been, part of
the bedrock of
American
capitalism,
the power of
the
multiracial
working class
must be
mobilized. When
Will It End?
The Racist
Police
Lynching of
George Floyd
(3 June 2020)
Protests
Denounce
Murders of
Transgender
People in
Racist,
Capitalist
U.S.A.
Since
Minneapolis cops
murdered George
Floyd on May 25,
mass
demonstrations
against police
terror have
swept the U.S.
Amid this
upsurge,
protesters have
called attention
to the fate of
African American
and Latino trans
people killed at
the hands of
police, prison
guards and
reactionary
bigots. The
capitalist
dystopia called
the United
States is a
living hell for
the oppressed,
triply so for
black and Latino
trans people. At
a Hunter College
protest in
September 2015,
after the
lynch-law death
of Sandra Bland
in a Texas jail,
the
Internationalist
Club held a
speakout against
racist terror,
with posters
with the names
and faces of
transgender
people who had
been murdered
that year. But
in this racist,
capitalist
country, the
killing never
stops. Some of
the names we
remember today
are Dominique
Rem’mie Fells,
Jayne Thompson,
Layleen Polanco.
The working
class and all
defenders of
democratic
rights must
actively oppose
discrimination
and attacks on
transgender
people.
Ultimately, to
put an end to
this terror
requires putting
an end to the
capitalist
system itself. Protests
Denounce
Murders of
Transgender
People in
Racist,
Capitalist
U.S.A.
(August 2020)
No
Segregation at
Anti-Racist
Protests!
At a number of
demonstrations
that the
Revolutionary
Internationalist
Youth has
attended in the
past period,
liberal
organizers have
literally tried
to segregate
protesters in
line with their
notions of
hierarchies of
oppression.
Starkly
counterposed to
real struggle
against
oppression, such
“privilege
theory”-inspired
antics are no
joke. In the
face of the
cops,
Immigration and
Customs
Enforcement
(I.C.E.) and
other repressive
forces, this
expression of
guilt-tripping
identity
politics
liberalism can
quickly endanger
the safety of
protesters. This
year, at a June
28 protest
called in
downtown
Manhattan by the
Reclaim Pride
Coalition, a
lead organizer
announced that
the march, which
highlighted the
issue of police
brutality, would
be separated
into groups –
according to
tiers of
oppression.
Fortunately, the
crowd of
thousands was
already
integrated and
it stayed that
way.
Fortunately, the
crowd of
thousands was
already
integrated and
it stayed that
way. No
Segregation at
Anti-Racist
Protests!
(August 2020)
Herding
Votes for Biden,
Pushing More
Cash for Cops
Like
We Said:
Bernie
Sanders’
“Political
Revolution”
Was a Scam
With populistic
bluster about a
“political
revolution
against the
billionaire
class,” Bernie
Sanders, the
senator from
Vermont who
calls himself a
democratic
socialist, drew
wide support
from youth
disenchanted by
capitalism’s
escalating
crises. His foot
soldiers revved
them up,
registered them
as Democrats and
lined them up
for the November
2020 vote. In
April, Sanders
dropped out of
the primaries,
throwing his
weight behind
the embodiment
of the
“Democratic
establishment”
his followers
had reviled: Joe
Biden. Now
Bernie Sanders
proclaims that
Joe Biden could
be the “most
progressive
president” since
Franklin D.
Roosevelt. Like
his ally
Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez,
who snagged a
prized post as
co-chair of
Biden’s climate
taskforce,
Sanders holds up
Democratic
imperialist icon
FDR and his New
Deal as a model
and inspiration.
Like we said
from the
beginning:
Sanders’
so-called
political
revolution was
and always has
been a political
scam, in the
service of the
Democrats. Like
We Said:
Bernie
Sanders’
“Political
Revolution”
Was a Scam
(August 2020)
Defend
International
Students! Defeat
Attacks Against
Immigrants! Statement of
the Revolutionary
Internationalist
Youth
On Monday,
July 6, Immigration
and Customs
Enforcement (I.C.E.)
launched a vicious
attack against
international
students, who now
“may not take a full
online course load
and remain in the
United States.” If
they cannot find
in-person classes,
they must leave the
country or face
deportation. This
xenophobic action by
the U.S. immigration
Gestapo targets over
one million of our
fellow students and
classmates,
including over
350,000 students
from China. This
sadistic bigotry
comes after the U.S.
has summarily
deported over 2,000
children in the
middle of the
pandemic. The
Revolutionary
Internationalist
Youth call for
labor/black/immigrant
action against
racist police and
anti-immigrant
terror, and to stop
this vile attack on
international
students. Defend
International
Students! Defeat
Attacks Against
Immigrants! (7
July 2020)
For
Labor/Black
Mobilization
Against Racist
Police
Attacks!
Cops
Off the Trains
and Out of the
Stations! Upwards
of a thousand
people have
protested in
recent weeks
against a wave
of racist
police
brutality in
the New York
City subways.
Cellphone
videos taken
by bystanders
have shown
cops storming
subway cars
and brutally
beating black
youths. In
response,
first in
downtown
Brooklyn on
November 1 and
then in Harlem
three weeks
later,
protesters
marched
through the
streets
chanting
“being broke
is not a
crime” and
“What’s our
mission?
Abolition.”
The police
assault has
been defended
by liberal
Democratic
mayor Bill de
Blasio, while
Democratic
governor
Andrew Cuomo
has ordered
500 more
police to
flood the
subways,
trains and
buses. The
Revolutionary
Internationalist
Youth joined
in the
protests,
calling for
cops out of
the subways,
and to rip out
the turnstiles
– for free
mass transit,
run by the
transit
workers rather
than the real
estate
speculators
and Democratic
Party pols who
control the
system today.
TWU Local 100
representing
transit
workers is the
stronghold of
NYC labor, and
if they were
to intersect
with the fight
against cop
terror in the
subways it
would produce
a social
explosion that
would rock the
city. But such
a struggle
must be waged
politically
and requires a
fighting
leadership
prepared to
take on the
capitalist
parties
responsible
for running
the transit
system into
the ground. Cops
Off the Trains
and Out of the
Stations!
(November
2019)
“We’re All
in This Together.” You
Think?
Top Ten
Lies in the Time of
Coronavirus and Mass
Protests
By Charles Brover
U.S. capitalism is
in the midst of a triple
whammy crisis – economic,
social, and public health.
Inspiring massive protests
against racism and cop
terror not seen in their
size and scope since the
1960s have set this nation’s
cities aflame day after day,
and have spread
internationally. The
historic protests are
occurring against the
backdrop of unconscionable
government delay, deception,
ignorant happy talk, and
anti-scientific
incompetence. Official
public health malpractice
has driven the confirmed
death toll from COVID-19 to
over 160,000. This plague is
disproportionately ravaging
black, Latino, and immigrant
working class communities.
For Marxist revolutionaries
the racist system that is at
the root of the oppression
of black people in the U.S.
(and elsewhere) is
class-based capitalism.
While the cities are in
paroxysms of rage, grief and
plague; while millions are
fighting to save their
livelihoods and their lives,
the capitalist rulers, their
politicians, and tamed
pundits promote lies, damn
lies, and even more
murderous lies. Here are our
top ten picks. Top
Ten Lies in the Time of
Coronavirus and Mass
Protests (8 August
2020)
Millions of Undocumented
Immigrants and Their Families
Facing the Abyss
New York: We
Demand Equal Treatment and
Emergency Support for
Excluded Workers!
Declaration of Class
Struggle International
Workers (TIC)
In the sixth month of the health
crisis unleashed by the COVID-19
pademic, infections are spiking
in much of the country while
mass unemployment continues to
grow and marches against racist
police brutality continue. New
storms of crisis are coming for
the working class, and for
immigrants in particular,
beginning with a threatened wave
of evictions. Nationally,
undocumented immigrants are
denied “stimulus” aid,
unemployment benefits or any
official support. In New York
some 200,000 undocumented
workers have lost their jobs or
cannot find work, while over a
million workers considered
“essential,” a majority of them
immigrants, receive poverty
wages while running great risk
of contracting the virus. Class
Struggle International Workers
demands that the state of New
York include all workers,
particularly the undocumented
and those in the “gig economy,”
among those eligible for
unemployment benefits; that
state and city governments make
up for the exclusion of
immigrants from federal support;
and that rent be canceled and
all residential evictions be
prohibited during the pandemic.
New
York: We Demand Equal
Treatment and Emergency
Support for Excluded Workers!
(11 August 2020)
Millions
Take the Streets in
Upheaval Against Cop
Murder Machine
To
Uproot Racist
Oppression: Socialist Revolution
The murder
of George Floyd by
a Minneapolis cop
set off a wave of
outrage that swept
across the United
States and has
continued for
weeks. Millions of
people took to the
streets to
denounce the
racist police
murder of black
people. As
protests spread
cops geared up for
battle attacked
demonstrators.
Democratic mayors
and media screamed
about “looting” to
justify
“law-and-order”
crackdowns, while
the incendiary
racist Trump
called to shoot
looters and
brought in
thousands of
troops to the
capital. These
have been the
largest sustained
protests in U.S.
history. Seeing
the shift in
public opinion,
Democratic mayors,
who are “the
bosses of the
racist killer
cops,” tried to
coopt protests by
pretending to
shift some funds
from the police to
social programs.
Yet none of the
many plans to
“reform” the
police have ever
succeeded because
racist and
anti-working-class
repression is the
essential function
of the police. The
only way to put an
end to the cop
murder machine is
through socialist
revolution. The
combustible
material that can
fuel a revolution
is everywhere.
What’s urgently
needed is
revolutionary
leadership. To
Uproot Racist
Oppression:
Socialist
Revolution
(10 July 2020)
Opportunist
Word Games to Justify
Tailing Democrats
“Abolish
the Police” Under
Capitalism?
As
activists call to
“defund” the police
while Democratic leaders
call for more funds to
the cops, in a
presidential election
pitting “shoot the
looters” Trump vs.
“shoot ’em in the legs”
Biden, the Democratic
Party is worried about
energizing young voters.
The need a little help
from the opportunist
left, to get out a “Dump
Trump” vote in November.
The Democratic (Party)
Socialists of America
were glad to oblige,
Opportunist leftists
present “abolish the
police” as if that is
the true meaning of
protests calling to
“defund the police.” But
the actual role of the
“abolish” demand
is to tie BLM
protests to budget
machinations by
Democratic politicians.
The Internationalist
Group calls instead to
snash the racist
capitalist state with
workers revolution. “Abolish
the Police” Under
Capitalism? (10
July 2020)
Cops
Out of the Unions –
Now!
By Class
Struggle
Workers –
Portland
The racist police
murders of George
Floyd, Breonna
Taylor and many
others have
highlighted why
police of all
kinds have no
place in the labor
movement. The
demand “Police Out
of the Unions” is
a crucial aspect
of bringing the
power of the
working class into
the fight against
racist oppression
today. The labor
bureaucracy has
brought the class
enemy‘s thugs into
our labor movement
through many
doors. Major
unions including
the SEIU,
Teamsters and AFGE
include thousands
of police in their
cop affiliates.
Moreover, policing
is not solely
relegated to
police
departments. It is
also carried out
by prison guard
and security
guards. Class
Struggle Workers –
Portland demands
that ALL police
“unions” and
locals or
affiliates of
other unions be
removed from the
labor movement. In
addition,
defenders of labor
and the oppressed
must demand that
prison guards and
security guards
should also be
removed from the
unions. Cops
Out of the
Unions – Now!
(7 July 2020)
No
to
Military/Police
Rule: Mobilize
Workers Power! Trump
and Democrats
Stage Ominous
Trial Run for
Martial Law
In the days
following the
May 25 murder
of George
Floyd by a
Minneapolis
cop, furious
protests
spread from
coast to
coast,
including
right in front
of the White
House in
Washington,
D.C. After
being rushed
to an
underground
bunker, racist
president
Donald Trump
let loose a
barrage of
tweets,
threatening to
shoot
protesters. On
June 1, he
berated
governors,
called for
“total
domination” of
the streets
and threatened
to send in
active duty
troops to
suppress
demonstrations.
In Washington,
D.C., he did
just that,
bringing in
thousands of
National
Guardsmen and
the 82nd
Airborne. This
was a dry run
at imposing
martial law.
Trump was
thwarted not
by
non-existent
“resistance”
by Democratic
governors, who
had already
mobilized the
National
Guard, but by
the military
brass, worried
that troops
might not
follow orders
to attack
demonstrators.
The
Internationalist
Group called
for workers
strikes now
against racist
terror and
martial law
threats.
Trump
and Democrats
Stage Ominous
Trial Run for
Martial Law
(27 June 2020)
For
Labor/Black/Immigrant
Action to
Fight Racist
Terror Fury Over Minneapolis Police Murder of
George Floyd
“I can’t
breathe,”
George Floyd
kept saying as
a Minneapolis
police officer
dug a knee
into his neck.
For millions
across the
country and
the world, it
hauntingly,
unbearably
recalls the
last words of
Eric Garner,
the Staten
Island, New
York man that
a cop killed
by chokehold
in 2014. The
racist cop
murder of
George Floyd
set off
furious
protests in
Minneapolis
that soon
spread to
other cities.
This latest
racist outrage
occurs in the
midst of the
COVID-19
pandemic,
which is
killing
African
Americans and
Latinos at
staggeringly
high rates.
The African
American,
Latin
American,
Native
American, poor
and oppressed
communities in
the Twin
Cities,
including a
sizeable
Somali
population,
have long been
targeted by
the police.
The names
Jamar Clark,
Philando
Castile,
Thurman
Blevins,
Chiasher Fong
Vue are
testimony that
the police
lynchings
never stop. We
call for mass
workers action
joining with
the black
population and
all the
oppressed to
shut the Twin
Cities down.
The
inescapable
fact is that
justice for
George Floyd
and all those
killed by this
racist system
can only be
achieved by
socialist
revolution. Fury
Over
Minneapolis
Police Murder
of George
Floyd (28
May 2020)
Silent
Amidst Mass
Upsurge
Against Racist
Oppression
Spartacist
League
Declares
Bankruptcy
In the almost
four weeks
since
Minneapolis
cops murdered
George Floyd,
the ongoing
upheaval
against racist
police terror
is by far the
largest
sustained wave
of protest
this country
has seen in
many decades.
“Progressive”
bourgeois
politicians
and their
auxiliaries
and surrogates
on the
reformist left
are now
working
overtime to
channel
protests into
updated
versions of
the same old
fakery about
“reforming”
the police.
For Marxist
revolutionaries,
this is a
crucial time
to intervene
in the ongoing
struggle with
the communist
program. That
is what the
Internationalist
Group and
League for the
Fourth
International
have been
doing. Yet
amid the most
massive
protest
movement in
the U.S. in
decades, the
formerly
Trotskyist
Spartacist
League has not
published a
paper, put out
a leaflet or
posted a
single
statement on
its website on
the killing of
George Floyd
or the mass
protests
against racist
police terror.
The
sepulchral
silence of the
SL speaks
volumes: its
abject
abdication is
a declaration
of political
bankruptcy. Spartacist
League
Declares
Bankruptcy
(21 June 2020)
Mobilize
Labor/Black/Immigrant
Power Against
Cop Terror! ILWU
Shutdown of
West Coast
Ports Points
the Way
Forward
The
International
Longshore and
Warehouse
Union (ILWU)
has announced
that it will
shut down all
29 ports on
the U.S. West
Coast on June
19, in honor
of George
Floyd and to
protest
“police
brutality and
systematic
racism.” This
is a big step
forward, as
daily and
nightly mass
protests of
thousands
continue
across the
United States
weeks after
Floyd was
brutally
murdered by a
Minneapolis
cop. From the
outset of the
protests, the
Internationalist
Group has
called to
mobilize
labor/black/immigrant
action against
racist police
terror. In
addition to
the outrage
over the
police murder
of Floyd, the
initiators of
the ILWU port
shutdown were
impelled to
take action by
President
Donald Trump’s
threats of
gunfire
against
protesters,
and Democratic
and Republican
governors
calling in the
National Guard
to suppress
demonstrations.
The ILWU
action has
been called
for
Juneteenth,
which
celebrates the
day – 19 June
1865 – that
slavery was
formally
abolished in
Texas, the
last of the
Confederate
slave states
to be occupied
by the Union
Army, bringing
the Civil War,
the second
American
Revolution, to
a close. The
only way to
break the
death grip of
the killer
cops today is
to smash the
whole racist
police/prison/judicial
apparatus of
the capitalist
state through
socialist
revolution. ILWU
to Shut All
West Coast
Ports Against
Racist Police
Brutality
(16 June 2020)
Shipbuilding
Workers in
Maine Fight
General
Dynamics
Union-Busting
Victory
to the Bath
Iron Works
Strike!
On
Monday, June
22, some 4,300
members of
Industrial
Union of
Marine and
Shipbuilding
Workers of
America/IAM
Local S6 went
on strike at
the Bath Iron
Works (BIW)
shipyard in
Maine. BIW,
which produces
destroyers for
the U.S. Navy,
is owned by
General
Dynamics, one
of the largest
military
contractors in
the world.
Amid record
unemployment,
a global
pandemic and
mounting
pressure from
the military
as BIW’s order
backlog grows
longer, the
shipyard
workers have
shown they are
ready and
willing to
fight. In
mid-March,
3,000 called
out sick
demanding the
company
sanitize the
site. What
they are up
against now is
“flat-out
union-busting,”
said the
international
president of
the IAM, as
the company
“is exploiting
the current
pandemic to
attempt to
outsource
work.” The BIW
workers’
strike must be
taken up by
the entire
labor movement
– a victory
here could set
the stage for
a wave of
labor
struggles
nationwide. Victory
to the Bath
Iron Works
Strike!
(29 June 2020)
Fruit
Packinghouse
Workers Stand
Up for Their
Rights
Yakima
Strikes: The
Battle Has
Just Begun
After 22 days
on strike,
workers at the
Allan Bros.
packinghouse
in Naches,
Washington,
celebrated an
agreement with
the company
and returned
to work on
Monday, June
1. By Friday,
June 5, the
other
companies
settled,
leaving
Columbia Reach
in Yakima as
the last
ongoing
strike. But as
many strikers
commented, the
struggle has
only just
begun. Over
the course of
the strike
movement that
broke out at
Allan Brothers
on May 7 and
spread to
eight area
packinghouses,
many people
commented that
nothing like
this had been
seen in the
Yakima Valley
for decades.
As the year
began, could
the arrogant
bosses who own
the valley
have imagined
that “their”
workers would
dare to defy
them by
walking out –
in the middle
of a pandemic!
– and force
them to the
negotiating
table? For the
strikers, who
started with
zero, the fact
that their
struggle made
some gains can
be a first
step on the
road to
winning a
union. Now
come
negotiations
over demands
for a pay
raise. The
courageous
Yakima
strikers,
mostly women,
must not stand
alone. Action
by the entire
labor movement
is key to
achieving a
solid victory
in Yakima. Yakima
Strikes: The
Battle Has
Just Begun
(5 June 2020)
Minneapolis
Public Schools
Give Cops the
Boot
In an historic
move,
Minneapolis
Public Schools
voted
unanimously
yesterday to
cut ties with
the
Minneapolis
Police
Department.
Horrified by
the
cold-blooded
killing of
George Floyd
by an MPD cop,
educators in
the Twin
Cities and
throughout the
country
denounced this
racist murder.
Students at
local high
schools and
community have
been
organizing for
years to get
the misnamed
“school
resource
officers”
(SROs) out of
the schools.
On June 2, the
Minneapolis
Federation of
Teachers held
a rally
outside
Minneapolis
Public Schools
Davis Center
in North
Minneapolis
demanding “No
More Police in
Our Schools!”
At the demo,
teachers and
parents shared
stories about
how their
African
American and
Latino kids do
not feel safe
with MPD
officers
roaming their
hallways.
While the
number of
police in
Minneapolis
schools is
small, the
unanimous vote
of the school
board to
remove them
has national
importance. Minneapolis
Public Schools
Give Cops the
Boot (3
June 2020)
To
Meet Urgent
Demand,
Workers Power
Is Key
How Capitalism
Sabotaged
Ventilator
Production
As
the
coronavirus
pandemic
ravages the
country, with
New York City
as the
epicenter,
hospitals and
government at
all levels
have been
caught wholly
unprepared. A
cut-throat
ventilator
bidding war is
going on, in
which state
governments
compete
against each
other and
federal
agencies to
get their
hands on these
desperately-needed
life-saving
devices. There
should be a
crash program
to produce
tens of
thousands of
new
ventilators –
yesterday! So
why hasn’t
that happened?
Ventilator
manufacturers
are loath to
ramp up
production on
the massive
scale needed
because it
would
virtually
eliminate
their profits.
The ventilator
shortage has
been known for
years. Medical
professionals
and even some
government
officials had
been ringing
the alarm
bells, warning
that a
pandemic would
leave U.S.
hospitals in
the lurch. But
when a federal
program was
begun in 2008
to purchase up
to 40,000 new
ventilators,
the company
was bought out
by a larger
competitor in
order to stop
production of
the lower-cost
machine.
Workers at
General
Electric have
called on the
company to
rehire
laid-off
workers and
retool plants
to produce the
vital
machines.
Faced with the
refusal of the
bosses to do
so, GE workers
should take
control to
gear up
ventilator
production, on
the road to
socialist
revolution. How
Capitalism
Sabotaged
Ventilator
Production
(14 April
2020)
Why Cops
and Their “Unions” Have No
Place in the Labor
Movement By Becca
Lewis
Amidst nationwide protests
ignited by the racist police
murder of George Floyd, union
members everywhere are asking:
how can labor throw its weight
into the fight to uproot
racist repression? We have the
power to shut down factories
and docks, farms and urban
transport, food plants and
phone service. And now is the
time to use it. But it’s also
high time the labor movement
cleans its own house. In fact,
it’s long overdue. As mass
anger at police killings
shines the spotlight on police
forces’ role as enforcers of
racist repression, the time is
now to carry through the
demand long raised by
class-struggle unionists:
“Cops out of the unions.”
Despite recent efforts by the
Writers Guild of America, East
and others to rightly call for
the expulsion of the
International Union of Police
Associations from the AFL-CIO,
the push has been met with
resistance from the the
AFL-CIO. When labor
officialdom tries to stop or
divert this vital fight, they
are wielding the very outlook
and policies that have
drastically undercut and
weakened our movement for
years. Why
Cops and Their “Unions” Have
No Place in the Labor
Movement (June 2020)
For
Labor/Black/Immigrant
Action to
Fight Racist
Terror Fury Over Minneapolis Police Murder of
George Floyd Only Revolution Can Bring Justice!
Internationalist
Special
Supplement
(click on
image to
download pdf)
“I can’t breathe,” George Floyd kept saying as a
Minneapolis
police officer
dug a knee
into his neck.
For millions
across the
country and
the world, it
hauntingly,
unbearably
recalls the
last words of
Eric Garner,
the Staten
Island, New
York man that
a cop killed
by chokehold
in 2014. The
racist cop
murder of
George Floyd
set off
furious
protests in
Minneapolis
that soon
spread to
other cities.
This latest
racist outrage
occurs in the
midst of the
COVID-19
pandemic,
which is
killing
African
Americans and
Latinos at
staggeringly
high rates.
The African
American,
Latin
American,
Native
American, poor
and oppressed
communities in
the Twin
Cities,
including a
sizeable
Somali
population,
have long been
targeted by
the police.
The names
Jamar Clark,
Philando
Castile,
Thurman
Blevins,
Chiasher Fong
Vue are
testimony that
the police
lynchings
never stop. We
call for mass
workers action
joining with
the black
population and
all the
oppressed to
shut the Twin
Cities down.
The
inescapable
fact is that
justice for
George Floyd
and all those
killed by this
racist system
can only be
achieved by
socialist
revolution. Fury
Over
Minneapolis
Police Murder
of George
Floyd (28
May 2020)
Workers
Courageously Fighting in
Coronavirus Hot Spot Victory
to Yakima
Packinghouse
Strikers!
Amid the
deadly coronavirus
pandemic, hundreds of
workers in Yakima
Valley, Washington, are
courageously fighting
for their livelihoods,
and their lives. On
Thursday, May 7, dozens
of workers at a
packinghouse in Naches
walked out. The workers,
mostly Latina women, are
demanding cleaning and
disinfectant, “social
distancing” safety
measures, personal
protective equipment , a
minimum of 40 hours work
weekly and a “hazard
pay” bonus to their
poverty wages. Within
days, workers at a half
dozen other
packinghouses joined the
strike movement. By
Monday the management at
one packer conceded a
$100 per week bonus. But
other employers are
resisting even such a
concession, evidently
playing for time to wear
down the strikers,
hoping that economic
desperation will force
them back to work.
Meanwhile, the bosses
are no doubt conferring
with their union-busting
lawyers on the swiftest
and most economical way
to return to “normal”
conditions of profitable
exploitation. This will
be a hard fight. Victory
to Yakima Packinghouse
Strikers! (17 May
2020)
MTA
Bosses’
Coronavirus
Disaster For
Workers Control
of NYC Transit!
Right up
at the top of the list
of unsung heroes of the
pandemic are New York
City transit workers, at
least 120 of whom have
died of COVID-19.
Transit workers are
disproportionately
falling victim to the
disease because many are
in close contact with
large numbers of people,
and because of perilous
work conditions
fostering lung disease,
but also because of
criminal actions of the
employer. The
Metropolitan Transit
Authority refused to
hand out personal
protective equipment
which had been
stockpiled for a
pandemic, even as
workers were being
infected. MTA managers,
and their bosses in the
State House and City
Hall, have amply proven
that they are incapable
of producing a safe,
efficient, clean and
comfortable mass transit
system – and certainly
not one that would be in
the interests of the
workers who run it and
the poor and working
people who use it. From
the “deferred
maintenance” of the
1970s to the subway
crashes and
ever-worsening
performance of the
2010s, the subway bosses
focused on paying off
Wall Street. The only
way to clean up the
subway mess is for the
workers to take charge.
MTA
Bosses’ Coronavirus
Disaster: For Workers
Control of NYC
Transit! (13 May
2020)
Urgent:
Protest Arrest
of Leftists in
Bolivia
The
rightist de
facto
government of
Bolivia that
seized power
in last
month’s
“civic-police-military”
coup has
carried out a
new act of
repression,
arresting
Carlos
Cornejo,
correspondent
of leftist
Internet
publication La
Izquierda
Diario,
and the artist
Leonel Jurado,
charging them
with
“sedition.” They
were seized
yesterday
afternoon in
the city of El
Alto, where
they were
helping
prepare an
event in
solidarity
with families
of the at
least ten
people killed
in the police
massacre
against a
protest at the
Senkata gas
plant there on
November 19.
The
Internationalist
Group and
League for the
Fourth
International
demand the
immediate
liberation and
dropping of
all charges
against Carlos
Cornejo,
Leonel Jurado
and all
victims of
rightist
repression in
Bolivia! Urgent:
Protest Arrest
of Leftists in
Bolivia
(17 December
2019)
Left
Reformists
in Existential
Crisis An Internationalist Group Pamphlet
(click
on image to download
pdf)
With
the Bernie
Sanders
candidacy and
the dramatic
growth of the
Democratic
(Party)
Socialists of
America, the
left
reformists
have been
thrown into
crisis.
This 84-page
pamphlet
features
documents from
oppositionists
who fought
inside left
groups to
uphold the
revolutionary
politics of
Lenin and
Trotsky.
Socialist
Action’s
“Solidarity
with
Solidarity”
How
Fake
Trotskyists
Carried the
Bags for
Imperialism
While the
reformist left
in the United
States is in
profound
crisis,
tripping over
each other as
they chase
after the
Democratic
(Party)
Socialists of
America,
Socialist
Action has
remained
relatively
stationary and
appears more
red in
comparison
with those
social
democrats who
are now being
devoured by
their own
opportunism.
In reality,
SA’s program
is pink social
democracy. At
every key
juncture where
defense of the
degenerated/deformed
workers states
has been posed
point-blank,
Socialist
Action has
lined up with
imperialism,
from Poland in
1981 to the
USSR in 1991
and continuing
today. Poland
was a key
episode in the
imperialist
drive against
the Soviet
bloc, which
led to
capitalist
restoration
whose
devastating
consequences
continue to be
felt around
the world.
Today SA
denounces
China as
imperialist
and North
Korea as
capitalist
while genuine
Trotskyists
defend them
against
imperialist
threats and
attack. And
it’s not just
words. When
the chips were
down, these
fake-Trotskyists
hailed their
comrades’
direct and
concrete role
in delivering
vital
CIA-financed
equipment to
counterrevolutionary
Polish
Solidarność.
Read the
details here.
How
Fake
Trotskyists
Carried the
Bags for
Imperialism
(April 2019)
“American Apartheid” by Design
A
Review of
Richard
Rothstein, The
Color of Law:
A
Forgotten
History of How
Our Government
Segregated
America By
Charles
Brover, Class
Struggle
Education
Workers After more than a decade
of hard struggle and the passage
of laws in the mid-1960s against
official Jim Crow segregation, the
civil rights movement suddenly
stopped. What was termed de
facto segregation was
deemed off-limits, or at least had
to be left for another day.
Rothstein’s book conclusively
proves that rigid residential
segregation and discrimination
against African American, Latino
and Asian minorities was always de
jure, officially sanctioned.
This has had a devastating effect
on everything from school
integration to murderous police
repression. But while laying out
key elements of the structural
foundation of black oppression in
the U.S., The Color of Law
fails to go to their root in the
system of racist American
capitalism. In the United States
in 2016 there were 2.3
million evictions: 6,300 a
day, four every minute. And with
over 3.5 million homeless people
in the country, there are 19
million unoccupied dwellings. This
powerful essay from Class Struggle
Education Workers demonstrates
that it will take nothing short of
a socialist revolution to solve
the housing question. “American
Apartheid” by Design (21
November 2018)
While
“Democratic Socialist”
Ocasio-Cortez Chimes In
Bipartisan
War Criminals Celebrate
War Hawk John McCain
U.S.
imperialism lost one of its
most vocal and active
warmongers on August 25 –
Arizona Republican senator
John McCain. Universally
praised by ruling-class
politicians as a “war hero”
and “maverick,” McCain’s
funeral at the National
Cathedral was attended by some
of the most infamous mass
murderers of this and the last
century, from Henry Kissinger
to former U.S. presidents Bill
Clinton, George W. Bush and
Barack Obama. Far from being a
“war hero,” a “man of honor”
or paragon of “human decency,”
Senator John McCain was a war
criminal who bombed civilians.
He was shot down over North
Vietnam on a bombing run
against a civilian factory.
But McCain’s most valuable
service to U.S. imperialism
was as an inveterate war hawk
in Congress. From Afghanistan
to Iraq to Ukraine, Libya and
Syria, he beat the drums for
murderous imperialist
intervention. What’s striking
about McCain’s war crimes and
endless warmongering is that
in virtually all cases, he was
joined or supported by
Democratic politicians. And,
notably, among those praising
McCain was Democratic
Socialists of America (DSA)
superstar Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez. Her eulogy was
consciously paying the price
of admission to the bipartisan
imperialist club of the U.S.
Congress. Bipartisan
War Criminals Celebrate War
Hawk John McCain
(September 2018)
As The Boss,
Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Blames
Black Community for
Violence
Chicago:
Democrat-Led
Cops Continue
Racist Killing
Spree For Black Liberation Through Socialist Revolution
On July 14,
Chicago police
gunned down
yet another
black person,
Harith
Augustus, a
barber.
“Snoop”
Augustus,
known as a
peaceful man,
was stopped on
the pretext of
exhibiting the
“characteristics
of an armed
person,” and
was shot dead
even though he
had a valid
gun license.
For the police
in this
rigidly
segregated
city, and
throughout
this country
founded on the
bedrock of
slavery, it is
always open
season on
black people.
And on
Latinos,
immigrants,
Native
Americans …
the list goes
on. Moreover,
in Chicago and
almost every
other big
city,
Democrats are
the bosses of
the racist
killer cops.
This is all
coming to a
head in the
upcoming trial
of killer cop
Jason Van Dyke
for the murder
of Laquan
McDonald in
October 2014.
And Democratic
mayor Rahm
Emanuel,
running for a
third term, is
stoking racist
reaction by
blaming lax
“morals” in
the black
community for
the violence
engendered by
rampant
poverty,
unemployment
and brutal
police
occupation.
Yet some of
the same
themes are
echoed in
protests,
where instead
of denouncing
racist police
repression the
focus is on
opposition to
“gun violence”
in general.
Talk of
“reforming”
the police or
controlling
guns only
serves to
divert protest
away from a
revolutionary
perspective
and to
strengthen the
repressive
agencies of
the capitalist
state, while
leading
protesters
into the
dead-end of
bourgeois
pressure
politics. The
stark fact is
that there is
no solution to
war, poverty
and racist
repression
under
capitalism. Chicago:
Democrat-Led
Cops Continue
Racist Killing
Spree
(August
2018)
DSA: Fronting for the
Democrats An Internationalist Group Pamphlet
Bourgeois
Populism and
Social-Democratic
Reformism: A
Dead End Italy: Anti-Immigrant Election Hysteria
The
campaign for
the March 4
Italian
elections has
been dominated
by vile
xenophobic
anti-immigrant
chauvinism.
All the
competing
bourgeois
parties and
coalitions
attack the
bogeyman of
“illegal
immigration.”
The racist
Lega
(ex-Nord)
rails about
the “invasion
of aliens,
drug pushers,
delinquents
and illegals,”
raising
slogans such
as “Italians
first! Now or
never! Stop
the invasion!”
With the
populist
Cinque Stelle
(Five Star)
movement
running first
in the opinion
polls, its
historic
leader, Beppe
Grillo,
recently
called for
immediately
deporting all
“illegals.”
The strategy
of the
Democratic
Party
government has
been to put
itself at the
head of the
anti-immigrant
hysteria by
aggressively
extending the
sway of
Italian
imperialism in
the
Mediterranean,
Libya and to
the south.
This
imperialist
drive to the
south is
accompanied by
a campaign of
all-sided
racist
repression
against
immigrants and
refugee
seekers in
Italy. What
the
domesticated
left is
counterposing
to the three
main bourgeois
coalitions of
Forza
Italia/Lega,
Cinque Stelle
and the PD
with its
various
appendages of
homeless
bourgeois
politicians,
is a mixture
of bourgeois
populism and
social-democratic
reformism. in
the present
climate of
anti-immigrant
hysteria and
fascist
attacks, what
is needed are
mass
mobilizations
bringing out
the power of
the working
class to stop
the fascists.
Above all, we
must forge a
genuinely
Leninist-Trotskyist
vanguard.
Italy:
Anti-Immigrant
Election
Hysteria
(24 February
2018)
Boston:
Let Siham Byah
Come Home! No
Deportations! By
Class Struggle
Education
League
On January 27,
hundreds of
defenders of
immigrant
rights from
many leftist
organizations,
labor unions,
churches and
sanctuary
networks
rallied in
Boston to
protest the
deportation of
Siham Byah. A
prominent
Occupy Boston
activist and
single mother,
Byah was
grabbed by the
Immigration
and Customs
Enforcement
(I.C.E.)
police last
November 7,
torn from her
son, beaten in
a local jail,
driven to
Virginia and
then deported
to Morocco.
The Class
Struggle
Education
League, based
in Lowell,
Mass. and New
Hampshire
participated
in the
protest,
emphasizing
the importance
of mobilizing
the power of
workers action
to stop the
I.C.E.
deportation
machine. It
also noted the
parallel to
the struggle
against
slave-catchers
under the 1850
Fugitive Slave
Act, a battle
which came to
a head in
Boston and set
the stage for
the U.S. Civil
War. The CSEL
is undertaking
joint work
with the
Internationalist
Group. Boston:
Let Siham Byah
Come Home! No
Deportations!
(4 February
2018)
Guess Who’s
Bernie
Sanders’
Foreign Policy
Go-To Guy, and
What Power
Bishop Is His
Vatican Fixer
But, of
course, one
and the same
Jeffrey Sachs
who designed
the
post-counterrevolution
“shock
treatment” in
Poland. Also
in Bolivia
where it led
to tens of
thousands of
workers fired
and brutal
anti-union
repression. In
preparation
for the
no-photo-op
pope-meet-and-greet,
Bernie and
Jeffrey dined
with Cardinal
Óscar Andrés
Rodríguez
Maradiaga of
Honduras, “the
pope’s
right-hand man
and one of the
Vatican’s top
power
players.” This
is the same
cardinal who
helped
engineer
(together with
Hillary
Clinton) the
2009 Honduran
coup, and
before that
covered up for
bloody
massacres and
“disappearances”
in the 1980s.
But then, Pope
Francis
himself is a
veteran of
Argentina’s
1970s dirty
war. Guess
Who's Bernie
Sanders’
Foreign Policy
Go-To Guy, and
His Power
Bishop Vatican
Fixer (17
April 2016)
A
Question of
Whose Class
Interests
Prevail Flint
Water Crisis:
Capitalism Is
Poisoning Us
The residents
of Flint,
Michigan have
been living a
nightmare ever
since in early
2014 the
city’s
state-appointed
“emergency
manager” and
the governor’s
office decided
to switch the
water supply
from Lake
Huron to the
Flint River.
As a result,
the population
has been
subjected to
lead
poisoning,
particularly
affecting the
very young and
elderly. The
levels of
contamination
are
astronomical.
For almost two
years
Republican
state
authorities
and Democratic
federal
officials
refused to do
anything about
complaints.
Now an
emergency has
been
proclaimed,
but the water
is still
undrinkable.
Meanwhile, the
same
“emergency
manager” has
been
overseeing
Detroit
schools as
they descend
further into
the abyss. The
emergency has
been created
by decaying
capitalism:
industrial
pollution,
closing
factories and
a bipartisan
attack on
teachers and
public
education. The
dictatorial
managers must
be kicked out,
but changing
parties will
change
nothing. The
bottom-line
issue is which
class is in
power.
Capitalism is
literally
poisoning our
futures. Flint
Water Crisis:
Capitalism Is
Poisoning Us
(3 March 2016)
The
State of
Pennsylvania
Seeks to Bar
His Lawyer
The
Frame-Up of
Corey Walker By
Charles Brover
Corey Walker
was arrested
in July 1996
on a bogus
murder charge
from
Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania.
He has been
behind bars
ever since.
Evidence of
his innocence
was withheld.
He is the
victim of
prosecutorial
misconduct and
incompetent
legal
representation.
Lorenzo
Johnson, who
was arrested
in the same
case, also
remains in
prison even
though a
federal
appeals court
recognized the
insufficiency
of the
evidence
against him,
but was
overruled by
the U.S.
Supreme Court.
Now the state
is trying to
deny Walker
the attorney
of his choice,
Rachel
Wolkenstein,
who has
defended Mumia
Abu-Jamal.
Pennsylvania
authorities
will stop at
nothing to
cover up lying
and
manufacture of
evidence,
coercion of
witnesses and
suppression of
evidence of
innocence by
police and
prosecutors.
This requires
silencing
Corey Walker
and
short-circuiting
his legal
appeal. In
seeking to
disqualify
Wolkenstein
from
representing
him, the state
attorney
general's
office cites
her political
views that the
judicial
system is an
organ of
racist
oppression
that must be
overthrown by
socialist
revolution.
This
witch-hunting
attack and the
continued
incarceration
of Walker and
Johnson go to
the heart of
Jim Crow
“justice
system.” Free
Corey Walker
and Lorenzo
Johnson! The
Frame-Up of
Corey Walker
(4 February
2016)
Occupation
of Hundreds of
Schools Blocks
Threatened
Closures
Student
Revolt Shakes
São Paulo,
Brazil
By Class
Struggle
Workers/UFT
For the last
three weeks,
the city of
São Paulo,
Brazil has
been convulsed
by a combative
upheaval of
high school
students
protesting the
state
government’s
plan to close
92 schools and
order hundreds
of thousands
of students to
change
schools. When
the state
governor tried
to ram through
this plan
without
consultation,
students
responded by
occupying
almost 200
schools. Then,
when military
police began
clearing out
occupied
schools this
week, students
took chairs
and tables and
set up class
in busy
intersections
and highways.
The students,
backed by
teachers, also
refused to
take
high-stakes
test. After
several days,
the governor
backed down.
This is
a dramatic
example of how
the
international
capitalist
offensive
against public
education
should be
fought – by
mass action in
the streets,
bringing out
students,
teachers,
parents and
mobilizing the
power of the
working class.
Student
Revolt Shakes
São Paulo,
Brazil (4
December 2015)
The
Haitian
Revolution and
U.S.
Imperialism
July 28 marks
the 100th
anniversary of
the first U.S.
invasion of
Haiti in 1915,
under
Democratic
president
Woodrow
Wilson. This
led to an
occupation of
19 years, as
well as
occupations of
the Dominican
Republic next
door, of
Nicaragua,
Panama,
Honduras and
Veracruz,
Mexico, and
followed the
1898 U.S.
invasion and
occupation of
Cuba, Puerto
Rico and
Philippines.
But the
occupations
didn't stop
there. In
1994, Democrat
Bill Clinton
invaded Haiti
a second time,
and in 2004
Republican
George Bush II
invaded a
third time.
Haiti today
continues
under
imperialist
occupation,
this time
outsourced to
a United
Nations
“peacekeeping”
force. As
proletarian
internationalist
opponents of
imperialism,
on this
centenary we
republish
articles from
Workers
Vanguard
when it was
the voice of
revolutionary
Trotskyism on
the 1915-34
U.S.
occupation,
and a two-part
series on
Toussaint
Louverture and
the Haitian
Revolution
that led to
the first
black republic
in history, as
well as
sparking slave
revolts
throughout the
Caribbean and
in the United
States. (30
July 2015)
Protest
the Police
Lynching of
Sandra Bland
On July 10,
Sandra Bland,
a 28-year-old
African
American
activist and
education
worker, was
driving from
Illinois to
her new job at
the
historically
black Prairie
View A&M
University in
Texas, her
alma mater.
Sandra was
pulled over by
a Texas
Ranger,
supposedly for
changing lanes
without
signalling.
The trooper
abusively
demanded she
get out of the
car,
theatening to
use a Taser
electric shock
on her. After
having her
head slammed
on the ground,
Sandra was
arrested for
supposed
“assault on a
public
servant,” for
insisting on
her rights.
Three days
later, she was
found dead in
her cell in
Waller
County, Texas.
The
authorities
claim she
committed
suicide. We
say the police
are guilty.
Sandra was
lynched by the
cops. On July
22, hundreds
gathered in
New York
City's Union
Square to
protest the
police murder
of Sandra
Bland. Class
Struggle
Education
Workers, CUNY
Internationalist
Clubs and the
Internationalist
Group joined
in. Protest
the Police
Lynching of
Sandra Bland
(22 July 2015) (video)
NYC May Day 2015 The
Internationalist
Group, CUNY
Internationalist
Clubs and
Class Struggle
Education
workers had a
spirited
contingent in
the May Day
march in New
York City.
Leading the
contingent was
a group with
red flags with
the hammer,
sickle and 4
of the Fourth
International.
Then came a
banner made by
the Hunter
Internationalist
Club,
proclaiming:“Ayotzinapa-Ferguson-NYC,
Smash the
Racist
Capitalist
State, Workers
to Power.
Signs
emphasized the
call to Defend
Black
Baltimore
following the
occupation of
the city by
the National
Guard to
squelch the
upheaval over
the police
murder of
Freddie Gray,
and to free
Mumia
Abu-Jamal, who
faces
execution in
prison by
deliberate
medical
neglect. Also
highlighted
was the call
for workers
action against
police terror,
noting the
historic
action by ILWU
Local 10 that
shut down the
port of
Oakland on May
Day and
marched on
City Hall
calling to
stop police
terror.
Sunset
Park Fights
Back Against
Police Attack
It’s
been only two
months since
Eric Garner
was
chokeholded to
death in
Staten Island
by the racist
cops, and
barely a month
and a half
since the
police murder
of 17-year-old
Michael Brown
in Ferguson,
Missouri. But
despite the
national
outcry and a
thousands-strong
march in New
York in late
August, two
incidents in
the Sunset
Park
neighborhood
of Brooklyn
show once
again the face
of racist
police
violence under
liberal
Democratic NYC
mayor Bill de
Blasio. The
first involved
a heavy‑duty
arrest of a
vendor after a
festival in
the park; in
the second, a
cop slammed a
pregnant woman
on the
pavement on
her abdomen
and her son
and husband
were arrested.
The residents
of this
heavily
immigrant
neighborhood
feel singled
out for
aggressive
enforcement
under NYPD
chief William
Bratton’s
“broken
windows”
strategy of
massive
arrests for
minor
infractions.
On Saturday,
September 27,
some 300
people came
out to protest
against the
brutal police
siege. While
many called
for Bratton’s
resignation,
racist cop
terror is
endemic in
capitalist
America. To
put a stop to
it will
require
nothing less
than workers
revolution. Sunset
Park Fights
Back Against
Police Attack
(28 September
2014)
Defend North
Korea and
China Against
Imperialism
and
Counterrevolution
U.S.
War
Provocations
Push Korea to
the Brink For the Revolutionary Reunification of Korea, North
and South!
Over the last
month and a
half, the
United States
and South
Korea have
engaged in an
escalating
series of
military
provocations
against North
Korea.
Simultaneous
“war games”
have simulated
a nuclear
aerial bombing
of the North,
a ground
invasion from
the South,
annihilation
of the
leadership and
the
“insertion” of
tens of
thousands of
U.S. troops
searching for
nukes. While
the
imperialist
media are, as
usual,
strenuously
demonizing the
North Korean
leader Kim
Jong Un and
playing up
blustering
statements
coming out of
the North
Korean capital
of Pyongyang,
the Pentagon
has been
laying the
basis for a
military
strike against
the North. The
whole
operation is
part of
detailed plan
elaborated by
the Obama
administration,
dubbed “the
playbook,” for
U.S. shows of
force. But
this is no
football game.
The
Internationalist
Group and
League for the
Fourth
International
defend North
Korea, a
bureaucratically
deformed
workers state,
against the
war
provocations,
economic
blockade and
any attack by
U.S.
imperialism
and its South
Korean junior
partners, no
matter how it
starts. We
also defend
North Korea’s
development of
nuclear
weapons, its
main deterrent
against a war
by the power
which laid
waste to the
North in the
Korean War. U.S.
War
Provocations
Push Korea to
the Brink (13
April 2013)
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
BRAZIL
To contact the Liga
Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil write
to: Caixa Postal 084027, CEP 27251-970,
Volta Redonda, RJ, Brazil
Caixa Postal 3982, CEP 20010-974,
Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
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