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 No. 69-70, January-May 2023 Table
of Contents Click on image to left for pdf version of complete issue. |
Defend Russia & China Against U.S./NATO War Drive –
Defeat the Fascist-Infested Proxy Regime in Ukraine!
U.S. Imperialism Hurtling
Toward World War III
Only Socialist Revolution Can Stop It
For the past 15 months, world politics and economics have been overwhelmingly dominated by the war in Ukraine, the focal point of the imperialist onslaught against Russia, and China. As the fighting in Ukraine drags on with no end in sight, it has been marked by a continual escalation by the U.S. and NATO, pointing toward a Third World War. In this war, class-conscious workers have a side. The League for the Fourth International calls to defeat the blood-drenched imperialists and their fascist-infested proxy regime in Kiev, and for military defense of Russia, a regional capitalist power, and China, a bureaucratically deformed workers state, against the U.S./NATO war drive. Western rulers and media have waged a disinformation war of endless atrocity stories, but wall-to-wall media censorship and message control can only go so far, as the effects of the war on the population begin to bite. Until now, the imperialist powers have remained united, yet there is no significant leftist opposition to this war. In fact, most of the left has enlisted as auxiliary troops in the imperialist war. As events head pell-mell toward world war, we call for sharp political struggle against the “NATO socialists,” and for workers action to stop arms deliveries to Ukraine. The key is to forge a Leninist-Trotskyist vanguard to lead the exploited and oppressed in the struggle for international socialist revolution. U.S. Imperialism Hurtling Toward World War III (17 May 2023)
For Workers Action Against U.S. / NATO / AUKUS Imperialist Axis
Australia Spearheads Anti-China War Drive in the Pacific Islands
Ever since World War II, Australia has acted as deputy sheriff for the United States in the Pacific. With the formation of the trilateral Australia-U.K.-U.S. (AUKUS) military treaty in 2021 there has been a flood of warmongering rants from Western political/military leaders and media mouthpieces foreseeing war with China in the very near term, with the Australian military slated to act as a spearhead in the strategic Pacific Islands region. And following the threats has come action. In mid-March, Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese stood on the pier at the U.S. naval base in San Diego together with U.S. president Biden and British prime minister Sunak to announce a deal whereby Australia would buy nuclear-powered submarines whose only purpose would be to war on China. Meanwhile, the U.S. went ballistic over a security treaty between the Solomon Islands and Beijing, and is gearing up for a repeat of the WWII island-hopping war, this time against China. As Washington mandates Canberra to tighten its neocolonial control of the region, revolutionary Marxists fight for a workers government in Australia and for a voluntary socialist federation of the Pacific Islands. Australia Spearheads Anti-China War Drive in the Pacific Islands (May 2023)
Mobilize for an All-Out General Strike to Smash French Pension “Reform”
Against the Authoritarian Fifth Republic, Fight for a Workers Government!
Opposition to Macron Still Boiling
But Banging on Pots Won’t Bring Him Down
Even after French president Macron rammed through his vicious pension “reform” without a vote, essentially enacting it by decree, working people have continued to mobilize against it. When the would-be “Jupiter-like” head of state gave a prime-time speech calling for “peace” and “unity,” tens of thousands took to the streets banging pots and pans in “casserolades” in order to drown him out. The youth have massively entered the fray, and weeks there were nightly clashes with the brutal riot cops. Yet all of this amounts to guerrilla warfare, unable to stop the assault on social security. Not only in France, decaying capitalism is destroying past gains of workers’ struggles, criminalizing immigrants and demanding sacrifice in the name of the U.S./NATO war drive against Russia and China. Against this all-sided attack, it is necessary to bring the power of the working class to bear, paralyzing the country, driving out Macron and bringing down the anti-democratic Fifth Republic while fighting for a workers government. The prospect of such revolutionary struggle strikes fear in the hearts of the pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy, underscoring the urgent need to cohere the nucleus of a genuinely communist internationalist workers party to lead the struggle against imperialist war and the global war on working people. Opposition to Macron Still Boiling (30 April 2023)
France: Drive Out Macron, Fight for a Workers Government!
Forge a Leninist-Trotskyist Revolutionary Workers Party!
The forced passage of Emmanuel Macron's pension "reform" using Article 49.3 of the French Constitution of the semi-bonapartist Fifth Republic is not only the authoritarian act of a president who fancies himself “Jupiterian,” it is required by the capitalist system in full decay, which is systematically destroying the gains of past workers struggles. To defeat the assault of capital it is not enough to lead a defensive and purely “democratic” struggle, it is necessary to go on the offensive against capitalism. With two-thirds of the population of France opposed to the “reform” that threatens the lives and livelihoods of all workers, it is possible to defeat the Macron regime ... on the path of struggle for socialist revolution. France: Drive Out Macron, Fight for a Workers Government! (26 March 2023)
Cops Murdered Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tortuguita in Atlanta,
It Never Stops – Mobilize Workers’ Power Against Cop Terror
Under Biden and the Democrats,
Racist Police Terror Rages On
Solidarity with Bay Area ILWU Port Shutdown Demanding Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal!
On the evening of January 7, Tyre Nichols was savagely beaten to death by a half dozen police officers in Memphis, Tennessee. Less than two weeks after the Memphis Police Department’s execution of Tyre Nichols, Manuel Esteban Paez Terán (Tortuguita), was gunned down in a hail of police bullets during a military-style sweep of an activist encampment in suburban Atlanta, Georgia. The back-to-back police murders in Memphis and Atlanta are a brutal reminder that the plague of racist cop terror continues to hold black America in bondage. While Democrats try to keep the lid on with cynical talk of “police reform,” the police cannot be reformed, and whatever happens to the five killer cops (all black), there is no justice for the oppressed in the capitalist courts. It is up to the defenders of black rights and democratic rights, with the multiracial working class in the lead, to mobilize our power against that of the murderous capitalist state. Under Biden and the Democrats, Racist Police Terror Rages On (16 February 2022)
Memphis, Atlanta: Horror Show of Cop Terror (16 February 2023)NUMSA General Secretary Irvin Jim Launches
Campaign for Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal
On February 16, Irvin Jim, the general secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), the largest union in South Africa and on the entire African continent, announces an international solidarity campaign demanding that former Black Panther, renowned journalist and champion of the oppressed Mumia Abu-Jamal be immediately released from prison in Pennsylvania where he has been locked up for 41 years (29 of them on Death Row) after being framed by the police. NUMSA General Secretary Irvin Jim Launches Campaign for Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal (16 February 2023)
BLACK HISTORY MONTH TEACH-IN
Mumia’s Freedom Is Labor’s Cause
An Injury to One Is an Injury to All, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
In solidarity with the action of International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 stopping work and shutting down the ports of San Francisco and Oakland on February 16 to demand freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal, a labor-centered teach-in was held in New York City. There were messages from Mumia, from the Bay Area docks, from Memphis and South Africa, along with presentations by trade-unionists, historians and activists in the campaign to free comrade Mumia from prison hell. Mumia’s Freedom Is Labor’s Cause (16 February 2023)
For Class Struggle Against Militarism
Germany: War in the East
U.S. / NATO / European Union,
The Warmongers Are Here
German Imperialism Out of East Europe!
On this there is consensus among the rulers: the war in Ukraine represents a watershed in the history of post-war Germany. Or rather, pre-war Germany, for since 24 February 2022, the Federal Republic has unmistakably been in the midst of war. Imperialist capitalism, under its leading power, the United States, and its military alliance, NATO, is trying to inflict a bloody defeat on the capitalist regional power, Russia, on the battlefields of Ukraine. By joining the U.S./NATO war against Russia – and then China – Berlin seeks to assert Germany as the major military power, not just economic, in Europe. The war drive has led to repression all along the line, as anti-Russian hysteria is now being enforced by law. The German bourgeoisie intends to pass on the cost of inflation to the working class in Germany: “Freeze for Ukraine.” To defeat the warmongers and counter the threat of deindustrialization, Trotskyists fight for a Red Europe of workers councils. Germany: War in the East, The Warmongers Are Here (10 January 2023)
One and All, NATO Socialists and Pawns of German Imperialism
German Left in Lockstep in “Changed Times”
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) proclaimed a “Zeitenwende,” a changing of the times, in his 27 February 2022 government statement in the Bundestag (Germany's parliament), accusing Russia of waging a war of aggression against Ukraine that was “contrary to international law” and “cannot be justified by anything or anyone.” This brought applause not only from the parties in his red-yellow-green “traffic light coalition,” but also from the Christian Democrats, the Left Party (Die Linke) and some in the fascistic Alliance for Germany. As for the Left Party, we heard the same refrain as from the SPD, only with some knee-jerk misgivings about rearmament. So the parliament of German imperialism is marching with “great unity” into the proxy war of the U.S., EU and NATO against Russia. While the social-imperialists in the government (SPD), together with the Green warmongers, are pushing the war, those on standby (Die Linke) are “critically” (or uncritically) accompanying them. As for the rest of the left, its reformist politics and inveterate opportunism forbids them to say the essential: “the main enemy is at home.” No wonder, then, that it is right-wingers who lead anti-war protests. In the face of the dramatic collapse of the left, a tenacious programmatic struggle is needed to forge the core of an authentically Leninist-Trotskyist vanguard party of the working class. German Left in Lockstep in “Changed Times” (10 January 2023)
Biden, DSA’s AOC and “Squad” Vote to Ban Rail Strike
Democratic Party Strikebreakers Shackle Railroad Workers
Rip Up the Railway Labor Act with a Powerful Rail / Truck / Port Strike!
Break with the Bosses’ Parties and Politicians – Build a Workers Party!
At the beginning of December, some 115,000 railroad workers were poised to walk off the job, tying up 40% of all U.S. freight, at the height of the holiday shopping season. A majority had voted against a Tentative Agreement that outrageously did not include even one paid sick day. A major labor battle was posed. Instead, Democrat Joe Biden, who proclaimed himself the “most pro-union president you’ve ever seen,” signed legislation passed by Democrats in both houses of Congress, imposing a presidentially dictated contract and banning a strike. This blatant strikebreaking sums up countless reasons why the capitalist Democratic Party is a noose around the neck of labor. This underlines why workers urgently need to break with all the bosses’ parties and build a class-struggle workers party to lead the battles of all the oppressed. Democratic Party Strikebreakers Shackle Railroad Workers (29 December 2022)
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