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 No. 77, January-March 2026 Table
of Contents Click on image to left for pdf version of complete issue. |
Defend Iran – Defeat U.S./Israel War Threatening World War III
Skyrocketing Oil/Gas Prices Sets Stage for World Economic Crisis
Sink U.S. Empire in the Persian Gulf!
Iran Clearly Needs a Nuclear Deterrent Against Nuclear-Armed U.S./Israel Terrorists
With the U.S./Israel war on Iran in its fourth week, the White House and Pentagon are panicked, desperately looking for ways out of the hot mess they have plunged the world into. Trump wanted to avoid a “forever war” like the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, that lasted a generation. But for all the murderous firepower they have unleashed against Iran, the imperialist and Zionist warmongers have only managed to provoke the largest disruption of oil supplies in history. U.S. president Donald Trump’s “exit strategy” seems to be to stage an apocalyptic air/ground attack. The world is on a knife edge. Israeli rulers would be happy to see Iran break up and collapse economically. But if Trump were to carry out any of his multiple threats (to obliterate Iran’s electrical energy system, to seize control of its oil, to grab its cache of enriched uranium and to militarily unblock the Strait of Hormuz), it all could explode dramatically. The Iran war has the potential to trigger initial skirmishes of a third world war, aimed at Iran allies Russia and China. More than ever, the situation cries out for the leadership of a genuinely communist party to defend Iran on a class basis against the imperialist/Zionist attackers, and to mobilize powerful workers actions against the war, as part of the struggle for international socialist revolution. Sink U.S. Empire in the Persian Gulf! (28 March 2026)
For International Workers Action
Defend Iran – Defeat U.S./Israel War!
For Iran's Right to Nuclear Weapons Against Israeli and U.S. Nuclear-Armed Terrorists!
For the second time in eight months, the United States and Israel have launched a war against Iran with the aim of overthrowing the government and installing a pro-imperialist regime, while destroying Iran’s nuclear industry and its missiles. After kidnapping the president of Venezuela’s Bolivarian republic, Nicolás Maduro, and taking control of Venezuela’s oil, the would-be Yankee emperor Donald Trump is out to topple the Islamic Republic … and grab Iran’s oil. Israel’s genocidal strongman Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to cement Zionist dominance in the Middle East. At this crucial hour, the League for the Fourth International calls on all revolutionary socialists, class-conscious workers and opponents of imperialist world domination to defend Iran, a semicolonial country, and to take a stand for the defeat of the genocidal imperialist and Zionist warmongers. Internationally, the LFI calls for workers action against the war on Iran, and to stop arms to Israel. In Iran, Trotskyists would call for workers to mobilize to crush the attempt to restore the rule of the bloody dynasty of Shah Reza Pahlavi, the imperialist puppets today being promoted by Israel. While giving no political support to the mullah regime, the fight should be for workers revolution. Defend Iran – Defeat U.S./Israel War! (28 February 2026)
Imperialist Wars Start with Imperialist Lies
Pinocchio Goes to War
The White House, Home of the Whopper, No Matter Who’s in Office
In launching the joint war of the United States and Israel on February 28, Donald Trump claimed that “Iran is the world’s number one state sponsor of terror.” Actually, that title belongs to the U.S., which has slaughtered millions since World War II, from the Middle East to Vietnam and Korea. Where previous commanders of U.S. imperialism would proclaim some overarching supposedly virtuous goal, Trump listed many different aims, all based on lies, for his “Operation Epic Fury.” For Trump, “facts” are whatever he decides they are. The prevarications of this sinister unhinged Pinocchio in power are simply a cover for a monstrous war in which he threatens to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages.” Of course, Trump is not the first U.S. leader to use lies to go to war. Almost all imperialist wars start with and are based on lies, from non-existent “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq (2003) to World Wars I and II. Here is a short list. Pinocchio Goes to War (March 2026)
War Criminals Carry Out AI-Assisted Mass Murder
U.S. Imperialists Massacre Iranian Girls School
On the morning of February 28, in the opening salvo of U.S. bombardment of Iran, two missiles hit an elementary school in the southern Iranian city of Minab, killing more than 170. Most of the victims were girls and boys between the ages of 7 and 12. This massacre has become emblematic of the new face of imperialist warfare: automation of mass murder through the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI). From the outset, the United States and Israel have engaged in a relentless campaign of terror bombing, hitting some 600 schools. To rapidly generate thousands of targets, the Pentagon has relied on Maven Smart System, created by the notorious data analytics company Palantir, and Anthropic AI's chatbot Claude. In the genocidal U.S./Israel war on the Palestinians in Gaza, AI-generated targeting was also used. While Senate
Democrats have tried to capitalize on the blowback over the Minab massacre, many of them receive donations from Palantir, whose close relationship with the military began during the Obama administration.The orgy of mass murder is a reflection of the moral depravity of U.S. rulers and the desperation of U.S. imperialism, which can only be stopped by world socialist revolution. U.S. Imperialists Massacre Iranian Girls School (March 2026)
Democrats, Courts Won’t Do It – Bring Out Workers Power!
Twin Cities: For a Real General Strike to Drive Out ICE Gestapo!
For the past two months, paramilitary forces of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) police and Border Patrol – part of the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) division of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – have been terrorizing Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. Carrying out Donald Trump’s plan for the “largest deportation operation” in U.S. history, this army of masked federal agents initially targeted the tens of thousands of refugees from war-torn Somalia in Africa, who the racist Republican president calls “garbage.” Soon they were targeting Minnesotans based on racial profiling. in mid-January Trump sent in 2,000 more feds to supposedly go after “fraud” and “crime” in “Democrat-run cities.” What is urgently needed right now in Minneapolis-St. Paul is to bring out the power of organized workers at the head of the courageous and inspiring actions by thousands of community residents to put an end to the federal occupation and force ICE out! Now labor and religious leaders have called for a day of “no work, no school, no shopping” on January 23. Unfortunately, at this point January 23 is not a general strike – far from it. But much more is needed. The IG/RIY call for a real general strike to drive out the ICE Gestapo. Twin Cities: For a Real General Strike to Drive Out ICE Gestapo! (20 January 2025)
You Can’t Fight Trump with the Democrats – Mobilize Workers Power to Stop the Deportations!
In Minneapolis and Everywhere: For Mass Strike Action to Drive ICE OUT!
Following the January 7 cold-blooded murder of Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, Minnesota union, community and religious leaders called a statewide day of “no work, no school, no shopping.” Over 75,000 people marched in Minneapolis on January 23, braving the extreme cold to demand “ICE out!” The next day, Border Patrol agents executed courageous nurse Alex Pretti. The issue for defenders of immigrant rights is what is the next step? Already much of the Twin Cities population has organized against the paramilitary kidnappers, warning neighbors with whistles and honking horns, patrolling near schools, bringing food to immigrants afraid to leave their homes. Many on the left saw January 23 as a “general strike,” but while 1,000 small businesses shut down, unions did not strike. Now there are calls to repeat the Minnesota action on May 1, in conjunction with Democratic Party front groups. But a pretend “national general strike” along with the party of “Genocide Joe” Biden and former “Deporter-in-Chief” Barack Obama will keep workers chained to the bosses. The Internationalist Group insists that to stop the deportation machine will take a showdown with both capitalist parties of mass deportations, racist repression and imperialist war. In Minneapolis and Everywhere: For Mass Strike Action to Drive ICE OUT! (11 February 2026
The Murder of Alex Pretti: “It’s a Question of Power, on Their Side and on Ours”
As protesters rushed to the scene of where Alex Pretti was executed by federal agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota on January 24, an activist of the the Labor Committee to Defend Immigrants and Class Struggle Education Workers brought a message of solidarity from New York. The murder of the Veterans Administration Intensive Care Unit nurse was the response of the ICE and Border Patrol Gestapo to the outpouring of tens of thousands in Minneapolis the day before, and many thousands more around the country, demanding an end to the terror and ICE out of Minnesota, now, he said. This new crime was a show of power seeking to silence protest and make everyone afraid. He pointed also to the at least 40 immigrants who have died in ICE detention, whose names are never mentioned, emphasizing that it is a question of power on their side, and on our side. It must be met with a real general strike, like that in 1934 in Minneapolis, to shut the city down. And that requires a break with the Democratic Party of genocide in Gaza and racist police terror at home. The Murder of Alex Pretti: “It’s a Question of Power, on Their Side and on Ours” (24 January 2026)
Organize Against ICE Terror, Raids and Deportations – And to Defend the Rights of Us All
Health Care Workers Say: No ICE in the Hospitals!
By the Labor Committee to Defend Immigrants, Health Care Workers Working Group
Alex Pretti was a hero for health care workers, all labor and defenders of immigrant rights. The 37-year-old ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA Hospital was murdered by federal immigration agents as he shielded a woman who had been shoved and pepper-sprayed by the marauding Border Patrol and ICE cops. On the picket line in NYC, strikers of the New York State Nurses Association joined with colleagues across the country in “week-long series of actions to honor Pretti and all who have been murdered by ICE,” and demanding “No ICE in hospitals.” The Labor Committee to Defend Immigrants, formed in early 2025, brings together activists from many unions and immigrant rights groups with the aim of bringing labor’s independent class power into the fight to stop the raids and deportations and defeat the anti-immigrant onslaught. The LCDI Health Care Workers Working Group has published an immigrant rights defense packet, promoting the formation of immigrant rights defense committees in workplaces and bringing coworkers to protests. With the murder of Alex Pretti, the ICE Gestapo seeks to intimidate and silence us all. They will not succeed! Health Care Workers Say: No ICE in the Hospitals! (28 January 2026)
Feds Gas Portland Labor March Against ICE:
For Mass Workers Action to Stop Deportations!
The assassination of Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis on January 24 was particularly felt among trade unionists around the U.S., as Pretti was a nurse at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs hospital and a member of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3669. In Portland, Oregon on January 31, thousands of unionists and supporters took to the streets to say, “ICE Out!” But when they passed by the local Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters, federal agents attacked the crowd with a massive barrage of tear gas, pepper balls and other “crowd control” munitions. The leadership, supporters of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), had made no defense preparations and continued on, leaving many marchers to face the feds on their own. This reflected the response of the DSA Democrats, with a sometimes majority in the city council, to the ICE invasion with farcical mockery and impotent city ordinances. The Labor Committee to Defend Immigrants (LCDI), with members from the several building trades unions that have passed resolutions calling to mobilize the power to drive out the immigrant snatchers, provided first aid to marchers. Class Struggle Workers – Portland, which initiated the LCDI, calls to mobilize the power of labor to drive out the immigrant snatchers, break with the Democrats and build a class-struggle workers party. Feds Gas Portland Labor March Against ICE (March 2026)
For Workers Mobilization Against War on Russia and China
German Imperialism on the Warpath
Working People and Immigrants Targeted:
Our Enemy Is the Ruling Class Here
In his first policy address following his inauguration on May 14, the new German chancellor Friedrich Merz, promised – or rather threatened – to turn the Bundeswehr into “Europe’s strongest conventional army.” The entire speech was a declaration of war against Russia, which was designated as the main enemy in the coalition government agreement between the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats. In reality, the greatest danger to working people comes from trigger-happy, warmongering rulers in Berlin, Paris, and London who are attempting to stoke war hysteria. The ulterior aim of the new weaponry and political mobilization is to eradicate the last remnants of the “welfare state” established after World War II in the imperialist countries of the European Union and NATO, which today are in the throes of a protracted economic and geopolitical crisis. And to ward off the danger of revolution, they seek to build up combat readiness for capitalist class war against the working people. That is why it is all the more important to counter the frantic war preparations and social cutbacks with revolutionary class struggle. German Imperialism on the Warpath (January 2026)
Life in an “Armored Republic”
In a series of military exercises in Hamburg, Bavaria and Berlin in September-November 2025, the German armed forces (Bundeswehr) practiced carrying out Oplan Deutschland (Operation Plan Germany). In this NATO plan for war with Russia, the focus was on war at home. In addition to working with police against antiwar demonstrators, a new “Green Paper” calls for “modernization of laws” in order to enforce “more effective punishment” to break popular resistance ro militarization. . Life in an “Armored Republic” (December 2025)
Students, Workers: For a Joint Struggle Against Conscription and Militarization
School Strike: No “Cannon Fodder” for German Imperialism!
On December 5, more than 50,000 school and college students across Germany took to the streets to voice their opposition to the “Military Service Modernization Act,” which was scheduled to be voted on in the Bundestag (parliament) that same day. The message of the demonstrations was clear: “We are not cannon fodder for your crises.” Nevertheless, the law was quickly passed by the ruling “black-red” (Christian Democratic-Social Democratic) coalition. It is the centerpiece of the militarization of society, which aims to make Germany “war-ready” by 2030—from converting car factories to tank production to slashing social benefits. Most leftists and protesters call only for individual refusal because they want to avoid the question of war. So should preparations for war proceed, just “without us”? Of course not. The “military serivce” is about preparing for war in the East. For four years, NATO countries have been arming the fascist-infested army of the puppet government in Kiev to the teeth. To effectively fight conscription, one must fight the war it is intended to supply with throw-away troops. Precisely because of the courageous willingness of youth to fight against this, we Trotskyists call for expanding the school strikes against military service into workers’ strikes and a general class struggle against militarization and imperialist war. School Strike: No “Cannon Fodder” for German Imperialism! (December 2025)
Equating Protests Against Gaza Genocide with Antisemitism
Australia Weaponizes Bondi Massacre to Crack Down on Pro-Palestinian Protests
“Hate” Laws Escalate Attacks on Free Speech
Following the horrific massacre at a Hannukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia last December, state (New South Wales) and federal governments have used the outrage over this antisemitic atrocity to pass a battery of laws to restrict the right to protest and to own firearms while preparing to outlaw slogans of pro-Palestinian demonstrators. The authorities can now prohibit political organizations under laws against “hate groups,” as determined by the Australian intelligence agency, ASIO. Spearheading this attack is the Australian Labor Party. On February 9, using these new powers, police savagely attacked a protest in Sydney against Israeli president Isaac Herzog, a virulent Zionist warmonger and prime instigator of genocide in Gaza, This assault on basic democratic rights is part of a worldwide trend, as decaying capitalism spawns a drive toward police-state rule. But such dictatorial laws can be defeated, through mobilisatoin of the workers and oppressed in militant class struggle. Italian workers showed the way, shutting down ports, rail lines and highways, bringing millions into the streets in mass strikes for Gaza in September/October 2025. Australia Weaponizes Bondi Massacre to Crack Down on Pro-Palestinian Protests (27 February 2026)
Prosecuted for Union Stopping War Cargo to Israel
Defend Greek Dockworkers President Markos Bekris
On the night of 17 October 2024, dockworkers in the port of Piraeus, Greece blocked a container with 21 tons of ammunition from being loaded onto a ship owned by the Israeli ZIM Lines, bound for Haifa, Israel. On the containers, workers spraypainted “Murderers out of the port” and “Free Palestine!” The blockade drew worldwide attention. The Internationalist published an article hailing the Piraeus port workers’ bold action as a sterling example of the League for the Fourth International’s call for international workers action against the genocidal U.S./Israel war on the Palestinian people of Gaza. A year later, Greek authorities have begun prosecution of Markos Bekris, president of the Union of Container Handling Workers (ENEDEP) in the port of Piraeus for the union’s courageous action. In the United States, International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 voted a motion on November 20 saluting the Greek dockworkers action and defending ENEDEP president Bekris. Defend Greek Dockworkers President Markos Bekris (March 2025)
In Six-Week Strike, Nurses Resisted NYSNA Tops’ Betrayals
NYC Nurses Strike Knifed by Democratic Governor Hochul
On January 12, more than 15,000 New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) members launched the largest and longest nurses strike in New York City’s history. Strikers held out for over a month in the dead of winter. They were facing NYC’s top three private “non-profit” hospitals, Mount Sinai, Montefiore and New York-Presbyterian/Columbia. After the union settled with the first two in mid-February, “Presby” nurses overwhelmingly rejected a sellout agreement that NYSNA tops tried to ram through, staying out for another two weeks. The hospitals were out to undercut enforceable safe staffing ratios, layoff protections and full health care that the union won in a three-day strike in 2023. And the hospital bosses dismissed out of hand union demands for protection of patients and staff against immigration agents. A key reason the strikers did not win major gains after staying solid for six weeks on the picket lines was union leaders’ playing ball with Democratic governor Kathy Hochul, whose executive orders let strikebreakers work without a New York license. Class-struggle trade-unionists would call to run the scabs out, to break with the scab-herding Democratic Party and build a fighting workers party, and would fight for union control of nursing staffing. NYC Nurses Strike Knifed by Democratic Governor Hochul (March 2026)
Overcrowded Classes, Underfunded Schools, Underpaid Teachers, Students Targeted by ICE
For a California Statewide Educators Strike
Break with the Democrats – For a Class-Struggle Workers Party
Across California, teacher unions have been stalled for months in negotiations with their school districts since their contracts ended in June 2025. Some have already carried out strikes, including Richmond in December and San Francisco in February,with at best limited gains. Teachers in Oakland, Los Angeles and districts in Sacramento have voted to authorize strikes. But although they face common conditions of overcrowded classes and underfunded schools, rather than launching statewide action, the unions are bargaining on a district-by-district basis, undercutting their power. The shortchanging of public education in California goes back to the 1978 Proposition 13, limiting property taxes, in a backlash against the growing number of immigrant students. Today, California schools have been beset by ICE and other paramilitary federal agents carrying out Trump's program of mass deportations. The response to this all-sided assault is hamstrung by the union bureaucrats chaining workers to the capitalist Democratic Party, when at every level Democrats are the bosses of the public education system. What's called for is a statewide educators strike, and a fight for a class-struggle workers party. For a California Statewide Educators Strike (23 February 2026)
ICL Admits “Frame-Up,” Purge, Lies
In June 2025, the International Communist League (whose U.S. section is the Spartacist League) issued a public bulletin with the results of an internal ICL investigation on what it accurately calls the ICL’s “bureaucratic purge” and “frame-up” of Internationalist Group founders in 1996 and its “completely unprincipled” breaking of fraternal relations with Trotskyist workers in Brazil’s “Steel City,” for refusing to call off their struggle to oust police from the municipal workers union. Retrospectively denouncing these betrayals, which it calls “the very antithesis of revolutionary leadership,” the bulletin also repudiates the torrent of lies and slanders the ICL pumped out for decades to justify them. It is a good thing that the SL/ICL has now – three decades after the fact – made these self-damning admissions. Yet the political degeneration manifested starkly by the ICL’s 1996 crises has moved it now qualitatively to the right of the revolutionary program it used to uphold. This “Brief Postcript” from the new Internationalist pamphlet Trotskyism’s Legacy Today (see ad below) describes the context of the ICL’s investigation and its results. ICL Admits “Frame-Up,” Purge, Lies (March 2026)
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