No. 19, September 2022 Table of Contents Selected articles linked  Newspaper of the Revolutionary Internationalist Youth, youth section of the Internationalist Group (U.S. section of the League for the Fourth International), and CUNY students from the Internationalist Clubs, for the program of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky. Click on image to left for pdf version of complete issue.

 

Break with the Democrats – Build a Workers Party! Free Abortion on Demand How Revolutionaries Fight for It The United States Supreme Court – that reactionary institution of unelected, appointed-for-life, black-robed dispensers of capitalist “justice” – overturned the Roe v. Wade decision on June 24. Shredding the ruling that was the basis for the constitutional right to abortion since 1973, it opened the way for even further onslaughts against basic democratic rights. The impact was quickly felt. Due to so-called trigger laws on the books, thirteen states immediately banned abortion in most, if not all, cases. Eight more quickly passed their own prohibitions. Bans in even more states are working their way through the courts. Back in May, when Justice Samuel Alito’s deranged draft decision was leaked, it sparked mass protests in cities around the country. After the decision was put into effect, many thousands more came out in protest. The following article is an expanded version of a talk by the Revolutionary Internationalist Youth in late May, at events organized by the Internationalist Clubs at the City University of New York. Free Abortion on Demand, How Revolutionaries Fight for It (September 2022) U.S. Capitalism and Its Supreme Court (September 2022) Sinister Symbiosis: Homophobic Bigotry and the Anti-Abortion Crusade (September 2022)

Selling Imperialist War, from 1898 to ... WWIII? “You Furnish the Pictures, and I’ll Furnish the War” If you want to push a war drive abroad, flood the public with war propaganda on the home front. Feature blood-curdling images, sound bites, and plenty of propaganda for good vs. evil, us vs. them. Lay it on as thick as possible. Don’t let up – it’s got to be relentless. So say U.S. imperialism’s media masters of war. It’s all on daily display right now in these United States. Casting Russia and China as the evil empires to be vanquished, the big business media egg on Washington’s escalating war provocations, from the Taiwan straits to the Ukraine/Russia front. But the pattern was set long ago. In 1897, mass-media mogul William Randolph Hearst worked out the playbook. “You Furnish the Pictures, and I’ll Furnish the War.” This, the history books tell us, is what Hearst cabled to his star illustrator in the lead-up to the Spanish-American War. a chronology of U.S. war propaganda from the beginning of the 20th century to today, with World War I, WWII, the anti-Soviet Cold War up to the invasion and occupation of Iraq (mythical “weapons of mass destruction”) and much more. “You Furnish the Pictures, and I’ll Furnish the War” (September 2022) Beethoven Bans and “Liberty Cabbage” (September 2022)

NATO “Socialist” War Squad In May, 368 House of Representatives members voted to approve Biden’s $40 billion package of aid to the Ukrainian regime in its nationalist war with Russia touched off by the U.S./NATO imperialists. Among those voting for this war measure were the members of the Democratic Socialists of America in Congress. Among the weapons paid for by this package are the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) that have been used by the fascist-infested Ukraine military to strike at civilian targets in Donetsk and in shelling near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. All with the votes of the NATO “Socialist” elected officials of the DSA. This is what social-imperialism looks like. NATO “Socialist” War Squad (September 2022)

Bolshevik Revolution First Legalized Abortion on Demand In today’s struggles over abortion rights, an important fact is little known: abortion on demand was first legalized in Bolshevik Russia. The connection between women’s rights and the struggle for a classless society free of exploitation and oppression was basic to the revolutionary program going back to the founders of the socialist movement. But it was the 1917 October Revolution in Russia that made it possible to start putting that program into effect. It was in this context that free abortion on demand was established in 1920. This went together with establishing communal laundries and cafeterias, as well as creches and daycare centers, to free women from household burdens and help them enter fully into social labor, political and cultural life. Bolshevik Revolution First Legalized Abortion on Demand (September 2022) Claude McKay on the Russian Revolution and Women’s Rights (September 2022)

“Heterogeneous Movement” or Revolutionary Class Struggle? Why History Matters in the Fight for Abortion Rights There are important differences on the left that shape counterposed approaches to the abortion rights struggle. What most of the left tries to do, on one burning issue after another, is to pressure the Democratic Party. Since this has manifestly failed to protect abortion rights, some self-styled “socialist feminists,” such as Left Voice, seek to carve out a niche slightly to the left, criticizing the Democrats. But at the same time, they call for a “mass heterogenous movement,” together with bourgeois feminists and pro-Democratic outfits like the Women’s March, MoveOn, etc. This program of class collaboration is a dead-end, and there is a history to it going back to the Vietnam antiwar movement. Revolutionary Trotskyists call instead for mass mobilization bringing out the power of the multiracial working class, fighting for the full and unrestricted right to abortion as part of the struggle for women’s liberation through socialist revolution. Why History Matters in the Fight for Abortion Rights (September 2022)

“The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming”

NYC and L.A. Campus Speak-Outs in Defense of Abortion Rights

Join the CUNY Internationalist Clubs!

Columbia Strike Wins, More Struggles Ahead

“Why RIY?” Our Path to Revolutionary Marxist Politics