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 Newspaper of CUNY students from the Revolutionary Reconstruction Club and Internationalist Clubs, for the program of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky, published in accord with the Internationalist Group, U.S. section of the League for the Fourth International To see the articles for each issue, or a pdf of the issue, click on the front-page images below. |
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write to: Mundial Publications, Box 3321, New York, NY 10008, U.S.A. US$1 per issue (to cover mailing costs) Revolution is included in subscription to The Internationalist US$10 for five issues |
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)
Yet Again, Censorship Stands in the Way of 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)
Lessons of the 2020 COLA Strike (March 2020)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)
A Militant Program to Win UC Grad Student Workers Strike
For months, graduate student workers across the University of California have been demanding a cost-of-living adjustment to offset skyrocketing rents. Grad students at UC Santa Cruz went on strike in early February, in defiance of the leadership of the statewide union, UAW Local 2865, which refused to authorize the walkout. UC president Janet Napolitano (head of Homeland Security in the Democratic Obama administration) has taken a hard line throughout, and on February 28 effectively fired 82 Santa Cruz grad student workers. The Revolutionary Internationalist Youth, Class Struggle Education Workers and the Internationalist Group have sought to build support for UC grad student workers from the outset. We present here a program to actually win the strike, by spreading the strike UC-wide and shutting the campuses down. What’s key is to mobilize working-class power. That means fighting politically, above all breaking with the Democratic Party. A Militant Program to Win UC Grad Student Workers Strike (4 March 2020)
Would-Be Witch Hunters Cannot Silence Protest at CUNY
On Thursday, November 12, a student rally was held at Hunter College as part of nationwide protests calling for free tuition at public colleges and the cancellation of student debt. Even before the rally occurred, a smear campaign was launched by rightist and pro-Israel groups and individuals slanderously claiming that it was some kind of anti-Semitic event. In response to an editorial in the rabid New York Post accusing protesters of being “hatemongers,” the Hunter College administration issued a statement smearing the student protest as supposedly presenting “bigotry, harassment, intimidation, exclusion and intolerance.” This menacing statement is part of a nationwide drive targeting critics of Israel on campuses around the country. The Internationalist Clubs at the City University of New York (CUNY) call on all defenders of basic democratic rights to oppose this latest effort to whip up a Joseph McCarthy-style witch hunt against campus protest and dissent, and to defeat the attempt to silence defenders of the Palestinian people. Would-Be Witch Hunters Cannot Silence Protest at CUNY (14 November 2015)
“Million Student March”: Pressuring Democrats Is a Dead End
Getting an Education Seems Almost Impossible? It’s the Capitalist System!
The November 12 “Million Student March” targets the high cost of tuition, student debt and low-wage jobs. The official demands are supportable in themselves, but why is there no mention of the racist cop terror that brought tens of thousands into the streets last year, and why is this coming up now? Because election season has begun, and this latest would-be movement is designed to pressure the Democrats. The truth is, the Million Student March organizers are acting as student auxiliaries of the Bernie Sanders campaign, to put heat on Hillary Clinton and get students to vote for the Dems in 2016. Like the endless police killings of African American men, and women, and Latinos, the root cause of endless tuition hikes, unpayable student debt, low-wage, dead-end jobs is the capitalist system. The Internationalist Clubs at the City University of New York call for open admissions with no tuition and living stipends so working-class students can afford to study. We call to abolish the Board of Trustees and for student-teacher-worker control of the universities. But we also tell the hard truth: that capitalism is decaying, and it will take hardcore struggle, based on the power of the working class and leading to a revolution, to get this. Pressuring the Democrats is a dead-end. Getting an Education Seems Almost Impossible? It’s the Capitalist System! (14 November 2015)
Throw Back CCNY’s Racist Eviction –
Defend the Morales/Shakur Center!
On October 20, the City College administration at the City University of New York sealed off the Morales/Shakur Community and Student Center, carrying out their longtime goal of evicting the many students who use the space as a center for radical organizing. Formed in 1989, the Center was won through struggle by activists who successfully mobilized against a tuition hike and named the center after Puerto Rican independence fighter Guillermo Morales and former Black Panther Assata Shakur. The eviction of the Morales/Shakur Center was clearly linked to the struggle by students and faculty at CUNY to drive out war criminal David Petraeus and the recently reinstated Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC), also headquartered at CCNY. Hundreds of students came out the next day to protest CCNY's racist eviction. The Internationalist Clubs call on students to join in the struggle to defeat and uproot imperialism through world socialist revolution. Throw Back CCNY’s Racist Eviction – Defend the Morales/Shakur Center (21 October 2013)
Outrage! Unprovoked Police Attack on Peaceful Protest by CUNY Students and Faculty Against Ex-Gen. David Petraeus
There has been a mounting outcry at the City University of New York ever since CUNY authorities announced last April that they had appointed former General David Petraeus, ex-head of the Central Intelligence Agency and ex-commander of U.S. occupation forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, as a “distinguished visiting professor” at the elite Macaulay Honors College. At the same time, the university announced it was reinstituting the Reserve Officer Training Corps, which had been driven out of CUNY over 40 years ago. With the beginning of the fall semester, the Ad Hoc Committee Against the Militarization of CUNY called protests against ROTC and Petraeus. At the fourth protest, on September 17, police staged an unprovoked attack on peaceful demonstrators outside Macaulay College, brutally beating and arresting six students. This attack on basic democratic rights has been met by widespread outrage, at CUNY, elsewhere in New York City and around the country. We reprint here the press release by the Ad Hoc Committee. Unprovoked Police Attack (17 September 2013)
Internationalist Video: Police Attack CUNY Protest Against War Criminal Petraeus
Along with other powerful videos, this Internationalist video shows, in an extended uncut segment, how students, faculty and supporters were peacefully demonstrating; how police forced protesters into the street and then charged, singling out individuals; and how police officers and supervisors brutally beat one of those arrested. (Other videos, linked below, show the savage beating of a different protester and other aspects of he police attack.) Internationalist Video: Police Attack CUNY Protest Against War Criminal Petraeus (22 September 2013)
Striking Mexican Students Send Solidarity to CUNY Protesters
In Mexico City, tens of thousands of teachers have been on strike since mid-August against a government assault on public education. On September 13, police drove strikers out of Mexico City's main square. That night, students at the National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH) occupied their campus in solidarity with the teachers, and continued to do so for the next week. While on the barricades the ENAH students voted a motion of solidarity with the student proteters against militarization at CUNY who had just been attacked by NYC police. Striking Mexican Students Send Solidarity to CUNY Protesters (18 September 2013)
RT Video Exposes NYPD Brutalizing Students in Protest Against Petraeus
In this report and interview, Denise Ford, one of the six arrested students, explains why the appointment of war criminal Petraeus has provoked angry protest at CUNY.
RT Video Exposes NYPD Brutalizing Students in Protest Against Petraeus (21 September 2013)
Two Videos Show NYPD Attack on Demonstrators
These two videos show demonstrators peacefully protesting, and NYPD officers and a plainclothes cop kidney-punching an immobilized student at the September 17 protest against war criminal Petraeus.
NYPD Officers Cuff and Assault Student at Petraeus Protest (18 September 2013)
NYPD Attacks CUNY Protesters At Petraeus Protest (18 September 2013)
See also our earlier article:
Macaulay War College?
War Criminal Petraeus, Out of CUNY!
The City University of New York has just announced the appointment of ex-general David Petraeus – ex-commander of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars and former CIA chief – as a visiting professor in the university’s Macaulay Honors College. News of this sparked widespread outrage at CUNY. Petraeus is a certified war criminal, who oversaw torture centers and the “collateral murder” of civilians in Iraq, bombings of wedding parties in Afghanistan and Obama’s campaign of “targeted killings” by drones which has murdered over 200 children in Pakistan alone. The Internationalist Clubs call on students, faculty, staff and campus workers to drive war criminal Petraeus out of CUNY with protest and exposure. War Criminal Petraeus, Out of CUNY! (25 April 2013)
Stop the Zionist Witch Hunt!
Defend Free Speech at Brooklyn College
The CUNY Internationalist Clubs denounce the thuggish campaign of slander and attempted censorship bearing down on Brooklyn College over a panel discussion on the campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) of Israel. Strident supporters of Israel and its guiding ideology (Zionism) have engaged in witch hunting reminiscent of the notorious Joe McCarthy on campuses around the country, and have repeatedly targeted Brooklyn College. Joining this hue and cry were 19 Democratic “progressive” elected officials and ten members of the New York City Council, whose leader went so far as threatening to cut off funding for the public university. As Marxist revolutionaries, we defend the Palestinian people. We see the working people of the entire region Arabs and Jews, Kurds, Persians, Turks and of all other national and ethnic group as tthe power that is key to defeating Zionism as well as the other oppressive regimes that enforce capitalist rule with blood and iron. Thus our strategy is very different from that of the BDS campaign, which is ultimately an appeal to the U.S. imperialists (the biggest and most dangerous mass killers on the planet) to get tough on their Israeli junior partners. At the same time, we militantly defend the right of BDS supporters to hold events free of intimidation and threats from Zionist hoodlums and their apologists. Stop the Zionist Witch Hunt! Defend Free Speech at Brooklyn College! (7 February 2013)
BoT Meeting at Baruch: Cops Run Wild Against Student Protesters
CUNY Is Not a Jail! Cops Out of CUNY!
Abolish the Board of Trustees – No Tuition, Open Admissions!
On November 21, the City University of New York unleashed its campus cops on a crowd of several hundred students, shoving, beating and arresting 15. The protesters were clamoring to attend a “public hearing” of the Board of Trustees dealing with plans for a tuition increase, from which all but a few dozen people (many of them campus administrators) were excluded. Students chanted “CUNY is not a jail” and “Cops out of CUNY.” The police assault, following the NYPD eviction of Occupy Wall Street, is part of nationwide ramp-up of repression, including the sadistic pepper-spraying of student protesters at the Universithy of California Davis campus. CUNY Internationalist Clubs have long called for all cops off campus, for abolition of the Board of Trustees, for student-teacher-worker control of the university and for no tuition and open admissions. To win these demands, we have have called, in signs and chants, “Workers and students, shut the city down!” On November 17, thousands took up this chant. It will take convulsive student struggles in conjunction with a powerful mobilization of the working class and the oppressed to defeat the ruling-class attack. CUNY Is Not a Jail! Cops Out of CUNY! (22 November 2011)
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To contact the League for the Fourth International or its sections, send an e-mail to: internationalistgroup@msn.com |