workers vanguard no 730 - 25 february 2000

7/29/2019 Workers Vanguard No 730 - 25 February 2000

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50C!:No. 730 "'X-623 25 February 2000

Illinois Moratorium and Cap-italist Hyp-ocrisy

"authority" of the state's killingn January 31, after the thirteenth case came to light of adeath row inmate in Illinois'who had been falsely convicted,Republican governor George Ryanannounced a state moratorium onexecutions pending a "review" ofdeath penalty procedures. In thefollowing two weeks, the Philadelphia City Council called fora moratorium in Pennsylvania,with hearings scheduled in thestate legislature, and the U.S.Department of Justice announcedplans to review the federal deathpenalty for racial bias.

Top: Texas execution chamber. Majority of death row inmates are black and Hispanic.Dennis Williams (left), Verneal Jimerson and Anthony Porter, among the 13 released fromIllinois death row after proving their innocence.

- - machine; while opinion pollscontinue to show a majority infavor of the death penalty, thatsupport has declined since 1996from 77 percent to 64 percent.Moreover, in recent years thecase of Pennsylvania death row .political prisoner Mumia AbuJamal-whose defense has beentaken up by trade unionists,black people and youth in thiscountry and around the worldhas thrown a spotlight on theracist death penalty.Our rulers want to kill Jamal

It is a testament to how flagrantly unjust t h i ~ system is that thisRepublican governor, a supporter of thedeath penalty, felt compelled to call atemporary halt to executions. The stringof innocent men condemned to death andthe repeated cop corruption and frame-upscandals in Chicago, Philadelphia andLos Angeles, the NYPD's sadistic tortureof Haitian immigrant Abner Louima andthe street execution of Amadou Dialloall this and more starkly reveal the racistnature of capitalist injustice.With a death count of 14 executioris-sofar this year and 98 last year, the assembly line of death is moving at the fastestpace in over half a century. In steppingup the rate of executions and throwingever more people into prison, the capitalist rulers seek to contain and suppressthe explosive contradictions at the baseof this society produced by the growinggap between the tiny handful of filthyrich and the masses of workers andoppressed.To a man, the presidential contendersof both capitalist parties, the Democratsand Republicans, support the death pen"alty. As governor of Texas, George W.Bush has presided over.119 executions,while an adviser to Florida governor JebBush last month exclaimed, "What Ihope is that we become more like Texas.Bring in the witnesses, put them on a

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gurney, and let's rock and roll." At a February 16 press conference, PresidentClinton intoned: "I think Governor Ryandid the right thing, and it was probably acourageous thing to do, because a majority of the American people support capital punishment, as I do." Clinton explicitly rejected a moratorium at the federallevel.The Anti-Terrorism and EffectiveDeath Penalty Aet enacted by Clintonin 1996 gutted the habeas COlpUS rightof state prisoners to have federal courtsreview their convictions and vastlyexpanded the fede ral death penalty, giving a green light to the state's executionmills to go full speed ahead. Now, Attorney General Janet Reno is using the federal laws to push for the first death penalty case in Washington, D.C. in nearly 30years. Capital punishment was repealedin that city in 1980, and residents decisively rejected moves to have it reinstatedin a 1992 referendum. Meanwhile, theFeds are demanding the death penalty forBuford Furrow, the fascist who went on amurderous rampage in Los Angeles lastsummer. The rulers use the cases of suchdespicable killers in order to build popular support for the death penalty, whosetargets are overwhelming minority andpoor people.Less than a year ago, Ryan spurned

appeals for a moratorium following therelease of Anthony Porter, a black manwho had spent 16 years on death row-atone point coming within two days of ascheduled execution-until a Northwestern University journalism' class provedhis innocence. In 1998, a NorthwesternUniversity conference on " w r o ~ g f l : I l convictions" featured thirty exonerated deathrow inmates who told the story of theirordeals. One was Ronaldo Cruz, whoendured three trials based on lying coptestimony before he was finally releasedafter one of the cops admitted that Cruz's"confession" was a lie.On top of the 13 already freed, Ryannow faced the prospect that ten moreinmates. sent to death row by the notorious Chicago Police Department-whoseframe-up machine has been repeatedlyexposed in the past few years forregularly extorting "confessions" undertorture-might have their convictionsoverturned. Ryan's decision to call a moratorium also spared embarrassment toDemocratic Party kingpin and Chicagomayor Richard Daley, who presided overmany of those frame-up convictions whenhe served as state's attorney.More broadly, a section of the bourgeoisie is worried that the high-profileexposures of a series of bogus deathrow convictions will undermine the

because they see in this eloquentjournalist, MOVE supporter and formerBlack Panther Party spokesman the spectre of black revolution, defiant opposition to their system of racist capitalistinjustice. Jamal is the most prominentdeath row inmate in America today, yetthe Philadelphia City Council resolutionfor a moratorium conspicuously omittedany reference to him. Mumia has demonstrated his innocence beyond the shadowof a doubt. But what does this matter tothe capitalist rulers? In the 1993 Herreradecision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruledthat executing an innocent man was notunconstitutional.As Marxists, we stand for the abolitionof the death penalty on principle. We donot accord the state the right to say whoshall live and who shall die. We look notto the capitalist courts and politicians butto the mobilization of the social power ofthe working class to free Mumia andabolish the racist death penalty. Howeverbrief the Illinois moratorium may be, andwhatever reasons the Illinois state authorities had in imposing it, a curtailmentof state-sanctioned murder is somethingMarxists welcome. But even in Franceand other capitalist countries where thereis no death penalty, it does not changethe fundamentally racist and oppressivenature of bourgeois class rule.continued on page 8

. 8 e ~ a r e . : . Eu .c.'ea"..Ullil. t g ~ : M u l l l ~ ' ~ ~ i ~ . : ! ~ ~ i i j f i ~ g j f I W ' . ~ . ~ : e r ' P Austria: Down WithRacist Demagogue Haider! ... 6


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ISO Political Exclusion BackfiresThe ostentatiously reformist International Socialist O(ganization (ISO) usually' excludes us communists from theirpublic events and meetings. But openpolitical debate is vital among groupsclaiming to represent the left. Those who\Vant to fight for socialism must hear thepolitical contention among leftists inorder to decide which strategy to follow.This will serve to advance the fight forsocialist revolution. On the night of February 8 at a public meeting at New YorkUniversity of the ISO's group "Campaignto End the Death Penalty," they got a lesson in workers democracy. And it came

NYC Anti-Death Penalty Meeting

TROTSKY

from members of the Campaign whowere disgusted at the ISO's politicalexclusion and censorship.The event was billed as a discussionon the fight against the death penalty. Itfeatured Lawrence Hayes, a former BlackPanther Party member and death row inmate. who was recently freed after proving his innocence. When our comradesapproached the event, they were told byISO members that we were not allowed -

Marxism and the StateIn calling for cosmetic "reforms" in the

face of blatantly racist cop terror and courtframe-ups, bourgeois liberals seek to buttress the authority of the inherently racistapparatus of capitalist state repression.Such calls are echoed by reformist "socialists," who sow illusions that justice can befound in the capitalist courts and that thecapitalist state can be reformed to serve theinterests of workers and the oppressed. Asoutlined in the platform adopted at the First LENINCongress of he Communist International in 1919, Marxists understand that the capitalist state must be smashed through a socialist revolution which erects in its place aworkers state.The conquest of political power by the proletariat means destroying the politicalpower of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie's mightiest instrument of power is the bourgeois state apparatus with its capitalist army led by officers of the bourgeoisie andlanded aristocracy, its police and security forces, its judges and jailers, preachers, government bureaucrats, and so forth. The conquest of political power does not meanmerely a change of personnel in the ministries. Instead, it means destroying theenemy's state apparatus; seizing real power; disarming the bourgeoisie, the counterrevolutionary officers, and the White Guards. It means arming the proletariat, the revolutionary soldiers, and the workers' Red Guard; removing all bourgeois judges andorganizing proletarian justice; abolishing the rule of reactionary government officials;and creating new organs of proletarian administration. The key to victory for the proletariat lies.in organizing its power and disorganizing that of the enemy; it entails smashing the bourgeois state apparatus while constructing a proletarian one ...The proletarian state is an apparatus of repression like every other, but it is wieldedagainst the enemies of the working class. Its purpose is to break and eliminate theresistance of the exploiters, who use every means in a desperate struggle to drown therevolution in blood. The dictatorship of the proletariat, which openly gives the workingclass the favored position in society, is at the same time a provisional institution. As thebourgeoisie's resistance is broken, and it is expropriated and gradually transformedinto a part of the work force, the proletarian dictatorship wanes, the state withers away,and with it, social classes themselves.So-called democracy, that is, bourgeois d e m o c r a c y ~ is nothing but a veiled dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The highly touted general "will of the people" is no more realthan national unity. In realiiy:-classes confront each other with antagonistic, irreconcilable wills. But since the bourgeoisie a small minority, it needs this fiction, this illusion of a national "will of the p e o p l e : ~ these high-sounding words, to consolidate itsrule over the working class and impose its own class will on thy proletariat. By contrastthe proletariat, the overwhelming majority of the population, openly wields the classpower of its mass organizations, its councils, in order to abolish the privileges of thebourgeoisie and to safeguard the transition to a classless, communist society.

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-"Platform of the Communist International" (March 1919), reprinted inFounding the Communist International (1987)

! ~ ! ! ! ! ! m f . . 4 . . 1 ! ! ' ! . ~ ! ! . ! EDITOR: Len MeyersEDITOR, YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Anna Wo odmanPRODUCTION MANAGER: Susan FullerCIRCULATION MANAGER: Mara Cadiz ,EDITORIAL BOARD: Barry James (managing editor), Bruce Andre, Ray Bishop, Jon Brule,George Foster, Liz Gordon, Walter Jennings, Jane Kerrigan, James Robertson, Joseph Seymour,Alison SpencerThe Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League (FourthInternationalist)Workers Vanguard (ISSN 02760746) published biweekly, except skipping three alternate issues in June . July andAugust (beginning with omitting the second issue in June) and wtth 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. 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, Ne w York, NY 10116.Opinions expressed in signed articles or etters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint.The closing date for news in this issue is F e ~ r u a r y 22.

No. 730 25 February 2000

inside, We protested but, unable to enter,we began distributing our literature outside the meeting hall and talking to people. We met two members of the Campaign who could not believe that we werebeing excluded, but when we explainedthat the ISO fears and loathes politicaldebate, the two members grew angry andled us up to the event with the intentionof having us enter and speak.When we entered the room, this timetotally unmolested, Lawrence Hayes wasalready speaking. He was followed bya speaker from the ISO, The contrastbetween the two was quite graphic. Hayeshad ~ o u g h clear-sightedness to say outright that what is necessary is a movement for socialism. He was scathing inhis criticisms not only of right-wing politicians who push the death penalty, butalso of Democrat Bill Clinton who hasexpanded the power of the state to kill tounprecedented levels. On the other hand,the ISO speaker simply enthused over theIllinois moratorium on the death penalty(see article on page 1) and went on togush over how Clinton recently said thathe might just consider perhaps, maybe,looking into the possibility of a similarfederal moratorium on the s tate's machineryof death. The word "socialism" wasnot deemed fit to utter by this ISOmember. The ISO's big shtick that night wasto pass around a petition demanding a"Moratorium Now" to be sent to Clinton!When discussion began, one of theCampaign members who thought we hada right to speak stood.up and announced,while ISO leaders looked on in dismay,that we were there in opposition to thedeath penalty and that people in the roomshould listen to what we had to say. Hethen ceded the floor to one of our supporters, who explained that the racistdeath penalty is a direct legacy of chattelslavery in America and the defeat of Radical Reconstruction following the CivilWar. We saluted Lawr.ence Hayes' struggle for freedom and r a i s ~ d the necessity offighting to free death row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. The struggleagainst the death penalty is part of thebroader fight against racist American cap-

As we reported in "Charleston ILABattles Racist Union-Busting Assault"(WV No. 728, 28 January), on January20 an army of cops in Charleston,South Carolina attacked hundredsof members of International Longshoremen's Association Local 1422 asthey were picketing a scab ship. Coming only three days after Local 1422had mobilized a contingent for thehuge protest in Columbia, the statecapital, against the Confederate flag ofslavery and Klan terror, the cop assaultunderscores how racism and "openshop" union-busting go hand in hand.Following the police attack, fourILA members face indictment ontrumped-Up felony charges whichcould mean years in prison. In a February 17 letter to the Partisan DefenseCommittee, Dockworkers DefenseFund spokesman and Local 1422 president Kenneth Riley stressed theurgent need for funds for legaldefense: "I believe strongly that thearrested longshoremen are innocentlycaught up in a political prosecution.

italism; we emphasized that what is necessary is not impotent petitions but amobilization of the multiracial proletariat on behalf of Jamal and against theracist death penalty. He brought upthe October 23 anti-Klan mobilizationwhich the Spartacus Youth Club helped tobuild and organize-as an example ofwhat we mean when we talk about themobilization of the social power of the.working class on behalf of all the. oppressed. And, as ISO members cringed,we described their role as stooges for theDemocratic Party's defense of the Klan's"right" to "speech"-which amounts todefending the Klan's "right" to tlMIrderand organize for murder. We explainedthat the death penalty and the cops andcourts who enforce it are part of the capitalist state apparatus which cannot bereformed, but must be smashed throughworkers revolution. While the ISOopposes the death penalty, it is on purelyliberal grounds. For example, they thinkthe cops, who are the armed defenders ofcapitalist law and order, are part of theworking class, if only they would "rebelcollectively"!The ISO has a problem. Fearing exposure by revolutionaries, they think theycan seal us off from their membership.But every once in a while, they alsoattract the critical thinker who wonderswhat is so dangerous about the excludedSpartacists. It is precisely this criticalthinker, so essential for any genuinesocialist organization, that the ISO fearsand wants to drive away (or dumb down).For our part, we would like the ISO members to know that they are welcome tocome to our events. Of course, we willscathingly polemicize against their political program of warmed-over liberalism.Polemics, which an ISO leader deridedto the Campaign member as "squabbles,"are an essential part of being a communist, if for nothing else than to justify agroup's independent existence. Speakingback in 1967 to students of the New Left,the Marxist intellectual Isaac Deutschergave a piece of advice that we would liketo pass on to members of the ISO and theCampaign to End the Death Penalty: "Allhuman thinking and all human organization is subject to differentiation. Whetheryou like it or not, 'squabbling' is the stuffof life; do not be contemptuous of it.".

Smith/Post and CourierJanuary 20: ILA Local 1422 picketattacked by state and local cops.They neyd and deserve the best possible defense."An injury to one is an injury to all!The PDC has donated to the Dock,workers Defense Fund, and we urge allour readers to do likewise. Send contributions to: Dockworkers DefenseFund, clo Robert J. Ford, Treasurer ofthe Fund, 910 Morrison Drive,Charleston, SC 29403. .

WORKERS VANGUARD


3/12

California.s Prop 21 Targets Black,Latino and Immigrant YouthOAKLAND-On the eve of the March 7primaries)n California, racist demagogues backed by both parties of the ruling class are pushing Proposition 21, theso-called "Gang Violence and JuvenileCriIJ1.e Prevention Act," whose purpose isto unleash the brutal machinery of staterepression against poor, immigrant, blackand Latino youth. California state referendums over the past decade have been aspearhead for similar measures nationally: from the systematic destruction ofaffirmative action and the purge of minorities from California universities (Prop.209) to the deprivation of "illegal" immigrants from access to food stamps, schoollunches and health care (Prop. 187), to'the "Three Strikes Initiative" (Prop. 184)which mandates, among other things, thatindividuals with two convictions for specified "strike crimes" receive a sentenceof 25 years to life upon conviction ofany subsequent felony, regardless of itsseriousness.The ruling class has again chosen the"Golden State" as its laboratory of copterror and racist reaction. Prop. 21 wouldextend the use of the racist death penalty,increase the scope of the "Three Strikes"law, and condemn younger and youngerkids to rot in California's vast andexpanding prison system for the rest oftheir lives. Prop. 21 would also allowprosecutors to send minors to adultcourts without a hearing before a juvenile court judge, and require that youthas young as 14 be tried as adults in specified cases. Vote no on Prop. 21!

Prop. 21 continues the bipartisan racist"war on drugs" carried out against theworkers and poor; its context is the sinister intensification of state repression andeconomic misery on all fronts. While thecapitalist rulers enjoy their vaunted economic boom, poverty d e v a s t a t e ~ the innercities. Working.!class and minority youthconfront the prospects of either slavewage, dead-end jobs, unemployment, orthe concrete walls of a prison cell. Theslashing of affirmative action ripped awaythe opportunity for higher educationoffered to a few. Nationally, 2 millionpeople are behind bars. In Los AngelesCounty, minority youth arrested for a violent felony are significantly more likely tobe transferred to an adult court and sentenced to confinement than white youtharrested for the same crimes. And blackyouth are 18.4 times more likely thanwhites to be sentenced by an adult court

BAY AREAThursday, March 2, 7 p.m.Class-Struggle Fight forBlack Freedom

UC Berkeley, Dwinelle, Room 179Information and readings: (510) 839-0851or (415) 395-9520CHICAGO

Saturday, February 26, 3 p.m.Imperialism, War andthe Class Struggle328 S. Jefferson St., Suite 904(near Clinton stop on Blue Line)Information and readings: (312) 454-4930or [email protected] YORK

Tuesday, February 29, 7 p.m.Revolution vs. Reform:

The Russian Revolution-How theWorking Class Took PowerNYU, Thompson Center, Basement238 Thompson St. (near W. 3rd St.)Information and readings: (212) 267-1025

25 FEBRUARY 2000

Even middle-class high school students in "good" neighborhoods are victimized by the intensifying regimentationof youth. From dress codes and curfewsto the anti-smoking, anti-booze, antidrug and anti-sex campaigns, the stateincreasingly intervenes in the lives ofall young people. Preventing access tobirth control and abortion and imposing 1950s-style "family values," the statecallously assaults the rights of youth andseeks to enforce submission to authority.We say: Cops out of the schools! Government out of the bedrooms!

Butow/SABAProp. 21 would intensify police reign of terror against ghetto andbarrio youth, extending use of death penalty and requiring children asyoung as 14 to be tried as adults in specified cases.

The liberal opposition to Prop. 21,from tl)e ACLU to the Third Eye Movement and Critical Resistance Youth Force,has worked overtime to paint it as "PeteWilson's Attack on Youth" in order tobuild support for the Democratic Party,which is equally a party of racism andwar. Prop. 21, written by former Republican governor Wilson, is backed by thecurrent Democratic Party governor GrayDavis, who recently signed a law legislative insiders say was designed tomeet Prop. 21 halfway (Oakland Tribune,19 December 1999). The liberals and theso-called "leftists" who follow behindthem into the Democrats' camp haveto close their eyes to reality when theypaint the Democrats as any less an enemyof working people, minorities and youth.In fact, the Democrats have been handin glove with the Republicans in beefing up the forces of state repression,pushing the anti-drug witchhunt, backing "boot camps" supposedly to fight"youth crime," working to deflect popularoutrage over cops gunning down blackand Latino "suspects." Clinton's vow to"end welfare as we know it " has ledstraight to starvation and homeless nessfor welfare mothers and their children.Some "lesser evil"!

to confinement. The juvenile detentionfacilities are hellholes. At California'slargest facility in Chino, inmates wereroutinely beaten, shot at close range withriot guns, and forcibly injected with antipsychotic drugs.While slashing funds for schools, billions are poured into the prison system.Police-state terror reigns in the ghettos,and the growing ranks of fascist scumare emboldened to murder, like lastsummer's shootings at a Jewish day-carecenter in L.A. Daily in the press comemore revelations of a massive conspiracy of evidence fabrication and racistframe-ups by the star thugs in theLAPD's "anti-gang" division. What "justice" for black and Latino youth meansin America is_exemplified by L.A. copsshooting a "gang member" while he washandcuffed.Among the most sinister elements of. Prop. 21 is the further extension of criminalizing "gang-related activity"-a racist

TORONTOThursday, March 9, 7 p.m.

How the Russian RevolutionUberated Women

U of T, International Student Centre33 St. George St. (north of College St.)For room and information: (416) 593-4138Email: [email protected]

VANCOUVERTuesday, March 7, 7 p.m.For Women's Uberation ThroughSocialist Revolution!

University of British ColumbiaStudent Union Building, Rm. 215Information and readings: (604) 687-0353

Visit the leLWeb Site!www.icl-fi.org

code word for poor black, Latino, andAsian youth. Police will be given carteblanche to terrorize the barrios and ghettos. Already under current state law, anygroup of three or more kids who dress"alike," hang out together and do anythingthe police choose to regard as "criminal"is classified as a "gang." Remember theFirst Amendment promise o f "freedom ofassociation"? Clearly this country's rulersthink it doesn't apply to today's youth,especially if they're working-class andminorities.The "gang m e m b e r ~ ' database maintained by California police agenciesalready has over 300,000 names! Prop. 21would further broaden the d ~ f i n i t i o n of"gangs," require extra jail time for "gangaffiliation," and add "gang-related" murder to the already long list of "specialcircumstances" mandating the death penalty. And vandalism would become a felony for as little as $400 worth of propertydamage (instead of $50,000), bringingdown the state's machinery of humandestruction on youth who paint graffiti orbreak a window.

Liberals oppose Prop. 21 on thegrounds that "youth crime is alreadylower," accepting the legitimacy of Prop.21 's racist terms of debate. They areechoed by reformists like the International Socialist Organization, which opposes the death penalty by arguing, "Itdoesn't stop crime" (from a flyer by theISO's group Campaign to End the DeathPenalty issued at UC Berkeley). AndSocialist Action discovers cothinkersamongst the professionals of capitaliststate repression: "Those who understandwhat creates crime and what prevents itunderstand that this initiative is not goingto lower crime; that's why the Chief Probation Officers of California are againstcontinued on page 11

S p a r t a c i s t ~ Forums ,

Saturday, February 26, 4 p.m.Emmanuel Presbyterian Church, Geneva Room3300 Wilshire Blvd. (at Berendo)LOS ANGELES For more information, call (213) 380-8239

Hear update on the fight to free Mumia Abu-JamalSeattle WTD Protests PushedAnti-Communism, ~ m e r i c a n Ch"auvinism

Thursday, March 2, 7 p.m.University of Chicago, Cobb Hall. 5811 S. Ellis Ave.CHICAGO For more information: (312) 454-4930

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4/12

Revolution vs.Counterrevolutionin Germany, 198990,We. publish below the first part of a

presentation given at Spartacist Leaguepublic meetings in New York, Chicagoand the San Francisco Bay Area in late. January and early February. The speakerwas comrade Steffen Singer, editor ofSpartakist, publication of the SpartakistWorkers Party (SpAD), German sectionof the International Communist League.

PART ONEOn November 8, 1999, on the tenthanniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall,there was a talk show on German TVwith Mikhail Gorbachev, former head

of the Soviet Union; Helmut Kohl, exchancellor of German imperialism; andU.S. ex-president Bush. They were chatting about how they organized the counterrevolution in East Germany (DDR) in1990 and Gorbachev said:"We changed our point of view on theprocess of unification of Germany underthe impact of events that unfolded in theDDR. And an especially critical situation came about in January [1990]. Inessence, a breakdown of structures tookplace. A threat arose-a threat of disorganization, of a big deStabilization. Thisbegan on January 3 and [went] furtheralmost every day."

On January 3, 1990, 250,000 peoplecame to an anti-fascist, pro-Soviet, prosocialist mobilization at East Berlin'sTreptow monument, which was built tohonor the Red Army soldiers who died inthe struggle to free Berlin from the fascists. They came in protest against thedesecration of that monument by fascists in late December 1989. And it waswe Trotskyists who initiated that unitedfront. We distributed 130,000 leafletsto East Berlin factories, working-classneighborhoods, city train stations andespec ially ' to foreign workers. And wesaid:"The vile desecration of the Memorial tothe Fallen Soviet Heroes in Treptow onDecember 28 provokes disgust and outrage among millions of workers andbroad layers of the population of theDDR. This provocation is. directed aswell at our workers state, which wasbuilt on the ruins of Hitler fascism."We warned: "Resurgent fascism is still anextremist fringe phenomenon. It wouldagain threaten all mankind as soon as thefirst crises in a reunified Grossdeutsch-land [Greater Germany] appear. Today,however, the SPD/SDP [the SocialDemocracy in West and East Germany] isthe chief instrument to bring about such aGreater Germany. Throttling the hydraheaded fascist monster now is to bluntthis Social Democratic penetration." Westressed that "Social Democracy is theTrojan horse of counterrevolution!"And we demanded: "For united workers militias under the control of workersand soldiers councils! Workers and Soldiers councils to power! For a Leninistegalitarian party!... Full citizenshiprights for foreign workers! For economicrevitalization through central planningunder workers councils! No sell-out ofthe DDR ... For a red soviet Germany!"It was the factory workers who werethe backbone of that mobilization. At fIrstthe SEDIPDS (Socialist Unity PartyIPartyof Democratic Socialism), the East German Stalinist ruling party, refused to jointhe call for a demonstration. But whenthey realized that the East Berlin factoriesstood behind our call, Lothar Bisky, aleader of the SEDIPDS, told us, "Youhave the workers," and they were forcedto take up the call for the demonstration.So 250,000 heard Trotskyism vs. Stalinism, the ICL vs. the SEDIPDS. It wasthe first time since Trotsky was bannedfrom the USSR and the Left Opposition4

SpartakistJanuary 1990, East Berlin-Spartacists initiated 250,000-strong rally a g ~ i n s t fascist desecration of Treptow memorialto Red Army. Spartakist-Gruppen banner reads: "For a Red Germany of Workers Councils in a Socialist Europe!"was destroyed there in the late 1920s thatTrotskyists were able to address a massaudience in a deformed workers state. Iquote from our comrade's speech:"A political revolution has broken outand is growing in our midst, and wemust defend it."Economic absorption and politicalincorporation by stages-which WestGerman imperialism, aided by the SPD,seeks-can turn this political revolu-tion into a social counterrevolution. Thismust not happen! It is necessary to fightagainst it!"That's right, stop the Nazis through aworkers united front! We have to thinkfurther. Our economy is suffering fromwaste and obsolescence. The SED partydictatorship has shown that it is incompetent to fight this ...."Lenin said, 'Politics is concentrated eco-nomics.' The fight for the power to makethese decisions and to run this countrymust lie in the hands of workers councilsso that rational decisions satisfactory tothe majority can be arrived at. ..."The Soviet Union will certainly take thesame road, and that would also assist usin jointly solving economic and politicalproblems and in the defense of our states,

our workers states, which are presently

transitional, broken from capitalism butcertainly not yet socialist...."We fight to forge a new workers party-o f equal rights, equal duties-in thespirit of Lenin, Liebknecht and Luxemburg. Stop the Nazis through united-frontaction! Workers and soldiers soviets topower! Workers of the world unite!"

Counterrevolution DevastatesFormer DDRThe SEDIPDS and Gorbachev werescared by the spectre of proletarian political revolution that Treptow represented.The last thing they wanted to see was theworking class in political power in theDDR. They changed gears and came outopenly for a capitalist Anschluss (annexation). As Gorbachev said on the TV talkshow, describing a discussion at the timewith DDR leader Han!> "yfodrow:

"I t was precisely at that moment whenModrow told me that I must say on thatsame day that if we had spoken up untilthen about some sort of treaty alliance oftwo states, Germans-the majoritytoday come out for unification of Germany .... That was when I said to him[Kohl] that we in the Soviet leadership

Kohl, Gorbachevand Bush:Architects ofcapitalistreunificationcelebrate ten yearsof counterrevolutionwhich hasdevastated easternGermany.Unemployed andhomeless line up atBerlin soup kitchen.P. Glaser

took as our point of departure that what-ever form and whatever time period bywhich the unification of Germany tookplace-this was the right of Germansthemselves."As we had warned and fought against,counterrevolution devastated the formerDDR: the whole of industry was leveleddown, with mass unemployment of 20percent or more, even worse for theyouth. There are incessant, relentlessattacks on the living standards of theworking class in the West, a drive to breakthe power of the trade unions and todestroy industrial wage contract systems.Women have been especially hard hi t -60 percent of them lost their jobs in theformer DDR and there are attacks onabortion rights. The bourgeoisie wants todestroy the pension system, the educationsystem, health care.At the same time, increased racist stateterror is used to split the working class.There are countless deportations of immi-. grants and refugees, even of youth bornin Germany. There is a dangerous growth

of the fascists, with day-to-day fascistmurder and terror. And such a huge rise ofanti-Semitism that the head of the Jewishcommunity, who died some months ago,made sure he wouldn't be buried in Germany, because he didn't want his grave tobe dynamited by fascists, as happened tothe grave of his predecessor three timesalready.In East Europe, the situation for theworking masses is even worse. At thesame time, throughout West Europe therehave been huge militant struggles of theworking class against these attacks bythe bourgeoisie. So for the bourgeoisie'scelebration of the tenth anniversary ofthe fall of the Berlin Wall, the capitalistSocial Democratic-led government hiredthe most popular of the governmentfriendly writers and artists to come tothe Brandenburg Gate, in the center ofthe German capital, Berlin. Only 15,000turned out, compared to 2 million forthe MilleIJnium celebration, because themajority of the workers in Germany andEurope see nothing to celebrate.On that TV talk show, Kohl wasn't. very happy with what Gorbachev said.The bourgeoisie is pushing this big"death of communism" campaign, claiming that everybody supposedly yearnedfor capitalism in 1989-90, and the Treptow mobilization on January 3, 1990doesn't fit into that campaign at all. Justone example: A big book was publishedWORKERS VANGUARD


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with protocols of Kohl's negotiations in1989-90; it was one or two thousandpages long. The protocols beginningwith our call at the end of December1989 for the united-front protest at Treptow up to the end of January J990 weremarked "secret" and were not reprinted.At the same time, there's a sinistercampaign by the bourgeoisie of Auschwitz to equate the DDR with Hitler'sThird Reich. So at the sites of the formerNazi concentration camps, there are nowexhibits about "crimes of the Red Army"and "for the yictims of StaI.inism," meaning mainlrNazis. And on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, thebourgeoisie's courts sent three formerleading bureaucrats of the DDR to jail onyearlong sentences-because they wererepresentatives of the DDR workersstate-equating this to the Nurembergtrials.What the bourgeoisie wants to disappear with this whole campaign is thatin 1989-90 the question was posed: Revolution or counterrevolution. There wasa revolutionary situation in 1989. Lenindefined a revolutionary situation as onein which the rulers cannot rule in the oldway and the oppressed don't want to beruled the old way. In October 1989, theruling bureaucratic caste of the DDR collapsed; you had growing demonstrations and in late October SED leaderErich Honecker fell from power with thehelp of Gorbachev. And what developedin the East German deformed workersstate was an incipient proletarian political revolution. The question was posed:Which class shall rule? The choices wereeither proletarian political revolutioni.e., the working class ousts the bureaucracy and takes political power into itsown hands--or capitalist counterrevolution, i.e., the West German bourgeoisietakes over the DDR.The October Revolution andthe Stalinist ThermidorA proletarian political revolution iswhat we fought for. This struggle mustbe based on the principled defense ofproletarian property forms. To understand what happened in 1989 and howwe fought for power, we have to go backto the Russian Revolution in 1917.In 1914 the First World War broke out.This was an imperialist war over the redivision of the world. With the outbreakof the war, many of the parties of the Second International went over to the side oftheir own bourgeoisies. They were key insending the working class of each country to slaughter their class brothers in theother countries. They became what Lenincalled bourgeois workers parties, havinga working-class base but a bourgeois program-i.e., they defended the interestsand the rule of the bourgeoisie . .The horror of the First World War ledthe workers or the Russian empire tooverthrow the tsar in the February Revolution of 1917. They built soviets, workers councils. The majority of the workersand soldiers at that point trusted the Mensheviks, who were the Russian socialdemocrats. And the Mensheviks handedpower back to the bourgeoisie. They builtthe Provisional Government in coalitionwith outright bourgeois parties, a popularfront. The Mensheviks, who had themajority in the soviets, s u b o r d i n a t e ~ thesoviets to the bourgeois government, withthe aim of finally dissolving the sovietsand creating a bourgeois parliamentaryrepublic.

That meant continuing the war, todefend the property'of the bourgeoisie,defending the factories against the workers and the big landowners against thepeasantry. The Bolsheviks, having splitfrom the Mensheviks much earlier, understood that the social democrats cannotbe pressured to serve the interests of theworkers, and fought instead to break theworking-class base from their socialdemocratic leadership. The Bolshevikscalled for the soviets to break with thebourgeoisie and for "All power to thesoviets." But that's what the Mensheviksand the Menshevik-led soviets wouldn't do.Over the course of struggle betweenFebruary and October 1917, the workers25 FEBRUARY 2000

and soldiers became convinced that theMensheviks wouldn't fight for their inter- ,ests, wouldn 't break with the bourgeoisie,no matter how much pressure you mightput on them. The workers and soldiersbroke with the Mensheviks and were wonto the Bolsheviks. In October 1917, theBolsheviks led. tile workers revolution;the soviets took power in an insurrectionbased on the armed working class and thesoldiers smashing the bourgeois state.The world bourgeoisie did everythingto smash the revolution. A civil war ofunprecedented scale ensued, with 14 capitalist countries invading on the side ofthe White Ouards, the Russian counterrevolutionary armies. The Red Army, ledby Trotsky, defeated them with the helpof the working class in the home countries of the invading capitalist armies.The Bolsheviks understood very wellthat backward Soviet Russia couldn'tsurvive if it remained isolated. They saw'October 1917 as the beginning of world

Demonstration of armed workers andsoldiers in 1918-19 Berlin uprising.Heroic Spartacusbund leaders KarlLiebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg,murdered by counterrevolutionariesin January 1919.

revolution. It was necessary to extendthe revolution to the advanced capitalist countries. That's why Lenin andTrotsky founded the Third Internationalas the party necessary to lead the worldrevolution.The Russian Revolution was an inspiration to all the oppressed, all over theworld. At the end of the world war, awave of revolutionary upheavals sweptover Europe. Like their Russian counterparts, the social-democratic parties elsewhere in Europe acted to save the rule ofthe bourgeoisie from the working class.

The newly founded Communist partieswere too young and inexperienced to leadthese revolutions to victory. In Germany,one of the most advanced capitalist countries, the revolutionary crisis was themost acute. The SPD used the Freikorps,a fascistic counterrevolutionary army,to drown the 1918-1919 Revolution inblood. They beheaded the young Communist Party (KPD), killing Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, the two outstanding revolutionary leaders of theGerman proletariat.In 1923, an extraordinary revolutionary crisis shook Germany. The Germanworkers looked to the KPD to lead them,but the leadership of the KPD lookedto the left wing of the SPD to make therevolution and even joined them in a parliamentary, that is bourgeois, coalitiongovernment. When the KPD let this r ~ v o -lutionary situation pass, the workers indevastated Soviet Russia became demoralized, because it meant the continuedisolation of the Russian Revolution. Atthe beginning of 1924, a conservativebureaucratic caste headed by Stalin t{)okadvantage of the situation and usurpedpolitical power, ripping it ou t or thehands of the proletariat. At this point, thepeople who ruled the USSR, the way theUSSR was ruled and the aims the USSRwas ruled for all changed.It was a political counterrevolution,but not a social counterrevolution. The

bureaucracy was oased on the planned,collectivized ecpnomy; that's where theyderived their privileges from. However,they didn't own the means of production,which remained nationalized. Bureaucrats would manage a factory but theycouldn't own it; for example, they.couldn't pass that factory on to' theirchildren. It was not a ruling class butrather an unstable bureaucratic caste.This bureaucracy had a dual nature: itwas hostile to the working class, insofaras it had to defend its privileges andits rule against the workers. At the sametime their bureaucratic privileges derivedfrom the planned economy that issuedout of the victorious October Revolution.Meanwhile, the world bourgeoisie washostile to the Soviet bureaucracy andwas uncompromisingly devoted to thedestruction of the Soviet Union.In 1924, Stalin came out with thecounterrevolutionary dogma of "buildingsocialism in one country," which stood

Dietz Verlag Berlin photos

WillyR6mer180 degrees counterposed to the proletarian internationalism that inspired the'October Revolution. The Third International was thus turned from a tool forworld revolution into an obstacle to it. Itstask was no longer to lead the workersto power, but to appease the imperialistbourgeoisies so that they would notattack the Soviet Union, so that "socialism" could be built there, bU,t nowhereelse. Trotsky led the Left O p p o ~ i t i o n inan uncompromising struggle against thedegeneration of the Soviet Union and theThird International and defended theBolshevik program against the Stalinists.Soviet Union CrushedNazi GermanyIn Germany, the failure of the 1923revolution gave rise to the fascists. Theygrew enormously in the late '20s andearly , 30s, when Germany was rockedby the Great Depression. Faced with ahuge class polarization, the German

bourgeoisie unleashed the fascists. Theworking class wanted to fight. The SPDleadership didn't want to mobilize itsworking-class base because once theworkers were set in motion against thefascists, they wouldn't stop at that, butwould go on to sweep away the wholecapitalist system that breeds the fascistscum. At the same time, the CommunistParty refused to I}lobilize against the fascists in a united front with the SPD, tosmash the fascists on the one hand andto prove the superiority ofthe communistprogram over the bourgeois program ofthe SPD on the other. Such united-frontaction would have enabled the Communists to rip the SPD's working-class baseaway from its treacherous leadershipin the course of the struggle and thusopen the road to a proletarian revolution.That's what the Trotskyist Left Opposition was fighting for.In early 1933, Hitler came to powerwithout even a shot being fired. The fascists smashed all working-class organizations, the Communist Party, the SPD,the trade unions. Then they started theHolocaust, the killing of six million Jewsand millions of homosexuals, Roma(Gypsies) and Communists. In 1941, theNazi regime invaded the Soviet Union,trying to get one-sixth of the world backunder the yoke of capitalist exploitation.We Trotskyists unconditionally militarilydefended the Soviet Union. But we hadno side in the war between the imperialistpowers, instead struggling for their overthrow through international proletarianrevolution. And it was the Red Army,'despite Stalin, that smashed the Naziregime. Nearly 30 million Soviet citizensgave their lives.After the victory of the Red Army, theStalinists expropriated capitalism-fortheir own reasons and with their ownmethods-in East Germany and EastEurope. Faced with imperialist Cold Warhostility, the Soviet bureaucracy abolished private property in those countriesoccupied by the Red Army in EastEurope-to bring the new regimes intoaccordance with that of the USSR. So theseries of post-war social transformationswere not carried out as a conscious act ofthe proletariat like the Russian Revolution of 1917, but from the top down withmilitary-bureaucratic means, after theearlier capitalist states had been smashedas a result of the war. The politicalregimes of all the deformed workersstates in the post-war period were qualitatively the same as in the USSR afterdecades of Stalinist degeneration. Thisincluded Yugoslavia, China, North Korea,Vietnam and Cuba, where the differences,if any, were quantitative. The expropriation of the means of production is a progressivemeasure which we defend. But,as Trotsky argued when t!)e Red Armymoved into eastern Poland in late 1939,such expropriations are not the key political criteria, unless a change in propertyrelations leads to a rise in the consciousness and the organization of the proletariat. From this decisive point, he wrotein In Defense of Marxism, the "politicscontinued on page 10

Victorious Red Army tramples Nazi swastika, Austria 1945. ,5


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.....

Austria: Down With Racist Demagogue Haider!We publish below an edited translation

of a eaflet issued on February 18 by theSpartakist Workers Party of Germany(SpAD), section of the InternationalCommunist League. The SpAD distributed this leaflet the next day at a protestof nearly 300,000 people in Vienna againstJ6rg Haider's openly racist FreedomParty (FPO). Following the FPO's entryinto a coalition government with thePeople's Party (OVP) earlier this month,mass protests have taken place not only inAustria but throughout West Europe.The presence ofthe FPO in the government poses a sinister threat to theAustrian working class, immigrantsand other minorities. At the sametime, the political thrust of these protests is to restore to power the Socialist Party (SPO) which long administered the racist, capitalist Austrianstate. As for the SPO's posture of representing a bulwark against Haider,the social-democratic ex-chancellorof Austria, Viktor Klima, declaredlast month that "he would not categorically exclude in the future forming a coalition" with the FPO if that'swhat it takes to get back in power(L'Humanite, 26 January).

For aUnited Socialist States of Europe!Haider statements by German and Frenchleaders "reflected a growing determination to turn a union that was long essentially a trade bloc into an ever closerpolitical community with some aspects ofa federal state." In imposing sanctionsagainst the FPO's entry into the Austriangovernment, German imperialism and its

less than three years ago in implementing the Schengen accord aimed at keeping Slavic and dark-skinned immigrantsout of racist "Fortress Europe."As rivalries among the major imperialist powers-the U.S., Germany andJapan-intensify, we Marxists, proletarian internationalists, stand in steadfast

crats, imposed a hypocritical bilateralboycott against the OVPIFPO govern- cment of Austria at the ministerial level.At the same time, Nazis were marchingthrough the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, protected by the cops of the SPDIGreen government. These governmentsare pursuing the same racist policiesagainst immigrants, refugees and Romaand Sinti that the FPO intends to carryout. In an article on February 2, theFrankfurter Rundschau put its fingeron it: "If it were a question only ofthis, the EU would have to keep aneye on German minister of the interior Otto Schily." The current deportations of 180,000 Balkan refugeeswill be continued and intensified bythe SPD/Green government and also

the PDS [Party of DemocraticSocialism]-supported state governments-in cooperation with the"boycotted" FPO ministers.

As the leaflet details, various reformist and centrist groups haveseized on opposition to the FPO inorder to fall in behind the socialdemocratic rulers of their own imperialist countries, jus t as they backedtheir own rulers in the U.S.-ledimperialist war of domination againstSerbia last year. While Tony Cliff'sBritish Socialist Workers Party (represented in the U.S. by the InternationalSocialist Organization) calls for supportto the European Union (EU) in order totail the Blair Labour government, itsGerman 'sister group, Linksruck, explicitly backs German imperialism and thegovernment of Social Democratic (SPD)chancellor SchrOder. In a leaflet distributed at a February 19 protest in Berlin,Linksruck argued: "Because Haider is afascist, he must be isolated-thusSchrOder is totally right to threaten Austria with sanctions .... The blockade ofthe European Union is strengthening theresistance movement against this racistand anti-social government,':'

February 19, Vienna: 300,000 p r . ~ t e s t Haider's racist FPO. West European socialdemocrats have seized on FPO's entry into Austrian government in drive tostrengthen European Union imperialist bloc.

For almost 50 years without interruption, the racist SPO has administered Austrian imperialism-theother successor state to the ThirdReich-with which it is indissolublybound. SPO president Adolf Scharfran his 1957 election campaign onthe slogan, "People who were oncefor Adolf are voting Adolf again thisyear." Today this SPO, behind thescenes, is leading the demonstrations against the OVPIFPO government, for their capitalist Austria.The vanguard for the SPO in this arethe "leftist" and pseudo-Trotskyistgroups such as the Communist Party

This is unabashed support to the aim ofthe European imperialist powers, withGermany at the head, to cohere the EU asa military and political force followingthe creation of a uni fied currency underthe terms of the 1992 Maastricht Treaty.Following the Balkans War, Germanyand the other EU ~ t a t e s moved rapidlyto establish a unified European military force as a counterweight to the U.S.dominated NATO alliance. Now, as theNew York Times (20 February) notes, anti-

6

partners are asserting a precedent to dictate policy to other EU member states.The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung(11 February) quoted in the leaflet givesa hint of how the Social Democrats'"anti-fascist" rhetoric is used to furtherthe ambitions of German imperialism:"The Holocaust and 'never again' arebecoming the code words for the founding myth of a European nation .... Germany has participated in a war for thefirst time since 1945, led by a left government. The reason given was to stifle a new fascism in the Balkans .... IncOllnection with the European left, he[SchrOder] works toward the Europeanization of the Holocaust. This eases theburden on the Germans, especially whenthey, together with their European partners, kick the Austrians in the shin."

While ordering the first German expeditionary force into the Balkans since Hitler's Wehrmacht, at home the SchrOderregime which cynically intones "neveragain" is perpetrating racist terror anddeportations against Turks, Kurds andother "non-Germans." Indeed, the sameEU governments which now hypocritically denounce the FPO for its pronounced anti-immigrant racism joined

opposition to our "own" imperialist rulers and declare: "The main enemy is athome!"* * *Many leftists and workers are taking tothe streets to demonstrate against Haiderand the FPO, an extremely racist andreactionary party. Haider and his croniesdemonstrate their fascistic views, forexample celebraring'the"orderly employment policy" of the Nazis. Now, withthe FPO in the government, the SPO istrying to portray itself as the defender of"democracy," while for decades itself

carrying out racist state terror againstimmigrants and refugees and activelypreparing the way for the FPO. One onlyhas to think of the brutal murder of refugee Marcus Omofuma in April 1999 bythe SPO cops and the massive deportations, often to certain death. Encouragedby this SPO-led racist state terror, in themid-1990s Austrian Nazis began a waveof terror against immigrants, refugees,Roma and Sinti [Gypsies] and leftists.The capitalist governments of Europe,most of which are led by social demo-

"tl'0:roof/J

German SPDchancellorSchroder withFrench SocialistParty primeminister Jospin.Social democratsled Europeanimperialist powersin U.S./NATO waragainst Serbia.German tank inMacedonia, nearKosovo border,March 1999.

of Austria, ArbeiterInnenstandpunkt[ASt], the [Cliffite] Linkswende and thenewly formed Socialist Left Party (SLP),formerly the SOY [Taaffeites], all ofwhom want to make the SPO-led OGB[Austrian Trade Union Federation] fightfor the continuation of class collaborationin an SPO-administered capitalism. Thatmeans the interests of the workers aresubordinated to those of the capitalistexploiters.In contrast we fight to bring downracist capitalism. For this, what is neededis a class-struggle leadership of the tradeunions and the building of a new revolutionary workers party, which mobilizesthe proletariat independently and in itsown class interests. The social democratic trade-union bureaucracy, which theentire fake left supports, is a barrier tothis. While the fake lefts want to tieyouth and workers again to the socialdemocracy, we fight to split the workingclass base from these bourgeois workersparties.The truth is that the social democratssee rightists such as Haider as a threatto European economic unity, which theEuropean capitalist rulers know is necessary for the EU to compete successfully as an imperialist trade bloc againstJapan and especially the United States.This is the reason for the sharp reactionsespecially of Belgium and Francewhich face strong fascist, extreme rightist, anti-Europe movements in their owncountries-dangerous diplomatic. sanctions which can lead to war.The SPD's Bundestag [parliamentary]deputy fraction head, SPD "leftist" Gernot Erler, hit the nail. on the head: "Interms of foreign policy, it will be 'serious' if Haider tries to block the eastward expansion of the EU" (FrankfurterRundschau, 27 January). An Austriadominated by Haider could block theexpansion of the EU to eastern andsouthern Europe, which was one of themain reasons for the Balkan War ledby the governing Social Democrats. The

WORKERS VANGUARD


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Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung commented on 11 February: "The anti-Haideraction was born at the Stockholm Holocaust Conference. It was conceived in theBalkan' War. From then on the lef tsabove all the Germans-carried theirEurope under their hearts, no matterwhere it beat .. And Tony Cliff's fake-leftSocialist Workers Party, British parentorganization of Linkswende, appealed totheir imperialism: "There should be nocooperation with the Freedom Party: Weare supporting the European Union'sposition" {(London] Times, 3 February).Meanwhile the social democrats allover Europe are using their campaignagainst Haider to wrap themselves inthe flag of "anti-fascist" patriotism andto build chauvinist mobilizations in orderto distract from their own attacks onthe living standards of the masses. Forinstance, at a February 5 demonstrationin Berlin, social-democratic leftists likeLinksruck and the [anarchoid] Autonomes chanted, "Austria, Shut Up!" infront oftfieAustrian embassy and "U.S.A.Genocide Center!" in front of the U.S.embassy, while they strolled through the .government district of the Fourth Reichwithout saying a word against Germanimperialism. And throughout Europe, thefake Trotskyists, who all supported theelection of the social democrats, marchedin lockstep with them, drums beating,just like in the war against Yugoslavialast summer. So Workers Power, Britishfraternal group of the ASt, which calledto "Vote Labour" in the elections, demanded "Independence for Kosovo" andsupported the UCK [Kosovo LiberationArmy], a transparent cover for their support for the goals of their own British

imperialism in the war against Yugoslavia. Now these social-chauvinists writeabout the FPOIOVP coalition: 'The newcoalition will launch massive attacks onworkers' rights and huge cuts in publicspending. First in line, of course, will beAustria's migrant workers and refugees."They disappear Tony Blair's Labour government at the precise time when its campaign against refugees is fueling deadlyattacks.

I S P A R T A C J S T \ ~ ENGLISIEOfTION

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ICL fought forrevolutionaryinternationalistopposition toU.S./NATO warof imperialistdominationagainst Serbia.

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The German-dominated EU is an unstable conglomerate of the European capitalists which is directed against theworkers of Europe, non-European immigrants and the main international competitors of German imperialism, the U.S.A.and Japan. Because capitalism is organized on the basis of independent nationstates-which is the real cause of therepeated imperialist wars to redivide theworld and also the real reason for thewar in the Balkans last year-the perspective of a progressive European state,as preached by [French Socialist primeminister] Jospin and SchrOder, is nothingother than a lying reactionary utopia.Imperialism, marked by the dominationof finance capital, is the epoch of wars


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rDeath P e n a l t y ~ (continued from page 1)

We seek to infuse the proletariat withthe understanding that it will take nothing short of a workers revolution tosweep away tl,(- barbaric institutions ofthe capitalist state which-with the cops,courts, prisons and military at its coreis nothing other than an apparatus oforganized violence for the repression ofworkers. and the oppressed in defense ofthe profits and power of the propertyowning ruling class. And in racist capitalist America, the fight against the deathp ~ n a l t y and state repression necessarilymeans championing the cause of blackfreedom. Free Mumia now! Abolish theracist death penalty!From Lynch Law to"Legal" Lynching

The promised study of racial biasin federal death sentences by Clinton!Reno's Justice Department should nottake more than five minutes-becau.sefully two-thirds of the 21 federal deathrow inmates are either black or Hispanic!This is an even higher proportion ofminorities than on state death rowsaround the country, where 43 percent ofall inmates are black. In the notorious1986 McCleskey decision, the Supreme

Terry/Gamma-UaisonMumia Abu-JamalCourt acknowledged the massive amountof evidence proving racism in death penalty cases and then ruled that it is legally"irrelevant," warning that any challengeto this system would "throw into seriousquestion the principles that underlie ourentire criminal justice system." It is precisely because capital punishment in theU.S. is so intertwined with black oppression-the bedrock of capitalism in thiscountry-that makes it highly unlikely,though not inconceivable, thatAmerica'srulers would abandon the death penalty.It is no accident that the states of the.

J t

Speedup ondeath row ispart of broaderintensificationof capitalistrepression in U.S.

former Confederacy lead the country inthe pace oflegallyn ching. The death penalty in the U.S. is rooted in the legacy ofchattel slavery. Under the early SlaveCodes, "rebellious" slaves were killedwith impunity. It took a bloody Civil Warto smash the slave system, but the Northern capitalists betrayed the promise ofblack freedom. The withdrawal of the lastUnion troops in 1877 ushered in the era oflynch law, with over 5,000 black peoplemurdered by lynch mobs from the late1800s onward. As "legal" lynchings gradually supplanted open mob terror, morethan two-thirds of the thousands executedbetween 1930 and 1967 were black.The speedup on death row is only thetip of the iceberg of an all-sided intensification of capitalist state repression.Behind it all is the deepening immiseration of the ghetto masses and sharpattacks on the living standards of theworking class. As we wrote in "Lockdown U.S.A." (WV No. 618, 10 March1995):

"A couple of statistics sum it up. Over amillion manufacturing jobs were lost inthe U.S. in the 1980s, on top of thewholesale destruction of whole swathesof Midwest industry the decade before.For every place lost on the assembly line,one has been added in the prisons ..."With nothing to offer the masses ofblack poor and working people but everdeeper degradation and immiseration,the capitalist ruling class is intent onextinguishing any sign of protest withbrute force."Conditions have only continued toworsen under Democrat Clinton. Despite the vaunted "boom economy," realincome for the poorest 20 percent of thepopulation has gone down in recent years.The American capitalist state is a killing

machine, from court-ordered executionsin the nation's death chambers and summary executions by cops on the streets to

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8

National Office: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 (212) 732-7860Web site: www.icl-fLorg E-mail address:[email protected] 390840, Central Sta.Cambridge, MA 02139(617) 666-9453ChicagoBox 6441, Main POChicago, IL 60680(312) 454-4930Public Office:Tues. 5-9 p.m.and Sat. 12-3 p.m.328 S. Jefferson St.Suite 904

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TROtSKYIsT LEAGUE OF CANADA1LlGUETR01SKYSTEDUCARADA. . " , . "'" " ... .:. . .... . . .: .: : . . . . . : ... . . . . " . . . . ... . .: ... . : : . : : : ~ TorontoBox 7198, Station AToronto, ON M5W 1X8(416) 593-4138

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the murderous bombing of civilian populations overseas aimed at imposing U.S.imperialist domination around the world.Meanwhile, this capitalist system condemns millions in the U.S. to a slow deaththrough homelessness, starvation andlack of medical care while American corporations suck the lifeblood out of superexploited toilers in Third World countries.In all this, the Clinton administration hasbeen even more vicious than its Republican predecessors-axing welfare, flooding the inner cities with more cops,launching one imperialist military adventure after another.Under Clinton, the prison populationhas grown by hundreds of thousands, thismonth passing the two million mark.America now houses one-fourth of theworld's prisoners, and half of theseinmates are black. The U.S. has a higherrate of black incarceration than evenSouth Africa did under apartheid rule,and today that rate is over si x times thatof South Africa. When a federal judge inNew York last month finally awarded amiserly $8 million settlement to nearly1,300 survivors of the 1971 Attica prisonmassacre who were beaten and tortured inthe brutal cop assault which left 43 dead,the New York Times commented: "Inevitably, time dulled Attica's shock effect. A'lock 'em up and throwaway the key'attitude has sent the prison populationskyrocketing.... The New York Stateprison population t o ~ a y is approaching72,000, compared will} 12,500 in 1971."The concern expressed by this liberalmouthpiece reflects the vieW of a sectionof the American capitalist class that thecost of prison construction is spiraling outof control.The capitalist rulers view an entiregeneration of ghetto and barrio youth aspermanently unemployable "putcasts," asurplus population with no prospects ofwork and no need for schooling, medicalcare or decent housing. Instead, youngmen and women are swept up from theghettos and barrios and thrown behindbars. All 50 states now have laws allowing prosecutors to try juveniles as adults,like black 13-year-old Nathaniel Abraham, tried for murder in Michigan lastfall.While Jesse Jackson today decries the"prison-industrial complex," two-thirdsof all prisoners are doing time as a resultof the racist "war on drugs" which wasavidly promoted by Jackson with his"Up with hope, down with dope" crusade. One-third of all black males intheir 20s are either in prison, on paroleor on probation; one in seven black menhas lost the-right to vote as a result of afelony conviction. Underlining the brutality of prison conditions is the tacitcondoning of rape of prisoners by otherinmates, which is often wielded as athreat by cops and prison guards againstthose in prison.It is in labor 's direct interest to activelytake up the defense of the ghetto and barrio masses. The same cops who rampagethrough the inner cities are also deployedto bust up strikers' picket lines. "Workfare" slave labor schemes which victi-

mize the black poor are also wielded as abattering ram against municipal workersunions around the country. Prison labor isalso increasingly being used asa clubagainst unionized workers. From shrinkwrapping Microsoft software to bookingTWA airline reservations, thousands ofprisoners are now toiling for private companies at pay rates as low as 23 cents anhour.The volatility at the base of this societyis evident, from the solidity and widespread popularity of the 1997 Teamstersstrike against UPS to the massive outpouring of anger in NYC last year overthe Diallo killing. But black Democratslike Jackson and Al Sharpton act to policethe ghetto masses on behalf of the capitalist rulers. And the pro-capitalist labortops seek to quell or contain any strugglesby the working people, chaining theunions to the capitalist Democratic Party.The AFL-CIO misleaders have alreadypledged to spend record amounts of unionmonies this year to get Democratic Partyenemies of labor elected. Meanwhile, thelabor tops devote considerable efforts to"organizing" cops and prison guards intothe unions. Cops are not workers; they arethe racist, strikebreaking thugs of the capitalist class. Cops and prison guards outof the unions!It is necessary to forge a class-struggleleadership which will lead struggles onbehalf of workers and the oppressed, notbind labor hand and foot to the classenemy. And that means a leadershipcommitted to the complete and unconditional independence ofihe unions fromthe capitalist state and the capitalistpolitical parties. We fight to forge a multiracial revolutionary workers partywhich will link the power of labor to theanger of the ghettos. For black liberationthrough socialist revolution!Death Penalty Democrats andReformist Illusions

The Fraternal Order of Police (F.O.P.),which has spearheaded the crusade to seeJamal killed, ludicrously claims on itsWeb site that no innocent person has ev erbeen executed in the U.S.! More levelheaded bourgeois spokesmen for thedeath penalty acknowledge occasional"tragic mistakes" in order to paint themas "aberrations" from an otherwise "just"system. Meanwhile, liberal opponents ofthe death penalty like Jesse Jackson arguethat it is too costly and ineffective andoffer "alternatives" like life imprisonmentwithout parole-a living death.

New York Labor Black League-Forum-

Saturday, February 26, 2 p.m.and Tuesday, February 29, 7 p.m.Spartacist public office299 Broadway, Suife 318NEW YORK CITYFor more information, call (212) 267-1025WORKERS VANGUARD


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A chief call of such "reformers" is thedemand for a better public defenaersystem for defendants in capital cases.To be sure, the overwhelming majorityof capital defendants get only the mostminimal legal defense, an aspect of howthis system is rigged from top to bottomagainst working people and minorities.But in seeking to ensure that "justice isseen to be done," the liberals hope tobolster the authority and powers of theapparatus of capitalist repression byremoving the most blatant excesses and"restoring trust in the syst.em."

In this, -they are assisted by the reformist "socialists." Rejecting the struggle tobring revolutionary consciousness to theproletariat, these opportunists promotethe illusion that the capitalist state can bepressured to dispense justice and otherwise serve the interests of workers andthe oppressed. In practice, they embracethe same conclusions as the bourgeoisliberals.Thus the International Socialist Organization (ISO), which has been begging theIllinois governor for a moratorium sincelast March, now hails Ryan's move asproof that "organizing can force the poli- .

Scottsborodefendants, nineblack youthframed up inAlabama on boguscharges of rape in1931. Internationaldefense campaignsaved them fromlegal lynching.

Mexico...( continued from page 12)schools, were arrested during a sit-in infront of the governor's mansion in theregional capital of Pachuca. Over 800students from other schools who hadjoined the sit-in were summarily deportedto their states of origin, some as far awayas G ~ e r r e r o and Chiapas. Facing the armyof police at El Mexe, the student strikersappealed for help to the UNAM GeneralStrike Council (CGH), which sent adelegation. The Grupo Espartaquista deMexico, section of the International Communist League, demands the immediate,unconditional release of all arrested militants throughout Mexico!The "battle of El Mexe" was launchedwhen several thousand people (including the town's mayor!) surrounded theschool, demanding freedom for thosearrested in both attacks, as well as in earlier incidents. When the cops refused, theangry crowd took action, trapping thegranaderos inside by blocking the exitswith tree trunks and setting several policecars ablaze. The terrified thugs attemptedto flee by diving into sewage canals, butthe villagers, armed mostly with onlysticks and stones, captured over sixtycops, stripped them down to their underwear and marched them 5 kilometers intothe town square! Displaying their captives, the furious townspeople demanded:"Free the arrested or we will set thesepinche cops on fire!" Meanwhile, parentsand students retook the school anddiscovered a police arsenal includinggrenade launchers. The government had25 FEBRUARY 2000

tlclans-even a Republican hack likeGeorge Ryan-to act" (Socialist Worker,4 February). The ISO's Campaign to Endthe Death Penalty echoes the liberal argument that the death penalty is not "effective"; a Chicago leaflet promoting a February 3 meeting complains about "thefailure of the death penalty here"! Whothis is aimed at is made explicit in anInternet 1j.nnouncement for a February 14press conference by Chicago Campaignorganizer Alice Kim, who grotesquelypleaded, "Have a heart this Valentine'sDay, President Clinton. Stop all federalexecutions!" In New York City, a Campaign leaflet likewise calls for a February21 "rally aimed at pressuring Gore andBradley to heed the growing national tidefor a moratorium on executions."There was a national moratorium onexecutions in the 1970s, and its purposewas precisely to address the "failure" ofthe death penalty in order to make itmore "effective." Seeking to defuse massive popular unrest, beginning with thecivil rights movement of the 1950s and'60s and then the anti-Vietnam Warprotests, in 1972 the Supreme Courtdeclared existing death penalty laws to

lyingly claimed the cops were unarmed.Thrown into a panic by the humiliatingdrubbing received by their thugs, the PRI(Institutional Revolutionary Party) government of Mexico appealed to Cuautemoc C a r d e n a s ~ PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution) to use its influence forthe cops' release. The mayor of the town,a PRD member, convinced the crowd notto kill the cops, while the state PRD disavowed any involvement. A negotiatingcommittee made up of the Hidalgo government secretary, the regional PRDleader, the mayor and a student leaderwas formed, and an agreement wasreached to free the nearly 400 studentprisoners in exchange for the capturedcops. Their arrested ~ c o m r a d e s freed, thevillagers sang the "Internationale"-butthen returned the captured arms arsenal tothe government which will surely seekrevenge for its humiliating defeat.While the overwhelming governmentrepression in Mexico City has reducedthe struggle there to embers of resistance,the revolt in Hidalgo shows these. havethe power to reignite, sparking uphefivalsin other parts of the country. As an ElMexe student declared at a February 19UNAM assembly, "Everything indicatesthat EI Mexe has become an UNAMon a small scale, where the students areonce again repressed." Hundreds of EIMexe strikers still face charges suchas "rebellion" and grand theft. What isurgently necessary now is labor-centered,non-sectarian, class-struggle defense ofthe arrested militants.- The PRI government wants to use theUNAM crackdown to round up the left,in order to behead upcoming broader

WV PhotoChicago, 28 November 1998: PDC-initiated, labor-centered protest fo r Jamal.Multiracial proletariat must be mobilized in fight to free Mumia, abolish thedeath penalty.be "wanton and freakish" and orderedthe states to rewrite the statutes. The statutes were rewritten, and four years later,with the mass protests a thing of the past,the Supreme Court quickly ended that"moratorium" and gave a green light toresume the killings.

Of a piece with the ISO's appeals tothe racist bourgeoisie for a moratorium isthe call for a "new trial" for Mumiaraised by the ISO, Socialist Action,Workers World Party and a host of otheropportunist leftists. This call is thereformists' pledge of allegiance to keepthe fight for Jamal's cause safely withinthe confines of liberal bourgeois-i.e.,Democratic Party-politics, while sowing illusions in the "justice" of the capitalist courts. In this way they seek to winsupport from capitalist politicians whowould be all too happy to see Jamalreconvicted in a less obviously riggedproceeding than the travesty which senthim to death row in 1982. A column bySalim Muwakkil in In These Times (12December 1999), mouthpiece of theDemocratic (Party) Socialists of America, features the following statement inlarge print in the middle of the page:"We may never know whether AbuJamal is innocent or guilty because hewas never given due process."The opportunists' clamor for a new

political struggles. Meanwhile, the PRDseeks to turn the PRJ's unpopular attackon the UNAM strike into a v.ictory in theupcoming elections. But the PRD, whichcontrols the Mexico City government, isno less a bourgeois party than the PRI-it has sent its riot cops to attack theUNAM strike just as viciously. Many ofthe more radical students have seen thetreacherous role of the PRD, but turninstead to the petty-bourgeois guerrillaists of the EZLN (Zapatistas). This is notan alternative, but simply a more radicalversion of nationalism. Unlike the Zapatistas, who as "liberals with guns" seekto use the PRD to pressure the bourgeoisstate for concessions through negotiations, we Spartacists fight for the prole-

Contents include: Mumia Abu-Jamal's Life of Struggle

trial may well have succeeded in hoodwinking some youth who want to fight forMumia's freedom into thinking a secondtrial is a necessary legal step to that end.This is a lie. If a judge did grant Jamal'shabeas corpus appeal, that would automatically overturn his conviction. If therewere then to.be a new trial, it would onlycome about because the prosecutiondemanded one in order to reconvictJamal.From the time we first took up Jamal'sdefense, the Spartacist League and Partisan Defense Committee have fought fora perspective centered on mobilizing thesocial power of the working class independent of the capitalist state and politicians. As we wrote in a PDC statementafter the U.S. Supreme Court refused tohear Jamal's appeal last October (WVNo. 721, 15 October 1999):"Mobilizing labor's power in a successfulfight to win Jamal 's freedom would strikea blow against the capitalist rulers whouse the same frame-up methods, spyingand terror wielded against Jamal andother fighters for the oppressed to smashpicket lines and victimize militant unionists. Labor/black protest to free Mumiaand abolish the racist death penalty mustbe infused with the understanding that toend racist capitalist injustice once and forall requires a socialist revolution whichsmashes the. "pitalist state and places theproletariat in power.".

tariat to lead the oppressed and dispossessed masses of Mexico to power.The urgent demands and needs ofMexico's impoverished workers andpeasants-for agrarian revolution, education, health care, etc.--cannot be fulfilled by the corrupt and venal Mexicancapitalist class, beholden to U.S. imperialism. Even the most minimal reforms,like those the students at El Mexe areseeking, demand the Trotskyist programef permanent revolution. The Trotskyistsof the GEM fight to build a Leninist vanguard party that can lead the workers andpeasants of Mexico to power, smashingthe capitalist system of oppression andopening the way to proletarian revolutionthroughout the Americas.

Court Hearings: New Evidence of Frame-Up From Death Row, This Is Mumia Abu-Jamal

"La Amistad and American Law" The Frame-Up of Mumia Abu-Jamal For Non-Sectarian, Class-Struggle Defense! Death Row Speedup Targets Minorities Philly Cops' Reign of Terror Desperation, Segregation and the"Ebonics" Controversy Down With "English Only" Racism! Coleman Young: From ClO UnionOrganizer to Overseer for Auto Bosses

$1 (48 pages)Order from: Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116

9


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Germany...(continued from page 5)of Moscow, taken as a whole, completely retains its reactionary characterand remains the chief obstacle on the roadto the world revolution."Gorbachev's "MarketReforms"-Prelude toCounterrevolution

We unconditionally militarily defendedthe Soviet degenerate


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Diallo Trial ...(continued from page 12)sentenced to poverty and misery by asystem that no longer has any use forthem 'as a reserve army of labor. But thefundamental purpose of the machinery ofcapitalist state repression-the cops, thecourts, the prisons-is to suppress thesocial power of the one force in this society that does have the power to prevailagainst racist American capitalism-themultiracial working class. T ~ e identity ofinterests of labor and the ghetto and barrio masses against capitalist state repression was brought home with a vengeancelast December with the massive assaulton the transport Workers Union (TWU),when both Giuliani and the Democraticstate attorney general brought down courtinjunctions outlawing even use of theword "strike" while thousands of copssurrounded transit locations.

Giuliani-who turned Harlem into anarmed camp occupied by thousands ofcops in response to a "Million YouthMarch" by a couple of thousand peopletwo years ago-now has the entire NewYork police force -on full alert to "respond" to any outbreak of protest over theDiallo verdict. The capitalist rulers aredead set on preventing the sort of upheaval of multiraciaJ plebeian outrage thaterupted in Los Angeles in 1992 followingthe acquittal of the cops who beat RodneyKing. When the LAPD and NationalGuard occupied South-Central L.A.,leaving at least 58 dead in their wake, weagitated among the unions for "workstoppages and mass mobilizations to soli-darize with and defend the black c;ommu-nity as the LAPD looks to spill moreblood to 'celebrate' their racist victoryover Rodney King" (WVNo. 551,15 May1992).Bourgeois commentators noted at thetime that the L.A. upheaval which

resounded around the country wa:s -asmuch about class as it was about race,reflecting the growing class divide. Todaythe gap between rich and poor has grownfar wider. In a society where corporateCEOs flaunt salaries 150 times greaterthan that of the average industrial worker,the ruling class is well aware of the seething discontent that is building at the bottom. This is what lies behind the augmentation and increasing deployment of theforces of state repression.,...-to keep a lidon any social struggle lest it spark a con-flagration. .At the same time the capitalist rulersare determined to maintain illusions inthe "democracy" of this system and inthe capitalist state as some kind of "neutral" arbiter representing the interests ofall. Preaching that message is the Reverend Al Sharpton. Far from opposing thepolice, Sharpton seeks to refurbish theimage of the racist strikebreaking cops .The 10-point program of "police reform"he promoted during last year's protests,along with Local 1199 head DennisRivera, was aimed at "cleaning up" themost flagrantly racist excesses of theNYPD in order to make the police amore effective force of capitalist "lawand order." This program even called fora pay raise for the cops!Now, when four black people wereselected for the Albany jury, Sharpton25 FEBRUARY 2000

WV PhotoSpartacist League/Labor Black League at March 1999 New York City Hallprotest over Diallo killing.enthused: "They've got more Bronx jurors here in Albany than they would'vehad in The Bronx" (New York Post, 2 Feb-. ruary). Liberal columnist Jimmy Breslinhad a much better take than this supposed"black community leader" when he wrotein a Newsday (16 February) column:"To have the trial go on without race as

the central issue is like having a skywithout stars."Yet that is what they are doing with thiscase. They act as if it is only normal forwhite cops to shoot a black like AmadouDiallo ..."I f Diallo were white and living at 215East 68th Street, would he have beenshot for looking out the door?"

For his part, Sharpton pushes illusionsthat whatever happens in Albany, justicefor Diallo's killers will be dispensed byPresident Bill Clinton's Justice Department and the federal courts. Even as thetravesty in Albany is taking place, Haitianimmigrant Abner Louima is being tormented as though he were the criminal in

January 17:AI Sharpton hustlesblack vote forDemocratic PartySenate candidateHillary Clinton,supporter of racistdeath penalty, axingof welfare.

a federal courtroom where his sadisticcop torturers are supposedly on trial.Last year, Sharpton sought to containthe mass outrage over the Diallo killingthrough daily protests at One Police Plazawhere various celebrities and DemocraticParty politicians were led off in carefullystage-managed arrests that had all thereality of theater of the absurd. But nowSharpton is walking more of a tightrope ashe seeks to win his spurs as a DemocraticParty power broker, particularly in supporting the Senate bid of Hillary Clinton,a supporter of the racist death penalty andthe axing of welfare whose campaign isalso being promoted by the bulk of theNYC labor bureaucracy. Even such tameprotests as those at One Police Plazacould upset this electoral apple cart. Outside the Albany courthouse, Sharptondeclared: "We are coming to have prayermeetings, not civil disobedience." .But as the ghettos and barrios seethewith anger, even attempts to blow offsome steam could explode. The angerwas evident when over 200 peopleturned out for a community meeting inManhattan on February 17 organized byShaTP.ton's National Action Network andother groups. But that anger was accomganied by demands for "a real policereview board" and calls to jail the killercops-Le., appealing to the racist rulersto punish their own hired guns. As the

case of Diallo and countless victims ofracist cop terror before him illustrate,there is no justice in the capitalist courts.Break with the Democrats!Build a Workers Party!

This system of racist capitalist injusticecannot be cleaned up. The Diallotrial hasbeen permeated with the contempt ofthe cops and their capitalist masters forthe inner-city masses. The largely blackand Hispanic working-class Soundviewneighborhood where Diallo lived anddied was portrayed as enemy territory, a"no man's land." The cops could havegone for a non-jury bench trial in theBronx. But the judge that had beenselected was a black woman. And thecops and their masters knew that even asa judge this black woman could easilyhave been on the receiving end of policeharassment herself at some time. That'swhen the trial was moved to Albany,where prisons are a cottage industry andthe jury pool would come from a mostlywhite population with connections tocops and prison guards.Every black person in New York Cityknows it could just as easily have beenthem as Amadou Diallo. That is why ourcall for labor protest against racist copterror last year struck such a deep chordparticularly among the ranks of the powerful Transport Workers Union, whichincludes thousands of black and Hispanic.workers. But the union tops are so cravenly beholden to the capitalist rulers thatthey agreed to help enforce a strikebreaking injunction against their own union. I fthey are unwilling even to confront thecapitalist state in defense of their ownunion, they can hardly be relied on to leada labor mobilization against cop terror!When 50,000 city workers turned out lastMay 12 in the largest labor rally in NYCin decades, the labor bureaucracy used

Prop 21 ...(continued from page 3)this initiative" (Socialist Action, February2000).Unlike liberals who strive to conjure amore "humane" f a ~ a d e for capitalist barbarism, we understand that brutal racialoppression is a foundation stone ofAmerican capitalism. Racism is an essentialtool to keep black, white, Latino andAsian working people and youth pittedagainst each other so they won't uniteagainst the whole system.As the rich get richer and the poor getpoorer in today's America, explosivepressures build at the bottom of societyand the capitalists build up the repressivemachinery of the state, with the racistdeath penalty at its pinnacle. The ultimatetarget is the working class, which has thesocial power, leading all the oppressed, tosmash capitalist rule. Following the L.A.rebellion of 1992, when the oppressedmultiracial urban population took to thestreets in outrage over acquittal of thecops who beat Rodney King, the rulingclass intensified police-state terror in theghettos and strengthened the powers of

that protest as a vehicle for promotingDemocratic Party politicians and embracing the police "unions," refurbishing theimage of the racist strikebreaking cops inthe wake of the Diallo killing. To unleashlabor's power requires a break with thecapitalist Democrats and the fight for aclass-struggle leadership of the unionscommitted to the forging of a workersparty.Black people are in their overwhelming majority working people. Workingpeople need a party that fights for theirinterests, against strikebreaking and racistterror, against poverty and all-sidedoppression-not a party that makesempty promises once every four yearscome election time, but a party that mobilizes laborlblack power in the factoriesand on the streets. We need a party thatunderstands that the fight against racistoppression means a fight to get rid of thecapitalist ruling class which fomentsracism to divide the working class andmaintain its profits and class rule. Weneed a party based on the understandingthat the fundamental division in this racistsociety is not by skin color but betweentwo counterposed classes-the smallhandful who own al l the means of production and the vast majority who mustsell their labor power in order to survive.

WV Photo14 December 1999: TWU Local 100headquarters surrounded by copsunleashed to enforce strikebreakinginjunctions imposed by Mayor Giuli-ani and Democratic state attorneyQeneral Eliot Spitzer.We need a multiracial revolutionaryworkers party with the understanding thatthe capitalist state cannot be pressured orreformed to serve the interests of theworkers and the oppressed but

workers vanguard no 730 - 25 february 2000

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