No. 66, January-April 2022  Table of Contents Selected articles linked Click on image to left for pdf version of complete issue.

Oppose Imperialist-Provoked Russia-Ukraine War – For Revolutionary Struggle Against the Capitalist Rulers in Moscow and Kiev! Behind the War: U.S./NATO War Drive Against Russia, China Defend Self-Rule in Southeastern Ukraine! Smash the Fascists – For Proletarian Internationalism Against Russian and Ukrainian Nationalism! On February 24, Russian president Vladimir Putin launched a military operation in Ukraine. The first day consisted of dispatching troops to bolster the breakaway “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Lugansk, accompanied by air strikes against military targets in many parts of Ukraine. This quickly turned into an invasion by Russian ground forces surrounding and launching attacks on several Ukrainian cities. After previously talking of defending the embattled regions of the Donbass, upon launching his military attack Putin declared its purpose to be to “to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine.” This is now a war between the Russian capitalist state, with its nationalist ruler in Moscow, and that of Ukraine, whose nationalist regime in Kiev has acted as a cat’s paw of Western imperialists and uses fascist forces to besiege the Russian-speaking population of southeastern Ukraine. We Trotskyists call for revolutionary defeatism on both sides in this reactionary nationalist war, for internationalist proletarian struggle against both capitalist regimes and, above all, against the U.S. and European rulers who set off this conflagration. Behind the War: U.S./NATO War Drive Against Russia, China (28 February 2022)

Ukrainian Fascists and Nationalists Hands Off Donbass! Defend Self-Rule in Southeast Ukraine! Defeat U.S./NATO War Drive and Sanctions Against Russia! Statement of the League for the Fourth International On February 21, after weeks of increasingly hysterical imperialist war propaganda and daily escalating attacks by Ukrainian government and fascist/nationalist forces against the breakaway Russian-speaking regions of Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine, Russian president Vladimir Putin formally recognized the independence of these embattled self-styled people’s republics and sent in troops. The United States, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and the European Union immediately condemned Russia for its defensive action and announced they would impose severe economic sanctions. Class-conscious workers and all opponents of imperialism should denounce the U.S./NATO imperialist war drive, which raises the spectre of world war. The imperialists seek to isolate, provoke and demonize Russia, which despite Putin’s imperial ambitions is an intermediate, regional capitalist power. Yet the imperialists’ ultimate aim is to spark counterrevolution in China, Cuba and North Korea. Facing the escalating threats and dangers, we call on the world working class to defend China and the other bureaucratically deformed workers states against imperialism and counterrevolution. Defeat U.S./NATO War Drive and Sanctions Against Russia! (23 February 2022) Russian Nationalist Putin vs. Bolshevik Internationalist Lenin (23 February 2022)

The “Green Tide” in Latin America: A Festival of Class Collaboration The Struggle for Full Abortion Rights, From Latin America to the U.S. Free Abortion on Demand – For Women’s Liberation Through Socialist Revolution The battle over abortion is at a critical point throughout the Americas. As reactionary forces in the United States wave the banner of the “right to life” and “the family” to eliminate rights won in the past, elsewhere in the hemisphere there has been an upsurge in actions to eliminate laws that have sent thousands of women to jail for the “crime” of ending an unwanted pregnancy – or just having a miscarriage. In Latin America much has been made of an advancing “Green Tide,” as feminist groups have labeled the mass mobilizations in Argentina that won a partial legalization of abortion. Yet that movement was led by bourgeois political currents – bringing with it obstacles and limitations to winning crucial rights. In the U.S., the issue is sharply posed of how to fight against the assault on women’s rights, abortion rights, gay and transgender rights. The new/old dead-end “strategy” of bourgeois feminists is to vote for the Democrats, who despite the hype are no friends of women.Everywhere, the issue of control of women’s bodies by the state is poised point-blank, as decaying capitalism endangers the rights of all the oppressed. The pending calamity in the U.S., where the constitutional right to an abortion is on the verge of being eliminated after being in force for a half-century, underlines the need for a revolutionary class struggle for the liberation of women. The Struggle for Full Abortion Rights, From Latin America to the U.S. (March 2022) Democrats Uphold the Hyde Amendment: Race, Class and the Right to Abortion (March 2022) “No Cis Dudes”: Feminist Sectoralism Ad Absurdum (March 2022)

For Vaccine Mandates and Free Testing “Vaccine Passports” = Police Control, Not Public Health Fascistic Forces Take Lead of Reactionary Anti-Vaccine Protests Since last summer, from Europe to Canada, fascistic and outright Nazi/fascist forces have taken the lead in organizing protests over mandatory vaccination against COVID-19. A dramatic case of this ominous development was the storming of the offices of the main Italian labor federation in October by squads from an anti-vaxxer demo led by leaders of the fascist Forza Nuova terror squad. Later, in the port of Trieste, an attempt was made to portray a no-vax sit-in as a workers protest, although only a small minority of the dockers participated. Sensing a new “movement” budding, some on the left have opportunistically tailed after ultra-rightist-led anti-vaccine mobilizations. As a public health measure to protect the population from the deadly virus, the League for the Fourth International supports obligatory anti-COVID vaccination to the extent feasible. We do not support “vaccine passports,” which do nothing for public health, and oppose repression of anti-vaxxers by the forces of capitalist state repression, which would much sooner go after labor and leftists. Rather, from the onset of the pandemic, the LFI and fraternally allied trade unionists have put forward a program for workers control of safety, and actively sought to implement it in workplaces. Fascistic Forces Take Lead of Reactionary Anti-Vaccine Protests (April 2022)

Imperialist Press Fawns Over Ukrainian Ultra-Nationalist Militias Smash U.S./NATO-Backed Nazi-Fascist Mass Murderers! The Truth About Ukraine’s Fascist Infestation Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 was announced by Russian president Vladimir Putin in a speech declaring a “special military operation” to “de-nazify” and “demilitarize” Ukraine. The bourgeois press in the United States and in the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) imperialist countries immediately mocked the notion. The Ukrainian state apparatus, particularly its repressive forces, is in fact riddled with fascistic nationalists, outright fascists and Nazis, would-be ethnic cleansers, some of whom are openly anti-Semitic and admirers of Hitler. Fascist militias are a large component of the military forces that have relentlessly besieged the Russian-speaking population of the Donetsk and Lugansk self-proclaimed “people’s republics” that broke away from Ukraine eight years ago. Moreover, many of these fascist and pro-Nazi squads have been financed, armed and trained by the U.S. and NATO. The ultra-nationalist fascists and Nazis embedded in the Ukrainian state and its repressive organs must be rooted out, permanently stopped and brought to justice, and their program of “ethnic cleansing” smashed. To have a lasting effect this must be accomplished by the working people themselves, on an internationalist basis. The Truth About Ukraine’s Fascist Infestation (4 April 2022) Question Answered: Who Was Behind the 2014 Maidan Massacre? The 20 February 2014 massacre in Kiev’s Maidan (Independence Square), in which 48 protesters and several policemen were killed, was the trigger that set off the coup d’état, led by fascist and Ukrainian ultra-nationalists, that the very next day overthrew the government of Viktor Yanukovich. The coup plotters, the imperialist press and U.S. authorities in unison blamed the riot police of the Yanukovich government, which they considered pro-Russian. But from the outset there were numerous questions about where the fusillade came from. At the time, we published an article asking: “Who Were the Snipers Who Killed Kiev Protesters and Police on February 20?” Since then, particularly due to the painstaking work of Canadian academic Ivan Katchanovski, the answer to this question has become crystal clear. The massacre was a false flag operation carried out by the fascist action squads in the Maidan and their oligarchic Ukrainian nationalist backers. Question Answered: Who Was Behind the 2014 Maidan Massacre? (10 April 2022

Pseudo-Trotskyist Imposters Line Up with Imperialism NATO Socialists in Italy In the present Russia-Ukraine war, instigated by the imperialist powers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), communists in the imperialist centers, including Italy, are duty-bound to fight for working-class actions against the war, to oppose imperialist sanctions against Russia and to mobilize to defeat the NATO war drive through class struggle against “their own” imperialist bourgeoisie. The main enemy is at home, especially in the warmongering European Union, Britain and United States. But in Italy and elsewhere, a large part of the left has lined up with their own imperialist bourgeoisie and sided with the NATO-backed Ukrainian “resistance.” These NATO socialists are actively supporting the imperialist war drive. NATO Socialists in Italy (April 2022)

Report from Germany Imperialist Racism and the Russia-Ukraine War Every weekend now, tens and hundreds of thousands of protesters pour into the streets of German cities in “peace” demonstrations supposedly against war in Ukraine. In reality, many if not most of these are pro-war demos in that they are overwhelmingly for support to Ukraine in the war with Russia. Many speakers called for arms deliveries to Ukraine, i.e., by the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) imperialists who provoked this fratricidal war in their escalating war drive against Russia and China. Meanwhile, in stark counterpoint to the chauvinist backlash against refugees from Middle Eastern wars, there has been an unprecedented outpouring of support for Ukrainian refugees. This has been whipped up with outright racist media coverage stressing that Ukraine is a “relatively civilized, relatively European” country, with “people with blue eyes and blond hair.” And it is reflected in the sharply contrasting treatment at the border of white refugees fleeing Ukraine and those considered non-white. Today, as almost 3 million Ukrainians (so far) have fled the war we call for for revolutionary defeatism on both sides of the reactionary nationalist Russia-Ukraine war,  for revolutionary struggle against the capitalist rulers in Moscow and Kiev, and to defeat the U.S./NATO war drive pointing to World War III against Russia and China. Imperialist Racism and the Russia-Ukraine War (19 March 2022)

Spike U.S./NATO Anti-Russia War Threats and Provocations! The war propaganda being spewed out by Washington and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) has become increasingly hysterical. As the U.S. administration of Democrat Joe Biden declares that Russian president Vladimir Putin is about to seize Ukraine next month, next week, tomorrow or yesterday, it seems intent on provoking the Kremlin into undertaking anything that could be portrayed as an invasion. The evident purpose is to have an excuse to impose heavy economic sanctions against Russia. In the face of the incessant imperialist drum beat for war, there have been very few protests by the left, much of which is itself imbued with the anti-Russia phobia promoted by its liberal big brothers. In contrast, supporters of the League for the Fourth International attended protests at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate on February 18 and at New York City’s Grand Central Terminal on February 19 with signs calling to “Spike Biden/NATO War Threats and Provocations Against Russia” and “Defeat U.S./NATO War Drive – Defend China Against Imperialism and Counterrevolution,” among other slogans. Spike Biden/NATO Anti-Russia War Threats and Provocations! (20 February 2022)

Democrats, NLRB No Friends of Labor Amazon Labor Union Victory at JFK8 Unionize All of Amazon with Class Struggle! On Friday, April 1, the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) won a historic vote to unionize the massive JFK8 warehouse on Staten Island, New York, by a decisive margin. This is the first union victory in North America against the giant distribution and e-commerce monopoly, which has 1.1 million employees in the U.S alone. The vote, which the media are calling “one of the biggest victories for organized labor in a generation,” came amid growing restiveness in the working class, and followed large strikes last fall at Midwest industries. It will be a beacon for millions of workers at Amazon and throughout country who desperately need unionization to fight against the low wages, miserable “benefits” and deadly working conditions that are the standard in capitalist America. It will take genuinely revolutionary political struggle to break the stranglehold of capitalist Democrats and pro-capitalist labor bureaucrats that has been driving the unions to the grave. Key to winning the major class battle at Amazon, as well as to organizing the unorganized and building a fighting labor movement overall, will be to forge a solid core of class-struggle militants in the warehouses, factories and other workplaces.  Amazon Labor Union Victory at JFK8 (14 April 2022) Interview with ALU Worker at Staten Island JFK8 Warehouse Unionizing Amazon Will Be a Huge Class Battle The Internationalist interviewed Will, a supporter of the Internationalist Group who works at Amazon’s big warehouse in Staten Island, New York and has been part of the Amazon Labor Union effort almost from the start. Interview with ALU Worker-Activist at JFK8 (14 April 2022)

Use Union Power to Keep Schools Open Safely By Class Struggle Education Workers/UFT The rapid spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant of COVID-19 has caused much justified worry among educators, parents and students. This concern has been seized on by some in the teachers unions to push to return to “remote education,” possibly for an extended period of time until the current high levels of infection are past. Calling to close the schools is a huge mistake. It does not protect teachers, it will almost certainly increase infections among students, and it plays into the hands of enemies of public education. This includes not only Trump Republicans but also Biden Democrats like the mayors of New York City and Chicago, Eric Adams and Lori Lightfoot. These forces, who back charter schools and are out to break the power of the teachers unions, are angling to mobilize parents against teachers on a program of keeping the schools open. Instead, Class Struggle Education Workers calls to use union power to keep schools open safely. That includes, first and foremost, demanding a drastic reduction in class sizes, entailing hiring thousands of new teachers, custodians, counselors and nurses; and requiring frequent testing of all in the schools. Use Union Power to Keep Schools Open Safely (12 January 2022)