Internationalist Group -- Reforge the Fourth International!

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)

Mumia Abu-Jamal, ILWU Strikes for Peace (1 May 2008)

Iraqi Dock Workers, Unions Salute ILWU May Day Port Shutdown (5 May 2008)

NYC May Day in Solidarity with the ILWU (7 May 2008)

For Workers Strikes Against the War!
Full Citizenship Rights for All Immigrants!
All Out on May Day!
On May 1, all 29 ports on the U.S. West Coast are to be shut down by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) in protest against the U.S. war on Afghanistan and Iraq. This is a historic event of international significance: labor action against imperialist war by a major American union. The strategically placed port workers in the ILWU can bring commerce with Asia to a grinding halt, and they’re about to demonstrate it. The maritime employers are already screaming, and you can bet it’s got the attention of the warmongers in Washington. All labor should take up the challenge this poses: For workers strikes against the war! Meanwhile, immigrants’ rights groups are once again mobilizing on May Day. And on April 30 and May 1, the independent truckers who move cargo to and from the docks may play an important role in a shutdown. The imperialist war on Afghanistan and Iraq is also a war on immigrants, minorities, working people and democratic rights “at home.” We need to defeat this attack here and abroad, in opposition to both the capitalist war parties. The “antiwar movement,” whose aim has always been to pressure the Democrats, is at a dead end. What’s needed is working-class action independent of the bosses. What that takes is a fundamental break from the Democratic Party and the pro-capitalist politics that infuse the labor bureaucracy. All Out on May Day! (19 April 2008)

For Workers Strikes Against the War!
ILWU to Shut Down West Coast Ports May 1 to Protest War
In a major step for the U.S. labor movement, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has announced that it will shut down West Coast ports on May 1, to demand an immediate end to the war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Middle East. This is the first time in decades that an American union has decided to undertake industrial action against a U.S. war. The action announced by the powerful West Coast dock workers union, to stop work to stop the war, should be taken up by unions and labor organizations throughout the United States and internationally. And the purpose of such actions should be not to beg the bourgeois politicians whose hands are covered with blood, having voted for every war budget for six and a half years, but a show of strength of the working people who make this country run, and who can shut it down! ILWU to Shut Down West Coast Ports May 1 to Protest War (1 March 2008)

En español: Paro portuario en la Costa Oeste contra la guerra el 1° de mayo
En français: 1er Mai : Arrêt du travail contre la guerre annoncé par les dockers américains

Defend the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation!
A Case of Labor Colonialism: AFL-CIO and Change to Win vs. the FMPR
As the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation prepares to strike against a virulently anti-labor governor, braving draconian no-strike legislation, unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and the Change to Win (CTW) federation are outrageously lining up with the bosses. This will come as no surprise to those who know something of the sordid history of the American labor bureaucracy in the U.S.’ Caribbean island colony, and as accomplices of imperialist machinations throughout Latin America (and the rest of the world). But what the labor fakers are preparing is a major betrayal of Puerto Rican workers. The SEIU/CTW is backing a teachers “association” that includes management, and which is preparing to scab on the strike. In 2005 the AFT/AFL-CIO went to the colonial courts to try to take over the FMPR. A crucial test is shaping up in which it is urgent to defend the Puerto Rican teachers union. The issue is posed: which side are you on? A Case of Labor Colonialism: AFL-CIO & CTW vs. the FMPR (7 February 2008)

En español: Un caso de colonialismo sindical: AFL-CIO y CTW vs. la FMPR (7 de febrero de 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)

En español: ¡Movilizar a la clase obrera para liberar a Mumia Abu-Jamal!

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)

En español: Puerto Rico: ¡Todos a la calle en defensa del magisterio en lucha

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)

En español: Decenas de miles marchan en Puerto Rico en vísperas de la huelga magisterial

For an Arab-Hebrew Workers State in a Socialist Federation of the Near East!
Defend Gaza! Defeat U.S./Israel War on the Palestinian People!
Last week, Israeli authorities ordered a halt to all imports into the Gaza Strip. The world’s largest concentration camp was sealed off from the outside world. The Israeli action was a heinous war crime akin to the Nazis’ confining of Polish Jews to the Warsaw Ghetto. But the Zionist war criminals are not acting on their own. The lockdown is part of a U.S.-Israeli plan to punish the Gaza population for electing the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas movement as their government. Since Hamas won Palestinian legislative elections in January 2006, Israeli Zionists and U.S. imperialists have been directly arming, training and commanding key Fatah forces to wage a war on Hamas. The Internationalist Group calls to mobilize to defeat the joint U.S./Israeli war on the Palestinian people. While politically opposing Islamic fundamentalism, as well as the Christian fundamentalism fueling the U.S.’ imperialist crusade in the Near East, and theocratic states like the Jewish state of Israel, we call for an Arab-Hebrew workers republic as part of a socialist federation of the Near East. Defend Gaza! Defeat U.S./Israel War on the Palestinian People! (26 January 2008)

Police Takeover Fails – Miners Resist
Mexico: Cananea Must Not Stand Alone! For a Nationwide Miners Strike!
Down with the PRI, PAN and PRD, Parties of the Bourgeoisie!
Forge a Revolutionary Workers Party!
Once again the Mexican government of Felipe Calderón has run aground on the resistance of the battle-hardened miners of Cananea. On January 11, as the federal Labor Board declared their six-month-old strike “non-existent” and ordered miners back to work, an army of 1,000 state and federal police invaded the mining town in the northern state of Sonora. The miners did not surrender and instead put up a stubborn resistance. As a result, a federal court issued an injunction blocking the government back-to-work order. Despite a government vendetta against it, the leadership of the corporatist mineworkers organization has followed the dictates of Mexico’s corporatist labor legislation, copied from Mussolini’s fascist Italy. The Grupo Internacionalista has called for a nationwide miners strike in solidarity with the strikers, and for a national strike against the anti-worker policies of the Calderón government. In Oaxaca, Atenco, Lázaro Cárdenas in 2006, and now again in Cananea, the workers have put up a tenacious resistance against the deadly ruling-class attack. However, they are stuck in a cycle of endless resistance when there should be a struggle for power. For that, a revolutionary workers party is needed. Mexico: Cananea Must Not Stand Alone! (1 February 2008)

En español: México: ¡Cananea no debe estar sola! (1° de febrero de 2008)

See also: New York Picket Protests Repression Against Mexican Miners (12 January 2008)

En español: Piquete en Nueva York repudia represión contra mineros mexicanos (12 de enero de 2008)

Strike in Cananea, Sombrerete, and Taxco in Fifth Month
Mexican Miners Strike for Safety, Against Anti-Worker Attacks
Copper miners in Cananea, in the northern Mexican state of Sonora, have been on strike since the end of July over the deadly dangerous working conditions and anti-worker attacks by the management and government. Cananea, the largest open-pit copper mine in the world, has been owned by the billionaire Germán Larrea and his Grupo México since it was privatized in 1990. The criminally negligent safety conditions at the mine and smelter have been documented by an international commission of medical and industrial safety experts. The miners are facing the full force of Mexico's corporatist system of state control of labor, including the national miners’ “union” which in the past has repeatedly sided with the government and the bosses against its own members. The “independent” unions which politically support the opposition PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution) have notably failed to back the striking miners. Class-conscious workers in Mexico must defend the striking miners, while fighting to break the corporatist stranglehold, build workers unions free of all ties to the bourgeois state and capitalist parties, and forge a revolutionary workers party. Mexican Miners Strike for Safety (15 December 2007)

En español: ¡Poner a Grupo México de rodillas con una huelga nacional! (15 de diciembre de 2007)

From the Great Miners’ Strike of 1906 to Today: Revolutionary Leadership Is Key
Cananea: A Century of Internationalist Class Struggle
June 1, 2006 marked the centenary of the copper mine strike at Cananea. The conglomerate that now operates the mines, Grupo México, tried to prevent the commemoration; the militant miners of of Latin America’s largest copper mine responded by going on strike. Now they have gone on strike again, as they have almost every year since 1999. This history of militancy goes back to the 1906 Cananea miners strike, one of the key events leading up to the Mexican Revolution of 1910-17. Much has been written about the 1906 strike from the standpoint of Mexican nationalism. But contrary to nationalist myths, that proletarian revolt was a joint effort by anarcho-syndicalist and revolutionary minded Mexican and American workers, who carried red flags at the head of their marches. In the recent strikes as well as one hundred years ago, the key factor is the need for a class-struggle leadership, a revolutionary internationalist party. Cananea: A Century of Internationalist Class Struggle (December 2007)

En español: Cananea: un siglo de lucha de clases internacionalista (diciembre de 2007)

“Civic” Revolution or Workers Revolution?
Ecuador Needs a Workers, Peasants
and Indian Government
Forge a Leninist-Trotskyist Revolutionary Workers Party!
For an Andean Federation of Workers Republics!
For the last two decades, Ecuador has found itself in an almost constant state of upheaval and revolt. Yet practically nothing has changed in the direction the country is headed: it is still subject to the dictates of Yankee imperialism, the dollarization of the economy, the U.S. Southern Command’s occupation of the Manta Air Base... By all accounts, Ecuador needs a revolution. But the question is posed, what kind of revolution? President Rafael Correa, a bourgeois populist, calls for a “civic revolution.” However, he ferociously opposes any class actions, particularly the struggle for a workers revolution to bring down the capitalist system. He called a Constituent Assembly in order to “refound” the couintry. Yet on the very day the Assembly was inaugurated, he unleashed a brutal repression against peasants of the Amazonian parish of Dayuma for shutting down production at an oil well. The Ecuadorian working masses need a struggle for a workers, peasants and Indian government, which launches international socialist revolution. Ecuador Needs a Workers, Peasants and Indian Government (25 December 2007)

En español: Ecuador necesita un gobierno obrero, campesino e indígena (25 de diciembre de 2007)

Craft Divisions Endanger Labor: Build a Single Media Union
Don’t Let Writers Stand Alone – All Media Workers Should Join the WGA on Strike!
As the strike by film and television writers nears its two-month mark, the 12,000 members of the affiliated East and West Coast Writers Guild of America have shown determination and kept up morale at picket lines and mass rallies in Los Angeles and New York. Late-night TV viewership is down, networks have to return millions of dollars to advertisers. Yet even as the WGA strike begins to bite economically, the media moguls are refusing to negotiate. The Hollywood bosses figure they can play one craft union off against another. By themselves, writers are at a great disadvantage. To win this important labor battle, it is necessary to extend the strike to include all media industry workers, particularly blue-collar workers without whom the studios would go dark. Ultimately there should be one union of all media workers. Instead of looking to millionaire Democrats like John Edwards, strikers can make a start by aggressively picketing scab talk show and “reality” TV programs. All Media Workers Should Join the WGA on Strike! (22 December 2007)

The World Socialist Web Site, a/k/a Socialist Equality Party, is trying to attract WGA writers. What the WSWS/SEP doesn’t mention is that they oppose unions, even telling auto workers to vote to keep unions out. Far from being some kind of ultra-leftists, these scab “socialists” are doing the bosses’ work.
SEP/WSWS: Scab “Socialists” (22 December 2007)

Cast a Blank Ballot in the Constitutional Referendum,
and Prepare for Class War
Venezuela: Impose Workers Control
on the Road to Socialist Revolution
Smash Counterrevolution with Workers Mobilization!
No Political Support to the Bourgeois Populist Chávez –
Build a Revolutionary Workers Party!

On December 2, Venezuelans will vote on a proposal to reform 69 articles of the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic, adopted in 1999. Both supporters of President Hugo Chávez (who are voting “yes”) and rightist reactionaries (who are voting “no”) portray the measures as opening the door to socialism in Venezuela. This is in no way the case. The various changes aim at strengthening presidential power and instituting a series of social reforms that do not go beyond the limits of capitalism. Although several of the reforms are positive, the overall effect would be to grant unlimited powers to the president and the bourgeois state apparatus, particularly the army, which will inevitably be used against the workers, as has already occurred. Class-conscious Venezuelan workers should abstain on the constitutional referendum, while joining in mobilizations to block any move by rightist reaction backed by U.S. imperialism to stage a coup during or after the voting. In particular in order to block capitalist attempts to create artificial food shortages, workers should seize control of the entire agricultural/food manufacturing and marketing chain. Venezuela: Impose Workers Control (1 December 2007)

90 Years of the October Revolution

The Russian October Revolution of 1917 was the seminal event of the 20th century. The workers’ conquest of power led by the Bolshevik Party of V.I. Lenin and Leon Trotsky put an end to World War I and shook the old order from the imperial centers of Europe to the farthest reaches of their colonial “possessions.” The revolution continued to be key to world events for the next three-quarters of a century, long after Stalin and his bureaucratic henchmen had seized power and betrayed the internationalist program of Red October. The counterrevolution that destroyed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics along with the Soviet-bloc bureaucratically deformed workers states during the period 1989-92 represented a world-historic defeat for the proletariat of the entire planet. Yet contrary to the imperialist ideologues, communism is not dead, we have not entered a “new world order” of peace and prosperity, and we have not reached the “end of history” – far from it. Nor, as a host of self-proclaimed socialists declare, have we been thrown back to the period before October. On the contrary, basing ourselves on the program and analyses of Lenin and Trotsky, in order to lead the revolution to victory, this time on world scale, a central task facing revolutionaries today is to draw the lessons both of the victory of 1917 and of the defeat that opened the post-Soviet period. 90 Years of the October Revolution (November 2007)

Fight for Power to Workers and Peasants Councils!
Trotskyism vs. “Constituent Assembly” Mania
Over the last several years, calls for the establishment of a constituent assembly have been heard in various countries of Latin America. Around the mass strike and quasi-uprising in Oaxaca, Mexico during May-November 2006, demands were raised by the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) and a host of left groups for a constituent assembly, a “revolutionary constituent assembly,” etc. Currently, “center-left” bourgeois populist regimes led by Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador have sought to strengthen themselves against right-wing reaction by calling constituent assemblies. This bourgeois-democratic demand has been put forward by revolutionary communists in fighting against a variety of pre-capitalist, colonial or bonapartist regimes. It was one of the key planks of V.I. Lenin’s Bolsheviks against the tsarist autocracy in Russia, until it was superseded as the central demand by “all power to the soviets” in the course of 1917. Trotsky raised the call for a national assembly in China under the warlords, while emphasizing that it would only be part of a program for the taking of power by workers and peasants councils. But the current deluge of calls for a constituent assembly in ostensibly bourgeois-democratic regimes is counterposed to Bolshevism. It replaces the program of proletarian revolution with that of (capitalist) “democracy,” a hallmark of reformist social democrats. Trotskyism vs. “Constituent Assembly” Mania (October 2007)

Why We Fight for Workers Strikes
Against the War
(and the Opportunists Don't)

Break with the Democrats – For a Class-Struggle Workers Party!
The U.S.’ colonial occupation of, Iraq and Afghanistan is at a dead end. Despite the vaunted “surge” of U.S. forces in Iraq last spring, attacks by insurgents have not diminished one bit, while the number of Iraqi civilian casualties has sharply increased. In the mid-term U.S. elections last November, the Democrats won control of both houses of Congress mainly due to the perception that they would “do something” to end the war. Yet the war goes on, with their support. The entire activity of the antiwar movement has consisted precisely of seeking to pressure the Democratic Party into opposing the war on Iraq. Forget it. This is a bi-partisan imperialist war. The Internationalist Group and League for the Fourth International call not just for U.S. withdrawal, which would merely lead to the next war as it has repeatedly over the last century, but to drive the imperialist occupiers out of Iraq and Afghanistan and to defeat U.S. imperialism’s wars through international socialist revolution. We seek to mobilize the power of the workers movement in sharp class struggle, including workers strikes against the war and “hot cargoing” war material. Why We Fight for Workers Strikes Against the War (18 October 2007)

Port Shutdown Over Dock Worker Killed in Oakland,
Union Mobilization Over “Anti-Terror” Security Assault
Militant Protest Against Racist Cop Attack on Bay Area Longshore Workers
Dump the TWIC Card – Strike Against the War!
On October 4, upwards of 250 demonstrators rallied outside the Yolo County Courthouse in Woodland, California to protest the vicious police assault last August on two black dock workers from San Francisco who were working in the port of Sacramento. Dock workers came from all over northern California, Portland, Oregon and even Charleston, South Carolina, to protest the racist attack. Twice in the space of a month, longshore workers in California have been victimized amid ruling class hysteria over port “security threats” while actual safety conditions on the docks deteriorate. In late September, a worker in the port of Oakland was killed after being struck by a container. Outraged workers immediately shut down the entire port, one of the U.S.’ busiest. The port shutdown and October 4 rally demonstrate the potential strength of labor. Coming up is an October 20 “Labor Conference to Stop the War” sponsored by the Bay Area ILWU locals. This could help prepare the way for labor strikes against the war, as we have repeatedly called for. But to do so it will have to overcome the obstacle of the labor bureaucracy tied to the Democratic Party, which is now the main capitalist party keeping the war going. Militant Protest Against Racist Cop Attack on Bay Area Longshore Workers (12 October 2007)

ILWU Dock Workers Under Attack (28 September 2007)

Marxism and Education

Pamphlets and Articles from The Internationalist
The Battle for Public Education,
Stop CUNY's “War Purge,”
The UNAM Strike and Workers Revolution

Recent articles on Education:

Bloomberg/Klein School “Reform” Flunks Out
“Merit Pay,” Witchhunting and Corporatizing Public Education
Close Down the “Rubber Rooms” – Reinstate All “Excessed” Teachers! For Union Control of Hiring!
The mounting attack on New York City teachers by schools chancellor Joel Klein and billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg is only the tip of the iceberg. A full-scale assault on public education being waged by the Republican White House, the Democratic state house and top capitalists like Bill Gates. They are out to reshape the workforce to “compete in a global economy,” and for that they want to put the schools under private control, push most students out by the 10th grade and bust teachers unions. The day before national test results revealed that New York City schools failed to improve math and reading scores, Klein announced that the NYC Department of Education had set up a “Teacher Performance Unit” to drive out teachers they want to get rid of. Yet instead of fighting to defeat the drive to corporatize and privatize public education, United Federation of Teachers leader Randi Weingarten negotiated the introduction of “school-based” merit pay. “Merit” or “performance” pay, however you package it, is a threat to the very existence of the union. “Merit Pay,” Witchhunting and Corporatizing Public Education (26 November 2007)

Bolivia: Class Battles in the Andes

Articles on Bolivia from The Internationalist

Recent articles on Bolivia:

“Andean Capitalism” vs. Permanent Revolution
Bolivia: Evo Morales Against the Workers and Oppressed
When Evo Morales won Bolivia’s national elections in December 2005, becoming the first indigenous president in South American history, the international left almost unanimously hailed this as a victory for the oppressed. Yet as the League for the Fourth International warned, political support to Morales’ “Andean capitalism” is counterposed to the most fundamental interests of the workers, peasants and indigenous peoples. In a year and a half in office, Morales has carried out an “agrarian reform” that strengthens the landowners’ power, decreed phony “nationalizations” that leave oil and gas fields in the hands of imperialist corporations, called a “constituent assembly” in which right-wing racists hold the whip hand, and repeatedly attacked the workers movement. The experience of this bourgeois-nationalist regime confirms Leon Trotsky’s program of permanent revolution, that the working class must take power at the head of the poor peasantry and the exploited layers of the urban population, seizing the land and industries in a socialist revolution extending throughout Latin America and into the imperialist heartland. Bolivia: Evo Morales Against the Workers and Oppressed (September 2007)

From the Current Issue

The Internationalist No. 26
(July 2007)
click above or on image
for full list of articles

Full Citizenship Rights for All Immigrants!
For Militant Workers Action to Stop ICE Raids and Deportations!
Democrats and Republicans, Enemies of Immigrants –
Forge a Revolutionary Workers Party!
Last year’s immigrant-bashing bill, H.R. 4437 died in Congress. But now its key components are back, in immigration “reform” proposals by Republican president George Bush and the Democratic Party majority in Congress. Meanwhile, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) cops of the Homeland Security Department have unleashed nationwide raids. On this May Day 2007, we call on the workers movement to come out in defense of immigrants, not just in words, but in militant labor action. Today, union bureaucrats and liberal Democrats will make pro-immigrant noises from the platforms, but their vague calls for “legalization” won’t obtain legal rights and union conditions for more than 13 million undocumented workers. They say “stop the raids and deportations.” But how? The only way to stop the wave of anti-immigrant repression is to mobilize labor’s power against the ICE Gestapo. Labor must demand full citizenship rights for all immigrants, documented or undocumented . When the migra tries to stage its raids in a union town like New York, thousands of workers should pour into the streets to block the immigrant catchers. ¡La lucha obrera no tiene fronteras – Workers’ struggle has no borders! For Militant Workers Action to Stop ICE Raids and Deportations! (1 May 2007)

Oakland Dock Workers Honor Picket, Shut Down War Cargo Shipper
For Workers Strikes Against the War!
On May 19 in Oakland, California dock workers of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 refused to cross picket lines outside a notorious war cargo shipping firm, Stevedoring Services of America (SSA), leaving three ships idle for consecutive shifts. The picket was called by the Port Action Committee, an antiwar coalition including the Oakland Education Association, which declared it was holding an official union picket. The dock workers’ action shows the depth of anger against the war in the U.S. working class and the real possibility of labor action against the war. Since before the war began, the Internationalist Group has uniquely called for workers strikes against the war and for transportation unions to “hot cargo” (refuse to handle) war cargo. A host of opportunist socialist groups dismissed this call as “pie in the sky.” Yet here were West Coast union dock workers respecting antiwar picket lines and shutting down war shippers. This can be an important first step toward the mobilization of workers power to shut down the war machine, but that requires a sharp struggle against the bourgeois politics of the antiwar groups and union officialdom. Longshore Workers Honor Picket Line, Shut Down War Cargo Shipper in Oakland (20 May 2007)

After the Presidential Elections, A Reactionary Offensive Against Youth and Workers
France Turns Hard to the Right
To Defeat Sarkozy, End Class-Collaborationist Alliances
Out of the most appalling presidential campaign that France has known in a long time, the candidate emerged victorious who most embodied chauvinist electioneering and the employers’ determination to put an end to the threadbare union gains still remaining after almost a quarter century of dismantling the “welfare state.” Nicolas Sarkozy has been installed in the Elysée (France’s presidential palace) in order to proclaim the death of the “French model.” This policy represents a consensus among the French bourgeoisie, and the “socialist” Royal was in fact the candidate of a bourgeois coalition, backed by small capitalist parties. As always, this popular front of class collaboration had the purpose of chaining the working people to a sector of the bourgeoisie. “Sarko” vs. “Sego” was a contest between two competitors running on the same basic program, and a majority of the voters preferred the original to the copy. If the presidential campaign demonstrated the bankruptcy of the “social-liberal” parliamentary left, it also laid bare the dead-end of a “far left” sunk in popular-frontism.The lesson of the recent presidential elections and of social struggles over the last decade is the urgent and necessary regrouping of orthodox Marxists in an authentically Trotskyist party. France Turns Hard to the Right (24 May 2007)

Hundreds March for Mumia Abu-Jamal at Philly Court Hearing
Mobilize Workers’ Power to Free Mumia!
Over 500 people turned out to demonstrate on behalf of Mumia Abu-Jamal outside the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia May 17, as another 200 observed the proceedings in the packed courtroom. At issue was deliberate exclusion of blacks in jury selection during Mumia’s 1982 trial, the instructions to the jury on the death sentence, and evidence of judicial bias against Mumia. In court, the prosecution demanded that the death sentence against Jamal be reinstated while defense lawyer Robert Bryan asked for a new trial. While some had illusions that a new trial could be fair, many declared the entire “justice” system racist to the core. The original trial and 1995 appeal were racist travesties, presided over by the racist “hanging judge” Albert Sabo. But the court will not rule on the most fundamental issue, that Mumia Abu-Jamal is innocent. The Internationalist Group says there is no justice for the oppressed in the capitalist courts. It will take the power of the organized workers movement to free Mumia from the system of racist repression. Hundreds March for Mumia Abu-Jamal Outside Court Hearing in Philadelphia (19 May 2007)

Spartacist League Says Don’t Run Them Off Campus
Drive Out Racist “Minuteman” Vigilantes!
Accompanying state repression against immigrants in post-9/11 America, racist vigilantes have escalated violent anti-immigrant attacks. The most prominent of these sinister groups is the so-called Minuteman Project which has staged armed “border patrols” hunting “illegal aliens” along the Mexican border. We have warned: “The Minutemen are shot through with fascist outfits.... These are not just racist bigots: they are armed and dangerous.” Last October Minuteman founder Gilchrist fled the stage when student protesters unfurled a banner defending immigrant rights. Now the Spartacist League says students should not “disrupt” or shut down Minuteman events on campus. The SL pretends these racist vigilantes are not fascist, only “fascistic,” and denies that they advocate or carry out deadly violence against the oppressed. The SL’s whitewash of the racist vigilantes is a repudiation of Trotskyism and its own past actions, and an act of sabotage of the struggle to defend immigrants against government and vigilante terror. The Internationalist Group calls for organized immigrant/worker defense to sweep away these deadly immigrant hunters. Drive Out Racist “Minuteman” Vigilantes! (21 May 2007)

Full Citizenship Rights for All Immigrants –
Mobilize Union Power to Block the Raids
New Haven: Break ICE Terror with Militant Class Struggle!
On Monday, June 4, the New Haven Board of Aldermen passed a local ordinance to provide undocumented immigrants a city-issued photo ID card. Barely 36 hours later, the federal government responded by carrying out a first-ever immigration raid in the Connecticut city. The ICE Gestapo barged into homes, grabbing entire families, picked people off the streets without so much as a warrant, and terrorized the entire neighborhood, home to many immigrant workers. The New Haven raids were a brutal reminder from the feds that the issue is power. After years of futile lobbying for “immigration reform” from Democrats in Congress, many liberals and reformists have turned their sights to more modest local initiatives for “sanctuary cities” and the like. “Stop the Raids!” say demonstrators’ signs. Yes, but how? It will take mass mobilization of labor power. New Haven: Break ICE Terror with Militant Class Struggle (16 June 2007)

Workers Strikes Against the War! Hot-Cargo War Materiel!
Defeat US Imperialism With Workers' Revolution!
Boston: How To End The War?
Reformist Movement Leaders Have No Answer
The Greater Boston Stop the Wars Coalition (STWC) recently held a meeting on “Ending the War: Peace Movement Leaders Ask, ‘Which Way Forward’?” Good question, to which they have no answer. Although the “movement” is divided between a variety of “coalitions,” they all have the same basic political makeup: one or two socialist groups at the core posing as “just us peace folks”; a minimum “democratic” program aimed at attracting support from mainstream liberals; one or another bourgeois politician dragged onto the speakers platform to gain the desired veneer of “respectability.” These popular fronts for peace chain opponents of the war to sections of the bourgeoisie, that is, the “bipartisan” imperialist war party. What they don’t have is a program to mobilize power to stop the warmongers in their tracks: the power of the working class. immigrants is the “home front” of the imperialist war on Iraq. The Internationalist Group says: The only “anti-war movement” that succeeded in stopping an imperialist war was the Russian revolution of 1917, led by the Bolshevik party of Lenin and Trotsky. Boston: How To End The War? (18 May 2007)

Hundreds Protest NYU Republicans’ Racist “Illegal Immigrant” Hunt
On February 22, College Republicans at New York University (NYU) staged a blatant racist provocation – a “game” of “catch the illegal immigrant.” This was only the latest chapter in a nationwide campaign by campus right-wingers. The grotesque stunt unleashed an outpouring of anger among NYU students and many others. More than 400 protesters turned out and kept up a steady din for three hours, chanting, picketing and drowning out the handful of racist vigilantes. The Internationalist Group carried signs calling for “Full Citizenship Rights for All Immigrants,” “Mobilize NYC Labor to Defend Immigrant Workers” and “Sweep Racist Vigilantes Off the Streets!” Hundreds Protest NYU Republicans’ Racist “Illegal Immigrant” Hunt (23 February 2007)

From the Previous Issue

The Internationalist No. 25
(January-February 2007)
click above or on image
for full list of articles

Struggle to Forge a Vanguard Is Key

A Revolution Is Brewing In Mexico

As 2007 dawns, Mexico is still reeling from ten months of sharp class conflict. A new government has taken office vowing to employ “the full weight of the state” against those who defy it. Felipe Calderón, the reactionary president imposed by the Federal Elections Tribunal over massive protests, wants above all to assure Wall Street and Washington that he will “preserve economic stability.” The appetites of the head of the right-wing National Action Party (PAN) for a “strong state” are evident, but he comes into office as the weakest government of any in recent history. Not only did protesters shut down the capital’s main square and main thoroughfare for six weeks last summer protesting electoral fraud, workers, peasants and teachers repeatedly defeated police and troops in a series of pitched battles over the last year. Although a six-month mass strike in the southern state of Oaxaca ended with an eruption of cop violence and hundreds of arrests, the tens of thousands of strikers are unbowed. The dramatic clashes of 2006 have sown the seeds of revolution, as the strikes of 1906-07 signaled the coming of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. But the key element for a victorious outcome is absent: a revolutionary vanguard with the program and determination to sweep away the inhuman exploitation and mass poverty of capitalism and set out on the road of international socialist revolution. A Revolution Is Brewing In Mexico (10 January 2007)

The Lynching of Saddam Hussein
U.S. Rips Apart Iraq

The execution of former Iraqi strong man Saddam Hussein on December 30, ordered by a puppet court orchestrated by the U.S. occupiers, was a hideous display of imperialist barbarism reminiscent of the Middle Ages. It was unadorned state murder carried out on the orders of the conquerors who have subjugated the oil-rich and strategically important Near Eastern country. It may also be a watershed in the history of Iraq, marking the “tipping point” after which it spirals irrevocably downward into a vortex of sectarian and communal strife. Saddam was a capitalist butcher and brutal dictator. While U.S. rulers use this as a battle cry for their imperialist invasion and colonial occupation of Iraq, many of Hussein's most heinous crimes were carried at the behest of, and sometimes on direct orders from, Washington. What an obscenity – the world’s biggest war criminals, the torturers of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, claiming the “right” to hang Hussein! The Lynching of Saddam Hussein (4 January 2007)

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Permanent Crisis of the Popular Front
Lula Against the Workers – Forge a Revolutionary Workers Party!
A wave of disgust is spreading across Latin America. The “lost decade” of the 1980s caused by the “foreign debt bomb” was followed by another ten years of regimes which applied the prescriptions of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, deepening hunger and poverty throughout the continent. This gave rise to so-called “center-left” governments in several countries, installed after populist election campaigns denouncing “neo-liberalism.” First among them is the popular front headed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil. Yet these regimes soon turned out to be loyal servants of their imperialist masters in Washington. In Brazil, the Lula government was shaken by a series of scandals of monthly payoffs to legislators in “opposition” parties to get their votes and revelations of large-scale corruption in the Workers Party (PT). Yet far from mounting a revolutionary opposition to Lula’s bourgeois government, the left “opposition” (which overwhelmingly supported Lula, openly or in 2002) fell in behind the right-wing scandal-mongers, while calling for a slightly more left version of today’s PT. Lula Against the Workers – Forge a Revolutionary Workers Party! (May 2006)

Philippines Crackdown: Fight Arroyo with Workers’ Power!
Not Another EDSA "People's Power" Fraud, Fight for Workers Revolution! Build the Nucleus of a Philippine Trotskyist Party!
Once again the Philippine political landscape reverberated from the noise of police banging up their shields and tanks rumbling through the streets, reminiscent of the martial law years of the 1970s. President Gloria