"All talk to the effect that
historical conditions have not yet
'ripened' for socialism is the product of
ignorance or conscious deception. The
objective prerequisites for proletarian
revolution have not only 'ripened,' they
have begun to get somewhat rotten.... The
historical crisis of mankind is reduced to
the crisis of the revolutionary
leadership."
Welcome!
The Internationalist Group, section of the
League for the Fourth International, fights
for international socialist revolution, the
conquest of power by the working class, led
by its Leninist party, championing the cause
of all the oppressed. After a decade and a
half in which the ruling class trumpeted the
supposed "death of communism," the
imperialists are bogged down in losing wars
of colonial occupation in the Near East
while a global economic crisis shakes the
foundations of the capitalist order. With
mass unemployment, poverty and hunger
ravaging the planet, once again there is
talk of socialism and revolution. But as in
the past, the key question is that of
forging a vanguard to lead the struggle of
the workers and the oppressed. Read
more...
Biden, DSA’s
AOC and “Squad” Vote to Ban Rail
Strike Democratic Party
Strikebreakers Shackle
Railroad Workers Rip Up the Railway Labor
Act with a Powerful Rail / Truck
/ Port Strike! Break with the Bosses’
Parties and Politicians – Build
a Workers Party!
At the beginning of December, some
115,000 railroad workers were poised
to walk off the job, tying up 40% of
all U.S. freight, at the height of
the holiday shopping season. A
majority had voted against a
Tentative Agreement that
outrageously did not include even
one paid sick day. A major labor
battle was posed. Instead, Democrat
Joe Biden, who proclaimed himself
the “most pro-union president you’ve
ever seen,” signed legislation
passed by Democrats in both houses
of Congress, imposing a
presidentially dictated contract and
banning a strike. This blatant
strikebreaking sums up countless
reasons why the capitalist
Democratic Party is a noose around
the neck of labor. This underlines
why workers urgently need to break
with all the bosses’ parties and
build a class-struggle workers party
to lead the battles of all the
oppressed. Democratic
Party Strikebreakers Shackle
Railroad Workers (29 December
2022)
Democrat-Brokered
Deal Guts Key UC Strike Demands UC Strike: VOTE
NO! To Win, Escalate Class
Struggle For
an Elected Mass Strike Committee By UCLA Internationalist
Club
In the state-wide University of
California student worker strike, a
slim majority of the bargaining team
for United Auto Workers Local 2865
and Student Researchers United-UAW
agreed on December 16 to a tentative
agreement that would gut core
demands that strikers have been
marching, picketing and sacrificing
for over the course of the past five
weeks. This deal sponsored by the
Democrats that control the bucks and
call the shots for the UC tops, is
slated to be voted from December 19
to 23. We say: VOTE IT DOWN! Defying
the relentless calls for a cave-in,
rejecting all calls for demoralized
defeatism, strikers should follow up
a decisive “No” vote by taking the
strike into their own hands and
charting a course to WIN it. UC
Strike: VOTE NO! To Win, Escalate
Class Struggle (18 December
2022)
On Strike Means Shut
It Down! Cops Off Campus!
UC
Strike: Cave In? Hell No!
Escalate the Strike to Win! For an Elected Mass
Strike Committee
No to Any Sellout! 54K, COLA,
Full Childcare Benefits,
Accessibility, End of NRST and
PDST...
By UCLA
Internationalist Club The strike of 48,000
University of California student
workers is at a crossroads. As we
enter the fourth week of the largest
higher ed strike in U.S. history,
across the country, workers and
students are watching this fight. In
recent days strikers have carried
out building occupations at various
UC campuses. In Los Angeles, teaming
up with union militants important
successes have been scored in
stopping deliveries and building
strategic pickets of construction
sites. Now is the most crucial
moment, when exams, grading and
deadlines are just around the
corner. This is the time to not just
stand fast for what strikers have
been fighting for all along, but to
intensify the struggle, and organize
the means of winning it. This means
decisively rejecting attempts by the
bosses – and by the UAW union
bureaucracy acting as a conveyor
belt for pressure from the UC
administration and its
ruling-class/Democratic Party
godfathers – to shove a sell-out
deal down the throats of the
strikers. Mass meetings of strikers
should be held now, on every campus,
to vote to uphold the strike’s
original demands; to continue – and
intensify – the strike, rejecting
any sellout; to reaffirm the call
for cops off campus; and to organize
concretely for the next steps in the
struggle. UC
Strike: Escalate the Strike to
Win! (4 December 2022)
Democrats: Faux
“Friends” of Women
Fight
for Abortion Rights with Class
Struggle
At an October 25 forum at Hunter
College in New York City, the
Internationalist Club emphasized
that the fight for free,
unrestricted abortion on demand is
part of the struggle to achieve the
real and full emancipation of women
and all the oppressed. This is why
we fight to break the chains that
have long subjugated the workers and
oppressed to the Democratic Party.
To fight for abortion rights, to
fight for women’s liberation,
requires unchaining the power of the
workers and the oppressed. This
perspective contrasts sharply with
that of CUNY for Abortion Rights,
initiated by Left Voice, which
recently called what was billed as a
walkout to “pressure CUNY admin to
take a stand on abortion rights.”
Moreover, this same group recently
held an event at the People’s Forum,
where security personnel tried to
stop the Internationalist Clubs from
distributing a leaflet – repeating
past anti-communist censorship.
Genuine communists insist that you
can’t have socialism without the
liberation of women, and you can’t
liberate women without a socialist
revolution. Fight
for Abortion Rights with Class
Struggle (November 2022)
Shut It Down – Picket
Lines Mean Don’t Cross!
All Out to Win the
UC-Wide Student Workers
Strike!
On November 14, some 48,000
student workers at the University
of California went out on a
statewide strike against poverty
pay and huge rent burdens in the
cities where they work. It is the
biggest strike in the country
since 2019 and the largest higher
education strike in U.S. history.
The UC strikers – including
teaching assistants, tutors,
graduate and postdoctoral
researchers, and others, organized
by the United Auto Workers (UAW) –
are fighting for a whopping raise
with cost-of-living
adjustment, $2,000/month
reimbursement for childcare and
other key demands. At UCLA,
activists of the Internationalist
Club have organized to win
undergrad support for and
participation in the struggle,
emphasizing that “Picket
lines mean don’t cross!” This
basic principle of labor
solidarity has been taken up by
hundreds of strikers, and has made
headway as construction workers,
Teamsters and others are
respecting strike lines. It is
vital that unions representing
other sectors of the UC workforce
respect the picket lines and stop
work now. Mass pickets should
completely shut down all work and
classes to turn “Shut It
Down” from a chant into a reality.
All
Out to Win the UC-Wide Student
Workers Strike! (19 November
2022)
Vote
Yes on Illinois “Workers’
Rights Amendment”!
Amendment 1 on the Illinois state ballot
on November 8 would amend the Illinois
state constitution, banning any law that
“interferes with, negates, or diminishes
the right of employees to organize and
bargain collectively.” This measure
amending the state’s Bill of Rights is
meant to prevent the enactment of any
“right to work” law that bans unions
from requiring fees to be collected from
non-union members covered by collective
bargaining agreements. Militant class
struggle is crucial when it comes to
gaining and holding onto essential
rights for the workers and oppressed. At
the same time, class-conscious workers
should support measures which simply
provide some degree of legal
protections, however partial or minimal,
against union-busting. The
straightforwardly worded Amendment 1 is
clearly supportable.
Vote Yes on Illinois “Workers’ Rights
Amendment”! (November 2022)
Not
Bourgeois Nationalism
But International
Proletarian Revolution
Defeat
the Imperialist
War Drive and
U.S./NATO Proxy
Regime in Ukraine
Defend
Russia, China
Against
War-Crazed U.S.
Rulers
The war between
Russia and Ukraine has
been waged with
white-hot intensity for
eight months, dominating
world politics and
economics, with no end
in sight. U.S. and
European imperialist
leaders vow to inflict a
strategic defeat on
Russia. For Moscow this
poses an existential
threat. From the
beginning of the
military operations, the
League f or the Fourth
International opposed
the nationalist
Russia-Ukraine war, as
part of our overall
struggle to defeat the
imperialist war drive
against Russia and
China. But we foresaw
that the the character
of the war could change.
This has now happened.
As U.S. and NATO
officials now determine
battlefield strategy,
supply the armament,
control the use of
advanced weapons and de
facto have integrated
Ukraine into NATO, the
conflict has been turned
into an imperialist
“proxy war” against
Russia. In this
situation, proletarian
revolutionaries’ call to
defeat the imperialists’
war drive against Russia
(a regional capitalist
power) and China (a
bureaucratically
deformed workers state)
means standing for the
defeat of the U.S./NATO
proxy regime in Ukraine,
and for military defense
of Russia, while giving
no political support to
the reactionary
bourgeois nationalist
Putin government. As
mass discontent spreads
over the consequences of
the war and the
imperialist anti-Russia
sanctions, what is
urgently needed is
workers action leading
to a struggle for
international socialist
revolution. Defeat
the Imperialist War
Drive and U.S./NATO
Proxy Regime in
Ukraine, Defend
Russia, China Against
War-Crazed U.S. Rulers
(22 October 2022)
As
Racist Courts Again Block
Appeal
Portland
Painters Call for
Workers Action to Free
Mumia Abu-Jamal
On October 26,
a judge in Philadelphia
rejected the request by
Mumia Abu-Jamal for a new
hearing on his case, based
on evidence of prosecution
misconduct and bias from
materials that had been
hidden in the District
Attorney’s office. Mumia is
the most prominent class-war
prisoner in the United
States, imprisoned for over
four decades, on death row
for almost 30 years, on
frame-up charges of which he
is entirely innocent. A week
before this latest outrage
in court, the Portland,
Oregon, Local 10 of the
International Union of
Painters and Allied Trades
passed a resolution
highlighting how Mumia
Abu-Jamal was railroaded to
jail, sentenced to death by
a racist “hanging judge” at
a rigged trial in 1982, and
ever since prevented by the
capitalist judicial system
from proving his innocence.
In the face of the
stonewalling of the courts,
the Portland Painters
resolution should be a
clarion call to workers and
defenders of black and labor
rights around the globe to
spark workers action to free
Mumia now. Portland
Painters Call for Workers
Action to Free Mumia
Abu-Jamal (October
2022)
Mobilize
Workers Power Leading
the Masses Against the
Police/Military
Regime!
Brazil:
“Broad Front”
Blocks Workers
Mobilization
Against Militarist
Threat For
Socialist Revolution
Against Deadly
Capitalist Rule
In the first round of
the Brazilian elections
on October 2, the
“broad front” slate of
ex-president Luiz Inácio
Lula da Silva won 48% of
valid votes, while
ultra-rightist president
Jair Bolsonaro got 42%.
In the second-round
runoff election, to be
held on October 30, the
Liga
Quarta-Internacionalista
do Brasil, section of
the League for the
Fourth International, is
again calling for a “no”
vote against both of
these bourgeois
alternatives, and for
working-class
mobilization in the
streets against the
rightist militarist
threat. As Bolsonaro
threatens to refuse to
recognize the election
results, most of the
left is supporting the
candidacy of Lula, the
historic leader of the
Workers Party (PT)
together with Geraldo
Alckmin of the PSDB, the
traditional party of the
conservative right wing,
as his vice president.
But this bourgeois
lash-up will not repeal
the vicious anti-worker
“reforms” rammed through
by Bolsonaro’s
bonapartist
(police/military) regime
and the preceding
right-wing government.
Some pseudo-Trotskyists
called for voting for an
independent candidate on
the first round, but are
now advocating a vote
for Lula, and thus for
the
class-collaborationist
coalition. The authentic
Trotskyists of the LQB,
in contrast, have
consistently refused to
vote for the PT when it
runs (as it always does)
in a popular-front
coalition with bourgeois
forces, seeking to
administer the
capitalist state. Our
comrades call instead
for a revolutionary
workers party to fight
for socialist
revolution. Brazil:
“Broad Front” Blocks
Workers Mobilization
Against Militarist
Threat (October
2022)
Taiwan
and Hong Kong Are Part
of China – Imperialist
Hands Off!
U.S.
Anti-China War
Provocations Over
Taiwan
Defend China Against
Imperialist Drive
for
Counterrevolution!
For Revolutionary
Reunification of
China – Expropriate
the Capitalists
Late in the night of
August 2, Speaker of the
U.S. House of
Representatives Nancy
Pelosi and her
Congressional entourage
flew on U.S. military
aircraft into the
Chinese territory of
Taiwan, explicitly
flouting numerous
warnings by the Chinese
government against this
provocative stunt.
During her stay, Pelosi
all but advocated
Taiwanese independence,
referring to the island
as a “country.” Such
talk points to war with
China, which has
insisted for 70 years
that reunification with
Taiwan is imperative.
The fact that the island
is a separate entity
from the mainland is the
result of the
dismemberment of China
by imperialism going
back to the mid-19th
century, and the
imperialists’ continued
use of Taiwan as a
spearhead to restore
capitalist rule in
China. Pelosi's visit is
only one part of an
escalating U.S.
imperialist war drive
whose ultimate aim is to
restore capitalist rule
in the largest remaining
bureaucratically
deformed workers state.
Trotskyists call to
defeat the imperialist
war drive against Russia
and China, and to defend
the remaining gains of
the Chinese Revolution
through proletarian
political revolution to
oust the bureaucracy,
expropriate the
capitalists and extend
those gains to Hong Kong
and Taiwan through
revolutionary
reunification. U.S.
Anti-China War
Provocations Over
Taiwan (September
2022)
Not “One
Country, Two Systems” For
Revolutionary
Reunification of China Reunification
of Taiwan with the
People’s Republic of
China is the
culmination of the
drive to undo the
imperialist
dismembering of China
going back to the
mid-1800s. To win the
masses of working
people in Taiwan to
reunification, it is
necessary to combat
the anti-communist
Taiwanese
nationalist/separatist
ideology promoted by
the imperialists and
their flunkeys in the
U.S. neocolonial
government of Taiwan.
But rather than
nationalism or
patriotism, what'x
needed is to raise
revolutionary class
consciousness. Workers
in Taiwan together
with their comrades in
mainland China have
the power to
expropriate the
Taiwanese bourgeoisie
and institute the
soviet democracy of
workers councils under
authentic communist
leadership, while
extending the
revolution
internationally. For
Revolutionary
Reunification of
China (September
2022)
Unpayable
Debt, Food Shortages,
Runaway Fuel Prices Hit
Dozens of Countries Sri
Lanka Economy
Collapses, Masses Rise
Up, President Flees, But
Capitalist Crisis
Remains Forge
a Trotskyist Party
on a Transitional
Program for
Socialist
Revolution For the Right
of Tamil
Self-Determination!
For a Socialist
Federation of
South Asia!
Since early this year,
Sri Lanka has been
rocked by the most
severe economic, social
and political crisis it
has experienced since
independence from
Britain in 1948. After
several years of rising
income from a
flourishing tourism
industry, the bottom
dropped out. By March,
the island nation off
the southern tip of
India had run out of
foreign exchange and by
May it had formally
defaulted. Daily life
has become unbearable
for the masses, unable
to purchase basic goods.
For the past five
months, the country has
been in almost constant
upheaval, with massive
protests, leading to the
resignation and flight
of the Rajapaksa family.
Yet this has done
nothing to alter the
deep capitalist economic
crisis, and now their
successor is preparing
to impose brutal
austerity measures in
conjunction with the
International Monetary
Fund. Sri Lanka was the
first country to blow,
but there are dozens of
others saddled with
unpayable debt,
increasingly unable to
pay for food and fuel.
Revolutionaries call to
intervene in the mass
protests with
transitional demands
pointing to socialist
revolution, the only
answer to the present
capitalist immiseration.
Sri
Lanka Economy
Collapses, Masses Rise
Up, President Flees,
But Capitalist Crisis
Remains (29 August
2022)
Democrats
Push Gun Control, Tool
of Racist Capitalist
Repression Gun
Bans Won’t Stop
Racist Mass
Shootings For
Worker/Black/Latino
Mobilization Against
Cop Terror and
Racist Attacks
Another year, another
spate of grisly mass
shootings in the not-so
United States of
America. May 14,
Buffalo, New York – 10
people shot to death.
May 24, Uvalde, Texas –
21 people killed. July
4, Highland Park,
Illinois – 7 people
gunned down. The
now-routine spectacle of
mass murder followed by
calls for far-reaching
gun control legislation
has become a fixture of
American culture. While
professing concern for
the deaths of black
people in inner-city
neighborhoods, liberals
and reformist leftists
are actually pandering
to racist fears of white
suburbanites and
demagogic appeals to
militarize the ghettos
and barrios. This leaves
the population
defenseless, while
trigger-happy cops,
criminals and fascists
are all heavily armed.
The Second Amendment,
upholding the “right of
the people to keep and
bear arms,” is a
fundamental democratic
right which we strongly
defend. It is doubly
important to working
people and the
oppressed, who are beset
by a well-armed ruling
class and its
professional enforcers.
The mass shootings were
neither random nor
inexplicable. In all
three recent instances –
Buffalo, Uvalde,
Highland Park – racism
fueled the homicides. Gun
Bans Won’t Stop Racist
Mass Shootings (15
August 2022)
Whatever
Happened to “No Contract,
No Work”? ILWU:
Prepare to
Strike for
Shorter
Workweek,
Union Control
of Tech Fight
for 6-Hour Shifts x 5 = 30
Hours, No Loss in Pay
As the contract
between the West
Coast
International
Longshore and
Warehouse Union
(ILWU) and the
Pacific Maritime
Association (PMA)
was set to expire
on July 1, the
stage was set for
a major showdown
and the
possibility of a
big labor victory.
Instead, the ILWU
tops and marine
bosses, under
pressure from
President Biden,
announced that
work would
continue without a
contract.
Longshore workers
are facing a major
attack by capital,
which are
thirsting to
automate the port
unions out of
existence. The
ILWU should join
with rail and port
truckers, with
solidarity action
from East Coast
dock workers, and
backed by allies
including teachers
and students, to
launch a strike
for a shorter
workweek with no
loss in pay, and
for union control
of technology to
ensure no job
losses. ILWU:
Prepare to
Strike for
Shorter
Workweek, Union
Control of Tech
(8 August 2022)
Free
Abortion on Demand
– Women’s
Liberation Through
Socialist
Revolution Supreme
Court Cancels
Right to
Abortion:
Trigger for
Ultra-Rightist
Mobilization
On June 24, the U.S.
Supreme Court
overturned Roe v.
Wade, the 1973
decision which for
almost 50 years was
the basis for women’s
constitutional right
to abortion. In
response there was an
outpouring of anger as
tens of thousands went
into the streets to
protest around the
country. Establishment
abortion rights groups
seek to channel the
outrage into support
for the Democratic
Party. But voting for
the Democrats will not
restore the right to
abortion, and any law
they might pass would
be struck down by the
reactionary Court.
While opportunist
leftists sought to
pressure the
Democrats,
Internationalist
contingents
participated in the
protests denouncing
the Democratic Party
and calling for a
revolutionary workers
party. We emphasized
that the anti-abortion
crusade is rooted in
racism. The fight over
abortion rights and
gay and trans rights
is already a
flashpoint for
emboldened
ultra-rightists and
fascists, who now feel
that the capitalist
state has their back.
In the post-Roe U.S.,
abortion clinics are
threatened by
vigilantes, bounty
hunters, racists and
fascists. We call to
mobilize union power
to defend the clinics
and disperse
anti-abortion
bigots.The Bolshevik
Revolution first
legalized abortion on
demand, and it will
take a socialist
revolution to achieve
it today. Supreme
Court Cancels Right
to Abortion: Trigger
for Ulltra-Rightist
Mobilization (7
August 2022)
¡Todos
parejos! Equal
for All! Cabricanecos: Indigenous Immigrant Workers
Fight Deadly
Conditions in
NYC
By Trabajadores
Internacionales
Clasistas
Facing flagrant
management abuse and
a wave of
retaliatory firings,
a courageous
campaign by 40
demolition/construction
workers – mainly
indigenous
immigrants from
Guatemala and Mexico
– shines a spotlight
on deadly dangerous
conditions on the
job faced by many
thousands in the New
York area and
beyond. “We
are human beings,
but they use us up
and then just throw
us away,” a worker
who suffered
multiple injuries
unloading heavy
materials for Best
Super Clean/ISK
Group said, echoed
by fellow campaign
activists. Organized
by the Laundry
Workers Center
(LWC), the campaign,
presently focused on
winning key
improvements in job
conditions and
wages, is called
“Cabricanecos,”
because many of the
workers are
originally from the
town of Cabricán in
Guatemala. The
Cabricanecos
campaign is a link
in a chain of
struggles
underlining both the
need and the great
potential for
militant organizing
among sectors of
immigrant workers
who are key to
making the city run,
at the same time as
they are denied
basic rights and
treated as
“undocumented”
pariahs while often
risking their lives
due to intolerable
working conditions.
Cabricanecos:
Indigenous
Immigrant Workers
Fight Deadly
Conditions in NYC
(10 July 2022)
Ohio
Cops Fired 90
Bullets at Unarmed
Black Man Jayland Walker, Executed by Akron Police The
Racist Killer
Cops Never
Stop Under
Democrats or
Republicans the
Police Murder
Machine Grinds
On Only
Revolution Can
Bring Justice!
On June 27, police
in Akron, Ohio were
in hot pursuit of a
car driven by
Jayland Walker, a
25-year-old black
man, supposedly for
unspecified
equipment and
traffic violations.
When Walker bolted,
running for his
life, eight police
officers discharged
a fusillade of 90+
shots mere seconds
after exiting their
vehicles. When a
crowd gathered
outside city hall
and police
headquarters to
protest after
bodycam video
footage was released
on July 3, cops and
state troopers
arrested scores. An
execution for a
supposed traffic
violation – such is
the “justice” meted
out by the racist
police in capitalist
America. In the
summer of 2020,
millions took to the
streets to protest
the racist police
murder of George
Floyd in
Minneapolis, Breonna
Taylor in
Louisville, and
countless others.
The killer cops keep
on killing, but with
Democrat Joe (shoot
’em in the leg)
Biden in the White
House and Democrats
controlling
Congress, protests
this year and last
against the unending
police murder have
been few in number
and small in size.
The Internationalist
Group calls for
worker action
against racist
police terror,
emphasizing that
only revolution can
bring justice. Jayland
Walker, Executed
by Akron Police –
The Racist Killer
Cops Never Stop
(7 July 2022)
Revolution Publication
of the Revolutionary
Internationalist Youth and
of students from the
Internationalist Clubs at
the City University of New
York (click
on masthead to go to
Revolution index)
Revolution
No. 19 (September 2022) click or
on image
for full list of articles
Break with the
Democrats – Build a Workers
Party! Free
Abortion on Demand
How
Revolutionaries Fight for
It The United
States Supreme Court –
that reactionary
institution of unelected,
appointed-for-life,
black-robed dispensers of
capitalist “justice” –
overturned the Roe v. Wade
decision on June 24.
Shredding the ruling that
was the basis for the
constitutional right to
abortion since 1973, it
opened the way for even
further onslaughts against
basic democratic rights.
The impact was quickly
felt. Due to so-called
trigger laws on the books,
thirteen states
immediately banned
abortion in most, if not
all, cases. Eight more
quickly passed their own
prohibitions. Bans in even
more states are working
their way through the
courts. Back in May, when
Justice Samuel Alito’s
deranged draft decision
was leaked, it sparked
mass protests in cities
around the country. After
the decision was put into
effect, many thousands
more came out in protest.
The following article is
an expanded version of a
talk by the Revolutionary
Internationalist Youth in
late May, at events
organized by the
Internationalist Clubs at
the City University of New
York. Free
Abortion on Demand, How
Revolutionaries Fight
for It (September
2022)
Selling Imperialist
War, from 1898 to ... WWIII?
“You
Furnish the Pictures, and I’ll
Furnish the War”
If you want to push a war drive
abroad, flood the public with war
propaganda on the home front.
Feature blood-curdling images, sound
bites, and plenty of propaganda for
good vs. evil, us vs. them. Lay it
on as thick as possible. Don’t let
up – it’s got to be relentless. So
say U.S. imperialism’s media masters
of war. It’s all on daily display
right now in these United States.
Casting Russia and China as the evil
empires to be vanquished, the big
business media egg on Washington’s
escalating war provocations, from
the Taiwan straits to the
Ukraine/Russia front. But the
pattern was set long ago. In 1897,
mass-media mogul William Randolph
Hearst worked out the playbook. “You
Furnish the Pictures, and I’ll
Furnish the War.” This, the history
books tell us, is what Hearst cabled
to his star illustrator in the
lead-up to the Spanish-American War.
a chronology of U.S. war propaganda
from the beginning of the 20th
century to today, with World War I,
WWII, the anti-Soviet Cold War up to
the invasion and occupation of Iraq
(mythical “weapons of mass
destruction”) and much more. “You
Furnish the Pictures, and I’ll
Furnish the War” (September
2022)
NATO
“Socialist” War Squad
In May, 368 House of
Representatives members voted
to approve Biden’s $40 billion
package of aid to the
Ukrainian regime in its
nationalist war with Russia
touched off by the U.S./NATO
imperialists. Among those
voting for this war measure
were the members of the
Democratic Socialists of
America in Congress. Among the
weapons paid for by this
package are the High Mobility
Artillery Rocket System
(HIMARS) that have been used
by the fascist-infested
Ukraine military to strike at
civilian targets in Donetsk
and in shelling near the
Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.
All with the votes of the NATO
“Socialist” elected officials
of the DSA. This is what
social-imperialism looks like.
NATO
“Socialist” War Squad
(September 2022)
Bolshevik
Revolution First Legalized
Abortion on Demand
In today’s struggles over
abortion rights, an important
fact is little known: abortion
on demand was first legalized
in Bolshevik Russia. The
connection between women’s
rights and the struggle for a
classless society free of
exploitation and oppression
was basic to the revolutionary
program going back to the
founders of the socialist
movement. But it was the 1917
October Revolution in Russia
that made it possible to start
putting that program into
effect. It was in this context
that free abortion on demand
was established in 1920. This
went together with
establishing communal
laundries and cafeterias, as
well as creches and daycare
centers, to free women from
household burdens and help
them enter fully into social
labor, political and cultural
life. Bolshevik
Revolution First Legalized
Abortion on Demand
(September 2022)
“Heterogeneous
Movement” or Revolutionary
Class Struggle?
Why History
Matters in the Fight for
Abortion Rights
There are important
differences on the left that
shape counterposed approaches
to the abortion rights
struggle. What most of the
left tries to do, on one
burning issue after another,
is to pressure the Democratic
Party. Since this has
manifestly failed to protect
abortion rights, some
self-styled “socialist
feminists,” such as Left
Voice, seek to carve out a
niche slightly to the left,
criticizing the Democrats. But
at the same time, they call
for a “mass heterogenous
movement,” together with
bourgeois feminists and
pro-Democratic outfits like
the Women’s March, MoveOn,
etc. This program of class
collaboration is a dead-end,
and there is a history to it
going back to the Vietnam
antiwar movement.
Revolutionary Trotskyists call
instead for mass mobilization
bringing out the power of the
multiracial working class,
fighting for the full and
unrestricted right to abortion
as part of the struggle for
women’s liberation through
socialist revolution. Why
History Matters in the Fight
for Abortion Rights
(September 2022)
Oppose
Imperialist-Provoked
Russia-Ukraine War –
For Revolutionary Struggle
Against the Capitalist Rulers in
Moscow and Kiev!
Behind the War:
U.S./NATO War Drive Against
Russia, China
Defend Self-Rule in
Southeastern Ukraine! Smash
the Fascists – For Proletarian
Internationalism Against
Russian and Ukrainian
Nationalism!
On February 24, Russian president
Vladimir Putin launched a military
operation in Ukraine. The first
day consisted of dispatching
troops to bolster the breakaway
“people’s republics” of Donetsk
and Lugansk, accompanied by air
strikes against military targets
in many parts of Ukraine. This
quickly turned into an invasion by
Russian ground forces surrounding
and launching attacks on several
Ukrainian cities. After previously
talking of defending the embattled
regions of the Donbass, upon
launching his military attack
Putin declared its purpose to be
to “to demilitarize and denazify
Ukraine.” This is now a war
between the Russian capitalist
state, with its nationalist ruler
in Moscow, and that of Ukraine,
whose nationalist regime in Kiev
has acted as a cat’s paw of
Western imperialists and uses
fascist forces to besiege the
Russian-speaking population of
southeastern Ukraine. We
Trotskyists call for revolutionary
defeatism on both sides in this
reactionary nationalist war, for
internationalist proletarian
struggle against both capitalist
regimes and, above all, against
the U.S. and European rulers who
set off this conflagration. Behind
the War: U.S./NATO War Drive
Against Russia, China
(28 February 2022)
Ukrainian
Fascists and Nationalists
Hands Off Donbass! Defend Self-Rule in
Southeast Ukraine! Defeat
U.S./NATO War Drive and
Sanctions Against
Russia! Statement of the
League for the Fourth
International
On February
21, after weeks of
increasingly hysterical
imperialist war propaganda
and daily escalating attacks
by Ukrainian government and
fascist/nationalist forces
against the breakaway
Russian-speaking regions of
Donetsk and Lugansk in
eastern Ukraine, Russian
president Vladimir Putin
formally recognized the
independence of these
embattled self-styled
people’s republics and sent
in troops. The United
States, NATO (North Atlantic
Treaty Organization) and the
European Union immediately
condemned Russia for its
defensive action and
announced they would impose
severe economic sanctions.
Class-conscious workers and
all opponents of imperialism
should denounce the
U.S./NATO imperialist war
drive, which raises the
spectre of world war. The
imperialists seek to
isolate, provoke and
demonize Russia, which
despite Putin’s imperial
ambitions is an
intermediate, regional
capitalist power. Yet the
imperialists’ ultimate aim
is to spark
counterrevolution in China,
Cuba and North Korea. Facing
the escalating threats and
dangers, we call on the
world working class to
defend China and the other
bureaucratically deformed
workers states against
imperialism and
counterrevolution. Defeat
U.S./NATO War Drive and
Sanctions Against Russia!
(23 February 2022)
The
“Green Tide” in Latin America: A
Festival of Class Collaboration The Struggle for
Full Abortion Rights, From
Latin America to the U.S. Free Abortion on
Demand – For Women’s Liberation
Through Socialist Revolution
The battle over abortion is at a
critical point throughout the
Americas. As reactionary forces in
the United States wave the banner
of the “right to life” and “the
family” to eliminate rights won in
the past, elsewhere in the
hemisphere there has been an
upsurge in actions to eliminate
laws that have sent thousands of
women to jail for the “crime” of
ending an unwanted pregnancy – or
just having a miscarriage. In
Latin America much has been made
of an advancing “Green Tide,” as
feminist groups have labeled the
mass mobilizations in Argentina
that won a partial legalization of
abortion. Yet that movement was
led by bourgeois political
currents – bringing with it
obstacles and limitations to
winning crucial rights. In the
U.S., the issue is sharply posed
of how to fight against the
assault on women’s rights,
abortion rights, gay and
transgender rights. The new/old
dead-end
“strategy” of bourgeois feminists
is to vote for the Democrats, who
despite the hype are no friends of
women.Everywhere, the issue of
control of women’s bodies by the
state is poised point-blank, as
decaying capitalism endangers the
rights of all the oppressed. The
pending calamity in the U.S.,
where the constitutional right to
an abortion is on the verge of
being eliminated after being in
force for a half-century,
underlines the need for a
revolutionary class struggle for
the liberation of women. The
Struggle for Full Abortion
Rights, From Latin America to
the U.S. (March 2022)
For
Vaccine Mandates
and Free Testing “Vaccine
Passports” =
Police Control,
Not Public Health Fascistic
Forces Take
Lead of
Reactionary
Anti-Vaccine
Protests
Since last
summer, from
Europe to
Canada,
fascistic and
outright
Nazi/fascist
forces have
taken the lead
in organizing
protests over
mandatory
vaccination
against
COVID-19. A
dramatic case
of this
ominous
development
was the
storming of
the offices of
the main
Italian labor
federation in
October by
squads from an
anti-vaxxer
demo led by
leaders of the
fascist Forza
Nuova terror
squad. Later,
in the port of
Trieste, an
attempt was
made to
portray a
no-vax sit-in
as a workers
protest,
although only
a small
minority of
the dockers
participated.
Sensing a new
“movement”
budding, some
on the left
have
opportunistically
tailed after
ultra-rightist-led
anti-vaccine
mobilizations.
As a public
health measure
to protect the
population
from the
deadly virus,
the League for
the Fourth
International
supports
obligatory
anti-COVID
vaccination to
the extent
feasible. We
do not support
“vaccine
passports,”
which do
nothing for
public health,
and oppose
repression of
anti-vaxxers
by the forces
of capitalist
state
repression,
which would
much sooner go
after labor
and leftists.
Rather, from
the onset of
the pandemic,
the LFI and
fraternally
allied trade
unionists have
put forward a
program for
workers
control of
safety, and
actively
sought to
implement it
in workplaces.
Fascistic
Forces Take
Lead of
Reactionary
Anti-Vaccine
Protests
(April 2022)
Imperialist Press
Fawns Over Ukrainian
Ultra-Nationalist Militias Smash
U.S./NATO-Backed Nazi-Fascist
Mass Murderers! The Truth About
Ukraine’s Fascist
Infestation
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on
February 24 was announced by
Russian president Vladimir Putin
in a speech declaring a “special
military operation” to “de-nazify”
and “demilitarize” Ukraine. The
bourgeois press in the United
States and in the NATO (North
Atlantic Treaty Organization)
imperialist countries immediately
mocked the notion. The Ukrainian
state apparatus, particularly its
repressive forces, is in fact
riddled with fascistic
nationalists, outright fascists
and Nazis, would-be ethnic
cleansers, some of whom are openly
anti-Semitic and admirers of
Hitler. Fascist militias are a
large component of the military
forces that have relentlessly
besieged the Russian-speaking
population of the Donetsk and
Lugansk self-proclaimed “people’s
republics” that broke away from
Ukraine eight years ago. Moreover,
many of these fascist and pro-Nazi
squads have been financed, armed
and trained by the U.S. and NATO.
The ultra-nationalist fascists and
Nazis embedded in the Ukrainian
state and its repressive organs
must be rooted out, permanently
stopped and brought to justice,
and their program of “ethnic
cleansing” smashed. To have a
lasting effect this must be
accomplished by the working people
themselves, on an internationalist
basis. The
Truth About Ukraine’s Fascist
Infestation (4 April 2022)
Question Answered:
Who Was Behind the 2014
Maidan Massacre?
The 20 February 2014
massacre in Kiev’s Maidan
(Independence Square), in which
48 protesters and several
policemen were killed, was the
trigger that set off the coup
d’état, led by fascist and
Ukrainian ultra-nationalists,
that the very next day overthrew
the government of Viktor
Yanukovich. The coup plotters,
the imperialist press and U.S.
authorities in unison blamed the
riot police of the Yanukovich
government, which they
considered pro-Russian. But from
the outset there were numerous
questions about where the
fusillade came from. At the
time, we published an article
asking: “Who Were the Snipers
Who Killed Kiev Protesters and
Police on February 20?” Since
then, particularly due to the
painstaking work of Canadian
academic Ivan Katchanovski, the
answer to this question has
become crystal clear. The
massacre was a false flag
operation carried out by the
fascist action squads in the
Maidan and their oligarchic
Ukrainian nationalist backers. Question
Answered: Who Was Behind the
2014 Maidan Massacre? (10
April 2022)
Pseudo-Trotskyist
Imposters Line Up with
Imperialism NATO Socialists
in Italy
In the present Russia-Ukraine war,
instigated by the imperialist
powers of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO),
communists in the imperialist
centers, including Italy, are
duty-bound to fight for
working-class actions against the
war, to oppose imperialist
sanctions against Russia and to
mobilize to defeat the NATO war
drive through class struggle
against “their own” imperialist
bourgeoisie. The main enemy is at
home, especially in the
warmongering European Union,
Britain and United States. But in
Italy and elsewhere, a large part
of the left has lined up with
their own imperialist bourgeoisie
and sided with the NATO-backed
Ukrainian “resistance.” These NATO
socialists are actively supporting
the imperialist war drive. NATO
Socialists in Italy (April
2022)
Report from
Germany Imperialist
Racism and the
Russia-Ukraine War
Every weekend now, tens and
hundreds of thousands of
protesters pour into the
streets of German cities in
“peace” demonstrations
supposedly against war in
Ukraine. In reality, many if
not most of these are pro-war
demos in that they are
overwhelmingly for support to
Ukraine in the war with
Russia. Many speakers called
for arms deliveries to
Ukraine, i.e., by the NATO
(North Atlantic Treaty
Organization) imperialists who
provoked this fratricidal war
in their escalating war drive
against Russia and China.
Meanwhile, in stark
counterpoint to the chauvinist
backlash against refugees from
Middle Eastern wars, there has
been an unprecedented
outpouring of support for
Ukrainian refugees. This has
been whipped up with outright
racist media coverage
stressing that Ukraine is a
“relatively civilized,
relatively European” country,
with “people with blue eyes
and blond hair.” And it is
reflected in the sharply
contrasting treatment at the
border of white refugees
fleeing Ukraine and those
considered non-white. Today,
as almost 3 million Ukrainians
(so far) have fled the war we
call for for revolutionary
defeatism on both sides of the
reactionary nationalist
Russia-Ukraine war, for
revolutionary struggle against
the capitalist rulers in
Moscow and Kiev, and to defeat
the U.S./NATO war drive
pointing to World War III
against Russia and China. Imperialist
Racism and the
Russia-Ukraine War (19
March 2022)
Democrats,
NLRB No Friends of
Labor Amazon Labor Union Victory at JFK8 Unionize
All of Amazon
with Class
Struggle!
On Friday,
April 1, the
Amazon Labor
Union (ALU)
won a historic
vote to
unionize the
massive JFK8
warehouse on
Staten Island,
New York, by a
decisive
margin. This
is the first
union victory
in North
America
against the
giant
distribution
and e-commerce
monopoly,
which has 1.1
million
employees in
the U.S alone.
The vote,
which the
media are
calling “one
of the biggest
victories for
organized
labor in a
generation,”
came amid
growing
restiveness in
the working
class, and
followed large
strikes last
fall at
Midwest
industries. It
will be a
beacon for
millions of
workers at
Amazon and
throughout
country who
desperately
need
unionization
to fight
against the
low wages,
miserable
“benefits” and
deadly working
conditions
that are the
standard in
capitalist
America. It
will take
genuinely
revolutionary
political
struggle to
break the
stranglehold
of capitalist
Democrats and
pro-capitalist
labor
bureaucrats
that has been
driving the
unions to the
grave. Key to
winning the
major class
battle at
Amazon, as
well as to
organizing the
unorganized
and building a
fighting labor
movement
overall, will
be to forge a
solid core of
class-struggle
militants in
the
warehouses,
factories and
other
workplaces.
Amazon
Labor Union
Victory at
JFK8 (14
April 2022)
Interview
with ALU
Worker at
Staten Island
JFK8 Warehouse Unionizing
Amazon Will Be a
Huge Class
Battle The
Internationalist
interviewed
Will, a
supporter of
the
Internationalist
Group who
works at
Amazon’s big
warehouse in
Staten Island,
New York and
has been part
of the Amazon
Labor Union
effort almost
from the
start. Interview
with ALU
Worker-Activist
at JFK8
(14 April
2022)
Use
Union Power to
Keep Schools
Open Safely
By Class
Struggle
Education
Workers/UFT
The rapid
spread of the
highly
contagious
Omicron
variant of
COVID-19 has
caused much
justified
worry among
educators,
parents and
students. This
concern has
been seized on
by some in the
teachers
unions to push
to return to
“remote
education,”
possibly for
an extended
period of time
until the
current high
levels of
infection are
past. Calling
to close the
schools is a
huge mistake.
It does not
protect
teachers, it
will almost
certainly
increase
infections
among
students, and
it plays into
the hands of
enemies of
public
education.
This includes
not only Trump
Republicans
but also Biden
Democrats like
the mayors of
New York City
and Chicago,
Eric Adams and
Lori
Lightfoot.
These forces,
who back
charter
schools and
are out to
break the
power of the
teachers
unions, are
angling to
mobilize
parents
against
teachers on a
program of
keeping the
schools open.
Instead, Class
Struggle
Education
Workers calls
to use union
power to keep
schools open
safely. That
includes,
first and
foremost,
demanding a
drastic
reduction in
class sizes,
entailing
hiring
thousands of
new teachers,
custodians,
counselors and
nurses; and
requiring
frequent
testing of all
in the
schools. Use
Union Power to
Keep Schools
Open Safely
(12 January
2022)
UCLA
Internationalist Club Statement of
Class-Struggle Solidarity
Victory
to the UC-AFT Strike – All Out to
Win!
The Internationalist Club at the
University of California at Los Angeles
is helping mobilize students and workers
in support of the November 17-18
University of California system-wide
strike called by the UC-AFT. In addition
to the unfair labor practices cited as
the legal grounds for the walkout, the
strike motivation flows from the
desperate situation of lecturers and
other campus workers who are essential
to making the university run, but
receive only poverty pay and lack job
security. All sectors of the campus
workforce need to unite in genuine
solidarity. It's a basic principle: One
out, all out. Picket lines mean don’t
cross! And it is necessary to take on
the Democratic Party, which is the boss
that the UC-AFT is striking against. We
say: On
strike means shut it down. All
classes should be stopped, and
students brought out en masse to
the pickets and rallies. Victory
to the UC-AFT Strike – All Out
to Win! (16 November 2021)
Defend
Combative Immigrant Workers
Against Repression Italy:
Draghi Government of
Repression, Impoverishment
and Death Mobilize the Entire
Working Class to Defeat
All-Sided Attack! No
to Dead End of Reformism –
Forge a Revolutionary
Workers Party!
In the ongoing emergency of this
second year of the coronavirus
pandemic, the Italian bourgeoisie
decided to dump the weak and
unstable coalition government of
the Democratic Party and Cinque
Stelle (Five Stars) movement,
replacing it with Mario Draghi,
the former head of the European
Central Bank. The first shots of
the Draghi government have been to
increase repression against the
workers movement, in particular
against the S.I. Cobas
“rank-and-file” union of mainly
immigrant workers. Some of the
most deeply exploited sectors of
the working class have undertaken
trade-union and solidarity
actions, centered on logistics.
The response of much of the
ostensibly socialist left has been
to form an Action Pact with
political supporters of S.I.
Cobas, a political coalition of
heterogeneous forces based on a
reformist 15-point political
program. This program consists
overwhelmingly of appeals for the
capitalist government to take
action, rather than for workers
themselves to enforce their
demands. What genuine communists
must say to the masses in the
harrowing coronavirus crisis is
that the working class must
establish its revolutionary class
rule, seizing and collectivizing
the means of production and
organizing production to satisfy
human need, not the profits of the
few. This fight requires above all
the forging of a revolutionary
workers party. Italy:
Draghi Government of Repression,
Impoverishment and Death (26
April 2021)
Voces
del Epicentro Un
folleto de
Trabajadores
Internacionales
Clasistas
(click
on image to download
pdf)
As the
coronavirus pandemic
erupted in the United
States, the first
epicenter was in the
neighborhoods of New
York City with the
highest number of
immigrants, where
Trabajadores
Internacionales
Clasistas (Class
Struggle Immigrant
Workers) has been
active. Read the reports
from TIC activists and
teachers in Class
Struggle Education
Workers on the impact of
this capitalist
disaster, and the
lessons to be drawn from
it. Also reports from
the strike of
packinghouse workers in
Yakima Valley,
Washington. (In Spanish)
For
Black Liberation
Through Socialist
Revolution!
Slavery
and the
Constitution:
Origins of
U.S.
Capitalist
“Democracy”
Long ago and
far away in
the B.C.
(Before
Coronavirus)
era, bourgeois
politics in
the United
States fixated
briefly on
impeachment.
The Democrats
leading the
lower house of
Congress did
not, of
course,
impeach Donald
Trump for his
crimes against
the oppressed,
for example
his vicious
persecution of
immigrants in
the U.S. After
all, the
record
deportations
under the
Democratic
administration
of
“deporter-in-chief”
Barack Obama
paved the way
for Trump.
Trump was
“brought up on
charges by the
wrong class
for the wrong
crimes,” we
noted at the
time. One
generation
after another
is brought up
with the
mythology of
the
Constitution
as an
embodiment of
“democracy” in
general, to be
worshiped
alongside the
“Founding
Fathers.” Yet
the authors of
the
Constitution
understood
very well that
they
represented
not “the
people” in
general but
the ruling
class of
planters and
merchants, and
wrote it to
safeguard
their
interests, in
particular to
bolster and
uphold the
power of the
slaveowners in
the newly
established
American
republic. The
U.S.
Constitution
established a
series of
institutions
that are
strikingly
anti-democratic.
They remained
so even after
slavery’s
abolition
through the
Civil War.
Revolutionaries
explain the
need for a
revolutionary
workers party
to lead a
socialist
revolution to
overthrow the
entire
capitalist
system. Slavery
and the
Constitution:
Origins of
U.S.
Capitalist
“Democracy”
(August 2020)
PSL
Targeted for
Marches Against
Cop Murder of
Elijah McClain Defend
Denver
Anti-Racist
Protest
Leaders!
On Thursday,
September 17,
police raids
were carried
out in Denver,
Colorado
against the
organizers of
protests
denouncing the
racist murder
of Elijah
McClain, a
young black
man, by police
in suburban
Aurora in
August 2019.
Six of the
protest
leaders were
arrested,
including four
members of the
Party for
Socialism and
Liberation
(PSL), which
has played a
leading role
in the
protests. They
have
outrageously
been charged
with multiple
serious
felonies,
including the
absurd charge
of
“kidnapping.”
Following
Trump’s failed
attempt at
imposing
martial law in
Washington,
D.C. and the
subsedquent
the dispatch
of federal
agents to
Portland,
Oregon, and
Kenosha,
Wisconsin, the
Denver arrests
mark a new
escalation of
police-state
measures that
are a threat
to the civil
liberties of
all. The
Internationalist
Group
and
Revolutionary
Internationalist
Youth denounce
this ominous
attack on the
right to
protest. We
demand that
the arrested
activists be
immediately
released and
that all
charges
against them
be dropped. Defend
Denver
Anti-Racist
Protest
Leaders!
(18 September
2020)
“We’re All in
This
Together.” You
Think?
Top
Ten Lies in
the Time of
Coronavirus
and Mass
Protests
By Charles
Brover
U.S.
capitalism is
in the midst
of a triple
whammy crisis
– economic,
social, and
public health.
Inspiring
massive
protests
against racism
and cop terror
not seen in
their size and
scope since
the 1960s have
set this
nation’s
cities aflame
day after day,
and have
spread
internationally.
The historic
protests are
occurring
against the
backdrop of
unconscionable
government
delay,
deception,
ignorant happy
talk, and
anti-scientific
incompetence.
Official
public health
malpractice
has driven the
confirmed
death toll
from COVID-19
to over
160,000. This
plague is
disproportionately
ravaging
black, Latino,
and immigrant
working class
communities.
For Marxist
revolutionaries
the racist
system that is
at the root of
the oppression
of black
people in the
U.S. (and
elsewhere) is
class-based
capitalism.
While the
cities are in
paroxysms of
rage, grief
and plague;
while millions
are fighting
to save their
livelihoods
and their
lives, the
capitalist
rulers, their
politicians,
and tamed
pundits
promote lies,
damn lies, and
even more
murderous
lies. Here are
our top ten
picks. Top
Ten Lies in
the Time of
Coronavirus
and Mass
Protests
(8 August
2020) Millions of
Undocumented
Immigrants and
Their Families
Facing the
Abyss
New
York: We
Demand Equal
Treatment and
Emergency
Support for
Excluded
Workers!
Declaration of
Class Struggle
International
Workers (TIC)
In the sixth
month of the
health crisis
unleashed by
the COVID-19
pademic,
infections are
spiking in
much of the
country while
mass
unemployment
continues to
grow and
marches
against racist
police
brutality
continue. New
storms of
crisis are
coming for the
working class,
and for
immigrants in
particular,
beginning with
a threatened
wave of
evictions.
Nationally,
undocumented
immigrants are
denied
“stimulus”
aid,
unemployment
benefits or
any official
support. In
New York some
200,000
undocumented
workers have
lost their
jobs or cannot
find work,
while over a
million
workers
considered
“essential,” a
majority of
them
immigrants,
receive
poverty wages
while running
great risk of
contracting
the virus.
Class Struggle
International
Workers
demands that
the state of
New York
include all
workers,
particularly
the
undocumented
and those in
the “gig
economy,”
among those
eligible for
unemployment
benefits; that
state and city
governments
make up for
the exclusion
of immigrants
from federal
support; and
that rent be
canceled and
all
residential
evictions be
prohibited
during the
pandemic. New
York: We
Demand Equal
Treatment and
Emergency
Support for
Excluded
Workers!
(11 August
2020)
Urgent:
Protest Arrest
of Leftists in
Bolivia
The
rightist de
facto
government of
Bolivia that
seized power
in last
month’s
“civic-police-military”
coup has
carried out a
new act of
repression,
arresting
Carlos
Cornejo,
correspondent
of leftist
Internet
publication La
Izquierda
Diario,
and the artist
Leonel Jurado,
charging them
with
“sedition.” They were seized yesterday afternoon in
the city of El
Alto, where
they were
helping
prepare an
event in
solidarity
with families
of the at
least ten
people killed
in the police
massacre
against a
protest at the
Senkata gas
plant there on
November 19.
The
Internationalist
Group and
League for the
Fourth
International
demand the
immediate
liberation and
dropping of
all charges
against Carlos
Cornejo,
Leonel Jurado
and all
victims of
rightist
repression in
Bolivia! Urgent:
Protest Arrest
of Leftists in
Bolivia
(17 December
2019)
Left
Reformists
in Existential
Crisis An Internationalist Group Pamphlet
(click
on image to download
pdf)
With
the Bernie
Sanders
candidacy and
the dramatic
growth of the
Democratic
(Party)
Socialists of
America, the
left
reformists
have been
thrown into
crisis.
This 84-page
pamphlet
features
documents from
oppositionists
who fought
inside left
groups to
uphold the
revolutionary
politics of
Lenin and
Trotsky.
Socialist
Action’s
“Solidarity
with
Solidarity”
How
Fake
Trotskyists
Carried the
Bags for
Imperialism
While the
reformist left
in the United
States is in
profound
crisis,
tripping over
each other as
they chase
after the
Democratic
(Party)
Socialists of
America,
Socialist
Action has
remained
relatively
stationary and
appears more
red in
comparison
with those
social
democrats who
are now being
devoured by
their own
opportunism.
In reality,
SA’s program
is pink social
democracy. At
every key
juncture where
defense of the
degenerated/deformed
workers states
has been posed
point-blank,
Socialist
Action has
lined up with
imperialism,
from Poland in
1981 to the
USSR in 1991
and continuing
today. Poland
was a key
episode in the
imperialist
drive against
the Soviet
bloc, which
led to
capitalist
restoration
whose
devastating
consequences
continue to be
felt around
the world.
Today SA
denounces
China as
imperialist
and North
Korea as
capitalist
while genuine
Trotskyists
defend them
against
imperialist
threats and
attack. And
it’s not just
words. When
the chips were
down, these
fake-Trotskyists
hailed their
comrades’
direct and
concrete role
in delivering
vital
CIA-financed
equipment to
counterrevolutionary
Polish
Solidarność.
Read the
details here.
How
Fake
Trotskyists
Carried the
Bags for
Imperialism
(April 2019)
“American Apartheid” by Design
A
Review of
Richard
Rothstein, The
Color of Law:
A
Forgotten
History of How
Our Government
Segregated
America By
Charles
Brover, Class
Struggle
Education
Workers After
more than a
decade of hard
struggle and
the passage of
laws in the
mid-1960s
against
official Jim
Crow
segregation,
the civil
rights
movement
suddenly
stopped. What
was termed de
facto segregation
was deemed
off-limits, or
at least had
to be left for
another day.
Rothstein’s
book
conclusively
proves that
rigid
residential
segregation
and
discrimination
against
African
American,
Latino and
Asian
minorities was
always de
jure,
officially
sanctioned.
This has had a
devastating
effect on
everything
from school
integration to
murderous
police
repression.
But while
laying out key
elements of
the structural
foundation of
black
oppression in
the U.S., The
Color of Law
fails to go to
their root in
the system of
racist
American
capitalism. In
the United
States in 2016
there were 2.3
million
evictions:
6,300 a day,
four every
minute. And
with over 3.5
million
homeless
people in the
country, there
are 19 million
unoccupied
dwellings.
This powerful
essay from
Class Struggle
Education
Workers
demonstrates
that it will
take nothing
short of a
socialist
revolution to
solve the
housing
question. “American
Apartheid” by
Design (21
November
2018)
While
“Democratic
Socialist”
Ocasio-Cortez
Chimes In
Bipartisan
War Criminals
Celebrate War
Hawk John
McCain
U.S.
imperialism
lost one of
its most vocal
and active
warmongers on
August 25 –
Arizona
Republican
senator John
McCain.
Universally
praised by
ruling-class
politicians as
a “war hero”
and
“maverick,”
McCain’s
funeral at the
National
Cathedral was
attended by
some of the
most infamous
mass murderers
of this and
the last
century, from
Henry
Kissinger to
former U.S.
presidents
Bill Clinton,
George W. Bush
and Barack
Obama. Far
from being a
“war hero,” a
“man of honor”
or paragon of
“human
decency,”
Senator John
McCain was a
war criminal
who bombed
civilians. He
was shot down
over North
Vietnam on a
bombing run
against a
civilian
factory. But
McCain’s most
valuable
service to
U.S.
imperialism
was as an
inveterate war
hawk in
Congress. From
Afghanistan to
Iraq to
Ukraine, Libya
and Syria, he
beat the drums
for murderous
imperialist
intervention.
What’s
striking about
McCain’s war
crimes and
endless
warmongering
is that in
virtually all
cases, he was
joined or
supported by
Democratic
politicians.
And, notably,
among those
praising
McCain was
Democratic
Socialists of
America (DSA)
superstar
Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez.
Her eulogy was
consciously
paying the
price of
admission to
the bipartisan
imperialist
club of the
U.S. Congress.
Bipartisan
War Criminals
Celebrate War
Hawk John
McCain
(September
2018)
As
The Boss,
Mayor Rahm
Emanuel,
Blames Black
Community for
Violence
Chicago:
Democrat-Led
Cops Continue
Racist Killing
Spree For Black Liberation Through Socialist Revolution
On July 14,
Chicago police
gunned down
yet another
black person,
Harith
Augustus, a
barber.
“Snoop”
Augustus,
known as a
peaceful man,
was stopped on
the pretext of
exhibiting the
“characteristics
of an armed
person,” and
was shot dead
even though he
had a valid
gun license.
For the police
in this
rigidly
segregated
city, and
throughout
this country
founded on the
bedrock of
slavery, it is
always open
season on
black people.
And on
Latinos,
immigrants,
Native
Americans …
the list goes
on. Moreover,
in Chicago and
almost every
other big
city,
Democrats are
the bosses of
the racist
killer cops.
This is all
coming to a
head in the
upcoming trial
of killer cop
Jason Van Dyke
for the murder
of Laquan
McDonald in
October 2014.
And Democratic
mayor Rahm
Emanuel,
running for a
third term, is
stoking racist
reaction by
blaming lax
“morals” in
the black
community for
the violence
engendered by
rampant
poverty,
unemployment
and brutal
police
occupation.
Yet some of
the same
themes are
echoed in
protests,
where instead
of denouncing
racist police
repression the
focus is on
opposition to
“gun violence”
in general.
Talk of
“reforming”
the police or
controlling
guns only
serves to
divert protest
away from a
revolutionary
perspective
and to
strengthen the
repressive
agencies of
the capitalist
state, while
leading
protesters
into the
dead-end of
bourgeois
pressure
politics. The
stark fact is
that there is
no solution to
war, poverty
and racist
repression
under
capitalism. Chicago:
Democrat-Led
Cops Continue
Racist Killing
Spree
(August
2018)
DSA: Fronting for the
Democrats An Internationalist Group Pamphlet
(click
on image to
download pdf)
A 70-page
pamphlet
analyzing the
organizational
and political
history of the
Democratic
(Party)
Socialists of
America. Includes
articles on:
Bourgeois
Populism and
Social-Democratic
Reformism: A
Dead End Italy: Anti-Immigrant Election Hysteria
The
campaign for
the March 4
Italian
elections has
been dominated
by vile
xenophobic
anti-immigrant
chauvinism.
All the
competing
bourgeois
parties and
coalitions
attack the
bogeyman of
“illegal
immigration.”
The racist
Lega
(ex-Nord)
rails about
the “invasion
of aliens,
drug pushers,
delinquents
and illegals,”
raising
slogans such
as “Italians
first! Now or
never! Stop
the invasion!”
With the
populist
Cinque Stelle
(Five Star)
movement
running first
in the opinion
polls, its
historic
leader, Beppe
Grillo,
recently
called for
immediately
deporting all
“illegals.”
The strategy
of the
Democratic
Party
government has
been to put
itself at the
head of the
anti-immigrant
hysteria by
aggressively
extending the
sway of
Italian
imperialism in
the
Mediterranean,
Libya and to
the south.
This
imperialist
drive to the
south is
accompanied by
a campaign of
all-sided
racist
repression
against
immigrants and
refugee
seekers in
Italy. What
the
domesticated
left is
counterposing
to the three
main bourgeois
coalitions of
Forza
Italia/Lega,
Cinque Stelle
and the PD
with its
various
appendages of
homeless
bourgeois
politicians,
is a mixture
of bourgeois
populism and
social-democratic
reformism. in
the present
climate of
anti-immigrant
hysteria and
fascist
attacks, what
is needed are
mass
mobilizations
bringing out
the power of
the working
class to stop
the fascists.
Above all, we
must forge a
genuinely
Leninist-Trotskyist
vanguard.
Italy:
Anti-Immigrant
Election
Hysteria
(24 February
2018)
Boston:
Let Siham Byah
Come Home! No
Deportations! By
Class Struggle
Education
League
On January 27,
hundreds of
defenders of
immigrant
rights from
many leftist
organizations,
labor unions,
churches and
sanctuary
networks
rallied in
Boston to
protest the
deportation of
Siham Byah. A
prominent
Occupy Boston
activist and
single mother,
Byah was
grabbed by the
Immigration
and Customs
Enforcement
(I.C.E.)
police last
November 7,
torn from her
son, beaten in
a local jail,
driven to
Virginia and
then deported
to Morocco.
The Class
Struggle
Education
League, based
in Lowell,
Mass. and New
Hampshire
participated
in the
protest,
emphasizing
the importance
of mobilizing
the power of
workers action
to stop the
I.C.E.
deportation
machine. It
also noted the
parallel to
the struggle
against
slave-catchers
under the 1850
Fugitive Slave
Act, a battle
which came to
a head in
Boston and set
the stage for
the U.S. Civil
War. The CSEL
is undertaking
joint work
with the
Internationalist
Group. Boston:
Let Siham Byah
Come Home! No
Deportations!
(4 February
2018)
Guess Who’s
Bernie
Sanders’
Foreign Policy
Go-To Guy, and
What Power
Bishop Is His
Vatican Fixer
But, of
course, one
and the same
Jeffrey Sachs
who designed
the
post-counterrevolution
“shock
treatment” in
Poland. Also
in Bolivia
where it led
to tens of
thousands of
workers fired
and brutal
anti-union
repression. In
preparation
for the
no-photo-op
pope-meet-and-greet,
Bernie and
Jeffrey dined
with Cardinal
Óscar Andrés
Rodríguez
Maradiaga of
Honduras, “the
pope’s
right-hand man
and one of the
Vatican’s top
power
players.” This
is the same
cardinal who
helped
engineer
(together with
Hillary
Clinton) the
2009 Honduran
coup, and
before that
covered up for
bloody
massacres and
“disappearances”
in the 1980s.
But then, Pope
Francis
himself is a
veteran of
Argentina’s
1970s dirty
war. Guess
Who's Bernie
Sanders’
Foreign Policy
Go-To Guy, and
His Power
Bishop Vatican
Fixer (17
April 2016)
A
Question of
Whose Class
Interests
Prevail Flint
Water Crisis:
Capitalism Is
Poisoning Us
The residents
of Flint,
Michigan have
been living a
nightmare ever
since in early
2014 the
city’s
state-appointed
“emergency
manager” and
the governor’s
office decided
to switch the
water supply
from Lake
Huron to the
Flint River.
As a result,
the population
has been
subjected to
lead
poisoning,
particularly
affecting the
very young and
elderly. The
levels of
contamination
are
astronomical.
For almost two
years
Republican
state
authorities
and Democratic
federal
officials
refused to do
anything about
complaints.
Now an
emergency has
been
proclaimed,
but the water
is still
undrinkable.
Meanwhile, the
same
“emergency
manager” has
been
overseeing
Detroit
schools as
they descend
further into
the abyss. The
emergency has
been created
by decaying
capitalism:
industrial
pollution,
closing
factories and
a bipartisan
attack on
teachers and
public
education. The
dictatorial
managers must
be kicked out,
but changing
parties will
change
nothing. The
bottom-line
issue is which
class is in
power.
Capitalism is
literally
poisoning our
futures. Flint
Water Crisis:
Capitalism Is
Poisoning Us
(3 March 2016)
The
State of
Pennsylvania
Seeks to Bar
His Lawyer
The
Frame-Up of
Corey Walker By
Charles Brover
Corey Walker
was arrested
in July 1996
on a bogus
murder charge
from
Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania.
He has been
behind bars
ever since.
Evidence of
his innocence
was withheld.
He is the
victim of
prosecutorial
misconduct and
incompetent
legal
representation.
Lorenzo
Johnson, who
was arrested
in the same
case, also
remains in
prison even
though a
federal
appeals court
recognized the
insufficiency
of the
evidence
against him,
but was
overruled by
the U.S.
Supreme Court.
Now the state
is trying to
deny Walker
the attorney
of his choice,
Rachel
Wolkenstein,
who has
defended Mumia
Abu-Jamal.
Pennsylvania
authorities
will stop at
nothing to
cover up lying
and
manufacture of
evidence,
coercion of
witnesses and
suppression of
evidence of
innocence by
police and
prosecutors.
This requires
silencing
Corey Walker
and
short-circuiting
his legal
appeal. In
seeking to
disqualify
Wolkenstein
from
representing
him, the state
attorney
general's
office cites
her political
views that the
judicial
system is an
organ of
racist
oppression
that must be
overthrown by
socialist
revolution.
This
witch-hunting
attack and the
continued
incarceration
of Walker and
Johnson go to
the heart of
Jim Crow
“justice
system.” Free
Corey Walker
and Lorenzo
Johnson! The
Frame-Up of
Corey Walker
(4 February
2016)
Occupation
of Hundreds of
Schools Blocks
Threatened
Closures
Student
Revolt Shakes
São Paulo,
Brazil
By Class
Struggle
Workers/UFT
For the last
three weeks,
the city of
São Paulo,
Brazil has
been convulsed
by a combative
upheaval of
high school
students
protesting the
state
government’s
plan to close
92 schools and
order hundreds
of thousands
of students to
change
schools. When
the state
governor tried
to ram through
this plan
without
consultation,
students
responded by
occupying
almost 200
schools. Then,
when military
police began
clearing out
occupied
schools this
week, students
took chairs
and tables and
set up class
in busy
intersections
and highways.
The students,
backed by
teachers, also
refused to
take
high-stakes
test. After
several days,
the governor
backed down.
This is
a dramatic
example of how
the
international
capitalist
offensive
against public
education
should be
fought – by
mass action in
the streets,
bringing out
students,
teachers,
parents and
mobilizing the
power of the
working class.
Student
Revolt Shakes
São Paulo,
Brazil (4
December 2015)
The
Haitian
Revolution and
U.S.
Imperialism
July 28 marks
the 100th
anniversary of
the first U.S.
invasion of
Haiti in 1915,
under
Democratic
president
Woodrow
Wilson. This
led to an
occupation of
19 years, as
well as
occupations of
the Dominican
Republic next
door, of
Nicaragua,
Panama,
Honduras and
Veracruz,
Mexico, and
followed the
1898 U.S.
invasion and
occupation of
Cuba, Puerto
Rico and
Philippines.
But the
occupations
didn't stop
there. In
1994, Democrat
Bill Clinton
invaded Haiti
a second time,
and in 2004
Republican
George Bush II
invaded a
third time.
Haiti today
continues
under
imperialist
occupation,
this time
outsourced to
a United
Nations
“peacekeeping”
force. As
proletarian
internationalist
opponents of
imperialism,
on this
centenary we
republish
articles from
Workers
Vanguard
when it was
the voice of
revolutionary
Trotskyism on
the 1915-34
U.S.
occupation,
and a two-part
series on
Toussaint
Louverture and
the Haitian
Revolution
that led to
the first
black republic
in history, as
well as
sparking slave
revolts
throughout the
Caribbean and
in the United
States. (30
July 2015)
Protest
the Police
Lynching of
Sandra Bland
On July 10,
Sandra Bland,
a 28-year-old
African
American
activist and
education
worker, was
driving from
Illinois to
her new job at
the
historically
black Prairie
View A&M
University in
Texas, her
alma mater.
Sandra was
pulled over by
a Texas
Ranger,
supposedly for
changing lanes
without
signalling.
The trooper
abusively
demanded she
get out of the
car,
theatening to
use a Taser
electric shock
on her. After
having her
head slammed
on the ground,
Sandra was
arrested for
supposed
“assault on a
public
servant,” for
insisting on
her rights.
Three days
later, she was
found dead in
her cell in
Waller
County, Texas.
The
authorities
claim she
committed
suicide. We
say the police
are guilty.
Sandra was
lynched by the
cops. On July
22, hundreds
gathered in
New York
City's Union
Square to
protest the
police murder
of Sandra
Bland. Class
Struggle
Education
Workers, CUNY
Internationalist
Clubs and the
Internationalist
Group joined
in. Protest
the Police
Lynching of
Sandra Bland
(22 July 2015) (video)
NYC May Day 2015 The
Internationalist
Group, CUNY
Internationalist
Clubs and
Class Struggle
Education
workers had a
spirited
contingent in
the May Day
march in New
York City.
Leading the
contingent was
a group with
red flags with
the hammer,
sickle and 4
of the Fourth
International.
Then came a
banner made by
the Hunter
Internationalist
Club,
proclaiming:“Ayotzinapa-Ferguson-NYC,
Smash the
Racist
Capitalist
State, Workers
to Power.
Signs
emphasized the
call to Defend
Black
Baltimore
following the
occupation of
the city by
the National
Guard to
squelch the
upheaval over
the police
murder of
Freddie Gray,
and to free
Mumia
Abu-Jamal, who
faces
execution in
prison by
deliberate
medical
neglect. Also
highlighted
was the call
for workers
action against
police terror,
noting the
historic
action by ILWU
Local 10 that
shut down the
port of
Oakland on May
Day and
marched on
City Hall
calling to
stop police
terror.
Sunset
Park Fights
Back Against
Police Attack
It’s
been only two
months since
Eric Garner
was
chokeholded to
death in
Staten Island
by the racist
cops, and
barely a month
and a half
since the
police murder
of 17-year-old
Michael Brown
in Ferguson,
Missouri. But
despite the
national
outcry and a
thousands-strong
march in New
York in late
August, two
incidents in
the Sunset
Park
neighborhood
of Brooklyn
show once
again the face
of racist
police
violence under
liberal
Democratic NYC
mayor Bill de
Blasio. The
first involved
a heavy‑duty
arrest of a
vendor after a
festival in
the park; in
the second, a
cop slammed a
pregnant woman
on the
pavement on
her abdomen
and her son
and husband
were arrested.
The residents
of this
heavily
immigrant
neighborhood
feel singled
out for
aggressive
enforcement
under NYPD
chief William
Bratton’s
“broken
windows”
strategy of
massive
arrests for
minor
infractions.
On Saturday,
September 27,
some 300
people came
out to protest
against the
brutal police
siege. While
many called
for Bratton’s
resignation,
racist cop
terror is
endemic in
capitalist
America. To
put a stop to
it will
require
nothing less
than workers
revolution. Sunset
Park Fights
Back Against
Police Attack
(28 September
2014)
Defend North Korea and China
Against
Imperialism
and
Counterrevolution
U.S.
War
Provocations
Push Korea to
the Brink For the Revolutionary Reunification of Korea, North
and South!
Over the last
month and a
half, the
United States
and South
Korea have
engaged in an
escalating
series of
military
provocations
against North
Korea.
Simultaneous
“war games”
have simulated
a nuclear
aerial bombing
of the North,
a ground
invasion from
the South,
annihilation
of the
leadership and
the
“insertion” of
tens of
thousands of
U.S. troops
searching for
nukes. While
the
imperialist
media are, as
usual,
strenuously
demonizing the
North Korean
leader Kim
Jong Un and
playing up
blustering
statements
coming out of
the North
Korean capital
of Pyongyang,
the Pentagon
has been
laying the
basis for a
military
strike against
the North. The
whole
operation is
part of
detailed plan
elaborated by
the Obama
administration,
dubbed “the
playbook,” for
U.S. shows of
force. But
this is no
football game.
The
Internationalist
Group and
League for the
Fourth
International
defend North
Korea, a
bureaucratically
deformed
workers state,
against the
war
provocations,
economic
blockade and
any attack by
U.S.
imperialism
and its South
Korean junior
partners, no
matter how it
starts. We
also defend
North Korea’s
development of
nuclear
weapons, its
main deterrent
against a war
by the power
which laid
waste to the
North in the
Korean War. U.S.
War
Provocations
Push Korea to
the Brink (13
April 2013)
To contact the League for the Fourth
International write to: Internationalist
Group, Box 3321, Church Street Station,
New York, NY, 10008, U.S.A. Tel (212)
460-0983. Fax (212) 614-8711
E-mail: internationalistgroup@msn.com
BRAZIL
To contact the Liga
Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil write
to: Caixa Postal 084027, CEP 27251-970,
Volta Redonda, RJ, Brazil
Caixa Postal 3982, CEP 20010-974,
Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
We would like
to hear from you. If you are
interested in learning more
about the Internationalist
Group and the League for the
Fourth International, contact
us at:
internationalistgroup@msn.com