workers vanguard no 758 - 11 may 2001

7/29/2019 Workers Vanguard No 758 - 11 May 2001

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WfJIIKEIiS "11"'111) 0eNo. 758 11 May 2001

For Unconditional Military Defense of ChinaAgainst Imperialism, Counterrevolution!

II II Ina

Taiwan: U.S.-supplied warships, artillery target Chinese deformed workers state. Bush administration is laying basis for war against China.MAY 7-The Bush administration islaying the basis for a war against thePeople's Republic of China, a war thatwould be nuclear in scope. That was theimport of Bush's April 25 statement thatthe U.S. would militarily intervene with"whatever it took" in an armed conflictbetween its Taiwanese client state andChina and that "the Chinese must understand that." This provocative declaration,tearing the veil off Washington's longstanding policy of "strategic ambiguity"

toward the question of war with Chinaover Taiwan, came only a day after Beijing warned that the U.S. had crosseda "red line" by offering Taiwan an arrayof advanced weaponry. Today, the U.S.resumed spy flights off China's coast forthe first time since the EP-3E provocation last month.On May 1, Bush told the world to"rethink the unthinkable" as he announced that the U.S. was planning totear up the 29-year-old Anti-Ballistic

Missile Treaty in order to proceed with avast missile defense system. Beijing official ShaZukang said, "Once the UnitedStates believes it has both a strong spearand a strong shield, it could lead them toconclude that nobody can harm theUnited States and they can harm anyonethey like anywhere in the world" (NewYork Times, 29 April). No one believesWashington's flimsy claim that it is prepared to shell out $100 billion or more todeal with a nonexistent threat from Iraq,

North Korea or other "rogue states," i.e.,small countries without nuclear weapons.The clear purpose of such an elaboratescheme-should the Pentagon ever get itto work-is to carry off a successfulnuclear first strike. The New York Times(6 May) npted, China's "nuclear deterrent-20 or so ICBM's-now stands atmost risk of being negated."New Pentagon war plans to be completed this summer, according to a reportcontinued on page 8

All U.S. Troops, Bases OutMAY 5-At least 180 protesters werearrested on Vieques last week as U.S.Navy fighters and warships staged afour-day training exercise barely twoyears to the day since a bombing runkilled a local resident. Angry protestersrepeatedly tore down security fences andsurged onto the firing range to force ahalt to the bombardment. As militarysecurity forces kicked people to theground and fired pepper spray at demonstrators-even some who had alreadybeen arrested and handcuffed-a Navyspokesman had the gall to denounce thedemonstrators as "violent." Some ofthose arrested were held for several daysin a former dog kennel stinking of urine,forced to sleep on the concrete floor.Vieques is integral to the U.S. militarypresence on Puerto Rico, which has long

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of Puerto RiCO!been key to American military designs.Vieques served as a training base forthe terror bombing of Iraq in 1991 andof Serbia in 1999. Puerto Rico was alaunching pad for the 1961 Bay of Pigsinvasion of Cuba, the 1965 invasion ofthe Dominican Republic and the 1983occupation of Grenada. The U.S. military presence is aimed at enforcing theimperialist subjugation of Puerto Ricoand the rest of Latin America and is adagger pointed at the Cuban deformedworkers state in particular. We say: All

U.S. troops and bases out of PuertoRico! U.S. military out of the Caribbean!For unconditional military defense ofCuba against imperialism and internalcounterrevolution!The Navy presence in Vieques exemplifies the colonial subjugation of PuertoRico from the time it was seized byan emerging U.S. imperialism duringthe Spanish-American War of 1898. TheU.S. military controls almost one-eighthof Puerto Rico's scarce land, includingcontinued on page 3

, ReutersArrest of protester on Vieques asresumption of military exercises provoked broad anger.


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P.c:iPar t i au De f eu e.o . . . . . t t eeCLASS-STRUGGLE DEFENSE NOTESMexico: Protest Cop Killingof Worker on May Day

We reprint below a May 3 statement byour comrades of the Grupo Espartaquistade Mexico (GEM), Mexican section ofthe ICL, protesting the heinous policekilling of a trade unionist on May Day.This action by police under the control ofthe bourgeois-nationalist PRD (Party ofthe Democratic Revolution) underscoresthat the PRD is no alternative to the ruling clerical-reactionary PAN (NationalAction Party) or the PRI (InstitutionalRevolutionary Party).

Osornio Cruz, a 22-year-old member ofthe Independent Union of Graphic ArtsWorkers. Osornio and six fellow unionists were entering the Hidalgo Metro station after attending the May Day demonstration when they were set upon byMetro police in a vicious attack whichincluded the use of tear gas. Osornio diedinstantly of massive brain trauma. TheGrupo Espartaquista de Mexico, sectionof the International Communist League(Fourth Internationalist), condemns thispolice killing and solidarizes with the fellow unionists, friends and family of Daniel Osornio. Earlier on May 1, Mexico

* * *On May Day, PRD-controlled MexicoCity Metro police beat to death Daniel

For Non-SectarianClass-Struggle Defense!As Mumia Abu-Jamal's fight fo r freedomenters a new and critical stage on the legalfront, i t is all the more urgent that Jamal'smany supporters around the world mobilize in powerful labor-centered protestaction to save the life of this innocentman. In advancing this strategy, the PartisanDefense Committee follows in the class-TROTSKY struggle tradition of the International Labor LENINDefense of James P. Cannon, who was laterfounding leader of the U.S. Trotskyist movement. In a 1927 article on the frame-up ofanarchist workers Sacco a nd Vanzetti, who were ultimately executed, Cannonexplained that illusions in capitalist "justice" are counterposed to a class-struggledefense strategy.

The Sacco-Vanzetti case is no private monopoly, but an issue of the class struggle inwhich the decisive word will be spoken by the masses who have made this fight theirown. It is, therefore, necessary to discuss openly the conflicting policies which arebound up with different objectives.One policy is the policy of the class struggle. It puts the center of gravity in the protestmovement of the workers ofAmerica and the world. It puts all faith in the power of themasses and no faith whatever in the justice of the courts. While favoring all possiblelegal proceedings, it calls for agitation"publicity, demonstrations-organized proteston a national and international scale. It calls for unity and solidarity of all workers onthis burning issue, regardless of conflicting views on other questions. This is what hasprevented the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti so far. Its goal is nothing less than theirtriumphant vindication and liberation.The other policy is the policy of "respectability," of the "soft pedal" and of ridiculous illusions about "justice" from the courts of the enemy. It relies mainly on legal proceedings. It seeks to blur the issue of the class struggle. It shrinks from the "vulgar andnoisy" demonstrations of the militant workers and throws the mud of slander on them.It tries to represent the martyrdom of Sacco and Vanzetti as an "unfortunate" error whichcan be rectified by the "right" people proceeding in the "right" way. The objective ofthis policy is a whitewash of the courts of Massachusetts and "clemency" for Sacco andVanzetti, in the form of a commutation to liJe imprisonment for a crime of which theworld knows they are innocent. .The conscious proletarian elements with whom we identify ourselves unconditionally, are for the first policy. The bourgeois elements, and those influenced by them, arefor the second ...Only the organized and united protest movement of the masses cari save them. In thismovement the class conscious workers-the militants-are the driving force. Let thosewho hamper this movement or endanger its unity pause lest they unconsciously becomethe executioners of Sacco and Vanzetti.

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-JameS P. Cannon, "Who Can Save Sacco and Vanzetti?", Labor Defender,January 1927, reprinted in Notebook ofan Agitator (1958)

! ~ ! ! ! ! ! J ! . I l p . ' ! . ! ' ! . ~ ! ! . ! EDITOR: Len MeyersEDITOR, YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Anna WoodmanPRODUCTION MANAGER: Susan FullerCIRCULATION MANAGER: Irene Gar dnerEDITORIAL BOARD: Barry James (managing editor), Bruce Andre, Ray Bishop, Jon Brule,George Foster, Liz Gordon, Walter Jennings, Jane Kerrigan, James Robertson, Joseph Seymour,Alison SpencerThe Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the InternationalCommunist League (FourthInternationalist)Workers Vanguard (ISSN 02760746) published biweekly, except skipping three alternate issues in June, July andAugust (beginning with omitting the second issue in June) and with a 3-week interval in December, by the Spartacist Publishing Co., 299 Broadway, Suite 318, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 732-7862 (Editorial), (212) 732-7861(Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 13n, GPO, New York, NY 10116. E-mailljddress:[email protected] subscriptions: $10.00/22 issues. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send addresschanges to Workers Vanguard, Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116.Opinions expressed in signed aflicles or etters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint.The closing date for news in this issue is May 8.

No. 758 11 May 2001

City police also arrested four demonstrators, two of them known UNAM studentactivists. We demand all charges bedropped!Close to half a million workers demonstrated on May Day, in three differentconcentrations led by different uniongroupings. But at none of these demonstrations did President Vicente Foxescape the anger of the working class,which showed its discontent with his economic plans. From privatizations and layoffs, to 15 percent taxes on food, medicine and books, to further opening of theeconomy for exploitation by Americanimperialism-it all spells increased misery for Mexican toilers. This murderousdisplay of police brutality. is yet anotherindication that the PRD and its police willstop at nothing to keep workers and theoppressed under control. Indeed, fromChiapas to Tepito and elsewhere in thecountry, the PAN, PRD and PRI areunited in immiserating the masses andthen terrorizing them to try to keep the lidon growing discontent.The murderous police have also takentheir cue from the reactionary Fox, whoin the five short months of his termhas overseen attacks on labor, peasants,the indigenous population, women and

homosexuals. In the new "democratic"Mexico, student strike leaders have beenexpelled from UNAM for defending public education, and Alejandro Echevarria("El Mosh") f ~ c e s ten months in prisonunder bogus charges of "robbery." Wesay: Down with all charges! Rescind theexpulsions!While it is common for labor strikes tobe declared legally "nonexistent," theSupreme Court has now declared the"closed shop" law unconstitutional. Aunion's right to demand that all workersat a particular shop be union members isan important tool in labor's arsenalagainst the bosses who seek to divide theworking class and weaken their organizations by hiring non-union labor.The police, the armed forces and thecourts exist to defend the interests of thecapitalist class; that is, their ability toextract profit from the labor of others. Itis the proletariat which has the powerto stop the increased impoverishmentof the working class by leading all theoppressed in the struggle to eradicate capitalism, which is part of the fight to.construct a world socialist society in whichproduction is not for the profits of thebosses but to meet the needs and desiresof the masses.

Gary Mayor Tries to CriminalizeAnti-Klan Protest-Defend Kevin Quirk!All opponents of the Ku Klux Klan'sracist terror have a vital interest in fighting the prosecution of Kevin Quirk, amember of Chicago's AmalgamatedTransit Union Local 241, for his role inthe Partisan Defense C o r n r n i t t ~ e - i n i t i a t e d laborlblack mobilization to stop the KKKin Gary, Indiana last January 20. On thatday, Gary mayor Scott King banned anyand all protest. When we successfullydefied that ban, the police cited Quirk, aPDC representative, for "parading without a permit." Quirk faces a hearing at1:30 p.m. on May 16 at the Gary CircuitCourt, 1301 Broadway.The Klan's threat to march at the LakeCounty Courthouse on January 20 wasa direct and deadly threat to the overwhelmingly black population of Gary andto the unions that are based there. ThePDC's united-front call-"All Out toStop the KKK!"-won widespread backing from labor organizations and trade-. union officials' in northwest Indiana,Chicago and across the country, as wellas internationally. When King denied thePDC's permit application for an anti-Klandemonstration and threatened to arrest

anyone who showed up, protest. lettersfrom unionists across the country helpedto stay his hand. Over 150 trade unionists, black people, students and socialiststurned out to stop the Klan provocation,chanting, "KKK, no way! You didn'tmarch today!"King's Democratic administration istrying to criminalize the elementary act ofself-defense against KKK terror-indeed,any protest against racism and injustice.Last year King even refused a permit toLocal 73 of the Service Employees International Union to hold a rally for a decentcontract. Just as an outpouring of protestletters and calls helped stop King fromstaging a mass arrest at the January 20mobilization, a similar effort is urgentlyneeded now. Protest letters demandingthat the charge against Kevin Quirkbe dropped should be faxed to (219)881-1263 or sent to: Corporation CounselHamilton Carmouche, Law Department,Gary City Hall, 401 Broadway, Gary,Indiana 46402, Please mail copies ofprotest letters to the PDC at P.O. Box 99,Canal Street Station, New York, NY10013-0099.

,.----Spartacist/SYC EventsCastro Bureaucracy Undermines Gains'of the CubanRevolution-For Proletarian Political Revolution!

Saturday, May 19, 4. p.m. Eyewitness ReportMount Hollywood Congregational Church, 4607 Prospect Ave.,Hollywood (one block east of Vermont)LOS ANGELES For more information: (213) 380-8239

From Seattle to Quebec: Anti-Globalization Protests'PUSh Illusions in Rapacious U.S. Imperialism

Defend China Against Imperialism and Capitalist Counterrevolution!Tuesday, May 22, 7 p.m.University of Chicago, Room 115, Cobb Hall, 5811 S. EllisEyewitness Report from Quebec Anti-FTAA Protests

CHICAGO For more information: (312) 563-0441 .WORKERS VANGUARD


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Cops Unleashed Against NYC Transit WorkersAs they tighten the screws on the workforce, New York City Transit .,(NYCT)bosses are now using NYC cops as enforcers against Transport Workers Union(TWU) Local 100. TWU members toldWorkers Vanguard that cops were calledin to the 207th Street subway maintenance barn in late April against. unionofficials when they came to the defense

of a victimized worker. Managementthreatened to fire the worker after a confrontation with a security guard. Theyproceeded to interrogate him behindlocked doors in a manager's office without a union rep being present. When theofficials demanded to see the worker, thesuperintendent called the NYPD cops toevict them from the facility.A few weeks ear lier, on April I, NYCTmanagement at the Jackie Gleason BusDepot in Brooklyn's Sunset Park calledin the NYPD to prevent union safetyreps from checking on potentially deadlygas leaks. These repeated leaks of highpressure natural gas are so serious thata couple of weeks later the Fire Department shut down a nine-block area, including a public school. TWU secretarytreasurer Ed Watt reported in a letter tothe NYC Chief-Leader (4 May): "Onmore than six occasions Transit Authority management called or threatened tocall the police to remove some of ourhighest-ranking officers. Even when natural gas leaks were being reported on adaily basis, our members were ordered towork under armed guard, with no respeCtfor their safety and well-being. Somemight insist that labor relations at gunpoint is no problem. Our members woulddisagree.""Labor relations at gunpoint" aptlydescribes the massive cop mobilizationdeployed against Local 100 on the eve ofa threatened strike in December 1999, asRepublican mayor Rudolph Giuliani andDemocratic state attorney general EliotSpitzer teamed up in an attempt to bustthe union with draconian Taylor Lawinjunctions criminalizing even use of theword "strike." Both wings of the Local100 bureaucracy, the "old guard" underthen-president Willie James and the NewDirections (ND) opposition that has since

Vieques...(continued from page 1)the Roosevelt Roads naval station, thehemisphere's largest. In the case ofVieques, the Navy took over two-thirdsof the island during World War II, throwing thousands out of their homes andordering impoverished farmers whosefamilies had occupied the land for generations to leave the area within 48 hours.Eastern parts of Vieques have beenbombed so heavily that no soil remains,just the underlying rock broken into smallpieces. With farming devastated, fishingrestricted and tourism gutted by decadesof live bombing, fully 70 percent of thepopulation lives below the poverty level.Unemployment is 50 percent, two and ahalf times the rate on Puerto Rico itself.As nominal citizens of the U.S., PuertoRican youth serve as cannon fodder forU.S. imperialism's wars of domination.But residents of Puerto Rico are politically dispossessed-denied the right tovote in federal elections-and discriminated against economically, linguistically, racially and culturally. The island'sworking people are exploited as a lowwage labor pool by U.S. capitalists seeking to maximize their profit margins. Theimperialists have met liny challenge totheir colonial domination with brute terror, from the 1937 Ponce massacre to theassassination and imprisonment of countless independence fighters.The April 1999 killing of a local security guard and the wounding of four other

taken control, capitulated in the face ofthis assault, even enforcing the state'sdictates against their own members. Thiswas a signal to the transit bosses thatthey could declare "open season" againstTWU members.Only months after this capitUlation,management at the 240th Street subwaymaintenance facility in the Bronx calledin the NYPD to bust up a shopgate unionmeeting, firing 18 cleaners (who wereeventually reinstated) for "insubordination." Reporting "TA Sics Cops on Union

mechanic told WV, "then they try to makethe rest of us do it." The union must fightto abolish the "probationary" and "provisional" classifications which deny workers full union rights and protections.What is needed to beat back thewave of company victimizations and copassaults, as well as escalating speedup, safety violations and attacks on theunion's health benefits fund, is a concerted effort by the union as a whole.But while ND makes a pretense of beingmore militant than its predecessor, ND

New York City, March 28: TWU workers rally to defend health benefits fundagainst management.Meeting," we wrote: "The union shouldhave immediately made clear to the arrogant TA bosses that not a single trainwould pull in or out of the station unlessall 18 cleaners were reinstated on the spotwith full pay and no disciplinary action"(WV No. 732, 24 March 2000).Now, at the East New York bus maintenance facility in Brooklyn, workers areengaged in an overtime boycott to reversethe firing of two probationary mechanicson bogus charges of not finishing a jobin the allotted time. "They try to get theprobationaries to work harder and fasterto show it can be done," one young

residents by an American jet that missedits bombing target made the Vieques basea focus for national indignation amongPuerto Ricans. Opposition to the bombings has become so widespread that evena legislator from the pro-statehood NewProgressive Party, linked to the Republican Party, got arrested in the recentprotests, as did Chicago DemocraticCongressman Luis Gutierrez, actor Edward James Olmos and amember of theKennedy clan. Popular Democratic Partycandidate Sila Calderon was elected governor last November largely on the basisof her vow to end the bombing runs.Seeking to calm popular outrage, Clintonpushed through a deal offering Viequesresidents a referendum on the Navy presence-to be organized by the Navy bynext February-and suspending the useof live ammunition in training exercisesuntil then. Washington hopes to bribe thepopulation with promises of a $40 millionaid package if the vote goes in its favor.As part of the deal, the Navy last monthgave up a chunk of the island being usedfor ammunition bunkers, which one resident accurately described as a "wastedump."The Spartacist League fights for theright of self-determination-that is, theright of independence-for Puerto Rico,the principal remaining colony of theU.S. We seek to mobilize the. U.S. proletariat to combat all manifestations ofnational chauvinism, and we defend theright of advocates for independence toorganize and agitate for secession. At thesame time, we warn against illusions in

president Roger Toussaint took pains toassure NYCT management that he wasnot "strike happy" even during his election campaign. More recently, whenasked if management's threats to cut offhealth benefits or massively increase copayments might lead to job actions,Toussaint replied, "You'd love to haveme say that, wouldn't you? I think thereare lots of other ways for us to do thatwithin the Taylor Law, whether it's legalaction, member mobilization or educating the community and the riders"(Chief-Leader, 6 April).What Toussaint means by "other

the nationalist lie of "el pueblo unido"(the people united), which disappearsclass 'conflict in the interest of "unity" ofthe oppressed with the capitalist classenemy. The two-day general strike in1998 against plans to sell off the stateowned telephone company illustrated themassive popular opposition to nationalsubjugation as well as the power of thePuerto Rican proletariat. But that powerwas derailed by labor bureaucrats whochained the working class to the programof bourgeois nationalism and tied theunions to bourgeois political and rightwing religious elements through aclass-collaborationist front called CAOS(Greater Committee of Trade-Union,, Civic, Religious, Cultural, Political, Student and Environmental Organizations).That there is today little mass supportin Puerto Rico for the perspective ofindependence is due not least to widespread fears that this would mean an endto unrestricted travel to the U.S. and asharp drop ~ i n what is now the higheststandard of living in Latin America(albdt much lower than in even the poorest state on the mainland). Moreover,despite calling for the "demilitarizationof Puerto Rico," the Puerto Rican Independence Party has made it amply clearthat an independent capitalist PuertoRico would be quite willing to maintainU.S. bases if the price was right.The only road to breaking the stranglehold of imperialist domination, andexploitation and grinding poverty liesthrough proletarian revolution in PuertoRico and above all in North America.

ways" was cle'ar at a March 28 TWUrally in defense of health benefits, whichwas turned into a Democratic Party election rally, with every Democratic mayoralhopeful in the city on the platform andJesse Jackson as the featured speaker.Since taking office, Toussaint has trumpeted his intention of channeling unionresources into a "political action committee" for the Democratic Party. This isin keeping with the strategy of the AFLCIO bureaucracy, which is devoting evengreater efforts to getting Democratselected now that Bush is in the WhiteHouse. ND's flagrant subservience tothe racist Democratic Party was to beexpected given its longstanding strategyof using the agencies of the capitaliststate-the courts, the District Attorneyand the Labor Department-against theunion in its efforts to win control of thelocal.The union tops hide behind the stateTaylor Law outlawing public workersstrikes to cover up their own craven classcollaboration. Even founding TWU president Mike Quill himself, a pro-capitalistbureaucrat, understood that collectivebargaining without the right to strike isjust "collective begging." Quill tore up acourt injunction based on the TaylorLaw's predecessor, the Condon-Wadi nAct, on the eve of a 1966 strike and wentto jail for it-but the strike won.The same cops who are deployedagainst TWU members are also used tooccupy the ghettos and barrios. Yet ND, asdid the previous James leadership, supports the presence of management's"property protection" security cops in theunion. The cops, as well as the courts, aredirect agents of the class enemy; theyhave no place in the labor movement.Cops out of the TWU!To defend and advance the rights oflabor requires a class-struggle leadershipthat seeks to mobilize labor's power in itsinterests and those of all the oppressed.Such a leadership will be forged as part ofthe struggle for a workers party counterposed to all the parties and agenciesof the capitalist class and committed tothe proposition that those who labormust rule.

Puerto Rican workers on the mainlandcan playa key role in linking the struggles of the multiracial U.S. proletariatwith those of the combative proletariaton the island, many of whom wbrk forU.S. subsidiaries. Only socialist revolution throughout the hemisphere, layingthe basis for international planning withmassive assistance from the victoriousproletariat in North America, can openthe road to genuine economic development for the countries which are todayunder the imperialist boot..

If gil hi t!I


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Young SparlaeusSYC at UC Berkeley

Every year the Berkeley ReserveOfficers' Training Corps (ROTC) rappelsdown a building at the center of UCBerkeley's campus in a bi.d to recruitincoming college students to the officercorps of the U.S. imperialist military. OnApril 21, the Spartacus Youth Club led ademonstration opposing this deadly armof the bourgeoisie.Our protest got the attention of hundreds of students who came to Cal Day(the open house when prospective students tour the campus). We passed out200 to 300 leaflets and sold our flamingred communist literature. We planned onfirst having a demonstration on SproulPlaza, but that was thwarted by the circus we encountered there (it's hard tohave a demo when you're competingagainst Ricky Martin at 120 decibels). Weinstead marched with our signs straight toWheeler Hall, where the 25 or 30 ROTCrecruiters were quite taken aback. Immediately after our appearance, the campus police started following us, with onecop filming us from minute one. ROTCwas also filming us-at one point they setup a surveillance post from the secondfloor, but quickly abandoned it. Ourprotest drew supporters from the crowd,and included students from local highschools. We then marched through campus and chanted slogans like "ROTC is animperialist tool-Workers must smashbourgeois rule!" and "ROTC recruitersImperialist looters-Off campus now!"Shenanigans abounded. After about10 minutes, a marching band strategically relocated to within feet of us andplayed bad '80s tunes to the scatteredcheers of soldiers and pro-ROTC civilians. A middle-aged woman startedscreaming "Go ROTC!" but quickly left.Later a team of utterly untalented womenstarted singing the "Star Spangled Banner" l ~ e madmen. While a guy in aNixon mask tossed a globe into a toiletlabeled "FTAA," a motley group of weirdanarcho- "deep ecologists" started hovering around us with pictures of animalsbeing tortured and signs that showed theirdispleasure with American imperialismthis based solely on the fact that American soldiers mistreat monkeys in labs!What really attracted the attention ofmany students and parents were our signsin Chinese and English that said: "ProtestU.S. Spy Plane Provocation! Defend theChinese Deformed Workers State AgainstImperialism and Capitalist Counterrevolution!" One Chinese student asked acomrade if there is a third way betweensocialism and capitalism. Upon gettingher firm negative, he exclaimed, "Me too!I'm for pure communism!" Today Chinais the main target of all the imperialists.For revolutionaries, defense of China andthe other remaining deformed workersstates is a basic act of opposition to our"own" bourgeoisie.Our demonstration against ROTCcomes in the context of increased bellicosity across the board by the Americanbourgeoisie. A right-wing Republicanadministration in the White House is

brashly asserting American hegemonyaround the globe by waving its militaryfist at North Korea, Russia and China.Clinton's policy of genocidal starvationand bombing of Iraq proceeds unabated.The troops of U.S. imperialism stilloccupy the Balkans in a situation fraughtwith scarcely suppressed all-sided communalist fratricide which is still tearingapart south central Europe. Bush is continuing Clinton's funding and arming ofthe murderous war against the Colombianpeasant insurgents.With Bush in the Oval Office, manyleft-leaning workers and students willlook toward the liberal Democrats as alesser evil. As the SYC warned in ourspeeches at the protest, the DemocraticParty is no alternative. It is a capitalistparty of racism and war, loyally servingthe same ruling class as the Republicans.From World War II to Vietnam to the terror bombing of the Balkans, the Democrats have been the traditional partyof imperialist war. As for the FTAA,the Clinton/Gore administration implemented NAFTA and intensified the "freetrade" rape of Mexico, while backing tothe hilt the murderous war against theChiapas peasants.Where was the rest of the campus leftwhen ROTC staged its recruitment stunt?Progressive Labor not only refused tocome to our protest, they also physicallyexcluded an SYCer from their meetingearlier in the week when we went toinvite them to participate in this elementary act of opposition to U.S. imperialism. During a time 'of increasing U.S.hostility against the Chinese deformedworkers state, it is not so surprising thatPL refuses to come to an anti-ROTCdemo. PL writes off the gains of the Chinese Revolution by labeling the deformedworkers state as a capitalist imperialistcountry. A lone PL supporter sulked atthe edge of our ROTC demo, watchingus mournfully from the shadows. Weapproached him and asked if he couldjustify PL's refusal to defend MumiaAbu-Jamal for well over a decade, PL'sbizarre claims that the 1997 UPS Teamsters strike was a "dogfight" between twowings of the bosses (Challenge, 3 September 1997), and their utterly disgustingposition that the gay rights movement andanti-gay violence are "both faces of fascism" (Challenge, 4 November 1998). Healternated between claiming ignoranceand protesting that he did not agree withtheir positions. He then tried to brushaside the enormity of these betrayals byexplaining that PL is fighting opportunism in its own organization!The International Socialist Organization also refused to come to our protest.The ISO's theoretical and organizational progenitors broke with Marxismlong ago by abandoning defense of theUSSR and China in 1950, after the U.S.and British imperialists invaded Korea.Following the destruction of the SovietUnion, the ISO declared that the counterrevolution was a great triumph that"should have every socialist rejoicing"(Socialist Worker [Britain], 31 August1991). The ISO spent much of the lastyear campaigning for capitalist politicianRalph Nader, whose protectionism and

DOtv,Af ~ ' W T H IMF AlI5TER!TY

FR{1MMEXICO TOINDONESIA . '

SYC anti-ROTC demo at UC Berkeley. Demanding "ROTC Offcalled on students to oppose U.S. imperialism.anti-Communist hatred of the Chineseworkers state goes hand in hand with histrumpeting of American "democracy." Nowonder these groups don't take a basicstand against the agents of imperialism oncampus. Given that they look to the selfsame U.S. bourgeoisie to playa progressive role internationally, it is logical thatthey won't protest and expose the crimesof American capitalism from the perspective of the international working class.Now that the Republicans are swingingback through the White House, the ISO'spaper, Socialist Worker, runs headlineslike "We Won't Go Back!" (read: "pleasebring Clinton back") and "It's Time toSend Bush a Message" (i.e., unite withthe liberals to "fight the right"). The ISOconsciously rejects the struggle to mobilize the proletariat in its own interests tosmash the capitalist system and insteadpreaches the counterrevolutionary strategy of putting pressure on the "progressive" members of the ruling capitalist exploiters, i.e., the racist DemocraticParty. .We reprint below the leaflet issued bythe SYC in building this protest.

* * *,On April 21, "Cal Day," prospectiveBerkeley students may well wonder ifthey have applied to a police state ratherthan a college. The Reserve Officers'Training Corps (ROTC) plans to showcase the United States armed forces oncampus by rappelling down WheelerHall. ROTC trains the next generation ofmen and women who will carry outslaughter for the most rapacious imperialist power i n ~ t h e world. But ROTC has notalways enjoyed the right to herd studentsinto the blood-drenched armed forces.Organized outrage over atrocities committed by American imperialism's armedforces in Vietnam successfully droveROTC off campuses all over the nation.When ROTC reintroduced itself in academic garb in the mid-seventies, weled a campaign against its return to theCal campus. The Spartacus Youth Club(SYC) today calls on students outragedby U.S. imperialist rampages-from increased belligerence against China to theterror bombings of Iraq to the "drug war"

on Colombia-to demand: ROTC OffCampus!Wars like the 1999 U.S.fUN/NATOwar on Serbia that murdered civiliansand bombed Serbia's infrastructure backto the Stone Age are endemic to the capitalist system. Imperialism is not a policy, but the highest stage of capitalism inwhich the world powers wage ruthlesswarfare over markets in order to improvetheir relative competitive positions, ravaging the colonial and semi-colonialcountries at the expense of their rivals.Witness the proposed FTAA, which extends NAFTA's "free trade" rape of Mexico to further the domination of American capital over the economies of allLatin America. But a contract is onlyworth as much as the guns that back itup. ROTC is the direct appendage of thebloody military machine that defends theinterests of the American ruling class.The SYC says: No to the FTAA! Downwith NAFTA! For socialist revolutionthroughOitt the Americas!The organizers of the April 21-22 protests to "Stop the FTAA," however, consciously push the deadly lie that U.S.imperialism can be pressured to fightfor the "human rights" of the ThirdWorld. But, from WW I's "war to endall wars" to the war against Serbia onbehalf of Albanian Kosovars, the U.S.has always draped its imperialist adventures in "human rights" clothing. The"anti-globalization" movement propagates the illusion that the U.S. must combat "undemocratic" multinational tradebodies like the WTO-but such agreements are just conveniences that variousnationally-based bourgeoisies work outwhen they're not actually shooting atone another to divvy up the world. TheAFL-CIO union bureaucracy has maderacist protectionism a theme of the antiglobalization movement, peddling the liethat U.S. workers have a common interestwith their bosses. These protests and theirfake-socialist cheerleaders, like the ISOand Socialist Alternative, obscure the fundamental truth that U.S. imperialism isthe main enemy of the working andoppressed people of the world, and actually mobilize workers and youth behindthe American imperialist behemoth.WORKERS VANGUARD

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Bob ,Kerrey, Vietnam War CriminalAlmost as obscene as the slaughter of21 women, children and elderly men perpetrated by Bob Kerrey's Navy SEALdeath squad in Vietnam in 1969 is thehand-wringing concern in the Americancapitalist media over the "psychological

damage" done to the killers. Responding to sickening editorials like "The WarWithin Bob Kerrey" (New York Times,26 April), one letter to the Times (30April) rightly protested, "It's almost asif those who were killed have becomemere stage props in some morality play ...The famous photo from World War II ofthe little boy in Warsaw held at gunpointby a German soldier puts the situation inthe right order: it is the child we focus on,not the soldier."All the "war is heW' pontificating bypundits and politicians is a coverup formass murder. Many GIs were sent toVietnam and did not become torturersand murderers. Hugh Thompson, who asa helicopter pilot in Vietnam threatenedto fire on Lieutenant William Calley'stroops when he saw them raping andmurdering villagers in My Lai in 1968,told the New York Post (27 April), " If[Kerrey] did what they say he did, heshould go to jail."Kerrey was the head of a specialIytrained killer commando unit. Their assignment in the village of Thanh Phong on thenight of 25 February 1969 was to assassinate a local "Viet Cong" leader. Not finding the man they wanted, Kerrey and hiskillers rounded up and systematicallyslaughtered any villagers they found. BuiThi Luom, who was 12 years old whenshe witnessed the massacre, said lastweek, "At the time, I was too small. I f Icould, I would like to get my revenge onthem. I f I could kill them, I would."Despite persistent complaints at thetime of a U.S. massacre, Pentagon brassawarded Kerrey a Bronze Star whosecitation reads, "twenty-one Viet Congkilled" (Washington Post, 27 April). Inthe eyes of the U.S. imperialists and theirSouth Vietnamese henchmen, any villager not penned up in "strategic hamlets," i.e., concentration camps, was presumed to be Viet Congo Some 100,000Vietnamese liberation fighters were assassinated under the CIA's "OperationPhoenix," while countless others weretortured in tiny bamboo "tiger cages." Itis because of such criminal acts and others that the U.S. refuses to sign the treatyfor an international war crimes tribunal, even as it demands that every tinpotstrongman who falls out of Washington'sfavor be tried for "war crimes."Kerrey went on to receive a Medal ofHonor, the highest U.S. military decoration, and to pursue a career as a leadingDemocratic Party politician, cynicalIyhiding this atrocity as a "private memory"until a reporter confronted him with thestory in 1998, just days before he calIedoff a planned presidential bid. Kerrey

The recent U.S. spy plane provocationcomes as part of a deliberate escalationof U.S. military pressure against thePeople's Republic of China. As proletarian internationalists in the heartland ofworld imperialism, we of the SYCdeclare our class solidarity with the Chinese proletariat and Chinese deformedworkers state, with its socialized economy. The world economic downturnonly makes the markets and resourcesof China more vital to the rapacious U.S.bosses, who seek to tear open its plannedeconomy and turn it into one big sweatshop. Workers internationally mustunconditionally 'fight for the militarydefense of China against imperialistattack and internal counterrevolution. Butthe Beijing Stalinist bureaucracy itselfonly defends the planned economy to the11 MAY 2001

should be brought to justice before aworkers and peasants tribunal in Vietnam! As the Spartacus Youth Clubchanted at a May 3 protest outside New

down bombs and napalm on the Vietnamese people, they were waging a war ofextermination against black militants athome, like the Chicago cops under Dem-

tory! Two, three many defeats for U.S.imperialism!In the name of "human rights," the imperialist rulers are now trying to overthrow the gains of the Vietnamese Revolution; to crush Cuba under the jIlckbootof U.S. imperialism; to recapture China,which was ripped from the hands of theimperialists in the 1949 Chinese Revolution, for imperialist exploitation. Tbedoors for renewed imperialist penetration, emboldening the internal forces ofcounterrevolution, are being opened bythe treacherous Stalinist bureaucrats ofthose countries. We say: 1,2,3,4-Workers rule is what we're for! 5,6,7,8-Defend the Chinese workers state!Defend the Vietnamese workers state!Defend the Cuban workers state! Defendthe North Korean workers state!

What Kerrey did was no aberration.

Tran Viet Duc/SipaRelatives and friends of family killed in 1969 massacre at ThanhPhong gather at the graves.

Mass murder of the heroic Vietnamese people was government policy. Theworkers of the world owe a huge debt tothe Vietnamese workers and peasants,who defeated the most powerful imperialist war machine on the face of theplanet. We are fighting to repay that debtby fighting for workers revolution here"in the belly of the beast" to overthrowU.S. imperialism. When the wealth ofthis country belongs to the working people that created it, then we can begin toredress the crimes committed by therapacious U.S. rulers against the workingpeople and oppressed masses of theworld. We say: Capitalism means racismand war! Socialist revolution is whatwe're for!.

York's New School University, whereKerrey is now president: "Bob Kerreyshouldn't die of old age-Put him in atiger cage!"We print below a speech by an SYCspokesman at the protest.* * *Bob Kerrey is a war criminal, thehead of a team of Navy SEALs in Vietnam, trained assassins who killed 21

civilians-mainly women and childrenin Thanh Phong in 1969. This bloodybutcher later came home as a decorated"war hero" for the crimes he perpetratedagainst the heroic Vietnamese workersand peasants. We of the Spartacus YouthClub say: Bob Kerrey is a war criminal!Butcher of Vietnam!Kerrey went on to become a Democratic Party Senator and was a liberalhopeful for the presidential candidacy.This is fitting. U.S. imperialism's dirtywar in Vietnam started under liberalDemocrat John F., Kennedy and wascontinued under the Democratic Partyadministration of Lyndon B. Johnson.This year is also the 40th anniversaryof the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba,which was put down by the Cuban masseswho fought in defense of their revolution. Democratic Party-party of war andracism! We say: Remember Bay of Pigs,Remember Vietnam-Democratic Party,we know which side you're on!The Democrats are pushed by the laborbureaucrats and black Democratic hustlers like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton asthe "friend of labor and blacks" at homeand the purveyors of "human rights"imperialism abroad. But the war criminalB ~ b Kerrey is the true face of the Democratic Party. While they were raining

extent that it fears its own working class.The mighty Chinese proletariat mustthrow off this misleadership, and takecontrol of its own state through politicalrevolution. Even then the only ultimatesafeguard against capitalist countep-evolution is through international class struggle to create socialism the world over.While looking to the bloodiest imperialist power to clean up the world isan especialIy ludicrous idea, there areabsolutely no routes to reform imperialism. Rather than prettifying American"democracy," as revolutionary Marxistsin the U.S. we fight for a party to lead theworking class in a victorious socialistrevolution to smash capitalism for good.Join the SYC in protesting ROTC. ROTCoff campus! Defend China! U.S. bloodyhands off the world!.

ocratic Party mayor Daley who assassinated Black Panthers Fred Hampton andMark Clark while they were asleep intheir beds. The same people who purveythe lie that the U.S. imperialists can bepressured to bring "human rights" and"freedom" to the oppressed masses of theworld say, "No more Vietnams," echoingthe imperialist rulers who were defeatedby the courageous Vietnamese workersand peasants. We say: Vietnam was a vic-

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Noam,Chomsky: Radical Impostor,Anti-Communist CensorThe following is a leaflet produced bythe Boston Spartacist League/SpartacusYouth Club, May 7.Like the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dr.Noam Chomsky of MIT is not really whathe pretends to be. Whatever Chomsky'sradical rhetoric, he's nothing more thana liberal anti-Communist. As we pointedout last spring in a leaflet titled "NoamChomsky: Imperialism's 'Armchair Anarchist'" (reprinted in WV No. 735, 5May 2000):"Much is always forgiven those who, likeChomsky, line up faithfully with theirown ruling class on the key loyalty testfor Americans: better hate the Reds if youwant to get ahead. The red-baiting professor and his ilk spit on every social revolution including the Bolshevik Revolution led by Lenin and Trotsky. 'I f the leftis understood to include "Bolshevism,"then I would flatly dissoc.iate myself fromthe left. Lenin was one of the greatestenemies of socialism, in my opinion,'says the anti-Communist Chomsky."While attendees at various Chomsky lectures eagerly grabbed our leaflet(perhaps looking for some break fromthe good professor's notoriously longwinded presentations), it obviously reallygot under Chomsky's skin. And eversince, the man who likes to posture asa radical muckraker who exposes thecrimes of American imperialism hasbeen on a vendetta aimed at silencingour exposes of him as nothing but a "radical" fraud and windbag. At meetingafter meeting, Chomsky has given hisaudience a lesson in "manufacturing consent." Upon discovering that a Spartacistis speaking during the discussion periodat these publicly advertised events,he immediately stampedes his followersinto voting against our right to speak.At the last meeting, however, it seemsChomsky's anti-Communist sensors suffered a brief malfunction. An SYCer wasable to speak for a whole 30 seconds. Butas soon as we mentioned the word "imperialism," he snapped to attention, asking

if this was a "Spartacist intervention."One recalls stories from the McCarthyitewitchhunt in the 1950s where if someonewere to utter the word "imperialism" ina bar, people would immediately be getting out of their seats to phone the FBIand turn in the "Red." Having failed toshut us down, Chomsky sneered thatrevolutionary politics have no place atMIT. Although Chomsky, who teaches atMIT, would like to keep it that way, weare sure that there are students on campus-particularly black, immigrant andworking-classstudents-who actually doburn with a hatred for the brutality of U.S.imperialism and are looking for a revolutionary alternative.Chomsky's radical reputation restson his pretensions to be some kind of

6

SIGN THISSTATEMENT

Israeli troops fire on fleeingPalestinian youth in Gaza Strip,October 2000. Chomsky andassociates openly called forimperialist intervention againstIsrael to stop violence againstPalestinians in statementpublished in Socialist Worker[Britain], 13 January (above). AFP

Baghdad Children'SHospital, 1991.In 1991 Chomskyurged that "sanctionsand diplomacy" beused to get Iraq outof Kuwait-sanctionshave caused deathsof a million and a halfIraqis to date.

DerSpiegelLech Walesa (left) prays in front of Gdansk shipyard in Poland, 1980.SOlidarnosc, the force for capitalist restoration in Poland driven by CIA andVatican, rolled back social gains. Chomsky supported capitalist restorationacross East Europe.anarchist socialist and his expositions onthe hypocrisy of American imperialistmachinations. Unlike official spokesmenfor the U.S. ruling class who try to conceal the crimes of imperialism underthe guise of "human rights," Chomskystrikes a more critical pose. A BostonReview (December 1993) article about"humanitarian intervention" is characteristic. There he wrote that "the categoryof 'humanitarian intervention' is vanishingly small" and only "means interven-

Spartacistcontingent at5 June 1999antiwar protest inSan Francisco. SLopposed imperialistintervention, calledfor defeat of U.S.in Iraq and Serbia.

tion authorized or directed by the UnitedStates.': It doesn't take a brain surgeonto point out the tremendous "violence,impudence, and moral cowardice" of killing more than two million Vietnamese, ofthe almost daily bombing of Iraq for tenyears accompanied by a starvation blockade that has killed one and a half millionIraqis, or of the recent Balkans War whichpummeled Serbia to rubble. Nonetheless,Chomsky's exposes can seem refreshingagainst the Greek chorus of imperialisthawks.But Chomsky strives to be the imperialists' rescuing deus ex machina. Theprofessor's main problem with the U.S.rulers is that they act counter to "internat i o n a l l a w . " ~ I n an article at the time of theU.S.INATO terror bombing of Serbiain 1999, Chomsky lectured: "There is aregime of international law and international order, binding on all states, basedon the UN Charter and subsequent resolutions and World Court decisions" ("Crisisin the Balkans," Z Magazine, May 1999).But the United Nations, far from being a"neutral" body, has always been a den ofthe imperialist thieves and their intendedvictims. Its purpose is simply to givecover and sanction to the imperialists'wars of conquest, as it has done fromthe Korean War in the 1950s to the 1991

Gulf War and the continuing starvation blockade of Iraq. As for "international law," such as it even exists, it isnothing other than a thin veil to hide thehideous face of imperialist exploitationand aggression. Through his repeatedinvocations of the UN and "internationallaw," Chomsky's purpose is to peddle themythical idea that through pressure fromthe intelligentsia and good radical-liberalslike himself, the imperialists will becomegood. This is based on his belief that capitalist democracy means that all citizens,regardless of their social class, could haveequal influence over the state. In short,Chomsky wants to reform the system.The capitalist system cannot be reformed. The capitalist state is not a neutral arbiter; it exists to maintain the ruleof the capitalist class. Imperialism is notjust a bad policy; it is the highest stageof capitalism, the organic outcome ofthe striving for ever more and larger profits and new markets and spheres ofexploitation. This creates competitionbetween the largest of the imperialistcountries as they contend for dominationof these markets. This competition inevitably reaches a crisis that can no longerbe confined to diplomatic maneuvering,and it breaks out in war, wars againstthe smaller beholden nations for theiracquiescence, like the bombing and occupation of Serbia, and finally wars betweenthe major imperialist nations themselves,like World War I and World War n.Chomsky believes that capitalist statescan be made to be rational. We are notdealing with a rational system,' but imperialism, which will lead humanity intoanother world war-this time using hugearsenals of nuclear weapons-if it isnot stopped through international socialist revolution. In the wake of the collapseof the USSR, which plunged the former degenerated workers state into misery and all-sided bloodletting, rivalriesbetween the major imperialist powersprimarily Germany, the U.S: and Japanhave increased, not decreased. The choiceis, as communist revolutionary RosaLuxemburg put it, socialism or barbarism.We struggle to get rid of capitalism altogether by overthrowing it through workers revolution.Perhaps Chomsky fancies himself amodern-day Voltaire. While the latterschooled Frederick the Great, the professor evidently dreams of being an adviserto today's not-so-enlightened despots.However, Voltaire soon realized thenaivete of such an endeavor. Chomsky, onthe other hand, like the Energizer bunny,keeps at it. He gives the game away whenhe writes, "Occasionally, the populationhas compelled the state to undertakehumanitarian efforts" and cites as a "realexample" the "protection zone that theBush administration reluctantly extendedto the Kurds in northern Iraq" after theGulf War. Of course, Chomsky does notmention that the Kurds were "protected"by the very same U.S. and British military might which bombed Iraq into submission during the war and have imposedthe starvation embargo ever since. Today,Chomsky weeps crocodile tears over themillion and a half Iraqis-mostly children and the aged-who have died as aresult of these UN-enforced sanctions.But Chomsky himself urged the imperialists in 1991 to use "th,e peaceful meansprescribed by international law: sanctionsand diplomacy" to get Iraq out of Kuwait(Z Magazine, February 1991).,During the 1999 Balkans War, Chomsky, along with other prominent liberal

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Defend the Gains of the Chinese Revolutionl..

Thefollowing letter, concerning formerTaiwanese president Lee Teng-hui'splanned visit to Cornell University-nowpostponed to late May-was submitted bya Spartacus Youth Club supporter. It wasprinted by the campus paper on April 5.Since the Chinese Students and Scholars Association's (CSSA) "Open LetterAgainst Lee Teng-hui's Visit" was published over three weeks ago, the CSSAhas been the target of repeated anticommunist attacks in the Sun. The editorial "Welcome Back" (26 March)makes it appear that the issue is theCSSA's purported attempt to suppressLee's "civil liberties." The Sun editorslamely bleat that "nothing indicates thatLee's visit would beof a political nature."This is rubbish-and they know it. Since1949 Taiwan has been U.S. imperialism'slaunching pad for capitalist counterrevolution in mainland China .A key component of Washington's increased belligerence toward China is supplying Taiwan

with destroyers and advanced Aegis radarsystems.China is lined up in the deadly sights of

academics, in an open letter printed inthe British New Statesman (10 May1999) once again advised the imperialists that:"Nato is not the only or above all thebest fulcrum for an agreement. Onecould find the elements of a multinational police force (embracing notablySerbs and Albanians) in the ranks of theOSeE to enforce a transitional agreement."The OSCE (Organization for Securityand Cooperation in Europe) is a militarybloc dominated by the European imperialists. Complaining that "the NATObombings further undermine what remains of the fragile structure of international law," Chomsky essentially arguesthat the bombings would have been okayif the U.S. were not so unilateral. During the recent Israeli repression againstPalestinians, Chomsky and associateswere at it again. This time they signed astatement openly appealing for imperialist intervention: "We are appalled by thelack of action by Western governmentsto stop the slaughter" (printed in Socialist Worker [Britain], 13 January). Thisis ludicrous: one wonders what kind of"action" Chomsky had in mind, since theU.S. is the chief military and financial.supporter of the Zionist garrison state.During both the Gulf War and the Balkans War, the Spartacist League and theSpartacus Youth Clubs called to defeatU.S. imperialism through workers revolution. We called for the military defenseof both Iraq and Serbia, and said that thedestruction of American imperialism isthe necessary precondition for the creation of a truly just society here and internationally. We defend the Palestiniansagainst Israeli state terror and fight forArabIHebrew workers revolution to overthrow the Zionist rulers.Chomsky's liberal faith in the ultimaterationality of imperialism is an obstacleto the revolutionary struggle necessaryto get rid of capitalism. The SpartacistLeague, U.S. section of the InternationalCommunist League (Fourth Internationalist), looks to the example of the 1917Bolshevik Revolution, which overthrew

Tuesday, May 15, 7 p.m.We Are the Party ofthe Russian Revolution!

Univ. of Chicago, Cobb Hall, Rm. 106Information and readings: (312) 563-0441CHICAGO

11 MAY 2001

the U.S. imperialists who aim to destroythe gains of the 1949 Chinese Revolution.This revolution liberated the countryfrom capitalist exploitation and imperialist SUbjugation, ushering in a planned andcollectivized economy, as opposed to theprivate ownership of the means of production under capitalism, which is thebasis of the exploitation of the many bythe few. The Chinese Revolution laid thebasis for huge strides for the masses ofworkers and peasants in education, healthcare and housing. The Spartacus YouthClub and Spartacist League defend thegains of the Chinese Revolution againstthe U.S. imperialists and offshore Chinese bourgeoisie who seek the capitalistre-enslavementof China. The brazen U.S.spy plane provocation against China thisweek underscores our call for the unconditional military defense of the Chinesedeformed workers state against imperialism and internal counterrevolution. Thepurpose of Le,e Teng-hui's visit is to

May Day in Petrograd,1917. Banners read:"For the Arming of thePeople/Long Livethe International,""Russian SocialDemocratic LaborParty [Bolsheviks] ofKronstadt Proletarians,""Long Live Liberty,Equality, Fraternity."Bolshevik Revolutionsmashed capitalism,brought workersto power.

!

capitalism in Russia amidst the devastation of the First World War. Althoughdeformed by unrelenting imperialist pressure and undermined through Stalinistbureaucratic misleadership, for more than70 years the Soviet Union continued toembody gains for the working class internationally. This is why we fought forthe unconditional military defense of the. USSR and East European deformedworkers states against imperialism-andwhy we today fight for the unconditionalmilitary defense of China, Cuba, Vietnam and North Korea against imperialismand internal counterrevolution. Chomsky,however, recoils in horror from those revolutions and ardently supports the restoration of capitalism.Chomsky fumes when we point outthat his emperor's new clothes are notmerely threadbare, but that he standsnaked as nothing but a liberal. But just asDon Quixote could not continue his questwithout Sancho Panza to hold his lance,Chomsky only has such authority becausemuch of the so-called left heralds him.One of the standard-bearers in ttJe cultof Chomsky is the International Socialist Organization (ISO). Although-onthe increasingly rare occasion-the ISOmakes pretense to revolutionary Marx-.ism, the truth of the matter is that theyshare in Chomsky's acceptance of thedemocratic credentials of the imperialistrulers. Thus, political lecturer Alex Callinicos-a leading member of the BritishSocialist Workers Party and a theoreticalleading light for the ISO until he expelledthem from his "International SocialistTendency" earlier this year-was a prominent signatory on both the open-letter

advance a counterrevolutionary agenda towhich we are opposed, and would protest.This has nothing in common with callingon the campus administration or U.S.government to ban Lee Teng-hui fromappearing on campus.Unlike the CSSA, our defense of Chinahas nothing to do with nationalism, patriotism or political support to the rulingStalinist bureaucratic caste. The bureaucracy derives its privileges from China'scollectivized economy, while simultaneously threatening the very existence ofthe workers state by seeking "peacefulcoexistence" with the imperialists andopening China's economy to imperialistpenetration through "market reforms."Beijing has pursued a policy of reunification with Tai'wan on the basis of maintaining capitalism there, under the sloganof "one country, two systems." We call forthe revolutionary reunification of Chinaand Taiwan: for a socialist revolution onTaiwan to overthrow and expropriate the

. appeals for imperialist intervention in theBalkans and Israel.They also don't take a back seat toChomsky when it comes to vehementanti-Communism. The ISO embracedevery imperialist-backed force whosepurpose was the counterrevolutionarydestruction of the Soviet Union and thedeformed workers states of East Europe.On the home front, they are not to beoutdone in trying to silence the voice ofrevolu'tionary Marxism. Just try to getinto one of their public meetings ifyou're even carrying a copy of the Spartacist League's newspaper, Workers Van-guard. You're just as likely to get a fist inthe face, the response of ISO goons toany known or suspected member of the

capitalists and a proletarian political revolution on the mainland to overthrow theStalinist bureaucrats and place political power in the hands of the workingclass. This call is linked to the fight forsocialist revolution in the U.S. and otheradvanced capitalist countries in orderto extend and advance the gains of theChinese Revolution through building aninternational socialist planned economy.

The U.S. imperialists sometimes cloaktheir drive to secure the right to brutallyexploit Chinese workers in the guise ofpushing for "human rights" and "democracy." It is a deadly illusion to believe thatthe U.S. and other imperialist powers areanything but irreconcilable enemies ofthe Chinese deformed workers state. TheU.S. imperialists are the bloodiest butchers and biggest violators of "humanrights" on the planet-from the nuclearincineratiori of Hiroshima and Nagasakiin 1945 to the ongoing terror bombing ofIraq today. The only way to guarantee theinterests of the world's working peopleand oppressed is by smashing U.S. imperialism through workers revolut ion! .

Spartacist League or Spartacus YouthClubs. As we noted in our article protesting racist ideologue David Horowitz, the"no-free-speech for communists" zonesestablished by the likes of Chomsky andthe ISO have only fed Horowitz's effortsto silence anyone with views to the leftof Strom Thurmond.Unlike Chomsky and his "socialist"camp followers, we fight not only toexpose the crimes of U.S. imperialism,but to overthrow their rapacious rulethrough workers revolution. While thisgrievously offends the sensibilities ofliberal ideologues like Chomsky, it isthe only way forward for the liberationof humanity. Smash U.S. imperialismthrough socialist revolution!.

This pamphlet assesses recent changes inthe world economy in a historical perspective,from the origins of modern imperialism in thelate 19th century through the capitalist counterrevolution in East Europe and the former USSRand its aftermath. Reformist ideologues of "globalization" seek to obscure the role of the capitalist nation-state and the danger o f interimperialist war which is inherent in capitalism, whileamnestying the refusal of the labor bureaucracies to wage class struggle against theirrespective bourgeoisies.Exploitation, poverty and social degradationcan be eliminated only through proletarian revolutions in the imperialist centers as well as theneocolonial countries, laying the basis for aninternational planned socialist economy.

$2 (32 pages)Make checks payable/mail to:Spartacist Publishing Company, Box 1377GPO, New York, NY 10116


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China...(continued from page 1)at an April meeting of the Union ofConcerned Scientists, target hundreds ofsites in China for nuclear attack. Andthe Washington Post (27 ApriJ) reports:"Despite the facade of ambiguity, theU.S. military already has detailed plansfor the defense of Taiwan. They are one ofonly two sets of war plans on the shelvesof the U.S. Pacific Command; the other isfor the defense of South Korea."The Reaganite Cold Warriors aroundBush have made clear that they are abandoning Clinton's rhetoric of "strategicpartnership" and now deem China a "strategic competitor." Significant sections ofcorporate America are concerned thatthe administration's more bellicose linewill cause the Beijing regime to slowdown the pace of pro-capitalist "marketreforms" and interfere with existing andfuture U.S. investment in China. But allwings of the American capitalist class areunited around the strategic goal of smashing the 1949 Chinese Revolution andreconquering China and its vast population for direct imperialist exploitation.With ever greater urgency, this posesthe Trotskyist call for unconditional mili-tary defense of China, a bureaucraticallydeformed workers state, against imperial-ist attack and against t he forces ofinter-nal capitalist counterrevolution. Defens eof the gains of the 1949 Chinese Revolu-tion is integral to the task of mobilizingthe U.S. proletariat for a socialist revolu-tion to sweep away the American capital-ist order, the only road to disarming thenuclear madmen in Washington.China in the Cross Hairs

Though deformed from inception bythe rule of a parasitic, nationalist bureaucratic caste, the 1949 Revolution led bythe Chinese Communist Party (CCP) andPeople's Liberation Army (PLA) overthrew capitalist property relations and theyoke of imperialist subjugation, constructing a planned, collectivized economy which meant enormous social progress for the worker and peasant massesand especially for women. U.S. policytoward China has gone through very different phases since 1949. In the 1950-53Korean War, U.S. imperialism engaged inan all-out shooting war against Chineseand North Korean forces. In the 1970sand '80s, Washington entered into astrategic alliance with Beijing against theSoviet Union, the military and industrialpowerhouse of the degenerated and deformed workers states and thus the chiefobstacle to U.S. imperialist ambitions.When the Soviet Union was destroyedby capitalist counterrevolution in 1991-92, the U.S. bourgeoisie expected thatChina would soon fall into its lap. America's rulers even hoped that capitalismwould be restored without a major political upheaval, projecting that "reformminded" elements of the Beijing regime

would simply privatize or liquidate stateowned industry and integrate China intothe world capitalist market. But developments have not exactly gone accordingto these projections. "Market reforms,"especially the closure and privatizationof state-owned enterprises, have produced massive working-class resistance.As strikes and other protests against layoffs and corruption multiply, the deepening of market measures is constrained bythe regime's fear of another 1989 Tiananmen upheaval, when the entry of theworking class into student protests posedthe overthrow of the venal bureaucracythrough proletarian political revolution.At the same time, fear of an increasingly aggressive American imperialismhas caused Beijing to be ef up its militarycapacity. And Washington's provocationshave generated widespread opposition toU.S. imperialism. When the U.S. spyplane landed on Hainan, university students there daubed a wall with the slogan:"Wipe Out Our National Humiliation,Severely Punish the American Military."The present situation in China is deeply unstable. Undermining the foundations of China's socialized economy, theBeijing regime is paving the way forcapitalist restoration. But it is simultaneously preparing the ground for a newrevolutionary proletarian explosion-nota social revolution which would overturnthe economic foundations of society as -_in 1949 but a political revolution whichplaces power in the hands of workers,soldiers and peasants councils (soviets).That is the only way to defend the socialgains of the 1949 Revolution and openthe road to a socialist future.America's rulers are frustrated andangry that "Communist China" hasturned out to be a tougher nut to crackthan they thought. Those frustrationswere clearly expressed in a New YorkTimes (6 April) column by Thomas Fried--man, a Clintonite DemQGrat who was anearly advocate of U.S. military actionagainst Serbia and promotes Washington

Web site: www.icl-fLorg E-mail address:[email protected]

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China hasincreased militarybudget in _ esponseto escalating U.S.provocations.Right: Beijingnewsstand displaysnewspaper withcaricature of Bush;headline reads,"China Is NeverAfraid of Threats."

as enforcer of a global regime of "freemarkets" and "democracy." Friedman ridiculed China's demand for an apology forthe death of fighter pilot Wang Wei in thespy plane incident:"Why stop with the plane incident? Weshould apologize for being the marketfor $40 billion a year of China's exports.We should -apologize for the fact thatU.S. companies are among the largestforeign investors in China and have beeninstrumental in China's economic takeoff. We should apologize for the fact that54,000 Chinese students study in theU.S. every year, more than any othernationality. We should apologize for thefact that the U.S. has shown restraintin weapons sales to Taiwan. We shouldapologize for the fact that the U.S. pavedthe way for China's entry into the WorldTrade Organization. Yes, we should apologize for all these things and promise tostop all of them immediately."

These barbs amount to a call for a complete cutoff of U.S. relations with China.The conservative and hardheaded London Economist (28 April) commented:"Talk of a new 'cold war' between Chinaand America is starting to sound like anunderstatement." It is not only China butWashington's European and Japaneseimperialist "allies" who are worried aboutthe U.S. waving its nuclear big stickagainst Beijing. Japan and the Europeanpowers pu rsue their _ wn interests inChina, and these conflicting interestswould vastly intensify in a scramble overthe spoils of capitalist counterrevolution. More generally, America's imperialist rivals are concerned that the U.S. isbecoming increasingly brazen in assert-_ ng its self-declared role as the "world'sonly superpower." The leading Germanweekly Der Spiegel now talks of "thesnarling, ugly Americans." What we cando to China, Bush is in effect saying tothem, we can also do to you.In an article headlined "CollidingInterests," the London Financial Times(27 April) noted, "The collapse of theSoviet Union has destroyed the overwhelming rationale binding the US andJapan so closely together and perhapscreated an opportunity for China to playon their differences." "There is a newlynationalist mood in Japan," says one diplomat quoted in the article. Japaneseimperialism is increasingly assertive ofits own regional interests. Epitomizingthis shift is Japan's new prime minister,Junichiro Koizumi, who is simultaneously pushing massive austerity attacksand layoffs to revitalize the Japaneseeconomy and a heightened military posture abroad. Immediately after takingoffice; Koizumi declared that the constitution should be revised to unshackle the"Self-Defe'hse Forces." As the FinancialTimes reported: "For the first time sincethe second world war, this would authorise the Japanese military to wage offensive o p e r a t i o n s ~ r e v i v i n g fears amongJapan's neighbours about the nation'smilitaristic history." Koizumi also talksof visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, whichhonors Japanese soldiers who died inWorld War II and is a rallying point forchauvinist revanchism.Germany, which manufactures some ofthe parts for the diesel submarines beingsold to Taiwan, announced that it wouldnot supply these parts for the U.s. arms

package. Last week, France and severalother European states joined with China,Cuba and other countries in voting theU.S. off the United Nations Commissionon Human Rights for the-first time in theUN's history. Citing Washington's longstanding use of "human rights" as a clubagainst China, the Xinhua (4 May) newsservice noted, "The human rights issue isactually only a 'big stick' for the U.S. touse on other countries for its own hegemonic purposes.""Left" Joins Anti-China Crusade

We wrote in "U.S. Spy Plane Provocation-Defend China!" (WV No. 756, 13April):

"I t is in the direct and immediate interestof working people in the U.S. to defendthe Chinese deformed workers stateagainst the American capitalist rulers.Just as happened in the wake of thecounterrevolutionary destruction of theSoviet Union, capitalist restoration inChina would embolden the U.S. bourgeoisie. and the imperialists internationally, to ratchet up their assault on theworking class and minorities at home."Our aim is to forge a revolutionary vanguard party to lead the proletariat topower. This perspective is anathema tothe reformist and centrist pretenders tosocialism in the U.S. and internationally,who ever more openly bow to the dictates of their respective bourgeoisies.These groups moved sharply to the rightin the tow of the war drive against theSoviet Union in the 1980s and the subsequent imperialist ideological offensiveover the "death of communism."Despite its redder-than-red rhetoric,the Progressive Labor Party (PL) offersthe most flagrant example of capitulation to imperialist China-bashing, echoing language you hear from extremeright-wing anti-Communists. Challenge(25 April) declares that the spy planeprovocation "reveals the sharpening of arivalry that will ultimately lead to a warfor world domination between these imperialist gangsters." In equating the world'smost powerful capitalist-imperialist statewith a bureaucratically deformed workersstate, PL acts to disarm workers and radicalized youth who seek to oppose American imperialist aggression.You wouldn't know from reading theChallenge statement that PL once considered China to be socialist. Indeed, atone point in the 1960s PL had Beijing'sfranchise as the American "revolutionaries." PL lined up with Mao Zedong indenouncing the Soviet Union as "socialimperialist" and hailed Mao's "CulturalRevolution." By the early 1970s, PLhad repudiated the Beijing regime anddeclared that China was capitalist. PL'soften bizarre politics can best be described as inverted Stalinism. PL identifies the bureaucracy with the workers state: renouncing political supportto the regime, it simultaneously rejectedmilitary defense of the workers stateand its material foundations-the collectivized economy. PL also rejects militarydefense of small capitalist states againstthe imperialists, equating oppressornations with oppressed nations. Thus PLhas refused to defend Iraq and Serbiaagainst U.S. terror bombing.It is a measure of how right-wing PL's

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"revolutionary communism" is in practice that its line is essentially indistinguishable from that of the InternationalSocialist Organization (ISO). The hallmark of these overt social democrats hasalways been anti-Communist hostilitytoward China and the Soviet Union,when it existed. The ISO supported everyU.S.-backed reactionary force a'gainstthe Soviet degenerated workers state,from the Islamic fundamentalists inAfghanistan to clerical-nationalist PolishSolidarnosc and Russia's Boris Yeltsin.Evenhandedly denouncing the "more aggressive posture of each side," SocialistWorker (27 April) writes: "The U.S. andChina are competing for influence inAsia." A previous article titled "Washington's China Bashing" (Socialist Worker,13 April) seemingly tilted toward China,but in fact it was nothing more than theISO's usual "tilt" toward the DemocraticParty:"In recent years, U.S. policy towardsChina has balanced uneasily betweenseeing the country as a huge trade andinvestment opportunity on the one hand,and as a military threat on the other."Under Georg.e W. Bush, whose admin-istration is stuffed full of former ColdWarriors, there's been a sharp shift to thehawk end of the spectrum."The get-tougher line toward Chinais not simply a result of the Republican right having taken over the White

. House. Liberal Democrats and the proDemocratic Party AFL-CIO bureaucracyof John Sweeney have repeatedly blockedwith the Republican right in bashingChina, with the former railing against"slave labor" and the latter fulminatingagainst "persecution" of Christian sects.As the American spy plane crew wasbeing held in Hainan, Democratic Senator Torricelli demanded that the U.S.recall its ambassador.There has indeed been a shift underBush, but it was prepared under Clinton.While the Clinton administration avidlypursued "constructive engagement," U.S.capital investment in China and U.S.nuclear-armed warships in the SouthChina Sea serve the same purpose: torecapture the country for imperialism.And they complement each other: thegreater the extent of U.S. investment, thelouder the drums will beat for militaryaction to protect that investment. In astatement issued last October, Beijingexplained its need to increase militaryspending by pointing to the "new gunboatpolicy and neo-economic colonialism" ofClinton's U.S.In Britain, the Socialist Workers Party(SWP), with whom the ISO was allieduntil recently, published a commentaryby SWP leader Alex .Callinicos commenting that "China's rulers haven't forgotten their biggest confrontation withthe US in recent years. When they carried out live missile tests close to Taiwanin 1996, the Clinton administrationdeployed a carrier battle group just offthe Chinese coast" (Socialist Worker, 21April). The SWP would like its readersto forget that at the time of that confrontation it sounded just like Bush doestoday, proclaiming in Socialist Review(April 1996): "We would oppose anyChinese invasion of Taiwan as an act ofimperialist aggression."Another British group, the centristWorkers Power (WP), writes: "We haveno truck with the Beijing bureaucrats

Beijing students protest U.S. bombing of Chinese embassy in Belgradeduring 1999 Balkans War.who restored capitalism to China ... Butwe should stand with China againstUS imperialism's attempt to dominateAsia" (Workers Power, April 2001). Lessthan a year ago, WP echoed the imperialist "human rights" chorus, demanding "workers' sanctions" against China(Workers Power, September 2000). Inthe face of growing imperialist hostilitytoward China, WP abandoned even its lipservice to unconditional military defenseof the deformed workers state, declaring "Capitalist Restoration Triumphs inChina" (see "New 'Theories,' Old Renegacy," WV No. 754, 16 March). But it israther cheap for Labourite leftists inBritain to "stand with" virtually anybodyagainst American domination. More tothe point, during the Balkans War twoyears ago WP stood with the imperialist Blair Labour government in railingagainst Milosevic's Serbia in supposeddefense of the Kosovo Albanians.Proletarian Internationalismvs. Chinese Nationalism

The U.S. Workers World Party (WWP)solidarizes with "socialist China" in denouncing the U.S. war moves, while stating: "The fundamental socialist institutions in China have been considerablyeroded by market reforms and imperialistcorporations have a foothold in China.But Chinese society as a whole is underprotection from being reconquered andreenslaved by imperialism because ofthe existence of the Chinese CommunistParty and the Pe ople's Liberation Army"(Workers World, 26 April).But who introduced the "marketreforms" and invited imperialist corporations in if not the selfsame CCP leadership? WWP's amnesty of the CCP leadership is counterposed to the fight tomobilize the proletariat, the only forcecapable of defeating the drive towardcapitalist restoration. Indeed, during the19'89 Tiananmen events WWP supportedthe regime's bloody suppression of theincipient proletarian political revolution.While parasitically resting on thesocial foundations of the workers state,ttie Stalinist bureaucracy is not committed to the defense of the collectivizedeconomy. As current events in Chinamake amply clear, this bureaucratic layeracts as a transmission belt for the pressures ofthe world capitalist market on the

Teamsterspresident Hoffa(left) pushesprotectionist,anti-CommunistChina-bashing atApril 2000demonstration inWashington, D.C.

workers state. Basing itsel f on the dogmaof "socialism in one country," the CCPregime always opposed the fight forsocialist revolution in the capitalist countries in favor of "peaceful coexistence."Today, this nationalist outlook servesthose leading sections of the bureaucracywho, striving to become part of a newexploiting class, reach out to the overseasChinese bourgeoisie with the aim of forging a "greater China." Regime spokesmendo not even talk about "defending socialism" anymore, but contend that U.S. hostility is aimed at preventing China frombecoming a great world power.In 1997, the former British colony ofHong Kong was reunited with Chinaunder the formula of "one country, twosystems." The Beijing bureaucracy haslikewise offered to guarantee the continued existence of capitalism on Taiwanin the event of reunification. Taiwan'scapitalists have invested tens of billionsof dollars on the mainland. The Trotskyist International Communist Leaguestands for the revolutionary reunification of China: for a socialist revolution against the Taiwan bourgeoisie anda political revolution to oust the Beijingbureaucracy.Many of those who oppose Beijing'sconcessions to imperialism also speakin the language of Chinese nationalism,seeing defense of China in national,ilot class, terms. Particularly with thebombing of China's Belgrade embassyin 1999, U.S. provocations have produceda wave of anti-American nationalismon. the mainland. 'When the spy planelanded on Hainan, a Beijing shop assistant exclaimed: "Our government shouldhave shot down the plane. Jiang Zemin istoo weak. I f Grandpa Mao were stillalive, the Americans would not dare tobully us" (New York Times, 5 April).

China was liberated from imperialistdomination only through a social revolution (albeit bureaucratically deformed)which ended the class rule of the Chi-nese bourgeoisie. Moreover, the survivalof the People's Republic in its initialyears was critically dependent on Sovietmilitary and economic support. Only fearof Soviet retaliation prevented the U.S.from using nuclear weapons againstChina in the Korean War, as Washingtonrepeatedly threatened to do.The Beijing bureaucracy, by aidingthe destruction of the Soviet Union, hashelped bring about the present conditions in which the U.S. is openly preparing for war against China. In the early1970s, after years of feuding between thenationalist Stalinist bureaucracies in Beijing and Moscow, "Grandpa Mao" alliedChina with U.S. imperialism against theSoviet Union. Mao sealed his treacherous"rapprochement" as American warplaneswere laying waste to Vietnam. In 1979,just four years after the revolutionaryvictory of the Vietnamese workers andpeasants, China under Deng Xiaopingacted as a cat's paw for a vindictive U.S.imperialism, invading Soviet-allied Vietnam in order to teach it a "bloody lesson."Chinese forces were repulsed by battlehardened Vietnamese troops.Chinese nationalism is today serving to

link leftist opponents of imperialism withright-wing advocates for a new Chineseimperialism. This is seen in China's Road,Under the Conspiracy of Globalization,a best-selling compilation of nationalistessays published in the aftermath of theBelgrade embassy bombing. One of thebook's chief edifors, Fang Ning, is aprofessor of "contemporary capitalism"in Beijing who denounces "globalization"in the language of Western academic"Marxism." The other, Wang Xiaodong,is a former editor of the journal Strategyand Management, which is connected tothe military establishment. Wang m ~ k e s no pretense of Marxism or leftism in anysense. He is a mirror image of the mostextreme right-wing ideologues of Western and Japanese imperialism, maintaining that U.S. hostility toward the People'sRepublic is national and even racial incharacter.Wang's stated goal is to transformChina into "a post-development greatpower" on a par with the U.S., Germanyand Japan. The aim of transformingChina, with its relatively weak industrialbase and massive rural backwardness,into an imperialist "great power" is not_only reactionary but utterly utopian. Justlook at Russia in the wake of capitalistcounterrevolution: what had been theworld's second-greatest industrial andmilitary power is today a devastatedwreck.The phenomenon exemplified byChina's Road is reminiscent of the "redbrown" coalition formed in Russia with

Young SpartacusBerkeley anti-ROTC protest, April 21:Trotskyists fight for defense of 1949Chinese Revolution.the collapse of the Soviet Union, bringingtogether Stalinist has-beens with outrighttsarists, fascists and the like whose opposition to the Yeltsin regime and "Westernimperialism" was centered on agitationfor a strong, Russian-dominated imperialstate. These chauvinists were virulentlyhostile to the multinational proletariatof the former Soviet Union. The "redbrown" coalition was the product of theRussian nationalism dominant in the Stalinist bureaucracy, which in its final yearssplit between pro-Western "democrats"and chauvinist patriots who each in theirown way contributed to the destruction ofthe Soviet Union.Likewise, the ideology of aspiring Chinese imperialism (though in fact utopian)is today poison to the forging of classunity with the North Korean and Vietnamese deformed workers states, andwith the workers of capitalist Asia. In"China on the Brink: Workers PoliticalRevolution or Capitalist Enslavement?"(Spartacist [English-language edition]No. 53, Summer 1997), we wrote:

"It is by linking their fight for politicalrevolution with the struggle to smashcapitalist rule from Indonesia and SouthKorea to Japan and the U.S. that the Chi-nese proletariat will form the bridge to asocialist future. Above all, China's work-ers must be won to the authentic commu-nism of Lenin and Trotsky and of theearly Chinese Communist Party led byChen Duxiu, which for decades has beentrampled on by Stalinism. For a Trot-skyist Party in China, section of a rebornFourth International!".


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Mumia...(continued from page 12)about possible informants for the Feds.Among those targeted in the FBI investigation were James Carlini, head ofHomicide; John DeBenedetta, head ofthe C e n t r ~ 1 Division where Faulknerworked; and Inspector Alphonzo Giordano, who was the senior cop at the sceneof Faulkner's shooting. These three constituted the chain of command for theinvestigation of Faulkner's killing.Several informants or witnesses in theFBI's investigation were murdered. Awitness who testified against DeBenedetto was murdered in 1983. A reportedsuspect in the killing was a former copand Giordano associate. During a federalcorruption investigation of the "FiveSquad" narcotics cops in the early '80s,a prosecutor alleged that Philly cops hadplotted to kill a witness. Another witnessin that case testified that he'd been toldthat a "Five Squad" cop who had cooperated with the FBI was killed in his home.In his affidavit, Beverly testifies that hesaw police officers in the area whereFaulkner was shot: "Two undercoverpolicemen were standing on the west sideof 13th St., north of Locust. Also a uniformed police officer was sitting in a carin the corner of the parking lot. Theywere there wfiile the shooting of Faulknertook place. I was not worried about thepolice being there since I believed thatsince I was hired by the mob to shoot andkill Faulkner, any police officers on thescene would be there to help me."Dan Williams' Book: A Brieffor the Prosecution

Williams' book tries to pre-emptively killthe evidence of Jamal's innocence presented in the new affidavits. Both Williams and Weinglass were well aware ofthis evidence some time ago. Beverly'saffidavit was sworn in 1999 beforeRachel Wolkenstein, who is PDC staffcounsel and was then part of Jamal's legalteam. When Williams and Weinglassrefused to present it in evidence, Wolkenstein and Jon Piper, another attorney onthe case associated with the PDC, refusedto be part of this unconscionable suppression of evidence of Jamal's innocenceand resigned from the legal team.An article in the Philly Daily News(5 May), whose front-page headline read"Abu-Jamal's Attorneys Drop a Bombshell," reports: "Abu-Jamal's formerattorney, Daniel Williams, said that the[Beverly Jdocument had been in the legalteam's files but that he and attorneyLeonard Weinglass had decided not to useit. He declined to say why, and Weinglasssaid he would have no comment." Why,

who witnessed Faulkner's killing andtestified at Jamal's 1995 appeal hearing.Singletary said that Jamal was innocentand that the shooter was a black man in agreen army coat who fled the site.Williams' central premise is that the copsnever could or would knowingly frameup an innocent man:"I was sensitive to the possibility thatMumia's sympathies with MOVE mighthave prompted law enforcement to jumpto a conclusion about Mumia's guilt. Ieven believed that law enforcement waswilling to fabricate evidence to help inthe effort to convict a man they b

workers vanguard no 758 - 11 may 2001

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