| "All
talk to
the effect that historical conditions have not yet 'ripened' for
socialism is the product of ignorance or conscious deception. The
objective prerequisites for proletarian revolution have not only
'ripened,' they have begun to get somewhat rotten.... The historical
crisis of mankind is reduced to the crisis
of the revolutionary leadership."
-Leon Trotsky, The
Transitional Program
W elcome! The
Internationalist Group, section of the League for the Fourth
International,
fights for international socialist revolution, the conquest of power by
the
working class, led by its Leninist party, championing the cause of all
the
oppressed. After a decade and a half in which the ruling class
trumpeted the
supposed “death of communism,” the imperialists are bogged down in
losing wars of
colonial occupation in the Near East while a global economic crisis
shakes the
foundations of the capitalist order. With mass unemployment, poverty
and hunger
ravaging the planet, once again there is talk of socialism and
revolution. But
as in the past, the key question is that of forging a vanguard to lead
the
struggle of the workers and the oppressed.
Following the
counterrevolutionary destruction of the Soviet Union and the
bureaucratically
deformed workers states of East Europe in the early 1990s, what emerged
was not
a New World Order dominated by a single “superpower,” but a mounting disorder of
imperialist
rivalries and nationalist bloodletting. As decaying capitalism rips up
social
programs and workers’ gains worldwide, it has unleashed all-sided
social
reaction, including racist terror, attacks on immigrants and a rollback
of
women's rights. At the same time, there have been repeated outbreaks of
sharp
class struggle, from Korea to France to South America. The imperialist
war on
Iraq and Afghanistan has met with tenacious resistance in those
countries,
while in the advanced capitalist countries immigrant workers and youth
have
sparked important class battles.
We say that communism lives
in the struggles of the working class and the program of its vanguard.
What is
dead is not communism, but Stalinism. Stalin's anti-Marxist dogma of “socialism in one country”
was the ideology of a conservative nationalist bureaucracy that grew
out of the
isolation of the Soviet workers state. Stalinism betrayed the October
Revolution, undermining its historic achievements and ultimately
preparing the
way for capitalist counterrevolution under the relentless pressure of
imperialism. We stand on the fight of the Russian and International
Left Opposition
leading to the founding of the Fourth International in 1938. Trotsky's
theory
and program of permanent revolution summed up the experience of the
three
Russian revolutions and constitutes the program for new Octobers in the
countries of belated capitalist development. Read more...
|
Mobilize the Workers To
Defeat the Putsch!
Honduras: Coup d’État in the
Maquiladora Republic
Yankee
Imperialism, Hands Off!
For a Federation of Workers Republics of Central America!
In the early morning of
Sunday, June 28, some 200 soldiers of the Honduran army kidnapped the
president of the republic, Manuel Zelaya Rosales, at gunpoint and
expelled him from the country. This first coup of the presidency of
Barack Obama awakened fears of a return to the “years of blood,” when
Honduras served as a launching pad for Nicaraguan contras and Salvadoran death squads
which sowed terror throughout Central America. The overthrow was
opposed by virtually every international governmental organization, the
U.S. secretary of stated claimed she condemned it, Venezuelan president
Hugo Chávez vowed to overthrow the usurpers, but the military
mutineers are still in power. Revolutionary Marxists stress that to
defeat the coup we can only count on mobilizing the working people, in
Honduras as well as throughout Central America, in Mexico and the rest
of the continent. Honduras:
Coup d’État in the Maquiladora Republic (29
June 2009)
For
Workers Revolution Against the Islamic Dictatorship!
Mass Protests Rock Iran:
No to All
Wings of the Mullah Regime!
U.S.
Imperialism Hands Off!
For
more than a week, Iran has been convulsed by mass demonstrations
denouncing election fraud. Hundreds of thousands have repeatedly taken
to the streets to denounce the government, which is now threatening,
and beginning to carry out, a bloody crackdown. This time around,
imperialist intervention is veiled: the White House feigns neutrality,
the Western media go all out for the opposition, while in the
background various agencies provide vital technical aid. In reality,
all candidates in the presidential vote swear allegiance to the Islamic
Republic, and the supposed moderate reformers are no less butchers and
enemies of poor and working people than the conservative “populist”
government. The situation cries out for revolutionary leadership
independent of all factions of the theocracy, to wage a struggle for
workers revolution against imperialism and clerical reaction. Mass
Protests Rock Iran: No to All Wings of the Mullah Regime (23
June 2009) 
Obama/Democrats’
Conciliation Emboldens Reactionaries
Assassination
of Courageous Doctor in Wichita:
War on
Abortion Rights Escalates
Mobilize
to Defend the Clinics!
Abolish All
Restrictions – For Free Abortion on Demand!
The
vile murder of the courageous abortion doctor George Tiller marks an
escalation of the war on women’s right to abortion. The constitutional
protection hangs by a thread – a single vote in the Supreme Court. The
“god squads” are in a frenzy, harassing women patients and abortion
providers at the clinics. The reaction of the bourgeois feminists has
been to look to the Democratic Party and the government of Barack Obama
in the White House. Yet the Democrats are not allies but enemies of
women’s rights. Obama opposes the late-term abortions that Dr. Tiller
provided while seeking “common ground” with the Bible-thumping bigots
who harbor the abortion doctor killers. And the police, from local cops
to the FBI, give a free pass to the assassins, whom they know well. Assassination
in Wichita – War on Abortion Rights Escalates (11
June 2009) 
NYC
Labor: Scab Cookies Are “Too Hot to Handle”!
Mobilize New York Unions’ Power to Win
the Stella D'Oro Strike!
The
struggle of the bakery workers at the Stella d’Oro cookie factory in
the Bronx, on strike since last August 15, has reverberated through New
York City labor. The company’s use of low-paid scab labor to run the
struck factory is a threat to unions throughout the city. But paper
resolutions expressing fine sentiments of labor solidarity are not
enough. The fact is, NYC union officialdom has not actually done
anything to use its power to win the strike. If it had, the strike
would have ended in a victory months ago. We need to massively mobilize
NYC labor in action to beat the union-busters at Stella D’Oro! Mobilize
New York Unions’ Power to Win the Stella D'Oro Strike! (30
May 2009) 
“Theoretical”
Justification for Abstentionism, and Tailing After the PRD
Flim Flam from the GEM on Workers
Control
In
a curious “polemic” titled “Menshevik
Symptomology,” the Grupo
Espartaquista de México continues its customary practice
consisting of stringing together scholastic arguments adorned with
amalgams and sophistry, all in order to justify its opportunist and
tailist policies. In practice it puts forth policies which mimic those
of the bourgeois-nationalist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD)
and its former presidential candidate, Andrés Manuel
López Obrador. It doesn’t call for any
workers action against the step-by-step privatization of the state oil
company Pemex in the counterreform law of the Calderón
government, and polemicizes against our call for workers control. These
anti-dialectical “theoreticians” claim that
this slogan of the Transitional Program can only be applied in a
revolutionary situation. Yet they quote an article by Leon Trotsky
saying the exact opposite of what they claim. Nowhere in its writings
about Mexico and the global crisis of the capitalist economy does the
GEM present a program of transitional demands to serve as a bridge
between the present struggles of the working class and socialist
revolution. Flim Flam
from the GEM on Workers Control (28
May 2008) 
From the Current Issue
The
Internationalist No. 28
(March-April 2009)
click
above or on image
for full list of articles
Bring
Down the Bourgeoisie Through Workers Revolution!
World Capitalism Plunges
The global economic crisis
continues to deepen, month after month. With the financial crisis that
exploded
in September 2008, the international credit system effectively froze.
In the past five months, there has
been a sharp drop in industrial production, investments, exports,
consumer
spending, construction and just about every other major indicator of
economic
activity in virtually every country of the capitalist world. In the U.S, this is already be the
longest recession since World War II, and it’s not ending any time
soon. In short, the recession
is rapidly becoming a depression, although the
capitalist rulers don’t want to say so because they fear that would set
off an
even worse panic. The underlying issue behind
both
the waves of financial speculation and now the sharp drop in the real
economy
is the overproduction of capital, and the
associated falling rate of profit. Under
capitalism, the only way the rate of profit can be restored is through
the destruction
of capital, by massive bankruptcies producing millions of
unemployed, or by imperialist war laying waste to
productive capacity. Or, as happened in
the 1930s and ’40s, by both. The
present global capitalist economic crisis
is not cyclical or even structural but systemic. Neither monetarists
nor
Keynesians can solve it. But as Lenin and Trotsky insisted, capitalism
will not
collapse of its own accord. A series of transitional
demands should be raised pointing
to the need bring down the bourgeoisie and institute workers rule. World
Capitalism Plunges (19
March 2009)
Expropriate
the Banks Under a Workers Government!
From Wall Street Crisis to International Socialist Revolution
Break
with the Democrats and All the Bosses’ Parties!
Build
a Revolutionary Workers Party!
Over
the last 15 years, there have been financial crises in a number of
countries around the world: Mexico, 1994-95; Thailand, 1997; Russia,
1998; Brazil, 1999; Argentina, 2000 to 2002; the implosion of the
information technology bubble in the United States in 2000-01; and from
2007 on, the credit crisis in the U.S. and around the world that began
with subprime mortgages. Yet this time the entire capitalist system is
at risk. The stock market panic can end up in a full-fledged crash, as
in 1929, while the lack of credit is threatening to produce a new Great
Depression. The economists and politicians who in the past acted as
prophets of the religion of free markets are now nationalizing one
financial institution after another. But the dire straits in which the
masters of the U.S. economy find themselves will not by itself lead to
a positive outcome for the international working class. In the 1960s
and ’70s as well, the American empire was bogged down in a losing
colonial war, along with great social unrest in Latin America, and a
large-scale capitalist economic crisis. But nowhere was capitalism
overthrown in the region. This is centrally due to the lack of a
revolutionary internationalist leadership.Forging that leadership is
key. From
Wall Street Crisis to International Socialist Revolution (2
October 2008)
New
Commander-in-Chief, Same Bloody System of Oppression
Obama
Presidency: U.S. Imperialism Tries a Makeover
Forge
a Revolutionary Workers Party!
On
January 20, the baton was formally passed from George Bush to Barack
Obama as leader of the the most powerful imperial power in the history
of the world, presently mired in losing imperialist wars and the
deepest economic crisis in three-quarters of a century. For the U.S. to
elect a black president reflected a considerable social change in this
country founded on chattel slavery, where Jim Crow segregation
continued into the 1960s – and where in the 21st century blacks and
Latinos have still been prevented from voting. But this has not changed
the system of imperialist capitalism one iota: with Obama at the helm,
the U.S. is bombing Iraq and Afghanistan to hell, marauding in
Pakistan, supplying the weaponry for Israeli slaughter in Gaza,
throwing millions out of work in the U.S. while enslaving workers with
starvation wages around the planet. Obama in office will preside over a
racist system, and he has already become a war criminal responsible for
the deaths of scores of defenseless Afghans and Iraqis.
Labor leaders are having a honeymoon with Obama, counting on him to
make it easier to unionize by passing the Employee Free Choice Act.
Class-struggle union militants look instead to the power of the working
class, demanding freedom to organize and independence of the unions
from the capitalist state. Obama
Presidency: U.S. Imperialism Tries a Makeover (23
February 2009)
What
“Post-Racial” America?
Barack
Obama vs. Black Liberation
For
Black Liberation Through Socialist Revolution!
The
election of Barack Obama as president of the United States was widely
hailed as the culmination of the Civil Rights movement. Obama’s
campaign was based on the illusion that the United States had moved
“beyond race.” The
ruling class used the occasion to claim that this proves that racism in
the United States has been overcome. But racist discrimination and
oppression are woven into the fabric of American capitalism. Racist
police brutality is ever-present. Obama and the Democratic Party
political operatives who shaped his election campaign stayed away from
any mention of struggle against racism. Now black people are being told
to be patient. Yet patience will not bring freedom any closer for any
sector of the oppressed. Gains won through struggle can also be taken
back so long as social, economic and political power remains in the
hands of capital. We only have to look at the history of the
Reconstruction period following the Civil War. Installing a black
president won’t change the racist nature of American capitalism, any
more than having Colin Powell as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff made the U.S. any less imperialist. Today, “diversity” is
being promoted as an alternative to equality, which capitalism cannot
provide. Genuine freedom and actual social, economic and political
equality for blacks in America can only come about through a socialist
revolution. Barack
Obama vs. Black Liberation (23
February 2009)
For International Working-Class
Action Against the Israeli
Militarists, U.S.
Imperialism and Its Arab Pawns!
Zionist
Mass Murder – Break the
Siege, Defend Gaza!
Defend
the Palestinian People – For an
Arab/Hebrew Workers State in a Socialist Federation of the Near East
Bush and
Obama
Back Zionist Butchers – Drive U.S. Imperialism Out of Iraq, Afghanistan
and the Near East! For an Internationalist Workers Party!At
midday on December 27, Israeli warplanes
launched a massive bomb attack on the densely populated Gaza Strip.
More than 270 Palestinians were killed as wave after wave of
U.S.-supplied F-16 fighter jets and Apache helicopters dropped more
than 100 bombs. The Israeli military said they were targeting Hamas
installations, but numerous civilians were killed, including a number
of children, as schools had just let out for lunch. The Zionists’
attack on downtown areas was deliberate mass murder. The Israeli
slaughter was carried out with the full knowledge and a green light
from its imperialist patrons in Washington, as well as U.S. client
regimes such as Egypt. The Internationalist Group and League for the
Fourth International condemn the Israeli mass murder in Gaza and call
for action by the international working class in defense of Gaza and
the Palestinian people, including efforts to break the siege. Zionist
Mass Murder – Break the Siege, Defend Gaza! (28
December 2008) 
What
Will It Take to Defeat the War?
Not Another
Popular-Front “Peace Movement,”
Mobilize the Working
Class to Fight for Power!
On
June 28-29, an “Open National Antiwar Conference” was held in
Cleveland, called by a newly minted National
Assembly to End the Iraq War and Occupation. Over objections from the
conference organizers, centrally Socialist Action, the assembly voted
to change the name to include reference to the war on Afghanistan, and
to emphasize the connection with U.S. backing for the Zionist
occupation of Palestine. (The sponsors of the confab were so right-wing
that they feared losing “unity” with Democratic Party supporters of
Israel and the Afghanistan war!) What did not change at all was the
popular-front character of the new outfit, tying it to the bourgeois
parties despite the fig leaf of electoral “independence.”
Making this utterly clear, it was decided not to call a national
antiwar mobilization prior to the November elections explicitly in
order to court those forces who wish to aid the Democrats (and
therefore want to avoid making problems for the presumptive Democratic
nominee, Barack Obama). Here is the leaflet issued by the
Internationalist Group at the conference.
What
Will It Take to Defeat the War? (28
June 2008)
|
Revolution
Publication of
the
Internationalist Clubs at the
City University
of New York
Democrats
Vote Mega-Billions for War, Trillions for Bankers –
Working People Get Shafted
Students and
Labor: Shut NYC Down!
No
Tuition! Open Admissions! Free Mass Transit!
We
Need a Revolutionary Workers Party
On March 5, some 75,000 New York City
workers demonstrated in a huge labor protest against threatened budget
cuts as the capitalist economic crisis deepens. They were joined by
hundreds of students and faculty from the City University of New York
(CUNY). The municipal labor tops called for a “fair budget for
all,” while
showcasing Democratic Party politicians. The principal
student demands, however, were: “No Tuition Hike
– No Cuts – No Layoffs.” After a
walkout and rally, the energetic student contingent
poured into the street chanting, “Students,
Labor, Shut the City Down.” The CUNY Internationalist Clubs actively
participated in organizing the student actions. We publish here the Revolution leaflet distributed at
the protests which underlines the role of the Democrats and calls for
powerful working-class action against the ruling-class attack. Students
and Labor: Shut NYC Down! (5
March 2009) 
Beat
Back the Suspensions – Expel
Sexton!
Defend NYU
Protesters!
Student and
labor activists throughout the New York area and beyond must come to
the defense of the 18 New York University students suspended and
threatened with expulsion for their participation in the 40-hour sit-in
that began February 18. The vindictive administration of NYU
President John Sexton seeks to make an example of the protesters,
including evicting them from their dorm rooms. Despite hostile media
coverage, the NYU occupation struck a chord in NYC. Hundreds of people
came out on two bitterly cold nights to stand for hours in front of
Kimmel Hall, where the “Take Back NYU!” group and others had occupied
the cafeteria. Defend
NYU Protesters! (23
February 2009) 
Inside the
New School Occupation
For 38 hours, beginning on the evening of
December 17, student activists carried out a widely-publicized sit-in
at the New School in lower Manhattan. They declared that they were
inspired by the recent factory occupation by workers at Republic
Windows and Doors in Chicago, and by protests against police brutality
in Greece. The occupation took place shortly after the faculty voted
“no confidence” in the New School’s president Bob Kerrey. Back in 2001,
we had called to drive out Kerrey, a war criminal who killed
defenseless women and children in the Vietnamese village of Thanh
Phong. This also became an issue in the December occupation. Our
article is an account by participants of the development and
discussions that took place during the sit-in, and what conclusions can
be drawn for future struggles. Inside
the New School Occupation (24
February 2009) 
|
|
Recent
articles on Education:
Stop
Privatization of Public Schools – Not Corporate Fake
“Reform,” We Need an Education Revolution!
No to Teacher-Basher McCain
and Education-for-War Obama
Break with the Democrats –
For a Class-Struggle Workers Party
From
the outset of the 2008 presidential election campaign, teachers and
teachers unions have been mobilized to the hilt for the Democratic
Party. While the American Federation of Teachers first backed Hillary
Clinton in the Democratic primaries, it and the National Education
Association are now overwhelmingly for Barack Obama running against
John McCain for the Republicans. Most teachers are going for the
Democrats, but the Democrats are not going for them – nor are the
Republicans, to be sure. The fact that for the first time a black man
is the top candidate of one of the major parties and could likely be
the next U.S. president, and that a woman was his chief opponent in the
primary elections, marks a significant social shift in this country
that will be widely seen as a breakthrough. Yet this does not change
the fact that the Democrats and Republicans are bourgeois parties who
govern by and for the capitalist class. Both candidates will continue
the imperialist occupation of Iraq and both promise to escalate the war
in Afghanistan. There isn’t the slightest doubt that McCain is bad news
for teachers and students in every way. The issue is over Obama, who
while promising to “work
with”
teachers says he wants to introduce “merit
pay,”
increase charter schools, and remove teachers who administrators decide
are “doing a poor job.” These points just happen to be the
three-pronged attack plan of the corporate interests for whom
“educational reform” means union-busting. No
to Teacher-Basher McCain and Education-for-War Obama (3
November 2008)
|
Mobilize Workers’ Action to Defend
Bangsamoro Peoples’ Struggle!
Drive Out All
U.S. Imperialist Troops and Agencies!
Philippine
Government Launches New War on Muslim Groups
War
officially came to southern Philippines again as the government of
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo unilaterally put an end to eleven years of
negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) September 3.
A month early the government abruptly broke off talks with the MILF on
the eve of signing an autonomy pact. There are numerous reports of U.S.
Special Forces accompanying Philippines Army units on their deadly
sweeps in the Bangsamoro (land of the Moro people) region. More than
100 people have been killed so far
and half a million refugees have fled from the fighting. Bourgeois
liberals and the petty-bourgeois left lamely call on the government to
resume the “peace process,” which in any case was only intended to wear
down the insurgents. Revolutionaries instead seek to mobilize
Philippine workers to drive out all U.S. forces, whatever their legal
status; to force the withdrawal of the AFP from the contested southern
areas; and to defend the Bangsamoro people and their right to
self-determination..
Philippine
Government Launches New War on Muslim Groups (13
September 2008)
From the Previous Issue
The
Internationalist No. 27
(May-June 2008)
click
above or on image
for full list of articles
Historic
ILWU Dock Workers’ Action Points the Way
May
Day Strike Against the War Shuts Down All U.S. West Coast Ports
On
May 1, every port on the West Coast of
the United States was shut down to demand an end to the U.S. war and
occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The historic May Day walkout by the
International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) is the first time
ever that an American union has struck against a U.S. war. The union
ranks defied the rulings of an arbitrator, who twice ordered them to go
to work. They overcame the capitulations of the ILWU leadership, which
didn’t want the work stoppage in the first place, tried to water it
down and cowered before the threats of legal action while
waving
the flag. The employers’ Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) declared
the May 1 port shutdown an “illegal strike.” But after all the huffing
and puffing from the bosses’ mouthpieces, the dock workers pointed the
way to defeating the imperialist war by mobilizing working-class power.
In the end, it was more than a work stoppage. The dock workers’ May Day
strike against the war was a first step, a show of what it will take to
bring down the warmongers in Washington. Their “symbolic” action was
felt all the way to Iraq, where dock workers in two ports stopped work
in solidarity with the ILWU. But it was only a beginning. What is
needed is not only industrial action but a political offensive against
the Democrats and Republicans, the partner parties of American
imperialism, to build a class-struggle workers party.
May
Day Strike Against the War Shuts Down All U.S. West Coast Ports
(3
May 2008)
Republicrat Obama vs.
War Hawk McCain
The Buying of the Presidency 2008
U.S.
Imperialism Seeks New Face on
System
of War and Racism
In
the 2008 elections, the more far-sighted rulers of U.S. imperialism
want to change the image of “America,” to replace that of the torture
photos of Abu Ghraib. That’s why for the first time a black candidate
has a very well-financed election machine and a real shot at the
presidency. Disgust over the endless war in Iraq and concern over the
economy are so intense that this election is the Democrats’ to lose.
But they’ve pulled it off before, and one can’t underestimate the
racism of U.S. bourgeois politics. The Bush loyalists want a certified
war criminal, John McCain, to carry the Republican banner. But make no mistake, Barack
Obama is no “antiwar” candidate. He has been
drafted by the Democrats as the better war candidate. He summed up his
strategy as “getting out of
Iraq and
on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan.” In fact, he
also intends to leave U.S. troops in Iraq. With his talk of “change,” Obama's candidacy has
generated enthusiasm, particularly among college students, black youth
and many others fed up with eight years of the Bush government. But in
claiming to “transcend race,” he ignores and even opposes struggles
against against racism. The centuries-old oppression of black people
can only be overcome by smashing the racist capitalist system, just as
it will take workers revolution to put an end to the endless
imperialist wars. The
Buying of the Presidency 2008 (26
June 2008) -
For Revolutionary
Defense of Cuba!
Free
the Cuban Five!
On
June 5, a federal appeals court upheld the convictions of the
“Cuban Five”: René González, Gerardo
Hernández, Ramón
Labaniño, Fernando González and Antonio
Guerrero. The
Five heroically risked their
lives to defend the Cuban Revolution against terror attacks launched
from the U.S. Prosecutors presented evidence that the five had
infiltrated counterrevolutionary
terror groups in Miami. The government
outrageously charged the defendants with “conspiracy”
to commit espionage and murder, since
there is not a shred of evidence that they commited any crime
whatsoever. Several thousand Cubans have been killed in nearly five
decades of invasions, bombings and assassinations by the U.S. and its gusano
mercenaries. The authors of the notorious 1976 bombing of a Cubana
Airlines passenger plane that killed all 73 aboard, Orlando Bosch and
Luis Posada Carriles, walk around Miami freely while the Cuban
Five have been locked up for nearly a decade. We demand the Cuban
Five be freed now, and return the U.S. naval base and torture center at
Guantánamo to Cuba! Free the
Cuban Five! (14
June 2008)
“Workers
Vanguard” Brings Up the Rear
The
Opportunist Left and the Port Strike Against the War: The Sound of One
Hand Clapping
On
May Day, ports up and down the
Pacific Coast were shut down by the International Longshore and
Warehouse Union (ILWU) to demand an end to “this bloody war and
occupation for imperial domination.” It is the first time ever that an
American union has taken industrial action against a U.S. war. News of
the ILWU’s strike against the war has reverberated among labor
militants internationally. While the maritime employers threatened
legal action and trade papers denounce reds under the beds, most of the
left was notably silent. The reason: they are part and parcel of the
popular-front antiwar movement, whose purpose is to
pressure the Democrats, and militant labor action gets in the way. The
Spartacist League for many years called for workers strikes against the
war, as well as “hot-cargoing”
war materiel. However, as part of
its turn from revolutionary Trotskyism to centrist opportunism, the SL
abandoned these key programmatic positions, along with its prior calls
to defeat U.S. imperialism. Meanwhile, it smears the Internationalist
Group for upholding the Trotskyist program of
workers action against
imperialist war. The
Opportunist Left and the Port Strike Against the War: The Sound of One
Hand Clapping (15
May 2008)
Strike
Challenged Slave Labor Law,
Despite
Setbacks They’re Still Ready to Fight
Puerto
Rican Teachers: Unbought and Unbowed
The
two-week strike by Puerto Rican teachers was a historic event, in open
defiance
of Law 45, a ruthless piece of anti-union legislation that outlaws
strikes,
work stoppages or even voting for such labor action. From the beginning
of the
walkout on February 20 to the decision to return to the classrooms,
approved by
a giant assembly on March 5, the
action by the Federation of Puerto Rican Teachers (FMPR) threw the
island into
turmoil. In daring to break
the
prohibition decreed by the colonial capitalist rulers, the FMPR blazed
the way for all Puerto Rican workers.
The
strikers confronted an unholy alliance of enemies which extended from a
governor under investigation for corruption and his arrogant secretary
of
education to the “dues-sucking” union leaders of the SEIU, who
shamefully took the side of the
employer. The
return to work was not a debilitating defeat, yet the outcome of the
strike was a setback. Many teachers were not
prepared for a lengthy strike, and while defying Law 45, overall the
FMPR continued to play by the bosses’ rules. Above all, the teachers
had to face state repression alone, while FMPR leaders’ comrades in the
Movimiento Socialista de Trabajadores failed to bring out other key
unions. The fact that the strike could not prevail confirms Trotsky’s
declaration that reformist unionism is no longer possible, that unions
can either be instruments of imperialist capitalism, or instruments of
the revolutionary movement of the proletariat. Puerto
Rican Teachers: Unbought and Unbowed (25
June 2008)
|
Hard Class
Battle Coming
Puerto
Rico: All
Out to Defend
the Teachers’
Struggle!
We
are on the threshold of a major class battle in Puerto Rico. Every day
new preparations are announced for the coming strike of the Puerto
Rican Teachers Federation (FMPR). With 42,000 members, a majority of
them women, the FMPR represents almost all of Puerto Rico’s teachers
and is by far the largest union on the island. The Shock Force of the
Puerto Rican Police and National Guard are being readied to go after
the strikers. The struggle of the Puerto Rican teachers affects
everybody. The working class as a whole, students and parents, teachers
and defenders of workers’ rights around the world must come out in
defense of the FMPR! If there are mass arrests, the response must be
massive blockades and spreading the struggle to the point of shutting
the island down. In order to win this strike, it is necessary to
prepare for a struggle not only of the teachers but within the whole
workers movement against the pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy that
sabotages the workers’ struggle. Above all, it is necessary to fight
against illusions in and ties with bourgeois parties and politicians. It’s
high time to begin building a revolutionary internationalist workers
party. Puerto
Rico: All Out to Defend the Teachers’ Struggle! (14
February 2008)
Report from
San Juan
Tens of
Thousands March
in Puerto Rico on Eve of Teachers Strike
“La huelga va,
la huelga
va” (the strike is on the
way), sang thousands of teachers as they marched through the streets of
Puerto
Rico’s capital today in preparation for the massive strike that is
shaping up
as a major class battle. Victory to the Puerto Rican teachers! Tens
of Thousands March in Puerto Rico on Eve of Teachers Strike (18
February 2008)
Free
Mumia Abu-Jamal Now!
Click here for selected
articles
from The
Internationalist
and other
statements
from the League for the Fourth International.
Federal Court
Reaffirms Frame-Up
Conviction, Orders Life Behind Bars or Racist Legal Lynching
Ruling Against Mumia Shows:
No Justice in the Capitalist Courts
Mobilize the Working Class to
Free
Mumia Abu-Jamal!
Abolish
the
Racist Death Penalty!
On
March 27, the U.S. appeals court in Philadelphia reaffirmed the
frame-up conviction of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the former Black Panther Party
spokesman and world-renowned radical journalist who has been locked up
on Pennsylvania’s death row for more than a quarter century. After
previously rejecting Mumia’s request to present evidence of his
innocence, as well as a host of issues showing that he was railroaded
by a racist court, the Court turned down Mumia’s request for a new
trial. It upheld the 2001 ruling by a federal district judge that
ordered a new hearing on the sentence, but limited the “choice” to the
living hell of life imprisonment without parole ... or execution. Mumia
is innocent. He was declared guilty and sentenced to die because of his
revolutionary politics and because for years he had been a thorn in the
side of the racist rulers of the misnamed “city of brotherly love.”
Around the world, millions have come out in defense of Jamal. This
latest ruling, like all those that preceded it, shows that the
exploited and oppressed must have no faith in the racist injustice
system. We call on the workers movement to mobilize its power to free
Mumia now! Mobilize
the Working Class to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal! (28
March 2008)
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Police Takeover Fails –
Miners Resist
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