Click on the headline to link to a "Renegade Eye" Blog entry-Iran: We Will Take Revenge for Farzad and His Comrades!
Markin comment:
Every militant leftist fighter stands behind this commentary, whatever our other poltical differences.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
*Brother, Can You Spare A Dime? - The Real Story Of Homelessness In Song
Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of a performance of "Hobo's Lullaby"
CD Review
Give Us Your Poor, various artists, Appleseed Recordings, 2007
Sure, I have been homeless. Oh, not the desperate, day in, day out, year in, year out homelessness that drives the stories in this compilation of musical and storytelling artistic efforts to get people who are not homeless, have never been homeless, and hope never to be homeless to pay attention. And to not just walk away, around, or over the problem. I have been homeless enough though , and in dire enough straits at times to have a pretty good sense that the streets are not for dreaming, or for living in, and are definitely to be avoided at all costs. Those are mean streets out there, brothers and sisters. And asking for the occasional spare change, spare cigarette, spare anything is just the tip of the iceberg.
But, hell, let some real folks tell the story. And that is what they do here, interspersed with some celebrity performances, by some people that Appleseed Records (and U/Mass-Boston) has been fortunate enough to garner in and who, in their own ways, give a damn. Especially give a listen to “Land of 10,000 Homeless” –Minnesota” and the story that brother has to tell and Danny Glover’s recitation of “My Name Is Not “Those People”’. For those who are moved by celebrity, listen to Bonnie Raitt and Weepin' Willie Robinson on “Walking The Dog” and Sweet Honey In The Rock on “Stranger Blues”. And for those who want to get misty-eyed about the romance of the road- hobo style, at least vicariously, give a listen to Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seeger on a song made famous (although not written by) Woody Guthrie, “Hobo’s Lullaby”.
Let me finish with this little thought. I grew up dirt-poor and it was a long time before I knew, for real, that there was some other condition. One of the virtues, and maybe the only one, of being poor is that the vicissitudes, the ups and downs, of the world economy kind of pass me by, personally. However, I have elected, and rightly so, to fight so that poor is a word that is placed in the archives of human history through the struggle for our communist future where being homeless will be merely a relic of a barbaric age. But just in case, I will keep myself in shape. Brother (sister), can you spare a dime?
Hobo's Lullaby
by Goebel Reeves
Go to sleep you weary hobo
Let the towns drift slowly by
Can't you hear the steel rail humming
That's a hobo's lullaby
Do not think about tomorrow
Let tomorrow come and go
Tonight you're in a nice warm boxcar
Safe from all the wind and snow
I know the police cause you trouble
They cause trouble everywhere
But when you die and go to heaven
You won't find no policemen there
I know your clothes are torn and ragged
And your hair is turning grey
Lift your head and smile at trouble
You'll find happiness some day
So go to sleep you weary hobo
Let the towns drift slowly by
Don't you feel the steel rail humming
That's a hobo's lullaby
©1961,1962 (Renewed) Fall River Music, Inc. (BMI)
All Rights Reserved.
CD Review
Give Us Your Poor, various artists, Appleseed Recordings, 2007
Sure, I have been homeless. Oh, not the desperate, day in, day out, year in, year out homelessness that drives the stories in this compilation of musical and storytelling artistic efforts to get people who are not homeless, have never been homeless, and hope never to be homeless to pay attention. And to not just walk away, around, or over the problem. I have been homeless enough though , and in dire enough straits at times to have a pretty good sense that the streets are not for dreaming, or for living in, and are definitely to be avoided at all costs. Those are mean streets out there, brothers and sisters. And asking for the occasional spare change, spare cigarette, spare anything is just the tip of the iceberg.
But, hell, let some real folks tell the story. And that is what they do here, interspersed with some celebrity performances, by some people that Appleseed Records (and U/Mass-Boston) has been fortunate enough to garner in and who, in their own ways, give a damn. Especially give a listen to “Land of 10,000 Homeless” –Minnesota” and the story that brother has to tell and Danny Glover’s recitation of “My Name Is Not “Those People”’. For those who are moved by celebrity, listen to Bonnie Raitt and Weepin' Willie Robinson on “Walking The Dog” and Sweet Honey In The Rock on “Stranger Blues”. And for those who want to get misty-eyed about the romance of the road- hobo style, at least vicariously, give a listen to Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seeger on a song made famous (although not written by) Woody Guthrie, “Hobo’s Lullaby”.
Let me finish with this little thought. I grew up dirt-poor and it was a long time before I knew, for real, that there was some other condition. One of the virtues, and maybe the only one, of being poor is that the vicissitudes, the ups and downs, of the world economy kind of pass me by, personally. However, I have elected, and rightly so, to fight so that poor is a word that is placed in the archives of human history through the struggle for our communist future where being homeless will be merely a relic of a barbaric age. But just in case, I will keep myself in shape. Brother (sister), can you spare a dime?
Hobo's Lullaby
by Goebel Reeves
Go to sleep you weary hobo
Let the towns drift slowly by
Can't you hear the steel rail humming
That's a hobo's lullaby
Do not think about tomorrow
Let tomorrow come and go
Tonight you're in a nice warm boxcar
Safe from all the wind and snow
I know the police cause you trouble
They cause trouble everywhere
But when you die and go to heaven
You won't find no policemen there
I know your clothes are torn and ragged
And your hair is turning grey
Lift your head and smile at trouble
You'll find happiness some day
So go to sleep you weary hobo
Let the towns drift slowly by
Don't you feel the steel rail humming
That's a hobo's lullaby
©1961,1962 (Renewed) Fall River Music, Inc. (BMI)
All Rights Reserved.
*Of Cowboys and Cowgirls- The Music Of Carol Noonan
Click on the headline link to a "YouTube" film clip of Carol Noonan performing "Danny Boy". Yes, I know that is not a classic of the Old West (of America, at least) but I couldn't find anything from the "Big Iro"n CD.
CD Review
Big Iron, Carol Noonan, Noonan Music, 2001
I spent some little time a couple of years ago going over the transformation of the American Old West of cowboys, wild boys, fast guns and faster reputations into the New West populated by characters like Duane, in the series of novels written by Texas writer/bibliophile and flea marketeer, Larry McMurtry. Apparently, the myth of the Old West dies hard though, and for this review I am glad of it.
Why? For singer/songwriter and 'wannabe' cowgirl Carol Noonan (and friends) from ….Maine has given us a potpourri of very nice renditions of some of the old classic Western songs that people of a certain age, my age, grew up with as we absorbed our version of the Old West, via 1950s black and white television, of the likes of Hopalong Cassidy, the Cisco Kid and the Lone Ranger and his sidekick, Tonto.
Of course it helps if one has a beautiful voice, some good instruments and some good friends to harmonize with on this self-produced (I believe) CD. All that is left is to pick a few numbers that stand out in an album that is filled with them. “Red River Valley”, “High Noon”, “Streets Of Laredo”, and “Wayward Wind” readily come to mind. That list is "high" Old West, indeed.
The Streets of Laredo
arranged & adapted by Arlo Guthrie
As I walked out in the streets of Laredo
As I walked out in Laredo one day
I spied a poor cowboy wrapped up in white linen
All wrapped in white linen as cold as the clay
"I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy"
These words he did say as I proudly stepped by
"Come sit down beside me and hear my sad story
I'm shot in the breast and I know I must die
"'Twas once in the saddle I used to go ridin'
Once in the saddle I used to go gay
First lead to drinkin', and then to card-playing
I'm shot in the breast and I'm dying today
"Let six jolly cowboys come carry my coffin
Let six pretty gals come to carry my pall
Throw bunches of roses all over my coffin
Throw roses to deaden the clods as they fall
"Oh, beat the drum slowly, and play the fife lowly
And play the dead march as you carry me along
Take me to the green valley and lay the earth o'er me
For I'm a poor cowboy and I know I've done wrong"
We beat the drum slowly and played the fife lowly
And bitterly wept as we carried him along
For we all loved our comrade, so brave, young and handsome
We all loved our comrade although he done wrong
©1991 Arloco Music Inc
All Rights Reserved.
CD Review
Big Iron, Carol Noonan, Noonan Music, 2001
I spent some little time a couple of years ago going over the transformation of the American Old West of cowboys, wild boys, fast guns and faster reputations into the New West populated by characters like Duane, in the series of novels written by Texas writer/bibliophile and flea marketeer, Larry McMurtry. Apparently, the myth of the Old West dies hard though, and for this review I am glad of it.
Why? For singer/songwriter and 'wannabe' cowgirl Carol Noonan (and friends) from ….Maine has given us a potpourri of very nice renditions of some of the old classic Western songs that people of a certain age, my age, grew up with as we absorbed our version of the Old West, via 1950s black and white television, of the likes of Hopalong Cassidy, the Cisco Kid and the Lone Ranger and his sidekick, Tonto.
Of course it helps if one has a beautiful voice, some good instruments and some good friends to harmonize with on this self-produced (I believe) CD. All that is left is to pick a few numbers that stand out in an album that is filled with them. “Red River Valley”, “High Noon”, “Streets Of Laredo”, and “Wayward Wind” readily come to mind. That list is "high" Old West, indeed.
The Streets of Laredo
arranged & adapted by Arlo Guthrie
As I walked out in the streets of Laredo
As I walked out in Laredo one day
I spied a poor cowboy wrapped up in white linen
All wrapped in white linen as cold as the clay
"I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy"
These words he did say as I proudly stepped by
"Come sit down beside me and hear my sad story
I'm shot in the breast and I know I must die
"'Twas once in the saddle I used to go ridin'
Once in the saddle I used to go gay
First lead to drinkin', and then to card-playing
I'm shot in the breast and I'm dying today
"Let six jolly cowboys come carry my coffin
Let six pretty gals come to carry my pall
Throw bunches of roses all over my coffin
Throw roses to deaden the clods as they fall
"Oh, beat the drum slowly, and play the fife lowly
And play the dead march as you carry me along
Take me to the green valley and lay the earth o'er me
For I'm a poor cowboy and I know I've done wrong"
We beat the drum slowly and played the fife lowly
And bitterly wept as we carried him along
For we all loved our comrade, so brave, young and handsome
We all loved our comrade although he done wrong
©1991 Arloco Music Inc
All Rights Reserved.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
*Be Still My Heart- On Calling For The Greek Communist Parties And Trade Unions To Take Power
Click on the headline to link ot a "Wikipedia" thumbnail sketch entry for the Greek Communist Party (KKE). Use this entry solely as a start to learn about the KKE. Then push on from there.
Markin comment:
On May 10, 2010 I posted an entry on the situation in Greece in response to a post from the International Marxist Tendency’s Greek section’s analysis of the tasks that confront revolutionaries today. I agreed with the comment in the post that general strikes were of limited value if they did not, at some point, pose the question of who shall rule- working people or the capitalists. I went further and proposed two propaganda points that revolutionaries in Greece, and their supporters internationally, should be fighting for. Right now.
The first point revolved around the fight to create workers councils, committees of action or factory committees in order to fight for a revolutionary perspective. That program, the specifics which are better to left to those on the ground, needs to include refusal to pay the capitalists debts, under whatever guise, defense of the hard fought social welfare gains of the past, the struggle against the current government’s austerity program, the fight against any taint of popular frontism (opposition to alliances, at this critical juncture, with non-working class forces where the working class is the donkey and the small capitalist parties are the riders), and prepare to pose the question of who shall rule. Thus there is plenty of work that needs to be started now while the working masses are mobilized and in a furor over the current situation.
The second point, which flows out of the first, is the call for the Communist parties and trade unions to take power in their own right and in the interest of the working class. Now, clearly, and this is where some confusion has entered the picture, this is TODAY a propaganda call but is a concrete way to pose the question of who shall rule. Of course, we revolutionaries should have no illusions in the Stalinists and ex-Stalinists who run those parties and who, in previous times, have lived very comfortably with their various popular front, anti-monopolist strategies that preserve capitalism. However, today those organizations call for anti-governmental action and are listened to by the masses in the streets.
The point is to call their political bluff, carefully, but insistently. In that sense we are talking over the heads of the leaders to their social bases. Now that tactic is always proper for revolutionaries to gain authority but today we have to have a more concrete way to do so. In short, call on the Greek labor militants to call on their parties and unions to take power. And if not, then follow us. This is not some exotic formula from nowhere but reflects the sometimes painful experience, at least since the European revolutions of 1848.
Note: I headed today’s headline with the expression “be still my heart” for a reason. It has been a very long time since we have been able to, even propagandistically, call for workers parties on the European continent to take power. Especially, after the demise of the Soviet Union, for Stalinist (reformed or otherwise) parties to do so. Frankly, I did not think, as a practical matter, that I would be making such a call in Europe again in my lifetime. All proportions guarded, this may be the first wave of a new revolutionary upsurge on that continent. But, hell, its nice just to be able to, rationally, make that political call. In any case, the old utopian dream of a serious capitalist United States of Europe is getting ready to go into the dustbin of history. Let’s replace it with a Socialist Federation of Europe- and Greece today is the “epicenter”. SYRIZA-KKE to power!
Markin comment:
On May 10, 2010 I posted an entry on the situation in Greece in response to a post from the International Marxist Tendency’s Greek section’s analysis of the tasks that confront revolutionaries today. I agreed with the comment in the post that general strikes were of limited value if they did not, at some point, pose the question of who shall rule- working people or the capitalists. I went further and proposed two propaganda points that revolutionaries in Greece, and their supporters internationally, should be fighting for. Right now.
The first point revolved around the fight to create workers councils, committees of action or factory committees in order to fight for a revolutionary perspective. That program, the specifics which are better to left to those on the ground, needs to include refusal to pay the capitalists debts, under whatever guise, defense of the hard fought social welfare gains of the past, the struggle against the current government’s austerity program, the fight against any taint of popular frontism (opposition to alliances, at this critical juncture, with non-working class forces where the working class is the donkey and the small capitalist parties are the riders), and prepare to pose the question of who shall rule. Thus there is plenty of work that needs to be started now while the working masses are mobilized and in a furor over the current situation.
The second point, which flows out of the first, is the call for the Communist parties and trade unions to take power in their own right and in the interest of the working class. Now, clearly, and this is where some confusion has entered the picture, this is TODAY a propaganda call but is a concrete way to pose the question of who shall rule. Of course, we revolutionaries should have no illusions in the Stalinists and ex-Stalinists who run those parties and who, in previous times, have lived very comfortably with their various popular front, anti-monopolist strategies that preserve capitalism. However, today those organizations call for anti-governmental action and are listened to by the masses in the streets.
The point is to call their political bluff, carefully, but insistently. In that sense we are talking over the heads of the leaders to their social bases. Now that tactic is always proper for revolutionaries to gain authority but today we have to have a more concrete way to do so. In short, call on the Greek labor militants to call on their parties and unions to take power. And if not, then follow us. This is not some exotic formula from nowhere but reflects the sometimes painful experience, at least since the European revolutions of 1848.
Note: I headed today’s headline with the expression “be still my heart” for a reason. It has been a very long time since we have been able to, even propagandistically, call for workers parties on the European continent to take power. Especially, after the demise of the Soviet Union, for Stalinist (reformed or otherwise) parties to do so. Frankly, I did not think, as a practical matter, that I would be making such a call in Europe again in my lifetime. All proportions guarded, this may be the first wave of a new revolutionary upsurge on that continent. But, hell, its nice just to be able to, rationally, make that political call. In any case, the old utopian dream of a serious capitalist United States of Europe is getting ready to go into the dustbin of history. Let’s replace it with a Socialist Federation of Europe- and Greece today is the “epicenter”. SYRIZA-KKE to power!
*From The Leon Trotsky Archives- With Greece In Mind Today- A Program Of Action In France (1934)
Click on the headline to link to an "Leon Trotsky Internet Archive" online copy of his "Program of Action for France" in 1934.
Markin comment:
Yes, I know France in 1934 was a long time ago. Yes, I know the conditions then with the very ominous rise of fascism in Europe were somewhat different that today's "democratic" international capitalist globalization. And yes, I know the Soviet Union is gone as a factor in world politics. To our disadvantage. But read some of these points and see if you don't agree that they apply in Greece today. Leon Trotsky is speaking our revolutionary language, wherever he is.
Markin comment:
Yes, I know France in 1934 was a long time ago. Yes, I know the conditions then with the very ominous rise of fascism in Europe were somewhat different that today's "democratic" international capitalist globalization. And yes, I know the Soviet Union is gone as a factor in world politics. To our disadvantage. But read some of these points and see if you don't agree that they apply in Greece today. Leon Trotsky is speaking our revolutionary language, wherever he is.
*From The Leon Trotsky Internet Archives- With Greece In Mind- The Lessons of History- "The French Revolution Has Begun " (1936)
Click on the headline to link to a "Leon Trotsky Internet archive" online copy of "The French Revolution Has Begun" from his 1936 pamphlet, "Whither France?".
Markin comment:
Every Greek militant, and every supporter of the working class struggles in Greece today, can benefit, and benefit greatly, from reading Leon Trotsky's works, especially those from the mid-1930s when another period of class struggle was heating up and the struggle for power- working class power- was posed. This time we had better learn our lessons early- and win
Markin comment:
Every Greek militant, and every supporter of the working class struggles in Greece today, can benefit, and benefit greatly, from reading Leon Trotsky's works, especially those from the mid-1930s when another period of class struggle was heating up and the struggle for power- working class power- was posed. This time we had better learn our lessons early- and win
*Avenge The Communist Defeat In The Greek Civil War Of 1946-49- The Lessons Of History
Click on the headline to link to a "Marxist Internet Archives" entry for the Greek Civil War Of 1946-49.
Markin comment:
Politics is sometimes a strange business. We all recognize that history does not exactly repeat itself. And it is also true that humankind makes its own history- although not always to its liking. Some things though, like the communist defeat in the Greek Civil War, despite our disagreements with its Stalinist leadership, were definitely not to our liking, but may be capable of reversal. Or at least of a modicum of historical justice. That is the backdrop of today's fight by the working class in the streets of Greece. May they win, and win big.
Avenge the lost in the 1946-49 civil war!
Markin comment:
Politics is sometimes a strange business. We all recognize that history does not exactly repeat itself. And it is also true that humankind makes its own history- although not always to its liking. Some things though, like the communist defeat in the Greek Civil War, despite our disagreements with its Stalinist leadership, were definitely not to our liking, but may be capable of reversal. Or at least of a modicum of historical justice. That is the backdrop of today's fight by the working class in the streets of Greece. May they win, and win big.
Avenge the lost in the 1946-49 civil war!
*From The Leon Trotsky Archives-The Lesson Of History- With Greece Today In Mind- "Committees Of Action-Nor People's Front" (1935)
Click on the headline to link to a "Leon Trotsky Internet Archive" online copy of his "Committees Of Action-Nor People's Front" (1935) from his pamphlet "Whiter France?"(1936).
Markin comment:
Once again Leon Trotsky speaks, and speaks our revolutionary language, from wherever the revolutionary pantheon is.
Markin comment:
Once again Leon Trotsky speaks, and speaks our revolutionary language, from wherever the revolutionary pantheon is.
*From The "An Unrepentant Communist" Blog- The Struggle In Greece- Yes, The Peoples Of Europe Rise Up
Click on the headline to link to "An Unrepentant Communist" blog enrty on the struggle in Greece and the lessons for those elsewhere in Europe (and the Americas).
*From The "United For Justice With Peace" (UJP) Website- On The Afghan War Budget-Vote No!
Click on the headline to link to a "United For Justice With Peace" (UJP) Website entry- On The Afghan War Budget-Vote No!
Markin comment:
Okay, vote NO on the war budget but organize out on the streets around - Obama- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal of All U.S./Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan!
The streets are not for dreaming now.
Markin comment:
Okay, vote NO on the war budget but organize out on the streets around - Obama- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal of All U.S./Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan!
The streets are not for dreaming now.
Monday, May 10, 2010
*Open Letter from the Internationalist Group to the Spartacist League and ICL- A Guest Commentary
Click on the headline to link to an International Communist League statement,"Repudiating Our Position On Haiti Earthquake", dated April 27, 2010, which is the document that the Internationalist Group open letter below is referring to in its polemic.
May 2010
Repentant Social Imperialists
Open Letter from the Internationalist Group
to the Spartacist League and ICL
The Spartacist League/U.S. and the International Communist League it leads are in a heap of political trouble. The International Executive Committee of the ICL has now issued a statement “Repudiating Our Position on Haiti Earthquake,” headlined “A Capitulation to U.S. Imperialism” (27 April 2010). More specifically, it repudiates the SL/ICL’s support to the U.S./U.N. invasion of Haiti in the name of humanitarian aid. The statement doesn’t mince words, characterizing the position taken by the SL’s newspaper Workers Vanguard as “a betrayal of the fundamental principle of opposition to one’s ‘own’ imperialist rulers,” that included “justifying the U.S. imperialist troops as essential to the aid effort” and “polemiciz[ing] against the principled and correct position of demanding the immediate withdrawal of the troops.” You write:
“We accepted Washington’s line that the provision of aid was inextricably linked to the U.S. military takeover and thus helped to sell the myth peddled by the Democratic Party Obama administration that this was a ‘humanitarian’ mission....
“Thus we gutted the revolutionary internationalist essence of Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution linking the fight for social and national liberation to the struggle for proletarian state power both in neocolonial and in more advanced countries.”
That’s some pretty strong coffee, as the Germans say, and all true.
Your statement says that this became the “de facto line” of the ICL, which was carried by the presses of a number of other sections. It admits that the Internationalist Group “correctly characterized” the SL/ICL’s line as “social imperialist.” In fact, whole passages of the ICL’s repudiation statement seem to have been taken almost word-for-word from two Internationalist articles, “Spartacist League Backs U.S. Imperialist Invasion of Haiti” (30 January) and “SL Twists and Turns on Haiti” (9 April). Clearly, someone read at least our latest article, agreed with much of it, and said so. But what the IG wrote simply upheld the Leninist position of unconditional opposition to imperialist rule of semi-colonial countries that the SL/ICL stood for when it represented revolutionary Trotskyism.
Your emphatic repudiation of the ignominious position you vehemently pushed for three months shows a degree of candor uncommon on the left, and is a considerable improvement over the Pentagon propaganda you were retailing and your blatant support for U.S. imperialist occupation of Haiti. Yet in your April 27 statement and afterwards, even as you acknowledge the “dishonesty” of your earlier articles, the lies against those who did tell the truth continue unabated. Moreover, your explanations of why and how your fundamental betrayal came about don’t hold water. You admit to the crime, but fail to give a serious explanation of the reasons for it. And that virtually guarantees it will happen again. This isn’t the first time that the SL/ICL bowed to the pressure of its “own” ruling class, nor the first time you have smeared the IG/LFI for our revolutionary opposition to U.S. imperialism.
So let’s begin with the key issues raised by your abrupt reversal about the U.S. troops in Haiti. The most fundamental is: why wasn’t there a gut response of opposition to the imperialist invasion? How could you become active propagandists for U.S. imperialist invasion without any internal turmoil? In any genuinely revolutionary party, a betrayal of class principle would lead to a rip-roaring faction fight and eventual split. Relying on recovered memory of the revolutionary Trotskyism the SL/ICL once championed, it is possible to write a statement. But to actually become a revolutionary leadership requires a hard fight that goes to the root of the betrayals.
It all goes back to the devastating impact on the Spartacist League and International Communist League of the counterrevolutionary destruction of the Soviet Union and the East European deformed workers states in 1989-92. It began by a turn toward passive propagandism and desertion from the class struggle, and subsequently led to a series of revisions of key programmatic questions. The most fundamental was your declaration (in your 1998 revised program) that the key thesis of Trotsky’s Transitional Program, that the crisis of humanity is reduced to the crisis of revolutionary leadership, was outdated due to a supposed “deep regression of proletarian consciousness.”
We have pointed out how virtually every revisionist, from Ernest Mandel to Nahuel Moreno to Peter Taaffe, embraced the same doctrine of historical pessimism in order to justify abandoning the revolutionary program (see The Internationalist No. 5, April-May 1998). Like all revisionism, this comes down to a loss of confidence in the revolutionary capacity of the proletariat. It is just a “left” version of the bourgeois lie of the “death of communism” – you need only read the notes by the SL’s theoretical spokesman to see this (see WV No. 949, 1 January 2010). As we have remarked, it is the SL/ICL’s consciousness that has suffered a qualitative regression. This is proven by your line of support to the U.S. invasion of Haiti.
Since the April 27 statement vows to carry out a “savage indictment of our line” in the interests of “political rectification,” we would like to pose a few key issues that need to be addressed by any comrade in or around the SL/ICL who wants to get to the bottom of this betrayal.
1) How did this betrayal come about?
We, too, have had some discussion of what the SL/ICL’s support for the U.S. imperialist invasion of Haiti and repudiation mean. No one can be convinced by the ICL’s claim that this betrayal occurred because of the absence of “an organized discussion and vote, instead setting our line through informal consultation.” For a momentary lapse, an article that missed the mark, perhaps, as an explanation for a fundamental betrayal of class principle, crossing the class line, impossible. This was no accidental slip, no oversight by the editor. It was full-throated support for imperialist invasion. Workers Vanguard published five articles in six consecutive issues repeatedly denouncing the IG for calling for U.S./U.N. forces out of Haiti. WV heaped lie upon lie, distortion upon distortion. And now, all of a sudden, the SL flip-flops. All because of a lack of formal discussion? Please.
The ICL statement remarks, “As one leading party comrade argued, the only difference between the position we took and August 4, 1914, when the German Social Democrats voted war credits to the German imperialist rulers at the outset of the First World War, is that this was not a war.” So follow the analogy: “Well, you see we didn’t have a formal discussion with Karl and Rosa there, so we unfortunately ended up voting for the war budget”? The SPD reformists didn’t “correct” their vote, of course, but the centrists who later formed the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) did, voting against war credits in December 1915. Yet the USPD played a key role in preventing proletarian revolution in Germany in 1918-19. Or take the Spanish POUM, which supported the People’s Front in the 1936 elections, then later pulled back as the popular-front government was sabotaging the Civil War against Franco. As Trotsky explained, the centrist POUM played a key role in blocking workers revolution in Spain.
Think about it a minute: how could SLers insist (as they did at a panel discussion with Haitian and Dominican leftists sponsored by the Internationalist Club at Hunter College in New York) that calling for U.S./U.N. troops out of Haiti equaled support for bourgeois nationalism? Because of a lack of “formal discussion”? The ICL gives a definitive answer as to why this is not true. It states, “However, once the line was published in Workers Vanguard it was picked up by many of the ICL’s other sectional presses, indicating that there was little initial disagreement.” You support a U.S. invasion under the guise of humanitarian aid and there is “little initial disagreement.” That says it all: the entire ICL swallowed this betrayal. Had any section strongly objected, we can be sure this would have been noted in the repudiation as saving the ICL’s honor. So even if you had had a discussion, you would likely have come up with the same line.
In fact, you did have a meeting, on March 18, and what did it do? According to the ICL statement, “the motions adopted at that meeting, which became the basis for the article in WV No. 955, reaffirmed that ‘we were correct in not calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake’.” And then, by your own admission, you proceeded to lie about your original line, claiming that you had “made clear in our article” of 29 January that “we were not for the U.S. military going into Haiti,” when in fact you said no such thing. Moreover, the March 18 meeting reportedly passed motions “criticizing the formulation that the U.S. military was the only force on the ground with the wherewithal to deliver aid,” but “did not mandate a public correction of this statement.” And again, by your own account, you “misused the authority” of Trotsky, distorting the meaning of his 1938 article “Learn to Think,” “in order to alibi support to an imperialist occupation.”
The whole business reeks of cynicism. You didn’t just accidentally fall into error by an oversight or lack of clarity. You not only repeatedly screeched that the IG was embracing bourgeois nationalism by opposing the U.S. invasion, you distorted Trotsky and then lied to cover your tracks. You held onto your “zealous apologies for the U.S. imperialist military intervention” (your description) for dear life. But under polemical pounding from the LFI, someone, perhaps the “leading party comrade” referred to in the ICL statement, took note and said this was going too far. This time. Without that call to order, you would still be hailing the 82nd Airborne Division and the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit as humanitarian aid deliverers.
You might pause to consider the ramifications of your admitted betrayal. What if no leading party comrade had said, “stop” – where would you be then? “Pentagon socialists” anyone? Ask yourselves, how could an entire organization which declares itself revolutionary, Marxist and communist swallow this apology for U.S. imperialism, hook, line and sinker? Why didn’t a whole layer of comrades vociferously object, saying “this makes me sick to my stomach – I’m revolted and outraged over the apology for the takeover of a semi-colonial country by U.S. imperialism.” Why did this go down without a ripple and remain your line for almost three months?
2) Why did this betrayal come about? It was an extension of previous capitulation to the pressures of U.S. imperialism.
We submit that the origin of this betrayal lies in the fact that repeatedly over the last decade, the Spartacist League and International Communist League have shamefully capitulated to the pressures of U.S. imperialism. As a result, alibiing the U.S. invasion of Haiti must have seemed to many just a logical extension of your previous positions, which it was.
Take a look at what happened after the 11 September 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, which clearly shook up the SL and ICL. But having lost your political compass with the demise of the Soviet Union, the SL/ICL reacted by abandoning key elements of the Leninist-Trotskyist program toward imperialist war. You issued a statement (see WV No. 764, 14 September 2001) with paragraphs of denunciations of terrorism but not a word in defense of Afghanistan (which the U.S. immediately targeted for retaliation). After Washington invaded, you belatedly came out in defense of Afghanistan, but still pointedly refused to call for the defeat of U.S. imperialism.
That was not all. You then proceeded to viciously attack the Internationalist Group/League for the Fourth International for our call from the very outset (in our 14 September 2001 statement) for defense of Afghanistan and for the defeat of U.S. imperialism. You wrote that our line amounted to “Playing the Counterfeit Card of Anti-Americanism,” as you stated in a subhead, and of appealing to an audience of “‘Third World’ nationalists for whom the ‘only good American is a dead American’” (Workers Vanguard No. 767, 26 October 2001). Yet the position we put forward was the same program the SL/ICL had proclaimed on the front pages of WV for years, in the Persian Gulf War, Yugoslavia and elsewhere.
Think what that vile accusation meant in the midst of the war hysteria sweeping the United States. Not only was this a monstrous lie, but as anybody could see, it could have encouraged repression against us. And consider the implications for today: if it was okay to go around “anti-American”-baiting opponents on your left, for upholding the political line you abandoned under fire, then it’s small potatoes to say – demagogically, as you now admit – that our call for U.S./U.N. troops out “would result in mass death through starvation.”
Your dropping the call for defeat of U.S. imperialism’s war on Afghanistan and Iraq had many expressions. Our call for the defeat of U.S. imperialism was not an abstract slogan. As we had done in the Spartacist League and ICL, we coupled it with propaganda and agitation calling on transportation workers to refuse to handle (“hot-cargo”) war materiel, and for workers strikes against the war. Yet you abandoned the call for “hot cargoing” military goods precisely when it was most possible to realize it, at the beginning of October 2002 in the midst of the build-up for the Iraq invasion, when the employers shut down the ports with a lockout. (Your excuse: that a Taft-Hartley injunction on the West Coast docks supposedly made this too dangerous.)
As for workers strikes against the war, you ridiculed this in 1998 when our comrades of the Liga Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil (LQB) raised this call (over a U.S. attack on Iraq by the Democratic government of Bill Clinton), saying this had no “resonance” among the workers. And on May Day 2008, when it turned out the demand had plenty of “resonance” among the workers and the ILWU longshore union shut down every port on the Pacific Coast to stop the war, you claimed that this was just flag-waving support for the Democratic Party, it was only about Iraq, not Afghanistan, it didn’t have any impact, etc. The fact that the union delegates, in voting to shut the ports, denounced the Democrats for helping continue the war – and that in fact there was a striking dearth of American flags in the San Francisco march – made no difference. Here, as well, your goal of covering your own tracks made you twist the facts. And you repeat the lies put out by the bureaucracy that bitterly fought against calls for strikes against the war.
Your refusal to call loud and clear for the defeat of U.S. imperialism, your dropping calls for “hot-cargoing” war goods, your sneering at the first workers strike in the United States against a U.S. war are all capitulations to “your own” imperialist bourgeois rulers. And then, when Obama dispatched an invasion force to Haiti in the name of providing earthquake relief, you alibied it. That step placed you squarely in the camp of social imperialism; it crossed the class line to open support for the bourgeoisie. But it was another step on a road you had been going down for years.
3) How can you claim to uphold permanent revolution while denying the possibility of workers revolution in Haiti?
Having admitted that the Internationalist Group was right in opposing the U.S. imperialist invasion of Haiti, you still accuse the IG of “Third Worldist fantasies,” of seeing the earthquake as being an “opening for revolution” because we wrote that the “small but militant proletariat can place itself at the head of the impoverished urban and rural masses seeking to organize their own power” while the Haitian capitalist state machinery lay in tatters. Evidently you continue to hold that Haiti has “virtually no working class.” We have suggested various ways to test this claim, including photos of more than 10,000 Haitian workers marching on parliament demanding an increase in the miserable minimum wage. However, again, the fact of the existence of a Haitian proletariat has no impact on your position.
But if it is a “Third Worldist fantasy” to say that a proletarian revolution could begin in Haiti – as we do, while emphasizing that it must spread to the Dominican Republic, other parts of Latin America and above all the U.S. imperialist heartland if it is to succeed – then how can you claim to uphold Trotsky’s perspective of permanent revolution in Haiti? That program emphasizes that in the imperialist epoch in order to achieve even the democratic tasks of the classic bourgeois revolutions, the workers (led by their communist party) must take power and go on to undertake socialist tasks and spread the revolution internationally. If there is no working class, it can’t take power, and revolution can only come from without. That was your position from January 29 to April 27. Do you maintain this?
The SL/ICL also accuses us of being “apologists for Third World nationalism,” though no specifics are given. (In 2001, the “proof” for this claim was that the IG and LFI called for defeat of U.S. imperialism.) In particular, there is no mention of your bogus claim that we support Aristide, perhaps because your main “proof” of this lie was that “the IG’s shrieking about the supposed imperialist ‘invasion’” of Haiti somehow portrayed Aristide as “the embodiment of national independence.” Since you now agree there was a “U.S. military invasion,” this charge falls flat.
And if you are curious about the existence of a Bolivian working class, which the SL/ICL also denies, you might watch a video of a recent demonstration by factory workers in La Paz, Bolivia, available on the Internet at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g67JkH0srEE. What comes through here from the SL is rank American imperialist chauvinism and disdain for the struggles of the workers in semi-colonial countries. In loudly proclaiming that they no longer “advocate” independence for Puerto Rico and then extending that internationally to other colonies, they abandon one of thecardinal points of the Leninist struggle against imperialism. Up until now SL members have shrieked that to say such a thing is sheer “provocation.” Perhaps they will be less quick to do so now. But that remains to be seen.
4) What does your support for the U.S. invasion/occupation of Haiti mean for the ICL’s claim to be the embodiment of revolutionary continuity? A “revolutionary leadership” doesn’t betray the class interests of the proletariat.
We hear from the Grupo Internacionalista, Mexican section of the LFI, that members of the Grupo Espartaquista came to the May Day marches with a rote response to justify the ICL’s claim to represent the revolutionary vanguard. Other communist formations have committed “errors” in the past, they argued, but didn’t cease to be communists. For example, when the Polish Communist Party supported the putsch by the ex-Socialist Josef Pilsudski in 1926. This is just grasping at straws. The Polish CP’s “May error” was a reflection of the general “right-centrist” degeneration of the Comintern, as Trotsky explained in The Third International After Lenin.
What the GEM members considered their trump card was Trotsky’s call on the eve of World War II for a “Proletarian Military Policy,” for trade-union control of military training (for the imperialist armies). After all, Max Shachtman, the renegade from Trotskyism, polemically exposed what was wrong with the PMP, but he remained a centrist while the SWP, which upheld Trotsky’s policy, was revolutionary.
To equate this mistaken call by Trotsky with the SL/ICL’s “zealous apologies for the U.S. military intervention” in Haiti is grotesque. Are you saying that Trotsky betrayed the world’s workers with the PMP? Also, why do we say that the SWP remained the revolutionary party? In the first place, the error represented by the PMP was not equivalent to active support to U.S. imperialist takeover of a semi-colonial country. Moreover, on the key issue in dispute with Shachtman, the SWP defended the Soviet Union against imperialism, despite Stalin’s betrayals, while Shachtman with his “Third Camp” position refused to defend the bureaucratically degenerated workers state. The SL/ICL, however, had abandoned the call for defeat of its “own” imperialist rulers in war against semi-colonial Afghanistan (and then Iraq) years before its Haiti betrayal. This call, which it used to raise with regularity on the front page of WV, is now only mentioned as a whispered aside, if at all.
This desperate search for historical precedents is a textbook case of scholasticism, of a piece with WV’s convoluted comparison of the question of aid to Haiti today with the SWP’s line on aid to the Soviet Union in World War II. A clever (?) comeback can’t explain away a betrayal.
Your basic argument is that you repudiated your support for the U.S. imperialist invasion, and indeed “savagely” attacked it, so that supposedly proves you are still the revolutionaries. As in the Catholic church, it seems you can confess to all sorts of venial and even some mortal sins, but as long as you admit all (and don’t question the role of the Catholic church as the one true representative of Christianity), you can be absolved. But unlike religions, revolutionary politics is not a revealed doctrine and self-enclosed movement of the elect. The vanguard party has a dialectical relationship to the proletariat, representing both the fundamental interests of the class and the revolutionary program that is the product of historical experience. It has to earn its spurs by providing revolutionary leadership in the class struggle.
This was at the core of the fight over the ICL intervention in Germany, where you proclaimed the ICL was the (self-anointed) revolutionary leadership and declared comrades apostates for saying that we were struggling to become it. With your position of vociferous support to the U.S. invasion of Haiti, you grievously misled whoever still believed that you were the revolutionary leadership, which mercifully is not very many. Despite your pious proclamations today, how is one to know that what you say tomorrow isn’t a continuation of what you said yesterday? The only way to tell is if there is a revolutionary consistency to the program, but the ICL has been anything but consistent over the last decade and a half (just reread what you wrote about your last two conferences). And the program must be carried out. As we pointed out, even when the SL claimed to oppose imperialist occupation of Haiti, it was essentially meaningless: one short article at the time of the 2004 U.S./French/Canadian invasion. And then silence.
You can’t just say, “Oh, we really messed up, but we confessed and washed away our sins, so everything is okay.” Your members go right on vituperating at the Internationalist Group that the SL is “the real thing,” as if nothing had happened. How about a little recognition of what you have just done? The ICL statement says, “Without a public accounting and correction, we would be far down the road to our destruction as a revolutionary party.” Actually, the SL/ICL ceased some while ago to be a revolutionary party, as your own account of your betrayal in Haiti makes abundantly clear. What is true is that if you hadn’t repudiated your line of support for the U.S. imperialist invasion, you would be far down the road to outright reformism. By pulling back from that, you only demonstrate that the ICL is today, and has been for the last decade, a centrist political formation. The next zigzag, the next upheaval, the next revelation – these are only a matter of time.
It is hardly convincing to proclaim that, “Only through a savage indictment of our line can we avoid the alternative of going down the road that led the founders of the IG to defect from our organization in the pursuit of forces other than the proletariat” when you yourselves have had to admit that we upheld the class line as against your “zealous apologies” for U.S. imperialism.
Which brings us to a matter that keeps coming up in your voluminous polemics against the IG and League for the Fourth International (which you never mention). In this instance you say the founders of the Internationalist Group “defect[ed]” from the ICL, on other occasions you have claimed we “fled,” “broke from” or “departed from our ranks.” You resort to these circumlocutions in order to avoid dealing with the simple fact that the founders of the IG and the LFI were expelled from the ICL sections in the U.S., Mexico and France in a political purge. You thereby try to equate us with the misnamed International Bolshevik Tendency, whose founders quit, and indeed fled from, the ICL at the height of Cold War II, objecting to our hard-edged defense of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and Poland. In the case of the founders of the IG, we were thrown out precisely because we wouldn’t quit.
Judging by its own description of its last three conferences, the SL/ICL seems to have a penchant for “correcting correct verdicts,” as Chinese Stalinist leader Deng Xiaoping put it. Stalin, too, made many zigzags during his time as a centrist. But he was based on the material reality of the bureaucracy that had at its disposal the enormous resources of the Soviet state. What does the SL have? When we read, in your account of your latest conference – which was dominated by a huge faction fight – that your “central task” is “to arm the party programmatically and theoretically, from Spartacist to the maintenance of our Central Committee archive,” the picture is that of an inwardly turned group voluntarily walled off from the class struggle. You can practically hear the embalming fluid dripping. But for all the importance of archival work, the ICL hasn’t been doing such a good job arming the party programmatically, has it?
The SL/ICL declares that, in this period, the struggles of the working class no longer have any link to the goal of socialist revolution. That supposed theoretical justification allows it to haughtily dismiss the possibility that sectors of the working class could be won to key aspects of the revolutionary program, or carry out actions that concretize them (like strikes against the war or “hot-cargoing”). This “revolutionary” rationale is really just an adaptation to what is, to the bourgeois order. As the ICL statement rightly stated, your line on Haiti was the “politics of the possible,” the phrase of Michael Harrington, the “socialist” advisor of Democratic presidents Kennedy and Johnson. This current has a long history going back to the French possibilists in the 1880s, who reflecting demoralization following the bloody 1871 defeat of the Paris Commune said one could only fight for what is possible, which was not workers revolution.
While other groups may limit themselves to bourgeois democratic demands or low-level trade-union struggle, the ICL line is “Stop the class struggle, I want to get off.” This is your particular version of the demoralization that affected large sectors of the left (even those who denied the Soviet Union was any kind of workers state) as a result of the victory of counterrevolution in the USSR. The SL/ICL pulled back from its support for the U.S. invasion when it saw its image in the mirror of reformism. But for those who do not wish to keep on gyrating in centrist confusion while insisting they “are” the revolutionary leadership, there must be a thorough-going search for the causes of the betrayal. Those genuinely looking for the roots of the SL’s pro-imperialist “politics of the possible” over Haiti would do well to examine the real record of its adaptations and capitulations to “its own” bourgeoisie over the past years.
Your leadership will undoubtedly tell you (and themselves) that this is the most serious challenge the ICL has faced. Indeed. However, the challenge is not to defend the revolutionary pretensions of the ICL at all costs, but to fight for revolutionary programmatic clarity. Of course, if you do undertake such a fight, you will doubtless soon discover the limits of the desired political rectification.
Internationalist Group/League for the Fourth International
8 May 2010
May 2010
Repentant Social Imperialists
Open Letter from the Internationalist Group
to the Spartacist League and ICL
The Spartacist League/U.S. and the International Communist League it leads are in a heap of political trouble. The International Executive Committee of the ICL has now issued a statement “Repudiating Our Position on Haiti Earthquake,” headlined “A Capitulation to U.S. Imperialism” (27 April 2010). More specifically, it repudiates the SL/ICL’s support to the U.S./U.N. invasion of Haiti in the name of humanitarian aid. The statement doesn’t mince words, characterizing the position taken by the SL’s newspaper Workers Vanguard as “a betrayal of the fundamental principle of opposition to one’s ‘own’ imperialist rulers,” that included “justifying the U.S. imperialist troops as essential to the aid effort” and “polemiciz[ing] against the principled and correct position of demanding the immediate withdrawal of the troops.” You write:
“We accepted Washington’s line that the provision of aid was inextricably linked to the U.S. military takeover and thus helped to sell the myth peddled by the Democratic Party Obama administration that this was a ‘humanitarian’ mission....
“Thus we gutted the revolutionary internationalist essence of Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution linking the fight for social and national liberation to the struggle for proletarian state power both in neocolonial and in more advanced countries.”
That’s some pretty strong coffee, as the Germans say, and all true.
Your statement says that this became the “de facto line” of the ICL, which was carried by the presses of a number of other sections. It admits that the Internationalist Group “correctly characterized” the SL/ICL’s line as “social imperialist.” In fact, whole passages of the ICL’s repudiation statement seem to have been taken almost word-for-word from two Internationalist articles, “Spartacist League Backs U.S. Imperialist Invasion of Haiti” (30 January) and “SL Twists and Turns on Haiti” (9 April). Clearly, someone read at least our latest article, agreed with much of it, and said so. But what the IG wrote simply upheld the Leninist position of unconditional opposition to imperialist rule of semi-colonial countries that the SL/ICL stood for when it represented revolutionary Trotskyism.
Your emphatic repudiation of the ignominious position you vehemently pushed for three months shows a degree of candor uncommon on the left, and is a considerable improvement over the Pentagon propaganda you were retailing and your blatant support for U.S. imperialist occupation of Haiti. Yet in your April 27 statement and afterwards, even as you acknowledge the “dishonesty” of your earlier articles, the lies against those who did tell the truth continue unabated. Moreover, your explanations of why and how your fundamental betrayal came about don’t hold water. You admit to the crime, but fail to give a serious explanation of the reasons for it. And that virtually guarantees it will happen again. This isn’t the first time that the SL/ICL bowed to the pressure of its “own” ruling class, nor the first time you have smeared the IG/LFI for our revolutionary opposition to U.S. imperialism.
So let’s begin with the key issues raised by your abrupt reversal about the U.S. troops in Haiti. The most fundamental is: why wasn’t there a gut response of opposition to the imperialist invasion? How could you become active propagandists for U.S. imperialist invasion without any internal turmoil? In any genuinely revolutionary party, a betrayal of class principle would lead to a rip-roaring faction fight and eventual split. Relying on recovered memory of the revolutionary Trotskyism the SL/ICL once championed, it is possible to write a statement. But to actually become a revolutionary leadership requires a hard fight that goes to the root of the betrayals.
It all goes back to the devastating impact on the Spartacist League and International Communist League of the counterrevolutionary destruction of the Soviet Union and the East European deformed workers states in 1989-92. It began by a turn toward passive propagandism and desertion from the class struggle, and subsequently led to a series of revisions of key programmatic questions. The most fundamental was your declaration (in your 1998 revised program) that the key thesis of Trotsky’s Transitional Program, that the crisis of humanity is reduced to the crisis of revolutionary leadership, was outdated due to a supposed “deep regression of proletarian consciousness.”
We have pointed out how virtually every revisionist, from Ernest Mandel to Nahuel Moreno to Peter Taaffe, embraced the same doctrine of historical pessimism in order to justify abandoning the revolutionary program (see The Internationalist No. 5, April-May 1998). Like all revisionism, this comes down to a loss of confidence in the revolutionary capacity of the proletariat. It is just a “left” version of the bourgeois lie of the “death of communism” – you need only read the notes by the SL’s theoretical spokesman to see this (see WV No. 949, 1 January 2010). As we have remarked, it is the SL/ICL’s consciousness that has suffered a qualitative regression. This is proven by your line of support to the U.S. invasion of Haiti.
Since the April 27 statement vows to carry out a “savage indictment of our line” in the interests of “political rectification,” we would like to pose a few key issues that need to be addressed by any comrade in or around the SL/ICL who wants to get to the bottom of this betrayal.
1) How did this betrayal come about?
We, too, have had some discussion of what the SL/ICL’s support for the U.S. imperialist invasion of Haiti and repudiation mean. No one can be convinced by the ICL’s claim that this betrayal occurred because of the absence of “an organized discussion and vote, instead setting our line through informal consultation.” For a momentary lapse, an article that missed the mark, perhaps, as an explanation for a fundamental betrayal of class principle, crossing the class line, impossible. This was no accidental slip, no oversight by the editor. It was full-throated support for imperialist invasion. Workers Vanguard published five articles in six consecutive issues repeatedly denouncing the IG for calling for U.S./U.N. forces out of Haiti. WV heaped lie upon lie, distortion upon distortion. And now, all of a sudden, the SL flip-flops. All because of a lack of formal discussion? Please.
The ICL statement remarks, “As one leading party comrade argued, the only difference between the position we took and August 4, 1914, when the German Social Democrats voted war credits to the German imperialist rulers at the outset of the First World War, is that this was not a war.” So follow the analogy: “Well, you see we didn’t have a formal discussion with Karl and Rosa there, so we unfortunately ended up voting for the war budget”? The SPD reformists didn’t “correct” their vote, of course, but the centrists who later formed the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) did, voting against war credits in December 1915. Yet the USPD played a key role in preventing proletarian revolution in Germany in 1918-19. Or take the Spanish POUM, which supported the People’s Front in the 1936 elections, then later pulled back as the popular-front government was sabotaging the Civil War against Franco. As Trotsky explained, the centrist POUM played a key role in blocking workers revolution in Spain.
Think about it a minute: how could SLers insist (as they did at a panel discussion with Haitian and Dominican leftists sponsored by the Internationalist Club at Hunter College in New York) that calling for U.S./U.N. troops out of Haiti equaled support for bourgeois nationalism? Because of a lack of “formal discussion”? The ICL gives a definitive answer as to why this is not true. It states, “However, once the line was published in Workers Vanguard it was picked up by many of the ICL’s other sectional presses, indicating that there was little initial disagreement.” You support a U.S. invasion under the guise of humanitarian aid and there is “little initial disagreement.” That says it all: the entire ICL swallowed this betrayal. Had any section strongly objected, we can be sure this would have been noted in the repudiation as saving the ICL’s honor. So even if you had had a discussion, you would likely have come up with the same line.
In fact, you did have a meeting, on March 18, and what did it do? According to the ICL statement, “the motions adopted at that meeting, which became the basis for the article in WV No. 955, reaffirmed that ‘we were correct in not calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake’.” And then, by your own admission, you proceeded to lie about your original line, claiming that you had “made clear in our article” of 29 January that “we were not for the U.S. military going into Haiti,” when in fact you said no such thing. Moreover, the March 18 meeting reportedly passed motions “criticizing the formulation that the U.S. military was the only force on the ground with the wherewithal to deliver aid,” but “did not mandate a public correction of this statement.” And again, by your own account, you “misused the authority” of Trotsky, distorting the meaning of his 1938 article “Learn to Think,” “in order to alibi support to an imperialist occupation.”
The whole business reeks of cynicism. You didn’t just accidentally fall into error by an oversight or lack of clarity. You not only repeatedly screeched that the IG was embracing bourgeois nationalism by opposing the U.S. invasion, you distorted Trotsky and then lied to cover your tracks. You held onto your “zealous apologies for the U.S. imperialist military intervention” (your description) for dear life. But under polemical pounding from the LFI, someone, perhaps the “leading party comrade” referred to in the ICL statement, took note and said this was going too far. This time. Without that call to order, you would still be hailing the 82nd Airborne Division and the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit as humanitarian aid deliverers.
You might pause to consider the ramifications of your admitted betrayal. What if no leading party comrade had said, “stop” – where would you be then? “Pentagon socialists” anyone? Ask yourselves, how could an entire organization which declares itself revolutionary, Marxist and communist swallow this apology for U.S. imperialism, hook, line and sinker? Why didn’t a whole layer of comrades vociferously object, saying “this makes me sick to my stomach – I’m revolted and outraged over the apology for the takeover of a semi-colonial country by U.S. imperialism.” Why did this go down without a ripple and remain your line for almost three months?
2) Why did this betrayal come about? It was an extension of previous capitulation to the pressures of U.S. imperialism.
We submit that the origin of this betrayal lies in the fact that repeatedly over the last decade, the Spartacist League and International Communist League have shamefully capitulated to the pressures of U.S. imperialism. As a result, alibiing the U.S. invasion of Haiti must have seemed to many just a logical extension of your previous positions, which it was.
Take a look at what happened after the 11 September 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, which clearly shook up the SL and ICL. But having lost your political compass with the demise of the Soviet Union, the SL/ICL reacted by abandoning key elements of the Leninist-Trotskyist program toward imperialist war. You issued a statement (see WV No. 764, 14 September 2001) with paragraphs of denunciations of terrorism but not a word in defense of Afghanistan (which the U.S. immediately targeted for retaliation). After Washington invaded, you belatedly came out in defense of Afghanistan, but still pointedly refused to call for the defeat of U.S. imperialism.
That was not all. You then proceeded to viciously attack the Internationalist Group/League for the Fourth International for our call from the very outset (in our 14 September 2001 statement) for defense of Afghanistan and for the defeat of U.S. imperialism. You wrote that our line amounted to “Playing the Counterfeit Card of Anti-Americanism,” as you stated in a subhead, and of appealing to an audience of “‘Third World’ nationalists for whom the ‘only good American is a dead American’” (Workers Vanguard No. 767, 26 October 2001). Yet the position we put forward was the same program the SL/ICL had proclaimed on the front pages of WV for years, in the Persian Gulf War, Yugoslavia and elsewhere.
Think what that vile accusation meant in the midst of the war hysteria sweeping the United States. Not only was this a monstrous lie, but as anybody could see, it could have encouraged repression against us. And consider the implications for today: if it was okay to go around “anti-American”-baiting opponents on your left, for upholding the political line you abandoned under fire, then it’s small potatoes to say – demagogically, as you now admit – that our call for U.S./U.N. troops out “would result in mass death through starvation.”
Your dropping the call for defeat of U.S. imperialism’s war on Afghanistan and Iraq had many expressions. Our call for the defeat of U.S. imperialism was not an abstract slogan. As we had done in the Spartacist League and ICL, we coupled it with propaganda and agitation calling on transportation workers to refuse to handle (“hot-cargo”) war materiel, and for workers strikes against the war. Yet you abandoned the call for “hot cargoing” military goods precisely when it was most possible to realize it, at the beginning of October 2002 in the midst of the build-up for the Iraq invasion, when the employers shut down the ports with a lockout. (Your excuse: that a Taft-Hartley injunction on the West Coast docks supposedly made this too dangerous.)
As for workers strikes against the war, you ridiculed this in 1998 when our comrades of the Liga Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil (LQB) raised this call (over a U.S. attack on Iraq by the Democratic government of Bill Clinton), saying this had no “resonance” among the workers. And on May Day 2008, when it turned out the demand had plenty of “resonance” among the workers and the ILWU longshore union shut down every port on the Pacific Coast to stop the war, you claimed that this was just flag-waving support for the Democratic Party, it was only about Iraq, not Afghanistan, it didn’t have any impact, etc. The fact that the union delegates, in voting to shut the ports, denounced the Democrats for helping continue the war – and that in fact there was a striking dearth of American flags in the San Francisco march – made no difference. Here, as well, your goal of covering your own tracks made you twist the facts. And you repeat the lies put out by the bureaucracy that bitterly fought against calls for strikes against the war.
Your refusal to call loud and clear for the defeat of U.S. imperialism, your dropping calls for “hot-cargoing” war goods, your sneering at the first workers strike in the United States against a U.S. war are all capitulations to “your own” imperialist bourgeois rulers. And then, when Obama dispatched an invasion force to Haiti in the name of providing earthquake relief, you alibied it. That step placed you squarely in the camp of social imperialism; it crossed the class line to open support for the bourgeoisie. But it was another step on a road you had been going down for years.
3) How can you claim to uphold permanent revolution while denying the possibility of workers revolution in Haiti?
Having admitted that the Internationalist Group was right in opposing the U.S. imperialist invasion of Haiti, you still accuse the IG of “Third Worldist fantasies,” of seeing the earthquake as being an “opening for revolution” because we wrote that the “small but militant proletariat can place itself at the head of the impoverished urban and rural masses seeking to organize their own power” while the Haitian capitalist state machinery lay in tatters. Evidently you continue to hold that Haiti has “virtually no working class.” We have suggested various ways to test this claim, including photos of more than 10,000 Haitian workers marching on parliament demanding an increase in the miserable minimum wage. However, again, the fact of the existence of a Haitian proletariat has no impact on your position.
But if it is a “Third Worldist fantasy” to say that a proletarian revolution could begin in Haiti – as we do, while emphasizing that it must spread to the Dominican Republic, other parts of Latin America and above all the U.S. imperialist heartland if it is to succeed – then how can you claim to uphold Trotsky’s perspective of permanent revolution in Haiti? That program emphasizes that in the imperialist epoch in order to achieve even the democratic tasks of the classic bourgeois revolutions, the workers (led by their communist party) must take power and go on to undertake socialist tasks and spread the revolution internationally. If there is no working class, it can’t take power, and revolution can only come from without. That was your position from January 29 to April 27. Do you maintain this?
The SL/ICL also accuses us of being “apologists for Third World nationalism,” though no specifics are given. (In 2001, the “proof” for this claim was that the IG and LFI called for defeat of U.S. imperialism.) In particular, there is no mention of your bogus claim that we support Aristide, perhaps because your main “proof” of this lie was that “the IG’s shrieking about the supposed imperialist ‘invasion’” of Haiti somehow portrayed Aristide as “the embodiment of national independence.” Since you now agree there was a “U.S. military invasion,” this charge falls flat.
And if you are curious about the existence of a Bolivian working class, which the SL/ICL also denies, you might watch a video of a recent demonstration by factory workers in La Paz, Bolivia, available on the Internet at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g67JkH0srEE. What comes through here from the SL is rank American imperialist chauvinism and disdain for the struggles of the workers in semi-colonial countries. In loudly proclaiming that they no longer “advocate” independence for Puerto Rico and then extending that internationally to other colonies, they abandon one of thecardinal points of the Leninist struggle against imperialism. Up until now SL members have shrieked that to say such a thing is sheer “provocation.” Perhaps they will be less quick to do so now. But that remains to be seen.
4) What does your support for the U.S. invasion/occupation of Haiti mean for the ICL’s claim to be the embodiment of revolutionary continuity? A “revolutionary leadership” doesn’t betray the class interests of the proletariat.
We hear from the Grupo Internacionalista, Mexican section of the LFI, that members of the Grupo Espartaquista came to the May Day marches with a rote response to justify the ICL’s claim to represent the revolutionary vanguard. Other communist formations have committed “errors” in the past, they argued, but didn’t cease to be communists. For example, when the Polish Communist Party supported the putsch by the ex-Socialist Josef Pilsudski in 1926. This is just grasping at straws. The Polish CP’s “May error” was a reflection of the general “right-centrist” degeneration of the Comintern, as Trotsky explained in The Third International After Lenin.
What the GEM members considered their trump card was Trotsky’s call on the eve of World War II for a “Proletarian Military Policy,” for trade-union control of military training (for the imperialist armies). After all, Max Shachtman, the renegade from Trotskyism, polemically exposed what was wrong with the PMP, but he remained a centrist while the SWP, which upheld Trotsky’s policy, was revolutionary.
To equate this mistaken call by Trotsky with the SL/ICL’s “zealous apologies for the U.S. military intervention” in Haiti is grotesque. Are you saying that Trotsky betrayed the world’s workers with the PMP? Also, why do we say that the SWP remained the revolutionary party? In the first place, the error represented by the PMP was not equivalent to active support to U.S. imperialist takeover of a semi-colonial country. Moreover, on the key issue in dispute with Shachtman, the SWP defended the Soviet Union against imperialism, despite Stalin’s betrayals, while Shachtman with his “Third Camp” position refused to defend the bureaucratically degenerated workers state. The SL/ICL, however, had abandoned the call for defeat of its “own” imperialist rulers in war against semi-colonial Afghanistan (and then Iraq) years before its Haiti betrayal. This call, which it used to raise with regularity on the front page of WV, is now only mentioned as a whispered aside, if at all.
This desperate search for historical precedents is a textbook case of scholasticism, of a piece with WV’s convoluted comparison of the question of aid to Haiti today with the SWP’s line on aid to the Soviet Union in World War II. A clever (?) comeback can’t explain away a betrayal.
Your basic argument is that you repudiated your support for the U.S. imperialist invasion, and indeed “savagely” attacked it, so that supposedly proves you are still the revolutionaries. As in the Catholic church, it seems you can confess to all sorts of venial and even some mortal sins, but as long as you admit all (and don’t question the role of the Catholic church as the one true representative of Christianity), you can be absolved. But unlike religions, revolutionary politics is not a revealed doctrine and self-enclosed movement of the elect. The vanguard party has a dialectical relationship to the proletariat, representing both the fundamental interests of the class and the revolutionary program that is the product of historical experience. It has to earn its spurs by providing revolutionary leadership in the class struggle.
This was at the core of the fight over the ICL intervention in Germany, where you proclaimed the ICL was the (self-anointed) revolutionary leadership and declared comrades apostates for saying that we were struggling to become it. With your position of vociferous support to the U.S. invasion of Haiti, you grievously misled whoever still believed that you were the revolutionary leadership, which mercifully is not very many. Despite your pious proclamations today, how is one to know that what you say tomorrow isn’t a continuation of what you said yesterday? The only way to tell is if there is a revolutionary consistency to the program, but the ICL has been anything but consistent over the last decade and a half (just reread what you wrote about your last two conferences). And the program must be carried out. As we pointed out, even when the SL claimed to oppose imperialist occupation of Haiti, it was essentially meaningless: one short article at the time of the 2004 U.S./French/Canadian invasion. And then silence.
You can’t just say, “Oh, we really messed up, but we confessed and washed away our sins, so everything is okay.” Your members go right on vituperating at the Internationalist Group that the SL is “the real thing,” as if nothing had happened. How about a little recognition of what you have just done? The ICL statement says, “Without a public accounting and correction, we would be far down the road to our destruction as a revolutionary party.” Actually, the SL/ICL ceased some while ago to be a revolutionary party, as your own account of your betrayal in Haiti makes abundantly clear. What is true is that if you hadn’t repudiated your line of support for the U.S. imperialist invasion, you would be far down the road to outright reformism. By pulling back from that, you only demonstrate that the ICL is today, and has been for the last decade, a centrist political formation. The next zigzag, the next upheaval, the next revelation – these are only a matter of time.
It is hardly convincing to proclaim that, “Only through a savage indictment of our line can we avoid the alternative of going down the road that led the founders of the IG to defect from our organization in the pursuit of forces other than the proletariat” when you yourselves have had to admit that we upheld the class line as against your “zealous apologies” for U.S. imperialism.
Which brings us to a matter that keeps coming up in your voluminous polemics against the IG and League for the Fourth International (which you never mention). In this instance you say the founders of the Internationalist Group “defect[ed]” from the ICL, on other occasions you have claimed we “fled,” “broke from” or “departed from our ranks.” You resort to these circumlocutions in order to avoid dealing with the simple fact that the founders of the IG and the LFI were expelled from the ICL sections in the U.S., Mexico and France in a political purge. You thereby try to equate us with the misnamed International Bolshevik Tendency, whose founders quit, and indeed fled from, the ICL at the height of Cold War II, objecting to our hard-edged defense of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and Poland. In the case of the founders of the IG, we were thrown out precisely because we wouldn’t quit.
Judging by its own description of its last three conferences, the SL/ICL seems to have a penchant for “correcting correct verdicts,” as Chinese Stalinist leader Deng Xiaoping put it. Stalin, too, made many zigzags during his time as a centrist. But he was based on the material reality of the bureaucracy that had at its disposal the enormous resources of the Soviet state. What does the SL have? When we read, in your account of your latest conference – which was dominated by a huge faction fight – that your “central task” is “to arm the party programmatically and theoretically, from Spartacist to the maintenance of our Central Committee archive,” the picture is that of an inwardly turned group voluntarily walled off from the class struggle. You can practically hear the embalming fluid dripping. But for all the importance of archival work, the ICL hasn’t been doing such a good job arming the party programmatically, has it?
The SL/ICL declares that, in this period, the struggles of the working class no longer have any link to the goal of socialist revolution. That supposed theoretical justification allows it to haughtily dismiss the possibility that sectors of the working class could be won to key aspects of the revolutionary program, or carry out actions that concretize them (like strikes against the war or “hot-cargoing”). This “revolutionary” rationale is really just an adaptation to what is, to the bourgeois order. As the ICL statement rightly stated, your line on Haiti was the “politics of the possible,” the phrase of Michael Harrington, the “socialist” advisor of Democratic presidents Kennedy and Johnson. This current has a long history going back to the French possibilists in the 1880s, who reflecting demoralization following the bloody 1871 defeat of the Paris Commune said one could only fight for what is possible, which was not workers revolution.
While other groups may limit themselves to bourgeois democratic demands or low-level trade-union struggle, the ICL line is “Stop the class struggle, I want to get off.” This is your particular version of the demoralization that affected large sectors of the left (even those who denied the Soviet Union was any kind of workers state) as a result of the victory of counterrevolution in the USSR. The SL/ICL pulled back from its support for the U.S. invasion when it saw its image in the mirror of reformism. But for those who do not wish to keep on gyrating in centrist confusion while insisting they “are” the revolutionary leadership, there must be a thorough-going search for the causes of the betrayal. Those genuinely looking for the roots of the SL’s pro-imperialist “politics of the possible” over Haiti would do well to examine the real record of its adaptations and capitulations to “its own” bourgeoisie over the past years.
Your leadership will undoubtedly tell you (and themselves) that this is the most serious challenge the ICL has faced. Indeed. However, the challenge is not to defend the revolutionary pretensions of the ICL at all costs, but to fight for revolutionary programmatic clarity. Of course, if you do undertake such a fight, you will doubtless soon discover the limits of the desired political rectification.
Internationalist Group/League for the Fourth International
8 May 2010
*From The International Marxist Tendency- The Struggle In Greece- a Guest Commentary
Click on the headline to link to a "In Defense Of Marxism" entry from the International Marxist Tendency on the current situation in Greece.
Markin comment:
This guest commentary makes the right point about the limits of a general strike strategy without the goal of a struggle for state power. Two thing stick out-immediately. We are in a pre-revolutionary situation in Greece, whether we are prepared for it or not. The need to create workers councils down at the base and for revolutionaries to fight for their program in them is paramount. Secondly, to break the hold of the Stalinist and ex-Stalinist parties on the Greek working class, and that sit just to the left of the governing Socialist Party, in order get on that road to socialism it is time for revolutionaries to call for the formation of a workers government. If the Stalinist and others will not do fight for that, we will. Given the relationship of forces this is a propaganda call today, but the situation in Greece is so fluid things could turn around quickly. For A KKE-SYRIZA government!
Markin comment:
This guest commentary makes the right point about the limits of a general strike strategy without the goal of a struggle for state power. Two thing stick out-immediately. We are in a pre-revolutionary situation in Greece, whether we are prepared for it or not. The need to create workers councils down at the base and for revolutionaries to fight for their program in them is paramount. Secondly, to break the hold of the Stalinist and ex-Stalinist parties on the Greek working class, and that sit just to the left of the governing Socialist Party, in order get on that road to socialism it is time for revolutionaries to call for the formation of a workers government. If the Stalinist and others will not do fight for that, we will. Given the relationship of forces this is a propaganda call today, but the situation in Greece is so fluid things could turn around quickly. For A KKE-SYRIZA government!
Today There Is Stormy Weather Indeed- Singer Lena Horne Passes At 92
Click on the headline to link to a "New York Times" entry for the late jazz/blues singer Lena Horne.
Markin comment:
I have hear the classic jazz/blues song "Stormy Weather", a song forever associated with the name of Lena Horne, done by many singers. None, and I mean none, ever had me stop doing what I was doing to listen, and listen again and again like Ms. Horne did. That is tribute enough, I think. Farewell, Lena.
"Stormy Weather" Lyrics
Don't know why there's no sun up in the sky
Stormy weather since my man and I ain't together
Keeps raining all the time, the time
Life is bare, gloom and misery everywhere
Stormy weather, just can't get my poor self together
It's raining all the time, the time
When you went, you went away, the blues walked in and met me
If he stays away, ol' rocking chair will get me
All I do is pray, the Lord above will let me walk in the sun once more
Can't go on, everything I had is gone
Stormy weather since my man and I ain't together
It's raining all the time
I walk around, heavy-hearted and sad
Night comes around and I'm still feeling bad
Rain's pouring down, blinding every hope I had
This pitterin pattering, beating and spattering drives Me Mad
Love, Love, Love, this misery's just too much for me
Can't go on, everything I have is gone
Stormy weather since my man and I ain't together
It's raining all the time, keeps raining all the time
Markin comment:
I have hear the classic jazz/blues song "Stormy Weather", a song forever associated with the name of Lena Horne, done by many singers. None, and I mean none, ever had me stop doing what I was doing to listen, and listen again and again like Ms. Horne did. That is tribute enough, I think. Farewell, Lena.
"Stormy Weather" Lyrics
Don't know why there's no sun up in the sky
Stormy weather since my man and I ain't together
Keeps raining all the time, the time
Life is bare, gloom and misery everywhere
Stormy weather, just can't get my poor self together
It's raining all the time, the time
When you went, you went away, the blues walked in and met me
If he stays away, ol' rocking chair will get me
All I do is pray, the Lord above will let me walk in the sun once more
Can't go on, everything I had is gone
Stormy weather since my man and I ain't together
It's raining all the time
I walk around, heavy-hearted and sad
Night comes around and I'm still feeling bad
Rain's pouring down, blinding every hope I had
This pitterin pattering, beating and spattering drives Me Mad
Love, Love, Love, this misery's just too much for me
Can't go on, everything I have is gone
Stormy weather since my man and I ain't together
It's raining all the time, keeps raining all the time
*Songs To While The Class Struggle By- Lena Horne's "Stromy Weather"-With A Tear
Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of the late Lena Horne performing her classic cover of "Stormy Weather" in sunnier days.
Markin comment:
Yes, with a tear.
"Stormy Weather" Lyrics
Don't know why there's no sun up in the sky
Stormy weather since my man and I ain't together
Keeps raining all the time, the time
Life is bare, gloom and misery everywhere
Stormy weather, just can't get my poor self together
It's raining all the time, the time
When you went, you went away, the blues walked in and met me
If he stays away, ol' rocking chair will get me
All I do is pray, the Lord above will let me walk in the sun once more
Can't go on, everything I had is gone
Stormy weather since my man and I ain't together
It's raining all the time
I walk around, heavy-hearted and sad
Night comes around and I'm still feeling bad
Rain's pouring down, blinding every hope I had
This pitterin pattering, beating and spattering drives Me Mad
Love, Love, Love, this misery's just too much for me
Can't go on, everything I have is gone
Stormy weather since my man and I ain't together
It's raining all the time, keeps raining all the time
Markin comment:
Yes, with a tear.
"Stormy Weather" Lyrics
Don't know why there's no sun up in the sky
Stormy weather since my man and I ain't together
Keeps raining all the time, the time
Life is bare, gloom and misery everywhere
Stormy weather, just can't get my poor self together
It's raining all the time, the time
When you went, you went away, the blues walked in and met me
If he stays away, ol' rocking chair will get me
All I do is pray, the Lord above will let me walk in the sun once more
Can't go on, everything I had is gone
Stormy weather since my man and I ain't together
It's raining all the time
I walk around, heavy-hearted and sad
Night comes around and I'm still feeling bad
Rain's pouring down, blinding every hope I had
This pitterin pattering, beating and spattering drives Me Mad
Love, Love, Love, this misery's just too much for me
Can't go on, everything I have is gone
Stormy weather since my man and I ain't together
It's raining all the time, keeps raining all the time
Sunday, May 09, 2010
From The Archives Of "Workers Vanguard"-Greece Rocked by Protests (2008)
Markin comment:
As almost always these historical articles and polemics are purposefully helpful to clarify the issues in the struggle against world imperialism, particularly the “monster” here in America.
Workers Vanguard No. 927
2 January 2009
Greece Rocked by Protests
Down With Police Terror!
In response to mass protests in Greece against police violence and state repression, the Trotskyist Group of Greece on 9 December 2008 issued the leaflet published below. The translation and accompanying introduction, which we have adapted here, were first published by Workers Hammer, paper of the Spartacist League/Britain. The TGG and SL/B are sections of the International Communist League, as is the Spartacist League/U.S.
The protests erupted over the cop murder of a student in Athens on December 6. The leaflet was distributed during the massive one-day general strike on December 10, which had been called by the main union federations before the killing, in opposition to the government’s anti-working-class austerity program. The Greek government asked the trade-union leadership to call off the strike but the bureaucracy feared a backlash at the base if they cancelled the strike. The unions rallied at the parliament building instead of marching through the city. The main Greek trade-union federations—the General Confederation of Workers of Greece (GSEE) and the Confederation of Public Servants (ADEDY)—are led by PASOK, which, while often painted as a reformist workers party by the Greek left, is a thoroughly bourgeois-populist formation.
Greek organizations such as the Socialist Workers Party (SEK), cothinkers of the British Socialist Workers Party (formerly allied with the International Socialist Organization in the U.S.), and the Xekinima (Start) group, allied with the Socialist Party in Britain and represented in the U.S. by Socialist Alternative, tail PASOK. Their central slogan is: “Down with the government of murderers!” These reformists, as the TGG leaflet explains, aim to replace the rightist “neoliberal” regime of Karamanlis’s New Democracy (ND) with a “left” bourgeois government. This would mean either the return of PASOK or a new popular front made up of some combination of PASOK and Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left, which is dominated by Synaspismos, formed out of the old “Eurocommunist” wing of the Communist Party). Such an outcome would simply create a new roadblock to the working class in its struggle against the capitalist exploiters, while nourishing the growth of fascists like Golden Dawn who have been mobilizing to attack the youth protests.
The Communist Party of Greece (KKE), which leads a significant section of the proletariat, today strikes a posture of opposition to PASOK, saying in its newspaper Rizospastis (11 December 2008): “ND/PASOK, same story—austerity, unemployment, terrorism,” declaring “No more illusions” and posing the choice as: “Either with capital, or with the workers.” However the KKE certainly does not stand for the class independence of the proletariat or for principled opposition to entering into coalitions with bourgeois parties. Quite the contrary—throughout its history the KKE has upheld the treacherous Stalinist policy of popular-front betrayal of the working class. Most recently, in the late 1980s, the KKE participated in popular-front coalitions with both New Democracy and PASOK and will have no compunction against doing so again if the opportunity presents itself.
Grotesquely, the KKE participated in violence-baiting the anarchists and initiated a witchhunt of the tame social democrats of Syriza, falsely claiming that the latter condones the burning of shops. Refusing to defend the anarchists against the right-wing government’s witchhunt, both the KKE and Syriza are attempting to prove to the bourgeoisie that they are reliable candidates to defend the capitalist order.
The protests against the brutal police killing of Alexandros Grigoropoulos intersected planned strikes and protests by the trade unions against the impact of the global economic crisis on workers. Greece has a current account deficit of about $53 billion, or 15 percent of its gross domestic product, the highest in the euro zone. Youth unemployment is around 19 percent, while the overall jobless rate is over 7 percent. There is massive public anger against the Karamanlis government that has attacked the living standards of the working class through privatizations, tax increases and “reform” of pensions, in a country where it is estimated that 20 percent of the population lives in poverty. Contrary to PASOK leader Papandreou’s promises of “change,” a PASOK government would be just as committed to making the working class pay for the capitalist crisis.
* * *
ATHENS, DECEMBER 9—On December 6 in the district of Exarchia in Athens a 15-year-old student, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, was murdered in cold blood
—shot by a police officer. Spontaneous protest demonstrations broke out in Athens and Salonika, spreading rapidly to the rest of Greece, where they are ongoing today. In what the press describes as the biggest crisis in Greece since the end of the bloody colonels’ rule in 1974, demonstrators have come face-to-face with the brutal reality of the “democratic” capitalist state. At least 150 people have been brought before the police department, 70 have been detained and the repression continues. We defend the anarchist and other youth protesters against state repression! We demand the immediate dropping of all charges against the protesters! For the immediate release of all those arrested!
The Trotskyist Group of Greece, sympathizing section of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist), solidarizes with the rage that has exploded in the streets against the police terror of the capitalist state. Fury over the murder of Grigoropoulos is only the “tip of the iceberg” of popular hatred toward the right-wing New Democracy government of Karamanlis which presides over mass unemployment, financial scandals, a huge and growing gap between rich and poor, and the brutal exploitation and repression of immigrants.
The protests against the cop terror need an organized expression—one that welds the anger of the youth protesters with the social power of the proletariat. The working class must be mobilized not only to defend youth protesters against the violence of the cops, but as part of a struggle against the capitalist system itself.
The reformist left is offering its own schemes for sanitizing the capitalist state and its forces of repression. The Communist Party of Greece, in a statement of 7 December 2008, declared: “The responsibilities of the government of ND are large and obvious, both in general and in particular for the climate which has been cultivated and for the education of the security forces.” The president of Syriza, Alavanos, in a question in parliament to the Minister of Internal Affairs on December 8 asked: “What measures do you propose to take in order to instill in the police concepts of tolerance, democratic behavior and cooperation toward citizens?” The KKE and Syriza once again spread illusions that the capitalist state can be reformed and that the capitalist rulers can educate and enlighten the security forces or even be compelled to cede control of the police to the exploited and oppressed masses—the very masses the cops are paid to repress.
The perspective of the KKE and Syriza is to replace the ND government with a new popular front. With crass opportunism these reformist parties hope to join with bourgeois parties in administering the bourgeois state, which will necessarily mean attacks on the working class. Support to such a popular front is also what lies behind the calls by reformists like the Cliffite SEK and DEA to get rid of the Karamanlis government.
As Lenin wrote in The State and Revolution (1917), “A standing army and police are the chief instruments of state power…. The state is an organ of class rule, an organ for the oppression of one class by another; it is the creation of ‘order,’ which legalizes and perpetuates this oppression by moderating the conflict between classes.” The “order” to which Lenin refers cannot be changed by throwing Molotov cocktails. Although anarchists may seem “militant” to some youth, they are opposed to building the one instrument that is indispensable for getting rid of the capitalist exploiters and their state—a Leninist vanguard party.
The world economic crisis has demonstrated the bankruptcy of the capitalist system, but there are no impossible situations for the bourgeoisie. We, as genuine Trotskyists, seek to mobilize the forces of the multiracial proletariat in class struggle, not only in protests against the capitalist system but in the fight to uproot it. We fight to forge Leninist vanguard parties as sections of the revolutionary international that is required to lead the working class to sweep away the capitalist exploiters and their states and to build workers states and a global socialist society based on equality.
An injury to one is an injury to all! Drop the charges!
For a revolutionary workers vanguard party in Greece, section of a reforged Fourth International!
As almost always these historical articles and polemics are purposefully helpful to clarify the issues in the struggle against world imperialism, particularly the “monster” here in America.
Workers Vanguard No. 927
2 January 2009
Greece Rocked by Protests
Down With Police Terror!
In response to mass protests in Greece against police violence and state repression, the Trotskyist Group of Greece on 9 December 2008 issued the leaflet published below. The translation and accompanying introduction, which we have adapted here, were first published by Workers Hammer, paper of the Spartacist League/Britain. The TGG and SL/B are sections of the International Communist League, as is the Spartacist League/U.S.
The protests erupted over the cop murder of a student in Athens on December 6. The leaflet was distributed during the massive one-day general strike on December 10, which had been called by the main union federations before the killing, in opposition to the government’s anti-working-class austerity program. The Greek government asked the trade-union leadership to call off the strike but the bureaucracy feared a backlash at the base if they cancelled the strike. The unions rallied at the parliament building instead of marching through the city. The main Greek trade-union federations—the General Confederation of Workers of Greece (GSEE) and the Confederation of Public Servants (ADEDY)—are led by PASOK, which, while often painted as a reformist workers party by the Greek left, is a thoroughly bourgeois-populist formation.
Greek organizations such as the Socialist Workers Party (SEK), cothinkers of the British Socialist Workers Party (formerly allied with the International Socialist Organization in the U.S.), and the Xekinima (Start) group, allied with the Socialist Party in Britain and represented in the U.S. by Socialist Alternative, tail PASOK. Their central slogan is: “Down with the government of murderers!” These reformists, as the TGG leaflet explains, aim to replace the rightist “neoliberal” regime of Karamanlis’s New Democracy (ND) with a “left” bourgeois government. This would mean either the return of PASOK or a new popular front made up of some combination of PASOK and Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left, which is dominated by Synaspismos, formed out of the old “Eurocommunist” wing of the Communist Party). Such an outcome would simply create a new roadblock to the working class in its struggle against the capitalist exploiters, while nourishing the growth of fascists like Golden Dawn who have been mobilizing to attack the youth protests.
The Communist Party of Greece (KKE), which leads a significant section of the proletariat, today strikes a posture of opposition to PASOK, saying in its newspaper Rizospastis (11 December 2008): “ND/PASOK, same story—austerity, unemployment, terrorism,” declaring “No more illusions” and posing the choice as: “Either with capital, or with the workers.” However the KKE certainly does not stand for the class independence of the proletariat or for principled opposition to entering into coalitions with bourgeois parties. Quite the contrary—throughout its history the KKE has upheld the treacherous Stalinist policy of popular-front betrayal of the working class. Most recently, in the late 1980s, the KKE participated in popular-front coalitions with both New Democracy and PASOK and will have no compunction against doing so again if the opportunity presents itself.
Grotesquely, the KKE participated in violence-baiting the anarchists and initiated a witchhunt of the tame social democrats of Syriza, falsely claiming that the latter condones the burning of shops. Refusing to defend the anarchists against the right-wing government’s witchhunt, both the KKE and Syriza are attempting to prove to the bourgeoisie that they are reliable candidates to defend the capitalist order.
The protests against the brutal police killing of Alexandros Grigoropoulos intersected planned strikes and protests by the trade unions against the impact of the global economic crisis on workers. Greece has a current account deficit of about $53 billion, or 15 percent of its gross domestic product, the highest in the euro zone. Youth unemployment is around 19 percent, while the overall jobless rate is over 7 percent. There is massive public anger against the Karamanlis government that has attacked the living standards of the working class through privatizations, tax increases and “reform” of pensions, in a country where it is estimated that 20 percent of the population lives in poverty. Contrary to PASOK leader Papandreou’s promises of “change,” a PASOK government would be just as committed to making the working class pay for the capitalist crisis.
* * *
ATHENS, DECEMBER 9—On December 6 in the district of Exarchia in Athens a 15-year-old student, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, was murdered in cold blood
—shot by a police officer. Spontaneous protest demonstrations broke out in Athens and Salonika, spreading rapidly to the rest of Greece, where they are ongoing today. In what the press describes as the biggest crisis in Greece since the end of the bloody colonels’ rule in 1974, demonstrators have come face-to-face with the brutal reality of the “democratic” capitalist state. At least 150 people have been brought before the police department, 70 have been detained and the repression continues. We defend the anarchist and other youth protesters against state repression! We demand the immediate dropping of all charges against the protesters! For the immediate release of all those arrested!
The Trotskyist Group of Greece, sympathizing section of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist), solidarizes with the rage that has exploded in the streets against the police terror of the capitalist state. Fury over the murder of Grigoropoulos is only the “tip of the iceberg” of popular hatred toward the right-wing New Democracy government of Karamanlis which presides over mass unemployment, financial scandals, a huge and growing gap between rich and poor, and the brutal exploitation and repression of immigrants.
The protests against the cop terror need an organized expression—one that welds the anger of the youth protesters with the social power of the proletariat. The working class must be mobilized not only to defend youth protesters against the violence of the cops, but as part of a struggle against the capitalist system itself.
The reformist left is offering its own schemes for sanitizing the capitalist state and its forces of repression. The Communist Party of Greece, in a statement of 7 December 2008, declared: “The responsibilities of the government of ND are large and obvious, both in general and in particular for the climate which has been cultivated and for the education of the security forces.” The president of Syriza, Alavanos, in a question in parliament to the Minister of Internal Affairs on December 8 asked: “What measures do you propose to take in order to instill in the police concepts of tolerance, democratic behavior and cooperation toward citizens?” The KKE and Syriza once again spread illusions that the capitalist state can be reformed and that the capitalist rulers can educate and enlighten the security forces or even be compelled to cede control of the police to the exploited and oppressed masses—the very masses the cops are paid to repress.
The perspective of the KKE and Syriza is to replace the ND government with a new popular front. With crass opportunism these reformist parties hope to join with bourgeois parties in administering the bourgeois state, which will necessarily mean attacks on the working class. Support to such a popular front is also what lies behind the calls by reformists like the Cliffite SEK and DEA to get rid of the Karamanlis government.
As Lenin wrote in The State and Revolution (1917), “A standing army and police are the chief instruments of state power…. The state is an organ of class rule, an organ for the oppression of one class by another; it is the creation of ‘order,’ which legalizes and perpetuates this oppression by moderating the conflict between classes.” The “order” to which Lenin refers cannot be changed by throwing Molotov cocktails. Although anarchists may seem “militant” to some youth, they are opposed to building the one instrument that is indispensable for getting rid of the capitalist exploiters and their state—a Leninist vanguard party.
The world economic crisis has demonstrated the bankruptcy of the capitalist system, but there are no impossible situations for the bourgeoisie. We, as genuine Trotskyists, seek to mobilize the forces of the multiracial proletariat in class struggle, not only in protests against the capitalist system but in the fight to uproot it. We fight to forge Leninist vanguard parties as sections of the revolutionary international that is required to lead the working class to sweep away the capitalist exploiters and their states and to build workers states and a global socialist society based on equality.
An injury to one is an injury to all! Drop the charges!
For a revolutionary workers vanguard party in Greece, section of a reforged Fourth International!
*From “The Rag Blog”- “Bob Feldman 68” Blog- A People's History Of Afghanistan, Part One
Click on the headline to link to a “The Rag Blog” entry from the “Bob Feldman 68” blog on the history of Afghanistan.
Markin comment:
This is a great series for those who are not familiar with the critical role of Afghanistan in world politics, if not directly then as part of the history of world imperialism. Thanks, Bob Feldman.
And, speaking of world imperialism, let us keep our eyes on the prize- Obama- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./ Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan!
Markin comment:
This is a great series for those who are not familiar with the critical role of Afghanistan in world politics, if not directly then as part of the history of world imperialism. Thanks, Bob Feldman.
And, speaking of world imperialism, let us keep our eyes on the prize- Obama- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./ Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan!
*From “The Rag Blog”- “Bob Feldman 68” Blog- A People's History Of Afghanistan, Part Two
Click on the headline to link to a “The Rag Blog” entry from the “Bob Feldman 68” blog on the history of Afghanistan
Markin comment:
This is a great series for those who are not familiar with the critical role of Afghanistan in world politics, if not directly then as part of the history of world imperialism. Thanks, Bob Feldman.
And, speaking of world imperialism, let us keep our eyes on the prize- Obama- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./ Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan!
Markin comment:
This is a great series for those who are not familiar with the critical role of Afghanistan in world politics, if not directly then as part of the history of world imperialism. Thanks, Bob Feldman.
And, speaking of world imperialism, let us keep our eyes on the prize- Obama- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./ Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan!
*From “The Rag Blog”- “Bob Feldman 68” Blog- The History Of Afghanistan, Part Three
Click on the headline to link to a “The Rag Blog” entry from the “Bob Feldman 68” blog on the history of Afghanistan
Markin comment:
This is a great series for those who are not familiar with the critical role of Afghanistan in world politics, if not directly then as part of the history of world imperialism. Thanks, Bob Feldman.
And, speaking of world imperialism, let us keep our eyes on the prize- Obama- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./ Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan!
Markin comment:
This is a great series for those who are not familiar with the critical role of Afghanistan in world politics, if not directly then as part of the history of world imperialism. Thanks, Bob Feldman.
And, speaking of world imperialism, let us keep our eyes on the prize- Obama- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./ Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan!
*From “The Rag Blog”- “Bob Feldman 68” Blog- A People's History Of Afghanistan, Part Four
Click on the headline to link to a “The Rag Blog” entry from the “Bob Feldman 68” blog on the history of Afghanistan
Markin comment:
This is a great series for those who are not familiar with the critical role of Afghanistan in world politics, if not directly then as part of the history of world imperialism. Thanks, Bob Feldman.
And, speaking of world imperialism, let us keep our eyes on the prize- Obama- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./ Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan!
Markin comment:
This is a great series for those who are not familiar with the critical role of Afghanistan in world politics, if not directly then as part of the history of world imperialism. Thanks, Bob Feldman.
And, speaking of world imperialism, let us keep our eyes on the prize- Obama- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./ Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan!
*From “The Rag Blog”- “Bob Feldman 68” Blog- A People’s History Of Afghanistan, Part Five
Click on the headline to link to a “The Rag Blog” entry from the “Bob Feldman 68” blog on the history of Afghanistan
Markin comment:
This is a great series for those who are not familiar with the critical role of Afghanistan in world politics, if not directly then as part of the history of world imperialism. Thanks, Bob Feldman.
And, speaking of world imperialism, let us keep our eyes on the prize- Obama- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./ Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan!
Markin comment:
This is a great series for those who are not familiar with the critical role of Afghanistan in world politics, if not directly then as part of the history of world imperialism. Thanks, Bob Feldman.
And, speaking of world imperialism, let us keep our eyes on the prize- Obama- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./ Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan!
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