workers vanguard no 712 - 30 april 1999

7/29/2019 Workers Vanguard No 712 - 30 April 1999

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WfJRIlERS ""' I I 'RD OeNo. 712 .... 30 April 1999

DefeallmperialismThrough Workers Revolulion-The following April 21 statement bythe International Communist League(Fourth Internationalist) is being issued

in eight languages for distribution atMay Day demonstrations and otherevents internationally.The imperialist war against Serbia isalready the biggest military conflagration in Europe since World War II.

Defend Serbia!Having pounded Serbia for weeks withbombs and cruise miss.iles, there is agrowing crescendo among the Westernimperialists for a full-scale invasion ofthe rump Serb-dominated Yugoslav

republic. Once again the Balkans havebecome the powder keg of Europe,bringing us a step closer to a newworld war. As proletarian internationalists fighting to build a world party. '>:':.>;" :< ................................ ,:.:--:.:::':/'-",',.':"":,:::,:, ,:","""' .. :


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Mexico: IG Lies on"Cardenista Popular Front"in their paper Alternativa Socialista No.5,December 1989). What's more, the LTS,which emerged as a split from the reformist POS in 1988, was born whining thatthe PRD didn't do much for the workersand suggesting to the PRD and Cardenasthat "they dedicate themselves to solidarity by calling mobilizations" for workersstroggles such as the strike at Ford Cuautitlan (1989 LTS leaflet, "Long Live theFord Strike!").The following article is translated fromEspartaco No. 12 (Spring-Summer 1999),published by the Grupo Espartaquista deMexico (GEM), section of the Interna

tional Communist League. The article,which exposes the opportunist appetitesbehind the notion of a "Cardenista popular front" put forward by the Internationalist Group (IG) and refutes their lie thatwe "invented" a quote from the centristpaper Alternativa Socialista which has thesame line, has already caused considerabletrouble for the IG in Mexico.

As a large contingent from the STUNAM campus workers union marchedpast, many of the workers asked the GEMwhat the heated debate was about. As thereport describes:"Comrades began to explain to them thatwe were having a fight with this organi-zation because they had used the statecourts in Brazil in order to get control ofa union. We told them that we wereexposing this organization for a classbetrayal. Spontaneously, dozens of work-ers began to shout to the IG things like,'Get out of here!' 'It is a question ofprinciple not to sue a union!' or 'I f youwant to control a union, you have towork with the workers, not ask for a littlehelp from the state!' (Other workers pre-ferred to use some more explicit adjectives and curses.) ...

The GEM confronted the IG with thisarticle at a massive April 23 Mexico Cityprotest by students and trade unionistsagainst the imposition of fees at theNational Autonomous University of Mexico. A report by the GEM describes thereaction of the leading IG supporter inMexico: "We told him that this was ouranswer to their infamous article, 'AnotherImrention of WV.' He got red, then he hesitated for a second, then he yelled at us:'That was because you never lent me yourcollection of Alternativa Socialista!'"

"The leading IG supporter aggressivelytried to give some leaflets to the workersand began to speak aloud, trying toexplain that we had 'run away from theclass struggle in Brazil.' The workerstook that as a provocation and began toshout again, 'Get out! Get out!'"When workers began to take a sideagainst this IG supporter, the report continues, "his 'comrade' left him alone at

For Socialist Revolutionto End ImperialistWarAs the U.S. and its NATO partners wagea war ofdomination against Serbia, the ref-ormist and centrist left retails the bogus"human rights" war propaganda of theimperialist rulers. Simultaneously, thesefake socialists promote the lie that the capi-talist system which breeds war can be mademore "humane" and "peaceful." Infighting

TROTSKY to forge the Fourth International in the years LENINleading up to World War I/, Bolshevik leaderLeon Trotsky stressed that only proletarian revolution can put an end to imperialistwar. Today, Trotskyists call for military defense ofSerbia against U.S.INATO imperial-ism as part ofour struggle to win the U.S. working class to the fight for socialist revo-lution to sweep away its "own" capitalist rulers.

The war danger, which is a life and death questj.on for the people, is the supremetest for all the groupings and tendencies within the working class. "The struggle forpeace," "the struggles against war," "war on war" and similar slogans are hollow andfraudulent phrases, if unaccompanied by the propaganda and the application of revolutionary methods of struggle. The only method to put an end to war is to overthrow thebourgeoisie. The only method to overthow the bourgeoisie is by a revolutionary assault.As against the reactionary lie of "national defense" it is necessary to advance theslogan of the revolutionary destruction of the national state. To the madhouse of capitalist Europe it is necessary to counterpose the program of the Socialist United States ofEurope, as a stage toward the United States of the World.Marxists irreconcilably reject the pacifist slogans of "disarmament," "arbitration,"and "amity between peoples" (i.e., between capitalist governments), etc., as opium forthe popular masses. The combinations between working class organizations and pettybourgeois pacifists (the Amsterdam-Pleyel Committee, and similar undertakings) renderthe best service to imperialism by distracting the attention of the working class fromreality with its grave struggles, and beguiling them instead with impotent parades.The struggle against war and imperialism cannot be the job of any sort of special"committees." The struggle against war is the preparation for revolution, that is to say,the job of working class parties and of the International. The Marxists pose this greattask before the proletarian vanguard, without any frills.

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- "An Open Letter to All Revolutionary Proletarian Organizationsand Groupings" (July 1935)

! l ~ ~ ! . ! ~ . ~ ~ ~ ! ~ l ! . ' ! s EDITOR: Len MeyersEDITOFl, YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Jacob ZornPRODUCTION MANAGER: Susan FullerCIRCULATION MANAGER: Mara CadizEDITORIAL BOARD: Ray Bishop (managing editor), Bruce Andre, Helene Brosius, Geo rge Foster,Liz Gordon, Jane Kerrigan, James Robe':fson, Joseph Seymour, Alison SpencerThe Spartaclst League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League (FourthInternationalist).Workers Vanfluard (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 Spartaclst Publishing Co., 299 Broadway, Suite 318, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 7327862 (Editorial), (2t2) 7327861(Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. Email 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 at1ic/es or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint.The closing date for news in this issye is April 27.No. 712 30 April 1999

once." Meanwhile, the GEM sold severalpapers to these workers, whose understanding of the class line literally put theIG frauds to shame.I =t.., :7;J tJ f!Re]We revolutionaries guide ourselves bya rule of the Fourth International: to speakthe truth to the masses, no matter howbitter it is; to be precise in small thingsas well as in large ones. However, theso-called "Internationalist Group" of therenegade Jan Norden was born inverting this rule. Their principle is to lie, timeafter time, in large things as well as smallones. Ever since May 1997, when ourorganization, the ICL, discovered andexposed to the workers movement thatthe IG's Brazilian partners (the LQBLiga Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil)had on various occasions brought a work

ers union into the bourgeois courts-thusbreaking a basic principle of communism-the IG has tried to divert attentionin whatever direction so as not to admittheir class betrayal. Now our readers willbe able to know the IG by another "small"maneuver to slander the ICL.In August 1997, our organization madea public correction of our characterizationof the bourgeois-nationalist PRD [Partyof the Democratic Revolution] of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas as a popular front (seeWorkers Vanguard No. 672, 8 August1997 and "Mexico: For a Workers Revolution!" in Espartaco No. 10, (AutumnWinter 1997). This conclusion was theresult of a thorough discussion aimed atMarxist clarity within our organization,to correctly define and struggle againstthe form of class collaboration that hashistorically existed in Mexico, in otherwords, the particular way that the Mexican bourgeoisie subordinates the workersmovement and the oppressed.We came to the conclusion that whatwas posed here was not a "popularfront"-which is a precise Marxist category to characterize an anti-worker bour-geois formation, in times of social unrest,including p a r t i ~ s of the bourgeoisie andreformist workers parties and organizations-but rather intense bourgeoisnationalist ideology which, going back tothe Mexican Revolution of 1910-20 andconsolidated since then, is the fundamental instrument for subordinating the workers movement to'its capitalist exploiters.In that same article, we pointed out thatone group which joined with the IG ininvoking a "Cardenista popular front"was the centrist Liga de Trabajadores porel Socialismo (LTS), with the clear objective of orienting itself towards Cardenismin search of a supposed working-classsector of the PRD (see, for example, their"Open Letter to the Cardenista Workers"

EspartacoPublication of the GrupoEspartaqulsta de MexicoNo. 12, Spring-Summer 1999$.50 (32 pages)Sub$crlptlon:$2 for 4 Issues(includes Spanish-language

Seeking to nullify our powerful argument against this centrist confusionshowing that Norden's IG was at one withthe LTS in regard to their mythical "Cardenista popular front," which they useonly to capitulate to the backward consciousness of the masses-the spiteful IGhas published on three different occasions,in English and Spanish, an infamous littlearticle titled "Another Invention by WV'where they maintain that our assertion isa "total invention." The last time theyreprinted this lie was in a pamphlet calledCuadernos de Ellnternacionalista (January 1999). "Any careful reader"-says theIG-will ask himself, "Where? When?"has the LTS said such a thing?The IG cannot allege ignorance oramnesia. During one of our public classesof the Grupo Espartaquista at UNAM[National Autonomous University inMexico City] in 1997, held a few weeksafter they first published this lying article,the IG representative who intervenedwas only able to put on a face of stupidity and surprise when one of our comrades exhibited in front of the audience ahuge collection of the LTS paper, Alterna-tiva Socialista, with whole articles wherethey talk about a "Cardenista popularfront." But despite all this, the IG continued to reprint their lie and kept asking,"Where? When?"But the LTS has indeed spoken of theexistence of a popular front in Mexico,not once but on countless occasions. InNumbers 18 and 19 (January and March1995) of Alternativa Socialista (whosename has now changed to EstrategiaObrera), in an article titled "Who AreWe and What Are We Fighting For?" (inother words, something like their littledeclaration of principles) they say:" ... we are for the principled r efoundingof Mexican Trotskyism, against its manifestations of electoralism and submissionto the Cardenista Popular Front." Numerous references, including entire articleson the "Cardenista popular front," alsoexist throughout the LTS press, in issuenumbers 5, 8,9,14,15, 18, 19,..at leastand the LTS has never published any correction on this line since. It's tragicomicto see how Norden and Negrete's IG, intheir eagerness to be admitted into thecircles of the Mexican nationalist left, dotheir best to perform circus pirouettes inorder to sling mud at the ICL.The IG lies. Any reader need onlyconsult the LTS papers cited above toimmediately realize that those who lierepe'atedly and consciously in such"small questions" wilI find no embarrassment in covering up "one or two"class betrayals, such as the IG does tomaintain its "section" of trade-unionopportunists in Brazil..

Spartacist) ~ ~ ~ S 5 ..........- - ' I 1 1 ~ _ . . l ! , . . . --- ..... ....._ ........ . . , . . . . . . . . ___ a I I . . .Order from/make checks payable to:Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116

WORKERS VANGUARD


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u.s. Top Cop...(continued from page 1)choice of a blockade, then we have to recognize we risk war with a third party."But while the European Union (EU)voted yesterday to implement an embargo, the U.S. announced it had no plansto follow suit and stop oil shipments byAmerican companies. The London DailyTelegraph (27 April) noted acerbically,"This means that while it is now illegalfor any EU countries to export to Slobodan Milosevic, it remains perfectly legalfor American companies to continue tofuel the Serb war machine."The NATO "summit" was also dominated by ever more explicit talk of aground invasion of Serbia, promotedaggressively by British Labour primeminister Tony Blair, with a green lightfrom Washington. Significant sectors ofthe American ruling class, in both theDemocratic and Republican parties, nowfavor a ground war. In a clear moveto prepare the U.S. population for aninvasion of Kosovo, the Army recentlyannounced that it was staging trainingexercises in a model Balkan village in theColorado mountains. Clinton is sending2,300 more American soldiers to Albaniato reinforce the 3,000 now there, and thecombined NATO troop strength in Albania and Macedonia has already mushroomed to 19,000. Germany, which occupied the region during World War II andbutchered hundreds of thousands of Serbsand Jews, has moved up a Bundeswehrmechanized battalion from Greece,including tanks and armored personnelcarriers.The imperialists have cynicallycloaked their war against the Serbian people in the "humanitarian" garb of savingAlbanian refugees. But Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon gave the game awaywhen he frankly admitted that NATOcommanders favor the complete expulsion of Albanians from Kosovo: "Therewould be Serb troops primarily left, andwe would be able to attack them withmore precision and more concentration"(New York Times, 15 April). This war isno more about defending the "humanrights" of Kosovo Albanians than the1992 intervention in Somalia was aboutending famine or the military occupationof Haiti was about introducing "democracy." Like the repeated bombing attackson Iraq, what is behind the murderousassault on Serbia is Washington's aim ofriding roughshod over small, weak countries throughout the world and intimidating their populations through sheer terror,while maintaining the U.S. position as topdog against its imperialist rivals.Washington's war against Serbia is carried out by the same racist ruling classthat has ruthlessly driven down the livingstandards of working people in the U.S.,broken strikes and busted unions; thatfiercely oppresses blacks, Hispanics,immigrants and others; that has condemned millions to homelessness, disease and starvation through the axing ofwelfare. This is a rich man's government,which is perfectly willing to send thepoor off to fight and die for it. The interests of U.S. workers lie not in saving theskins of this gang of strikebreakers,racists and warmongers, but rather in seeing them defeated. That means opposing the imperialist war aims of U.S. capitalism and standing in military defenseof Serbia against V.S.INATO attack,demanding the withdrawal of all UN/NATO troops from the Balkans, and striving for the defeat of U.S. imperialismthrough workers revolution.Despite the media barrage aboutWashington's supposedly "humanitarian"aims, the bourgeoisie has had limited success in whipping up support for the war.While polls show a majority of Americans supporting the air strikes againstSerbia, Clinton's overall job approval rating has plunged since the war began, hitting its lowest level in nearly two years.Many black people, in particular, areskeptical of Washington's professed"humanitarian" aims in the Balkans. Incontrast, black Democratic leaders have30APRIL 1 9 ~ 9 .

enthusiastically supported Clinton. JesseJackson proclaimed: "Some things areworth a fight" (University Wire, 14April). Meanwhile, pro-Democratic blacknewspapers, such as the Chicago De-fender and the New York AmsterdamNews, have remained virtually silentabout Clinton's war against Serbia.The hideous oppression of racial

ocaust. The killings and expulsions ofethnic Albanians by Serb chauvinists ispart of a nationalist war for territory,aimed not at annihilating the Albanians asa people but at terrorizing them into fleeing. In fact, far more Albanians havelikely fled as a result of the massiveNATO bombing. It is a continuation ofthe all-sided communalist fratricide in

ries was also a bloody, protracted process. But it was linked to the extensionof trade, the development of the nationalmarket and the rise of the bourgeoisie.However, under imperialism, in relatively backward capitalist countries thedevelopment of the national economyand the emergence of a vigorous bourgeoisie are stifled by imperialist exploitation and domination. Thus nationalconsolidation under capitalism has beenreduced to its stark component of communal savagery to drive out or eliminateminority nationalities."The U.S. rulers' claim to be fightinganother Hitler in the Balkans is false onanother count as well: World War I! wasnot a war of democracy against fascism.

This year's academy awards ceremony,featuring Saving Private Ryan and TheThin Red Line, was practically a commemoration of U.S. military prowess inWorld War II. But, although the American ruling class tries to pretend otherwise, it was the Soviet Red Army whichbroke the back of Hitler's war machineand crushed Nazi Germany-80 percentof German casualties were on the Russian front.The war in Europe had nothing to dowith fighting fascism. It was a conflict

AP82nd Airborne paratroopers pour into Tirana, Albania as U.S. moves towardground war against Serbia.

. between competing blocs of the imperialist powers for redivision of the world'smarkets and sources of raw materials andcheap labor. The U.S. fought to establishits domination in Europe, and againstJapan for domination of the Pacificbasin. Britain fought to keep hundreds ofmillions of dark-skinned people enslavedin its colonial empire. The imperialist"democracies" refused to open theirdoors to Jewish refugees from Nazigenocide, and then set up a "rat line"after the war to help hundreds of Nazicriminals escape to the West and setthem to work in the global "crusadeagainst Communism." In the postwarperiod, the U.S. government trained andsupported hideous torturers and massbutchers from South Africa to CentralAmerica, while killing millions of peoplein counterrevolutionary wars from Koreato Vietnam.

minontles in the U.S. gives the lie toWashington's avowed concern about"ethnic cleansing" in the Balkans. In thecalculations of the American bourgeoisie,the ghetto masses who used to provide areservoir of unskilled labor for industrya "reserve army" of the unemployed to betapped when the economy needed themare now deemed to be a "surplus" population. The racist "war on crime"-inreality, a war on black people-sweepsyoung men and women from the streetsby the thousands and throws them intoprison hellholes. One in seven black menare today disenfranchised because of felony convictions, effectively stripped ofcitizenship rights guaranteed under the14th Amendment.At the same time, the three-week-oldstrike by Newport News shipyard workers against a major military contractorin the midst of the bourgeoisie's waragainst Serbia testifies to the revival oflabor militancy signaled by the 1997UPS Teamsters strike and underlinesonce again the fundamental irreconcilability of the interests of labor and capital. What is needed is class struggleagainst the capitalist exploiters at homeand abroad. To start, that means mobilizing the multiracial working class instrike action to-defeat the attacks onlabor, to bring its weight to bear in political strikes and other powerful protestactions to demand freedom for death rowpolitical prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal andabolition of the racist death penalty, tolead labor-centered mobilizations againstrampant cop terror in the ghettos andbarrios.Only the multiracial U.S. proletariathas the social power to sweep away thisrapacious imperialist ruling class. Mobilizing that social power requires a political break with the class collaborationismof the chauvinist AFL-CIO bureaucracy, which chains workers to the capitalist Democratic Party and subordinatestheir interests to the aims of the imperialist rulers.The Sham of Imperialist"Democracy"

In order to generate support for its wardrive, the Clinton administration demonizes Serbian nationalist leader SlobodanMilosevic as another Hitler and accuseshim of carrying out "genocide" againstthe Albanian population of Kosovo. Toequate Milosevic's actions in Kosovowith the horrors of Nazi Germany's coldblooded and calculated extermination ofsix million Jews, millions of Slavs, hundredsof thousands of Gypsies, and othersdeemed to be Untermenschen (subhumans) amounts to whitewashing the Hol-

Croatia and Bosnia among Muslims,Serbs and Croats-which included theforcible expulsion of some 850,000 Serbswith the blessing and collusion of theU.S.-aimed at compacting homogenousnation-states as the former multinationalYugoslav deformed workers state wasfragmented along national lines by capitalist counterrevolution. As we wrote in'''Ethnic Cleansing' and NationalistWars," WV Nos. 580 and 581, 16 and 30July 1993):"At the heart of imperialist hypocrisyover 'ethnic cleansing' is the fact thatwhat is happening in Bosnia is a recurrent phenomenon in this epoch of capitalist decay, as imperialist barbarismintersects the barbarity of backward capitalist and pre-capitalist societies. Theformation of the classic nation-states inWest Europe of the 17th and 18th centu-

Trotskyists opposed the imperialistwar on all sides and in each country werefor the defeat of their "own" imperialistruling classes by carrying forward thecontinued on page 4

For a Socialist Federation of the Balkans!BOSTON

Saturday, May 1, 7:30 p.m.Harvard UniversityHarvard Hall, Room 103(take Red Line to Harvard Square)For more information: (617) 666-9453

NEW YORKThursday, April 29, 7:30 p.m.

NYU School of LawVanderbilt Hall, Room 214(40 Washington Sq. South)For more information: (212) 267-1025Saturday, May 1, 2 p.m. Spartacist League office123 Townsend St. (between 2nd and 3rd St., ring 826 downstairs)

SAN FRANCISCO For more information: (415) 777-9367or (510) 839-0851Trotskyist League/Ligue trotskyste Forum

Ten Years After Tiananmen Square

For Proletarian Politica/. Revolution!Friday, May 14, 7 p.m.Britannia Community Centre, Room L4, 1661 Napier Street (offCommercial)

VANCOUVER For more information: (604) 687-03533


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u.s. Top Cop...(continued from page 3)fight for proletarian r.evolution. The policy of authentic revolutionaries was: Theworking people of other countries are notyour enemy-The main enemy is athome! Despite bureaucratic degenerationunder Stalin, the USSR was a workersstate still possessing the fundamentalgains of the Russian Revolution-aplanned, collectivized economy and astate monopoly of foreign trade andbanking. Therefore the position of theTrotskyists was unconditional militarydefense of the Soviet Union againstimperialist attack from any quarter andagainst internal counterrevolution. Trotskyists called for proletarian politicalrevolution to rid the Soviet workers ofthe parasitic Stalinist bureaucracy.In contrast, the Stalinists and socialdemocrats lined up in World War II insupport of the U.S. and British-dominated"Allied" bloc of capitalists in the imperialist butchery. For their part, the Stalinist l e a d ~ r s of the working class wereinstrumental in heading off the explosions of class struggle that swept Europeat the close of the war, suppressing revolutionary opportunities in Italy, Franceand Greece. The Allied military occupation of Europe and these Stalinist betray-

. als allowed the bourgeoisie to reconstitute the capitalist order in Europe while,like the French in Indochina, launchingnew wars to reconquer their colonialempires.The Soviet victory over Nazi Germanyshaped the postwar world. The U.S., nowthe dominant imperialist power, confronted the military and economic mightmade possible by the planned economy ofthe USSR. Despite the constant appeasement of imperialism by Stalin and hisheirs, the existence of the Soviet Union asa military power possessing nuclearweapons served as an impediment to theU.S. imperialists' bloody ambitions andkept them from turning their nucleararsenal on the peoples of the former


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Serbian Demonstration Bombing

Hungary and the former Czechoslovakia (CzechRepublic) as its newest members, thereby virtuallyisolating Russia. Only Serbia, and the Yugoslavstates, have refused to join NATO-their bombing istheir punishment.Our brilliant, revered nationalist leader, MalcolmX, taught us to examine history. I f we look at history,the bombing ofYugoslavia becomes clear.

"[US Secretary of State, Robert] Lansing stronglyqbjected to any introduction of the concept of 'lawsof humanity' and to trials of foreign leaders beforeany foreign or international court. International law,he contended, regulated relations among nations; ithad no jurisdiction over what a state chooses to do toits own people."-Christopher Simpson, The Splendid BlondBeast (1995), p. 25

speaking through its Secretary General, Pierre Sane,announced just days before the bombing, "Humanrights violations in the United States of America arepersistent, widespread and appear to disproportionately affect people of racial or ethnic minority backgrounds." Sane was critical of police violence andexecutions in the U.S.

Empires are maintained, not by reason, but by ruthless terror. It was so in Rome. It is so in the U.S. Thebrilliant revolutionary, Dr. Hue)' P. Newton, founderof the Black Panther Party, explained "the UnitedStates was no longer a nation ... We called it anempire .... An empire is a nation-state that has trflnsformed itself into a power controlling all the world'slands and people" (1973). Huey was right then, andour response then was to oppose the empire. We mustdo that now! Down with Imperialism! Stop the Bombing! NATO/US out of Yugoslavia!s a deadly rain of high-tech bombs fall on Serbia,a deadening rain of propaganda falls on Americans,media-manufactured lies designed to prime the populace into supporting harsher military measures againsta sovereign nation, in the name of protecting humanrights.

Further, internationally, let's see how the U.S.responds to "liberation movements" of the oppressed.When fighters for Puerto Rican independence beganto raise their voices the U.S. didn't support this "ethnic minority," they sought (and continue) to crush,incarcerate and silence them. Consider the case of thePalestinians, the Kurds, the Tamils, the East Timorese, the Colombian rebels-who has the U.S. consistently supported, the oppressed, or the U.S.-armedgovernments?

8 April 1999 1999 by Mumia Abu-Jamal

Join the fight to free Mumia Abu-Jamal! Contac tthe Partisan Defense Committee. In New York:NATO is but a fig leaf for American "interests,"and the bombing of the Serbian state is but a globaldemonstration of the ruthlessness of the Americanempire. A demonstration? The monstrous atomicbombing of Japan, after it was virtually beaten inWW II, was not a military necessity, but a politicalone, designed to demonstrate to the Russians that theU.S. was, and would ever be, boss. It was a massive,deadly demonstration.So too, the Serbian bombing treats Serbs as theU.S. treated Japanese during the War-as props todemonstrate the power of the empire. Let us considerthe claims that the U.S. is concerned about "humanrights" or about the "rights of ethnic minorities" asthe corporate press projects hourly: What of America's largest national minority-African-Americans?The world-respected Amnesty International group,

This isn't about "human rights." It isn't about"ethnic minorities." And it also isn't about "genocide."It's about establishing who's "boss" in the next century.It's about keeping Russia in its place. It's about keeping the EU under the thumb of Wall St. The bombingof Serbia is an echo of the bombing ot three othercountries in the past six months--of Iraq, Sudan andAfghanistan. And for precisely the same reason-toshow that it can be done, no matter what so-called"international law" states. It is to instill terror throughout the world, in order for U.S. capital to inst itute whatformer president George Bush tried to do, but failed:to establish a New World Order.

PDC, P.O. Box 99, Canal Street Station, New York,NY 10013-0099; phone (212) 406-4252; E-mail:[email protected]. In Chicago: PDC,P.O. Box 802867, Chicago, IL 60680-2867; phone(312) 454-4931. In the Bay Area: PDC, P.O. Box77462, San Francisco, CA 94107-0462; phone (510)839-0852.Urgently needed contributions for Mumia's.legal defense, which are tax-deductible, should bemade payable to the Bill of Rights Foundation,earmarked "Mumia Abu-Jamal Legal Defense,"and sent to the Committee to Save Mumia AbuJamal, 163 Amsterdam Ave., No. 115, New York,NY 10023-5001. I f you wish to correspond withJamal, you can write to: Mumia Abu-Jamal,AM8335, SCI Greene, 1040 E. Roy Furman "wy.,Waynesburg, PA 15370.

became subordinated to the need todefend Serbia against U.S.! NATO attack.The UCK openly brags that its officersare working with British and Americanspecial forces teams in Kosovo, spottingSerbian targets for NATO bombing raids.Its leaders recently announced that theyare concluding a contract with Militaryand Professional Resources International,the Pentagon-sponsored outfit whichadvised the fascistic Croatian regime in1995 as it "cleansed" the Krajina regionof several hundred thousand Serbianinhabitants.Like much of the rest of the fake left,the ISO has postured as opponents ofNATO bombing while at the same timecalling on Clinton to "really" help theAlbanian refugees. Thus, the ISO notonly lends credence to the imperialists'cynical justification for sending troops tothe region but gives backhanded supportto the bombing. Until recently, the ISOsteadfastly refused to raise the call forUNINATO troops out of the Balkans.Now, Socialist Worker (23 April) is calling for NATO to "get out of the Balkans."What they really mean is that the UN"international forces" should replace theU.S.-led NATO forces. Thus an articlein the same issue of Socialist Workerdeplores that "the U.S. and its NATOallies stood by" as the Hutu-dominatedarmy and death squads massacred theTutsi ethnic minority in Rwanda fiveyears ago, complaining that "the UNSecurity Council refused to authorizeforces to intervene in the conflict"because of U.S. opposition.The idea that imperialist interventionin Rwanda, whether by the UN or NATOled armed forces, could have done anything but make the hellish situation stillworse expresses the same illusions in"humanitarian" imperialism that the ISOis propagating over Kosovo. As we wroteat the time: "We must urgently warn thatthe imperialists are no friends of theRwandan and Burundian masses. A'humanitarian' intervention by the UN-or under the auspices of the Organisationof African Unity, that cabal of neocolonial rulers-would produce a racistslaughter like in Somalia" ("The RwandaHorror," WVNo. 601, 27 May 1994).A somewhat different appeal by self-30 APRIL 1999

Days before the bombing, NATO signed up Poland,

proclaimed leftists to bourgeois opinioncan be found in a series of postings onthe World Socialist Web Site of DavidNorth's "International Committee of theFourth International" (ICFI). Offering theflimsiest Marxist veneer, North & Co.posture as critics of capitalism, referringto American imperialism "embarking on apolicy of global domination" (26 March).But as NATO bombs fall on Belgrade,this article is entirely silent on the keyquestion of defending Serbia from thisbrutal imperialist onslaught-nevermindcalling for workers revolution againstU.S. imperialism. Having long ago dismissed the trade unions as organizationsof the working class, for the Northites thequestion of proletarian opposition to theimperialist slaughter is not even posed.What they offer instead are arguments for a virtually nonexistent pacifistwing of the bourgeoisie, echoing rightwing isolationists like Pat Buchanan. AnApril 6 ICFI editorial board statementmutters about costly American "blunders" in Korea and Vietnam. Their touch'ing concern for the "blunders" of U.S.imperialism in its wars suppress socialrevolutions in North Korea and Vietnamis no accident. While North now writesoff the question of national oppression altogether (for example, declaringflatly that "Kosovo has long been recognized as part of Yugoslav territory" [26March]), throughout the Cold War of the1980s North & Co. cheered on everyimperialist-sponsored nationalist movement dedicated to capitalist counterrevolution in the Soviet bloc.For Socialist Revolution toEnd Imperial ist War!

The reformist "socialists" perpetuatethe lie that imperialism is just a "boo policy" which can be changed through masspressure, denying that imperialist warsfor domination and spheres of influenceare inherent to the capitalist system.Even bourgeois columnist Thomas Friedman comes closer to the truth, observinglast year: "The hidden hand of the globalmarket would never work without thehidden fist. And the hidden fist that keepsthe world safe for Silicon Valley's tech-_ nologies to flourish is called the UnitedStates Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine

Corps (with the help, incidentally, ofglobal institutions like the U.N. and theInternational Monetary Fund)" (New YorkTImes, 18 April 1998).Behind tbe f a ~ a d e of NATO "unity,"the U.S. and the various European powersare each frantically maneuvering toextend their own national influence in theBalkans and short-circuit their rivals. Andit is far frqm clear that the NATO alliancecould even survive in the whirlpool offorces that will be generated by a groundwar against Serbia. In France, theSocialists' government coalition partners,the Communist Party and the bourgeoisMovement of Citizens, are already openlydenouncing the bombing. In Germany,the Social Democrats' government coalition partners, the Greens" are fissuringover the question of the war.And in Italy,the ruling coalition faces the threat ofimmediate dissolution if a ground wargoes ahead, while 170 parliamentarianshave signed a petition demanding animmediate truce.Imperialism is an organic outgrowthof the profit system-the "highest stageof capitalism," as Bolshevik leader V. I.Lenin described it. Imperialist war is theconcentrated expression of the "nomal"brutal workings of the capitalist system,which daily condemns countless millionsof people around the world to death bymalnutrition and lack of medical care. Atthe same time, capitalist exploitationcreates its own gravedigger, the interna-

tional proletariat.We have noted before that with therestoration of capitalism in the formerSoviet Union, the world is increasinglycoming to look like it did in the yearsbefore the outbreak of World War I in1914 . Writing of the Balkan Wars of1912-13, which followed on the heels ofgrowing conflicts of interests and shiftingalliances among the major Europeanpowers, Trotsky noted: "European equilibrium, which was highly unstablealready, has now been completely upset.It is hard to foresee whether those incharge of Europe's fate will decide thistime to carry matters to the limit and startan all-European war." In 1914, they didstart an all-European war, drawing muchof humanity into a then-unparalleledslaughter that killed and maimed millionsof proletarian and peasant soldiers on allsides. But as Lenin noted, war is also themother of revolution. With Lenin andTrotsky at the helm, the Bolsheviks ledthe workers of Russia to power in theOctober Revolution of 1917, taking Russia out of the war and creating a beaconfor the proletariat internationally.

I f imperialist carnage is not to be thecontinuing fate of humanity, capitalismmust be swept away through proletarianrevolution. The International CommunistLeague fights to reforge Trotsky's FourthInternational, world party of socialistrevolution, to lead the fight for newOctober Revolutions around the world .

Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist League0$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 issu es-A irma il $10/22 issue s-Sea mailo $2/6 introductory issues of Workers Vanguard (includes English-language Spartacist)o $2/4 issues of Espartaco (en espana ) (includes Spanish-language Spartacist)Name _____________________________________________________Address ______________________________________________ __________ Apt. # Phone (__ __ ,.---__City State Zip -----....,7,.,.,'2Make checks payable/mall to: Spartaclst Publishing Co., Box 13n GPO, New York, NY 10116

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U.S./NATO Ministry of DisinformationBig Lies for Imperialist War

In 1939, to manufacture a pretext forthe Nazi invasion of Poland, Hitler hadGerman troops dress up in Polish armyuniforms and stage an "incursion" intoGermany. In 1964, u.s. president Lyndon B. Johnson fabricated a North Vietnamese "attack" on American warshipsin the Gulf of Tonkin in order to sendground forces into Vietnam. During the1990-91 Persian Gulf War, 'the Westernpress purveyed outlandish lies, like theone about Iraqi forces murdering 300incubator babies in a Kuwaiti hospital, tojustify the imperialist slaughter of tens ofthousands of Iraqis.The Big Lie is the handmaiden ofimperialist war. Now the U.S.INATO rulers and their kept media are churning outa deafening drum beat of supposed"human rights atrocities" by the Serbianforces under Slobodan Milosevic withthe aim of building popular support forNATO's war of domination in the Balkans and for the concerted terror bombing of the people of Serbia and Kosovo.A London Independent (30 March) headline screamed, "Kosovo's Men of IdeasAre Dragged from Homes and Shot,"retailing "confirmed" reports of "executions" of Albanian notables-who turnedup alive and well a day or two later.There were the Yugoslav pilots supposedly captured in Bosnia whom NATOpromised to parade before the mediawho were never produced; the story ofthe Pristina soccer stadium supposedlyturned into a "concentration camp" forup to 100,000 ethnic Albanians butwhich in fact stands empty; the overinflated refugee counts, "reports" ofsystematic rape and mass destruction,even "genocide" by Serbian forces-allwithout the slightest evidence.While maintaining a blackout onhard information about NATO's Balkanscarnage, the imperialists have now begunbombing television stations, killing atleast 18 people in one Belgrade attackalone. Spelling out the purpose of theseattacks, the New York Times (23 April)reported: "State television has been themain source of immediate news andfilm footage for Western televisioncorrespondents."Had it not been for the Serbian mediaand a handful of Western reporters stationed in Kosovo, one of the biggestatrocities perpetrated by the NA.TO imperialists would not even have come tolight. On April 14, NATO bombers .pounded two convoys of Kosovo Albanian refugees on the road between Djakovica and Prizren, killing 82 people whowere fleeing by tractor, van, cart and onfoot. For the next six days, NATO spokesmen wiggled, squirmed and lied outrightabout this bloodbath of the Albanianswhom they are allegedly there to protect.When confronted with the story thatmorning, NATO Supreme CommanderWesley Clark, an American general,claimed to have "very strong evidence"that the Serbs had perpetrated the slaughter in retaliation for a NATO strike on"military" t a r g e t s ~ Later that day, bowtied Pentagon mouthpiece KennethBacon claimed that NATO had "onlyhit military vehicles" and cited refugeeaccounts to United Nations officials thatthey had been bombed by Serbianplanes-a claim denied by the UN officials themselves. And Clark's assertionof "evidence" was revealed to be a totalfabrication.Only after a Reuters reporter filmedthe body-strewn site did NATO spokesmen start making noises about a "tragicaccident." NATO spokesmen cynicallyaccused the Serbian military of usingAlbanian refugees as "human shields"6

and moaned about how difficult it was forpilots to distinguish between farm tractors and military vehicles from 15,000feet up. They produced an audiotape of aU.S. F-16 pilot supposedly agonizingover whether to bomb what he "mistakenly" thought to be a Serb "ethnic cleansing" operation-a tape which later turnedout to involve an unrelated incident.Finally, slimy Labourite NATO flack"Jamie" Shea opened his April 19 daily"briefing" by exclaiming, "You want thefacts, today you are going to get them."The highlight of this "damage control"exercise was a flight-suited U.S. AirForce general moaning about a "verycomplicated scenario." The "complication" was that the facts had already comeout in numerous news accounts. NATOplanes had dropped a total of nine 500-pound laser-guided bombs on the refugee convoys at three different sites over a12-mile stretch of road and at a fourth siteeight miles to the west, even though aBritish Harrier pilot had made it clear thatthe convoy contained civilian vehicles.In an article in the London Independent (17 April), correspondent RobertFisk wrote: "Mr Shea-or 'Jamie' as heenjoins us to call him-says he is still try-ing to find o ut what happened .... Wellperhaps I can help Jamie." Having visitedthree of the four sites along the convoyroute bombed by NATO warplanes, Fiskde,scribed the "highway of death betweenPrizren and Djakovica," the dismemberedbodies of men, women and children there,and the bomb and missile f r a g m ~ n t s withAmerican markings on them.American correspondent Paul Watson,who likewise toured three of the sites,wrote in the Los Angeles Times (16April): "None of the survivors interviewed confirmed NATO's claim thatmilitary vehicles were trying to hide intheir long convoy." As for the purportedmistakes made in bombing from an altitude of 15,000 feet, Watson reported:"The Kosovo Albanian survivors tell ofjets divebombing, circling and then

Big Lie "briefing" byNATO SupremeCommander, U.S.general WesleyClark. April 14U.S./NATO bombingof Albanian refugeeconvoy in Kosovokilled 82.

AP

bombing again as tractors and horsespulling wagonloads of terrified refugeestried to escape." One survivor recalled,"They were coming very low and diveddown." In the Independent, Fisk confirmed "evidence of strafing as well asaerial bombing."For days after the bombing, every sortof lie was piled on to deflect attentionfrom the ever more obvious fact thatNATO bombs had blown away dozens ofAlbanian refugees in cold blood. OnApril 16, the New York Times ran a diversion headlined "U.S. Officials SuspectDeadly Chemical Weapons in YugoslavArmy Arsenal," which went on to saythat there is "no evidence that the Yugoslav army or the Serbian forces hadused, or were planning to use lethalchemical agents." Then State Department yuppie James Rubin announcedthat they had "developed [!] new evidence" of mass killings by Serb forces.NATO spokesmen dutifully producedhigh-altitude photos of mass graveswhich, they claimed, the Muslim Albanian victims themselves had been forcedto dig-as evidenced by the fact that thegraves supposedly pointed toward Mecca!The truth is NATO has been bombingcivilians, including many Albanians,since the war began. When two videoguided NATO bombs crashed into a Serbian passenger train crossing a bridgetwo days before the bombing of the refugee convoy, U.S. general Clark describedit as an "uncanny accident." Yet the pilotlaunched a second missile against thetrain after seeing that he had hit it once!This attack, too, was then buried in theWestern press under a numbing streamof supposedly "new" Serb atrocities,including week-old unconfirmed reportsof Albanian women being brutalized inSerbian military "rape camps."The Western press has hammeredaway at the supposed "genocide" beingcarried out by the Milosevic regime andSerb-chauvinist militias and talked of the"complicity" of the entire Serbian popu-

lation in order to justify the terror bombing of civilians. But what has been goingon in the former Yugoslav . deformedworkers state since it was ripped apart bynationalist fratricide has been "ethniccleansing" on all sides, aimed at compacting homogeneous capitalist nationstates, with the Croatian and BosnianMuslim nationalists playing no lessbloody a role than the Serb forces.The Western "human rights" propaganda blitz about the Albanian refugees-many of whom have been forcedfrom their homes by NATO bombing-isa flimsy cover for an imperialist war ofdomination against Serbia. The strategyof civilian terror bombing now being pursued by NATO has been employedby the bloodyhanded U.S. warmakersfor decades, from the firebombing ofDresden and Tokyo in World War II tothe "scorched earth" policy during theKorean War and the carpet bombing ofVietnam. In concert with the imperialists'class hatred, this strategy is often usedagainst industrial areas especially targeting th e proletariat. During this war, dozens of bridges and factories have beendestroyed, including the huge Zastavaauto plant in Kragujevac, where in 1941German Nazi occupation forces massacred 5,000 Serbs in a single day. Damagefrom NATO bombs has reached $100 billion, throwing the Serbian economy backat least a decade. Hundreds of thousandsof Serbian workers have been left withoutjobs and whole cities cut off withoutwater, electricity or heat. These are notaccidents but a deliberate effort to terrorize the population.The point of the lies and the censorship is not to keep information from theSerbs, who know full well that they arebeing bombed, but from the workers ofthe U.S. and Europe who may recognizein the perpetrators of imperialist slaughter their own exploiters and oppressors.The arrogant ruling-class spokesmenwho lie that their deliberate acts of massmurder in Serbia are "tragic accidents"also try to dismiss the horrendous copkilling of black African Amadou Dialloin New York as a "tragic accident." Theyare the same types who gleefully point tothe corporate bottom line in announcingmass layoffs, revel in union-busting andproclaim the "beneficial effects" of ripping minimal welfare benefits away fromblack women and children. Our job, asproletarian internationalists, is to bringto the working class the understandingthat this profit-driven system of war,racism and immiseration will only beswept away when the capitalist rulersthemselves are swept into the dustbin ofhistory and the international workingclass is in power

Spartacist LeaguePublic Offices-MARXIST L1TERATURE-

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Declaration ...(continued from page 1)

A 25 March statement of the Sparta-cist LeaguelU.S. asserted:"Every blow against U.S. imperialism inthe Balkans will help to weaken theclass enemy, providing an opening forthe working class and oppressed here tofight against the torrent of attacks beingleveled by Wall Street and its politicalagents, the Democratic and Republicanparties. We fight to build the multiracialrevolutionary workers party, forged inthe crucible of class s t r u g g l ~ , which isthe necessary instrument to lead theworking class to the overthrow of thisentire system based on racism, exploitation and war through a socialist revolution which rips industry and power awayfrom a small handful of filthy rich andcreates an egalitarian socialist economy."In Europe, the brutal imperialistattacks on Serbia are being carried out bycapitalist governments headed by socialdemocrats and ex-Stalinists. As the m i l ~ itary historian Clausewitz once said, waris the continuation of politics by othermeans. Having demonstrated their loyaltyto the bourgeoisie at home by enforcingracist capitalist austerity, today the socialdemocrats are if anything more vigorousthan their right-wing predecessors indoing the imperialists' dirty work abroad.The Berliner Zeitung (25 March) ob

served: "That a red-green governmentsent units of the Bundeswehr into a military intervention for the first time sincethe founding of the Federal Republic issaving the country from an unproductiveideological and political conflict." At theonset of the war, sections of the International Communist League immediatelyissued statements unmasking the imperialist war propaganda and seeking tomobilize the workers of the world againsttheir "own" bourgeoisies.The destruction of the Soviet degenerated workers state ushered in a sharp risein regional wars and imperialist militaryadventures, as a virulent new nationalism became the hammer of counterrevolution. Interimperialist strife, previouslyheld in check by the need for acommon anti-Soviet alliance, eruptedanew. Just beneath the surface of thecurrent unity of the NATO "allies" overthe bombing of Serbia lie fundamentaland escalating interimperialist rivalriesexpressed in the growing trade warbetween the U.S. and Europe, as well asJapan. The post-Soviet world increasingly resembles the pre-1914 world. Itwas imperialist machinations stokingnationalist hatreds in the Balkans whichled directly to World War I.Today, NATO bombing is a trip wirefor a broader and even bloodier international conflagration, potentially drawingin Greece, Turkey and Russia. While acting as a soft cop for NATO, capitalistRussia's denunciation of the U.S.INATOmilitary attack on Serbia is .in line withits ambition to assert itself as a regionalimperialist power. Both Russia and theU.S. have huge nuclear arsenals, and theU.S. has already demonstrated its readiness to use these weapons with thenuclear incineration of Hiroshima andNagasaki in 1945. Who could believethat the French, the British or the Israeliswould be any more restrained? Capitalism is an irrational system, and the maddrive for profit and power inherent inthis system will inevitably lead to' anuclear third world war if it is notstopped through international proletarianrevolution.Imperialist s Rain Terroron Yugoslavia

NATO's war against Serbia has nothingto do with "human rights" or defense ofthe Albanian population of Kosovoagainst "ethnic cleansing." This war is notabout the Kosovo Albanians. It is a war ofdomination aimed at realizing longstanding American plans to insert a substantialU.S.INATO military presence in Serbiathrough subduing, or if necessary dislodging, Milosevic. Since when do theimperialists care about the oppressed peoples? Hundreds of thousands of immi-30 APRIL 1999

As British Labour prime minister Tony Blair addressedChicago's elite Economics Club on April 22 to drum up support for a ground invasion of Serbia, the Spartacist Leagueand Spartacus Youth Club protested outside against theU.S.lNATO terror war. Calling to "Defend Serbia againstimperialist attack," demonstrators chanted "Not one penny,not one man for the ClintonlBlair mass murder plan!" and"Down with U.S.IBritish imperialism! Workers to power!" ASpartacist speaker declared:"NATO's war in Serbia has nothing to do with 'humanrights' or defense of the Albanians in Kosovo against 'ethniccleansing.' The hypocrisy of the U.S. and its British partners'so-called 'humanitarianism' doesn't fool us. For starters,what about British army repression in Northern Ireland, orthe police occupation of the inner cities in the U.S., the racistoppression of blacks, the gunning down of Mexican immigrants at the border."This weekend, NATO is plotting the intervention of over'100,000 ground troops as they 'celebrate' their 50th anniversary of imperialist horror over the workers of the world. Thisdeepening conflict in the Balkans underscores the urgency offorging Leninist vanguard parties to lead the working class insocialist revolution to sweep away all the rapacious capital istruling classes."

grants are deported every year by theEuropean governments. Indeed, thesesame governments went into a virtualfrenzy at the thought of having to opentheir borders to the refugees fromKosovo.The ICL stands in the tradition ofV. I. Lenin, whose "Socialism and War,"a powerful handbook of revolutionaryinternationalism written in 1915 and circulated clandestinely to workers and sol-

Asahi Shimbundiers throughout Europe during the war,teaches:"The standpoint of social-chauvinism isshared equally by both advocates of victory for their governments in the presentwar and by advocates of the slogan of'neither victory nor defeat.' A revolutionary class cannot but wish for the defeat ofits government in a reactionary war, andcannot fail to see that the latter's militaryreverses must facilitate its overthrow."Lenin stressed that in the case of animperialist war against a small nation orsemicolonial people, it is the duty of theworking class not only to fight for thedefeat of one's "own" government but todefend the victims of imperialist aggression. In the present war, we are for themilitary defense of Serbia, without giving the Milosevic regime a shred ofpolitical support. We called for the rightof self-determination for the Albanianpopulation of Kosovo against the Serb:'chauvinist regime in Belgrade until theAlbanian separatists became simply apawn of NATO's predatory designs. ForMarxists, the democratic right of selfdetermination for the Kosovo Albaniansis necessarily subordinated now to thestruggle against the imperialist bombingand threatened invasion.In fact, the all-sided nationalist bloodbath in the Balkans was directly instigated by the imperialists in their drive todestroy the former deformed workers

state of Yugoslavia through capitalistcounterrevolution. The Socialist FederalRepublic of Yugoslavia was born out ofWorld War II, when Tito's Communistpartisans battled the occupying NaziGerman Wehrmachtas well as the Croatian fascist Ustasha and Serbian royalistChetniks. Tito's partisans were the onlyforce in Yugoslavia during the war thatopposed communalism. But the socialistand democratic ideals to which the Tito

NovostiImperialist barbarism: U.S.nuclear incineration of '..Hiroshima, 1945; Nazi deathcamp at Auschwitz.regime publicly appealed were undermined by the bureaucratic deformationsand the inherent limitations of Stalinism,with its program of building socialismin one country. Tito introduced "marketsocialism," which opened Yugoslavia toimperialist economic penetration and reinforced disparities among the variousregions, fueling resurgent nationalism.After Tito's death the bureaucracy

Spartacist pamphletThe counterrevolutionary destructionof the Yugoslav deformed workersstate in 1991-instigated by the sameimperialist powers now carrying outa war of terror against Serbia-wasprepared by the former Stalinistregime's pro-capitalist market"reforms." This 1988 collection ofWorkers Vanguard articles analyzeshow "market socialism" widenedsocial inequalities and intensifiedethnic and national divisions,enormously strengthening theinternal forces of capitalistcounterrevolution.$1 (32 pages)Order from/make checks payable to:Spartacist Publishing Co.Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116

WV Photo

began to fracture along national lines.Milosevic, who promoted "market reforms" as head of the central bank,launched his political career by appealingto "greater Serbia" chauvinism particularly against the Kosovo Albanians. Inthis, he embodied the link between capitalist restoration and nationalism. ButMilosevic was not alone in this regard.His Croatian counterpart, Franjo Tudjman, idolizes the World War II fascistUstasha-a puppet of the German Nazis-;-and Bosnian leader Alija Izetbegovicis a rabid nationalist and Islamic reactionary. Marxists oppose the poison ofnationalism and fight for the class unityof the workers of Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro andKosovo in overthrowing all the bloodynationalist regimes of the region, fromMilosevic to Tudjman. For a socialist fed-eration of the Balkans! .The terminal crisis of Titoist Yugoslavia came in early 1991, when newlyelected right-wing nationalist governments in Croatia and Slovenia declaredsecession from the federated state. Germany moved in to steamroller its European allies into recognizing their independence. The U.S. then joined Germanyin throwing its weight behind an independent Bosnia under the leadership ofMuslim nationalist forces. In Croatia theU.S. and Germany provided the fascisticTudjman regime with not only. largequantities of modern weaponry but alsohigh-level training and advisers. Thisenabled the Croatian army in mid-1995, inleague with NATO's air assault, to routthe Bosnian Serb military forces. Hundreds of thousands of Serb civilians wereexpelled by Croatian forces in the largestsingle act of "ethnic cleansing" in thewar. At the same time, the U.S. covertlyfunded and armed Islamic fundamentalistcontinued on page 8

- - -_" 'G. " ,____Hungary:"Goulasb COmmunism"Goes lust----......_---For Central PlanningThrougb Soviet Democracy1WlE .1

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Declaration ...(continued from page 7)killers in Bosnia including the mujahedincutthroats who had fought against theSoviet army in Afghanistan.Euro "Socialists"

War is always a decisive test for revolutionaries. Trotsky insisted that a proletarian position on war required "a complete and real break with official publicopinion on the most burning questionof the 'defense of the fatherland'." Thefake left proves Trotsky's point in thenegative. They join in the imperialists'war cry over "poor little Kosovo" whilerejecting the defense of Serbia, whosevery right to national existence is underattack by the imperialist powers. Despitea pacifist veneer of opposition to thebombing, they march in lockstep behindthe war aims of their own imperialismsand the social-democratic or popularfront governments whose election theysupported. The camouflage: stop theNATO bombing; the message: go to warin the Balkans with ground troops underEU control. For today's "death of communism" leftists, who long ago gaveup any confidence in the revolutionarycapacity of the proletariat, the bloodyimperialists-whether under the flags ofthe UN or the EU or NATO-are themeans for bringing "human rights" to theoppressed peoples of the world!In its supposedly "antiwar" propaganda, the European "left" is simply acting as the spokesman for their own imperialist bourgeoisies, whose interests are.by no means the same as those of theAmerican imperialists. "The partnershipwith NATO in the Yugoslav crisis is simply a cloak, masking great differencesbetween the United States and its European allies," a former UN official told theSan Francisco Chronicle. The same article (15 April) quoted a range of peoplerunning the gamut from left to right "whoview the intervention in Kosovo as athinly disguised effort to impose Washington's will on Europe's future." InFrance, the Chronicle noted, "newspapercommentaries are so unremittingly hostile to the United States that a readermight well imagine Paris is at war withthe Pentagon, rather than with the Yugo-slav army," while former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt complained aboutbeing "held on a leash by the Americans."Thus, the "left" is running point fortheir own capitalist ruling class: their"anti-Americanism" is a cheap substitutefor and an obstacle to anti-imperialistproletarian internationalism. Swimmingwith the tide of bourgeois "public opinion," the slogans of the "left" dovetailwith those of outright fascists; for example, in Germany the Nazis raise the call,"No German blood for-foreign interests!"Perhaps the most blatant o f thepro-war"leftists" are the former StaliniSt parties,exemplified by the French CP, which is ofcourse in the government. Headlining,"Europe and France Must Participate inBuilding Peace," a leaflet signed by thePCF along with the Ligue Communiste

Revolutionnaire (LCR) in Rouen complained that the NATO bombing hasn'tgotten rid of Milosevic: "Milosevic is stillin place! The Albanians are being hunteddown or massacred! These are the firstresults of the military adventure. In contrast, peace in the region implies activeand determined support to the weaksocial and democratic forces fighting

imperialist military power, this attemptto depict the European imperialist statesas more benevolent than the U.S. is nothing but vile social patriotism. Presumably, then, the German bourgeoisie ofAuschwitz is morally better than itsAmerican counterpart? And what aboutthe dirty history of French colonialism inAlgeria and Indochina, or the British

Yevgeni Khaldei1945: Soviet troops raise red flag over Berlin after Red Army smashedHitler's Third Reich. Counterrevolution in Soviet Union has increased dangerof new imperialist world war.against the nationalist dictatorships andfor the right of ethnic minorities."The fake-Trotskyist LCR, the Frenchorganization of the United Secretariat(USec), in its own press is more explicitin beating the drums for war. The LCRopenly called for imperialist militaryintervention in Kosovo under the Organization for Security and Cooperation inEurope (OSCE)-a European-dominatedmilitary bloc-or the United Nations. Inits 1 April issue, Rouge declared:"NATO was not the only, and above allnot the best, linchpin for an accord. Theconditions for a multinational policeforce (particularly composed of Serbsand Albanians) could be found under theauspices of the OSeE to enforce a transitional accord."The following week a Rouge statementadvocated an accord with Serbia thatwould be policed by "a multinationalforce under UN control." The UN-trulya den of thieves and their victims-hasbeen an instrument for imperialist militarism from the 1950-53 war against theNorth Korean deformed workers state tothe slaughter of tens of thousands of Iraqis in the 1991 war in the Persian Gulf.Alain Krivine's USec is acting as amouthpiece for the interests of Frenchimperialism, counterposing to the U.S.dominated NATO intervention the callfor a European imperialist expeditionaryforce in the Balkans. Rifondazione Comunista (RC) in Italy and the PDS in Germany (as well as some SPD memberslike ex-party chairman Oskar Lafontaine) push much the same brand ofnationalist anti-Americanism. While theAmerican government is the foremost

[ S P A R T A C J S T I ~ 1M ..... On'IOI . . . . . . . ._

empire's history of pillage and murder inIreland, the Indian subcontinent, Africaand the Middle East? And it was the Italian bourgeoisie which invented concentration camps in Libya, which first usedpoison gas against the Ethiopian population, and which carried out countless actsof butchery in the Balkans during WorldWar II.The French pseudo-Trotskyist organization Lutte Ouvriere (LO) has a welldeserved reputation for catering to thebackward prejudices of the working classby ignoring special oppression, whetherit be women's oppression, homophobia,racism or the national question in France,where along with the rest of the fake leftit denies the right of self-determinationfor the Basques in France. But they toohave suddenly become champions of theright of self-determination of the Kosovopeople. In its 9 April issue, LutteOuvriere writes: "If the French government, as well as the other Western governments, were really helping the Kosovars, it would be noticeable and wewould not see the endless lines of refugees that we' see on TV." Despite itsclaimed opposition to ' NATO militaryattacks, the logic of this position is thatthe imperialists 'should intervene moredecisively and really crush the Serbs. Bydemonizing Milosevic-rather than theimperialists-as the main enemy in thisconflict, LO serves as a left apologist forthe bourgeoisie.In the same vein, the minuscule International Bolshevik Tendency (IBT),which sneers at independence for Quebec and more generally is notorious forits indifference to the rights of oppressedpeoples, such as the Catholics in Northern Ireland, today howls for "independence for Kosovo"-apparently they onlychampion independence for those whohave imperialist sponsorship.

No. 53, Summer 1997, $1.50 (56 pages) No. 54, Spring 1998, $2 (48 pages)

In Italy, Rifondazione preaches confidence in the UN and calls for a conference of European capitalist powers toresolve the Balkans crisis. RC revelsin anti-Americanism in order to alibiits support to its own ruling class. RC'scall to shut down the NATO air base inItaly is raised from the perspective ofItalian nationalism and in the interestof a stronger capitalist Europe directedagainst its imperialist rivals (like theU.S.). We Trotskyists appeal not to thebourgeois state, but rather to the Italianproletariat to mobilize labor actionsagainst the U.S.INATO bases, from whicha deadly war is being launched againstthe interests of all workers-Serbian,Italian, Albanian and American. We say:

Make checks payable/mall toSpartacist Publishing CO:, Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 101168

Smash the counterrevolutionary NATOalliance through workers revolution!A four-page supplement issued 10April by Proposta, the limp "left opposition" of RC, never calls for immediatewithdrawal of Italian troops from theBalkans. Proposta supported the previous "Ulivo"/RC bourgeois governmentwhich invaded Albania.Social chauvinism means defense of"national interests," i.e., calling on thewgrking class to identify with the imperialist aims of the ruling capitalist class. Itmeans the explicit abandonment of classstruggle by reformists and pro-capitalisttrade union leaders. Thus, the ItalianCGIL-CISL-UIL bureaucrats called off arailroad strike as soon as the war brokeout. Serbian workers are not the enemyofltalian rail workers! The enemy is theItalian bourgeoisie!As Lenin asserted: "Opportunism andsocial-chauvinism have the same politicoideological content-class collaborationinstead of the class struggle, renunciation

of revolutionary methods of struggle,helping one's 'own' government in itsembarrassed situation, instead of takingadvantage of these embarrassments so asto advance the revolution." The reformisttrade union leaders are bribed with thecrumbs of imperialist profit. In Franceunions get more revenue from the stateand the capitalists than from their ownmembers. Fake left groups like LO andLCR emulate this political corruption bytaking their own financial subsidies fromthe bourgeois state. But he who pays thebills calls the political tunes! We strugglefor the complete independence of thetrade unions from the capitalist state!Under the impact of a major war inEurope involving the imperialist powers,we are presented with the spectacleof erstwhile "revolutionaries" and "antiimperialists" joining pro-imperialist warrallies. The centrist Workers Powerjoined the deeply Labourite Alliance forWorkers Liberty in a 10 April "WorkersAid for Kosova" rally in London dominated by NATO and Albanian flags andplacards screaming, "NATO Good Luck"and "NATO Now or Never." "WorkersAid for Kosova" is modeled on "WorkersAid for Bosnia," initiated in 1993, which,under the guise of providing humanitarian aid for workers in Bosnia, promotedsupport to the Bosnian Muslim government and worked hand in glove with UNtroops in the fratricidal war betweenSerbs, Croats and Muslims. It therebyserved as a stalking horse for direct imperialist military intervention against theBosnian Serbs.A statement distributed at a Londonpublic meeting of 30 March by WP'sinternational, the League for a Revolutionary Communist International (LRCI),claimed to defend the Serbs againstNATO attack-"though not in Kosovawhich they have no right to occupy"! Atthe same time, WP urges the Albanianseparatists "to take full military advantage of the imperialist bombing to driveout the 'Yugoslav' forces," adding: "I f[Clinton and Blair's] primary concernwere for the Kosovars they would recognise their statehood, and give the KLAthe weapons to drive out the Serbiantroops." This is an unvarnished appeal tothe NATO imperialists.Workers Power has in fact supportedevery reactionary force in the Balkans(including in Serbia) as long as they areopposed to the imperialists' current mainenemy, Milosevic. Thus, in June 1991when the German Fourth Reich was engineering the destruction of the Yugoslavdeformed workers state, they called forimmediate recognition of the capitalistrestorationist Slovenian and Croatiandeclarations of independence. A yearlater WP's Austrian affiliate, the ArbeiterInnenstandpunkt, was involved in a"united front" with the local chapter ofVuk Draskovic's Serb National Rebirth,an organization of Great Serbian monarchists and Chetniks, then in opposition to Milosevic. During the 1995NATO air strikes, WP refused evenon paper to defend the Bosnian Serbsagainst imperialism.

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It could not be clearer that the fakelefts are social-chauvinists whose bottomline is support to imperialist war aims inthe Balkans, despite the theoretical contortions they go through in tiying toreconcile their lip-service opposition toNATO with their support to the separatistKosovo Liberation Army, which is nowsimply a pawn of NATO. Against thesocial-chauvinists of his time, Leninpolemicized against Karl Kautsky, a central leader of the German SPD who during the first interimperialist war maintained "loyalty to Marxism in word, andsubordination to opportunism in deed."Lenin wrote that "Kautsky 'reconciles' inan unprincipled way the fundamentalidea of social-chauvinism, recognition of.defence of the fatherland in the presentwar, with a diplomatic sham concessionto the Lefts-his abstention from votingfor war credits, his verbal claim to be inthe opposition, etc." (Lenin, "Socialismand War," 1915). But today's "leftists"like Workers Power are indeed far to theright of a Karl Kautsky.

. Workers Hammer photosFake lefts march behind "human rights" imperialism: Labourite ' ~ l I i a n c e for Workers Liberty" and centrist WorkersPower (right) at April 10 "Workers Aid for Kosova" rally in London.

It took the opening of the first imperialist world war, World War I, and anorgy of chauvinism to shatter the SecondInternational and for the "socialists" ofthat time to lead the working class to theslaughter. Today, as the first bombs werebeing dropped on the Balkan peoples,what passes for the "left" was alreadyprostrate before its own imperialism. Inthe face of World War I, Lenin called onthe workers to turn the interimperialistwar into a civil war in all belligerent

countries, demanding a split of authenticsocialists from the Second International.The fake left's ideological prostrationbefore imperialism reflects their manyyears support to Western imperialismagainst the Soviet Union in the name of"democracy" and "human rights." Aslong as the Soviet Union and the deformed workers states of East Europeexisted, as Trotskyists we called for theirunconditional military defense againstimperialism and internal counterrevolution. We fought for proletarian politicalrevolution to oust the nationalist Stalinistbureaucracies. In contrast, the fake leftsupported all manner of pro-capitalistforces in the name of "anti-Stalinism."The state-capitalist British SocialistWorkers Party (SWP) of Tony Cl iff alongwith its satellites and fake Trotskyists likethe USec and Workers Power (the latter

with some contradiction) all opposed theintervention of the Soviet Army intoAfghanistan, the last objectively progressiveact of the Kremlin bureaucracy. Inthe early 1980s they joined in ferventsupport to CIANatican-sponsored PolishSolidarnosc, which was in the forefront ofthe drive for capitalist restoration in EastEurope. A decade later, all these groupscheered on Yeltsin and his pro-imperialist"democrats" as they launched the counterrevolution which was to destroy theSoviet Union.The SWP, who rejoiced when NewLabour was elected, tails after Labour

Ligue Trotskystedenouncesracist Jospingovernment andimperialist waragainst Serbia atMarch 27 Parisprotest againstdeportations ofimmigrants .

"left" Tony Benn, saying, "Tony Benn hasopposed the Falklands War, the Gulf Warand this war" (SWP pamphlet, "Stop theWar," April 1999). Tony Benn is a "littleEngland" nationalist who called for UNsanctions during the Gulf War and todaycomplains the bombing doesn't have UNauthorization. Meanwhile, the press ofthe Socialist Party (formerly "Militant")calls for "workers' action to overthrowMilosevic" (Socialist, 16 April) while,peedless to say, never calling for Britishworkers to overthrow British capitalism.Politically apart from .the British "poorlittle Kosovo" crowd is the SocialistLabour Party (SLP), headed by mineworkers leader Arthur Scargill. An SLPpress release of 24 March, quoting Scargill, forthrightly branded Labour Partyprime minister Tony Blair a murderer. Itpointed to the hypocrisy o( he imperial-

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ists, noting that "Britain still occupiespart of Ireland." However, Scargill'sstatement that the bombing is being carried out "without even the f i g ~ l e a f ofa United Nations Security Resolution"implies confidence in that institution ofthe imperialists. A more left-wing statement by the Normanton ConstituencySLP is titled: "Defend Yugoslavia andIraq-Fight Imperialism." The statementcorrectly nails Blair's New Labour Partyas "anti-working class, pro-imperialist."It says, "We firmly believe in the principle of the right of nations to self determination, and in the case of Yugoslavia thatmeans the right of a sovereign nationto solve its own problems." However,both SLP statements are uncritical ofMilosevic's virulent Serb-chauvinism.Yet in the ApriUMay issue of itsSocialist News, the SLP says nothingabout defeating imperialism, hints at acall for ground troops ("Neither Clintonnor Blair has any intention of puttingtheir soldiers into Kosovo on the side ofthe Kosovar Liberation Army") and callson "UN Secretary General Kofi Annan,Russian Prime Minister Yevgeni Primakov and the Pope to devise a form ofpeace negotiations which would stop thebombing"! Talk about an unholy alli

ance-the Pope who was a key operative for Solidarnosc counterrevolution inPoland, the chief of the UN which invaded Haiti and Somalia and is starvingIraq, and the prime minister of capitalist"post-Soviet" Russia the SLP now beseeches to bring us peace! Scargill'sopposition to the Vatican-sponsored Solidarnosc was used by the Thatcher government as a union-busting spearheadagainst Scargill and the British minersbefore and during their 1984-85 strike.Militants in the SLP who want tooppose British imperialism must understand that the "old Labour" political tradition which the SLP fondly harks backto is anything but anti-imperialist. The"little England" nationalists of the preBlair Labour Party "left" stood on theside of their own imperialism from Indiato Ireland to the "virginity testing" ofAsian women seeking admittance intoBritain. The line of Labourism is the socalled parliamentary road to socialism-AP

as though the ruling class would handover state power to the proletariat after ademocratic election; in the meantime,they seek to participate in the "humane"administration of the capitalist system.You can' t fight imperialist war without arevolutionary fight against the capitalistsystem which breeds war.The Working Class Must FightNational and Racial OppreSSionUnder Lenin and Trotsky, the Bolsheviks led the Russian working masses tosuccessfully smash the capitalist state inOctober 1917. The Bolsheviks took revolutionary Russia out of the imperialistcarnage, and founded the CommunistInternational for the purpose of spreading the revolution worldwide.But unlike in Russia, the sharp revolutionary opportunity presented by the firstWorld War did not lead to the proletariatoverthrowing the bourgeoisie in WesternEurope. The chief responsibility for thislies with the social democracy. Thesebloodhounds of counterrevolution servedtheir bourgeois masters well, butcheringrevolutionaries like the German communists Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. The pressure of imperialist encirclement on the economically backwardSoviet state, the devastation of the Russian working class in the civil war thatsmashed the counterrevolutionary Russian and imperialist forces, and the failure of proletarian revolution abroad setthe stage for a political counterrevolutionin 1924 (Thermidor), in which politicalpower was usurped by a nationalist, parasitic caste headed by Stalin and his heirs.Their false dogma of "building socialismin one country" meant in practice anaccommodation to imperialism. The Stalinist program of class collaboration hasled to the defeat of incipient workers revolutions from China in 1925-27 to Spainin 1936-39, Italy 1943-45 and France inMay 1968. Having destroyed the revolutionary internationalist consciousnessof the Soviet proletariat, the Stalinistbureaucracy finally devoured the workersstate, ushering in the capitalist counterrevolution of 1991-92.U.S. imperialist president Jimmy Carter

continued on page 10Lutte de Classe

French expeditionary forces inMacedonia. LO's ArletteLaguiller and LeR's AlainKrivine, "left" promoters ofFrench imperialism.9


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Declaration ...(continued from page 9)

Der Spiegel AFP

waged Cold War II under the rubric of"human rights." Today, "human rights"imperialism is the watchword of theimperialists and their hangers-on to justify their war aims. During World War I,Britain and France justified their waragainst Germany in the name of liberating Belgium while Germany claimedto be fighting for the liberation ofPoland from Russia. Lenin savagely ridiculed this ' bourgeois deception. Whilestrongly supporting Poland's right toself-determination, he argued that raisingthis slogan in the context of an interimperialist war could only mean "stooping ... to humble servitude to one of theimperialist monarchies" ("The Discussion on Self-Determination SummedUp," July 1916).

"Human rights" imperialism: U.S. occupation forces terrorized . ~ o m a l i a , 1993; SPO-Ied German government unleashedcops against Kurds protesting arrest of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan in February.

While the bourgeoisies today howlabout "poor little Kosovo," they perpetuate numerous instances of nationaland racial oppression, including in western Europe. The French bourgeoisieoppresses and expels thousands of NorthAfricans and other sans papiers from "labelle France." Germany has deportedKurds back to sure repression and possible death in Turkey, while Bosnian refugees were victims of mass deportationsoy the Fourth Reich. Italy sank a ship ofAlbanian refugees on the high seas. Romaand Sinti peoples are hideously tormentedacross "socialist" Europe.The repression of the Basque peopleexposes what capitalist "European unity"is all about: trans-national police-statecoordination of terror against oppressedpeoples fighting for liberation. We demand freedom for the Basque nationalists in French and Spanish prisons, andcall for the right of self-determination ofthe Basques, north as well as south ofthe Pyrenees!The ICL fights for the immediateunconditional withdrawal of Britishtroops from Northern Ireland as part ofthe fight for an Irish workers republicwithin a socialist federation of the BritishIsles. In this situation of interpenetratedpeoples, in which the Catholic minority iscurrently oppressed within the sectarianOrange statelet, we recognize that there isno equitable solution to national oppression short of the mobilization of the proletariat throughout the British Isles for therevolutionary overthrow of British imperialism, smashing the Orange statelet inthe North as well as the Catholic clericalist state in the South.While screaming about Milosevic, the

imperialists are silent about the oppression-including massive forced population transfers-of Kurds in Turkey. Thegovernment of Turkey, the southeast bastion of NATO, has carried out a 14-yearwar against the oppressed Kurdish population that has left some 30,000 dead,totally destroyed 3,500 vi\lages andforced more than three miIIion Kurds toflee their homes. It is notable that theleader of the petty-bourgeois nationalistKurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Abdullah Ocalan, was tracked down by theCIA and was denied asylum by everyEuropean country, while in Germany thePKK is banned. We say: Freedom forOcalan! Down with the persecution ofKurdish militants! For a Socialis t Republic of United Kurdistan!The domestic face of bourgeois nationalism is the sharp increase in racismdirected at Europe's dark-skinned andEastern European immigrant communities, who face massive deportations andstate and fascist violence. Immigrantswho are no longer needed as "guest workers" for low-paid dirty work are beingthrown out while second-generation youthin particular are viewed with contempt bythe rulers: with no jobs and no future forthese youth, the ruling class fears them associal tinder waiting to explode. AcrossEurope, capitalist regimes administeredby supposed "socialists" unleash theircops to terrorize minority youth, while inBlair's Britain the oppression of blacksand Asians has become such an acuteembarrassment that the government wasforced to acknowledge "institutionalizedracism" in the police.Racist oppression is integrally linkedto the mechanism of capitalist exploitation. Social-democratic regimes andpopular-front governments (coalitions

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which tie working-class parties to thebourgeoisie in government) have been putinto office since the collapse of the SovietUnion, with the express purpose ofdestroying the "welfare state." The capitalist rulers no longer feel obligated tomaintain a high standard of living forWestern workers to compete with thesocial benefits of the planned economiesof the East European deformed workersstates resulting from the victory of theRed Army in World War II. As the bourgeoisie seeks to drive up the rate ofexploitation, immigrants are not onlytargeted for deportation but are used asconvenient scapegoats for unemploymentand immiseration. Anti-immigrant racism

Pope ofcounterrevolutionblessing LechWalesa, leader ofPolish SOlidarnosc,which spearheadeddrive for capitalistrestoration in EastEurope in 1980s.

is the cutting edge of attacks on the wholeworking class. The interests of the working class and minorities must advancetogether, or they wi\l fall back separately.The workers movement must fight for fullcitizenship rights for all immigrants andrefugees from right-wing repression.Along with the intensification of thebourgeoisies' war against their own working masses, the final undoing of the October Revolution has intensified social reaction, and as always women are among thechief targets. Capitalist counterrevolutionin the former Soviet Union and EasternEurope has pauperized women, drivingthem out of jobs and back to the tyrannyof "Kinder, Kirche, Ktiche." Across Western Europe and North America, abortionrights are under concerted attack, while inthe so-called "Third World" (but not onlythere), fundamentalist religious forces areon a rampage of anti-woman terror, seeking to buttress every kind of familial andsocial obstacle to the emancipation ofwomen.The fake left spreads the i\lusion thatputting the social democrats into power isa means of "fighting the right" and thefascists. This is a bald-faced lie. Thesecapitalist governments have relentlesslypersecuted the immigrants, while protecting the fascist gangs who spread theirmurderous terror. Appealing to the racistbourgeois state to ban the fascists is simply suicidal and augments the arsenal ofstate repression, which will invariably beused against the left, not the right. Wefight to mobilize the social power o(theorganized proletariat at the head of all theoppressed to smash fascist provocations!West Europe's dark-skinned proletarians are not just defenseless victims butan important component of the working-

class forces capable of destroying theracist capitalist system. To mobilize thepower of the integrated proletariat, however, requires a political struggle againstthe social-democratic parliamentary andunion leaderships, which are transmissionbelts for racist poison into the workingclass and whose pro-capitalist policieshave simply perpetuated the conditions ofmass immiseration and despair whichserve as the breeding ground for fascism.Only active engagement in the urgentsocial struggles against racial oppressionand repression can lay the basis forthe unity of the multi ethnic proletariatagainst the bourgeoisie. But the labor"leaders" pursue the opposite policy, for

example by orgaOlzmg the racist copsinto the trade unions. Cops are not workers! We demand: Cops out of the unions!To once and for all smash the fas

cists-the armed gangs which capitalholds in reserve to use against the working class-requires socialist revolution.But the fake lefts who politically tail thelarger social-democratic bourgeois workers parties are totally incapable of a boldassault on the capitalist system. It isinstructive that the electoral platform ofthe LO-LCR lashup in the European parliamentary elections does not even mention "socialism," let alone "revolution."For these timid reformists the maximumprogram is to go back to the good olddays of

workers vanguard no 712 - 30 april 1999

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