No. 32, January-February 2011  Table of Contents Selected articles linked Click on image to left for pdf version of complete issue.

 

From Resistance to Counteroffensive to the Struggle for Workers Power Focal Point Europe: Capitalism in Crisis, Class Struggle Erupts Over the past year, a wave of class struggle has swept across Europe. In country after country, working people are facing devastating attacks on their livelihoods, their past gains, and their futures. And they are fighting back. On December 15, Greece had yet another one-day nationwide strike – its eighth this year. On November 25, more than 3 million workers walked out in the biggest strike in Portugal’s history.  All fall, France was in turmoil as millions of workers and students repeatedly mobilized against the government’s pension “reform,” with numbers and militancy not seen in years. In Ireland, Italy and Spain as well there have been huge marches of hundreds of thousands trade unionists, students and youth. Now in Britain, angry student protests against drastic fee hikes could spark working-class resistance to the government’s program of vicious cuts. But demonstrations in the streets, no matter how massive, have not stopped European governments – whether of the right or “left” – from proceeding with their onslaught. Nor will they in the future, for this is not a matter of pressuring over budget priorities, it is a concerted capitalist assault on the working class. To defeat it, we must go from resistance to a struggle for power.The burning question is how to get there.  Focal Point Europe: Capitalism in Crisis, Class Struggle Erupts  (26 December 2010)

Workers Revolt: Government Wage Slashing, Jobs Massacre “Could Lead to Civil War” Greece on the Razor's Edge Economist Trade Unionism and Left Electoral Coalitions No Answer Build a Leninist-Trotskyist Party to Fight for Socialist Revolution Greece is where the current wave of European workers’ struggles against a massive capitalist assault on their livelihoods first broke out this past January. It is also where they have gone the farthest, bordering on a full-scale revolt. Protesters have repeatedly fought police during national strikes and last May hundreds of workers tried to occupy the Greek parliament to prevent the notoriously corrupt bourgeois politicians from voting for an “austerity” law that would destroy their lives. Already many public employees have had their pay slashed by 30%. Even bourgeois economists say that such wage slashing and mass unemployment cannot be implemented without a dictatorship, will only increase the debt and could provoke civil war. While Greek workers have shown their determination to fight back, most of the left is mired in bourgeois parliamentarism and coalitionism. Their largely interchangeable platforms consist of reformist demands to be implemented by a “left” or “socialist” government of the capitalist state. Instead, Trotskyists seek to mobilize the working class on a transitional program to turn defensive struggles into a proletarian counteroffensive leading to socialist revolution. Rather than nationalist calls to withdraw from the euro and the European Union, which will further impoverish Greek workers, what’s called for is an international struggle to bring down the EU/NATO imperialist alliance and fight for a socialist united states of Europe.  Greece on the Razor's Edge  (27 December 2010)

Sinister Attack on WikiLeaks to Cover Up Imperialist Crimes Free Julian Assange! Drop All Charges! The December 7 arrest in London of Julian Assange, the founder and editor-in-chief of the Internet investigative site WikiLeaks, is a threat to freedom of the press and an attempt to silence critics who expose the bloody deeds of imperialism. We are convinced, along with many others, that Assange is innocent of the trumped up accusations of the crimes of rape and sexual molestation that are being manipulated by Swedish authorities to request his detention and extradition. His main accuser is an anti-Communist social-democratic operative. It is clear that sinister forces are pushing the persecution of this courageous man, and his life could be in danger. The criminal forces who are behind this frame-up are first and foremost, the United States government of Barack Obama and its military and spy agencies. They seek to silence whistleblowers who have not only caused them diplomatic embarrassment but also lifted a corner of  the veil on Washington’s Murder, Inc. We demand that Assange be freed, that all charges against him be dropped, including those now being prepared and that Private Bradley Manning, accused of leaking documents that incriminate the U.S., be freed as well.  Free Julian Assange! Drop All Charges!  (9 December 2010) Anna Arlin's Gusano Connection  (9 December 2010)

Beginning in 1945, at the End of World War II  U.S. War on North Korea Never Ended U.S. imperialism has demonized North Korea like no other country. The media and government portray an irrational, paranoid regime constantly engaged in provocations, a hermit kingdom bent on incinerating the South and nuking Japan, if not Hawaii, while deliberately starving its own population. This caricature is nothing but crude war propaganda. In fact, it is North Korea that was incinerated by U.S. imperialism in the Korean War, and which ever since been the object of endless provocations and nuclear threats from Washington. U.S. and South Korean forces carried out horrific slaughter of leftists beginning in 1948 and continuing through the war. The execution of hundreds of Korean refugees at No Gun Ri was only one of many massacres, and far from the largest. The U.S. waged a war of annihilation against the North, while documents show that General MacArthur and President Truman planned to incinerate North Korea with atomic bombs. Now the U.S. imperialists and their South Korean clients appear to be going for “endgame” to get rid of North Korea, risking setting off a new war. Giving no political support to the bureaucratically deformed workers state with its dynastic succession, Trotskyists call for defense of North Korea against imperialism and counterrevolution, fighting for revolutionary reunification through proletarian political revolution in the North and social revolution in the South. U.S. War on North Korea Never Ended  (5 December 2010)

Defend North Korea and China Against Imperialism and Counterrevolution U.S./South Korean Provocations Could Ignite New Korean War For Revolutionary Reunification of North and South! American imperialism and its South Korean militarist ally have embarked on a dangerous course of escalating actions against North Korea and China. Washington and Seoul invent North Korean “provocations” and hide their own role in provoking reactions by Pyongyang. The latest casus belli (cause of war) was an exchange of artillery fire on Yonphyong Island just off the western coast of North Korea. Yet the North Korean salvos were in response to an artillery barrage an hour before, and came after repeated warnings from Pyongyang that it would retaliate if its territorial waters were shelled. Judging from diplomatic correspondence recently published by Wikileaks, decision makers in Seoul and Washington seem to have convinced themselves that North Korea is about to collapse (as they have often miscalculated in the past). They want to push it over the brink. In the process, they may bring the region – and the world – to the brink of war. In this perilous situation, we reiterate our call to Defend North Korea against imperialist war provocations and sanctions, and demand All U.S. troops out of Korea! U.S./South Korean Provocations Could Ignite New Korean War  (5 December 2010) What Sank the Cheonan?  (5 December 2010)

50,000 March in London Against Conservative/Liberal Cuts Fury of Student Revolt Shakes Up Britain Workers: The Time for Strike Action Is Now! Break with Labourism – Build a Leninist-Trotskyist Party! When over 50,000 students marched through London on November 10, their mobilization ended up shattering not only the windows of Conservative (Tory) Party headquarters at Millbank Tower but also the eerie calm that had enveloped the country following elections last April. The incoming Conservative/Liberal-Democrat coalition vowed to impose “painful” cuts to what’s left of Britain’s once extensive social programs. So where was the resistance? Now it has broken out. “This is only the beginning,” said a text message from protesters on the roof of the Tory HQ. The government, media and official student leaders bemoan the “hijacking” of a peaceful demonstration by an “unrepresentative minority” of anarchists and others. Yet the occupiers were cheered by thousands of protesters. Lashing out at such symbols of an upper class elite, while thoroughly understandable and justified, cannot break its power to cause misery for the masses. Much more is needed to hit the capitalist rulers in their pocketbooks where it counts.  To really defeat the cuts and fee hikes, it is necessary to mobilize working-class power to take on not only the government parties but the capitalist system itself, among whose most ardent defenders over the century have been the Labour Party, “New” and old.  Fury of Student Revolt Shakes Up Britain  (19 November 2010)

French Battle Over Attack on Pensions Continues To Drive Out Sarkozy & Co., Fight for Power to the Workers Build a Workers Party on the Revolutionary Program of Lenin and Trotsky On October 19, once again some 3.5 million people responded to the call of unions, striking and demonstrating in cities around France in the sixth “day of action” in the last seven weeks protesting the government’s pension “reform.” The two-week-old strike of French refineries and the blockade of fuel depots are beginning to bite as service stations run out of fuel. Despite all the inconvenience, more than two-thirds of the population supports the strikes. But rather than bring strike battle to a head, the reformists (including the so-called “far left”) are looking to electoral politics. The Socialist Party (PS) want to channel the protests into the 2012 elections. Yet if the PS returns to office, French workers will still have to work longer to get the right to retire, just as under Sarkozy. The Communist Party wants a new popular front, while the New Anti-Capitalist Party is calling the protests a movement for the resignation of Sarkozy. To be replaced by what? A new capitalist government. It is possible to bring down a bourgeois regime, especially one as widely hated as this one, but this can only done by driving it out through sharp class struggle leading to a fight for a workers government. Simply replacing one bourgeois government with another anti-working-class regime, even if it is decked out in “left” clothing, is no victory.  To Drive Out Sarkozy & Co., Fight for Power to the Workers  (26 October 2010)

Dateline Paris: Reports on French Worker-Student Upsurge French Students Mobilize: “Sarkozy, You’re Screwed, The Youth Are In the Streets!”  (26 October 2010) With the Paris Student Blockades, Assemblies and Marches  (27 October 2010) Guadeloupe On Strike!  (27 October 2010) Seventh Day of Action in France: 2 Million in the Streets Against Sarkozy Attack  (29 October 2010) And Now Comes the Stab in the Back  (31 October 2010) Paris Workers’ Assemblies Declare “We’re Continuing to Fight,” Call for General Strike  (3 November 2010) Eighth Day of Action in France: The Unions and the “Interpro” Assemblies  (8 November 2010)

French Students and Workers Strike May in October? The Spectre of a New ’68 The Big Obstacle: Pro-Capitalist Union Misleaders and the Now-Reformist “Far Left” Since the beginning of September, French workers have held six nationwide “days of action,” with huge demonstrations and strikes to protest against the “reform” of pension and retirement rights being pushed through parliament by the conservative government of President Nicolas Sarkozy. In mid-October, there was a significant shift as continuing strikes were called on the railroads and at oil refineries and fuel depots, while hundreds of thousands of secondary students walked out, blockading schools. The government reacted with heavy-handed repression, but the strikes have overwhelming public support. The sight of students and workers in struggle together frightens the French bourgeoisie, recalling the upheaval of May 1968. A general strike until the anti-worker pension bill is withdrawn is called for, but a major obstacle standing in the way is the union leadership, as well as the now not-so-far left. To lead the way toward a new May ’68 that goes all the way to workers revolution, the key is to build a genuinely Leninist-Trotskyist workers party. France: May in October? The Spectre of a New ’68  (18 October 2010)

Feds Break Into Homes, Seize Documents, Subpoena Activists Denounce FBI Raids on Leftist Antiwar and Solidarity Activists Imperialist War Abroad Means Police-State Repression “At Home” Early in the morning on September 24, agents of the Joint Terrorism Task Force of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) barged into eight homes in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Chicago, Illinois, breaking down doors in a coordinated raid against leftist activists. More than a dozen people were served subpoenas ordering them to appear before a grand jury supposedly investigating “material support to terrorism.” Those targeted include University of Minnesota and University of Illinois staff members and unionists who have been outspoken in opposition to U.S. policies. They include activists associated with Students for a Democratic Society, the Colombia Action Network and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO-Fightback) group. The labor movement and all defenders of democratic rights should respond with powerful mobilizations to denounce this political persecution, the latest in the “home front” of the imperialist “war on terror.” Denounce FBI Raids on Leftist Antiwar and Solidarity Activists  (28 September 2010)

Let NYC Muslim Center Be Built! Full Citizenship Rights for All Immigrants! Mobilize Against Racist Attacks on Muslims and Immigrants Defeat U.S. Imperialist War on Afghanistan, Iraq Over the last few months there has been a concerted drive by reactionary forces to whip up hysteria against a project to build a Muslim community center in New York City, a few blocks from the World Trade Center, target of the 11 September 2001 attack. The uproar is part of the violent racist campaign targeting Muslims and immigrants for attack ever since 9/11. The frenzy is also a blatant electoral ploy by the reactionary forces that coalesced in the so-called Tea Party movement. Yet from Obama on down, the Democrats are pandering to the Muslim-bashing mob. The whole issue of location of the Islamic center is a phony: there have also been chauvinist outbursts against mosques elsewhere in New York City and around the U.S. The imam under attack is a supporter of U.S. imperialist and Zionist war and occupation which communists seek to defeat. But we defend the building of an Islamic cultural center and place of worship near the World Trade Center and defend immigrants and religious minorities under attack. The bigots plan a major Muslim-bashing event at the WTC site for September 11. This provocation must be met with a vigorous labor/immigrant countermobilization to defend Muslims and drive out the racists. Mobilize Against Racist Attacks on Muslims and Immigrants  (5 September 2010)

No Justice in the Capitalist Courts: Mobilize Labor/Black Power To Free Mumia Now!

Haiti: Occupation Elections in Times of Cholera

Brazilian Elections: The Bourgeoisie Goes for More Lula

Québec: What's Needed to Defeat Privatization and Defend Public Services

Police State in Toronto

CSEW: Healthcare "Reform" Law: Bonanza for Wall Street, Attack on Working People

CSEW on the Healthcare Crisis

CSEW: We Can Stop the School Closings

Revolution: The Dream Act Swindle

Revolution: Abolish the Board of Trustees! For Student-Teacher-Worker Control of CUNY!