No. 57, September-October 2019  Table of Contents Selected articles linked Click on image to left for pdf version of complete issue.

Against Trump and the Democrats – Build a Workers Party Impeachment Crisis: “Deep State” vs. Bigot-in-Chief After months of agitation by liberals, and months of resistance from the Democratic Party establishment, on September 24 House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi announced an official impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump. Trump is certainly guilty of numerous crimes, of sadistic murderous cruelty against refugees at the border, of vicious persecution of immigrants in the U.S., of whitewashing anti-Semitic fascist killers, the list goes on and on. But that is not what Trump is being charged with. The Democrats are wrapping themselves in the flag, vituperating about national security, inveighing against Russia and complaining about the Republican “dirty tricks” against them. Both are parties of U.S. imperialism. Class-conscious workers, defenders of black rights, immigrants’ rights and democratic rights in general, and certainly revolutionary Marxists, must oppose both sides in this dogfight among capitalist politicians over who is betraying and who is upholding the class interests and national security of the U.S. bourgeoisie. Trump is being brought up on charges by the wrong class for the wrong crimes. While various opportunist leftists have climbed aboard the impeachment express, the Internationalist Group fights to build a revolutionary workers party against Democrats, Republicans and all capitalist parties. Impeachment Crisis: “Deep State” vs. Bigot-in-Chief (October 2019)

Defend the Kurds! Drive Out U.S./NATO Imperialists! Against U.S./Turkey Attack on Kurds: For International Workers Action! For Workers Revolution from Turkey and Syria to Iran and Egypt For a United Socialist Kurdistan in a Socialist Federation of the Middle East The long-expected Turkish invasion of northeastern Syria began on October 9, two days after U.S. president Donald Trump gave Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan the go-ahead. The immediate target of the attack is the Kurdish YPG (People’s Protection Units) militia, along with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) led by the YPG. In reality, the entire ethnic Kurdish population of northeastern Syria is threatened with mass expulsion and massacres. this latest war on the Kurds is a U.S./Turkey/NATO combined operation, which class-conscious workers and opponents of imperialism everywhere must oppose and seek to defeat. The Turkish invasion is aimed at forcibly transferring 2 million Syrian Arab refugees to Kurdish regions and pushing the Kurds into the Syrian desert – “ethnic cleansing” on a vast scale. It is also the predictable outcome of the devil’s bargain of the Kurdish bourgeois leadership in enlisting as mercenary troops for U.S. imperialism in its war against the Islamic State. Now the Kurdish people are paying the price. The Kurdish people, numbering over 40 million spread over a contiguous, largely mountainous area of the Middle East, is the largest nation in the world without a state. The League for the Fourth International calls for a socialist republic of united Kurdistan, as part of a proletarian struggle against the imperialists and their Middle Eastern satraps and Zionist allies. Against U.S./Turkey Attack on Kurds: For International Workers Action! (13 October 2019)

Extend the Gains of the 1949 Revolution to Hong Kong – Expropriate the Bourgeoisie, Drive Out the Imperialists Hong Kong: Defeat Pro-Imperialist Riots With Revolutionary Workers Mobilization “One Country, Two Systems” = Stalinist Betrayal For Genuine Communism Through Workers Political Revolution For almost five months, Hong Kong has been convulsed by increasingly violent imperialist-backed protests and riots. Portrayed in the Western media as “pro-democracy,” their ultimate aim is to instigate capitalist counterrevolution in China. Leading spokesmen of the supposedly “leaderless” movement call for independence from China for the former British colony and appeal to the U.S. president Donald Trump to “liberate Hong Kong.” The protests have been marked by numerous U.S. and UK colonial flags and even the flag of Taiwan. The petty-bourgeois protesters, whether in suits and ties or masked and dressed in black, are virulently anti-communist. The Hong Kong protests, trumpeted by the imperialist media marching in lockstep, have brought together an anti-communist unholy alliance extending from outright fascists and right-wing conservatives to bourgeois liberals and most of what remains of an ostensibly socialist left. The League for the Fourth International, in contrast, warns that these protests are a threat to the remaining gains of the Chinese Revolution. They must be countered with a working-class mobilization on a revolutionary program to drive out the imperialists, expropriate the Hong Kong bourgeoisie and end Hong Kong’s “autonomous” status as a capitalist enclave.  Hong Kong: Defeat Pro-Imperialist Riots With Revolutionary Workers Mobilization (31 October 2019)

The Havana Trotsky Conference: Notes of a Participant On May 6-8, an unprecedented and important event was held in Havana, Cuba: the first “International Academic Event on Leon Trotsky.” The conference was sponsored by Cuba’s Institute of Philosophy and Juan Marinello Institute for Cultural Research. Those attending included Cuban researchers and students, together with scholars and activists from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Spain, Turkey, the United States and other countries. Supporters of the League for the Fourth International were among the presenters, as well as participating in the discussion. Our speakers spoke on Trotsky in Mexico and the history of Bolivian Trotskyism. There was important polemical discussion on essential aspects of the Trotskyist program, centrally on the “Russian Question” (the nature of the countries where capitalism was overthrown, and their defense against imperialism and counterrevolution), the fight against class collaboration, and Trotsky’s program of permanent revolution vs. Stalin’s anti-Marxist dogma of “socialism in one country.” The Havana Trotsky Conference: Notes of a Participant (October 2019) Presentations and Comments at the Trotsky Conference in Havana (October 2019)

For Workers Mobilization Throughout Spain Against Neo-Francoist Repression in Catalonia Catalonia: Unconditional Freedom for Independentista Prisoners! Defend the Right to Self-Determination On October 14, the Spanish Supreme Court pronounced draconian sentences against the nine Catalan independence leaders who were declared guilty in the trial against the independence movement. The sentences ranged from 9 to 13 years in prison simply for holding a referendum to decide on independence for Catalonia. That night in Barcelona thousands of protesters besieged the airportwhile the next day tens of thousands took to the streets to protest against the verdict and the rigged trial. At nightfall as they dispersed, police viciously set upon the protesters, leading to a pitched battle with flaming barricades, a scenario that was repeated in the following days. On October 18, a general strike and mobilization of more than three-quarters of a million protesters calling to defend civil liberties shut down the Catalan capital. There should be workers mobilization throughout the Spanish state against this neo-Francoist repression (unleashed by the Socialist Pedro Sánchez) and to defend the democratic right to Catalan self-determination. The League for the Fourth International fights for a federation of workers republics of the Iberian Peninsula that extends socialist revolution to all of Europe. Catalonia: Unconditional Freedom for Independentista Prisoners! (20 October 2019)

Mobilize Workers Power to Stop Fascist/Anti-Semitic Terror! Halle Was an Attempted Fascist Massacre The Targets: Jews, Muslims, Leftists, Women On October 9, dozens of people gathered in a synagogue in Halle, in the eastern German federal state of Sachsen-Anhalt, to observe the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur narrowly escaped being massacred by a fascist gunman in an anti-Semitic attack. The attacker nevertheless killed two people, one on the street and another in a kebab takeout store. Since the killings, the media have exclusively labeled the attack as “anti-Semitic,” which it certainly was, while ignoring the killer’s extensive enemies list. According to his manifesto, he had originally considered targeting a mosque or an “antifa” meeting point. These days in Germany any criticism of the criminal repression of Palestinians by the Zionist state is labeled “hatred of Jews.” The upsurge in genuinely anti-Semitic incidents on the streets as well as actions by “lone wolves” are being egged on by racist propaganda, including tropes common to fascists and conservatives and propagated by sections of the “mainstream” media. The fascists must be defeated. This is a political struggle. What’s needed is a mass mobilization of workers power to crush the fascists, their uniformed protectors and their capitalist sponsors, part of a struggle to build a workers party that fights for international socialist revolution. Halle Was an Attempted Fascist Massacre (13 October 2019)

Almost 50,000 General Motors Workers Walk Out For a Big 3 Nationwide Auto Strike! Spread the Strike – Shut Down GM, Ford, Chrysler – Bring Out Unionized Parts Plants The strike by some 48,000 General Motors workers at 33 manufacturing plants and 22 distribution warehouses is the largest industrial strike in the U.S. in over a decade. GM workers are pissed, as the company demands more concessions and announces plant closures in order to cut costs even as it rakes in billions in profits. But the business-as-usual approach of the United Auto Workers (UAW) leadership cannot win this key battle. The union ranks know perfectly well that what’s needed is to get rid of the whole “divide-and-conquer” tier set-up. GM’s obscene profits are a direct result of the two-tier work force that the UAW tops agreed to in the 2007-09 economic crisis, cutting wages for new hires by more than half, with no pension and inferior health care. In 2015, a third tier of even lower-paid “temporary” workers was created. To win, the GM strike should be turned into a nationwide auto strike to shut down the Big 3 and bring out UAW-organized parts plants. Tiered labor should be ended, and all workers in the plants should be covered by the GM contract. Above all, this strike must be waged politically. Democratic presidential candidates are grandstanding on the picket lines. But it was the Democratic Obama administration that bailed out bankrupt GM in 2009 and engineered the giveback contracts. The only way to take power, and put the wealth built up from our labor to serve human needs, is to build a class-struggle workers party to lead the fight for a workers government that would expropriate GM and all of the capitalist exploiters. For a Big 3 Nationwide Auto Strike! (25 September 2019)

Olli Weiss, 1985 – 2019, A Revolutionary Class Fighter for the Oppressed Our comrade Oliver Weiss died on July 22. His utterly unexpected death was an incredible shock to everyone who knew him. Only a few weeks earlier he had celebrated his 34th birthday. The terrible death of Comrade Olli is a severe blow for the Internationalistische Gruppe/Germany, of which he was a founding member and a mainstay, and an incalculable loss for our League for the Fourth International, of which he was part of the international leadership. At the age of 16, and with the intention of fighting for the Bolshevik politics of Leon Trotsky, Olli joined the Spartakist Youth in early 2002 and a year later the Spartakist Workers Party of Germany (SpAD), the affiliate of the International Communist League (ICL). After years of internal disputes, in which he vainly hoped for a self-reform of the ICL, he came to the conclusion that with its chauvinist position on refugees, “the ICL was lost for revolution,” and in 2017 joined the League for the Fourth International. Olli deeply absorbed Lenin’s admonition in What Is To Be Done? that the goal of the professional revolutionary is to be a tribune of the people defending all victims of oppression and capitalist exploitation. Won to Trotsky’s program, Olli never changed his revolutionary spirit, but fought to put it consistently into practice. The working class worldwide has lost an enormously promising communist champion. Olli Weiss, 1985 – 2019, A Revolutionary Class Fighter for the Oppressed (August 2019)

You Can’t Fight Trump with the Democratic Party – Unchain the Power of Labor and the Oppressed! For a Revolutionary Workers Party! Dangerous Racist Provocations in Pre-Election Maneuvering Leading up to the 2020 U.S. elections, the maneuvering between the two main government parties of this imperialist country in deep social crisis has set off a virulent racist hate campaign, whipped up by Republican President Donald Trump, against first-term Democratic Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib ranting that they should “go back” to countries they “originally came from.” The “go back to where you came from” taunt is a threat of racist (and in this case, misogynistic) violence. In response, the Democratic-led House of Representatives passed a resolution denouncing the president for his overtly and blatantly racist attack, but filled the resolution with quotations from arch-racist Republican Ronald Reagan. Today, the intensity of the political clashes in Washington and the provocations of violent racist and outright fascist groups raise the spectre of civil war. Certainly, sectors of Trump’s most rabid base yearn to avenge the defeat of the vile Confederacy. Yet here is no sector of the U.S. bourgeoisie that will – or can – fight the wave of reaction. For the workers and oppressed to defend themselves, their most vital rights and needs – let alone move to actually win what has up to now been a “one-sided class war” – it is urgently necessary to break from the Democratic Party. Dangerous Racist Provocations in Pre-Election Maneuvering (24 July 2019)