Workers Vanguard No 702 - 04 December 1998

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For a Workers PartyThat Fights forAll the Oppressed!For .Black LiberationThroughSocialist Revolution!

The following is a statement by theSpartacist League to the November 21labor/black demonstration fo r MumiaAbu-Jamal at Chicago's Federal Plaza.Mumia Abu-Jamal-an innocent man-has spent more than a hird of his lifeon death row. The October 29 decisionby the Supreme Court of Pennsylvaniaupholding his conviction on false chargesof killing a policeman has moved Jamalcloser to the executioner's chamber. Let itbe clear that this former Black PantherParty member, MOVE supporter and eloquent spokesman for all the oppressedwas framed up because he is a fighteragainst oppression and injustice. His conviction was based on lying, extorted testimony without a shred of physical evidence. His death sentence was secured bythe prosecution interrogating Jamal abouthis revolutionary beliefs and Panthermembership.In that sense, the drive to execute Jamalis the "official" consummation of theCOINTELPRO terror unleashed by thesecret police of the FBI against the Panthers, resulting in the assassination

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of dozens of its members. In 1969, Chicago cops murderedPanther leaders FredHampton and MarkClark, riddling their

Chicago, November 21: Demonstration to free Jamal and abolish the racistdeath penalty drew committed core of trade unionists. Chicago ATU transitunion spokesman Marcellus Barnes addresses rally from podium.bodies with bullets as they lay in bed.Today, it is the same fear of black revoltagainst this racist system that inspires therulers' determination to execute Jamal.Since the defeat of Reconstruction inthe aftermath of the Civil War, America'srulers have, with deliberation, fosteredand maintained the race-caste segregation of black people as a wedge to dividethe laboring masses and thus attempt toassure the perpetuation of the rapaciousand racist rule of capitalism. The stateapparatus of the ruling class-it;'> copsand courts-wages a campaign of policeterror and outright murder in the ghettos.A full third of the young black male population is either re-enslaved in America'sprison hellholes or ensnared in the capitalist "justice" system. Simultaneously,the picket line-and thus effectivestrikes-is under attack by these same

forces who are out to destroy the weapons available to the working class tofight the increasingly grinding exploitation demanded by the profit-bloatedbosses.Based on the only significant integration in racist America-the workplaceand the factory floor-the trade unionshave the social power and potential tobecome battalions in the struggle againstracism and exploitation and to shake thefoundations of this decaying capitalistsystem. If undertaken with a mobilization of the union movement, the fight tofree Mumia, to abolish the racist deathpenalty, would be a first, giant step inthat direction. To that end, labor mustbreak the chains forged by the tradeunion misleaders that have shackled theunions to the political parties and thestate agencies of the enemy class.

Appealing to the capitalist governmentto intervene to bring "democracy" tounions, bringing the deadly forces ofstate terror and repression-from cops toprison guards-into the labor movement,embracing the predatory interests ofAmerican imperialism as their own,the union tops serve to subordinate theworking class to the rule of capital.The working class cannot effectivelyfight the racist frame-up of Jamal withunions riddled with cops or under thecontrol of the very state which seeksto execute hiIh. Government, cops andcourts out of the unions! For the socialpower of labor to be mobilized in its ownclass interests and in the interests ofblacks, immigrants and all those at thebottom of this society, there must be anew leadership of the unions, one whichwill fight things out on the basis ofclass struggle against the entire capitalistclass and its government.It is the purpose of the SpartacistLeague to forge a revolutionary workingclass party in the U.S. which links thestruggle for black liberation to the fightagainst capitalist immiseration. Acting asa tribune of the people, such a party iscentral to the fight to overturn the savageU.S. imperialist order through socialistrevolution. The 1917 October Revolutioncontinued 0/1 page 6

~ ~ ~ . ~ "Free Mumia Now! Abolish the Racist Death Penalty!" .. 4


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It's not often that the New York Times,liberal mouthpiece for U.S. imperialism,deems letters from ostensible socialists"fit to print." But the Times (22 October)clearly ~ a \ . v some value' in publishing amissive by David North of the SocialistEquality Party (SEP, formerly WorkersLeague). Having ceased publication ofhis 'fake-Marxist International WorkersBulletin last year in favor of a pseudoacademic Web site, the national secretary of the now organless SEP descended from cyberspace to engage inpolite "debate" with professional antiCommunist Ronald Radosh. Radosh hasmade a career out of retrying, reconvicting and re-executing Julius and EthelRosenberg, who were executed as "Sovietspies" in 1953 in an anti-Communist,anti-Semitic witchhunt.

McCarthy" which cited Radosh, Northwhines: "Mr. Radosh's assertion that thedebacle of the American CommunistParty has discredited the entire Socialistmovement is indefensible." North begs toset the record straight: "In fact, before thecold war, anti-Stalinism was associatedprincipally with the Socialist left-aboveall with Trotskyists. Long before antiStalinism became fashionable amongliberals, who had previously embraced'popular front' alliances with the Communist Party, left-wing anti-Stalinists hadinsisted that the Kremlin's policies hadnothing in common with Marxism or withthe Socialist program."And North's SEP has nothing in common with Trotskyism-the Marxism ofour time. "With the approval of North,"the SEP Web site assures us, his letter wasabridged by the Times to omit even passing references to anti-Communism or theOctober Revolution of 1917. But even the

In commenting on a Times (18October) "Week in Review" piecetitled "Rethinking McCarthyism, if Not

Latin America andPermanent Revolution

As the workers and poor of Latin Americacome under the lash of the burgeoningfinancial crisis, the need is starkly posedfor a perspective of socialist revolution tosweep away capitalist rule. Yet the national-ist labor misleadersand reformist and cen-trist "socialists" preach confidence in thenational bourgeoisie as the natural ally of

TROTSKY the workers against imperialism. What is LENINneeded is an internationalist vanguard partycommitted to the Trotskyist program of permanent revolution. As Bolshevik leaderLeon Trotsky underlined, only on the basis of intransigent class independence can theproletariat, leading behind it all the oppressed, wage a successful struggle for statepower.

Latin American society, like every society-developed or backward-is composedof three classes: the bourgeoisie, the petty bourgeoisie, and the proletariat. Insofar asthe tasks are democratic in a large historical sense, they are bourgeois-democratictasks, but the bourgeoisie here is incapable of resolving these democratic tasks, as thebourgeoisie was incapable in Russia or in China.In that sense, during the struggle for the democratic tasks, we oppose the proletariatto the bourgeoisie. The independence of the proletariat even in the beginning of thismovement is absolutely necessary, and we especially oppose the proletariat to thebourgeoisie in the agrarian question, for that class will rule in Mexico as in every LatinAmerican country which has the peasants. I f the peasants remain in support ofthe bourgeois class, as is now the fact, then it will be such a semidemocratic, semiBonapartistic state as now exists in every country of Latin America ...As the first step of the new stage of American imperialism, Roosevelt or his successor will show the fist to Latin America in order to assure their economic-military,tutelage over Latin America, and that will provoke a more decisive revolutionarymovement, as in China-we believe with more success. Under these conditions theworkers of Mexico can come tO'Rower before the workers of the United States. Wemust encourage them in this direction.But that does not signify that they will build their own socialism. They will resolve tofight against American imperialism and they will, of course, reorganize the agrarianconditions of the country and abolish the perfidious and parasitic society which plays atremendous role in these countries, giving the power to the workers' and peasants'soviets and fighting against the imperialists. The future will depend upon events in theUnited States and the whole world.

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-. : Leon Trotsky, "Latin American Problems: A Transcript" (November 1938)

! . ! ~ ! ~ ~ ! o r . . ~ ! ~ ! . ~ ' ! . ! EDITOR: Len MeyersEDITOR, YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Jacob ZornPRODUCTION MANAGER: Susan FullerCIRCULATION MANAGER: Jane PattersonEDITORIAL BOARD: Ray Bishop (managing editor), Bruce Andre, Helene Brosius, George Foster,Liz Gordon, Jane Kerrigan, James Robertson, Joseph Seymour, Alison Spence rThe Spartacist League is the U.S, Section of the International Communi st League (FourthInternationalist),Workers Vanguard (ISSN 0276-0746) published biweekly, except Skipping three alternate issues in June, July andAugust (beginning with omitting the second issue in June) and with a 3-week interval in December, by the Spartacist Publishing Co" 299 Broadway, Suite 318, New York, NY 10007, Telephone: (212) 732-7862 (Editorial), (212) 732-7861(Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. E-mail address:[email protected] subscriptions: $10.00/22 issues. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY POSTMASTER: Send addresschanges to Workers Vanguard, Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116.Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint.The closing date for news in this issue is December 1.No. 702 4 December 1998

David North,Joseph McCarthy

unabridged version does not so much ashint at the Trotskyist position of unconditional military defense of the SovietUnion when it existed-nor, to be sure, ofthe remaining deformed workers states(China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam)today-against imperialist attack andinternal counterrevolution. Nor doesNorth raise a finger in defense of theheroic Rosenbergs in the face of Radosh'scalumnies. Recognizing a kindred spirit,Radosh replied to North in ever sopolite terms that McCarthy "gave a badname to the very legitimate cause of antiCommunisql" (New York Times, 24 October). In fact, this aptly captures North'sown view.North falsely amalgamates revolutionary Trotskyism with that wing of the"socialist movement" which opposed theBolshevik Revolution and supported its"own" imperialist rulers in World Wars Iand II, as well as with the liberals whowere the left wing of the post-WWII antiCommunist crusade. He reduces Trotskyism to an anti-Soviet loyalty oath. Polemicizing against North's forebears in a1947 article titled "Stalinism and AntiStalinism," James P. Cannon, leader ofthe then-Trotskyist Socialist WorkersParty (SWP), wrote at the onset of theCold War witchhunt:"We Trotskyists, as everybody knows,are also against Stalinism and have

fought it unceasingly and consistentlyfor a very long time. But we have noplace in the present 'all-inclusive' unitedfront against American Stalinism. Thereason for this is that we are anticapitalist. Consequently, we can find no pointof agreement with the campaign con-ducted by the political representativesof American capitalism in Washington,with the support of its agents in the labormovement and its lackeys in the literaryand academic world. We fight Stalinismfrom a different standpoint."We fight Stalinism, not because it ISanother name for communism, but pre-cisely because of its betrayal of commu-nism and of the interests 'uf the workersin the class struggle."-Cannon, The Struggle forSocialism in the AmericanCentury (1977)As Cannon pointed out, the Stalinistspaved the way for their own isolationduring the red purge by their classbetrayals-in league with the social

democrats-in the service of U.S. imperialism, from support to Democrat Roosevelt's "New Deal" coalition in the1930s to the wartime no-strike pledge.But while fighting for proletarian political revolution against the Kremlinbureaucracy and politically combating..

the Stalinist syphilis in the labor movement, the Trotskyists rallied to thedefense of Stalinist and other militantsdriven out of the trade unions (of whichnot a word in North's letter) by "leftwing anti-Stalinists" like Walter Reuther.The SWP denounced the murder of theRosenbergs as "a bestial act of capitalistclass terrorism intended to help intimidate into silence all who would criticizeor oppose Wall Street's policies abroador at home."The heritage North defends is not thatof Trotskyism, which was embodiedthrough the 1950s in the now-reformistSWP, but of anti-Communist renegadeslike Irving Howe and George Orwell,who spied for His Majesty's secret service against "Soviet totalitarianism."During the 1980s Cold War against theSoviet Union, North's outfit was on thesame side as social-democratic witchhunters like Radosh-cheering CIAbacked mujahedin cutthroats againstthe Soviet Red Army in Afghanistan,marching lockstep toward capitalist counterrevolution with clerical-nationalist Solidarnosc in Poland, enthusiastically promoting the fascist-infested Sajudis inLithuania and the rest of the reactionaryBaltic "captive nations" trash.North was schooled in the political banditry of Gerry Healy's International Committee (IC). In 1979, Northjoined Healy in hailing the execution of21 members of the Iraqi CommunistParty by the bourgeois-nationalist Ba'athregime, while Healy's outfit spied onIraqi oppositionists in Britain. When theflow of petrodollars from various Arabregimes for services rendered dried up,Healy's outfit imploded and North modestly proclaimed himself leader of theinternational proletariat.Shortly before that, in 1983, the ICwhipped up an anti-Communist furoragainst British miners leader ArthurScargill over his correct denunciation ofPolish Solidarnosc as "anti-socialist."This crusade, picked up by the capitalistmedia and right-wing labor misleaders,was aimed at isolating the miners unionon the eve of a bitter strike againstthe Coal Board and the government ofConservative prime minister MargaretThatcher. With the counterrevolutionarydestruction of the Soviet Union in 1991-92, North & Co. wrote off the tradeunion movement as a whole as a tool ofbourgeois rule, while extolling scabs asthose who have the insight to recognizecontinued on page 8

SPARTACIST LEAGUE/U.S. LOCAL DIRECTORYNational Office: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 (212) 732-7860

BostonBox 390840, Central Sta.Cambridge, MA 02139(617) 666-9453ChicagoBox 6441, Main POChicago, IL 60680(312) 454-4930

Los AngelesBox 29574, Los Feliz Sta.Los Angeles, CA 90029(213) 380-8239New YorkBox 3381 , Church St. Sta.New York, NY 10008(212) 267-1025

OaklandBox 29497Oakland, CA 94604(510) 839-0851San FranciscoBox 77494San Francisco, CA 94107(415) 777-9367

TROTSKYIST LEAGUE OF CANADA/LiGUE TROTSKYSTE DU CANADATorontoBox 7198, Station AToronto, ON M5W 1X8(416) 593-4138

VancouverBox 2717, Main P.O.Vancouver, BC V6B 3X2(604) 687-0353WORKERS VANGUARD


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--Spartacist Group Japan ners and slogans as they strike togetheragainst the common enemy. We fight fora class-struggle leadership of labor. Aunion movement worthy of the namewould actively mobilize against racist andanti-communist terror. Worker/minoritydefense guards should be formed todefend the offices and public events ofChosen Soren. This requires an uncompromising fight against the poisonousracism which divides the working class.Protest Racist Murder ofKorean Leftist in Japan! It is the responsibility of the laborbureaucracy and their left-wing tails thatthe virulent racism of the bourgeois orderin Japan continues to penneate the working class, dividing and disarming it beforethe class enemy. The leaders of all threetrade-union federations have criminallyrefused to organize non-Japanese workersinto common unions with their Japanesebrothers and sisters. The labor movementmust demand an end to the exclusion ofZainichi Chosen-jin [longtime ethnicKorean residents of Japan] from employ-

We publish below the translation of astatement issued by the Spartacist GroupJapan on November 23.On October IS, Ra Hun, vice-chainnanof the Chiba branch of Chosen Soren[pro-North Korea organization in Japan],was brutally murdered. The context forthis hideous crime is the climate of hysteria and fear whipped up by the Japanesebourgeoisie following North Korea'slaunching of a satellite on August 31. A20-year cadre of Chosen Soren, Ra wason night duty when he was strangled andstabbed; his ribs were broken, he was hiton the head, wrapped in a blanket thatwas soaked with oil and then set on fire.The office of the Chiba branch wasdestroyed by fire, and money and documents were stolen. More than 50 attacks-spanning the entire island ofHonshuagainst people of Korean ancestry havebeen reported in the last month, withschoolchildren being targeted the most.On November 5, a Korean schoolgirlwearing her chima chogori [Koreanschool unifonn] was knifed in ShinjukuStation [in Tokyo] during the eveningrush hour. On November 4 at 4:30 a.m.,after being besieged by right-wingarmored sound trucks for more than amonth, the Tokyo headquarters ofChosenSoren was firebombed. The next day, aMolotov cocktail was thrown at the Kanagawa branch office in broad daylight.The brutal murder of Ra, the firstmember of Chosen Soren to be murderedsince its inception more than 40 yearsago, represents an escalation of statesanctioned terror against the Korean population in this country and harks back tothe xenophobic hysteria which led to themassacre of more than 6,000 Koreansfollowing the Kanto earthquake of 1923[in Tokyo]. It is the elementary duty ofall those in the workers movementtrade unions and leftist organizations-todefend Chosen Soren and all minoritieswho are in the cross hairs of rightwing/fascistic terror.For more than a month, the rulingclass has sent a green light to the fascisticright wing by pounding out variousbizarre scenarios of the supposed threatthat the grotesquely deformed NorthKorean workers state poses to the second

most powerful imperialist nation onearth, which has at its disposal some ofthe most advanced military technology.Our political differences with the Stalinist Chosen Soren, which hails NorthKorea as the "great socialist fatherland"and promotes dangerous illusions ina "peaceful reunification" with SouthKorea, are many. As Trotskyists, we stand

Chosen Soren leader Ra Hun,victim of racist killersemboldened by chauvinistJapanese bourgeoisie.Osaka, 1994: cops attackChosen Soren headquarters.

for the unconditional military defense ofNorth Korea and the other bureaucratically deformed workers states-China,Vietnam and Cuba-against imperialist attack and internal counterrevolution.We call for the revolutionary reunification of Korea through a proletariansocialist revolution in the South and aproletarian political revolution in theNorth to oust the Confucian Stalinistbureaucracy, which has brought the country to the brink of starvation and capitalist counterrevolution.The heinous murder of Ra Hun underlines the urgent necessity of united workers defense actions to crush the rightwing vennin. This is our perspective. Weplace no reliance on this capitalist government, which does not represent thegeneral interests of ~ o c i e t y as a whole,

'8elleRt '0' CI.,,-W., P'/,Olle"U Organize forI. Mumia Abu-Jamal's FreedomJoin us for the 13th annual HolidayAppeal to raise funds for those imprisoned for championing the, rights oflabor and the oppressed. In sendingmonthly stipends to class-war prisonersand additional funds to them and theirfamilies during the holidays, the PDC

continues a tradition dating back tothe International Labor Defense of the1920s.This year's benefits are particularly

focused on the urgent struggle to freeblack death row political prisonerMumia Abu-Jamal. With the rejectionof Jamal's appeal by the PennsylvaniaSupreme Court, there is an immediatedanger that Governor Tom Ridge willsign a death warrant, aiming to silenceforever this courageous fighter againstracist injustice. Build the HolidayAppeal-Build the fight to free Mumiaand abolish the racist death penalty!

New YorkFriday, December 45 to 9 p.m.

C ~ i C i i g o BaY,Art1iJAFSCME District Council 170775 Varick St. (at Canal)

For more information:(212) 406-4252

Sunday, December 63 to 7 p.m.UE Hall37 S. Ashland (at Monroe)

For more information:(312) 454-4931

Sunday, December 61 to 4 p.m.ILWU Local 34 Hall4 Berry St., San Francisco

For more information:(510) 839-0852SPONSOR: PARTISAN DEFENSE COMMITTEE

4 DECEMBER 1998

but is the enemy of the working classand oppressed. At a November 11 demonstration in Tokyo held by ChosenSoren, the organizers called on the Japanese government "to prosecute thoseresponsible for the firebombing attacks,to end the harassment of Korean schoolstudents and to lift sanctions imposedon North Korea." But the capitalist state

is not a neutral power standing aboveclasses. It is an armed body of men-thepolice, courts, prisons, military-whosejob it is to defend and protect the property and privileges of the bourgeoisie,which arrests striking workers, deportsimmigrants, carries out the death penaltyand attacks the minimal gains whichwomen have won. The Japanese imperialist state has a long and bloody historyof crimes against the working class hereand the workers and toilers of Asia. Theruling class today is the political heirof the butchers of Nanji\1g during thebloody occupation of China in the 1930s,the rapists of hundreds of thousands ofianfu ["comfort women"] and the organizers of the infamous Unit 731 [whichcarried out inhuman, Nazi-like "experiments" on Chinese prisoners] during the[1941-45] Pacific War.To defend the besieged Korean population and its organizations, one must lookto an aroused and class-conscious proletariat and its potential allies among all theoppressed, not to the government. Ourtactic is the united front, where all canpresent themselves under their own ban-

ment at major corporations and mustorganize integrated industrial unions. Thelabor movement must also champion fullcitizenship rights for everyone who livesin this country, regardless of race ornational origin, and fight for social integration, full access to education includingin the "imperial" universities, housing,hospitalization, social services and welfare, and the right to vote and run foroffice. We demand that the gaijin [foreigner] cards and the koseki [governmentregistry of families] system be ripped up.All forced assimilation policies must beopposed, and the right of minorities toretain any and all vestiges of their culture,language and customs-including theright to use their given family namesmust be defended.The complete prostration of the Japanese left and trade-union bureaucracybefore their own bourgeoisie has helpedcreate the social climate where acts offascistic terror can occur unanswered.Criminally, virtually the entire left haslined up behind its own bourgeoisie'scrusade to brand North Korea as acontinued on page 11

Chosen Soren6,000 Koreans were massacred in state-sponsored pogrom following 1923Tokyo earthquake. .3


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"Free Mumia Now!Abolish theRacist Death Penalty!"On Saturday, November 21, some 250trade unionists, youth, socialists andother anti-racist activists rallied inChicago's Federal Plaza in response tothe Partisan Defense Committee call: "AllOut to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal! Abolishthe Racist Death Penalty!" Endorsed by awide range of trade unions from the Chicago area as well as nationally and internationally, the demonstration consisted atits core of black trade unionists whoshowed their commitment by arrivingearly and signing on as marshals to

ensure a militant, disciplined protest.With the- October 29 PennsylvaniaSupreme Court ruling rejecting Jamal'slegal appeal and rubber-stamping theracist frame-up that put him behind bars17 years ago on false charges of killinga Philadelphia policeman, Pennsylvaniagovernor Tom Ridge could sign an execution warrant at any moment. In a statement from death row read to the demonstration, Mumia wrote: "On behalf of allof us facing death in America's gulagsmy thanks to all of you who have comeout in Chicago to abolish the racist deathpenalty."

These workers came out because theysaw in this united-front, labor-centeredprotest a chance not only to fight to freean eloquent spokesman for the oppressedfrom the clutches of the racist "justice"system and its machinery of death, butalso to raise their voices against thewhole array of attacks which the rulingclass has leveled against labor andminorities. They cheered when Marcellus Barnes, spokesman for AmalgamatedTransit Union (ATU) Local 241 andpresident of the ATU's Black Caucus,declared from the podium: "This is whatlabor is all about. We represent the working people. We are the ones to stand inthe forefront and carryon the message."Joining Local 241 in endorsing thePDC-initiated protest early on was ATULocal 308. Groups of transit workersstood side by side in Federal Plaza onSaturday with members of United AutoWorkers (UAW) Locals 551 and 890 andTeamsters Local 705. CommunicationsWorkers (CWA) Local 4250 membersheld their union banner near the speakersplatform. Union statements of solidaritycame from as far as Australia, from theSNJ-CGT journalists union in France andthe Berlin branch of the German IGMedien union, of which Jamal is an honorary member. Noting that "Abu-Jamalhas been on the forefront of the struggleagainst injustice and man's inhumanity to

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SToPTilt:JaCiSTL/isr.4CA1A'S'rL4S'r4 ~ / L Y

man," a letter from the Media Workers'Association of South Africa, which alsomade Mumia an honorary member whenhe was under imminent threat of execution in 1995, declared: "We call uponthe entire working class movement tounite against the Pennsylvania state ruling." A statement from the MexicanUnion of Electricians concluded: "Longlive Mumia Abu-Jamal!"The call to mobilize for Jamal's freedom and against the racist death penalty struck a chord particularly amongChicago's black proletariat, who are fedup with decades of brutal attacks on theliving standards and rights of workers,blacks, immigrants and the poor. Thatanger was evident in the solidity andhuge popularity of the 1997 Teamstersstrike against UPS and last summer'sshutdown of the GM empire by FlintUAW workers. In a letter to the Chicagorally, a Flint UAW District Committeerep wrote with passion about the need tofree Jamal from his would-be executioners: "This lynch mob needs to be stoppedat all cost."In the absence of a death warranthanging over Mumia's head and withmuch of the reformist left boycotting thePDC-initiated united front, the turnouton November 21 was slightly smallerthan that at a liberal Jamal demonstration in Chicago the week before. Butwhere the previous rally consisted overwhelmingly of petty-bourgeois leftistsand student youth, this one mainly drewblack working-class militants who represent the promise of a class-struggle fightto free Jamal and bring down the wholesystem of racist capitalist rule. Demonstration co-chairman Brian Mendis of thePDC told protesters: "You guys are thehard core, and it is up to you to go backinto your communities and your unionsto organize and mobilize the thousandsfor the next demonstration to free Mumiaand abolish the racist death penalty!"That means fighting to unleash thesocial power which the multiracial proletariat has as a result of its numbers, itsorganization and its role as the producersof all the wealth of this society. The proletariat is kept from wielding that powerby the trade-union misleaders who tieworkers to the capitalist class enemy, itsstate and political parties. The PDC'scall for the demonstration stressed:

"The unions are the only racially integrated mass organizations in this country. The bosses and their state hate andfear the integrated union movementbecause there lies the power to challenge

'1J"::Too(J)

Left: ATU militantsled successfuldefense of Chicagobus driverCassandra Seay(center) against1987 cop frame-up.Right: transitworkers protestlayoffs, cuts inservices, 1981.

the racial divisions they promote toweaken the working class. And it is precisely the power of the integrated tradeunions that must be mobilized to freeMumia. In mobilizing to defeat theframe-up of Jamal, the unions will takea huge step forward in becoming instruments of struggle to defend not onlytheir immediate interests but those of allthe oppressed."Fighting Racist Terror in"Segregation City"

In the weeks preceding the PDCinitiated ptotest, the issues of racist copterror and the death penalty were verymuch at the fore in "Segregation City."Only three days before the rally, the Illinois Supreme Court granted a lastminute, 90-day reprieve to Willie Enoch,who was about to be executed on thebasis of a murder conviction in whichthe prosecution had refused to turn overevidence to the defense. The weekendbefore, Chicago had hosted a muchpublicized conference which featured dozens of people who had been released fromyears on death row after proving theirinnocence. Also much in the news wasthe city's attempt to end court-imposedconstraints on "red squad" spying againstpolitical activists. And, as throughout thecountry, the ghettos and barrios are subjected to a cop state of siege called the"war on drugs." Announcements for theNovember 21 rally were broadcast notonly by black radio stations but by aSpanish-language station as well.Demonstration organizers met with anenthusiastic response. At one auto factory, 500 rally leaflets were quickly distributed and several people took largestacks to hand out inside the plant. A busdriver took a bundle of leaflets to passout on her bus. The protest was heavilybuilt by the Spartacist League, while theSpartacus Youth Club brought out students from the University of Chicago,DePaul and other local campuses. SYCspeaker Michael Davisson told the rally:"This racist frame-up should resonateamong youth because Mumia first joinedthe Black Panther Party when he was 15.Youth in racist 'capitalist America facenot schools but prison, no welfare,no drinking, anti-sex and anti-smokingcampaigns, no jobs. To end the miseryand the racism of capitalism, to end thethreat of imperialist world war, youthcan and must mobilize behind the socialpower of labor."An SYC banner at the protest read:"Capitalism Means Racism and WarFor Socialist Revolution!"The revival of labor militancy seen atUPS, GM and other recent strikes has

left its mark on working people and theoppressed around the country. At thesame time, the unions continue to beconstrained by the AFL-CIO misleaders.And among the black masses, there isa widespread perception that there isno leadership representing any challengeto the racist status quo. The ephemeralenthusiasm over the middle-class "Million Man March" for black "atonement"organized by anti-Semitic and anti-Asiandemagogue Louis Farrakhan three yearsago has disappeared. One black tradeunion speaker at the protest pointedlyremarked, ''I'm not talking about a voiceof atonement, I'm not talking about avoice of reconciliation."

The resonance among Chicago's blackworking people of the PDC call for alabor-centered Jamal rally came out in thefact that Jesse Jackson's RainbowlPUSHCoalition felt compelled to call the PDCand endorse the action. Jackson himselfis in the hip pocket of Democratic president Bill Clinton, who has presided overa vast augmentation in the forces ofracist "law and order," induding a massive expansion of the death penalty. Andthe black daily Chicago Defender notonly published a favorable article onJamal's case but publicized the PDC rally.Democratic Congressman Danny Davisaddressed the rally to affirm: "We are indisagreement with the death penalty, weare in disagreement with use of the deathpenalty and we are asking that we freeMumia Abu-Jamal." Also speaking wasNorm Roth, a former president of International Harvester UAW Local 6 and longassociated with the views of the Communist Party. Pointing to the Federal Building behind him, Roth urged: "Send delegations to see every Congressman there,regardless of how he voted."

The Communist Party has for decadespushed pressure politics and "fight theright" rhetoric in order to garner supportfor the Democrats. In this it echoes theAFL-CIO bureaucracy, whose allegianceto the Democratic Party is the chiefexpression of class collaboration in thiscountry-as well as the chief obstacleto mobilizing labor's potential power inits own interests and those of all theoppressed. The PDC call underlined,"There must be no illusions that Mumiacan get a fair trial in the capitalistcourts .... Neither must there be any illusions in the Democratic Party, which isno friend of labor and blacks but a partyof big business no less than the Republicans." Bernard Branche, spokesman

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for the Chicago Labor Black StruggleLeague, said at the rally: "It is the dutyof the integrated labor movement todefend black rights. The fight to defendMumia is today central to developingthat consciousness throughout the working class." He continued:"We are for the complete independenceof labor from the bosses' parties, Republicans and Democrats. Working peopleneed their own party, a party forged inthe battle against the racist rulers."Branche noted that among those supporting the protest was Cassandra Seay, ablack transit worker who was brutalizedand framed up by the Chicago cops in1987. The LBSL was initiated by theSpartacist League out of the successfulstruggle by Seay's ATU brothers and sisters and others to beat back that racistframe-up. Many of the black workers whoturned out for the Jamal protest stayed allafternoon at a post-demonstration party toengage in argument and discussion withLBSL and SL comrades over such questions as whether Democratic Party politicians could be a11ies of workers andminorities, how the unions could bemobilized in struggle, how decent schoolsand jobs could be ensured for their children instead of a future of cop terror anddespair.It is out of such militants that theLBSL will be built as a fighting armof the multiracial revolutionary vanguard party needed to lead the workersto power. Branche read the statementby Karl Marx at the time of the CivilWar--":'the second American Revolution-which is printed on the front ofLBSL membership cards: "Labor cannotemancipate itself in the white skin wherein the black it is branded." The LBSLspeaker concluded: "It's going to takea third American Revolution, one thatwipes away the rule of the racist capitalist class, to finally liberate the black population. There is no other road for blackliberation or for working-class freedom.Join us in the Labor Black StruggleLeague in this fight!"Forge a RevolutionaryWorkers Party!

The Chicago protest was organized under the watchword of theunited front-"march separately, striketogether"-which is based on unity inaction while allowing for the free debateof contending strategies and programsthat is vital to advancing the consciousness of the working class, anti-racistyouth and others. Among the otherspeakers at the rally were death penaltyabolitionist Seth Donnelly, Mike Elliott

Partial List of Endorsers, 21 'November 1998Craig Aaron, Editor, In These Times ,' Chicago, ILWalter Alexander, Chairman, UAW Local 333,'Chicago,ILFlori ne All en, Assistant Secretary-Treasurer, ATULocal 308, Chicago,ILMark Allen, Field Director for Rev. Jesse Jackson,Sr., Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, Chi cago,ILRobert L. Allen, Senior Editor, The Black Scholarjournal,* Oakland, CAAmalgamated Transit Union Local 241, Chicago,ILAmalgamated Transit Union Local 308, Chicago, ILAmnesty International-Midwest RegionAustralasian Meat Industry Employees Union,Sydney, AustraliaAustralian Manufacturing Workers Union (MetalsDivision) Shop Stewards Committee at HoldenEngine Operations, Melbourne, AustraliaMarcellus Barnes, President, Black Caucus,Amalgamated Transit Union,' Chicago, ILNancy J. Bothne, Regional Director, Amnesty

International-Midwest Region, Chicago, ILCanadian Union of Postal Workers, VancouverLocal, Vancouver, British ColumbiaChicago Branch of SolidarityChicago Conference of Black LawyersChicago Committee to Free Mumla Abu-JamalChicago Refuse & Resist!Robert C. Clay, Executive Board member, ATULocal 241, Chicago,ILLeroy Collier, President, National AsSOCiation ofLetter Carriers, Branch 2200,* Pasadena, CATed Conner, Chair, UAW Local 551 Civil RightsCommittee, Chicago, ILMichael E. Deutsch, Past Legal Director, Center forConstitutional Rights,* Chicago,ILSeth Donnelly, Case Manager, Hull HouseAssociation,* Chicago, ILDr. Michael E. Dyson, Professor, ColumbiaUniversity,* New York, NY

4 DECEMBER 1998

of the UAW Local 551 Civil RightsCommittee, Stan Willis of the ChicagoConference of Black Lawyers, and representatives of the Labor Party, Solidarityand the League for the RevolutionaryParty.Similar labor-centered protests initiated by the PDC in the face of Mumia'sthreatened execution in the summer of

ridiculous illusions about 'justice' fromthe courts of the enemy."The other policy is precisely that pursued by the reformist left, notably including the International Socialist Organization (ISO), which some time agolaunched a liberal "Campaign to End theDeath Penalty." In the labor movement,the ISO promotes economism and worse,

WV PhotoBlack workers drawn to Chicago rally represent potential for class-strugglefight to free Jamal, smash racist capitalist frame-up system.1995 were part of the international outcry, including by unions representingmillions of workers, which stayed theexecutioner's hand. As Mumia wrote atthe time, "Let us utilize this precioustime to build a stronger and broadermovement, to not 'stay' one execution,but to halt them all!"In the eleven years that the PDC hasactively championed Jamal's cause, it hasbased itself on the class-struggle understanding of its forerunner, the International Labor Defense (ILD). As pioneerAmerican Trotskyist James P. Cannon, anearly leader of the ILD, wrote in his 1927article "Who Can Save Sacco and Vanzetti?" amid the worldwide campaign oflabor protest on behalf of the anarchistworkers, the ILD followed the "policy ofthe class struggle":"It puts the center of gravity in theprotest movement of the workers ofAmerica and the world. It puts all faithin the power of the masses and no faithwhatever in the justice of the courts ...."The other policy is the policy of'respectability,' of the 'soft pedal' and of

'Earlham Socialist Alliance, Richmond, INMike Elliott, Co-Chair, UAW Local 551 Civil RightsCommittee, Chicago, IL .Henry L. English, President/CEO, Black UnitedFund of Illinois,* Chicago, ILJohn Eriksen, Membership and SolidarityCommittee, Labor Party, Chicago Chapter,*Forest Park, ILProf. Peter Erlinder, Immediate past President,National Lawyers Guild,* St. Paul, MNJearlean Fleming, OPEIU 391,* Chicago, ILHenry Louis Gates, Jr., Director, W.E.B. Du BoiSInstit ute;' Chair, Department of Afro-AmericanStudies, Harvard University,' Cambridge, MATom Hannan, National Secretary, AustralasianMeat Industry Employees Union, Sydney, AustraliaRobert Earl Hayes, Former death row inmate,Camden, MSInternational Longshore and Warehouse UnionLocal 10, San Francisco, CAMary L. Johnson, Coalition Against Police Torture,*Chicago,ILWalter L. Johnson, Secretary-Treasurer, San.Francisco Labor Council,* San FranCiSCO, CATroy L. Jones, Former death row inmate,Fresno,CAJose Solis Jordan, Professor of Education, University of Puerto Rico,' Rio Piedras, Puerto RicoKatie Jordan, President, Coalition of Labor UnionWomen,* Chicago,ILLabor Blac k St ruggle League, Chicago, iLLeague for the Revolutionary PartyLeon London, Executive Board member, ATU Local241, Chicago, ILBrian McWilliams, President, InternationalLongshore and Warehouse Union,* SanFrancisco, CASalim Muwakkil, Senior Editor, In These Timesmagazine,* Chicago, IL_ National Union of Journalists (SNJ-CGT), Paris,France

hailing "strikes" by cops and prisonguards and jumping on the bandwagon ofvirtually every bureaucratic "reform"movement which has invited the capitalist courts or Justice Department to meddle in the unions. The ISO abhors anyhint of a perspective centered on mobilizing labor in the fight to free Mumia orcombat racist oppression.At an emergency united-front protestinitiated by the PDC in New York Cityin October, ISO spokesman Sherry Wolfinveighed against "sectarian splits anddivisions." Yet like its social-democraticbig brothers, the Democratic (Party)Socialists of America, the viscerally anticommunist ISO not only refused toendorse the labor-centered protest in Chicago but boycotted it. In fact, the ISOseemingly did all in its limited power tosabotage the broadest possible mobilization. Participants at a November 9 meet- 'ing of the Chicago Committee to FreeMumiaAbu-Jamall ater told SL comradesthat a majority of the committee voted toendorse the protest only in the face of the

October 22 StudentIYouth Network, Chicago,ILDale Odberg, President, Union of Veterans AffairsCanada Local 20029,* Delta, British ColumbiaDavid D. Owen, Executive Board member, Rail-North, ATU Local 308, Chicago,ILPartnership Against Racism, Chicago,ILAaron Patterson Defense Committee, Chicago,ILJoAnn Patterson, Mother of Aaron Patterson ondeath row, Aaron Patterson Defense Committee,Chicago,ILR. Eugene Pincham, Retired Justice, AppellateCourt,* Chicago,ILQue Ondee Sola/Union for Puerto RicanStudents, Chicago, ILRainbow/PUSH Coalition, Chicago,ILBrenda Rayford, Secretary-Treasurer, ATU Local308, Chicago, ILRevolutionary Communist Youth Brigade(Chicago Chapter)Norman C.Roth, Past President, UAW Local 6,*Stone Park, ILEarl Silbar, Steward, Executive Board at-large,AFSCME Local 3506,* Chicago,ILChris Siobogin, Law Professor, UF Law School,*Gainesville, FLSpartacist LeagueSpartacus Youth Club, Chicago, ILD. Stang, President, Telecommunication WorkersUnion Local 1, Vancouver, British ColumbiaJed Stone, Attorney, Chicago,ILSyndicat CNT-PTT, Paris, FranceJean-Franl1ois Tealdi, National Secretary,National Union of J ournalists (SNJ-CGT), Paris,FranceTelecommunication Workers Union Local 1,Vancouver, British ColumbiaLowell Thompson, Partnership Against Racism,Chicago,ILDarby Tillis, Pastor-President, Friends To StrangersMinistry,* Chicago,IL

ISO's vehement opposition. To justify itspetty sectarian sabotage, the ISO trottedout a timeworn slander-first raised during the campaign to stop Jamal's execution in 1995-that SL supporters hadphysically attacked one of its members(see "ISO Goons Beaten Back," WV No.625,30 June 1995). Such violence-baitingsmears serve only the Fraternal Order ofPolice and the o!her forces that want tosee Jamal dead and his cause disruptedand destroyed.The capitalist state has demonstratedits determination to suppress the strugglefor Mumia's freedom in countless ways,from the lies and coercion which senthim to death row to incessant attacks onhis supporters. Mumia's son Jamal Harthas been thrown in prison for 15 yearson trumped-Up charges for fighting forhis father's freedom. Veronica Jones,who courageously came forward to testify on Mumia's behalf at his appealhearings in 1996, was literally draggedoff to jail from the witness stand. Seeking to suppress labor mobilization forJamal, suburban Chicago cops lastmonth illegally detained ATU Local 308member Keith Anwar, who addressed theNovember 21 rally, and Service Employees union member Dan Smith on misdemeanor charges as they were buildingsupport for the protest outside a UPSfacility.Our fight to mobilize labor on Jamal'sbehalf is part of the fight for a classstruggle leadership of the labor movement forged in political combat againstthe pro-capitalist union tops. We strive tobuild a revolutionary vanguard partywhich will act, in the words of RussianBolshevik leader V. I. Lenin, as a tribuneof the people. Such a party must fightevery manifestation of oppression andtyranny-from the death penalty andthe racist "war on drugs" to anti-gay andanti-woman bigotry-in order, as Leninexplained in What Is To Be Done? (1902),to "produce a single picture of police violence and capitalis t exploitation ... inorder to set forth before all [our] socialist convictions and [our] democraticdemands, in order to clarify for all andeveryone the world-historic significanceof the struggle for the emancipation of theproletariat." As the SL statement to theNovember 21 protest concluded:"The way forward is to mobilize theworking class to free Jamal, to smash theracist death penalty. The way forward isto forge the multiracial proletarian partynecessary to lead the American socialistrevolution. Only a victorious socialistrevolution can end for all time bloodsoaked imperialist rule." _

UAW Local 551 Civil Rights Committee,Chicago,IL

UAW Local 719, Countryside, ILUniversity of Chicago MEChA (MovimientoEstudlantil Chicano de Aztlan), Chicago,ILBettina Wegner, Singer and lyricist, Berlin,

GermanyCornel West, Professor of Afro-American Studies,Department of Afro-American Studies, HarvardUniversity,* Cambridge, MAJerryW. Williams, Sr., PreSident, Business Agent,

ATU Local 308, Chic ago,ILJohn Williams, Shop Steward, AustralianManufacturing Workers Union (Metals Division)Shop Stewards Committee at Holden Engine

Operations, Melbourne, AustraliaStandish E. Willis, Chair, Chicago Conference ofBlack Lawyers, Chicago, ILWorker-communist Party of Iran (Abroad

Canada)Jolonda Young, Reporter, Illinois Times,*Springfield, ILGerald Zero, Secretary-Treasurer, Teamsters Local

705,* Chicago, ILRichard Ziebell. President, UAW Local 477,*

Chicago,ILChristine A. Zook, President/Business Agent, ATULocal 192,* Oakland, CA Organizational affiliation for identification purposes only.We want to make it very clear that endorsers donot necessarily agree in any particula r with writtenmaterial about the mobilization published by thePartisan Defense Committee in initiating themobilization or by others.

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Mobilize...( continued from page 1)in Russia, the only successful workingclass revolution to date, occurred precisely because it was led by a proletarianinternationalist revolutionary Bolshevikparty. There is no other way for the working class to achieve its destiny as thegravediggers of capitalism than for itsmost advanced and militant layers tocome to the full realization tha t the working class shares no interests with the capitalist exploiters. Theworking class mustgrasp that the struggle against international capital, i.e., imperialism, mustitself be international. Based on the hardwon lessons of the class struggle, thepower of labor must be organized to leada social revolution, overturning the rulingclass and forming the basis for a socialistsociety. This is the legacy of the OctoberRevolution and the essence of a Marxistrevolutionary party.Decades of betrayals by the KremlinStalinist bureaucracy paved the way forthe destruction of the Soviet degenerated workers state at the hands of Yeltsin's imperialist-inspired counterrevolution in 1991-92. This was a historicdefeat for the world working class.The imperialists declared the "death ofcommunism" along with peddling pipedreams of eternal prosperity. Last year'sUPS strike and the Flint UAW strikethis summer which shut down the GMempire gave the lie to this snow job.These strikes exposed the seething angerat increasing exploitation and joblessnessAP

Jesse Jacksonropes in blackvotes for Clintonas Democrats joinin axing welfare,leading to Illassiveincrease in misery.

that workers face and asserted the realityof the class struggle, the greenhouse ofred revolution.

It is no accident that with the destruction of the Soviet Union, ,the deathmachine of American "justice" is running full out. The, machinery of state.repression, augmented by the ideology ofracism and sexism, finds its extralegalreflection in the terror carried out byanti-gay and anti-abortion bigots likethose who murdered Matthew Shepard, ayoung gay student, and who assassinatedcourageous doctor Barnett Slepian. Theliberals who appeal to the government,the cops and courts to protect gays andwomen and who cry for a "fair trial" forJamal serve only to sow the most treacherous illusions in the very' forces ofoppression.Mumia's freedom and the abolition ofthe racist death penalty would be a victory for all workers, for all the oppressed.One thing is certain. Without the beginning steps to forge a revolutionary proletarian party, not only are the prospectsfor Mumia bleak but the very future ofhumanity is at stake as American imperialism vies with its competitors for worlddomination-a "competition" that leadsdirectly to world war and ultimately tonuclear annihilation.The primary obstacle to forging such aparty is illusions in the main war party ofU.S. imperialism, the Democratic Party.In the trade unions these illusions an:fostered by the union tops, and in the6

Contreras/Chicago TribuneChicago cops brutalize black youth. Right: striking autoworkers in Flint, Michigan shut down GM this summer. Labormust champion fight for black rights.ghettos by Jesse Jackson, the Congressional Black Caucus and their local blackcounterparts. When the social strugglesof the 1960s wound up safely containedwithin the confines of the DemocraticParty, and especially with the presidencyof Jimmy Carter, a renewed whirlwind ofreaction began that has continued up tonow under Clinton.The smashing of the PATCO air trafficcontrollers union, scabherding, strikebreaking, the disappearance of goodindustrial jobs led to the decimation ofthe trade-union movement (with theacquiescence of the union misleaders).This was accompanied by all-out attackson the scant gains of the civil rightsmovement, on immigrants and on theright to abortion. The '70s and '80s saw anumber of black mayors elected in major

cities to assure peace amid this urbancarnage. In Chicago, Harold Washington,an ordinary Democratic politico whopromised nothing and whose major"accomplishment" was looting the pension funds of the heavily black Chicagotransit union, was elected, re-elected anddied in office. His name is still held inreverence to this day, a reverence whichis in direct proportion to the hopelessness in the ghetto and the rampantracism in "Segregation City." And it is areverence kept alive by Chicago uniontops who turn a blind eye to the desperation of the black masses while seeking tokeep labor tied to the city's DemocraticParty machine.The slow starvation and bloody bombings of the Iraqi people by the U.S.imperialist rulers is echoed in the endof welfare, medical care and food stamps-punctuated by escalating cop terrorfor the masses in America's ghettos andbarrios. The attack on wages, living standards and full-time employment reflects,albeit on the much wealthier terrain ofthe U.S., the draconian policies of theInternational Monetary Fund in theunderdeveloped countries on the planet.The engine of capitalism, of Americanimperialism, is profits extracted from theliving labor power of workers. The Democrats and Republicans alike pursue thisend. The armed force of the capitaliststate exists to ensure that the bosses willget their due no matter what the price inhuman misery.

Jesse Jackson and the anti-Semiticdemagogue Louis Farrakhan, althoughfrom different points of the bourgeoispolitical spectrum, share in blaming blackpeople for their own oppression. Arguingthat the ghetto masses must pull themselves up by their bootstraps, they pushthe cynical myth that black capitalismwill lead to "empowerment." AFL-CIOhead John Sweeney peddles the programof 'racist America-first protectionismagainst the workers of other countries.This deadly chauvinism is played out athome in the war against immigrants. Therespective messages of Jackson, Farrakhan and Sweeney are simply packageddifferently for different audiences.The International Communist League,of which the Spartacist League is theU.S. section, stands alone in its resoluteopposition to all forms of collaborationbetween the working class and the exploiting capitalist class. Break with theDemocrats! Build a revolutionary work-ers party! Finish the Civil War! For blackliberation through socialist revolution!In contrast, the rest of the "socialist"left has repeatedly demonstrated theirfealty to the "democratic" credentials ofthe imperialist rulers. This was most dramatically underscored in their embraceof the imperialist-backed forces of counterrevolution that destroyed the deformedworkers states of East Europe and thedegenerated Soviet workers state. Giventhe magnitude of this betrayal, it is notsurprising that the class-collaborationistproclivities of these sham "socialists"have accelerated in response to the"death of communism" pressures theydid their small part to create.That said, the International SocialistOrganization (ISO) d,eserves an Oscar forits supporting role to the chauvinist tradeunion tops. The ISO supported state intervention in the Teamsters, in the service offormer union president Ron Carey (whowas removed by the 'bourgeois state he soardently' courted). It promotes the questfor some "class-struggle" cops to add tothe thousands of armed hirelings of thebourgeoisie who already infect labor'sranks. Its anti-communism is so visceralthat the ISO has refused to endorse any ofthe thousands-strong laborlblack mobilizations initiated by the Partisan DefenseCommittee, including this demonstrationfor Mumia's freedom and to abolish theracist death penalty.The Progressive Labor Party (PL)arrives at the same station by a differenttrain. They anoint themselves the sole

San FranCisco,November 17:Trotskyistsprotest Clinton'sthreatenedterror bombingof Iraq.

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. ; ..;Spe.,cfie$.:)roitfilialJ'i,fB:illFighllor Laborand Black Righls!We print below extracts from a selection of speeches at the November 21laborlblack demonstration to free MumiaAbu-lamal and abolish the racist deathpenalty.

Jon PiperPartisan Defense Committee; member,lamallegal team

Mumia Abu-Jamal is in grave danger.He is only one signature away from anew death warrant setting a new execution date. Mumia Abu-Jamal is an innocent man. He has been framed up solelyfor raising his pen and his voice againstracism and capitalist oppression. Theywant to silence Jamal to send a messageto all who would stand up against thisrepression. .Our legal team will pull every legallever on Mumia's behalf. But we can haveno illusions in getting "justice" from thisunjust system, which defends the profitsof the few while enforcing the immiseration of the many. The death penalty, theultimate instrument of repression against

blacks and labor, is itself rooted in theSlave Codes and lynch law.Look at the case of Dred Scott on theeve of the Civil War, when the UnitedStates Supreme Court declared thatblacks could not have the rights of citizens. In that decision, the Court said thatif blacks could be free they could go inthe South, they could organize, theycould write and speak, they could armthemselves, and this would threaten therule of the slavocracy and spell the,riskof social revolution against slavery.One hundred and ten years later, in1968, J. Edgar Hoover launched hisCOINTELPRO conspiracy against theBlack Panther Party, saying: "The negroyouth must be made to understand that ifthey succumb to revolutionary teachings,they will be dead revolutionaries." Andkill them he did. Murdering Mark Clarkand Fred Hampton in Chicago. Trying tokill Geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt) in L.A. andthen framing him up so that he was buriedin prison for 27 years. They pinpointedanother troublemaker in Philadelphia

named Wesley Cook, now Mumia AbuJamal. He was 15, he had just formed theBlack Panther chapter there in Philly.They could not find anything to pin onhim because all he did was his constitutionall y protected protest and journalism.But they continued trying to get him, andfinally when he was shot in the street bya police officer they framed him, deniedhim all his rights, like Dred Scott.This is why we place no faith in thisstate, and place all our faith in the mobilization of the working people and theoppressed against this vicious, racistframe-up system.Marcellus BarnesAmalgamated Transit Union Local 241

The Amalgamated Transit Union is theunion that moves people across this greatcity. As it was said, we have been involved in this movement for a long time.A couple of years ago, when I spokeat another rally for Jamal, I met a youngman for the first time. And when I finished speaking, that young man walked

"U:::To8"'"

From left:Epluribus Mays,Katie Jordan.

up to me and he looked into my eyes andI looked into his eyes and he simply said,"Thank you for what you said about myfather." And it's very sad today to hearthat that young man has also been put inprison on trumped-up charges.Often I'm amazed that some of ourlabor leaders find a reason not to getinvolved. Other things will detour themfor rallies such.as these. This is a labormovement! This is a cause. This is whatlabor is all about. We represent the working people, the people that cannot speakfor themselves. We are the ones to standup in the forefront and carryon the message. And so I'm saying to my otherlabor brothers and sisters, "Get involved.Help to save Jamal!"Brian MendisPDC rally co-chair

Thank you for mentioning Jamal Hart,Mumia Abu-Jamal's son who is in federal pen right now on a frame-up charge.They framed him up-just like theyframed up his father-15 years on a

Join the Fight to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal!Contact the Partisan Defense Committee. In New York: PDC, P.O. Box99, Canal Street Station, New York,NY 10013-0099; phone (212) 406-4252; E-mail: 75057.3201 @compuserve.com. In Chicago: PDC, P.O. Box802867, Chicago, IL 60680-2867;phone (312) 454-4931. In the BayArea: PDC, P.O. Box 77462, San Francisco, CA 94107-0462; phone (510)839-0852.

,

Black tradeunionists saw inChicago rally achance to raisetheir voicesagainst decadesof brutal attackson labor andminorities.

weapons charge, 15 years with no chanceof parole, 15 years for a crime he did notcommit. They.framed him up because hewas a spokesman for his father. We say:Free Jamal!Epluribus MaysMember, ATU Local 241; chairman,People's Organization

What we have to do is to continue tomobilize and to organize, organize andmobilize and be able to take our forcesand take our voices anywhere they needto be heard. And I'm not talking about avoice of atonement, I'm not talkingabout a voice of reconciliation, I'm nottalking about a voice to tell the man," asI might say (if I can say that), or the government that we're "sorry" for thisdemonstration, we're "sorry" that we'redoing this.If Mumia is killed, anyone of you allwho stand up and struggle against thissystem can be killed-just as well, justas easy as anyone. You must understandthat the reason that Mumia is in jail inthe first place is because he was a directthreat to this system, a direct threat. Anytime that you're a direct threat againstthis system, they've got to take itdown-just like the Black Panther was,they just took them down. That's whyhe's in jail. He's not in jail because he'schanged his coat. He's not in jail becausehe's changed his viewpoint. He's not injail because he now says, "1'm sorry."He's in jail because he's stilI" talkingabout revolution. And he's not changing.We've got some politicians today thathave changed their coat; they're evenCongressmen now. I know one Congressman that was so much as a revolu-

Contents include: Mumia Abu-Jamal'sLife of Struggle Court Hearings:New Evidence of Frame-Up From Death Row,This Is Mumia Abu-Jamal

"La Amistad andAmerican Law" The Frame-Up ofMumia Abu-Jamal For Non-Sectarian,Class-Struggle Defense! Death Row SpeedupTargets Minorities Ph illy Cops' Reign of Terror Desperation, Segregationand the "Ebonies"Controversy Down With "English Only"Racism! Coleman Young:From CIO Union Organizerto Overseer for Auto Bosses

$1 (48 pages)

WV Phototionary with the Black Panther PartyI think they called him Bobby Rush.I don't know, he might have made achange because he thought he might beable to help black people by goingthrough the system. But see, you can'tchange the system by just changing ascrew. The system is a machine.Katie JordanPresident, Chicago chapter, Coalition ofLabor Union Women

I'm going out to talk about the right ofMumia Abu-Jamal to be able to live sothat he can continue to contribute as hehas always contributed to the workingpeople of this country. His life shouldnot be determined by the racist regimewho decides that if you are black youneed to be on death row but if you arewhite, working against the racist system,speaking out for the working class, thenyou, too, need to be on death row. Unlessyou're one of the rich of this country,and the politicians who favor the rich,you're subject to being in Mumia'sshoes. And we don't want to forget that.The only way we're going to freeMumia and those who will come afterhim is to get rid of the death penalty. TheCoalition of Labor Union Women is insupport of freeing all political prisonersand we will be working within ourunions, to talk to our unions about theirresponsibility of speaking out.Ed .ClarksonSpartacist League

What we have here on this cold day isthe core of the committed. Mumia's liferemains at stake. We must go out andcontinued on page 8

Urgently needed contributions for

Mumia's defense, which are ta'x-deductible, should be made payable tothe Bill of Rights Foundation, earmarked "Mumia Abu-Jamal LegalDefense," and sent to the Committeeto Save Mumia Abu-Jamal, 163Amsterdam Avenue, No. 115, NewYork, NY 10023-500 I. If you wish tocorrespond with Jamal, you can writeto: Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM8335, SCIGreene, 1040 E. Roy Furman Hwy.,-Waynesburg, PA 15370. Order from: Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 1.01164 DECEMBER 1998 7


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Smash Disney/ABC Union-Busting Against NABET!Over 2,000 members of the NationalAssociation of Broadcast Employees andTechnicians (NABET) have been lockedout by ABC-TV ever since a one-daystrike on November 2 protesting thecompany's refusal to provide details of aproposed new health plan. Members ofNABET, an affiliate of the Communications Workers of America, had alreadybeen w,orking for over' a year and a hal fwithout a contract when the Walt DisneyCompany, which owns ABC, tried toforce them to accept a plan pushinghigher health costs onto the workers.Now, with its vindictive lockout, DWney/ABC is ou t to break NABET.

The following statement was issuedby death row political prisoner MumiaAbu-Jamal on November 19. In solidarity with NABET members lockedout by ABC-TV, Mumia has told thenetwork, which is preparing a program on him, that he will not grant aninterview while the lockout continues.We support the efforts of labor tomake righteous demands upon capital,and therefore are loath to break (even

Speeches...(continued from page 7)multiply our forces and go forward to freehim, to smash the racist death penalty.Now many here today have spokenwell about Mumia Abu-Jamal. One thingmust be recognized. He was sentenced todeath because he was seen as a black revolutionary. Why such concern? Blacks,after all, only constitute somewherebetween 10 and 15 percent of the American population. It is because the cause ofblack freedom and the fight against thegrinding exploitation of labor and thisracist capitalist society are potentialsocial dynamite if combined.Racism, the race-caste segregation ofblacks at the bottom of this society, is aprimary obstacle to the mobilization ofthis potential. The trade-union movement, significantly black at its core, hasthe social power and potentia. to becomebattalions in the struggle against racismand exploitation, if mobilized in a revolutionary party operating to oppose allinjustice, as the tribune of all the people,to overturn this decaying imperialistorder. Black liberation through socialistrevolution!Now the seriousness of Mumia'splight must be recognized. Thousandsof fighters against racist oppression,

David North...(continued from page 2)the "futility" of union struggles.North's own witchhunting credentialsare impeccable. Beginning in -the mid-1970s, he devoted over a decade to thecrazed "Security and the Fourth International" campaign launched by the corrupt, thuggish and megalomaniacal Healywith the aim of smearing the SWP leadership (primarily Joseph Hansen) withsupposed complicity in Trotsky's assassination by Stalinist agents in 1940. In the1980s, North's outfit virtually preparedthe prosecution brief which resulted inthe conviction and imprisonment of SWPtrade unionist Mark Curtis on frame-uprape charges. Meanwhile, the "SocialistEquality" Party spits on the fight againstthe oppression of women, blacks, homosexuals and national minorities.The McCarthyite witchhunt was aimedat preparing the country for war against -the Soviet Union and driving the reds ou t8

With technicians, cameramen, engineers, videotape editors and other highlyskilled workers among its ranks, theunion has considerable leverage, whichhas already hurt ABC's programming.A range of entertainers have honoredNABET picket lines. In New YorkCity, UPS Teamsters workers have refused to deliver or pick up packagesfrom ABC. Even a number of Democratic Party politicians have refused to crossNABET picket lines. Meanwhile, theAmerican Federation of Television andRadio Artists and other skilled tradesunions have stabbed NABET in the backby crossing picket lines. This treachery

by indirection) the picket line erectedby NABET against ABC, and theircorporate masters, Disney.We continue to believe any effort tocircumvent this proper picket line violates the rights of labor to fight for afair and just return; this we will not do.We urge all of our friends and sup

porters to support NABET's efforts,to the extent NABET wants that support, on the line; and in the studio.

many who fought to build the unions inthis country-from John Brown to theBlack Panthers, from Albert Parsons andthe Haymarket martyrs to Sacco andVanzetti-went to their graves by oneroute or another, slaughtered by the stateminions of America's racist system ofexploitation. It must be said plainly thatthis struggle is a dangerous business.There will be more victimizations, futureheroes enchained and executed untilAmerica's capitalist masters are overthrown by a working-class socialistrevolution.

It is equally plain that if this course isnot taken, the working masses will face

of the unions. The "anti-Stalinist" socialdemocrats embraced by North sharedthat aim but opposed McCarthy forgoing "too far" by targeting Cold Warliberals as well. It is notable thatRadosh's hatchet job, The RosenbergFile (co-authored by Joyce Milton), waspublished in the early 1980s to facilitatea new Red Hunt as U.S. imperialismagain geared up for war against theSoviet Union (see "Cold War Rad-LibsEmbrace FBI Frame-Up: They're Tryingto Kill the Rosenbergs All Over Again,"WV No. 340, 21 October 1983). It is alsonotable that North's Workers Leaguenever appeared on the FBI's ADEX listof organizations-including the SL and arange of other groups-to be rounded upin the event of a "national emergency."The current grotesque "rehabilitation"of McCarthyism, seizing on CIA "revelations" that those who were Witchhuntedand murdered got what they deservedbecause they were indeed "Soviet spies,"is part of an all-sided attempt to againdemonize communism. Even as the bour-

must stop-picket lines mean don't cross!On November 19, the New York Cityregional director of the National LaborRelations Board (NLRB) ruled that theABC lockout was "legal." This emboldened the company to cu t off health coverage and insurance benefits to NABETmembers in an attempt to break them.The NLRB's action also underscores thefutility of the NABET bureaucracy'sappeals to the Clinton administration forsupport against Disney. Illusions in theDemocratic Party or federal "mediators"and "neutral arbitration" are suicidal. Thecapitalist Democrats are no "friends oflabor." And government bodies like theNLRB, far from being "neutral," areagencies of the capitalist state no lessthan the strikebreaking cops and antiunion courts. This state exists to protectthe property, profits and rule of theexploiters. To unchain labor's powerrequires a break with the union tops'strategy of looking to the parties and government of the capitalist class enemy andthe forging of a new, class-struggle leadership of the unions.Behind the "sweet-'n' -magical" myth,the Disney Company has a tradition ofsavage union-busting going back to itsrabidly right-wing founder. Walt Disneywas for 25 years a fink for J. Edgar

November 21Jamal protest.Labor BlackStruggle Leaguefights for class-struggle programagainst racistoppression.Join us!

the slow death of increasing exploitationand poverty, the hopelessness of theghetto; today's youth will have no future.These processes have accelerated withthe overturn of the October Revolution inthe USSR, a hi storie defeat for theworld's working class, with the resultantincreasing competition "between theimperialist powers which once again willlead to world war, this time ending innuclear annihilation.The starvation and episodic bloodybombing of Iraq by American imperialism in its drive to dominate the world, toassure the profits of our capitalist masters, is echoed in the end of welfare, cop

geoisie and its mouthpieces proclaim that"Marxism is dead," they seek to warn offmilitant workers and radicalized youthfrom revolutionary politics, aware thatthe growing gap between the rich andpoor and the other enormous contradictions in this society have created seethingdiscontents and are leading to a revival oflabor militancy.The kind of respectability North nowcraves can only come to those who didtheir bit in aiding the cause of capitalistcounterrevolution in the USSR, a historicdefeat for the world's working class. AsLeninists, one of our primary responsibilities is to expose especially the "left"(should North remain so positioned)opponents of proletarian revolution, whotoday join in seeking to bury the legacyof the October Revolution under a mountain of lies while rehabilitating thebloodsoaked imperialist world order.Indeed, a rapprochement between Northand Radosh might well be possible-perhaps even a new joint Web site,"godthatfailed.anticom." _

Hoover's FBI. When the CartoonistsGuild struck Disney in 1941 againstthe firing of union organizers, "UncleWalt" retaliated by turning over photos ofstrikers to government witchhunters. Hefired virtually every worker whoparticipated in that strike, and wentbefore the House Un-American ActivitiesCommittee (HUAC) six years later todenounce the strike leaders as "Commies." Disney was also instrumental ingetting HUAC to investigate the movieindustry and helped build up the Hollywood blacklist of union militants and suspected leftists (see Marc Eliot, Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince [1993]).Today, Disney CEO Michael Eisnerostentatiously scatters billions of buckslike pixie dust for his garish buildingprojects and grandiose palaces. Notingthat Eisner could pay the insurance costsbeing extorted from NABET members"out of his own pocket and not evennotice it," columnist Juan Gonzalezpointed out in the New York Daily News(12 November): "Michael Eisner, remember, earned $10 million in salary andbonus last year and cashed in more than$575 million in stock options."NABET's resistance to Disney's unionbusting is an important fight for all labor.Shut down ABC! Victory to NABET!_

mayhem in the ghettos and the attack onthe living standards of all in the serviceof the very same drive for profits. Theprimary obstacle to mobilizing the revolutionary proletarian party to bring anend to the devastation caused by American imperialism is illusions in the mainwar party of American imperialism, theDemocratic Party.AFL-CIO head John Sweeney peddlesAmerica-first protectionism against foreign workers, played out at home in thewar against immigrants. He and his ilkbring the capitalist government into thetrade unions, betray the power of picketlines in strikes to the bosses' courts andcops. Indeed, they bring the armedenemies of the working class and theoppressed-cops and prison guards-intothe trade unions. Such unions cannoteffectively fight to save Jamal.This is racist America. We will fighttogether against the state and its capitalistmasters or go down separately. The wayforward is to forge the multiracial proletarian party necessary to lead the American socialist revolution._

Contact the Chicago LBSLLabor Black Struggle LeagueBox 6938Chicago, IL 60680

Spartacist LeaguePublic Offices-MARXIST LlTERATURE

Bay AreaThurs.: 5:30-8 p,m. and Sat.: 1-5 p,m.1634 Telegraph, 3rd Floor (near 17th Street)Oakland, CA Phone: (510) 839-0851Saturday: 2-4 p,m.123 Townsend St. (near 2nd St.)Dial #826 for entrySan Francisco, CA Phone: (415) 777-9367ChicagoTues.: 5-9 p,m. and Sat.: 12-3 p,m.328 S. Jefferson St., Suite 904Chicago,IL Phone: (312) 454-4930New York CityTues,: 6:30-8:30 p.m. and Sat.: 1-5 p.m.299 Broadway, Suite 31 B (north of Chambers 51.)New York, NY Phone: (212) 267-1025

WORKERS VANGUARD


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Brazil...(continued from page 12)extreme deflationary measures. Interestrates were raised to 50 percent, leading tothousands of layoffs in the public and private sectors. In August, the governmentintroduced a package of measures whichincludes a reduction in the average workweek to 25 hours-with a correspondingcut in wages-and allows employers tosuspend workers' contracts for two to fivemonths.

At the same time, since the beginningof September the central bank has beendepleting its foreign-exchange reservesat t h ~ rate of $1 billion a day to keep thereal from falling through the floor. WallStreet and other international financiersare worried-and rightly so-that theBrazilian government and major companies will be forced to default on theirforeign loans. Economist Jeffrey Sachswarned: "In March, American banks hada reported $27 billion in loans to Brazil,four times their exposure in Russia. Adisaster in Brazil would surely rattle theworld economy and further tarnish the .credibility of the United States and theIMF" (New York Times, 14 October).What Sachs, who is the architect of starvation austerity plans ravaging millionsfrom Bolivia to Poland, means by "disaster" is disaster for the imperialist bankers-not the further impoverishment ofthe Brazilian masses-in the form of aRussia-type default or a partial defaultachieved, for example, by reimposinglimits on the outflow of "hot money"(short-term capital).So on November 13, IMF spokesmenin Rio announced a typical "bailout"package-designed chiefly to bailoutU.S. banks in Brazil-to be made available "as the Brazilian Congress enacts theconditions required." Dancing to the tuneof the imperialist bloodsuckers, Brazil'sgovernment responds to each new American declaration by announcing more austerity measures to make the country safefor international financiers, includingdeeper spending cuts in social servicesand massive attacks on workers' socialsecurity benefits.Nationalism and ReformismProp Up Bourgeois Order

Running in opposition to FHC in thepresident ial' elections was Luis Inacio"Lui a" da Silva as candidate of the"People's Unity" (Uniao do Povo-UP)coalition. In addition to Lula's socialdemocratic Workers Party (PT), the UPincluded the formerly pro-Moscow Communist Party (PCB), the formerly proAlbania Stalinists of the PC do B and thebourgeois Workers Democratic Party oflongtime capitalist politician Leonel Brizola, a big landowner in southern Brazilwho idolizes former. dictato r Vargas.Like the Frente Brasil Popular headed byLula in the 1989 elections and a similarpopular front in 1994, the UP is a classcollaborationist coalition tying the workers movement and left to the politiciansand institutions of the bourgeoisie andits state.According to its public platform, theUP is a big social movement that includes

4 DECEMBER 1998

workers, unions, people's movements ofthe countryside and cities, youth, womenand businessmen committed to a newnational development project. The appealof Lula's program is nationalism. Butwhile it may be solacing to imaginedepriving the Yankee imperialists of theprofits wrung from the masses, a semicolonial country like Brazil, above all inthe imperialist epoch, cannot liberateitself from these predations short of athoroughgoing socialist revolution.Utilizing the masses' illusions born ofdesperation, Lula offers himself as analternate way for capitalism to bleed themasses, appealing to sections of thebourgeoisie who have seen their profitsdecline as protective tariffs were lowered

pie is systematically obscured by reform-ist currents. Such currents (as Leninstressed in his pamphlet Imperialism, theHighest Stage of Capitalism) historicallyarose based on the more privileged strataof the working class in the imperialistcountries, as the workers' leaders reconciled themselves with the capitalistsystem in exchange for crumbs fromthe bourgeoisie's table. Since the onsetof World War I in 1914, when such misleaders cheered on their "own" rulers asthe imperialists plunged the earth intowholesale slaughter, socialist-talkingreformists have actively worked againstthe prospect of proletarian revolution,including through naked support forbloody counterrevolution at those crucial

leftists, workers and peasants; we remember the deadly fruits of class collaborationunder Allende's "Popular Unity" coalition in Chile, which led to Pinochet'sbloody military coup in 1973. Such socalled "left" governments promise to alleviate the plight of the masses but are inreality committed to serving the enemiesof the workers and oppressed. They canonly enrage the local capitalist rulers andtheir imperialist patrons without breakingtheir power, preparing the way for newrightist regimes which will swiftly exactbloody revenge against the working classand its allies.A hallmark of class collaboration inthe semicolonial countries is the dominance of nationalist ideology-a bourgeois ideology which is inimical to theproletariat's class interest and is thus adecisive obstacle to the thoroughgoingsocial revolution which is necessary tobreak the stranglehold of imperialismover the countries of the "Third World."The basic Marxist understanding that"the workers have no country" is no lesstrue in these countries than it is in theimperialist centers. Revolutionaries muststruggle intransigently to break theworking class from the illusion that its"own" ruling class can be any kind ofally in the fight for national and socialliberation. Such a struggle is anathema tothose who falsely posture as "leftists" inBrazil, who prefer to subordinate themselves to bourgeois forces in the name of"anti-imperialism."Brazilian "Left" vs. the Fightfor a Revolutionary Party

Financial TimesMilitary police patrol impoverished neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro. Copdeath squads are notorious for murdering black street children in the hugefave/as (slum areas) around major cities.

The PT was forged in February 1980under Lula, a metal workers union leader,coming off a broad and militant strikewave in the late 1970s. Yet.from its inception, the PT leadership had close ties withthe Catholic church and its program didnot challenge the capitalist status quo. In1981, Lula's PT actively cheered forPolish Solidarnosc. This "workers movement" was in fact a huge company union,an instrument for capitalist counterrevolution based on anti-Soviet nationalism andbacked by the CIA, Western bankers andthe Vatican. The PT's program says nothing in defense of abortion rights forwomen. The PT hails the racist popularfront government in France for supposedly taking important steps to ensureeconomic growth, fight unemployment,preserve sovereignty and widen democracy. And in Brazil, it was a PT governorin Brasilia who ordered a murderousattack on a demonstration against theFHCgovernment's austerity measures atthe "Palacio do Planalto" last May.

under the Real Plan. Lula invited thevice president of Brazil's largest industrial conglomerate (Votorantim) to collaborate with the PT and the CUT tradeunion federation in a plan to "defend"national industry.The nationalist/reformist Latin American left aims all its fire at IMF-sponsored "neoliberalism." But this is by nomeans the only form of capitalist economic policy. Indeed, in Latin Americathe dominant form historically has beennationalist corporatism associated withanti-Yankee and populist demagogyespecially on the left but by no meanslimited to it (e.g., Peronism in Argentina). This program entails industrialprotectionism and government controlsover foreign-exchange transactions andcapital movements. Nationalist corporatism did not insulate Latin Americancountries from the economic shocks andsharp ups and downs endemic to theworld capitalist system, and the so-called"debt crisis" of the 1980s ushered in adecade of stagnation and savage austerity'against the workers and urban and ruralpoor (see "Lurching Toward EconomicCrisis?" WVNo. 619, 24 March 1995).As Marxists, we fight for working-class independence from the bourgeoisie.The interests of the proletariat and thebourgeoisie, the two fundamental socialclasses in capitalist society, are irreconcilably counterposed. This basic princi-:0(1)cffi:(J)

Landless peasantsmarch on Brasilia,April 1997.Expropriation oflanded estatesrequires socialistrevolution placingproletariat in power.

moments when the survival of the capitalist system was at stake (e.g., Germany1919-1923).Reformist parties, such as the LabourParty in Britain or the Social Democratsin Germany, have amply and repeatedlyproven their willingness to administerthe capitalist state on behalf of the capitalist ruling class. In this framework,popular-front electoral coalitions havebeen very useful to the reformist leaders,who can point to their bourgeois "partners" as the excuse for every sellout andanti-working-class attack. By putting a"working-class" face on the capitalistgovernment, reformists like Lula aim tomake more palatable the devastatingattacks on the working Class and minorities and to dissuade the exploited andoppressed from fighting back; But asTony Blair's Labour government demonstrates, even governments composedsolely of reformist workers parties arecapitalist governments. As Bolshevikleader V. I. Lenin stressed in The Stateand Revolution, the working class cannotuse the bourgeois state apparatus for itsown ends but must smash it and replace itwith a workers state.Class collaboration is not only fruitlessbut ultimately suicidal. We remember the1965 bloodbath in Indonesia, as the Communist Party's support to the bourgeoisnationalist Sukarno paved the way to themassacre of hundreds of thousands of

We fight for a Leninist internationalistvanguard party as the necessary' instrument to bring communist consciousnessto the proletariat and to lead it to powerat the head of all the oppressed. Rejectingthis perspective, the Brazilian "left" prefers to maneuver inside the PT and theCUT union bureaucracy. These "leftists"cultivate the deadly illusion that the bourgeois state can be pressured to serve theinterests of the workers and oppressedand that socialism can be achievedthrough a series of gradual reforms.Although filling their newspapers withcontinued on page 10

Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist Leagueo $10/22 issues of Workers Vanguard 0 New 0 Renewal(includes English-language Spartacist and Black History and the Class Struggle)international rates: $25/22 i s s u e s ~ A i r m a i l $10/22 i s s u e s ~ S e a m a i l o $2/6 introductory issues of Workers Vanguard (includes English-language Spartacist)o $2/4 issues of Espartaco (en espanol) (Includes Spanish-language Spartacist)Name ___________________________________________________Address

Apt. # __ Phone (__ _____City State z- - - , - - - - - - Ip 702Make checks payable/mail to: Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, N'( 10116

9


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Brazil...(continued from page 9)left rhetoric, these organizations act inpractice as an obstacle to raising the consciousness of the proletariat, ultimatelyplacing themsel ves on the side of the capitalist state. Even after a red purge insidethe PT resulted in the expulsion ofpseudo-Trotskyists like Causa Openiria(PCO-affiliated with the Altamira groupin Argentina) and the Morenoite Convergenda, they contin'ued voting for Lula,whi'le openly admitting that the PT-ledcoalitions in 1989 and 1994 were popularfronts. In 1994, the Morenoites were an. official par t of this class-collaborationistlash-up.This time, reflecting the unpopularityof the new popular front, the MorenoitePSTU was not an official part of it. Whatwas finally too much for them to swallowwas the alliance with Brizola in particular. The PSTU proposed an alternative

"class" candidacy of Lula for presidentand the leader of the MST landless movement as vice president. In its absence,they ran their own candidate-but on aprogram no different from the 1994 popular front's program. Moreover, fearfulof being blamed for Lula's defeat andhewing to their ultimate program of"fight FHC," they called for support toboth Lula and their own candidate on thefirst round!The centrist Liga Bolchevique Internacionalista (LBI, which recently split fromthe Argentine PBCI) did not call for avote for the PT either in 1994 or this year.But the LBI does not oppose popularfrontism in principle, as shown bY'its sup_port to the PT in the 1989 elections. In anissue of Luta Opertiria (September 1998)preceding the elections, the LBI talks outof both sides of its mouth in an attempt toconceal its underlying "les ser evil," "fightthe right" politics. The LBI admits that nomatter who wins the vote a "war plan"will be unleashed against the workingpeople. But to "fight" the popular front,the LBI comes out for a so-called "revo.lutionary workers front" to unite vari"ous "sectors." This is just another recipefor a rotten propaganda bloc-a lowestcommon-denominator bloc antithetical tobuilding a hard, programmatically homogeneous party fighting for the politicalclarification needed to break the workersfrom the pro-capitalist misleaders.IG/LQB: Militant Economismand Class Betrayal

The U.S. Internationa list' Group (IG)and its affiliate, the Liga Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil (LQB) are not thatfar behind in capitulation. An LQB"Information Bulletin" (October 1998)posted on the Internet, which rituallydenounces the popular front and calls fornot voting for it, presents as its centralslogan a general strike:

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"The bourgeois offensive against all theworking people must be answered with aclass-struggle workers offensive fightingfor power. The necessary response wouldbegin with a strike of all public workers, then extending to the private sectorin a general strike paralyzing all largeindustry, transport and commerce, whichwould be a showdown with the bourgeois power. To lead this fight, it will benecessary to throw out the existing pr_o-capitalist leaderships and form organs of

struggle, workers councils, led by a genuine revolutionary workers party whichcan head the masses of landless peasantsin a fight for a workers and peasantsgovernment and the extension of revolution to the imperialist centers."For all its rhetoric about a revolutionary party, the IG clearly sees such a partyas arising spontaneously from mass struggle. But in the absence of a revolutionaryparty in Brazil today and on the eve of apresidential election, what would theLQB's call for a "general strike" mean ifnot support to the workers' current leadership-the PT and its popular front?

Sloganeering for "the general strike,"which the IG does in common withcentrists all over the world, is merely amilitant-sounding way to pass off theglorification of trade-union s

Workers Vanguard No 702 - 04 December 1998

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Transcript of Workers Vanguard No 702 - 04 December 1998