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For Class Struggle Against U.S. Capitalist Rulers!MARCH II-Over the last two weeks,the U.S. drive to war against Iraq has suffered one diplomatic setback after another.Last week, the Turkish parliament rejectedan American proposal to place 62,000US. troops in the country as an invasionforce for northern Iraq. This was followed by a raucous United Nations Security Council meeting where France andRussia said they would block the U.S.!British resolution authorizing war. Andyesterday they explicitly vowed to vetothe resolution.But regardless of the diplomatic wrangling, George Bush has made clear hisintent to go to war. Current Americandeployment in the Persian Gulf regionincludes some 250,000 troops, five aircraft carriers, 100 warships, 1,000 fighterjets and 1,800 tanks and g r o u n ~ artillery

vehicles-all this against a depleted Iraqiarmy with barely the spare parts to maintain itself. Despite the Turkish vote, theU.S. is already moving troops and weaponry through Turkey to the Iraqi border,while otherwise laying the groundworkfor a full-scale invasion. In a drasticescalation of air strikes in recent weeks,U.S. and British jets have been flyinghundreds of sorties and destroying communications and other facilities. NowU.S. forces are tearing down the electrified fence in the "demilitarized zone" onthe KuwaitilIraqi border.This will be a bloody, one-sidedslaughter: The Pentagon is planning toslam 3,000 "smart bombs" into Iraq in thefirst 48 hours of war. Washington's statedaim is a "sliock and awe" offensive toshatter Iraq "physically, emotionally and

psychologically." This is the policy ofSchrecklichkeit, the deliberate terrorizingof the "enemy" population carried out byHitler's Third Reich in World War 11-and by the "democratic" imperialists inthe firebombing of Hamburg,. Dresdenand Tokyo and the A-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. in the coming war,the U.S. is planning to use a new MOAB(Massive Ordnance Air Burst) bomb,which has the impact of a small nuclearbomb, and is also talking of using actualnuclear "bunker-buster" bombs.The peoples of the Near East cannotbut bum with bitterness ,at the hypocrisyof the Bush gang prattling on, about lreq'ssupposed "weapons of mass' destruction"while Israel maintains the largest arsenalof nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in the region. While Bush cynically

All U.S. lrOO,-5 Out of Korea!Delend North Korea's Rightto Nuclear Weapons!When four North Korean MIG fighters intercepted a U.S. RC-135S spyplane over the Sea of Japan off theKorean coast on March 2, Washingtonpredictably denounced it as a provocation. One can only imagine what theU.S. would do if North Korea were fly-

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ing spy planes 150 miles off the American coast. The real provocation is thepresence of37,000 U.S. troops in SouthKorea, an occupation force establishedat the end of he 1950-53 Korean War inwhich U.S. imperialism devastated thepeninsula and killed more than threemillion people. Now the Pentagon hasordered 24 B-1 and B-52 bombers toGuam, within easy striking distance ofPyongyang. And, on March 3, the U.S.began a month of military exercises inSouth Korea involving over 300,000American and South Korean troops, amove described by the North's official

news agency as "driving the situation tothe brink of a war."In the face of u.s. imperialism'sthreats, we call on the internationalproletariat to stand for the uncondi-tional military defense of the NorthKorean deformed workers state againstimperialism. This crucially includes theright of North Korea to develop nuclearweapons to defend itself against theu.s. nuclear cowboys.Last year, Bush declared North Koreapart of an "axis of evil," and a fewmonths later the Pentagon published acontinued on page 8

denounces the "human rights" violationsof the Saddam Hussein regime, Israelcontinues to pound, starve, terrorize andslaughter Palestinians with impunity.Over 60 percent of the population of theOccupied Territories now subsists on lessthan $2 a day and crippling malnutritionis rampant, especially among children.Under the cover of an Iraq war, thegovernment of Ariel Sharon, which includes parties openly committed to theforcible "transfer" of all Palestinians fromthe Occupied Territories, may well try toimplement this genocidal policy. As amember of the "left" Zionist Meretzparty wrote in a 7 MarchHa'aretz piece:"We do not have gas chambers and crematoria, but there is no one fixed methodfor genocide." Indeed Benny Alon, one ofcontinued on page 8

Spartacists at February 16 San Fran-cisco protest against Iraq war.

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Cop Rampage Against Black Bus DriversCHICAGO-At about 9:20 p.m. on February 7, black Chicago Transit Authority(CTA) bus driver Henry Walker, a member ofAmalgamated TransIt Union (ATU)Local 241 pulled his bus over at 39th andCottage Grove for a routine stop. Minutes later, Walker found himself spreadface (lown on the hood of a police caras a gang of white cops pummeled hisback and neck, then dragged him offto jail and slapped him with bogus felony charges of aggravated assault andbattery against a cop. Held for threedays in custody, Walker now faces a possible prison sentence of five or moreyears. His "crime"? Having witnessedthe cops brutally beating a black manas he lay handcuffed in the street. Wedemand: Drop the charges against HenryWalker!When Walker first stopped his bus, ashaken black woman got on board and appealed to the passengers for help becausethe police were attacking her boyfriend.One of the cops demanded that Walkerget off the bus. When he refused, citingCTA policy, the cops dragged him out ofhis seat, ripping off his uniform sweater.Walker was punched in the face, his armwas twisted behind his back as he washandcuffed, and he was then ~ l a m m e d down on the squad car. As they beat him,the cops snarled that he could "kiss this

job goodbye" and threatened: " Don't youknow who the f--k we are?" At the station, Walker heard his attackers laughingand joking in an adjoining room as theycooked up a story and concocted thecharges against him.In a February 22 letter to Cook CountyState's Attorney Richard Devine demanding that the charges against Walker bedropped, the Partisan Defense Committeestated: "The current charges are an obvious fabrication designed to cover thecops' dirty work and to punish Walkerand intimidate him and the bus passengers from serving as witnesses." The letter continued, "This vicious police attackagainst a black trade unionist is a threatto all working people, black people andminorities in Chicago. Bus operators,who have a grueling job providing a vitalpublic service, have been the target ofescalating racist cop attacks."Last July, a white Chicago cop calledbus operator Arlene Russell a "stupidblack bitch," and when she called thecity's Office of Professional Standards toprotest this racist abuse, the cop tried tograb her cellphone, twisted her arm andarrested her on bogus battery charges(see "Chicago Transit Workers Rally toDefend Arlene Russell," WV No. 789, 18October 2002). Three months later, awhite cop pressed felony battery charges

Capitalist Militarism andState Repression

TROTSKY

Increasing military aggression by U.S.imperialism abroad is being accompanied athome by the wholesale shredding of demo-cratic rights. At the dawn of the imperialistage, revolutionary Marxist Rosa Luxemburgpointed to this tendency in polemicizingagainst revisionist "socialists" whose per-spective of transforming capitalism throughparliamentary reforms was antithetical tothe fight fo r proletarian revolution. LENIN

On closer examination, the uninterrupted ascent of democracy, which to our revisionism, as well as to bourgeois liberalism, appears as a great fundamental law ofhuman history and, at the very least, of modern history, is shown to be a phantom. Noabsolute and universal relation can be constructed between capitalist development anddemocracy. The political form is always the result of the whole sum of political factors,domestic as well as foreign. Within its boundaries it admits all variations of the scale,from absolute monarchy to the democratic republic ... .Two factors completely dominate the political life of contemporary states: world pol-itics and the labor movement. Each is only a different aspect of the present phase ofcapitalistdevelopment.'As a result of the development of the world. economy and the aggravation and generalization of competition on the world market, militarism and marinism [naval militarism] as instruments of world politics have become a decisive factor ip. the internal aswell as in the the external life of the great states. I f it is true that world politics andmilitarism represent a rising tendency in the present phase, then bourgeois democracymust logically move in a descending line.

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-Rosa Luxemburg, "Social Reform or Revolution" (1899); reprinted inSelected Political Writings ofRosa Luxemburg (1971)

! . ~ ~ ' ! ~ ~ ! Y O ! ~ ~ ' ! ~ ! ! . ~ ' ! . ~ . IRECTOR OF PARTY PUBLICATIONS: Len Meyers

EDITOR: Alan WildeEDITOR, YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Michael DavissonPRODUCTION MANAGER: Susan FullerCIRCULATION MANAGER: Jeff ThomasEDITORIAL BOARD: Ray Bishop (managing editor), Bruce Andre, Jon Brule, Karen Cole, Paul Cone,George Foster, Liz Gordon, Walter Jennings, Jane Kerrigan, James Robertson, Joseph Seymour,Alison SpencerThe Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League(Fourth Internationalist).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 SpartacistPublishing Co., 299 Broadway, Suije 318, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 732-7862 (Editorial), (212) 732-7861(Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. E-mail address:vanguard@tiac.net.Domestic 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 articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint.The clOSing. date for news in this issue is 11 March.

No. 799 14 March 2003

against Karen Kelly, another black busdriver, on the ludicrous claim that shehad intentionally tried to run him downwith her bus.Racist cop terror is "business as usual"in Segregation City. But the increasedassaults against unionized black bus drivers in recent months is more than usual. Itis no coincidence that these police attackscome in the midst of the government's"war on terror" and its preparations forwar against Iraq. The domestic face of the"war on terror" is a war against immigrants, labor and minorities. As the Fedsshred civil liberties in the name of "homeland security" and panic the populationwith incessant "terror alerts," the racistcops feel they have the green light to runroughshod over working people, blackpeople and immigrants.Walker's co-workers in Local 241have risen his defense, posting flyersin bus barns and mobilizing for his firstcourt appearance on February 14, as theyhave also done for Arlene Russell andKaren Kelly, With its members being. beaten by racist cops and hauled beforethe bosses' courts, the ATU must bringits social power to bear to demand thatthe charges against these unionists bedropped now!But the ATU bureaucracy underminesthe defense of the union and its membersagainst the capitalist state by supportingthe USA-Patriot Act, under which striking transit workers could be slapped withfederal "terrorism" charges for somethingas simple as defending their own picketlines. Along with the police attacks onits members, ATU Local 241 has facedthe CTA's union-busting assaults whileworking for three years without a contract. What is needed is to mobilize thelabor movement in defense of immigrants,black people and all working people-at

WV PhotoHenry Walker, victim of cop attack.home and abroad-against the all-sidedattacks of the racist capitalist rulers.We urge all labor, minority rights,student and community organizations todemonstrate their solidarity by attendingthe next court dates for the three bus drivers. Henry Walker's next court appearance will be on March 19 at 9 a.m.at Chicago's Criminal Courts Building,2600 S. California St., Room 101. KarenKelly is due to appear on April 11 at10 a.m. at the Skokie Civic Court, 5600Old Orchard Road, Skokie. Arlene Russell is going to trial in Chicago on April21 at 9 a.m. at 1340 S. Michigan Avenue,Room 501. We also urge that proteststatements be sent to: Richard Devine,Cook County State's Attorney, 500 Richard J. Daley Center, Chicago, IL 60602.Fax: (312) 603-3000.

Defend Iraq Against U.S. Imperialist Attack!Down' With UN Starvation Blockade!

Speaker: Amy Rath, Spartacist League/U.S.,former editor of Women and RevolutionSat., March 15, 3 p.m. Sat., March 22, 3 p.m.Britannia Communi ty Centre Cahuenga Branch Library1661 Napier St. 4591 Santa Monica Blvd.(off Commercial Drive) (1 block east of Vermont/Santa Monica Red Line Sta.)For more information: (604) 687-0353 For more information: (213) 380-8239

VANCOUVER LOS ANGELES

Saturday, March 15, 5 p.m.University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC)Circle Center (CCC) Room 613, 750 S. Halsted St.CHICAGO For more information: (312) 563-0441

Saturday, March 29, 7 p.m.Ontario Institute for Studies in Education252 Bloo r St. w., Room 2211(above St. George Station)

For more information:(416) 593-4138TORONTO

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France: Stop the Deportations!Full Citizenship Rights for All Immigrants!

The following statement was issued bythe Ligue Trotskyste de France, section ofthe International Communist League.PARIS, March 6-The racist war againstimmignints in Europe quickens apacewith the preparations for wa r against Iraq.On February 26, the French governmentdeported 15 Chinese immigrants to Beijing on a commercial flight. Now the government has resumed the hated practiceof mass deportations by charter flights.Deportations by charter were the hallmark of anti-immigrant racism of theMitterand government with [InteriorMinister] Pasq ua's round-up and deportation of African immigrants to Mali in1986-a racist atrocity 'which incitedpublic outrage and protest. On March 3, ajoint police-state operation by the Frenchand German government deported 54Senegalese and Ivoirians. One Senegalesewas thrown on board in Germany, the others were taken from Paris, surroundedby overwhelming police force and packedoff to Dakar and Abidjan. Yesterday, 17Chinese were deported by charter to HongKong and [French top cop] Sarkozy promises more. We say: Stop the deportations!These deportations take place from airports organized by powerful trade unions.The Fre nch proletariat" has the power tostop these planes on the tarmac. Some AirFrance pilots refuse, as individuals, tocarry out these deportations. On January30, two Air France unions protested themurder of an Argentine immigrant,Ricardo Barrientos, who died while theFrench police expelled him from thecountry. Again in January, Mariame GetuHagos, a Somali immigrant, died whilebeing deported. Thousands of asylumseekers face death if returned to theircountries of origin, if they're lucky tomake it that far and aren;t killed by theFrench cops first! The French cops evenattacked Air Africa workers in Abidjanwho protested when the charter of expelled Africans arrived on March 3. Thecops who attack immigrants are the samewho harass youth of immigrant origin inthe ghettos of France and Germany: lastSunday, a l7-year-o ld youth, Mourad, waskilled by the gendarmes in Nlmes. Theseare also the same cops who harass unionists like Alain Hebert in Normandy or thetruckers during their 2002 strike, or wholaid siege to the building of the Germanunion federation, the DGB, in February2002 during a conference against theAfghanistan war. The cops are the guarddogs of the capitalist bosses and their government. We say: Cops out of the unions!Today the government attacks immigrants because they think they can getaway with it. They count on the timeworn "divide and conquer" scheme ofracism. We better prove them wrong!The powerful unions of the French proletariat, the German proletariat and thetrade union organizations across Europeshould stand by their most vulnerableclass brothers and sisters. Give everyman and woman in the hellish detentioncenters and squats a union membershipcard and mobilize the power of theorganized working class in their defense!The powerful unions like IG Metall inGermany and the CGT in France havemany members of immigrant origin andhave an interest in fighting against theseattacks. Chirac, Sarkozy and Schroderwill use the same repression against allthe workers when they go on strikeagainst layoffs and privatizations, inorder to defend pensions in France andsocial benefits in Germany. What is necessary is equal rights for all. Full citizenship rights for all immigrants!These mass expulsions of immigrantsby Germany and France show the rearface of imperialist "old Europe." Far fromrepresenting the "peace camp" in Iraq,14 MARCH 2003

Chirac Talks "Peace" andWages War on Immigrants, Labor

France and Germany only want to preserve their economic interests in theNear East and a bigger share of thespoils. Their frictions with the UnitedStates reflect the increased interimperialist rivalries since the destruction of theSoviet Union through capitalist counterrevolution. In the framework of a worsening economic crisis and looming imperialist war against Iraq, France andGermany are escalating. racist campaignson the "home front," from the Rasteifahndung (racial profiling of Arabs or Muslims) in Germany to Vigipirate police'state measures against immigrants inFrance. Their "war on terror" is designedto marginalize the most vulnerable workers, to weaken the working class by dividing it between European and immigrant,

workers state. The only "freedom" thatcapitalism can bring to China is the "freedom" to die of hunger and the "freedom"of the imperialists to exploit China asthey exploit the rest of the globe. WeTrotskyists stand for the unconditionalmilitary defense of China, North Korea,Vietnam and Cuba against capitalistcounterrevolution from within and imperialism without!The posture of the French and Germancapitalist governments as more rationaland "humanitarian" than the war-crazedBush gang in Washington is obscene.The airCrllft carrier Charles DeGaullesteamed on "manuevers" to the easternMediterranean so that France could participate in the imperialist rape and plunder of Iraq. While the imperialists amass

AFPNovember 2002: Paris protesters demand papers fo r all undocumentedimmigrants.the better to carry out assaults on theentire workers movement and its gainswrested through decades of class struggles. With the new laws put into placesince September 11, Germany is gettingready to deport the reactionary Islamicfundamentalist, Kaplan, to Turkey. This isan ominous prelude to massive deportations of Turkish and Kurdish leftistsdeportations to death at the hands of thechauvinist Turkish bourgeoisie which ispreparing a war against the Kurds innorthern Iraq.[French president] Chira.c's visit toAlgeria was met by crowds chanting"Visas, visas!" at the same time that Sarkozy is making it more difficult to obtaina visa to even visit France. Immigrantsfrom Africa flee the ravages of civil war,as in the Ivory Coast; bloody repression asin Kaby ia [Berber region in Algeria]; andsqualid living conditions u n d e ~ the oppressive yoke of French imperialism. Atthe same time that French imperialism isexpelling Ivoirians, French troops are setting the stage for a bloodbath in the IvoryCoast, as they did in Rwanda in 1994.French troops out of the Ivory Coast! InGermany, Kurdish an d Turkish refugeesflee political repression and misery generated by the support of NATO and theGerman bourgeoisie to the murderousregime in Turkey. Chinese immigrantsflee unemployment and misery generatedby the incursions of the capitalist marketwhich threaten the Chinese deformed

an enormous arsenal of destruction in theregion and threaten to drop 3,000 bombsin the first 48 hours of war, France andGermany play the wolves in sheep'sclothing-insisting that UN inspectors begiven more time to work. The "work" ofthe United Nations is the starvation sanctions and economic blockade which haskilled more than 1.5 million Iraqi men,women and children-farmore'than werekil1ed in the last Gulf War. France andGermany push UN weapons inspectorswhose purpose is to render Iraq unarmedand defenseless to ensure an easy win forthe imperialists.Without giving the least political support to the murderer, Saddam Hussein, we'in the International Communist Leaguetake a side: Defend Iraq against imperialist attack! All U.S. and allied troops O!ltof the Persian Gulf now! As for the supposed "peace loving" nature of the German and French capitalist governments,any examination of their ~ e c e n t historiesreveals mountains of human corpses! TheGerman bourgeois state is the successorof the Nazi Third Reich that exterminatedmillions of Jews. During the AlgerianWar the French bourgeoisie killed over amillion Algerians and tortured even more.This whole current campaign around the"French-German-Russian" plan is used inFrance to reinforce reactionary nationalunity behind Chirac, and in Germanyto save the face of the SPD [Social Democratic Party]-Green government which is

increasingly l:tnpopular because of itsattacks on the labor movement.The road to mass deportations inFrance today was paved by the policiesof the French reformists from the PS[Socialist Party] to the PC [CommunistParty], whose previous government vastlyescalated anti-immigrant hysteria andrepressive "security campaigns." Eventhe LCR [Revolutionary CommunistLeague] has to take some credit for thisround of racist atrocities as they were themost energetic fake "socialists" whohelped to put into place this reactionarygovernment by voting for Chirac in thelast presidential elections. Yesterday,March 5, two days after the mass deportations, the PC went into the streets'during the demonstration against the war inIraq to .. "continue to demand the Frenchauthorities to remain firm, up to using the. right of veto" in the UN, and the LCR hada similar call! Chevenement, ex-ministerofthe cops under [former prime minister]Jospin and particularly hated by the sanspapiers [undocumented immigrants] forthe thousands of expulsions he carried outand the reinforcing of the anti-immigrantlaws, tried to place himself at the head ofthe demonstration. We solidarize with theanarchist militants and the sans-papierswho chanted, ''Throw out Chevenement,free the sans-papiers" in order to throwChevenement out of the demonstration.But the LCR scandalously sent its goonsquad to "protect" Chevenement (LeParisien, 6 March)! This ignominiousdeed speaks volumes about the LCR'scommitment to defend the capitalist system and how low they are willing to go todemonstrate to capitalist politicians thatthe LCR will be loyal servants in the nextcapitalist popular-front government.Immigrant workers have a significantamount of social power in the unions inFrance and Germany and they represent aliving bridge between Europe, Africa andthe Near East. But in order to fight hereagainst war and racism, it is necessary tofight against the capitalist system whichgenerates them. For that, class independence of the workers from their capitalist exploiters and from the bourgeoisstate is necessary. That demands a splitwith the opportunists in the workersmovement who, like the LCR, tie workers to their own national bourgeoisie,thus dividing the workers internationally.What's needed is an authentic LeninistTrotskyist party, a revolutionary, multiethnic workers party dedicated to fightingfor socialism and a world where thosewho labor will rule. The LTF is dedicatedto this task. Join us! .

UBOLcIlEl'ld.... n . . . .

Troupes fraapises, hors de COte d'lvoire IDefense de I'lrakcontre l'aHaque imperlallste !

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AMarxist Perspectiveon the Near East /We publish below a presentation bycomrade Bruce Andre at a recent conference of the Ligue Trotskyste de France,translated from Le Bolchevik No. 162(Winter 2002-2003).

LEBOIIIEV1KSiComrades, this discussion raises questions which are fundamental to buildinga revolutionary party, especially in theNear East. But before dealing with programmatic questions, I want to clarifythe difference between three things: theJewish people, which has existed forcenturies quite independently of the stateof Israel or even Zionism; the Hebrewspeaking nation Ipcated in Palestine; andthe Zionist state. I think there has been atendency to confuse them, especially thelatter two, the Hebrew-speaking nationand the Zionist state.Let's start with the Jewish people. Ourunderstanding has been framed by AbramLeon, in his book The Jewish Question:A Marxist Interpretation. This book doesnot exist in Arabic, and I hope that wewill one day be able to rectify that failure. Leon was a Belgian Trotskyist, whowas murdered by the Nazis at the Auschwitz death camp. He gave a materialistexplanation for the continued existenceover centuries of the Jewish people inEurope with their own language, cultureand religion, and for their brutal oppression under capitalism. Leon explainedthat the Jews do not constitute a nation,that is, a culturally homogeneous population occupying a given territory withtheir own national economy. This is thedefinition of a nation according to Leninist criteria. Rather, Leon said that theJews played a particular social role infeudal and pre-feudal society as merchants and money-lenders. He calledthem a "people class."It was this particular social role, livingin the pores of feudal society, that provides a materialist explanation for theJews' continued existence in West andEast Europe. With the rise of mercantilecapitalism in Europe, the Jews' special

commercialrole came to an end. In WestEurope, they either assimilated or werepushed to the more economically backward East. There, in East Europe, thecrumbling of the feudal order at the end

ofthe 19th and early 20m centuries cameat a time when capitalism was alreadydecaying. There was widespread unemployment and periodic economic crises.As a result, the Jews were exposed tothe hostility of the petty bourgeoisieand peasants, who were also rejected bydecaying capitalism.. These petty-bourgeois layers sought tofind a place for themselves at the expenseof the Jews and launched pogroms, antiJewish riots. A wave of refugees fleeingthese pogroms arrived in West Europe at. a time when capitalism could not absorbthem there either, thus creating a similarproblem in the West. In France, therewere pogroms at the end of the 19th century around the Dreyfus affair. In Algeriatoo, by the way. In Germany, of course,there was the ultimate pogrom, one of thegreatest horrors in human history: theHolocaust. The Nazis used modem capitalist production methods to carry out thesystematic, conscious extermination of anentire people. The so-called democraticcountri.es like the United States and Britain closed their doors to desperate Jewishrefugees fleeing the Nazis.Now, Abram Leon does not deal withthe questi()n of Jews in Arab lands. Itwould be a good thing for our party tostudy and clarify the differences betweenthe situation of the Jews in Europe and inArab lands. But one important differenceis that the development of capitalism inthe Near East and North Africa did notproceed to a point where it provoke-d thekind of systematic, violent convulsionsthat took pl!lce in Europe. There wereattacks against the Jews but not at thesame level as in Europe. The conditionof Jews in the Arab lands was markedlybetter than in Christian Europe.This changed with the rise of Arabnationalism in the mid 20th century.Coming out of WWII, there was a waveof pogroms and terrorist attacks againstsynagogues and Jewish pl1blic places inalmost all Arab countries. It reached aparoxysm during the 1948-49 war inPalestine. This triggered-with the activehelp of the Zionists, of course-a massexodus of Jews from Arab countries, withmost of them going to Israel. At the timeof the formation of the state of Israel in19:47-48, there were as many Jews in theArab countries speaking Arabic as theirfirst language as there were in Israel

APGaza City homes demolished by Israeli troops in February as Zionist rulersratchet up anti-Palestinian terror in lead-up to Iraq war.4

speaking (or learning) Hebrew. Not surprisingly, the Jews from Arab countriesand their descendants, known as OrientalJews, are typically among the most reactionary and anti-Arab layers of the Israelipopulation.Birth of the Zionist State

so , the Jews in Europe-as well as inArab countries-were not a nation. TheJews living in Palestine before the Holocaust were not a nation, either. In the

March 2002:LTF banner atParis Palestiniansolidaritydemonstration:"Defend thePalestinian People!French/UN/U.S.Troops Hands Offthe Near East!"

-"J::oo[I I

early 1930s, there were only slightlymore than 100,000 Jews in Palestine, andmany of them were not Zionists.So how did a nation get formed out ofthese people? In Europe, beforethe Naziscame to power in 1933, Zionism was atiny sect of petty-bourgeois intellectualswith no influence among the Jewish people. Those Jews in the ghettos of EastEurope who were active in politics wereprimarily either communists or membersof the Bund, a Jewish socialist movementclose to the Mensheviks. What transformed Zionism into a mass movementwas the world-historic defeat of the German working class in 1933 and the rise ofHitler to power. The rise of the NazisinGermany also laid the basis for the creation of a nation of Hebrew-speaking people in Palestine by causing massive wavesof Jewish emigration both before the Holocaust and again after WWII. The Zionists appealed directly to British imperialism, which controlled Palestine militarily,to sponsor a so-called "Jewish homeland." And the British rulers, anti-Semiticto the core, agreed because they saw it asa way to help divide and conquer in theNear East. There was the Balfour Declaration at the close of World War I in whichthe British promised the Zionists a homeland in Palestine. Today, of course, it isthe U.S. imperialists who are the specialpatrons of the Zionist state.Unlike many colonial settlers in history, the Zionists did not seek mainly toexploit Palestinians but rather to displacethem and set up a closed economy ofexclusively Jewish communities. And inthis, through massive influx of Jewishlabor and capital from Europe, they wereultimately successful. A major step inthat direction occurred during the 1936-39

Arab revolt against British occupation.The Zionists played a key role in puttingdown the revolt, together with the British,through military terror directed againstthe Palestinians. By the time of the UNpartition of 1947, a Hebrew-speakingnation had already been carved out ofPalestine.The 1947 partition set off a war inwhich the Zionists conquered what istoday the state of Israel and drove outmost of its Arab population through mass

killings and terror. The Arab regimesintervened, not to defend the Palestiniansagainst Zionist terror but to seize the landthat had been allotted to them under theUN partition plan. Tens of thousands ofPalestinian refugees who sought refugein the surrounding Arab countries wereforced to live in squalid refugee camps.In 1970, the Hashemite monarchy in Jordan launched a massive bloodbath againstthe Palestinians, with the implicit supportof almost all the Arab regimes. This wascalled Black September. Yet despite thehorrendous conditions in which they wereforced to live, the Palestinian generationthat grew up after 1948 was more highlyeducated than almost any other peoplein the Near East, including the Hebrewspeaking people of Israel.At the time, the Palestinians played arole in the Near East similar in some waysto the Jews in East Europe. ~ o s m o p o l i -tan, politicized and educated, they playeda disproportionate role in radical movements, including the Communist partiesthroughout the Near East. That fact givesa measure of the terrible consequences ofArab nationalism, as many Palestinianstoday, disillusioned by the total bankruptcy of Arafat's bourgeois-nationalistprogram have turned to the backward,anti-woman Islamic fundamentalists ofHamas.The Palestinian Trotskyists took anessentially correct position on the 1948war. They opposed the UN partitionplan and were for the defeat of bothsides through revolutionary workingclass struggle. They correctly defendedthe national rights of the Hebrewspeaking nation to self-determination. Asyou know from the readings for this discussion, we initially took a position of

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siding militarily with the forces led bythe Zionists because our evaluation of thesituation was that the war threatened thevery existence of the Hebrew people. Wecorrected our appreciation of the factsand changed our position, but we didnot modify our underlying method. Westated:"Out of the destruction of EuropeanJewry by Hitler (without whose aid theZionists would have gone the way ofthe Shakers and other utopian sects)and at the expense of the PalestinianArabs, a settler colony was transformedinto a nation. ."This Hebrew nation came into existencethrough force and violence, through thesuppression, forced expUlsion and genocide of other peoples. Communists mustoppose this brutal national oppression.Yet once this historical fact is accomplished, we must certainly recognizethat nation's right to self-determination,unless we prefer the alternative, namelynational genocide ..."Marxists could give military support toneither side in the 1948 Palestine war.Our position for proletarian internationalism requires viewing that war from thenecessity of revolutionary defeatism onboth sides, counterposing to the victoryof either side the perspective of unitedproletarian struggle, which offers the onlypossibility for the genuine fulfillment ofthe right of self-determination-through asocialist federation of the Near East."- "Birth of the Zionist State,"WV

Nos. 33 and 45, 23 November1973 and 24 May 1974The Palestinian Trotskyists at the timewere also sober about the enormousobstacles to united revolutionary struggleby Arab and Hebrew-speaking workers.The "Draft Theses on the Jewish Q u e s ~ tion" adopted by the International Secretariat of the Fourth International in 1947pointed to some important joint strikes byArab and Jewish workers, such as the biggovernment workers strike in Haifa in1946 and the oil refinery workers strike in1947. But they also said:"At the present stage, large-scale unitybetween the Jews and the Arabs in Palestine is unrealizable; only on a very limited scale and to the extent that a sectionof the Jewish workers is employed outside the 'closed' Jewish economy, has itbeen possible for Jewish-Arab strikessuch as those of the past year to occur.But this does not mean that such unity isexcluded for all time."This is a point we have often made.It will take convulsive historical eventsto cause even a significant fraction ofthe Hebrew-speaking proletariat to makecommon cause with their Arab classbrothers, but it is historically possible andnecessary.

The State Is Not theSame Thing as a NationLet's be clear: When we speak of theHebrew-speaking nation, this is not thesame' thing as the Zionist state that wasset up following the 1947 UN partition.As I mentioned earlier, for Marxists, anation is a people with its own language,culture and economy, occupying a giventerritory. A state is something very different. It is essentially an instrument ofpower through which a particular classmaintains its class rule. I t consists centrally of instruments of repression: thearmy, police, prison system, etc. Our attitude toward these two things is very dif-

ferent. We seek to smash the Zionist state,as we seek to smash all capitalist states,through socialist revolution. We particularly wish to smash the Zionist statebecause by its very nature it is inherently oppressive not only of the Hebrewspeaking working class but also andabove all of the Palestinian people.But what is our attitude toward theHebrew-speaking nation? Our positionon all nations is for their right to selfdetermination, that is, the right to formindependent nation-states. We do notmake a distinction on this point betweenoppressed nations which alone get theright to exist and oppressor nationswhich, according to some, do not. Forus, it is simply a basic democratic rightthat Marxists recognize for all nations.Marxist concepts like "class," "nation,""state," etc. have precise definitions,which are based on material reality. Weare materialists. The widely held positionthat Jews in Israel today represent an"occupation" strikes me as based on akind of moralism-that is, idealismrather than materialism. It reminds me ofthe idea, which is widespread on the left,that there are "good" people, that is, theoppressed-one could say the "occupied"people-and "bad" people who are theoppressors and do not even have the rightto exist. To speak of an "occupation"seems to me to imply that the programmatic consequence is: "Get rid of them."It is necessary to return to Marxist categories to avoid ending up in the trap ofirredentist nationalism and to open theway to a revolutionary internationalistsolution in which all peoples have a rightto exist.Interpenetrated Peoples

At the heart of the problem is thequestion of interpenetrated peoples. Theprocess that led to the creation of thestate of Israel was not unique. On thecontrary, we have seen this many timesin history. It is the policy of "divide andrule." The British were past masters atthis. They did basically the same thing inIreland when they divided it betweenNorth and South, and in India with a partition between Muslim Pakistan andIndia containing both Hindus and Muslims. The French did the same thing bysplitting Lebanon from Syria.I strongly suspect that somewhere inLondon there is a recipe book, probablywritten by Churchill, and entitled "Howto Make a Partition." Here is the recipe.You take a region where there are twopeople with a long history of ethnic conflict, and you draw an artificial borderaccording to the following criteria: onone side you have a country with a moreor less homogeneous population, composed of the people that is the mostnumerous. But on the other side of theborder, you have a country which is composed of two peoples, one of whom has aslight numerical advantage over the other.In that way, you get a eople which livesconstantly in fear that the other will oneday be in the majority. This recipe workswonders for the imperialists and allowsinterventions and manipulations at will.I think the French went to London to

Brian H.endlerIsraeli public sector strike, 1997. Zionist garrison state must be destroyedfrom within through Arab-Hebrew workers revolution.14 MARCH 2003

Praeger Inc.Baghdad, July 1958: Opportunity for proletarian revolution was derailed bySoviet Stalinist bureaucracy and Iraqi Communist leadership.read that recipe book. They created thisrump state, Lebanon, such that therewas a slight majority of Christians, permanently terrified that one day theMuslims would have enough babies tobecome the majority. What finally happened is that the Palestinians driven outof Jordan by Black September ended upin Lebanon, and that tipped the balance.Lebanon exploded in civil war, whichcompletely destroyed the country.In Palestine, the partition plan wasconceived according to the same recipe,but this time they showed the UN how todo it. They created a totally artificialstate of Israel, which included muchmore than the territories occupied at thetime by the Hebrew-speaking nation,drawing the borders in such a way as tohave a Palestinian portion which was 100percent Arab and a state of Israel wherethe Jews had a slight majority. But theZionists were cooking according to a different recipe. They dtove the Palestiniansfrom the land that had been allotted tothe Jews by the partition-plan and alsofrom much of the land toot had beenallotted to the Palestinians. And theypopulated it all with refugees pouringout of Europe following the Holocaustand with Oriental Jews driven out ofthe Arab countries with the rise of Arabnationalism,By the end of this process, the territories occupied by the Hebrew-speakingnation had greatly expanded, and, importantly for the Zionists, they correspondedto the borders of the Zionist state. But, Irepeat, these are not one and the samething. We are for smashing the Zioniststate, for the destruction of its army andthe seizure of power by the proletariat.But we are not for the destruction of thenation that occupies that territory, withits own culture and its own economy. Wedefend its right to exist, its democraticright to self-determination, just as wedefend these same rights for the Palestinian people.Virtually all nations were forgedthrough the forced expUlsion and, in somecases, genocide of other peoples. It is notunique. Today it is called "ethnic cleansing." The United States, for example, wasforged through the systematic extermination of native peoples. This genocide isstill celebrated in films and popular culture. Does that mean that the U.S. todayis occupied territory? Turkey is a real"prison house of peoples" for minoritieslike the Kurds. Does that mean Turks donot have a right to exist? Should allthe descendants of the conquistadors bee ~ p e l l e d from Latin America?

But let's be clear about this: the LeftBank and Gaza are today truly occupiedterritories. These are Palestinian territories which are being seized by the Zionists a little more each day. The settlers arethe advance guard of that incursion. Weare for stopping this incursion into Palestinian land and for this occupation tostop, even while recognizing that thingshave proceeded to a point where that isno simple task. There are now a largenumber of settlers, some 400,000 if weinclude East Jerusalem. These settlers arehighly armed and closely linked with theIsraeli army. They live largely in communities that are scattered across Palestinianterritory like a string of fortresses. Thus,this is an extension into the Occupied Territories which is artificial and reversible.But that could change, particularly withthe approaching war against Iraq. In ourpress we have warned that the Zionistsmay seize the opportunity to drive thePalestinians out of the Occupied Territories in a vast terror campaign.The Example of Yugoslaviaand the Russian Revolution

The problem for resolving the Palestinian question is that both peoples lay claimto essentially the same land.' To set upan independent capitalist state for eitherthe Palestinian Arabs or the Hebrewspeaking people can only mean denyingthat right for the other. These are geographically interpenetrated peoples. Insuch cases, a democratic solution to thenational question can only come aboutthrough socialist revolution because onlythe proletariat in power has an interest inresolving national antagonisms and canbegin to meet the material needs of allworking people. This is not simply a caseof wishful thinking. There are historicalprecedents that demonstrate that this program is realizable.Look at Tito's Yugoslavia, a deformedworkers state that arose from the victoryof the Stalinist-led Partisans against theNazi occupation in WWII. The Balkanshad for centuries been the scene of ethnic bloodshed that makes the PalestinianHebrew conflict pale by comparison. The1912 Balkan Wars, which Trotsky wroteabout as a war correspondent, were theoccasion for immense forced populationtransfers throughout the Balkans. Thestate of Yugoslavia, an artificial creationput together by the imperialists afterWWI-mainly by French imperialism,'by the way-exploded in ethnic bloodshed almost from the day of its creation.However, the common experience ofcontinued on page 11

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Young SparlacusDefend S.F. Anarchist ProtesterslWe print below a letter sent by the Partisan Defense Committee to San Francisco qistrict attorney Terence Hallinanon March 3 protesting the arrests of antiwar demonstrators during an anarchistorganized breakaway march on February

16. In the face of vicious violence-baitingfrom the state and the media, the organizers of he main February 16 demonstration, including the Workers World Partyled International ANSWER and Not InOur Name, have explicitly distanced themselves from the arrested activists. Thesegroups wish to remain "respectable" in theeyes of the bourgeois liberals and Democratic Party politicians they seek to attractin the name of "unity." Those opposed tothe aims of u.s. imperialism must demandunequivocally that all charges be droppedagainst all activists targeted for protestingthe coming war.The Partisan Defense Committeestrongly protests the arrests of 46 antiwardemonstrators by the police on February16. After over 200,000 people marched inopposition to the U.S. war against Iraq, asmaller march of around 1,500 gathered

San Franciscoco p assaultsantiwar protesteron February 16in policecrackdown onbreakaway march.

and was immediately surrounded by copsin riot gear. Once moving, the march wasfollowed by mounted police officers whoprovocatively swung clubs at the demonstrators. At one intersection, police barricades boxed in protesters as cops onhorseback charged the crowd. It was aday marked by police terror: protesters

High School Students TakeTo the Streets Against WarDefying threats of suspension, expulsion and arrest, thousands of youth fromsome 400 colleges, high schools andmiddle schools across the country walkedout on March 5 to protest the comingwar on Iraq. The call for a student strikewas taken up by youth in places likeAvon, Indiana as well as in most majorAmerican cities and as far away as Spainand Australia. Organized around thedemand "Books not bombs," the demonstrations were extremely youthful. At aNew York rally, one sixth-grade speakerhad to stand on a chair in order to be visible to the crowd; antiwar chants wereadaptations of popular hip-hop songsand homemade signs read "Bush is dumband so is war" and "Duct tape and plastic wrap for the administration." In Chicago,where Jesse Jackson Sr. was a featured speaker,.our contingent chanted,"Remember Hiroshima, remember Vietnam, Democratic Party, we know whichside you're on!", which elicited strong

Contingents...(continued from page 12)Afghanistan. Otherwise, the movementwill close itself off." What this means inpractice is unity with bourgeois elementswhose interests are irreconcilably counterposed to those of working people andthe oppressed. Imperialist war should bemet not with the abandonment of struggle against the capitalist rulers, but itsintensification.The Progressive Labor Party statesthat they aim to "shatter the illusionsmany have in liberal politicians andexpose the opportunist 'left' serving theDemocratic Party" (Challenge, 5 February). Yet these supposed fighters forcommunism not only steadfastly refuseto take a side in defense of Iraq, butcannot even bring themselves to defendthe besieged Palestinian people! Inthe midst of the genocidal war of terror by the U.S.-backed Zionist rulers6

reactions and was picked up by others inthe crowd.School administrations worked incahoots with the cops to discipline protesters. Some high school students in NewYork were expelled immediately uponwalking out; others in Brooklyn werelocked into their school to prevent themfrom participating. In L.A., students fromthe UCLA-affiliated high school whowalked out were followed by a truancyofficer, rounded up and returned to schoolin a school bus. In the Bay Area, theUC Berkeley administration is threatening disciplinary action against the Berkeley Stop the War Coalition for "obstruction or disruption of teaching." The policemobilized heavily across the countryand arrested some protesters; in Oakland,black and Latino high school kids wereshoved ap.d hit by cops on motorcycles.We demand: Drop all charges now! Dropall diSciplinary action against the students and student groups!.

against the Palestinians, Challenge (22May 2002) declares: "This is a dogfightamong gangsters. Backing the little onesagainst the big ones merely helps the little ones get bigger." PL's grotesque refusal to defend the Palestinian and Iraqipeople should leave no doubt that despiteits flaming red rhetoric, in practice PLcapitulates to the u.S. ruling class. Theright-wing Sharon regime could well beplanning to expel Palestinians from theOccupied Territories under cover of anAmerican war against Iraq. We 'say:Defend the Palestinian people! Troopsout of the Occupied Territories!We desperately need to build an internationalist revolutionary workers partylike the Bolshevik Party of Lenin andTrotsky that led the multinational working class of Russia to power. Our mottomust be: unity of the workers in struggle,against capitalism-break with the capitalist class enemy and their pseudosocialist assistants! Fight for international socialist revolution-join us! .

were viciously beaten and attacked, anddozens were later arrested.Out of the over 40 protesters who werearrested, six originally faced multiplefelony charges, now reduced to misdemeanors. One protester, Broderick Harrison, still faces two felony vandalismcounts and another, Jack Bay, remains in

county jail. With the spectre of the brutal"three strikes" initiative, these chargescan only threaten a living death in prisonif they dare protest again. The remainingprotesters have only been "discharged,"with the danger of having their chargesrefiled within a year. The cops and thecourts are clearly using these chargesas a precedent for prosecution againstfuture antiwar protesters. We demandthat all these charges be unconditionallydropped!The repression against antiwar protesters is part of the government's "waron terror" aimed at criminalizing all thosewho oppose the rulers' bloody war againstIraq. In New York, the courts' attempt toban the antiwar demonstration on February15 shows how the U.S. government seeksto regiment the population into submissionby outlawing any dissent. Despite theseattempts, millions of people marchedaround the world expressing their opposition to the slaughter the U.S. government isplanning in Iraq. Drop all the chargesagainst the demonstrators! Free all theprotesters now!.

Youth in Los Angeles demonstrating against war.

BOSTONAlternate Mondays, 7 p.m.March 17: Defend Iraq Against U.S.Imperialist Attack!

Socialism and the Struggle AgainstImperialist WarBU School of Education, Room 212605 Commonwealth AvenueInformation and readings: (617) 666-9453or e-mail: bostonsyc@yahoo.com

CHICAGOAlternate Tuesdays, 7 p.m.April 8: Socialism and War

University of Chicago, Cobb Hall5811 S. Ellis, Room TBAInformation and readings: (312) 563-0441or e-mail: spartacist@iname.com

LOS ANGELESSaturday, 2 p.m.

March 29: Black Liberation ThroughSocialist Revolution3806 Beverly Blvd., Room 215(Vermont/Beverly Red Line station)

Information and readings: (213) 380-8239or e-mail: slsycla@cs.com

NEW YORK CITYTuesday, 7:30 p.m.April 1: For Women's LiberationThrough Socialist Revolution!Columbia University306 Hamilton HallInformation and readings: (212) 267-1025or e-mail: nysl@compuserve.com

OAKLANDSaturday, 4 p.m.

March 22: Only Socialist RevolutionCan End Imperialist War-Lessonsof the 1917 Russian Revolution

1634 Telegraph Avenue, 3rd floorInformation and readings: {51 0) 839-0851or e-mail: slbayarea@compuserve.comTORONTO

Wednesday, 6:30 p.m.March 19: National Chauvinism IsPoison to Class StruggleFor Quebec Independence!University of TorontoSidney Smith, Room 1088100 St. George StreetInformation and readings: (416) 593-4138or e-mail: spartcan@on.aibn.com

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Down With Anti-Communist CensorshiplAfter the Chicago Spartacus YouthClub published and distributed a leafletprotesting their threatened exclusion,the International Socialist Organizationdominated Campus Antiwar Network

backed'down and allowed us entry intotheir national conference, where weargued our revolutionary program. Wereprint that leaflet ofFebruary 14 below.In a blatant act of political cowardice,the Chicago Student Antiwar Network(CSAWN) has threatened the SpartacusYouth Club (SYC) with exclusion fromthe upcoming Campus Antiwar Network National Conference. We receivedan e-mail on February 11 responding toour request for a literature table thatstated "Given your organization's disruptive behavior at the CSAWN studentteach-in on Feb. 1 at UIC, we will haveto ... decide if we would like your participation or not." So what's behind thisthreat of political censorship? The realauthor of this threatened exclusion isthe Internationalist Socialist Organization(ISO), who everybody knows are the onesrunning CSAWN. And the "disruption"that has them so bent out of shape wassimply that we put forward a revolutionary program as the only way to struggleagainst war, and exposed the ISO's liberalreformism as an obstacle to this fight.The aim of the ISO is fo build "thebroadest possible antiwar movement" tobetter pressure U.S. imperialism to "dothe right thing." That means unity withliberals, unity with the Democrats, unitywith those who support the UN (sanctionsand all), and virulent bureaucratic censorship of authentic Marxist politics thatmight get in their way. The ISO were thereal disrupters ,at the UIC teach-in. At theworkshop on military recruitment in highschools, a high school comrade of theSYC was shouted down by an ISO panelist who yelled "That's it! Out!" when ourcomrade mentioned the ISO. The chairthen told her "If anyone says anything

The following leaflet was issued onMarch 1 by the Spartacist League/Britain,section of the International CommunistLeague.The "Revolution 2003" teach-in at LSE[London School of Economics] organisedby the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) thisweekend featured self-appointed SWPthought police dispatching gOOR squadsto harass the Spartacist League and Spartacus Youth Group and to impede the pub- .lic from access to our revolutionary Marxist views. Inside the teach-in, the threatsescalated after floor interventions by twoyoung women supporters of the Spartacist League, who argued that opposition tothe Iraq war and its domestic repercussions in the anti-Muslim witchhuntrequires opposition to the Labour government, and exposed the SWP's support toIslamic fundamentalism, as well as itsearlier support to the dispatch of Britishtroops to Northern Ireland under a Labourgovernment. In response, SWP honchoChris Bambery fumed that anyone whodoesn't politically support the ,Stop theWar Coalition "deserves a bullet in thehead." This is the real face of the SWP's"give peace a chance" coalition-building:you've got to silence the reds to get workers and youth to lie down like lambs withthe wolves of the Labour Party whilstthey wage war on Iraq and against working people at home!Physical exclusion, political censorship and threats of violence are the despicable acts of political cowards who disdain to debate their views, preferring tosubstitute the fist for the brain. Today it'sthe Spartacist League, but who"s next onthe SWP's hit list? We call on all leftists,trade unionists and anti-war activists to14 MARCH 2003

What Is the I,SO Afraid of?divisive, you will have to leave." Our comrade was attempting to describe a protestwe organized against NATO's appearanceat UIC while the bombs were rainingon Afghanistan. The ISO boycotted ourprotest, preferring to go into the meeting of these butchers and ask "toughquestions" like "What is the acceptablecivilian body count in Afghanistan?" Inother words, they seek to silence thecommunists but see fit to debate thesecriminals.The ISO's much-vaunted vision of"unity" means subservience to the liberal"more humane" wing of the ruling class,such as during the previous Gulf War in1991 when they endorsed a demonstration called by the National Campaign forPeace in the Middle East, which explicitly included demands supporting UNsanctions, which have since killed 1.5million Iraqis. Today the ISO is againready to build a "movement" with theenemies of workers and minorities. Sucha class-collaborationist "movement" isnot only powerless to prevent war, but is, actually an obstacle to real antiwar struggle because it serves in its own way touphold the system which breeds war.War is a symptom of the irreconcilableinterests and conflicts of capitalism, andit is ludicrous to believe that the fightagainst war can be divorced from theclass struggle as a whole.' To struggleagainst war it is necessary to fight againstcapitalism itself-for workers revolution!I t is necessary to break the illusion of"national unity" and bring workers tounderstand that they share no interestswith their capitalist bosses. The sameimperialist rulers who are preparing torain bombs on Iraq have been waging waron immigrants, black people and laborhere at home. In the coming war, the

working class has a side to take with thesemicolonial people of Iraq against theU.S. imperialists. Defend Iraq! For classstruggle against U.S. imperialism!The ISO's pretense to "socialism" or"anti-imperialism," is a total fraud considering that they capitulated to the imperialists down the line in their drive todestroy the Soviet Union. While bureaucratically degenerated, the USSR wasa workers state, based on socializedproperty that represented real gains for

February 15antiwar protestin New York.While ISO seeksto pressureimperialiststo changepriorities (signat left), SYCfights forperspectiveof shatteringimperialistorder.

the working class internationally. Butthe ISO howled with the imperialistwolves in opposing the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan against the CIAbacked woman-hating mujahedin (whothey even hailed as "freedom fighters").And the ISO hailed the YeltsinlBushcounterrevolution in the USSR, writing,"Communism has collapsed ... It is a factthat should have every socialist rejoicing"(Socialist Worker, 31 August 1991). Thepeoples of the decimated nations of Russia and Eastern Europe aren't rejoicingtoday, but the imperialist bosses sure are.

British SWP Says:

condemn and protest this flagrant incitement to violence against revolutionarysocialists!What's got Bambery's knickers in atwist? The SWP must be undergoing uncomfortable contortions to present themselves as socialists while maintainingloyalty to Blair's Labour Party (whoseelection sent the SWP "over the moon").In our interventions and in discussionswith young militants before the meetingour comrades also warned that by promoting politicians like George Oallowayand Jeremy Corbyn-who are activelycampaigning for antiwar activists to jointhe Labour Party-the SWP and the Stopthe War Coalition are helping channelthe growing anger against Blair's government and its war back into the reformistconfines of the Labour Party. As Leninwrote in Socialism and War, "unity withthe opportunists actually means subordinating the working class to their 'own'national bourgeoisie .. .it means splittingthe revolutionary proletariat of all countries." We Spartacists fly under our ownbanners and argue that what working peo-

pIe, youth and minorities in Britain todayneed is not a swivel chair "regimechange" of G o r d o ~ Brown for Tony Blair,but the construction of a multiethnic revolutionary workers party to sweep awaythe capitalist system which breedsracism, war and unemployment. Anything less, anything other, is nothing buta reformist balm on the raw rubs of thecapitalist order.Political debate is vital to clarify whatprogramme and leadership the workingclass needs to fight for its interests. Thisis not the first time that the SWP hasresorted to political exclusionism or thuggery against the Spartacist League orother tendencies in the workers movement. In July 1980 they went berserk andassaulted SL supporters shortly afterthe Soviet Red Army went into Afghanistan because we exposed the SWP forattacking Margaret Thatcher from theright for selling British beef to Soviettroops in Kabul. We said, "Hail Red Armyin Afghanistan!" and later denouncedGorbachev's treacherous withdrawal fromthat country. Had the Soviets stayed and

Defend the remaining deformed workersstates-China, North Korea, Vietnam,and Cuba!Anyone who knows the ISO knows thatpolitical censorship of leftists is nothingnew for them. In one outrageous incident, back in March 1991 when Bush Sr.was waging the first GulfWar, they organized a conference of the National Network of Campuses Against the War. TheISO expelled the Revolutionary WorkersLeague (RWL) for "disruption" when theysimply tried to raise a list of radicalsounding demands for adoption by theconference. They then called the campuscops to remove the RWL, and "anyone

who defends them," including the SYC.Cops are the hired guns of the profit system, and "serve and protect" nothing butthe racist capitalist status quo.While the ISO wants to dress theblood-drenched imperialist wolves insheep's clothing, we have something different in mind. As the youth group of theSpartacist League, the SYC calls forbreaking with the racist, war-mongeringDemocrats and Republicans. We seek towin youth to the perspective of buildinga workers party that fights for socialistrevolution!

won, there wouldn't be a Gulf War today!We say that workers and minorities inBritain and the toiling masses of neocolonial Iraq have a common enemy in thewar-crazed gangs running the WhiteHouse and 10 Downing Street and a common interest in defending Iraq againstU.S.lBritish attack without giving oneiota of political support to Saddam Hussein's anti-worker capitalist regime.Imperialist wars such as the threatenedslaughter of thousands of Iraqis are inherent to the system of capitalism, and to putan end to them what is needed is an international succession of socialist revolutions. For that purpose we say workersin this country need not a "reclaimed"Labour Party, but a multi ethnic revolutionary workers party modelled onthe Russian Bolshevik Party. I t was theBolshevik Party that, by successfullytearing the working class away from thepro-capitalist Corbyns, Galloways andBamberys of the time, led the workingclass to power and took Russia out of themassacre of World War I through the1917 October Revolution.Like the Bolsheviks, we seek to winthe working class and the oppressed tothe revolutionary socialist programmethrough the open clash of opposingpolitical programmes; be it at mobilisations such as the massive demonstrationheld in London on 15 February, in thetrade unions, through electoral campaigns, through united-front actions indefence of the interests of workers andthe oppressed, or at political meetingssuch as today's "Revolution 2003" teachin. Protest SWP political exclusion smand threats of violence! For open political debate!

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Defend I r a q . ~ . (continued from page 1)Sharon's cabinet ministers, recentlyranted of the Palestinians: "Make theirlife so bitter that they will transfer themselves willingly." And this is exactly whatthe Zionist rulers have been trying todo with the daily massacres of Palestinians and escalating destruction of homesand entire neighborhoods. Antiwar protesters must take up the call to defendthe Palestinian people and demand: Al lIsraeli'troops, settle rs out of he OccupiedTerritories!In the U.S. war against Iraq, we takea side. We call on the international proletariat to stand for the military defense ofIraq without giving any political supportto the bloody Saddam Hussein regime.Every class-conscious worker, every fighteragainst capitalist exploitation and imperialist sUbjugation cannot but wish to seeU.S. imperialism humiliated in Iraq. Thecolossal military advantage of the UnitedStates against semicolonial Iraq underscores the importance of class struggle,particularly in the imperialist centers, asthe chief means to give content to the callto defend Iraq. We look to an extensionand deepening of the sorts of laboractions, including blockades of militarygoods destined for the Gulf, taken byworkers in Italy.The U.S. drive for war has generatedhuge waves of worldwide protests, including the mobilization of millions of demonstrators on the weekend of February15, and further large-scale protest actionsare planned for the weekend of March 15.The Spartacist League, Spartacus YouthClubs and Labor Black Leagues areorganizing Revolutionary Internationalist contingents in Washington, D.C., LosAngeles, San Francisco and Chicagobased on the demands: Al l U.S. troops ou tof the Near East now! Down with U.S.imperialism! Defen d Iraq! For class strug-gle against U.S. capitalist rulers!

The Workers World Party, which politically dominates the International ANSWERcoalition that has organized many of theantiwar protests, has been redbaited by

North Korea ...(continued from page 1)"Nuclear Posture Review" that openlytargets that country along with China,Iraq and others for a potential nuclearfirst strike. The North Koreans are wellaware that. following a U.S. devastationof Iraq, they could be next on Washington's hit list. In today's world, where thenuclear madmen in Washington declaretheir "right" to carry out " p r e ~ ' e m p t i v e " strikes against anyone at any time, theonly real measure of sovereignty left ispossession of nukes. Indeed, we regretthat North Korea's current facilities fornuclear development are so modest.It is telling that while the Bush administration is gearing up to devastate Iraq,those Democrats who claim to opposethe Iraq war are pointing to North Koreaas the real "threat." While the organizers

DPALeft:. Kurds slaughtered by Turkish troops. Right: Kurdishdemonstrators in northern Iraq burn Turkish flag last monthto protest threatened Turkish invasion as part of U.S. war.liberals for its statements against imperialism, particularly its solidarity with NorthKorea. These anti-Communist attacks notwithstanding, Workers World are hardlyreds. Through ANSWER, Workers Worldpeddles a program of liberal pacifismthat never challenges the capitalist system that breeds war, the better to draw in"antiwar" Democratic Party politicianslike Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Cynthia McKinney. To build an antiwar movement with bourgeois politicians is tobuild an antiwar movement with the veryforces in whose interest imperialist waris waged. Indeed, even those Democratswho for now oppose a war against Iraqattack Bush from the right when it comesto North Korea, demanding a moreaggressive line against that country.In motivating antiwar activists to joinour contingents, our mobilizing leaflet (seepage 12) declares: "March with the proletarian internationalist revolutionists whotell the truth to the masses: that only socialist revolution can end imperialist war."A New World Disorder

The sharp clash between the U.S. andBritain on one side and France, Germany. and Russia on the other signals the undoing of the post-World War II imperialistorder, which was premised on American

of the antiwar protests have sought toappeal to these Democrats, as revolutionary opponents of our "own" imperialist ruling class-Republicans and Democrats alike-we have raised the necessityof defense of North Korea in our interventions into the antiwar protests.The American military presence in theKorean peninsula is not only aimed atthe North Korean and Chinese deformedworkers states, but is an assertion of U.S.interests in the region against potentialrivals, chiefly Japan. It also serves asa warning to South Korea's combative union movement, threatening todrown in blood any c4allenge to the capitalist order. Indeed, in South Korea, popular fear and hatred of the U.S. occupationforces is escalating, with huge protests inthe South against U.S. troops and bases.Meanwhile, in China, the Stalinistbureaucracy has repeatedly emphasizedits agreement with the imperialists'

hegemony and opposition to the SovietUnion. With the counterrevolutionarydestruction of the Soviet Union in 1991-92, the U.S. has asserted its overwhelming military superiority in a "one-superpower world."This was made manifest last year.Months after the Pentagon released its"Nuclear Posture Review" explicitlyallowing for a U.S. nuclear first strike, theBush administration came out with its"National Security Strategy," affirming ageneral policy of "pre-emptive" war andasserting that the U.S. is "strong enoughto dissuade potential adversaries frompursuing a military buildup in hopes ofsurpassing, or equaling, the power of theUnited States." Such threats are directednot only against small "rogue" states butultimately at the Chinese deformed workers state and the U.S.'s imperialist rivals.While the Bush administration is particularly bellicose in both its rhetoric andactions, U.S. imperialism has been moving toward such unilateralist policiessince the end of the Cold War. As itlaunched a "pre-emptive" war againstSerbia in 1999, the Democratic ClintonWhite House explicitly refused to seekUN approval. Yet all the European Unionpowers endorsed that war. A big difference today is that where Clinton invoked

demands for a "non-nuclear Korean peninsula." Such criminal appeasement simplyemboldens the rapacious U.S. imperialiststo foment counterrevolution in Chinaitself.Despite the rule of a nationalist Stalinist bureaucracy, the ove$ow of capitalism in North Korea was a historic defeatfor imperialism and a victory for theworking people of Asia and the world.Following the Korean War, U.S. imperialism has not only militarily encircled theNorth but has also sought to starve thecountry through an economic embargo.The collapse in 1991-92 of the SovietUnion, which provided the bulk of military and technical aid to North Korea,created a dire situation, made worse by aseries of natural disasters producing afamine of historic proportions. These desperate conditions have been compoundedby the extreme autarky pushed by theNorth Korean bureaucracy under the

the facade of multilateralism and "humanrights," the Bush administration has dispensed with these diplomatic niceties,arrogantly and provocatively flauntingAmerican military muscle.During its existence, the USSR acted asa counterweight to U.S. imperialism, including through its large nuclear arsenal. It wasthe planned, collectivized economy issuing out of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolutionwhich, despite the subsequent Stalinistdegeneration of the workers state, allowedonce-backward Russia to become the second most powerful state on the planet. Infighting to the bitter end against capitalist counterrevolution, we warned that thedemise of the USSR would lead to a farmore dangerous world.Capitalist restoration has led Russia toa catastrophic economic and social decline unprecedented in the history of anymodern, industrialized country. By everymeasure of human progress-infant mortality, life expectancy, income, literacythe diverse peoples of the former SovietUnion have been brutally hurled back.Nonetheless, Russia's new capitalist rulers inherited from the USSR a powerful nuclear arsenal and strong conventional armed forces. An alliance betweenthe economic and technological resourcesof Germany-the dominant power in

rubric of Juche (self-reliance). Today,North Korea is ruled by a particularlycultish, nepotistic and bizarre Stalinistregime centered on "Dear Leader" KimJong 11.The only road forward for the beleaguered masses of the North is throughthe perspective of international socialistrevolution. As we wrote in "U.S. Imperialism Hands OffNorth Korea!" (WVNo.795, 17 January):"What is desperately needed is the forging of a Leninist-Trotskyist party to leadthe struggle for the revolutionary re-unification of Korea-for socialist revolution in the South and workers politicalrevolution to oust the Stalinist bureaucrats in the North. The fight for revolutionary reunification must be linked tothe struggle for proletarian political revolution in China and the extension of proletarian power to Japan, the industrialheartland of Asia."Defend North Korea! Al l U.S. troops ou tofKorea now!.

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Europe-and Russia's military potentialwould create a formidable challenge toAmerican global dominance.Many antiwar activists have looked tothe UN as a potential force to rein in theU.S. Don't be fooled! Today, growingsections of the American ruling class,particularly as represented in the Bushadministration, see no further use forthe UN. But the UN has been a creatureof the imperialist powers, centrally theU.S., since its formation at the end ofWorld War II. It has always served as afig leaf for imperialist wars and interventions. If'Is enough to recall that the sanctions that have killed 1.5 million Iraqisand devastated one of the most advancedinfrastructures in the Near East were carried out under UN aegis. Today, it is theUN that is vindictively disarming Iraq onthe eve of an American invasion, as seenby the weapons inspections and the orderto destroy Iraq's Al Samoud missiles,which can barely reach 100 miles.For Proletarian Internationalism!

Throughout Europe, the mass antiwarprotests against the U.S. war are beingchanneled in the national-chauvinistdirection of getting one's "own" rulers tostand up to American imperialism. Butas we explained in a 23 October 2002International Communist League statement, whicli has been translated intoeight languages and distributed internationally: "What's essential is to draw a

Shipments," WV No. 798, 28 February).Such labor actions have continued on anear-daily basis, including blockades ofbarracks and NATO bases by public sector workers. Three days ago, over 50,000protesters, with trade-union contingentsat their head, surrounded Camp Darbyand broke through the perimeter fence atleast twice. Now, port workers in Livornoare threatening to go on strike against theloading of military supplies on Americanvessels bound for the Gulf.The centrist British Workers Powergroup-whose radical phrasemongeringin cyberspace is matched by its cravenopportunism in reality-has seized onincreasing labor opposition to the war inEurope to raise the call for a "Global General Strike.;' When the centrist Independent Labour Party (ILP) called for a general strike against war in 1935, Bolshevikleader Leon Trotsky replied in "The ILPand the Fourth International": "It is comparatively easy to take a 'revolutionary'position on the question of war; but it isextremely difficult to draw from this position all the necessary theoreticaland prac-tical conclusions." Trotsky went on .tonote: "A gt;neral strike can be put on theagenda as a method of struggle againstmobilization and war only in the eventthat the entire preceding developments inthe country have placed revolution andarmed insurrection on the agenda," andadded: "A general strike without a victorious insurrection cannot 'stop war' ."

March 4: Protesters at Turkey's Istanbul University carry banner reading"Stop the Attack on Iraq."class line and unshackle the workingpeople and anti-imperialist youth frombourgeois politicians, their agents in thetrade unions and their left serxants, whoseek to channel justified hatred of warinto illusory calls for parliamentary reforms of the profit-driven system thatbreeds war and, in West Europe, intosupport for their own national bourgeoisie against the Americans."In Britain, this reformist strategy takesthe form of the "Stop the War" coalition,dominated by the Socialist Workers Party(SWP), which is supported by virtuallyevery reformist and centrist outfit as wellas oppositional sections of the LabourParty and trade-union bureaucrats. InItaly, where the right-wing Berlusconiregime is backing the U.S., RifondazioneComunista (RC) has latched onto theFrench/German opposition to the warto paint the European bourgeoisies asmore "humanitarian" than the Americans,declaring in a headline: "Paris-Berlin, theAxis of Peace" (Liberazione, 23 January).

Workers Power spews hot air about ageneral strike encompassing every countryon the planet. But a general strikeposes the question of which class shallrule. And for that to be resolved in favorof the proletariat, what's needed is aLeninist-Trotskyist party that fights forthe class independence of the workingclass. Such a party can only be builtby splitting Labour's' w o r k i n g - c ~ a s s baseaway from the social-democratic tops,including and particularly those who poseas "left." And this is precisely what Workers Power rejects.Workers Power's practical conclusion

Daria Orlandi/lndymediaDemonstrators in Italy occupy train tracks to stop transport of war materiel.Banner reads, "Against the Capitalist War: General Strike."is to seek to chain left-wing youth andworkers to "left" Labour Members of Parliament (MPs) like Jeremy Corbyn andGeorge Galloway, who are currently campaigning to "reclaim" the Labour Partyfrom Blair and tum it into a "party forpeace." In the same article that calls fora "Global General Strike," Workers Powerdeclares: "We can, and must, march alongside the reformist left MPs and unionleaders when they mobilise their organisations for action but we do not haveto trim our strategy to what they willtolerate. I f we did that, then the militant left wing of this movement wouldnot grow and the compromising rightwing would not lose its influence overit, which is just what is needed" (WorkersPower Global Week, 23 February). ForWorkers Power, which is a member of the"Stop the War" coalition, this means inpractice unity with the likes of Corbynand Galloway. Such unity amounts tokeeping the working class subordinatedto racist, pro-imperialist Labourism andthus to its "own" national bourgeoisie; itmeans splitting the international workersmovement along national lines.In fact, only a few months earlier,Workers Power joined in an explicitappeal to the very European gQvernmentsagainst which labor strikes would. bedirected. Last fall, Workers Power cosigned a call with RC, the SWP, theFrench Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire and others appealing to the European bourgeois rulers to oppose U.S.imperialism: "We call on all. the Europeanheads of state to publicly stand againstthis war, whether it has UN backing ornot, and to demand that George Bushabandon his war plans" (reprinted inWeekly Worker, 12 September 2002).Unlike Workers Power, which issuesmeaningless proclamations for a "GlobalGeneral Strike," Marxists seek to intervene into labor actions against the impending war to raise the consciousness ofthe proletariat to the understanding thatit has the power to get rid of the system of capitalist exploitation and imperialist plunder through socialist revolution.

Militants engaged in actions against thewar should broaden this into a struggleagainst capitalism itself.For a Socialist Republic ofUnited Kurdistan!

Bush proclaims that U.S. imperialismplans to go into Iraq as "liberators." Sucharrogant claims are not new. When theBritish army marched into Baghdad in1917, the commanding general declared:"Our armies do not come into your citiesand lands as conquerors or enemies but asliberators." The British imperialists, inleague with France, then proceeded todraw artificial boundaries in the formerlands of the Ottoman Empire in the NearEast, forcibly amalgamating disparate ethnic populations while carving up others,notably the Kurds who are divided amongIraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. As a resultof this criminal imperialist legacy, theKurds continue to be the largest nation inthe world without a state of their own.

The American bourgeois media hastrumpeted the supposed "liberation" ofKurds in the "autonomous" region ofnorthern Iraq, created after the 1991 GulfWar. But as noted by Dilip Hiro in Iraq:In the Eye of the Storm (2002), the U.S."refused to help the quasi-independentKurdistan graduate to an independentstate while vetoing the region's return toBaghdad's jurisdiction. All it wanted wasto deploy the Kurds as a lever to keepSaddam down." .The chief benefactors of the imperialist carve-up of Iraq have been smugglersand black marketeers, working in cahootswith either the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) or the Kurdistan DemocraticParty (KDP), each of which took controlof sections of Iraqi Kurdistan. For decades,these two nationalist formations haveengaged in bloody internecine feuding,alternately lining up with one or anotherimperialist or regional power, includingthe U.S., Israel, Iran, Iraq and Turkey.Until reaching a truce some years ago, thePUK and KDP fought a civil war following the Gulf War-killing some 7,000people-with the latter appealing for andreceiving arms from none other than SaddamHussein himself.Now the U.S. war is being seized onby the r ~ g i o n a l oppressors of the Kurdsto move into oil-rich northern Iraq andsmash any semblance of Kurdish autonomy. An American occupation of I raqwith its ethnically diverse population andlong-established civil society-would setthe stage for further internecine conflictsand brutal imperialist repression, andcould tum the whole region into a hornet's nest. The U.S. has already made itclear that its forces will take control ofthe oil fields around Kirkuk. The Turkisharmy-infamous for its brutal suppression of Kurds in Turkey-already hassoine 1,200 troops in northern Iraq and isplanning on deploying thousands more.Tens of thousands of Iraqi Kurds have'demonstrated against and vowed to militarily resist a Turkish inc,!rsion. For its

As opposition to the war has deepenedat the base of European society, therehave been a growing number of actionscarried out by trade unionists. In January, Scottish train drivers refused to drivea trainload of munitions destined for alarge NATO base. In Italy, on February 21trade unionists and antiwar activists blockedrailway lines being used to transport 26military convoys from the Camp EderleNATO ,'base in Vicenza to the CampDarby NATO logistics depot in Livorno;one of the largest ammunition depots inEurope (see "Italian Workers Block Arms Paris, March 5: Foreign ministers Ivanov of Russia, de Villepin of France andFischer of Germany announce intent to block UN resolution authorizing war. part, Iran has already sent hundreds ofcontinued on page 1014 MARCH 2003 9

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New York TWU: Fight MTA Attackson Muslim Women Workers!

As the U.S. rulers continue theiranti-immigrant and anti-Muslim repression under the rubric of the "war on terror," the. racist bosses 'who run NewYork City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) have victimizedthree black women bus drivers forweanng the Islamic headscarf. Theseworkers, all of whom work out of theFlatbush depot in Brooklyn, have bee,nsubjected to company discipline andare threatened with losing their jobsmerely for refusing to cover their head-dresses with official MTA caps. 'The MTA's outrageous trampling ofthese workers' rights began last summer, when a probationary bus driver,Malikah Alkebulan, was written up for'refusing to cover up her scarf, knownas a khimar or hijab. Management thenwent after veteran bus drivers Stephanie Lewis and Deirdre Small, whohave worn sUl;;h heads carves at work for14 and 6 years respectively. An threewomen have been pulled from passenger service and punitively reassigned togarage duty and face continual companyharassment for defending their rights.These women are not helpless victimsbut are members of a powerful union,Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local

Defend Iraq ...(continued from page 9)troops into both the southern Shi'iteregion of Iraq as well as the Kurdishnorth. What all the regional bourgeoisies,as well as all the imperialist powers, donot want to see is the creation of anyindependent Kurdish state, which wouldchallenge the stability of the bourgeoisorder in the Near East.This underscores that any struggle forKurdish national liberation must bebased on implacable opposition to imperialism. In channeling Kurdish hostilityto the regime in Baghdad into the armsof the American imperialist invaders, theKurdish nationalist parties are preparing yet another bloody betrayal of thislong-suffering people. It is only throughthe overthrow of capitalist rule in Iran,Iraq, Syria and Turkey-establishing aSocialist Republic of United Kurdistanthat the Kurdish people can finally'realize national self-determination. As wewrote in our greetings to a 1984 conference of Kurdish militants in Europe

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100, which has the ability to mobilize itsmany thousands of members in theirdefense. This attack on union workersis an attack on the whole labor movement-an injury to one is an injury toall! TWU Local 100 must mobilize to puta stop to this racist and anti-Muslim big-otry and demand that all three women beimmediately restored to passenger servicewith their records wiped clean!I t is scandalous that the Local 100leadership is only now publicizing thiscase. Having filed grievances on behalf

of the women, which were denied, theTWU then submitted the case for arbitration on February 28 and held a small"arbitration rally" outside, with a rulingdue March 30. The union tops kept thiscase quiet during contract "negotiationslate last year, when transit workersvoted overwhelmingly to authorize astrike that could have shut down thewhole city. Local 100 president RogerToussaint averted such a showdown bypushing through a deeply unpopularcontract deal with a series of concessions. Among these are "reformed" disciplinary procedures which, far fromhelping workers ensnared in the company's draconian disciplinary process,in fact streamline the MTA's ability to

(reprinted in WV No. 362, 14 September 1984):"The Kurdish masses must look to analliance with the Arab, Persian and Turkish proletariats, who in tum must bemade to become determined championsof the Kurdish right of self-determinationagainst the great power chauvinism oftheir own bourgeoisies. The Bolsheviksled the Russian labouring masses to realise that they could never become freewithout resolute struggle against GreatRussian chauvinism. Such a revolutionary party must be built in each state andbecome the weapon for leading the prole-, tarlan and peasant masses to victory andin consequence to encourage such victoryelsewhere."

This struggle must be linked to the fightfor socialist revolution in the advanced capitalist countries. In Germany, for example,Kurdish and Turkish workers form a strategic component of the proletariat andface the same racist and anti-immigrantmeasures at the h_ands of the governmentsof "Fortress Europe."Only So