Internationalist Group -- Reforge the Fourth International!

Washington Exploits Earthquake to Reoccupy the Country
Haiti: Workers Solidarity, Yes!
Imperialist Occupation, No!
Stop Blocking Aid to Haitian People – U.S./U.N. Forces Get Out!
The January 12 earthquake in Haiti that devastated the capital city, leaving well over 100,000 dead and a million homeless, was one of the worst geological calamities of modern times. The earthquake was a natural disaster, but the horrendous death toll and monumental destruction were caused by capitalism and imperialism. Now the human suffering has been enormously compounded by to the militarization of the relief effort and reoccupation of Haiti by the United States. More than a dozen flights by aid groups, carrying rescue squads, tons of medical supplies and entire field hospitals, were refused permission to land at the Port-au-Prince airport by U.S. military air controllers who are now in charge. Food was already stocked in warehouses, but agencies refused to distribute it for fear of “riots.” The media blitz is a propaganda war to embellish the image of U.S. imperialism. This phony humanitarianism are being used to disguise a new U.S. occupation of Haiti. We demand an end to the imperialist occupation, U.S./U.N. forces get out of Haiti and stop blocking entry of Haitian refugees. Haiti: Workers Solidarity, Yes! Imperialist Occupation, No! (20 January 2010)

Spartacist League Backs U.S. Imperialist Invasion of Haiti
The latest issue of Workers Vanguard, newspaper of the Spartacist League, has a front-page story that supports the presence of United States and United Nations occupation troops in Haiti. WV buys the U.S. rulers’ cover story for their latest invasion as supposedly aiding the desperate Haitian masses left homeless, hungry and in dire need of medical attention in the wake of the devastating earthquake. The article ends with an apoplectic attack on the Internationalist Group for exposing the imperialist lies and demanding “U.S./U.N. Forces Get Out!” This is a deeply significant step for the SL, marking the point at which they have gone over from bending under pressure from the ruling class to outright apology for imperialism. . Spartacist League Backs U.S. Imperialist Invasion of Haiti (30 January 2010)

Haiti: Battle Over Starvation Wages and Neocolonial Occupation (November 2009)

From the Current Issue

The Internationalist No. 30
(November-December 2009)
click above or on image
for full list of articles

Imperialist Chief Obama:
Deeper Into the Quagmire
Defeat U.S. War on Afghanistan and Iraq!
On December 1, President Barack Obama officially announced a massive escalation of the U.S. war on Afghanistan, tripling the number of American military personnel there since Obama took office. This move marks a decision by Washington to continue the colonial occupation of Afghanistan indefinitely, and with it the bloody slaughter of the Afghan people. Obama’s claim that he would “begin the transfer” of U.S. forces by mid-2011 was just sucker bait for gullible liberals. “Afghanistan Is Now Obama’s War,” proclaimed the media from New York to London to Mumbai. But Afghanistan has been the Democrats’ war since the moment it was launched, in September 2001, and together with the war on Iraq, it is a bipartisan imperialist war. No one in Washington thinks the Afghan puppet army will be able to handle the Taliban. The actual U.S. strategy is not to defeat the Taliban but to weaken it enough so that elements of the Islamists can be brought into a political deal. It is striking that in the United States, a majority of the population is turning against the war even though there hasn’t been a major national antiwar march in more than two years – ever since the start of the last presidential election campaign. At protests following Obama’s announcement of more troops to Afghanistan, organizers carefully avoided any signs mentioning the president by name. Our Internationalist contingent, in contrast, carried signs including, “Hey Obama, How Many Kids Did You Kill Today? Defeat Imperialist Slaughter in Afghanistan, Iraq.” Defeat U.S. War on Afghanistan and Iraq! (13 December 2009)

Afghan Massacre Blows Apart German Occupiers’ Lies (20 December 2009)

Popular Front Diverts Workers into Legalistic Dead-End
Life and Death Struggle for Independent Unions in Mexico
The Mexican government of President Felipe Calderón has launched a war on labor that is likely to be the key battle for the existence of unions independent of government control. On October 10 police and army troops seized the generating plants and other installations of the state-owned Luz y Fuerza del Centro electrical power company. The president issued a decree liquidating the company and firing all 44,000 employees belonging to the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME). Calderón wants to imitate Ronald Reagan’s breaking of the air traffic controllers strike in 1981 and Margaret Thatcher victory over the British coal miners union in 1985. By October 15, well over 300,000 poured into the streets and crowded into the Zócalo, the capital’s main plaza to defend the SME. The Grupo Internacionalista has called to prepare a general strike in central Mexico in defense of the SME. But while union leaders sometimes talk of strike action, they are following a dead-end strategy of appealing to the bourgeois courts and Congress. Now the cause of the electrical workers has been added to the popular front around Andrés Manuel López Obrador, ex-presidential candidate of the bourgeois nationalist PRD, who is looking to the 2012 elections. For electrical workers to win they must break with all the bourgeois parties and politicians. Key is to build a revolutionary workers party. Life and Death Struggle for Independent Unions in Mexico (21 December 2009)

Appeals to Obama’s Top Cop Eric Holder Spread Deadly Illusions
Mumia’s Life Is On the Line: Mobilize Labor/Black Power to Free Him Now!
The threat to Mumia Abu-Jamal’s life is increasingly ominous. His lead attorney, Robert Bryan, warns: “There is an escalated effort by the authorities to see him die at the hands of the executioner. This is the most dangerous time for Mumia since his 1981 arrest.” The U.S. Supreme Court has turned down Jamal’s two appeals. If it were to rule in favor of the prosecution’s appeal, this would open the way for Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell to issue a third warrant of execution, which he has vowed to do. Contrary to the misplaced expectations of many, the Obama administration is not about to save Mumia. Around the world, hundreds of thousands have marched for this courageous champion of oppressed. Trade unions representing millions of members have rallied to the defense of Mumia. It is urgent to expand this support into powerful labor/black action, appealing to the integrated union movement to join with the black, Latino and immigrant poor to demand that he be liberated. Mumia’s Life Is On the Line: Mobilize Labor/Black Power to Free Him Now! (25 November 2009)

Massacre in Maguindanao
Warlords, Clan Wars and Capitalist Rule in Philippines
On November 23, some 57 people including women and journalists were massacred in the province of Maguindanao on the southern Philippines island of Mindanao, as a result of a feud between two rival political clans that run neighboring states. Both are supporters of Philippine president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The horrific massacre sent shock waves through the islands. It was the biggest election-related massacre in the history of the Philippines as well as the largest number of journalists (18) killed in a single event. Ascontroversy wouldn’t die down, on December 5 Arroyo placed the province under martial law. Soldiers discovered an arms cache with enough weapons for a military brigade. It was well-known that the military armed local clan militias to back up its brutal offensive against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The Philippine army is accompanied in the area by a 600-soldier U.S. counterinsurgency force. The League for the Fourth International calls on the workers movement to demand the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. forces and agents from the Philippines, to oppose the martial law imposed in Maguindanao province, to demand the withdrawal of the Philippine armed forces from the contested southern areas, and to defend the Bangsamoro people and their right to self-determination. Warlords, Clan Wars and Capitalist Rule in Philippines (21 December 2009)

(Pilipino) Warlord, Clan Wars at Kapitalistang Paghahari sa Pilipinas (Disyembre 2009)

Philippine Government Launches New War on Muslim Groups (13 September 2008)
(Philipino) Panibagong Pakikidigma sa mga Grupong Muslim (Setyembre 2008)

Now It’s Official: U.S. Backs Coup Regime – A Threat to All Latin America
Honduras After the Phony “Election”:
More Repression and Resistance
On November 29, the authors of the civilian-military coup d’état who seized power in Honduras five months earlier held a plebiscite-style pseudo-election accompanied by massive repression designed to legitimize the dictatorship. In the poor barrios of the capital Tegucigalpa and major towns and in the countryside, the call “don’t vote” was widely followed and people massively stayed home. Since then there has been a wave of disappearances and murders of resistance activists. The death squads are back. Despite the bloody repression, the groups leading the resistance to the coup regime vowed to continue the struggle. However, even though it was based in the trade unions, peasant organizations, women’s and gay rights groups and organizations of indigenous peoples and the black Garífuna population, politically this movement was tied to Zelaya and other bourgeois politicians and parties. Although the Resistance Front declared this “chapter” of the struggle closed, it is wedded to popular-front bourgeois politics, such as its call for “participatory democracy” through a constituent assembly. The League for the Fourth International has called throughout for independent labor mobilization to defeat the gorila (reactionary militarist) coup, and for a revolutionary workers party to lead the fight for a workers and peasants government. Honduras After the Phony “Election”: More Repression and Resistance (21 December 2009)

Honduras: Sweep Away the Coup Plotters, Generals and Capitalists – Fight for a Workers and Peasants Government!
For Revolutionary Workers Struggle Against Coups in Central America
The civilian-military coup d’état of June 28 unleashed a nightmare for the Honduran masses, and not just for them. It threatens all of Latin America with a return to the times of the military dictatorships, of the dirty wars and the death squads of the 1970s and ’80s. Despite the denials by U.S. spokesmen, this coup was “made in U.S.A.” The question that is posed is how to eradicate this plague that has beset Latin America for decades. To suppose that the solution is to be found in merely reestablishing “constitutional order” by restoring President Zelaya, or even that it can be resolved in a bourgeois-democratic framework, is to ignore the class forces which produced the coup, as well as the web of complicity extending from Tegucigalpa to Washington, D.C. Historically, left-wing forces in Central America have been dominated by a nationalist vision and politics, but only through international socialist revolution is it possible to eradicate the threat of constant coups, which are inherent in Latin American capitalism under imperialist domination. For Revolutionary Workers Struggle Against Coups in Central America (October 2009)

The San José-Tegucigalpa Accord: No to the Imperialist Edict! (5 November 2009)
Urgent: Protest Bloody Repression in Honduras! (22 September 2009)

Speech by Esteban Volkov (Sieva)
on the 69th anniversary of the Assassination of Leon Trotsky

The Triumph of the Fourth International:
The Duty and Task That Is Still to be Fulfilled
In August we commemorated the 69th anniversary of the assassination of Lev Davidovitch (Leon) Trotsky, who together with Lenin led the October 1917 Revolution in Russia. Having founded the Red Army, which defended the first workers state in history, and fought against Stalin's betrayal of the Bolshevik Revolution, in the last years of his life Trotsky led the struggle for the Fourth International as the world party of socialist revolution. In the garden of Trotsky’s house (today a museum) in Coyacán, Mexico, his grandson, Esteban Volkov (Sieva), delivered a speech which we publish here. In it, he recalled the two attacks by Stalin’s agents against Trotsky, spoke of his grandfather's commitment to the struggle for socialism and quoted his final message, “I am sure of the triumph of the Fourth International. Forward!” As Volkov emphasized, “This is the duty and it is also the task to be carried out by the comrades who fight with the example and the ideas of the great revolutionary Leon Trotsky,” a task and duty which the League for the Fourth International assumes. The Triumph of the Fourth International: The Duty and Task That Is Still to be Fulfilled (August 2009)

From the Previous Issue

The Internationalist No. 29
(Summer 2009)
click above or on image
for full list of articles

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

For Workers Revolution Against Mullah Rule!
Iran’s Islamic Republic in Turmoil –
What Program for Struggle?
Free Jailed Protesters and Labor Activists!
U.S. Imperialists Hands Off!

Iran is still wracked with turmoil a month and a half after the hotly disputed presidential elections. Aggressive attacks on demonstrators by repressive forces under the command of President Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei have not been able to stop the demonstrations. So far protests have hewed to the political limits laid down by the theocratic regime, but if the struggle deepens against an increasingly militarized regime, that could be called into question. Most of the left internationally has fallen into line either behind the hard-line government or the Islamist “reformers” led by former prime minister Mousavi. Yet the contending camps are both committed to maintaining clerical capitalist rule. While fighting against the “electoral coup d’état,” Trotskyists say Iranian workers should seek not to install Mousavi in office but to raise democratic demands, including for a revolutionary secular constituent assembly, as part of a struggle to establish their own class rule, by bringing down the Islamic Republic and establishing a workers and peasants government that initiates socialist revolution. Iran’s Islamic Republic in Turmoil –What Program for Struggle?

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

Sweep Away the Coup Plotters, Generals and Capitalists!
Fight for a Workers and Peasants Government!
Honduras: The First Coup of the Obama Administration
The ouster of President Manuel Zelaya by Honduran generals at the end of June sent shudders through Latin America. We warned the day after the military takeover that those fighting against it should beware of U.S. intervention (rather than appeal for it). Whether Republicans or Democrats are in power, U.S. imperialism is still the power behind the most reactionary forces in the hemisphere. The U.S. government as a whole, not just one putative faction, was preparing the ouster of Zelaya. For the past month, Honduran trade unions, peasant and indigenous groups have been insistently mobilizing in the streets against the civilian-military dictatorship. A real general strike that shut down the maquiladoras, banana and mining sectors, cutting off Honduran exports would have a considerable impact. But that represents a whole different political orientation, organizing on a program of internationalist class struggle rather than on the bourgeois-democratic and nationalist basis that has dominated so far. The important participation of the unions in the resistance should be used not to restore conditions to what they were on June 27, but to fight against all the capitalist politicians and their system that has condemned three-quarters of the Honduran population to a life of misery. Honduras: The First Coup of the Obama Administration

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

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:
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)

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)

See CUNY Internationalist Clubs video on "Fight the Tuition Purge at CUNY: Students and Labor, Shut the City Down!"

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)

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

Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Now!

Click here for selected articles from The Internationalist and other
statements from the League for the Fourth International.

Appeals to Obama’s Top Cop Eric Holder Spread Deadly Illusions
Mumia’s Life Is On the Line: Mobilize Labor/Black Power to Free Him Now!
The threat to Mumia Abu-Jamal’s life is increasingly ominous. His lead attorney, Robert Bryan, warns: “There is an escalated effort by the authorities to see him die at the hands of the executioner. This is the most dangerous time for Mumia since his 1981 arrest.” The U.S. Supreme Court has turned down Jamal’s two appeals. If it were to rule in favor of the prosecution’s appeal, this would open the way for Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell to issue a third warrant of execution, which he has vowed to do.Contrary to the misplaced expectations of many, the Obama administration is not about to save Mumia. Around the world, hundreds of thousands have marched for this courageous champion of oppressed. Trade unions representing millions of members have rallied to the defense of Mumia. It is urgent to expand this support into powerful labor/black action, appealing to the integrated union movement to join with the black, Latino and immigrant poor to demand that he be liberated. Mumia’s Life Is On the Line: Mobilize Labor/Black Power to Free Him Now! (25 November 2009)

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)

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)

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)

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)

Button available from Mundial Publications. $1 each (Click here to order)	Button available from Mundial Publications. $1 each (Click here to order)
Button available from Mundial Publications. $1 each (Click here to order)

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 Macapagal Arroyo proclaimed a state of emergency on February 24, then lifted it a week later. But the crackdown continues as the Philippines is undergoing “creeping martial law.” Most protests called for ousting Arroyo with “people power” – i.e., for mass mobilization behind the civilian/military bourgeois opposition such as brought down the dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. The League for the Fourth International warns that this is a program for defeat of the working people. The LFI calls to drive the U.S. out of Iraq and Palestine, and to sweep away the Arroyo regime with workers power.

(English) Philippines Crackdown: Fight Arroyo with Workers’ Power! (23 March 2006)

(Pilipino) Crackdown sa Pilipinas: Labanan si Arroyo sa Pamamagitan ng Kapangyarihan ng mga Manggagawa! (23 Marso 2006)