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October 2004     

Democrats, Republicans: Pro-War,
Anti-Worker, Anti-Immigrant

Internationalist Group’s red banners on August 29, counterposed to
pro-Democratic Party politics of “antiwar” march. (Photo: Sue Kellogg)

No to Bush, Kerry, Nader:
For a Revolutionary Workers Party!

Why We Need a Revolution

The following article is based on a forum held by the Internationalist Club at Hunter College (City University of New York) on September 30.

The presidential election race comes down to who would be the toughest boss of the world’s biggest Murder Inc., U.S. imperialism. The carefully scripted “debates” are dominated by the question of who has a better “plan” for subjugating Iraq. George W. Bush pledges to “stay the course” in Iraq, while John Kerry stresses: “Nobody’s talking about leaving... we’re talking about winning and getting the job done right.” In answer to Kerry’s insistent call for tens of thousands more troops, Bush played to fears of a renewed military draft.

The imperialists are systematically terror-bombing Falluja and the impoverished Shiite areas of Baghdad, and using A-130 gunships to kill anything that moves. Their purpose is to cause large numbers of civilian casualties, seeking to force an end to Iraqi resistance. Yet resistance to the colonial occupation has continued. Every blow against imperialist aggression should be greeted by the workers and poor here “at home.” As fighters for international socialist revolution, we call to defeat the imperialists and defend Iraq, as part of our program of international socialist revolution.

The following article is based on a forum held by the Internationalist Club at Hunter College (City University of New York) on September 30.

Aubeen Lopez (Revolutionary Reconstruction Club, Bronx Community College): The “debate” between Republican George Bush and Democrat John Kerry really is more like a joint press conference. Both parties represent the interests of the same class, and they’re trying to outdo each other on the same issues. Both pledge to escalate the “war on terror,” which is really U.S. imperialism’s terrorist drive for world conquest. Both call for tighter Homeland Security repression “at home.” The USA Patriot Act was passed by both parties, in line with plans put in place long before 9/11. It’s a system of keeping the working class down.

Everyone knows Bush lied about “WMD” (weapons of mass destruction) in Iraq. Meanwhile Kerry and the Democrats call to expand the size of the military, and for putting 40,000 more U.S. troops in Iraq. So military recruiters on our campuses will push even harder to send working-class students to fight and become torturers in Iraq and around the world. If they can’t get enough cannon fodder that way, they will reinstate the draft.

The “get out the vote” movements on the campuses pretend the Democrats represent something different, but we’re here to say that Bush and the Democrats both represent capitalism. This means imperialism and war; it means oppression and poverty, it means racism and the oppression of women.

At Bronx Community College we’ve been active against these military recruiters who send working-class students, particularly black, Latino and immigrant students, to war in the fight for profits for the ruling class, killing our class brothers and sisters abroad. We have held protests and published articles in the school newspaper as well as Revolution and The Internationalist.

What is a real answer to Democrat-Republican “lesser of two evils” politics? Here at Hunter College, Ralph Nader is pushed as a supposed answer. But if you check it out you’ll see Nader is not an alternative. At CUNY a huge number of students are immigrants or sons and daughters of immigrants. As internationalists, we fight for full citizenship rights for all immigrants. Yet on this key issue Nader is actually to the right of Democrats with their bogus talk about “amnesty” for some so-called “illegal aliens.” Here is what Nader said: “This is very difficult because you are giving a green light to cross the border illegally. I don’t like the idea of legalization because then the question is how do you prevent the next wave and the next?” (interview with American Conservative [21 June], posted on votefornader.org). With his chauvinist positions and calls to “return” to smaller-scale capitalism, Nader has been endorsed by the right-wing Reform Party.

Some groups that call themselves socialists openly back the Democrats, while here at Hunter the Nader pushers are the International Socialist Organization. They say they like Karl Marx. But what did Karl Marx have to say about supporting capitalist politicians? That we need a workers party, a party that represents the working class as opposed to all the bourgeois parties, which represent the interests of the ruling class.

Marx said, “Our politics must be working-class politics. The workers’ party must never be the tagtail of any bourgeois party; it must be independent and have its own policy.” This was in a speech he made to the First International, the International Workingmen’s Association, in September 1871. The following year, he and Friedrich Engels wrote: “Against the collective power of the propertied classes the working class cannot act, as a class, except by constituting itself into a political party, distinct from, and opposed to, all old parties formed by the propertied classes” (“Resolution on the Establishment of Working-Class Parties,” September 1872). That is part of the ABC of Marxism.


In Chile under Salvador Allende, we saw what happens when leftists ally with bourgeois politicians. The working class wanted to fight for its interests and take power, but class collaboration disarmed them politically and militarily. This led to the bloody military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, a right-wing military officer who overthrew Allende in September 1973, after Allende appointed him defense minister. Allying with the bourgeoisie leads to us, the working class, being massacred, as in Chile, as in Spain and France in the ’30s.

That is why we of the Internationalist Group call for building a revolutionary party that represents the interests of the working class. We cannot tail after the capitalist parties. The Democrats are run by the same class of people who run the Republicans. You get your choice between Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola: they both give money to both parties. They say, “If this guy wins, our interests will be served, and if that guy wins, our interests will be served.”

The road to defeating imperialist wars, to ending racism and poverty, is not through bourgeois elections. You can’t elect out imperialist wars like the one against Iraq; you can’t elect out racism or sexism. You can’t defeat them by a vote in ruling-class elections, but only by building our own party and fighting to take the means of production, which is owned by the property classes, into our own hands. You can only do that by building revolutionary leadership, and that is what we’re working to do here.

Abram Negrete (Hunter Internationalist Club): The way Marxists approach politics and elections is fundamentally different from what we’re taught in school and the media. We’re taught to look at politics as if it were a spectrum: you get liberal, less liberal, middle-of-the-road, conservative, as if the electorate consists of consumers being offered a range of different flavors of ice cream. In this view, if you like the freakazoid right-wing flavor, you get one option; or you can buy the current Democrat special. If you like sort-of-liberal capitalist politics with some populistic sprinkles on top, then you get the Nader flavor.

Marxists, in contrast, look at politics from the viewpoint of class. What is the social class whose interests are represented by the given parties and politicians? Does this party or politician represent the social class which owns and runs a capitalist society like the United States? Or does the given party or spokesperson represent the working class, the exploited and oppressed?


This is a very fundamental difference from the viewpoint put forward by virtually every organization claiming to speak in the name of working-class people, of students, oppressed minorities, etc. What we’re told is, “You really should vote for Kerry because on the spectrum of horribleness, he is – supposedly – slightly less horrible”; or “You should vote for Nader, because if you compare a laundry list of positions, Nader is somewhat more liberal than the current Democratic candidate – if we ignore immigration.”

The starting point for Marxists is the struggle to organize the vast majority of the world’s population, which consists of those exploited and oppressed by the capitalist system, and to organize them around the power of the social class upon whose labor this system rests: the working class. Our policy towards a given election or party starts out by asking: What advances the struggle for the revolutionary independence of the working class, and what stands in the way of that struggle for political independence?

This is the standpoint the founders of modern socialism, Marx and Engels, put forward in the latter half of the 19th century, as Aubeen noted. To fight for its own interests, they said, the working class needs its own party. It cannot support, and it must oppose, every single party which represents the interests of another class. Because supporting any capitalist party or candidate means the working class subordinating itself to its own enemy.

Suppose you’re working at a deli down the street, or you’re a waitress or a waiter, or if you work at Wal-Mart and you’re trying to organize to defend yourself against the boss. You’re not going to vote for your boss to be your union steward – if you’re lucky enough to even have a union. You’re not going to vote for your boss to represent you. Yet we are told to vote for the organized representatives of the boss class to continue running not only the workplace but the whole country, and as much of the planet as they can sink their claws into.

When we talk about a revolutionary workers party, we’re talking about an independent party that stands for the interests of the working class and all the oppressed. These interests are fundamentally, irreconcilably opposed to those of the capitalist class. For that reason, such a party must be revolutionary. It must approach each struggle from the standpoint of the real way to defeat every form of oppression, from colonial occupation abroad to racial oppression “at home”: through a revolution which takes political power and property away from the tiny minority, the capitalist class, and puts it in the hands of the working class.

Dress rehearsal for internal war: NYC rulers screamed about “anarchist threat” as they prepared to carry out mass arrests of more than 1,800 protesters on the flimsiest of trumped-up charges. Drop all charges against RNC protesters!  (Photo: Nicole Bengiveno/New York Times)

Such a party cannot start from the question of how many votes it would get in elections whose purpose, in Marx’s phrase, is to choose which exploiter of the working people will run things for the next four years. A large part of the working class here in New York City cannot even vote, since they are undocumented immigrants, who by definition are discriminated against and denied voting and other rights.

A revolutionary party will not base itself on whether you can vote, if you have a piece of paper saying you are “legal” or “illegal,” but on who has social power. Those who can have the most decisive social power are the working class. The subways we took to get here tonight are operated by a multiracial, multiethnic workforce which, if it had a revolutionary leadership, could shut the city down in the fight against racism, against imperialist war. Yet the current labor leadership knifes strikes, leaves organizing drives starved for cash, while bowing to the bosses’ rules and pouring millions into the bosses’ Democratic Party, no matter how many times in kicks them in the teeth. What is lacking is the revolutionary leadership commensurate with the real needs and interests of the working class and oppressed.

Many people are so frightened and disgusted by Bush, whom they compare unfavorably to the lower simians, that they would vote for a fire hydrant instead. Yet even today’s New York Times says “on many foreign policy subjects, from relations with China to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, [Bush and Kerry] differ only slightly, if at all.” The same article stresses that both candidates stand for continued colonial occupation of Iraq. Kerry rattles off a list of generals and admirals who support him, including architects of the first Desert Slaughter unleashed by George Bush the First. Meanwhile Kerry criticizes Bush for not cracking down enough on North Korea – a bureaucratically deformed workers state which we defend against imperialism – and another member of Bush’s “axis of evil” list, Iran.

A real workers party must be an internationalist party. In the present war of U.S. imperialism, we have a very different viewpoint from that expressed in the huge demonstrations against the Republican National Convention. Overwhelmingly, they sought to elect John Kerry, who advertises himself as the stronger, better commander-in-chief of the capitalist war machine. Kerry says the problem with Bush is, he’s not an effective enough leader of American imperialism.

What we are saying is not that we want everybody to go home and be friends. We are saying: we take a side against the U.S. imperialists, for their defeat, and for the formation of a revolutionary leadership, not just here but in Iraq and around the world. That is what we mean when we talk about reforging the world revolutionary party founded by Leon Trotsky, the Fourth International.

What about Latin America? We have a statement here protesting repression against university students in the mining center of Bolivia, the city of Oruro. John Kerry, who is promoted by so much of what passes for a left in this country, criticizes George Bush for “allowing” the working people of Bolivia and Ecuador to throw out the previous pro-U.S. presidents (who were replaced by others no less beholden to the imperialists). So he would have intervened militarily to crush the workers, peasants, indigenous peoples and youth of those countries? In relation to Latin America, the Democratic Party presents itself as a more effective, violent and ruthless policeman against the working people.

Political discourse has been pushed further and further to the right. An example occurred in a class I had today, when a student defined liberalism as “loving to hate America.” Against the Democrats, the Republican right pushes bigotry on “hot-button social issues” to scare up votes: against gay marriage, abortion rights. Meanwhile black voters are massively disenfranchised.

Marxists are opposed to every form of oppression. We are 100 percent opposed to every form of discriminations against gays and lesbians. So of course we are for gays and lesbians having equal rights to get married! Not that marriage is wonderful for most people, but in this society you are denied all sorts of things if you are not allowed to get married. We are 100 percent for defending and extending the remaining abortion rights that women have. We are for free abortion on demand. We point out that the disenfranchising of black voters reflects the legacy of the slavery this country was built on.

What’s most crucial about these issues is to stress that if they are subordinated to the Democratic Party, the oppressed will lose. Because the guiding line for the Democratic Party is not democratic rights for the populace – it grew up as the party of the slaveowners – but defense of the property rights of the ruling class. Among the black population whose oppression has always been the axis of politics in this society, widespread illusions in the Democrats must be combated. It is not possible to fight against racism and for black liberation through supporting a party whose last president, Clinton, gloried in the racist death penalty and starved welfare moms and kids. Attacks on social programs crucial to all escalated when Clinton proclaimed he put an end to welfare as we know it – except of course for huge corporations, merchants of death and agribusinesses getting billions in subsidies.

The media went wild during the RNC (Republican National Convention) protests over a supposed flood of “anarchists,” amid the sea of Kerry buttons. Of course, only a minuscule percentage of the marchers considered themselves anarchists, despite the increase in interest in anarchism among young people since the fall of the Soviet Union. One reason, frankly, is that calling yourself an anarchist doesn’t commit you to any specific program or viewpoint. I mention this because, while we militantly defend them against repression and media witch hunts, Marxists are not anarchists. We’re not political indifferentists, we don’t reject politics in general. We are for working-class politics. We are for the working class taking power in order to pave the way for a classless, stateless society, a socialist society.

Nor are we opposed in principle to presenting workers candidates in bourgeois elections. In fact Marjorie, who is here today, was once a revolutionary candidate for New York mayor. At certain times a revolutionary party may put forward candidates, not for the purpose of taking office – as Aubeen said, you can’t vote exploitation out of office – but as another means of presenting its own program. In this subject as in all others, our central criterion is: Does it advance the constitution of the working class as a class conscious of its own international and revolutionary tasks, or does it stand in the way of this struggle? And supporting any bourgeois party is directly counterposed to this struggle.

We are not for peace between the classes, or between the oppressed of semi-colonial countries and their imperialist overlords. We are for the class war of the working class all around the world, from Iraq to Bolivia to here in New York City, a class war against imperialist war and for an end to capitalism. No choice between capitalist candidates and no capitalist election will ever solve the basic problems confronting working people. What it’s going to take is a socialist revolution. We encourage you to join us in this struggle.

There was a lively discussion at the forum, including on what a workers revolution in the U.S. would look like, and other issues.

Marjorie Stamberg: The speakers noted that the differences between Bush and Kerry are over who’s going to oppress the working class harder. I’m a teacher. I woke up this morning and saw today’s New York Times article that says: “The New York City Education Department has shut down dozens of sites used by dropouts” – that’s the word they use – “to prepare for the high school equivalency exam.” A lot of people didn’t notice this. They’re talking about a program called the Auxiliary High Schools which was quite important. A very large number of students in New York City drop out or cannot finish high schools within four years. Among second-language students it’s 40 percent.

Their only opportunity to go on with their education or to get into CUNY were these GED (general equivalency degree) programs. They were popular because they meant you could get your diploma, you could go back to school. So now of the 55 centers, they’ve just cut them down to 11. There were 50 centers around the city at night, and now there will be five. This means gutting the GED programs in this city. It means closing the opportunity for large numbers of young people to do go to college or do anything but serving up burgers. This is the kind of issue addressed in this pamphlet on the capitalist onslaught against public education [Marxism and the Battle Over Education, published by the Internationalist Group]. It’s part of the push for a two-tiered education system, with open opportunities if you’re white, rich and can pay tuition. If you’re a minority or second-language student, they’re pushing you out.

Life or death often depends on social inequities as well as politics, as we just saw with the latest hurricanes. Thousands of people died in Hurricane Ivan in Jamaica, in Hurricane Jeanne in Haiti and Grenada. Because these are very poor countries under the boot of U.S. imperialism, this is vastly more than the number of people who died in Florida during the same hurricane.

Aubeen: A question brought up Cuba, the Caribbean country that did not have the same catastrophe from the recent hurricanes. That’s because there was a revolution there against imperialism and capitalism, and they established a planned economy. It makes a huge difference, even with the U.S. embargo and the increased problems after the fall of the USSR. This is despite the nationalist bureaucracy that governs Cuba, which is a bureaucratically deformed workers state; there isn’t the proletarian democracy of soviets (workers councils) that existed in the beginning of the Russian Revolution under Lenin and Trotsky. Meanwhile catastrophes have hit much of Latin America, where even one of the richer countries, Argentina, had a complete economic collapse. Capitalism means sacrificing everything for profit, the way the big drug companies had the U.S. government block AIDS medicines to millions of people in Africa. Under a workers government, life and death won’t depend on profit and how much money you have.

Leslie Marcos (president of the Hunter Internationalist Club): Someone asked how we would get rid of world hunger. A socialist revolution would take care of that problem right away. More than enough food can already be produced for everyone in the world. But under capitalism, including here in the United States, you and your family go hungry if you are poor and don’t have enough money. Socialism can only be international, you can’t have socialism in one country. An international socialist economy would easily produce and distribute enough food and organize a world effort against diseases and other crucial problems. It would create abundance. But you need a revolution to be able to do that. n

To contact the Internationalist Group and the League for the Fourth International, send e-mail to: internationalistgroup@msn.com

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