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"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.
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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.
Tens of Thousands Fired in Massive Purge
Defend Kurdish and Turkish Teachers!
An all-out assault on teachers in Turkey was launched on September 8, when 11,285 were suspended by the authoritarian government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his AKP (Justice and Development Party). The leftist Education and Science Workers’ Union, Eğitim-Sen, the largest union in Turkey, has been under constant attack by the rightist, Islamist AKP regime for over a decade, and before that under the military-backed government. Now, it appears Erdoğan wants to finish it off with wholesale dismissals. The government has already been using the failed coup of July 15 to eliminate all opposition forces, particularly Kurdish and some leftist organizations. The dismissed educators were largely from Turkey’s southeast, where a majority of the population are ethnic Kurds. The League for the Fourth International has since its inception defended the right of Kurdish independence, not only autonomy, and called for a socialist republic of united Kurdistan. Today it is urgent that militant trade unionists in Turkey and internationally come to the defense of Turkish and Kurdish teachers. The assault on Eğitim Sem is a flashpoint in the attack on educators and public education worldwide, from Mexico and Brazil to the U.S. and Europe. Defend Kurdish and Turkish Teachers! (23 September 2016)
Defeat Union-Busting Drive at Long Island University!
As Long Island University’s unprecedented lockout of unionized faculty at its Brooklyn campus enters the second week, the stakes are clear. This is a vicious attack not only against the faculty, students and staff at LIU Brooklyn, but against everyone who works in higher education, and on the entire New York-area labor movement. The power needed to defeat this union-busting assault must be brought into play before it’s too late. On the first day of the lockout, unionists picked up the chant initiated by activists from the CUNY Internationalist Clubs and Class Struggle Education Workers: “Picket lines mean: Don’t cross!” But hard class struggle is totally alien to the misleaders of American labor, who bank everything on class collaboration. The faculty fighting for their jobs and against this blatant union-busting must demand that all the unions at LIU, together with students, respect their picket line. NYC labor must show up and defend the line, starting with the 150,00-strong United Federation of Teachers. To actually win this battle, students and faculty should shut down not only the Brooklyn campus but also the Post campus – and the bosses’ rules be damned! Defeat Union-Busting Drive at Long Island University! (14 September 2016)
Portland Painters Union Says
To Hell with the Bosses’ Parties – For a Class-Struggle Workers Party!
By Class Struggle Workers – Portland
In a historic decision, the 17 August meeting of Painters and Drywall Finishers, IUPAT Local 10 in Portland, Oregon, voted unanimously to reject the Democratic and Republican parties or “any Party of the Bosses,” and to “call on the labor movement to break from the Democratic Party, and build a class-struggle workers party.” The resolution was introduced by CSWP members, the result of years of patient political education and struggle. Union members spoke passionately from the floor about the need to organize and rely on our own power as workers. Momentum for the resolution grew as members came up against the same bleak reality that people across the country are confronting: as the resolution states, “the 2016 presidential election offers us the ‘choice’ between a raving, bigoted clown and a career representative of Wall Street.” One factor contributing to the support for the resolution in Local 10, and its growing resonance nationally, is the disillusionment felt by many partisans of de facto Democrat Bernie Sanders’ “political revolution.” Now that the inevitable has happened, many Bernie supporters are deserting the Democrats for the Green Party ticket. But the Green Party is a capitalist party just as much as the Democrats and Republicans. And the class line is fundamental. Accept no alternatives: we need a party for the workers. To Hell with the Bosses’ Parties – For a Class-Struggle Workers Party! (August 2016)
“Picket Lines Mean Don’t Cross!”
Knock Out the Lockout at LIU Brooklyn!
The administration of Long Island University kicked off the new school year by locking out the entire faculty at its downtown Brooklyn campus. It was the first time ever in the United States that the bosses of higher education have resorted a lockout. This is not just a negotiating tactic. The LIU administration is making it clear that they are out to destroy the faculty union. A contingent from the Internationalist Clubs at the City University of New York joined the solidarity action on September 7. Our chant of “Picket lines mean: Don’t cross!” was taken up by the protesters. The only way to defeat the union-busting drive is by solid labor action. Knock Out the Lockout at LIU Brooklyn! (9 September 2016)
Class Struggle International Workers Founded
On August 12, Trabajadores Internacionales Clasistas (Class Struggle International Workers) was founded in New York City. Working together with the Internationalist Group, the TIC set as its key goal winning the most conscious immigrant workers to the program of revolutionary class struggle, not only fighting for labor and immigrants rights but also encompassing the major issues confronting workers and oppressed sectors today. The TIC aims to be an organization of study and struggle, growing out of the IG’s regular weekly Spanish-language study group, work in union organizing campaigns and mobilizations in solidarity with Mexican teachers and against racist cop terror, from Ayotzinapa to police murders of black people in the United States. The founding members of the TIC include militants who participated in the nationwide strike by immigrant workers on May Day 2006. Immigrant women workers in the TIC were active in the protests over the disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa students. The TIC can play an important role in struggles of this huge, potentially militant but largely unorganized sector of the proletariat. Today they confront an election (in which they cannot vote) pitting a crazed anti-immigrant Republican bigot who threatens to deport 11 million immigrants, and a Democrat war hawk who continues the policies of the Obama administration which already deported over 5 million. With all talk of a path to citizenship through immigration reform a dead-end, Trabajadores Internacionales Clasistas points to the path of intransigent class struggle leading to socialist revolution. Class Struggle International Workers Founded (August 2016)
Not One Step Backwards! We Demand: Complete Repeal of the Capitalist “Education Reform”
Mexico: “Dialogue” with the Government of Murderers? No!
Forward to a National Workers Strike, Now!
Break with All Bourgeois Parties: PRI, PAN, PRD, MORENA and the Rest!
Forge a Revolutionary Workers Party!
The CNTE strike is the biggest struggle by Mexican labor in decades, and the first that could defeat three decades of privatizing, “neo-liberal” style free-market policies. But it can’t do so with traditional methods and a narrowly sectoral strategy. The educational counter-reform is an integral part of an attack by the bosses against all the working people of Mexico. We are at a key juncture in the teachers strike that has thrown the country into turmoil for months. Those who today are preaching about “toning down” the strike and giving in to the new ultimatum are preparing the road to defeat. We insist, as has been the battle cry since the beginning of the strike, on the complete repeal of the educational reform of capital. It is incumbent on all working people to mobilize in defense of the insurgent teachers. Teachers and students throughout Mexico must join the CNTE strike in order to defeat the scabbing by the corporatist SNTE, the labor cops of the capitalist state whose task is to prevent the rise of a genuine independent labor movement. In order to emerge victorious in this struggle, what’s needed is to unleash a nationwide workers strike to bring the murderous Peña Nieto government to its knees. Rather than capitulation and a sham dialogue, it’s necessary to extend the strike to the heavy battalions of the working class, which requires forging a class-struggle leadership capable of waging revolutionary struggle against capitalism. Mexico: “Dialogue” with the Government of Murderers? No! Forward to a National Workers Strike, Now! (1 September 2016)
Better-Late-Than-Never Faction Fuses with Internationalist Group
On August 27, the Better-Late-Than-Never Faction of the International Communist League, expelled by the Spartacist League/U.S. last April, joined with the Internationalist Group, U.S. section of the League for the Fourth International in a common organization. The fusion came after three and a half months of joint work following extensive political discussions in May. A high point of the joint work was participation by the BLTN comrades in the Second National Conference of the Grupo Internacionalista in Mexico, and first-hand experience with the roiling teachers strike in which the GI has been heavily involved. The fusion has not only resulted in the establishment of a Los Angeles local of the IG, but together with the formation of the Nucleo Internazionalista d’Italia by the former leaders of the Italian section of the ICL, it marks a major step forward for the LFI internationally. More than four months after the BLTN Faction submitted its declaration, the SL/ICL has yet to answer it politically. But their silence will not shield these ex-Trotskyists from the expelled faction’s devastating challenge to their tattered credentials. The fusion confirms the validity of the LFI’s orientation looking to revolutionary regroupment on the solid programmatic ground of authentic Leninism and Trotskyism. Better-Late-Than-Never Faction Fuses with Internationalist Group (27 August 2016)
The Only Solution to Capitalist Austerity:
Europe-Wide Socialist Revolution!
The “Brexit” Trap: British Left Caught Between “Leave” and “Remain” in European Union
No to Both Sides in the Chauvinist Circus:
Full Citizenship Rights for All Immigrants!
On June 23, British voters cast their ballot on the issue of whether the United Kingdom should leave the European Union (“Brexit”) or remain in it. The result was a clear if not overwhelming decision in favor of Brexit. In this battle over differing formulas for restricting immigration, the only possible course for proletarian revolutionaries was to oppose both sides, abstaining on the vote. What’s called for instead is a class-struggle campaign for asylum for refugees and full citizenship rights for all immigrants. Instead of making common cause with one or the other wing of British bosses, join with French workers fighting against anti-labor laws. Campaigns for Brexit by ostensible Marxists amounted to giving a left cover to the chauvinist circus. Significantly, while Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a reputed leftist, joined with the Tory government in campaigning to stay in the imperialist EU, the various left groups which had split between calling for Remain or Leave were all united once again in supporting the reformist Corbyn against Labour right-wingers trying to topple him. Rather than a more left-talking social democracy utterly beholden to British capitalism, what is urgently needed is to build a revolutionary workers party on a program of internationalist class struggle leading to Europe-wide socialist revolution. The “Brexit” Trap (August 2016)British EU Referendum: Who Voted for What, and WhyNo More Ayotzinapas! No More Nochixtláns!
Various commentators seeking to explain the unexpected victory for Brexit declared it a veritable working-class revolt. The claims that Brexit was a working-class revolt are cheap populism based on a perversion of the statistics. The large majority of those who voted to leave the EU were middle-class Those workers who supported Brexit did not do so on a class basis but largely on a nationalist appeal.British EU Referendum: Who Voted for What, and Why
(August 2016)
“Willkommen in der Festung Europa”
A British exit from the EU, should it occur, could achieve what Kaiser Wilhelm, Adolf Hitler and the “democratic” imperialist rulers in Berlin and the bankers in Frankfurt have been unable to: consolidate a German-dominated “Fortress Europe.” How long that would last is another matter. Already German Social Democrats and Christian Democrats are floating plans to beef up EU repressive forces. Rather than being a blow against imperialism, the net result of a Brexit will be increased inter-imperialist rivalries. “Willkommen in der Festung Europa” (August 2016)
ICL: The Main Enemy Is in Brussels
While the positions on Brexit by the various social-democratic left groups were thoroughly reformist, the International Communist League and its British section claimed to be standing on the revolutionary internationalist principles of Marxism in calling for a “Leave” vote. Instead, they (along with various reformist left groups) played down the impact of the anti-immigrant campaign on the vote. Back when it stood on the program of revolutionary Trotskyism, the Spartacist tendency called not to leave the imperialist alliances of NATO and the Common Market but to bring them down by mobilization of the working masses. ICL: The Main Enemy Is in Brussels (August 2016)
Workers to Power from Brazil to Mexico and the U.S.!
Tri-National Day of Solidarity Action with Mexican and Brazilian Teachers
On August 17, demonstrations were held in three countries and four cities in solidarity with the Mexican teachers who have been waging a courageous strike for more than three months. They are fighting against the bogus “education reform” that is a capitalist attack on public education and teachers unions, in Mexico and around the world. In Rio de Janeiro, Oaxaca, Mexico City and New York City, protesters demanded “Stop Repression of Mexican Teachers.” During the strike of the CNTE (National Coordinating Committee of Education Workers), teachers in the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, Guerrero and Michoacán have braved murderous police attacks, including the June 19 massacre in Nochixtlán, Oaxaca. The tri-national action was initiated by the Rio de Janeiro, Brazil teachers union, the SEPE-RJ, which had just come off a determined strike lasting more than five months, the largest and longest in its history, which won important gains. In Rio, in the middle of the Olympic games, over 100 teachers, students and activists marched to the Mexican Consulate where they faced a line of Shock Battalion Military Police. In Oaxaca the solidarity demonstration was at the gate of the state education department, which was shut down by some 200 CNTE strikers, and in Mexico City it was held at the teachers tent city where 60 teachers participated. In New York, several dozen protesters picketed the Mexican consulate, including members of the newly formed Trabajadores Internacionales Clasistas (Class Struggle International Workers). The August 17 action underscored the importance of international struggle on a revolutionary class program. Tri-National Day of Solidarity Action with Mexican and Brazilian Teachers (18 August 2016)
Down with Racist Fortress Europe!
Full Citizenship Rights for all Immigrants!
For a Socialist United States of Europe!
Italy: The Refugee Crisis and Capitalist Barbarism
The graphic images of lifeless bodies stretched out along shorelines and in the sea, of traumatized survivors weeping for the loss of their loved ones, have put the European refugee crisis in the spotlight. The massive flow of desperate refugees and immigrants toward Europe is a result of the imperialist devastation of the Near East, Africa and parts of Asia. The reaction of the European Union (EU) countries to the flow of refugees has been to build fences to keep them out, holding thousands in concentration camps The bourgeoisies of the EU want to control immigration so that only those can enter that are potentially useful for them to churn out profits. The Nucleo Internazionalista d’Italia and the League for the Fourth International put forward a transitional program for workers action including calling for asylum for Syrian and other refugees fleeing war and persecution and full citizenship rights for all immigrants. We call to close the detention centers, oppose the racist immigration laws and mobilize workers actions to stop deportations. To go to the source of the mass migration means fighting to drive out the imperialists, the biggest mass murderers of all. However, such a class struggle goes against the class-collaborationist programs of various groups falsely claiming to be Trotskyist, who supported the popular-front governments that set up the detention camps and have backed pro-imperialist "rebels" from Libya to Syria. The struggle for immigrants’ rights is inseparable from the fight for socialist revolution, on both sides of the Mediterranean. Italy: The Refugee Crisis and Capitalist Barbarism (August 2016)“Communists” Who Oppose Calls for Asylum for Syrian RefugeesICL on Brazil Impeachment:
Strange Encounters with the ICL
At the Lutte Ouvrière Fête in May we had heated exchanges with spokesmen of the International Communist League who accused the League for the Fourth International of being “bleeding-heart liberals” and supporters of “humanitarian imperialism” for calling for asylum for refugees, Syrian and otherwise. The frenzy of their denunciations of the LFI reflected an extended internal dispute inside the ICL over immigration. In the face of the refugee crisis that exploded last year, these former Trotskyists insistently limit their calls for citizenship for immigrants to “those who have made it here,” and now oppose calls for full and unrestricted right of asylum, the right of immigrants and refugees to health and social services, and the right to travel inside the EU. It pulled an article about to be published with these demands, saying that they sowed illusions in a “social Europe” and reflected “a reactionary utopian ‘open the borders’ line.” In rejecting such demands, the latter-day ICL once again turns its back on its own history and the heritage of revolutionary Trotskyism. Rather than acting as champions of the oppressed, by focusing exclusively on opposition to the liberal bourgeois illusion of “open borders” under capitalism, in practice it has allied itself with the most retrograde xenophobic elements of the bourgeoisie. Strange Encounters with the ICL (August 2016)
Stumbling in the Dark With “Blown-Out Lanterns”
The Spartacist League and its International Communist League (SL/ICL) have lately been on a tear against the Internationalist Group, the Liga Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil and our League for the Fourth International. over our opposing the impeachment of Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff. They claim that this ipso facto meant support to the government led by the Workers Party (PT), dishonestly disappearing the LQB’s call for “No Political Support to the Bourgeois Popular Front Government.” With its policy of passive neutrality, the ICL calls on Brazilian workers to do nothing against the hard-line capitalist offensive behind the impeachment drive. In contrast, the LQB and LFI put forward a program for class struggle against the assault on the working class, and the bonapartist push by the police/judicial repressive apparatus, with backing from the military and imperialism. The ICL’s line on Brazil impeachment is directly counterposed to Trotsky’s policy on Germany during 1931-32, and echoes Stalinist attacks on the co-leader of the Bolshevik Revolution. The methodology of ignoring the fundamental class forces in conflict is an expression of the desertion from the class struggle by these ex-Trotskyists, reflected in their positions on a host of issues. ICL on Brazil Impeachment: Stumbling in the Dark With “Blown-Out Lanterns” (June 2016)
Democrats and Republicans Push Reactionary Response
Horrific Anti-Gay Massacre in Orlando
On June 12, a deranged and hate-filled gunman murdered 49 people and wounded 53 more at the gay Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, which was holding a Latin music night. For many it was a deeply painful reminder that virulent homophobia has deep roots in this profoundly violent and irrational society. The capitalist politicians saw the events as grist for their mill of hypocrisy and repression. Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Clinton seized the occasion of the Pulse massacre to call for increasing police-state measures at home and ramping up wars abroad, while Republican Donald Trump shamelessly exploited the massacre for his anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim demagogy. Obama and liberals generally saw it as a golden opportunity to push for more gun control. Marxists, in contrast, uphold the right of self-defense and point out that gun control means giving a monopoly on armed force to the police and military, the repressive forces of capitalism which are a far greater danger to the oppressed. The capitalist system of exploitation feeds off of and continually reproduces every form of oppression, backwardness and bigotry that lead to such horrors as the Orlando massacre, and it will take socialist revolution to put an end to it. Horrific Anti-Gay Massacre in Orlando (21 June 2016)
The Internationalist No. 43
Yet Another Massacre: For a National Strike Against the Criminal Government
(May-June 2016)
click above or on image
for full list of articles
Mexican Teachers Strike Braves Murderous Repression
Mexico just had its Bloody Sunday. In Russia, the police attack on a march of workers who only wanted to present a petition to the Tsar sparked the 1905 Revolution. In Mexico of 2016, the massacre of Sunday, June 19 in Nochixtlán, Oaxaca against teachers, students, social activists and parents could be the detonator for an explosion of class struggle around the country. The protesters are fighting against the disastrous “educational reform” which seeks to destroy independent teacher unionism. For five days they defended a barricade on the superhighway to Mexico City, managing to stop a caravan of the Federal Police. Yesterday, the federales took their revenge. But instead of frightening people, it had the opposite effect. Today tens of thousands filled the streets from sidewalk to sidewalk in the city of Oaxaca to express their solidarity with the teachers. “Not with bullets, not with machine guns will the people be silenced,” they shouted. It is essential that the mobilization have an internationalist class character, not nationalist such as bourgeois sectors are trying to foist on the movement, in particular those around the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. What’s needed is a revolutionary leadership that takes on the fundamental enemy, capitalism, and extends the strike to key sectors of the Mexican proletariat and beyond the border, against this “reform” designed by the financial agencies of imperialism. Mexican Teachers Strike Braves Murderous Repression (20 June 2016)
Unionize Verizon Wireless, Aid Philippines Call Center Workers!
Verizon Strike Beats Back Company Assault, But With Big Healthcare Givebacks
From mid-April to late May, nearly 40,000 members of the CWA and IBEW waged a determined strike against Verizon Communications in the largest and most important walkout by workers in the U.S. in recent years. Through 45 days on the picket lines, the multiracial Verizon workforce showed enthusiasm for the strike that was inspiring to other workers. The company was feeling the pinch, as installation, repair and maintenance lagged while sales at non-union Verizon Wireless stores were being affected. But the union was under pressure from the courts and the Democratic Obama administration. Strikers were sent back to work without a contract and are voting on an outline of a tentative agreement. While union leaders are loudly proclaiming victory, beating back a number of Verizon's most egregious demands, workers will take a big hit on health-care costs, so much that this (together with inflation) may wipe out most of the wage gains. Union support for Democratic candidates Sanders and Clinton only perpetuates the biggest obstacle to winning real victories for labor: the chains that bind workers to this capitalist party. Verizon Strike Beats Back Company Assault, But With Big Healthcare Givebacks (12 June 2016)
Freedom for Black Lives Matter Organizer Jasmine Abdullah!
California “Lynching” Conviction Is a Threat to All!
Mobilize Labor/Black/Immigrant Power – Only Revolution Can Bring Justice!
On June 1, 28-year-old Black Lives Matter organizer Jasmine Abdullah (Richards) was grotesquely convicted in near-by Pasadena under a California law until recently known as “felony lynching.” At her trial, an entirely non-black jury accepted the prosecution’s outrageous claim that Jasmine’s non-violent effort to protect a young black woman from police brutality was a crime legally equivalent to participating in a KKK lynch mob for the purposes of murdering that woman. Jasmine’s conviction sets a new precedent for the criminalization of protest activity, and is a threat to all those who would speak out against injustice. As we have seen time and time again across the country, this latest drive in California to further repress black activists on behalf of the capitalist rulers is spearheaded by a black Democrat: Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacy. Across the country there has been a push to draw Black Lives Matter activists into the electoral circus of American capitalism, and the Democratic Party in particular. Illusions in the Democrats serve as a roadblock to class struggle against racist repression. We call to break with the Democrats and all capitalist parties, and for labor-black-immigrant mobilizations against racist cop terror. California “Lynching” Conviction Is a Threat to All! (7 June 2016)
Imperialist Offensive Threatens Slaughter
Defend Raqqa – Drive U.S./NATO Imperialists Out of Syria and Iraq!
A new stage has opened in the fighting in Syria and Iraq with the launching of offensives against the Islamic State (I.S.) by U.S. imperialism and its allies. On May 24 the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a military front dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), announced the beginning of a drive on the de facto capital of the I.S. in Raqqa. They are participating in a military operation under direct U.S. command. Already U.S. commandos have been sighted carrying out operational activities at the front. Moreover, three days before the offensive was announced, the head of the U.S. Central Command, Gen. Joseph Votel, flew secretly to the area for an on-site inspection of preparations. Dropping leaflets calling on the population to flee the city, the imperialists are preparing a slaughter. Amid the all-sided communalist/sectarian civil war raging in Syria, internationalist communists (Trotskyists) call to defend Raqqa against the U.S.-led attack and the Kurdish and Arab forces serving as ground troops for the imperialists. In Iraq, the Shiite sectarian regime has launched an attack on the I.S. stronghold of Falluja, while U.S. and Kurdish forces threaten Mosul. We call to drive the imperialists out of the region and to defeat them by international workers action. Defend Raqqa – Drive U.S./NATO Imperialists Out of Syria and Iraq! (31 May 2016)
Mass Protests to Shut Down Trump Hate-Fest
No to the Democratic and Republican Parties of Deportations, Imperialism and War
Down with Racism and Anti-Immigrant Bigotry
Across the country, Donald Trump’s election rallies have become an orgy of racism. Black protesters and others are beaten by thugs, instigated by the candidate himself. His bigoted diatribes, vile attacks on women and gays, and threats and incitement to violence have spurred thousands to come out with utter justification to protest his race-hate rallies. Yet many of those protesting Trump are backing Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. But the Democrats are the governing party of U.S. imperialism, the deadliest terrorist force in the world. Obama has personally authorized the murder of thousands of innocent civilians by drone strikes, which Clinton and Sanders support, and he has deported over 4.5 million immigrants. Internationalist protesters at an April 14 demonstration in New York City called to break with the Democrats and all bourgeois parties, and to build a revolutionary workers party. No to the Democratic and Republican Parties of Deportations, Imperialism and War (14 April 2016)
Video: At April 14 Shut Down Trump Protest, Internationalists Say No to All Capitalist Parties
June 5 Elections: NO to All the Bourgeois Parties!
Forge a Revolutionary Workers Party!
Mexican Teachers Strike at a Crossroads:
Deepen, Radicalize, Broaden It to Win!
The national strike of the independent teachers movement, now into its third month, has come to a decisive moment. As the National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE) appeals repeatedly for dialogue, the government slams the door shut and responds with repression. The strikers have responded with massive marches of tens of thousands, a blockade of the Oaxaca airport and occupying highways, gas stations and town halls in Chiapas. It is expected that the repression will intensify in the wake of the June 5 elections. Then the rulers who are seeking to impose an education “reform” in the service of capital will go all in. In this context, where it is necessary to deepen, radicalize and extend the teachers strike to powerful sectors of the Mexican proletariat, the leadership of CNTE’s militant Section 22 in Oaxaca instead called to cast a “punishment vote” against the government parties and in favor of the bourgeois populist Movement for National Regeneration (MORENA) led by Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The popular-front policy of a “punishment vote” for the bourgeois opposition has been used before, in 2006 and 2010, to derail outbreaks of sharp class struggle. The Grupo Internacionalista calls for proletarian opposition to all capitalist parties and politicians, for turning the teachers walkout into a real national strike, and for a revolutionary workers party fighting for a workers and peasants government. Mexican Teachers Strike at a Crossroads (2 June 2016)
Stop the Scabs, Build Mass Pickets No One Dares Cross
Verizon Strike: A Fight for All Workers
Unite With Workers Around the World to Win!
(Updated) On April 13, almost 40,000 workers at the tech giant Verizon walked off the job. Now in its fifth week, the walkout is the largest in the United States since the last Verizon strike in 2011.Verizon bosses want to bust the union by slashing the number of union jobs (and brutally exploiting call center workers around the world) and whittling down and eventually selling off the company’s unionized wireline business while building up the more profitable, overwhelmingly non-union Verizon Wireless subsidiary. Now Obama’s White House is putting the arm on the unions, and has sent in a federal mediator – a direct danger to the workers’ struggle. Reliance on the bosses’ government and politicians spells defeat – when what’s needed is a solid victory for labor. It’s necessary to elect strike committees and bring out the power of the entire labor movement to shut down scab operations and win the strike. To defeat this onslaught also requires breaking with the Democratic Party. Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have spoken at Verizon strike rallies. But Democrats are no friends of labor. Democratic politicians, union officials and Verizon CEO McAdams all talk of saving “American jobs,” but flag-waving only helps the bosses. Supporters of the Internationalist Group, CUNY Internationalist Clubs and Class Struggle Education Workers have come out to support the strike since Day One: if Verizon workers win, we all win. Verizon Strike: A Fight for All Workers (20 May 2016)
The Internationalist
Communism Lives … Just Not in the SL/ICL
Special Supplement
(May 2016)
SL/ICL: Haunted by
Revolutionary Trotskyism
Joint Statement of the Expelled Better-Late-Than-Never Faction and the Internationalist Group/League for the Fourth International
On April 16, the Better-Late-Than-Never (BLTN) Faction of the International Communist League (ICL) put forward its Declaration of Faction calling to “Return to the Road of Genuine Spartacism” and to “Regroup with the IG/LFI on the Basis of Their Revolutionary Continuity!” The very next day they received a response from the Spartacist League’s Los Angeles local, falsely claiming that the declaration was written in collaboration with the IG and cynically saying it considered the declaration a statement of resignation. The BLTN responded that claims they couldn’t have written the document were not only untrue but an insult to the intelligence of the ICL membership. The Faction notably exposed how the party that had uniquely waged a principled struggle to defend the DDR (East Germany) and USSR responded to defeat by dumping Trotsky’s analysis of the dual nature of the Stalinist bureaucracy and whitewashing the role of the bourgeoisie and its social-democratic agents in the capitalist counterrevolution. It also independently investigated key political differences between the ICL and the LFI on Brazil and Mexico, as well as challenging the SL on key issues concerning the class line and black oppression in the U.S. The Better-Late-Than-Never Faction Declaration is a challenge to those in the SL/ICL who truly want to make a revolution. The report on the latest conference of the Spartacist League/U.S. makes clear, the SL is a dying party. It is crucial to understand that the decline of the SL/ICL is a direct result of its political/programmatic degeneration. An agreement between the BLTN and the IG/LFI calls for carrying out common work aiming at an early fusion. SL/ICL: Haunted by Revolutionary Trotskyism (13 May 2016)
Forward to Reforge the IV International, World Party of Socialist Revolution
Back to Trotskyism!
By Giulia and Carlo
Two comrades who were the principal leaders of the Lega Trotskista d’Italia (LTd’I), Italian section of the International Communist League (ICL) from 1993-1999, with 21 and 27 years in the Spartacist tendency respectively, have declared their political solidarity with the League for the Fourth International. In 1999-2001 they were subjected to vicious political persecution involving grotesque accusations of faking illness, making false charges against the ICL leadership and hiding political differences. After a change of the leading cliques, the ICL concluded that the persecution was a “bureaucratic witchhunt” based on “gross exaggerations or outright falsifications,” but it never informed the comrades of this. They detail how the ICL’s abandonment of the revolutionary program in Italy reflected the broader political degeneration of the ICL, from dropping the call to defeat its own imperialist bourgeoisie after 9/11 (and supporting U.S. invasion of Haiti in 2010, later repudiating this social-imperialist betrayal) to trade-union issues in the U.S. to Greece and Syria today. Their document puts forward an internationalist program of class struggle, notably on women's oppression and for full rights for immigrants and refugees, a burning issue in Italy today in the fight for a socialist united states of Europe. They conclude: “The present ICL is no place for a communist. For those in the ICL who may still want to be communists, we urge you to read and study the literature of the League for the Fourth International, as we did and in doing so recognized the genuinely Trotskyist program we were won to years ago.” Back to Trotskyism! (11 May 2016)
Declaration of the Better-Late-Than-Never Faction
Return to the Road of Genuine Spartacism!
Regroup with the IG/LFI on the Basis of Their Revolutionary Continuity!
The platform of the BLTN Faction takes the leadership of the International Communist League to task for its revisionism in four key areas: “The Russian Question,” “The Class Line,” “The State” and the struggle to “Reforge a Fourth International That Trotsky Would Call His Own.” It devastates the latter-day ICL’s claim that “the Stalinists led the counterrevolution,” underscoring that this effectively renounced its own intervention in the DDR/USSR in 1989-92, and is counterposed to revolutionary intervention against looming counterrevolution in China, Cuba and the other remaining deformed workers states today. Although many ICLers believe this anti-Trotskyist line was corrected in 2003, the Declaration exposes how it has remained the official policy of the ICL. The BLTN painstakingly examined the ICL’s lies and desertion from the struggle to oust the police from the unions in Brazil and its apologies for state-controlled corporatist pseudo-unions in Mexico, demonstrating the correctness of the LFI positions and struggle. It also raised the question of “walking bosses” in the West Coast ILWU dock union, foremen who although members of the union directly represent the shipping bosses, an issue the IG had not previously considered. In calling for regroupment with the IG/LFI on the basis of its revolutionary continuity, the Better-Late-Than-Never Faction noted that this continued the historic program of the Spartacist tendency that the SL/ICL has been abandoning step by step in every major crisis. Declaration of the Better-Late-Than-Never Faction (16 April 2016)Attachments: Letter of Los Angeles SL “Resigning” the Better-Late-Than-Never Faction (17 April 2016)
BLTN Faction Letter to All Members of the ICL (18 April 2016)
Letter of Los Angeles SL Expelling the BLTN (23 April 2016)
The Internationalist
“Operation Car Wash”: An Attack by the Police and Judiciary Threatening Democratic and Labor Rights
Special Supplement
(May 2016)
Brazil: No to Impeachment!
For Workers Mobilization Against the Rightist Bourgeois Offensive
No Political Support to the Bourgeois Popular Front Government
For the past month, Brazil has been engulfed in a deep-going political crisis. A million people marched in right-wing protests around the country on March 13 demanding impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff of the Workers Party. In response, a half million protested in the streets on March 18 against impeachment, followed by tens of thousands on March 24 and 31. Meanwhile, a runaway corruption investigation threatens basic democratic rights. At the same time, the popular front government continues to push anti-working-class policies in its attempt to conciliate the aggressive right wing, and the left is divided between pro- and anti-government blocs. The Liga Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil, calls for workers mobilization against impeachment and the bonapartist threat, and at the same time to use that power against the attacks on working people by the both the feuding bourgeois forces. Brazil: No to Impeachment! For Workers Mobilization Against the Rightist Bourgeois Offensive, No Political Support to the Bourgeois Popular Front Government (April 2016)
Lesson of History: Trotsky and Lenin on Kornilov and Kerensky (April 2016)SL/ICL Impeached By Its Own Past
For the first time in a decade, the Spartacist League and its International Communist League have published an article on Brazil. The article presents no program for class struggle in Brazil. Its sole purpose was to attack the Internationalist Group and the Liga Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil as supposed “Militant Supporters of the Popular Front,” and to divert attention from the SL/U.S.’ recent expulsion of the Better-Late-Than-Never Faction of the ICL, which posed a sharp and effective challenge to its zigzagging opportunism. The SL/ICL’s claim that to oppose the seizure of power by the den of thieves in the Brazilian Congress together with a judicial apparatus working hand-in-glove with pro-imperialist reactionaries and increasingly assertive militarized police forces you must be for the current government is pure sophistry. But the SL has an additional problem: back in 1998, the latter-day Spartacist League opposed the impeachment of Bill Clinton. By the SL’s current logic, it thereby supported Clinton and the Democrats. The IG and LQB oppose impeachment in Brazil while calling for workers mobilization against the ominous judicial/police offensive targeting the working class, and against the anti-worker policies of the popular-front government. SL/ICL Impeached By Its Own Past (May 2016)
Dossier: Responses to the ICL Smear Campaign Against Brazilian Trotskyists (May 2010)World Capitalist Economic Crisis Behind the Rightist Offensive
For Class Struggle Against the Bonapartist Threat in Brazil
In the present acute political crisis shaking Brazil, a string of explosive revelations, shifting parliamentary alliances, arbitrary actions by the repressive apparatus and huge street mobilizations are presented in the bourgeois media as a struggle over “corruption.” The idea that there is a moral “cleansing” underway among the rulers is an illusion and a pretext. In reality, there are three main elements of the crisis: a political struggle marking the end of the popular-front government, a blatant attempt by the judicial and police organs to free themselves of all civilian control on the road to an authoritarian regime, and underlying it all, the consequences of the world capitalist economic crisis. In Brazil, the street protests over the last year are the result of the defeat of the struggles of the “hot winter” of 2013 and of the struggles against the World Cup of soccer. The government and its left satellites have labeled the offensive against President Dilma Rousseff a “coup d’état.” In itself, impeachment does not signify a rupture of the bourgeois-democratic “order.” But if the repressive organs gain autonomy to effectively dominate the government, whether by a coup or behind the façade of a “technical” or “transition” government, this would in fact be a “state of exception,” inherently anti-democratic even within the bourgeois framework. For Class Struggle Against the Bonapartist Threat in Brazil (April 2016)
The Role of Imperialism and the Military in the Brazilian Political Crisis
For 13 years, the popular-front government in Brazil has acted as firemen for the IMF in Latin America and as the sheriff of Yankee imperialism in the Caribbean, providing mercenary troops for the occupaiton of Haiti. In general, Washington doesn’t want big upheavals in the largest country in Latin America, but there is no reason to presume that the would-be masters of the planet always act with consistency. Judge Sérgio Moro is working in close collaboration with U.S. authorities, and the whole so-called Lava Jato (Car Wash) investigation is being carried out in accord with capitalist sectors seeking to further open the Brazilian oil market to imperialist penetration. What is taking place is a employer-media-judiciary-police movement with at least some support from imperialism. Even if it does not result in a classic military coup, it points to an authoritarian outcome, a strong state whose job is to impose, with an iron fist, the budget cuts, reforms and privatizations demanded by capital, which the popular-front governments have only partially implemented. Now they want to go all the way. The Role of Imperialism and the Military in the Brazilian Political Crisis (April 2016)
Brazil’s Opportunist Left Tailing After the Bourgeois Blocs
For the last year, Brazil has been shaken by an acute political crisis pitting the bourgeois popular-front government of Dilma Rousseff of the Workers Party (PT) against the traditional right-wing opposition which wants to throw her out of the the presidential palace. However, the government and opposition share the same fundamental program, of resolving the capitalist economic crisis by attacking the working people, while they may differ (at times) only over the rhythm and degree of the attacks. In this context of a dispute between two bourgeois forces, the Brazilian left is divided into two major camps: the pro-PT camp, which chants “não vai ter golpe” (no to a coup d’état), and the anti-PT camp which chants “throw them all out.” In reality, both pro- and anti-PT camps are appendages of the conflicting capitalist forces. Now with the addition of escalating arbitrary judicial and police actions, what’s needed is not an illusory “third camp” on the terrain of bourgeois democracy but a working-class opposition with a program of revolutionary struggle against the entire ruling class and against the danger of an authoritarian outcome. Brazil’s Opportunist Left Tailing After the Bourgeois Blocs (April 2016)
Stop the Scabs, Build Mass Pickets No One Dares Cross
Verizon Strike: A Fight for All Workers
Unite With Workers Around the World to Win!
On April 13, almost 40,000 workers at the tech giant Verizon walked off the job. The walkout is the largest in the United States since the last Verizon strike in 2011.Verizon bosses want to bust the union by slashing the number of union jobs (and brutally exploiting call center workers around the world) and whittling down and eventually selling off the company’s unionized wireline business while building up the more profitable, overwhelmingly non-union Verizon Wireless subsidiary. Verizon Wireless workers would surely join a union if they weren’t afraid of losing their jobs. Striking CWA and IBEW unions and the rest of NYC labor can help them by building picket lines so big that no one would dare cross. To defeat this onslaught also requires breaking with the Democratic Party. Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have spoken at Verizon strike rallies. But Democrats are no friends of labor. Democratic politicians, union officials and Verizon CEO McAdams all talk of saving “American jobs,” but flag-waving only helps the bosses. Super-exploited call center workers overseas are our allies. Supporters of the Internationalist Group, CUNY Internationalist Clubs and Class Struggle Education Workers have come out to support the strike since Day One: if Verizon workers win, we all win. Verizon Strike: A Fight for All Workers (25 April 2016)
Mexico: Grupo Espartaquista Boycotts the Class Struggle
The Grupo Espartaquista de México (GEM), part of the International Communist League (ICL), published a front-page article in its magazine “rectifying” its timid support of the boycott of the June 2015 elections and polemicizing against the Grupo Internacionalista on the issue. In its corrective, the GEM/ICL write that they “should have argued and frankly warned against the use of this tactic under present conditions.” One of the many innovations introduced by the ICL in its zigzag course in the post-Soviet period has been to convert the program into a recipe for inaction. To shore up its position that an electoral boycott is impossible short of a revolutionary crisis and imminent insurrection, they put forward a series of fraudulent assertions … and a distorted quotation from Lenin. On top of this, in the face of the attempt by the murderous government to shut down the rebellion which has wracked the southern states ever since the September 2014 massacre and disappearance of teachers college students, the GEM blames the rebel teachers, students and parents of the Ayotzinapa 43 for bringing down repression with their call for a boycott. The Grupo Internacionalista, in contrast, actively participated in the struggle against the electoral farce, at the same time as it warned that to put a stop to the bloodbath and assault on the teachers would require a national strike involving key sectors of the Mexican proletariat. Mexico: Grupo Espartaquista Boycotts the Class Struggle (March 2016)
The Battle of the Electoral Boycott in Guerrero (March 2016)Bernie’s A-List
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)
Stop Union-Busting at Bröd/Hot and Crusty, Part 2
On February 19, over 300 people, including members of some 20 NYC unions, labor and community groups, turned out to protest union-busting at Bröd Kitchen. Addressing the crowd were fired Hot and Crusty Workers Association president Mahoma López; B&H Photo warehouse workers, and workers from the B&H store in Manhattan who four days later voted by 46 to 14 in favor of union representation. Also speaking were representatives of the Laundry Workers Center; Verizon phone workers (CWA); United Steel Workers; Teamsters Local 814; GSOC and UCATS at NYU; Domestic Workers United; Metro Postal Workers; Class Struggle Education Workers, CUNY Internationalist Clubs and Internationalist Group and activists who worked intensively to build the rally. Members of DC37, Local 768, TWU, Workers Center Federation and other unions and groups also came out, helping fill the streets with chants and speeches. See link below for a video of the February 19 protest.
Video: Stop Union-Busting at Bröd/Hot and Crusty (29 February 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)
Jim Crow Justice and the Capitalist State (4 February 2016)Company Threatens to Close Restaurant,
Whose Life Is On the Line? Cop Stats (4 February 2016)
Bad Apples, Broken Windows, and Other Myths About the Police (4 February 2016)
Fires Union President Mahoma López
All Out to Stop Union-Busting at Bröd/Hot and Crusty!
In a blatant escalation of the anti-union campaign launched earlier this month, on January 29 Bröd Kitchen management fired Hot and Crusty Workers Association president Mahoma López and union activist Marcelino Cano. This retaliation came less than 24 hours after a mass protest in solidarity with the Bröd workers, where 200 unionists, immigrant rights activists and students demanded “Stop union-busting at Bröd Kitchen!” The company has announced its intention to shut down the store (formerly called Hot and Crusty) on Manhattan’s Upper East side, a tactic the owners also used in 2012 when immigrant workers waged a historic struggle that won union recognition and a contract including a union hiring hall. The turnout of union and student support at repeated protests at the company’s second, non-union, location shows that the Bröd/Hot and Crusty workers are far from isolated. In the face of the aggressive drive to destroy this combative union, all defenders of worker and immigrant rights must take up this vital struggle. All Out to Stop Union-Busting at Bröd/Hot and Crusty! (29 January 2016)
Video: Stop Union-Busting at Bröd/Hot and Crusty (3 February 2016)
The Internationalist No. 42
Chicago, Baltimore, Cleveland, Minneapolis…
(January-February 2016)
click above or on image
for full list of articles
Democrats Are the Bosses
of the Racist Killer Cops
Mobilize Labor-Black-Immigrant Power – Build a Revolutionary Workers Party!
If 2014 was the Year of Mass Protest Against Racist Cop Terror, 2015 was the Year of More Racist Cop Terror. After drawing up the annual balance sheet of official murder in the United States, the bottom line is 1,202 killed by the police. 2015 also underscored how the entire capitalist “justice system,” from top to bottom, works seamlessly to protect the killers. As the year drew to a close there was a drumbeat of legal decisions in which cops were not charged or not found guilty in the deaths of their unarmed black victims. What is hardly ever mentioned is that the police have bosses, namely mayors and city councils, which in cities across the U.S. are almost all Democrats. It is the Democratic Party of racist repression and imperialist war that is running the country on behalf of Wall Street. Racist state terror has been a cornerstone of U.S. capitalism throughout, and it is this system that must be shut down, by workers and the oppressed mobilizing our class power, leading to socialist revolution. Democrats Are the Bosses of the Racist Killer Cops (9 January 2016)
Bring Down “King Rahm” with Workers Action!Drive U.S./NATO Imperialists Out of the Middle East!
Chicago: “16 Shots, 400 days”
Chicago is where it all comes together. The cold-blooded execution of Laquan McDonald by 16 bullets from a cop’s gun in October 2014, and the suppression of the police cruiser dashcam video of it for more than 13 months, has generated outrage pointing straight to mayor Rahm Emanuel, who engineered the cover-up. The deadly racism of the police, their regular use of deadly force against unarmed civilians, the impunity of killer cops are part of the M.O. of the political machine that has ruled Chicago for decades. They are also part of a nationwide system of racist repression and mass incarceration devised to maintain control of the Northern ghettos following the enactment of formal equal rights in the 1960s Civil Rights laws. The bottom line is you can’t fight cop terror without breaking the stranglehold of the Democratic Party that presides over it. If mobilized independently of and against all the capitalist parties and politicians, the power of the working class can shut down “the city that works.” The Chicago Teachers Union is key. What is needed is a fight to throw out all wings of the labor bureaucracy, old-line business unionists and reformers alike, who keep the unions chained to the Democrats. Chicago: “16 Shots, 400 days” (9 January 2016)
Baltimore, Cleveland: “The System Is Rigged”
When on December 16, a Baltimore judge declared a hung jury in the proceedings against the first of the police officers to go on trial for the death of Freddie Gray last April, and when on December 28 in Cleveland a grand jury in Cleveland brought no charges against the trigger-happy officer who gunned down 12-year-old Tamir Rice, the rulings were no surprise. While leftists leading protests against police murder have popularized the chant, “Indict, convict, send the killer cops to jail,” that almost never occurs. And for a very simple reason: the job of the police is to “serve and protect” capital, and the job of the capitalist courts is to protect the police. Baltimore, Cleveland: “The System Is Rigged” (9 January 2016)
Minneapolis: “Cops and Klan Go Hand in Hand”
The police execution of Jamar Clark last November 15 showed that even in “progressive” Minneapolis, police murder unarmed black men in plain view on the street. A few days later, white supremacists attacked a protest encampment, wounding five, whereupon the cops attacked the protesters. Some local politicians of the Democratic Farmer-Labor Party, which runs the city and state government, at first feigned support to Black Lives Matter. But when demonstrators refused to go home, the liberal Democrats ordered police to remove the anti-racist protesters. Significantly, hundreds of trade unionists have come out to protest the murder of Jamar Clark. Much more is needed. Unions must move beyond gestures and bring out the economic and social power to shut down the Twin Cities. We need to dump the Democrats and build a revolutionary workers party to sweep away the racist terrorists (in and out of uniform) the only way possible, with socialist revolution. Minneapolis: “Cops and Klan Go Hand in Hand” (9 January 2016)
Democrat Sanders Aboard the “War on Terror” Bandwagon
Following the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California, the Western world is engulfed in an anti-terrorist frenzy. The U.S. presidential election campaign has become an orgy of xenophobia and militarism. As Republicans whip up anti-immigrant hysteria, Democrats debate how to escalate U.S. imperialist war in the Middle East. The media portray Bernie Sanders, who calls himself a democratic socialist, as “soft on terrorism,” but in fact he is fully on board the “war on terror” bandwagon. Sanders’ mildly social-democratic rhetoric covers for his actual imperialist politics. He supports Obama’s policies in the Middle East, including the use of killer drones, while Trotskyists call for working-class action to drive the U.S. and NATO from the Middle East. Sanders praises Denmark, which is hardly socialist, and its brand of “welfare state” capitalism is being eclipsed by escalating anti-immigrant racism. His job is to lure the disaffected back into the Democratic fold, to “sheepdog for the Democrats” rounding up strays. Vote for “Bernie” and you will get “Hillary” and the “Global War on Terror,” which he also supports. Democrat Sanders Aboard the “War on Terror” Bandwagon (31 December 2015)
The League of Pre-Squeezed LemonsGeneral Strikes Are Back in Greece:
Yesterday’s “Obama Socialists,” Today’s Bernie Boosters
Build a Revolutionary Workers Party!
Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign has nothing to do with winning people to socialism. It’s all about getting disaffected “progressives” and youth to vote Democratic in 2016. Sanders has placed much of the socialist left in a quandary, as reformists and opportunists dream of having an audience in big-time bourgeois politics. Some still want to maintain a pretense of independence from the Democratic Party of war, poverty and racism, while others want to go all the way, hoping to pick up disappointed Sanderistas when he endorses Clinton. Those who seek to maintain a pretense of independence from the Democrats call on Sanders to run as an “independent.” But historically, capitalist “third parties,” from La Follette’s Progressive Party to Nader and the Greens, are obstacles to working-class independence. Genuine revolutionary Marxists and communists, in contrast, warn against the Sanders swindle and call to build a party on the model of the Bolsheviks and the program of Lenin and Trotsky. Yesterday’s “Obama Socialists,” Today’s Bernie Boosters (31 December 2015)
James P. Cannon on “Third Parties” (31 December 2015)
ISO: “Fresh Air Fiends” of Class Collaboration (31 December 2015)
Revolutionary Leadership Needed
After the populist SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left) came into office last January, Greek workers held off from mass protest in hopes that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras would carry out election promises to end the punishing austerity program imposed by the imperialist bankers. Even after Tsipras did an abrupt about-face in July and imposed the brutal policies, protests quickly died out, and in September SYRIZA again won at the polls. But this fall the working class has returned to the streets. On November 12, the first “general strike” under the SYRIZA government brought out tens of thousands. (The government tried to co-opt it by encouraging mass participation in a strike against its policies.) This was followed by more strikes and on December 3 a second national strike. But despite the willingness to struggle, there is an excruciating absence of revolutionary leadership to lead the way to a fight for power. The League for the Fourth International had a team in Athens for the November 12 strike. Here is their report. General Strikes Are Back in Greece: Revolutionary Leadership Needed (4 December 2015)
Imperialist War Engenders Islamist Terror
After the Slaughter in Paris: Down with the State of Emergency, U.S./France Out of the Middle East!
The horrific attacks against civilians in six different locations in Paris, France on the night of November 13 were the long-expected blowback from the imperialist terror bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria over the last 15 months. The carnage by the Islamic State (I.S.) was an assault against working people everywhere. Such indiscriminate terror generates mass chauvinism, putting Muslims and immigrants in particular at risk. It also serves as an excuse to escalate imperialist war, which France and the U.S. promptly did. The Islamist gangs which became the I.S. were armed for years by the U.S. and France. Moreover, the casualties in Paris caused by these “dogs of war” who have slipped the leash are only a fraction of those caused by their former masters, who have slaughtered hundreds of thousands in the Middle East. French president Hollande has used the attack to impose a state of emergency and to demand new police-state powers. While voicing mild criticisms, most of the French left has gone along with the crackdown. A revolutionary leadership is needed to mobilize workers against the war and repression, and to defend the threatened immigrants, refugees and millions of residents of North African and Middle Eastern origin from racist attacks. After the Slaughter in Paris: Down with the State of Emergency, U.S./France Out of the Middle East! (19 November 2015)
Overwhelming Vote Gains Union Recognition
V-I-C-T-O-R-Y! B&H Workers in Big Win for Labor and Immigrant Rights
Hundreds of immigrant warehouse workers in Brooklyn, New York, won a historic victory on November 4 when their year-long organizing campaign brought a landslide unionization vote at the nationally known B&H Photo Video professional supply firm. By 200 to 88, the combative workers voted for the United Steelworkers as their representative. Facing dangerous working conditions, discrimination and grinding exploitation, the organizing effort, begun over a year ago by the Laundry Workers Center, built exemplary unity and determination among the workers. Now they face the next stage of the struggle: a contract fight to win their demands. At a victory celebration two days after the vote in a packed hall, B&H workers, their families, organizers and supporters gathered to salute their achievement and all those who made it possible. The victory at B&H, in this ongoing struggle, has the potential to spread the fight to the vast numbers of low-wage and immigrant workers in New York City and beyond.B&H workers can also spark and lead struggles of the entire working class in the NYC area. To win, the workers must rely on their own class power, not on the institutions, media and politicians of the capitalist system. V-I-C-T-O-R-Y! B&H Workers in Big Win for Labor and Immigrant Rights (8 November 2015)
All Sides Squalid in Syria/Iraq Sectarian Civil Wars –
Drive U.S./NATO Imperialists Out of the Middle East!
Flashpoint Syria: Russian Intervention and Imperialist Aggression
Russia’s intervention in Syria is aimed at shoring up the deteriorating military position of the regime of Bashar al-Assad, under attack by a host of Islamist militias backed by Western imperialists and their Middle Eastern allies/flunkies as well as by the Islamic State. Coming as pressure was building to impose a NATO-enforced “no fly zone” and a Turkish-dominated “safe area” for Islamist “rebels” in northern Syria, Moscow’s action qualitatively raised the costs of such imperialist aggression. As Barack Obama bombs away in western Iraq and eastern Syria, class-conscious workers seek above all to drive the imperialists out of the Middle East. The pseudo-socialists who rail against supposed “Russian imperialism” in Syria (and Ukraine) are lined up with the most aggressive imperialist war hawks. While Putin’s move may stymie (for now) a direct imperialist assault on his Syrian client, it does not alter the nature of the sectarian civil war, in which the victory of any side could lead to slaughter or expulsion of the defeated religious/ethnic groups. The only way out of the morass of communal slaughter and U.S. imperialist aggression is workers revolution to establish a socialist federation of the Middle East. For this, the millions-strong Turkish proletariat is key. Flashpoint Syria: Russian Intervention and Imperialist Aggression (30 October 2015)
There’s No Negotiating With the Couillard-Coiteux Gang – Extend the Mobilization to the Private Sector, Prepare a Real General Strike!
Shut Down Quebec to Bust the Union-Busters!
The Only Way to Get Rid of Austerity Is to Overthrow Capitalism
Build a Revolutionary Workers Party!
For more than a year, public sector workers in Quebec have been mobilizing to defend themselves against the abuses and anti-worker austerity policies of the Liberal Party government. After the massive mobilizations of the Refusons l’Austérité (We Refuse Austerity) coalition and the student marches this spring, throughout the fall there have been a series of rolling strikes, demonstrations and picketing in response to calls by the inter-union Common Front. Following the postponement of the strike planned for December 1-3, and faced with the refusal of the government to negotiate anything concerning wages and salaries, a strike by the 400,000 unionized public sector workers was called for December 9 in conjunction with a three-day teachers strike. In the course of the struggle against austerity in Quebec, there have been quite a few plans presented to redistribute wealth, for “more equitable taxation,” etc. They are all doomed to defeat. There is no solution to austerity under capitalism. The question of leadership is key. For a an all-out fight it is necessary to replace the pro-capitalist bureaucracy with a class-struggle leadership and to forge a revolutionary workers party. Shut Down Quebec to Bust the Union-Busters! (December 2015)
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)
Would-Be Witch Hunters Cannot Silence Protest at CUNY
On Thursday, November 12, a student rally was held at Hunter College as part of nationwide protests calling for free tuition at public colleges and the cancellation of student debt. Even before the rally occurred, a smear campaign was launched by rightist and pro-Israel groups and individuals slanderously claiming that it was some kind of anti-Semitic event. In response to an editorial in the rabid New York Post accusing protesters of being “hatemongers,” the Hunter College administration issued a statement smearing the student protest as supposedly presenting “bigotry, harassment, intimidation, exclusion and intolerance.” This menacing statement is part of a nationwide drive targeting critics of Israel on campuses around the country. The Internationalist Clubs at the City University of New York (CUNY) call on all defenders of basic democratic rights to oppose this latest effort to whip up a Joseph McCarthy-style witch hunt against campus protest and dissent, and to defeat the attempt to silence defenders of the Palestinian people. Would-Be Witch Hunters Cannot Silence Protest at CUNY (14 November 2015)
“Million Student March”: Pressuring Democrats Is a Dead End
Getting an Education Seems Almost Impossible? It’s the Capitalist System!
The November 12 “Million Student March” targets the high cost of tuition, student debt and low-wage jobs. The official demands are supportable in themselves, but why is there no mention of the racist cop terror that brought tens of thousands into the streets last year, and why is this coming up now? Because election season has begun, and this latest would-be movement is designed to pressure the Democrats. The truth is, the Million Student March organizers are acting as student auxiliaries of the Bernie Sanders campaign, to put heat on Hillary Clinton and get students to vote for the Dems in 2016. Like the endless police killings of African American men, and women, and Latinos, the root cause of endless tuition hikes, unpayable student debt, low-wage, dead-end jobs is the capitalist system. The Internationalist Clubs at the City University of New York call for open admissions with no tuition and living stipends so working-class students can afford to study. We call to abolish the Board of Trustees and for student-teacher-worker control of the universities. But we also tell the hard truth: that capitalism is decaying, and it will take hardcore struggle, based on the power of the working class and leading to a revolution, to get this. Pressuring the Democrats is a dead-end. Getting an Education Seems Almost Impossible? It’s the Capitalist System! (14 November 2015)
Clinton and Sanders Support Common Core, Teacher Evals Linked to Student Test Scores, and the Whole Corporate “Edu Reform” Agenda
No to the Democrats, Spearhead of Attacks on Public Education and Teachers Unions
We Need a Class-Struggle Workers Party
By Class Struggle Workers/UFT
As the 2016 election campaign heats up, the Democratic “race” is dominated by Hillary Clinton, with Bernie Sanders acting as a “progressive voice” to keep discontented liberals in line. Under the administration of Barack Obama, it is the Democrats who have spearheaded the bipartisan attack on public education, teachers and teachers unions. Both the AFT and NEA have endorsed Clinton, who for decades has been closely tied to the three major foundations pushing for corporate education reform, the Walton Family (owners of Walmart), Bill and Melinda Gates, and Eli Broad. But Sanders, who calls himself a “democratic socialist,” supports Common Core, voted in 2007 to reauthorize No Child Left Behind and recently backed an amendment to keep some of the worst parts of NCLB. Both Democrats share the capitalist education “reform” agenda. No to the Democrats, Spearhead of Attacks on Public Education and Teachers Unions (12 November 2015)
For a National Strike Against the Privatizing “Reforms”!
Defeat the Union-Busting Attack on Mexican Teachers
Against the Bourgeois Government of the PRI, PAN and PRD,
Fight for a Workers and Peasants Government!
Early on July 21, the city of Oaxaca was the scene of a police and military operation worthy of a preventive civil war. As in 2006, when the state of Oaxaca rose up in rebellion against a government attack on teachers, once again the entire force of the state was applied in an attempt to break the combative Section 22 of the National Coordinating Committee of Education Workers (CNTE). The aim of the military mobilization was to impose the educational counterreform ordered by the imperialist financial institutions, which seeks to privatize public education as much as possible and to break the power of the teachers unions. It is a centerpiece of the tripartite government of the Pact for Mexico of the PRI, PAN and PRD and almost all capitalist sectors. But the hard-bitten resistance of the dissident teachers of the CNTE has hindered the implementation of the privatizing and union-busting plan. As we have emphasized since the first round of the battle for public education in 2013, in order to win against this offensive of imperialist capital, carried out by a united Mexican bourgeoisie, it is necessary to break with all bourgeois political forces and launch a genuine national strike against the privatization reforms. Defeat the Union-Busting Attack on Mexican Teachers (August 2015)Troops and Federal Police Out of Oaxaca! No Police in the Schools! Drop All Charges Against Teachers and Leaders of Section 22!The Haitian Revolution and U.S. Imperialism
No to the Militarization of Oaxaca and Education!
The march of Oaxaca teachers on August 14 reverberated with calls of “Oaxaca no es un cuartel, fuera ejército de él” (Oaxaca is not a barracks, Army get out!). In reality the attack on Section 22 has little to do with education and a lot to do with an attempt to impose by force the unrestricted domination of the decaying bourgeois regime, that seeks to eradicate all past labor gains and to annihilate the independent workers movement. At the head of the “new IEEPO” is its director general, Moisés Robles Cruz, who also headed the “old IEEPO.” Lacking educational credentials, what Robles Cruz does have is a predilection for José Vasconcelos, the country’s first secretary of public education, who became one of the ideological promoters of Nazism in Mexico. Welcome to the new era of education under the military/police boot which seeks inspiration in the spokesman for native fascism. No to the Militarization of Oaxaca and Education! (August 2015)
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)
Yankee Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934Protest the Police Lynching of Sandra Bland
Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution, Part 1
Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution, Part 2
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)
Liberato Lashes Out as Restaurant Workers Fight for Their Rights
On June 22, some 70 demonstrators came out for an emergency rally to defend three immigrant workers fired for leading a bitter fight against wage theft and sexual harassment at the Liberato Restaurant in the Bronx. At the protest, Mahoma Lopez, co-director of the Laundry Workers Center and leader of the successful struggle of workers at the Hot and Crusty bakery in Manhattan, received a death threat. The Liberato bosses are lashing out after suffering legal setbacks in their attempts to stop the workers’ campaign. Speaking of the struggles at Hot and Crusty and Liberato, an Internationalist speaker emphasized the need to bring out the power of all the workers to win these fights. Liberato Lashes Out as Restaurant Workers Fight for Their Rights (25 June 2015)
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.NYC May Day 2015 video (9 May 2015)Drop the Charges Against Steve Kirschbaum,
NYC May Day 2015 photos (6 May 2015)
NYC May Day 2011 video
NYC May Day 2010 video
Reinstate Fired Boston School Bus Union Activists!
Boston: A Crucial Battle Against Racist Union-Busting
In Boston, a union leader is going on trial March 3 for the “crime” of holding a union meeting, and four union activists are fighting for their jobs. The Democratic Party establishment of Boston is pressing on with its years-long drive to break the school bus drivers union, United Steelworkers (USW) Local 8751. The felony charges against long-time union activist Stevan Kirschbaum, on top of the firing of him and the other union activists, stem from an October 2013 lockout of the drivers for protesting company contract violations, harassment and abuse. In response to a strike by the drivers the year before, the city hired a notoriously anti-union company, Veolia. This union-busting attack goes hand in hand with the drive by capitalist politicians in Boston to eliminate the last vestiges of busing for school integration. All of labor, education workers, supporters of racial integration and defenders of black rights have a stake in this fight. We urge unions and others to demand that the frame-up charges be dropped and the union activists reinstated. Boston: A Crucial Battle Against Racist Union-Busting (February 2015)
Publication of the Internationalist Clubs at the City University of New York (click on masthead to go to Revolution index)
Uproot Racism – Only Revolution Can Bring Justice!
From Ferguson to New York: All Out Against Police Terror!
Across the country, hundreds of thousands anxiously awaited the news from Missouri. Then came the dreaded announcement: white killer cop Darren Wilson would face no charges for gunning down 18-year-old black youth Michael Brown in the St. Louis suburb last August. Mixed with the outrage, fury and indignation, many felt devastated by the inescapable truth: there is no justice in racist America. That night, November 24, thousands protested in at least 90 U.S. cities; by the next night there were tens of thousands of protesters in 170 cities nationwide. And they haven’t stopped. The grand jury gave a green light for police brutality and murder of black and Latino youth, particularly young men. Many chant that “the whole damn system is guilty.” We say that system is capitalism, which from the days of chattel slavery to Jim Crow segregation to mass incarceration today has been built on black oppression. And the only way to end cop terror is through revolution – socialist revolution – to bring this racist system down. The Internationalist Clubs at the City University of New York (CUNY), along with the Internationalist Group and Class Struggle Education Workers, marched in the protests from the outset and called a speak-out the next day which drew over 100 students, faculty and workers at Hunter College. We put forward a revolutionary, working-class program, declaring “No Justice in the Capitalist Courts” and calling for worker/black/immigrant mobilization against police terror. We linked cop terror in Ferguson with the police massacre of students from Ayotzinapa in Mexico. While many repeated, “No justice, no peace,” we chanted “Only revolution can bring justice.”From Ferguson to New York: All Out Against Police Terror! (December 2014)
Racist Outrage: NYPD Cop Who Killed Eric Garner Walks
“Eric Garner, Michael Brown – Shut the Whole System Down!”
A week after the grand jury decision in Ferguson, Missouri, a Staten Island grand jury announced that no charges would be filed against the NYPD cop who chokeholded Eric Garner to death in late July. The fact that the murder of Eric Garner was caught on video and still the murderers got off exposes all the phony talk by NYC Democratic mayor de Blasio and Democratic president Obama about “retraining” police and putting body cameras on cops. As tens of thousands went into the streets nationwide in the next days, protesters chanted Eric’s last words, “I can’t breathe.” The CUNY Internationalist Clubs joined in the protests from the first hour and held a speak-out the next day to denounce this racist atrocity. Our chants, “Eric Garner, Michael Brown – Shut the whole system down!” and “Only revolution can bring justice!” were widely picked up. The stark fact is that to do away with racist police terror for good, we must kick out the racist ruling class that the police “serve and protect.” “Eric Garner, Michael Brown – Shut the Whole System Down!” (December 2014)
Bourgeois Feminism vs. Women’s Liberation
Democratic Party: Faux Friends of Women
As the 2014 election campaign got down to the wire, the Democrats appealed to their base, desperately trying to get out the black and women’s vote. Yet attacks on women’s basic democratic rights have accelerated with Obama in the White House, and not just because the Republicans are determined to undermine the Democrats. There have been 231 state laws restricting abortions in the last three years alone. What is behind the Democrats’ faux-passionate appeals to “feminism” and women’s rights? The Democratic Party poses as the “friend” of women, labor and every oppressed group in order to control their struggles in the interest of capital. While capitalist politicians hack away at these basic democratic rights of women, the Democrats “triangulate” by posing soft-core versions of Republican policies, and then cynically trying to get votes as defenders of women. A prime example is Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton a friend of women? Ask the women workers at the Haitian sweatshop she sponsored. Democratic Party: Faux Friends of Women (December 2014)
CUNY Students, Faculty Speak Out Against Racist Repression
The heinous police murder of Eric Garner in Staten Island, followed by that of Michael Brown and the military/police occupation of Ferguson, Missouri, brought a wave of outrage across the United States and around the world. Thousands of anti-racist young and working people of all ethnicities took to the streets in solidarity with the besieged African American population of Ferguson, and with the families of Brown, Garner and others targeted by deadly police brutality. On September 3, the CUNY Internationalist Clubs got a strong response to our call for a “Speak-Out Against Racist Repression” at CUNY’s Hunter College in midtown Manhattan. Here is a report on the protest, with photos and excerpts from the remarks of participants. CUNY Students, Faculty Speak Out Against Racist Repression (8 September 2014)
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)
A Victory for Workers Solidarity
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)
Drop the Charges Against Wyatt McMinn Now! (January 2014)Defend North Korea and China Against Imperialism and Counterrevolution
Defend Wyatt McMinn, Defeat “Right to Slave”! (November 2013)
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)
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 InternationalistEl 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.comBRAZIL
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
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GERMANY
To contact the League for the Fourth International in Germany, write to: Postfach
80 07 21, 21007 Hamburg, GermanyITALY
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