No. 65, October-December 2021  Table of Contents Selected articles linked Click on image to left for pdf version of complete issue.

For Workers Safety Committees – Democrats, NLRB No Friends of Labor Unionize Amazon with Class Struggle! The fight to unionize the giant e-commerce monopoly Amazon has heated up. In June, the powerful International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) union resolved to carry out a coast-to-coast campaign to organize Amazon workers. Then in November the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) threw out the results of the union recognition vote held last spring in Bessemer, Alabama because of Amazon’s dirty tricks and interference in the election. And on December 22 in New York City, the independent Amazon Labor Union re-filed its petition for a union recognition vote at the JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island. Only days before, tornadoes tore through an Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, Illinois, killing six workers inside and injuring others. This was industrial murder. The tragedy in Edwardsville underlines the urgent need to unionize the entire Amazon empire. While demanding the most rigorous safety standards be adhered to, there should be worker safety committees empowered to shut down production in unsafe conditions. One can’t rely on Amazon or the NLRB, an agency of the bosses’ government, or look to the Democratic Party, a capitalist party. To defeat the hard-nosed union-busters at Amazon it will be necessary to mobilize the power of the workers movement in sharp class struggle, including strikes and walkouts, flying pickets, plant occupations – the kind of class-struggle methods that built the unions in the 1930s. Unionize Amazon with Class Struggle! (28 December 2021)

U.S. Big Lie Over Wuhan Is War Propaganda Not Just a Conspiracy Theory, an Anti-Communist Battle Cry For the past two years, all factions of the U.S. ruling class, backed by the bourgeois media and a number of bellicose scientists, have unleashed a propaganda barrage scapegoating China for the pandemic of COVID-19 caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. This is not limited to the “Wuhan lab leak” conspiracy theory, which started out as a far-right fixation, went viral with Republican Donald Trump’s rambling campaign rants, was picked up by unreconstructed Cold Warriors in the new Democratic administration and the liberal media, and then received the presidential imprimatur of Joe Biden. A soft-core strain of the campaign is to accuse Beijing of grossly mishandling the outbreak of the disease and worse, covering up their bungling with police state repression. A transparent aim of this virulent China-bashing is to shift responsibility for the deadly outcome of the disease. Rather than (correctly) blaming the capitalist world, whose utterly calamitous actions and inaction turned an epidemic into a pandemic in which well over 5 million people have died from this modern plague, they want to pin it on China, which effectively and spectacularly confined the spread of the virus with a toll of less than 5,000 dead. This, the first of two articles, is a detailed analysis of the lab-leak “theory.” U.S. Big Lie Over Wuhan Is War Propaganda (27 December 2021)

Vigilante Rittenhouse Is Guilty as Hell – So Are the Cops Who Shot Jacob Blake Kenosha “Trial” Was Rigged – Fascistic Murderer Gets Off All Sides Bought the “Self-Defense” Ruse – There’s No Justice in the Capitalist Courts! On November 19, the jury in the Wisconsin trial of teenage killer Kyle Rittenhouse handed in a verdict of not guilty on all counts. Letting this vile murderer of two anti-racist protesters walk is proof positive that there is no justice in the capitalist courts. Rittenhouse was not a lone killer. The gunman was part of a swarm of white supremacist vigilantes who infested Kenosha that night in August 2020, working in tandem with the police. This hideous verdict will embolden murderous fascist thugs and killer cops everywhere. This is the trial of George Zimmerman, the vigilante murderer of Trayvon Martin, all over again. All opponents of racist terror should protest this atrocity. The Internationalist Group immediately protested, from Kenosha to New York, calling for worker/black/immigrant action against racist terror and to fight for socialist revolution. Kenosha “Trial” Was Rigged – Fascistic Murderer Gets Off  (19 November 2021)

Against Bosses’ Threats and Maneuvers – Solidarity from CUNY Victory to the Columbia Student Workers Strike! On November 3, the Student Workers of Columbia (part of United Auto Workers Local 2110) went on strike. It is the fourth strike in five years, as the union is still fighting to win a first-ever contract. Representing more than 3,000 Columbia University graduate and undergraduate academic employees (including instructors, teaching assistants, graders, researchers and others), the SWC’s demands include a living wage , better health care and measures against discrimination and harassment. Now in its ninth week, the strike is at a critical juncture. Activists from the CUNY Internationalist Clubs and Class Struggle Education Workers have participated intensively on the picket lines and in helping build support. We have emphasized that it’s essential to put into practice the principle that “Picket lines mean don’t cross.” On December 8, the SWC called a day of action to shut Columbia down. Hundreds joined in the picketing. Victory to the Columbia Student Workers Strike! (28 December 2021) Video: Columbia Student Workers ON STRIKE (31 December 2021)

Called for November 15 Anti-Cuba Provocation Made in U.S.A. For Workers Mobilization to Block Counterrevolutionary Action A “Civic March for Change” has been announced by U.S.-backed forces in Cuba for November 15. The march was called by a recently founded outfit calling itself the Archipiélago platform, in cooperation with the long-standing reactionary and far-right Cuban exile milieu. As we have written, while the Cuba protests last July 11 were fueled by discontent over shortages, blackouts and the pandemic, those marches were instigated, manipulated and exploited by forces seeking to overthrow the Cuban Revolution. Now these and other pro-capitalist forces, grouped together in an umbrella formation, the Council for a Democratic Transition in Cuba, are staging an anti-communist provocation clearly aimed at “regime change.” While some leftists join the U.S. State Department in denouncing the Cuban government's prohibition of this blatant counterrevolutionary action, revolutionary Trotskyists are for workers mobilization to block the provocation. Anti-Cuba Provocation Made in U.S.A. (11 November 2021) “Left” Lawyers for Counterrevolution  (11 November 2021)

Social-Democratic Counterrevolutionaries and Camp Followers Cuba Protests: Litmus Test for the Left As Facebook videos and tweets started coming in from the July 11 protests in Cuba – instigated, propagated and exploited by counterrevolutionaries – the media machine of U.S. imperialism kicked into high gear. When police in Havana responded to protesters throwing rocks by making some arrests, there followed a chorus of denunciations of “repression.” The reality is that the Cuban police stood by and did not make arrests until the July 11 protests turned violent, while Communist Party supporters mobilized to stop provocations. Bringing up the rear of the bipartisan imperialist hue and cry over repression by the Cuban regime were assorted voices on the left, ranging from liberal intellectuals to avowed socialists. Among the most egregious are some would-be “Trotskyists” who are at bottom social democrats of the sort that Trotsky and his Fourth International fought against tooth and nail. The League for the Fourth International, in contrast, has called to actively combat capitalist counterrevolution, to break the U.S. imperialist blockade, mobilize workers councils to defend the gains of the Cuban Revolution and to extend them through international socialist revolution. Cuba Protests: Litmus Test for the Left (October 2021) Left Voice/Trotskyist Fraction: Zigzagging Across the Class Line (October 2021) Morenoites – Gusano “Socialists” (October 2021

The “Voice of the Voiceless” Held 40 Years in Pennsylvania’s Racist Dungeons Mobilize Labor/Black Power to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal On December 11, a demonstration in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania marked the 40th anniversary of the imprisonment of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the U.S.’ most prominent class-war prisoner. A contingent of supporters of the Internationalist Group/Revolutionary Internationalist Youth participated prominently in the protest with signs calling for workers action to free Mumia and all class-war prisoners, notably former Black Panthers who have been behind bars for more than half a century. The latest development in Mumia’s endless battle in the racist judicial system was an October 26 ruling by the Pennsylvania Superior Court quashing Mumia’s fifth appeal in 40 years. This shows once again that through decades of prosecution and persecution, for former Black Panther Abu-Jamal, as for so many others, there is no justice in the capitalist courts. Mobilize Labor/Black Power to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal (29 December 2021)

After Court Orders Partial Legalization Mexican Trotskyists Call for Free Abortion On Demand Women’s Liberation Through Socialist Revolution! Last September 7, the Mexican Supreme Court of Justice declared “absolute criminalization” of abortion unconstitutional throughout the country. Invalidating several sections of the penal code of the state of Coahuila, the court legalized abortion for the first 12 weeks of gestation. This is an important step that will bring relief to many women seeking to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. And by eliminating “conscientious objection,” it removed a very real barrier to carrying out abortions. However, these are limited measures, and after the first trimester, abortion is still considered a crime. The Grupo Internacionalista fights for the unrestricted right to free abortion, based exclusively on the decision of the woman or other pregnant person, at any time during pregnancy and with access to medical and health care of the highest quality. Mexican Trotskyists Call for Free Abortion On Demand (December 2021)