workers vanguard no 841 - 04 february 2005

7/29/2019 Workers Vanguard No 841 - 04 February 2005

1/12


2/12

';Support Redfern Aboriginal Militants!The following article is reprinted fromAustralasian Spartacist No. i89, Summer2004105, newspaper of the SpartacistLeague of Australia, section of the international Communist League.

killed at the hands of police. With greatcourage and acumen, Aboriginal youthand their supporters waged a nine-hourpitched battle against marauding cops.Since then, a police operation orderedby the [Premier Bob] Carr NSW [NewSouth Wales] stat e Labor government hasrounded up some 35 militants who arenow facing charges. We say there shouldbe united-front protests and actions todefend the heroic Redfern and Palm Islandmilitants. Trade unions, Aboriginal activists, leftists and immigrant youth must bebrought together in struggle to demand:

SPASRTAelSTDECEMBER 7- In angry meetings inQueensland over the racist cop terror inPalm Island [where an Aboriginal manwas killed in police custody last November], Aboriginal activists have been drawing parallels to the explosive February[2004] events in Redfern, Sydney. On thenight of 15 February, residents in the areaknown as The Block defiantly defendedtheir community from racist cop terrorafter a 17-year-old Kamilaroi youth was

Drop all the charges! On 24 August, aSpartacist League leaflet broadcast a callby the Partisan Defence Committee (aclass-struggle defence organisation associated with the SL) for protest statementsto be sent to the NSW Attorney-General

TROTSKY

Sixtieth Anniversary of the RedArmy's Liberation of AuschwitzWith much fanfare-and stunning mendac

ity-the Western imperialist press has trumpeted the sixty-year anniversary of he liberation of the Auschwitz Nazi death camp, inwhat is now southern Poland. It was the RedArmy of the Soviet degenerated workers statethat marched through those gates on 27 January 1945, and played the decisive role indefeating the Nazis at the cost of some 27million Soviet lives. The truth about the liber-ation of Auschwitz lives in the wntll1gs ofLENIN

Jewish Italian author and chemist Primo Levi, who survived a harrowing ten months inthe camp (a section of which was called Buna-Monowitz). He was among 7,000 ill prisoners left to die when the German overseers fled days before the Red Army arrived.In the sick bay of the Lager [camp] at Buna-Monowitz eight hundred of us remained.

Of these about five hundred died from illness, cold and hunger before the Russians arrived,and another two hundred succumbed in the following days, despite the Russians' aid.The first Russian patrol came in sight of the camp about midday on 27 January 1945.Charles and I were the first to see them: we were carrying S6mogyi's body to the common grave, the first of our room mates to die. We tipped the stretcher on to the defiledsnow, as the pit was now full, and no other grave was at hand: Charles took off his beretas a salute to both the living and the dead.They were four young soldiers on horseback, who advanced along the road thatmarked the limits of the camp, cautiously holding their sten-guns. When they reachedthe barbed wire, they stopped to look, exchanging a few timid words, and throwingstrangely embarrassed glances at the sprawling bodies, at the battered huts and at us fewstill alive.To us they seemed wonderfully concrete and real, perched on their enormous horses.between the grey of the snow and the grey of the sky, immobile beneath the gusts ofdamp wind which threatened a thaw.It seemed to us, and so it was, that the nothing full of death in which we had wandered like spent stars for ten days had found its own solid centre, a nucleus of condensation; four men, armed, but not against us: four messengers of peace, with rough andboyish faces beneath their heavy fur hats.They did not greet us. nor did they smile; they seemed oppressed not only by compassion but by a confused restraint. which sealed their lips and bound their eyes to thefunereal scene ...So for us even the hour of liberty rang out grave and muffled. and filled our soulswith joy and yet with a painful sense of pudency, so that we should have liked to washour consciences and our memories clean from the foulness that lay upon them: and alsowith anguish, because we felt that this should never happen, that now nothing could everhappen good and pure enough to rub out our past, and that the scars of the outrage wouldremain within us for ever, and in the memories of those who saw it, and in the placeswhere it occurred and in the stories that we should tell of it.

2

- Primo Levi, "The Thaw" (1963), in Survival in Auschwitz andThe Reawakening, Two Memoirs (Summit Books, 1986)

! . 1 l ! ! ! ! ! J ! l l l ! . l t l ! . ~ l ! . 1 ! . IRECTOR OF PARTY PUBLICATIONS: Alison Spencer

EDITOR: Alan WildeEDITOR. YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Quincy LevinsonCIRCULATION MANAGER: Jeff ThomasEDITORIAL BOARD: Rosemary Palenque (managing editor). Linda Jarreau (production manager),Bruce Andre, Jon Brule, Helen Cantor, Paul Cone, George Foster, Kathleen Harris, Walter Jennings,James Robertson, Joseph SeymourThe Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League(Fourth Internationalist).Workers Vanguard (ISSN 02760746) published biweekly. except skipping three alternate issues in June, July andAugust (beginning with omitting the second issue in June) and skipping the last issue in December, by the SpartacistPublishing Co., 299 Broadway, Suite 318, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 7327862 (Editorial), (212) 7327861(Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. Email address: [email protected] c subscripti ons: $10.00/21 issues. Periodical s postage paid at New York. NY. POSTMASTER: Send addresschanges to Workers Vanguard, Box 1377, GPO, New York. NY 10116.Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint.The closing date for news in this issue is 1 February.

No. 841 4 February 2005

demanding the dropping of the charges. Since then, support for the Redferndefendants has broadened. Protest statements include those by well-knownAboriginal activists, by the prisoners'rights group Justice Action, and bythe Freedom Socialist Party (FSP). A7 December statement by longtime blackactivist, Jenny Munro, noted that "thelocal Aboriginal community do supportthose people arrested" and added her"voice to that of my husband Lyall's tosay to those charged 'they are braveyoung people we are immensely proudof ' " In a speech at a 24 September Sydney rally in defence of jailed trade-unionleader Craig Johnston, Justice Actionleader Brett Collins raised the case of theRedfern militants. An SL supporter wasmet with applause when he called for thedropping of charges against the blackdefendants at a 31 July refugee rightsrally outside Sydney's Villawood immigrant detention centre. And earlier, in asmall but important victory for all whosolidarise with the Redfern struggles, thePolice Association was defeated in itsmanoeuvres to stop a 31 March SL public forum in Melbourne "Defend RedfernAborigines-Mobilise Union Power!",after unionists and leftists joined in acampaign of exposure initiated by the SL.In a protest letter in defence of theRedfern militants, Sam Watson, in hiscapacity as a longtime prominent figurein the Brisbane Aboriginal community,stated that the killing "of TJ Hickey onthe streets of Redfern on the 15th of February and the subsequent brutal repression of the Redfern indigenous community by the state Police, is a clear andterrifying statement that nothing haschanged within this racist land and thatindeed-the colonial genocide goes on!"Noting the killing of black children bythe police and prison guards, Watson's15 October letter pointedly stated that

"the courts and the parliaments havebeen parties to each and every attack onour people."But while Sam Watson was a SocialistAlliance (SA) senate candidate in therecent federal elections and the FSP is acomponent of SA. SA has, to date, failedto in its own name publicly call for thedropping of charges against the Redferndefendants. Those groups and individualsthat have taken up the defence of theAboriginal militants must now redoubletheir efforts to publicise this case andbroaden support for the defendants. Astruggle to defend the Redfern and PalmIsland militants is not only a way of solidarising with their struggles but a way topush back the tide of racist attacks beingfaced by Aboriginal people and nonwhite immigrants. While state Labor governments throughout the country administer brutal and daily racist cop terror, thebigoted federal Howard government isplanning to make welfare payments forAboriginal people conditional on their"behaviour," Under this openly racist,apartheid-style policy, payment cardsmay be used to set limits on what Aboriginal people can buy using governmentbenefits! Meanwhile new details haveemerged of the NSW state government'slatest sinister plans to drive Aboriginaltenants off The Block in order to boostproperty prices in the Redfern-Waterlooarea.Key to defending the Redfern militantsis the struggle to win union support forthis cause. It is the organised workingclass-through its ability to shut downcapitalist profit by withdrawing its labour- tha t has the social power to defeat campaigns of state repression. And the proletariat must champion the rights of theAboriginal people in order to achieve thefighting unity necessary to confront anincreasingly confident capitalist rulingcontinued on page 9

The Australian15 February 2004: Police in riot gear lay siege to Aboriginal community inRedfern, Sydney follo wing death of Aboriginal youth Thomas "TJ" Hickey.

Just Out!Spartacist(Spanish edition)

No. 33January 2005$1 (64 pages)

Order now: $1 for single issue;$2 for subscription to Espartaco,publication of the GrupoEspartaquista de Mexico, includingSpartacist (Spanish edition).Make checks payable/mail to:Spartacist Publishing Co.Box 1377 GPONew York, NY 10116

I S P A R T A C J S T I ~ =NERO DE 2005 EOICION EN ESPANOl

40 anos de SpartaCistbcla eI rnacimiento de la IV Internacionalf'AGtNAZ

La lucha por la coutinuidadrevolucionarla n e' mundo postsovieticoP.t.GINA 10

La Restauracion Meiji:Una revolucionproburguesa no democraticaPAGINA 24

C8111j1 a eR r.. a.uu. contra r.. In . grant . as mujeres , Ia "_iliadCruzada de los EE.UU. y a ONU contrael "trcifico sexual"~ i : r ' o ,

PAGINA 64

"""

WORKERS VANGUARD


3/12

YODng SparlaCDS- - - - - - ~ - - - - . - - - - - - - - - . - - - - --_ _-----------

Down With the l1lnti-Terror" WitchhuntAgainst the Four S.F. State Studentsl

We reprinf below a January 21 leafletfrom the Bay Area Spartacus Youth Club.November 1, 2004 was the eve of theU.S. presidential election and the U.S.military forces were poised to level Falluja. At San Francisco State Universityfour women students from predominately Muslim countries (mainly Iranand Afghanistan) engaged members ofthe College Republicans in a heatedargument over the U.S. colonial occupation of Iraq. The College Republicansresponded by branding them as "terrorists" and hurling racist, anti-Arab epithets at the four women.

~ g , : A d m ~ n i ! c t r ~ l i g D .. B > ~ p t , i $ ~ l s ! against the four Middle Eastern studentsfor expressing their political views.

It is important in fighting against suchsinister forces to know who your friendsand enemies are.

On November 3, the Republicans, windin their sails, were celebrating Bush'selectoral victory at their literature table.The four students had another argumentwith the Republicans that drew an audience. The Republicans again called thewomen "terrorists" and racist names. Outof this crowd. members of the International Socialist Organization (ISO) andStudents Against War (SAW), joined by anumber of pro-Palestinian students, initiated a demonstration to protest the College Republicans' slanderous accusationsand the Bush electoral victory.Following each incident. the womenwere subjected to a sinister slanderbarrage from the campus McCarthyitesof racist right-wing ideologue DavidHorowitz's online FrontPage Maga-:.ine.FrontPage produced three inflammatoryarticles titled "Intifada Against CollegeRepublicans," "Jihad at San FranciscoState." and "Palestinian Terror On Campus." After College Republicans fabricated stories of "terrorism" the fourwomen were subjected to state surveillance by the Department of HomelandSecurity and the FBI.Campus President Robert Corriganthreatened to punish the women if theydid not (together with the Republicans)apologize for their behavior, in otherwords, for arguing their political beliefsand defending themselves against racistvilification.Spartacus Youth Club members joinedin a protest in defense of these womenand intervened at a meeting where one ofthe women spoke. Centrally, we pointedout that charges of "terrorism" in USAPatriot Act America are a threat in themselves. We warned against liberal illusions that the administration can berelied upon to end racism on campus. Westand in defense of these four coura-

geous women against the racist provocateurs who wish to intimidate, vilify andsilence them. We demand: No adminis'tration reprisals! Down with the right-wing witchhunt!This witchhunt is a product of thebipartisan "war on terror." The Democrats and Republicans have both workedto gut our rights. Their first targets havebeen immigrants, especially those of

Near Eastern descent and Muslims. Inthis context, these false charges of "terrorism" have led to state surveillance andharassment and open the way to deportations and the disappearance of people.Most of all they want to go after allthose who wish to protest the Americancolonial occupation of Iraq and the massacre at Falluja, or those who voice outrage at the genocidal "collective punishment" of Palestinians by Israel's Zionistrulers. This is what is happening at SanFrancisco State, in New York at Columbia University, at York University inToronto and elsewhere.The forces behind this bogus "academic freedom" campaign include theminions of racist ideologue Horowitz,represented on this campus by thegrossly misnamed "Students for Academic Freedom." The College Republicans' membership overlaps with this outfit. Horowitz and his ilk say that blacks,women, immigrants and all oppressedshould be grateful for what they've got.

Spartacus Youth Club Class SeriesBOSTON

Wednesday, February 16, 6:30 p.m.Socialist Revolution and theCapitalist State

Harvard UniversityLoker Common, Memorial Hall BasementInformation and readings: (617) 666-9453or e-mail: [email protected]

TORONTOWednesday, February 23, 6:30 p.m.

Anti-Gay Bigotry and the Bourgeois Family:Labour Must Defend All the Oppressed!York University, Student Centre

Room TBAInformation and readings: (416) 593-4138or e-mail: [email protected]

4 FEBRUARY 2005

CHICAGOTuesday, February 15, 7 p.m.

For Women's Liberation ThroughSocialist Revolution!University of Chicago

Cobb Hall, Room 202, 5811 S. Ellis Ave.Information and readings: (312) 563-0441or e-mail: [email protected]

VANCOUVERWednesday, February 9, 4:30 p.m.

Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Now!For Black Liberation ThroughSocialist Revolution!UBC, Student Union Bldg., Room 207Information and readings: (604) 687-0353or e-mail: [email protected]

His ilk touts the myth that conservativesare persecuted on American universities.He has worked with RepUblicans to pushthe "Academic Bill of Rights," whichattempts to provide a basis for a purge ofthe left from campuses. These areMcCarthyite strategists; both their campaigns and their racist lies must beexposed. They seek to use the USAPatriot Act as a weapon against critics of

SYC hasvigorouslydefended victimsof "war on terror"onslaught.September 2002:Bay Area SYC atprotest againstUC Berkeleyadministration'switchhunt againstpro-Palestinianactivists.

American imperialism, opponents ofstate repression, fighters for black liberation. fighters for women's liberation, andso on. They are working to get H.R.3077 passed, legislation that would setup a government "advisory board" thatwould include national security types toact as thought police in federally fundedprograms in Middle Eastern Studies.Down with H.R. 3077!. In response, Students Against War(which includes ISO members) issued apetition with the demand that "there beno punitive action against these fourwomen or any organization they belongto." But the core of the petition is a callon Corrigan to act as a regulator of political speech on campus. Such regulationswould be used, in the first instance, to goafter the left and minority students.Quoting a line from a 2002 letter by Corrigan that read "hate speech is not freespeech," the petition stated that "signatories of this petition would agree with thepresident's sentiment." Such languagerenders the petition unsupportable. Andthis came after he threatened reprisals

We give this warning: campus administrations are no friend of these, or any,students. We, along with General Unionof Palestine Students [GUPS], protestedwhen this same administration was cooperating with the FBI in 2001 as it waslooking for school files on students. Thisis not a question for the administration todeal with. Administration restrictions orbans on freedom of speech or expressionwill be used against any who militantlyfight against racist reaction. In Corrigan's arsenal, "hate speech" regulationsare a threat to every critic of racist American imperialism on this campus; he willuse them against us-as he did againstGUPS (as in 2002. to put the group onprobation for a year), as he did againstthe Pan-Afrikan Student Union and others. Abolish the administration! Forstudent-teacher-worker control of theuniversity! Cops of f campus! Down withadministrationlcop spying on campus!Our allies are the women and men ofthe multiracial working class, like theheavily immigrant San Francisco hotelworkers who were recently out on striKefighting for their livelihoods. The Spartacus Youth Club seeks to win youth tothe struggles of the working class and.the fight against every manifestation ofoppression. as part of a broader effort tobuild a revolutionary workers party thatcan overtuin the profit system and private property-capitalism.Standing in the way of revolutionarysocial change are those liberals whopush Democrats, as well as reformistslike the ISO. The social-democratic ISOprettifies bourgeois politicians and capitalist parties whether it is the Democrats,who support the colonial occupation ofIraq, or the Greens, who accept a systemthat inevitably breeds anti-immigrantchauvinism and war. The ISO has backedRalph Nader, a capitalist politician whofavors UN occupation of Iraq, which canonly mean one thing-imperialist troopsin blue helmets instead of red. whiteand blue tanks! The necessary meansto fight against racist oppression isworking-class revolution to smash thecapitalist system, which is based onracist degradation.We demand: No administrationreprisals! Down with the right-wingwitchhunt!

1!Zi2'ZU'lI2tU2 ~ ' l J ] Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist Leagueo $10/21 issues of Workers Vanguard 0 New 0 Renewal

(includes English-language Spartacist and Black History and the Class Struggle)international rates: $25/21 issues-Airmail $10/21 issues-Seamailo $2/6 introductory issues of Workers Vanguard (includes English-language Spartacist)o $2/4 issues of Espartaco (en espanol) (includes Spanish-language Spartacist)Name ____________________________________________________ _Address __________________________________________________ ___

Apt. # ____City _________ State __________ Zip ____Phone (______ ) E-mail - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -n : ; - : ;841Make checks payable/mail to: Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116

3


4/12

Black History and the Class StruggleBLACK WOMEN'S' NARRATIVESOF SLAVERY, THE CIVIL WARAND RECONSTRUCTION

Most stories of black women's livesunder slavery have never been told. Slavemasters routinely brutalized black girls'and women. justifying their dehumanizing treatment by labeling them "sexualsavages." Stripped. beaten. raped andforced to work as "breed sows," blackwomen suffered a double burden underslavery because of their sex. Men wrotethe majority of published accounts ofslave life, the most well known being the

BY CARLA WILSONclassic Narrative of the Life of FrederickDouglass. These slave narratives wereoften produced under the guidance ofthe anti-slavery movement, using "moralsuasion" against slavery to influence achurch-going audience. and thereforeavoided the topic of sexual oppression soas not to shock the Victorian audiencesthey approached for aid.

More than one hundred book-lengthnarratives were written before the end ofthe American Civil War. The mere existence of former slaves' writings and oratory indicted the theories of racial andmental inferiority that justified the slavesystem. In this way, the act of exposingthe horrors of slavery became vital tothe struggle against it. During the 19thcentury, journalists, schoolteachers andlocal historians intervie,ved former slavewomen, and in the 1920s and 1930smore than two thousand' former slaveswere interviewed by the Works ProgressAdministration Federal Writers' Projectand by researchers at Fisk and SouthernUniversities. Most of the Slave Narrative Collection was kept in typescriptin the Rare Book Room of the Libraryof Congress for nearly 40 years. Thiswealth of oral history was frequently dismissed as spurious, but after the civilrights movement, and even more recently,

Harriet Jacobs in 1894. Jacobs' lifespanned the Civil War, Radical Reconstruction and its betrayal. Right: 1862edition of her autobiographicalIncidents in the Ufe of a Slave Girl.4

Har r i e t JacobsA Life

' rIV, fl.KMARKA!\I,f. ,U.l'>t1':-,;l0Rt',.sO ~ ' fHl:> \\()!.\-\K WHO Nl!. l!Th

IXCIVEJI"TS IX TH E LIFEOF A SLAVE GIRL

it L4>H < :1,-11 L /Hi /t. " ~ . , ;


5/12

hierarchy of slave society-whites ruledover blacks, free black people rankedabove slaves, but the status of slavesdepended heavily on their masters, theirskin color and their work as domesticlabor or as field hands. Her parents wereclassified as mulattoes, and her grandmother, Molly. a slave who operated thetown's Horniblow's Tmern. worked as acook. seamstress and wet nurse, livingfreely on site. Harriet learned from hergrandmother how to sew as a youngster.and her mistress taught her to read andspell-skills that would eventt:ally helptransform her life.

~ ~ , > ,d ,1;ti;;\," .p'.... i ..

,' ~ " ....... ., - '.

Robert Langmuir CollectionWhen Harriet turned twelve. her life

altered dramatically when she and herbrother were sold to Dr. James Norcom.At the same time, her father was movedout to a plantation far from Edenton. Harriet found herself left to the whims ofNorcom, a sexual tyrant who stalked herin an effort to make her his concubine."He told me I was his property; thatI must be subjected to his will in allthings. My soul revolted against the meantyranny. But where could I turn for protection? No matter whether the slave girl beas black as ebony or as fair as he r mistress. In either case, there is no shadow oflaw to protect her from insult, from violence, or even from death; all these areinflicted by fiends who bear the shape ofmen," Jacobs wrote.

1864: School in Alexandria, Virginia founded by Harriet Jacobs for former slaves.

Her account, published in 1861,revealed unspeakable acts of sexual coercion at a time when practically no onedared to speak of such things. She threwharsh light on the sexual brutality underlying reproduction of the slave system,where the violation of black women bywhite men stood side by side with theseparation of families as a calculated,

measured provocation aimed not only atwomen, but at the black men who necessarily reacted with deep humiliation andrage. As labor historian Jacqueline Joneshas observed in Labor of Love, Labor ofSorrow (Vintage, 1986): "Whites oftenintervened in more direct ways to upsetthe sexual order that black men andwomen created for themselves, therebyobliterating otherwise viable courtshipand marria ge practic es ... Masters fre-o quently practiced a form of eugenics bywithholding their permission for certainmarriages and arranging others." A master might prohibit a marriage for any

highhanded reason, forbidding a maleslave to seek a wife elsewhere, sincetheir offspring would not belong to himbut to the wife's slaveowner. Jacobs, forexample, had fallen in love with a freeblack carpenter who proposed to marryher, but Norcom refused the lover'seffort to buy her out of slavery. It isimpossible to know how commonplace

Library of CongressFugitive slaves in 1862 crossing the Rappahannock River, Virginia.

AIDS in America:Racism, Poverty, BigotrySpeaker: Karen Cole, 8partacist League

Thursday, February 17, 7:30 p.m.322 West 48th Street, 1st Floor

(Between 8th and 9th Aves. Take A or E to 42nd St.)

For more information: (212) 267-1025e-mail [email protected] YORK CITY

Ten Years of "Democracy"-Still a Racist HellholeSouth Africa:Down With Neo-Apartheid Capitalism!Saturday, February 19 , 3 p.m.

L.A. Public Library-Cahuenga Branch4591 Santa Monica Blvd. (One block east ofVermont/Santa Monica Red Line Station)

For more information: (213) 380-8239e-mail [email protected] ANGELES

Finish the Civil War!Harriet Jacobs: A Black Woman'sFight to Smash SlaverySpeaker: Carla Wilson, Spartacist League Central Committee

Saturd9y, February 26, 3 p.m. For more information: (510) 839-0851YWCA 1 W b S 0 kl d e-mall [email protected], 515 e sler treet, a an(at 15th S1. close to 12th St. BART station) BAY AREA

4 FEBRUARY 2005

Jacobs' story might have actually been.For young Harriet. a desperate act ofrebellion meant encouraging and accepting the advances of Samuel TredwellSawyer, a youthful white lawyer of thetown's aristocracy who ranked above Norcom in social standing. She bore him twochildren over several years. As a proslavery advocate in the North Carolinalegislature of 1830, he joined in pushingthrough a wave of repressive measuresaimed at control of free blacks and whitesas well. New laws imposed strict penalties against teaching slaves to read orwrite, the harboring of runaway slavesand aiding runaways or emancipatingthem.Less than three weeks after the NorthCarolina legislature's measures passed,the Nat Turner Revolt occurred in 1831 inSouthampton County, Virginia. Deeplyreligious from childhood, Nat Turner wasa skilled preacher and possessed someinfluence among local slaves. He plannedattacks with a band of approximately60 followers. "After killing the familyof Turner's owner. the band spread therevolt. in two days killing a total of55 white people. The revolt was sooncrushed: 13 slaves and three free blackswere hanged immediately. Turner himselfescaped into the woods. but was captured.hanged, skinned and a purse made of hisskin. Dozens more blacks were also killedin retaliation. The news traveled sixtymiles downstream to Edenton and therepression that followed was roused \'lithfifes blaring and drums sounding as whitemobs formed roving bands of armed slavepatrollers imposing martial law.Fearful that Turner's revolt wouldinspire others to arms, slave masters putEdenton under round-the-clock patrols,with house-to-house searches. Jacobs

Just Out!

recalls how the fear of Turner's revoltprompted slave owners to conclude "thatit would be well to give the slaves enoughof religious instruction to keep them frommurdering their masters." Worried thatany congregating of blacks meant seedsplanted for insurrection, the slave masters reduced to rubble the meetinghouseblacks had built communally that servedas their church; the congregation wasforced to attend the white churches.Harriet's own situation became moreprecarious as she grew sick and tired oftrying to avoid sexual servitude underNorcom. Finally she fled to a crawlspaceconcealed beneath her grandmother'sroof-a cell roughly seven feet wide, ninefeet long and three feet high. There shewould spend the next seven years, onlyleaving the house once. She subsequentlyescaped to the North in June J842 andended in the care of Philadelphia's Vigilant Committee. but as with many whotraveled the Underground Railroad, shenever divulged her route.Abolitionist Fighter

Once in the free states of the North,Jacobs lived in constant trepidation, fearing ,\iorcoll1 and his heirs would seekto claim their "property." Her immediate focus was on finding he r chi Idren,who had been sent North as servants totheir father's kin. At first, Jacobs avoidedthe abolitionist circles. after an initialencounter in Philadelphia included awarning from Reverend Jeremiah Durham that she should avoid revealing hersexual history because some might treather with "contempt." Later. she joinedher brother, John S., who had escapedNorcom before her and had becomea well-known anti-slavery activist. He

continued on page 10

, ~ ~ A Spartacist Pamphlet $1Contents include: From Death Row,This Is Mumia Abu-JamalIn the ShadowsOf Abu Ghraib Prison

Finish the Civil War!Black Disenfranchisement andAmerican "Democracy" How the Liberals and ReformistsDerailed the Struggle for IntegrationFor Black Liberation ThroughSocialist Revolution! The "N" Word in Racist America A Life in the Black Panther PartyWe Want Freedom

Review of a Book by Mumia Abu-Jamal Join the Labor Black Leagues! Racism and Anti-Woman BigotryFor Free Abortion on Demand! Down With Capitalist Rulers' WarAgainst Blacks, Immigrants!

$1 (48 pages)

Black Historyand the Class Struggle--- No.1.---A Life in theBlack Panther Party

- 01. i0oi< b, Mu ... AII.. " ...How the Liller. and Reformists Derailed tileStruggle for JntetrafiuFor Black LiberationThrough Socialist Revolution!

"< S Q

Black History is sent to all Workers Vanguard subscribers.Order from: Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116

5


6/12

AHard Look at Recent PartyWork and Current TasksThe Spartacist League/U.S. held its12th National Conference last summer inthe New York City area. Attending were

elected delegates and members fromevery SL local, members of the SpartacusYouth Club, and also members of theLabor Black Leagues, which are associated with the SL. The SL is the U.S.section of the International CommunistLeague, to which it is subordinate. Theconference was immediately preceded bya meeting of the ICL's International Executive Committee (lEC). Conference delegates heard politically rich greet-

Spartacist League12th National Conference"Tasks of the Spartacist League/U.S."document, was adopted by the conference. Putting the party's problems andtasks in the political context of the postSoviet world, the conference documentasserted that the experience and aims of

we had previously produced. Thus, wepublished the series of articles on "Marxism vs. Anarchism" precisely because weanticipated and saw a resurgence of anarchist ideology among left-wing youth.On the other hand, the leadership in the

ern world but had to be fought for.What we are faced with is the hardtask of explicating the basic principles

and worldview of Marxism, as did GeorgiPlekhanov's Emancipation of Labor groupin late 19th- and early 20th-century Russia.Lenin himself came to political consciousness at that time, when his belovedolder brother was executed for participating in a failed plot by revolutionarypopulists to assassinate the tsar. Leninbecame a Marxist only through a prolonged period of internal development

ings from representatives of everyICL section.As the highest decision-makingbody of the SLlU.S., the NationalConference is charged with reviewing the work and decisions of theorganization since the previous conference. assessing the current political situation and our interventionsinto various milieus, charting theorganization's tasks for the comingperiod and electing a new CentralCommittee to lead the work of theparty between conferences.

\ S P A R T A C ) S t 1 ~ ~ " " " , , R " E " " U S l < m m o " ~ >pAl"';;"" [ $ P A R T A C J S f 1 ~ =~ " " ' B E R " E"GUSH EOT and struggle in which he transcended the revolutionary populistoutlook and program then hegemonic among the Russian leftistintelligentsia.P ... "" ' "Q iii 'Id" HI kl!!. diq,JiWW!I1i!o!:HD-For aWerkers Partyl iEi:f\i,'GHtt3i :[3i@UUlU'\ Tlllrd I n t e r n a t l o n a ! , c ! ~ e l 1 l n c e 01 tlUllClIroeeiaratiOn of Principles and "\: Some Elements of Program '

That Fights for a Workers Governlllllnt!:For Socialist Revolutionin the Bastion

! The Fight tor ReVOlutionaryi Continuity in ~ ' o ~ ~ s t - S o v i e t W O r l ~ r - - - - - - - - ___Forty Years of SParlacist"Toward aeblrtlJ of !be Fouru, In""nal"'a1"

A high point of the conferencewas an educational given by comrade Joseph Seymour on "How MarxBecame a Marxist" (see part one ofthe educational in WV No. 840, 21January). The class traced Marx'sdevelopment from a radical bour-

: International Communist league {Fourth Internationalist) iI __ ______ ~ E ~ ~ ~ ~ __---------.-_.J a' Warld Imperialism!I -i 011 tile Origins aIId Development ot Leninist\ Ot1lanizatlOllll1 Practicesl W ~ M G 6 0 t 4 1 -- -- -- -- - -- -. -- -- -- - -- Organizational Rules and Guidelines01 the Spartacist League/U.S. The Meiji Restoration: ABourgeoisNon-Democratic Revolution

This National Conference was particularly significant since it continued the work begun at the ICL'sFourth International Conference in theautumn of 2003 in critically assessingthe internal fights and public interventions of our organization over the pastperiod (see "The Fight for Revolutionary Continuity in the Post-Soviet World,"Spartacist [English-language edition]No. 58, Spring 2004). In the immediateaftermath of the International Conference, a member of the IEC posed thetasks facing us:"We need to ensure that we don't loseour programmatic bearings by inventinga 'new world reality.' We need to examine particular political questions on thebasis of the fundamentals of Marxisttheory combined with our already developed positions, taking into account aconcrete examination of the issue inquestion ... Moreover, we need to intervene in the world as much as possible totest our program and be able to makeassessments of our work. This requires aknowledgeable and thinking cadre whospeak up."

And the cadre certainly spoke up! Thethree-month period of pre-conferencediscussion produced an outpouring ofdocuments by comrades critically evaluating past campaigns and aspects of ourwork, necessitating the production ofseven internal discussion bulletins on topof many more international and SLlU.s.bulletins from preceding months.The


7/12

How theSoviet Workers StateWas Strangled

Spartakist

broke out over what slogans best encapsulated our proletarian internationalistdefense of the Iraqi peoples against U.S,occupation. This discussion was drivenby a number of important factors, including the ethnic/religious divisions (Sunni,Shi'ite , Kurd) within Iraq, which was arbitrarily carved out by the British imperialists following World War I, and the factthat many of those who are fighting theAmerican occupation forces appear to bereactionary Islamic fundamentalists whoalso attack other ethnicireligious groupings in the country.

East Berlin, 3 January 1990: Spartacist-initiated demonstration at Treptow Park against fascist desecration ofmemorial. to Red Army liberators and in defense of DDR deformed workers state. ICL uniquely fought capitalistcounterrevolution, provided Marxist analysis of world-historic defeat.

Much of the debate revolved aroundhow one can make clear that every blowstruck against the American-led occupation is in the interests of working people across the world while also underlining our opposition to the reactionarysocial and political positions of thosenow fighting the U.S. Some comradestended to underestimate the reactionarypolitics of the "resistance," while otherstended to 0 \ er-emphasize it at the expense of the primary issue, opposition tothe American occupation.

along with comrades in the InternationalSecretariat ( IS ) . to excise from the published version of a letter by the International Bolshevik Tendency (BT) apostscript grotesquely and falsely accusing SLiU S National Chairman J a m e ~ Robertson of "vulgar chauvinism." The .smear-originated by renegades who fledour organization at the onset of the antiSoviet Cold War l l -was designed toinvalidate our history and imply thatICL members are dupes and/or racists.By excising the "P.S:-an omissionwhich the BT immediately exploitedWV essentiaJly pled Robertson guilty ascharged. putting into question the ICL'sprogrammatic continuity and indicatingagnosticism on our very existence.The BT excision provoked outragethroughout the ICL, exposing politicaldisorientation within the central administration of the ICL and SLlU.S., an administration that was becoming politicaJlyerratic and beginning to exhibit corol1arybureaucratic practices. Increasingly, suchpractices began to erode our party's selfcorrection mechanism by stifling debateand discussion-not mainly through formal measures but rather through a markedtendency to elevate disputed questions,including minor tactical differences. intoquestions of principle and regime.The ability to frankly assess our workand correct our mistakes is a criticalweapon for Leninists to maintain theintegrity of the revolutionary programagainst the pressures of reactionary capitalist society. It provides the party withthe capacity to test its leadership, strategyand tactics in light of experience and ourrevolutionary principles. Ultimately, thisis expressed in the right to form factionswhen serious questions of program andprinciple need to be thrashed out. Suchstruggle is crucial to maintaining ourrevolutionary continuity with the earlyAmerican Trotskyists, from whom wederive. and with Lenin and Trotsky'sBolsheviks.The Russian Question and theFight fo r New Octobers

We have often described ourselves. inthe words_of James P. Cannon. founderof American Trotskyism. as "'the party ofthe Russian Re\olution." At the crucialhour. in stark contrast to most of the left.the ICL stood at our post in defense ofthe gain, of the October Revolution.Amid the incipient proletarian politicalre\olution in East Germany (the DDR)in 1989-90. we threw al1 our resourcesinto this struggle. fighting against capitalist reunification and for a "Germanyof workers councils." Of four reporters tothe main conference session on "Reconstructing a Damaged Party." one concentrated on the lessons of our interventioninto the DDR where, for the first time inour history. we intervened directly inworld-historic events.We also fought against capitalist counterrevolution in the Soviet Union, establishing a station in Moscow. This workcost the life of our comrade MarthaPhil1ips. The aftermath ofYeltsin s August1991 COlll1tercoup. in the absence ofworking-class resistance, saw the finalundoing of the workers state issuing fromthe October Revolution. We published our4 FEBRUARY 2005

seminal article. "How the Soviet WorkersState Was Strangled," which explainedwhy Trotsky's prognosis that capitalistrestoration would require a civil war hadnot materialized.Yet the ICL failed to conduct a synthetic assessment of either our intervention in the DDR or the work of Moscowstation. The failure to critical1y evaluatethese interventions helped set a patternover the next period that major partyinterventions did not have to face realscrutiny inside the organization. The ICLConference devoted considerable attention to correcting and honing our understanding of the situation in China-the"Russian question" today. The International Secretariat is orchestrating a fulJassessment of our work in the DDR andin Russia, beginning with a three-parteducational review in all the sections.This is key to strengthening the partyin our fight for unconditional militarydefense of and proletarian political revolution in China and the other remainingdeformed workers states-Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea.Communist Interventionin Bush's America

The conference took place monthsbefore the U.S. presidential elections,when '"Anybody but Bush" sentiment hadbecome dominant among the left andactivist youth milieus. Addressing thehigh level of polarization in the Americanelectorate, despite the few substantivepolicy differences between the Republicans and Democrats. a leading comradewarned in a letter quoted in the conference document:"I f we simply focus on the narrow programmatic differences between theDemocrats and Republicans, then wecannot address the intense mutual hostility of their supporters. And if we simplyfocus on the hatred felt by many blackworking people for the RepUblicans, weare likely to exaggerate the differencesbetween the GOP and the Democrats."The document notes that while suchgroups as the Communist Party and Democratic Socialists of America openly support the Democ ratic Party, Workers WorldParty and the Revolutionary CommunistParty "channel opposition to the crimesof the imperialist rulers into liberalantiwar. pro-civil liberties coalitions(ANSWER. NION) whose bottom line is'anybody but Bush.' We have found thatmany self-described anarchist youth.lacking any class understanding. see noreason in principle not to support theDemocrats."Delegates spoke to how the call raisedby SLlSYC contingents in the Iraq antiwar protests to '"Break with the Democratic Party of War and Racism-For aWorkers Party That Fights for SocialistRevolution!" attracted militant youthrepelled by the protest organizers' liberal pressure politics. Our call to defendNorth Korea and its right to nuclearweapons was also polarizing, as many"antiwar" Democrats railed that Bush'sobsession with Iraq was steering attention away from going after the NorthKorean deformed workers state. Mostprotesters. however, did not automatically see how our call to "Defend IraqAgainst U.S. Attack," i.e., standing forthe defeat of U.S, imperialism. was

counterposed to such pacifist slogansas "no to war"-a slogan pushed bythe liberals and reformists in order topressure the capitalist parties to adoptmore pacific. "humane" policies.Much of the political discussion on ourpropaganda and interve ntion into the antiwar and anti-globalization milieu tookplace at the Youth Commission at the conference, composed of SYC members fromaround the country, The SL was represented by a delegation elected by the conference. The gathering revealed a growing youth component of our commonmovement, including the recruitment of anumber of minority and working-classyouth over the last few years: it voted toexpand the national Youth Commission incharge of producing the Young Spartacuspages that appear in WV every month.. The Commission also discussed the thenupcoming protests against the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, addressing the need to politicallytake on the reformist lefts' pandering tothe "Anybody but Bush" sentiment.At the final session of the conference,a senior party comrade and veteran youthactivist spoke to the need for a "carnivrous leadership of the youth": "It'svery good for a party leadership to havesome carnivores on their trail. And inorder to become a youth organizationthat wants to get the party leadership.you have to publish a newspaper, get anoffice, collect money-youth never haveany problems about collecting moneywhen they've got a reason for i t -go onnational tours, set up local branches. participate in campus struggles, and all theother things you have to do to get theparty leadership."Iraq War and Occupation

A separate conference agenda pointwas devoted to the Iraq war and occupation. Prior to the conference, a dispute

p.c:: " a r t i ~ n DefeneD o lU lU i t t ee

l a ! H * " i j ; J i I M : w ) : a i ~ f . i j ~ ( j i H Num'oef31 socII BRIEF Of AMICI CURIAE SPARTACIST LEAGUE

A ~ D PARTISAN DEFE"SE COMMITfEEON BEHALF OF JOSE P.\DlLLAAND GRA.NTING HIS WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUSl'NlTED

,---I Free All MOVE Prisoners! Free Mumla A b u - J a m a l ~ i 25th Anniversary of powelton Village Siege" A n t l . T e r r o r ~ Dragnet T ~ r e a t e n s 13,000 with ExpuLsions

.1822

By the time of the conference thedifferences had narrowed considerably,though the debate helped to sharpen ourline and hone our propaganda. The conference affirmed as our central slogancomplex, "U .S. and Allied Forces Ou tof Iraq Now: Down With the ColonialOccupation fo r Class Struggle AgainstU.S. Capitalist Rulers at Home!" In orderto make clear our side in the occupation. as we did during the war with ourcaU to defend Iraq against imperialistattack, we also raise the slogan "Defendthe Iraqi Peoples Against U.S. ImperialistButchers!"While affirming that we will continueto raise the call for a Socialist Republicof United Kurdistan, we noted that atthis particular conjuncture. in Iraq-andonly in Iraq-the Kurdish question hasbecome decisively subordinated to thecolonial occupation, in the sense that theKurdish political parties and their military forces are an integral part of theoccupation forces.Fighting Domestic Repression

In our conference deliberations, wetried to clearly face the political realityin which we function and the problems-ranging from critical to tr ivialwe have encountered. As Marx put it,"the point is to change" the world and tochange it you've got to recognize it. Theconference document dealt with the intensified bourgeois reaction in the U.S.that "took full flight after the September II attacks. Perceiving few obstacles inthe way of its global ambitions, U.S. imperialism has extended its military powerto Central Asia and the Near East while

continued on page 8

!! Par t i dn . - e feneD on l ln i t t ee$eplembr2001 Pamphlet

;':Mumia Abu-Jamal""Is an Innocent Man!

AffidaVit of RaChel Wo:kenslelnDeclarationDeclarations Of WI'I,am COOKAffidaVit of Donald HerSlflgDeclaration of Linn Wasnlngtc'1Affidavit of Tem Maurer-Carter

222324262830

No. 31, Summer 200350 (24 pages)

Mumia Abu-Jamal Is an Innocent Man!50 (32 pages) Published September 2001

ClaSS-Struggle Def ense Notes No. 31reprints in its entirety the amicicuriae (friends of the court) brieffiled in the U.S. Court of Appealsby the PDC and the SpartacistLeague in defense of Jose Padilla.

New Evidence Explodes Frame-Up:Declarations and affidavits of MumiaAbu-Jamal, Arnold R. Beverly, RaChelWolkenstein and others prove that death rowpolitical prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal is aninnocent man.-------- Order from/make checks payable to -------Partisan Defense Committee, P.O. Box 99, Canal Street Station, New York, NY 10013Phone: (212) 406-4252 E-mail: [email protected]

7


8/12

Conference ...(continued from page 7)carrying out a series of repressive measures domestically that spell a qualitativediminution of democratic rights."

L. ..

The document also dealt with a majorproblem with our propaganda in the immediate aftermath of September I I, whenour party press failed for a full month topublicly state that Marxists draw a distinction between attacks on institutionslike the Pentagon-which directly represents the military might of U.S. imperialism-and random and criminal terroragainst innocent civilians, as in the caseof the World Trade Center. Unlike theWorld Trade Center, the Pentagon is thecommand and administrative center ofthe U.S. -imperialist military, and as amilitary installation the possibility of getting hit comes with the territory. Thatrecognition does not make the attack an"anti-imperialist" act, nor does it changethe fact that terrorism almost always getsinnocent people-in this case, the passengers on the plane as well as the maintenance workers, janitors and secretaries'at the Pentagon.

Lenin and Trotsky in Red Square on second anniversary of 1917 BolshevikRevolution.

The party can be proud of the steps wehave taken in fighting the government'sassault on the rights of the population.In February 2002, the Partisan DefenseCommittee and Bay Area Labor BlackLeague for Social Defense initiated alabor-centered united-front protest inOakland, California in defense of immigrant rights and against the USA-Patriotand Maritime Security Acts. That was thefirst union-centered protest in defense ofimmigrant rights in the U.S. after theSeptember I I attacks.In 2003, the PDC and SL filed "friendsof the court" briefs on behalf of JosePadilla, an American citizen seized inChicago by the government as an "enemycombatant" (see Class-Struggle DefellSeNotes No. 31, Summer 2003). The detention of Padilla without any charges oraccess to legal counsel or recourse represents an attack on the very right of citizenship, concretizing what we havestressed from the beginning of the "waron terror"; that the measures enactedfirst against immigrants would not be solimited but would be used against citizens as well, particularly the black population, and in the long run the left andlabor movement. Legal and social defense will continue to loom large as atask of our common movement in theperiod ahead.The Fight to Free Mumia andAbolish the Racist Death Penalty

One of the conference reporters anguI,arly characterized the problems with theSL/U.S. work over the last period as"stodgy demoralized sectarianism alternating with get-rich impressionism." Forexample, our sectarian position to notsell at the 1999 Seattle protests-painting all the protesters with the brushof the AFL-CIO labor tops' grotesqueanti -Chinese, anti -Communist protectionism-cost us precious political capital.

The decision to boycott the protestagainst the World Trade Organizationmeant that we left the field free for ourreformist political opponents and lost animportant opportunity to engage withand learn more about the youthful antiglobalization and anarchist milieus.At roughly the same time, when weapplied the united-front tactic in the23 October 19991aborlblack united-frontmobilization against the Ku Klux Klanin New York City, this success was followed by a highly unrealistic, exhaustingcampaign to recruit large numbers of"young black workers." October 23 wasan important defensive struggle, initiatedby the PDC and heavily built by the SLand SYC, in which some 8,000 peopleturned out to stop the fascists. The resident party leadership, however. confusedthis successful defensive action with ageneralized leap in proletarian consciousness. especially among New York's blackworking class. The fact that only twomonths after the anti-Klan mobilization,New York City's transit workers stooddown from their strike threat in the face

of company/government union-bustingmoves should have been cause to reviewthe post-October 23 policy.Reviewing this work cast light on ourstruggle to free Mumia Abu-lamal. a former Black Panther, supporter of the Philadelphia MOVE organization and awardwinning journalist who has been on deathrow since 1982 on false charges of killinga policeman. First taking up Mumia'scause in 1987, the Partisan Defense Committee did trail-blazing work to publicizehis case and his powerful writings, helping to expose the racist railroading ofMumia by the cops, District Attorney'soffice and courts. The PDC initiatedunited-front defense rallies for Mumia,seeking in particular to mobilize laborsupport for him and demanding abolitionof the racist death penalty. For a time,PDC counsel served on Mumia's legaldefense team.

Our work was crucial in makingMumia known to a national and international audience, including trade unions.

WV PhotoSan Francisco, January 2003: Spartacist-initiated Revolutionary Internationalist Contingent protests buildup for Iraq war.8

In the summer of 1995, after a death warrant was signed against him, a powerfulmovement demanding that Mumia's lifebe saved erupted across the U.S. andaround the world. His scheduled execution was stayed by the courts in August ofthat year. And while we succeeded in ourefforts to galvanize much larger socialforces to fight on behalf of Jamal. we recognized that those same forces were farremoved from our communist outlookand would inevitably seek to marginalizeour involvement in this struggle.

POC banner atSan Francisco"new trial"demo for MumiaAbu-Jamal,24 April 1999.

oo..c0..

However, this correct observation became a rationale for increasingly withdrawing from political combat withgroups such as Socialist Action and theWorkers World Party who tailored theirappeals to liberals who were agnostic onMumia's innocence and thus would notrally around a call to free him. Accordingly, the reformists purposefully subordinated the call to free Mumia to thedemand for a "new trial." Our disengaging from political combat with theseforces meant we were not as effective aswe could have been in exposing theirdemobilization of support for Mumia.We correctly decided against endorsing protests which were called a round the"new trial" demand, such as the "Millionsfor Mumia" demonstrations on 24 April1999. But we wrongly concluded thatwe were precluded, on grounds of political principle, from marching in thesedemonstrations. We should have madeclear our political opposition by organizing "Free Mumia" contingents in thedemonstrations organized by liberals andreformists. Instead we refused to marchin these demonstrations at all, even whileorganizing full mobilizations of our members to attend them to sell our paper. Thispolicy wrongly equated endorsement ofan action, which implies political agreement with the demands, with organizedparticipation in the event itself.Our policy of not marching on 24 April1999 played a role in our attitude towarda stop-work meeting called by the WestCoast ILWU longshore union in defenseof Jamal the same day as those marches.We noted the move by ILWU Local 10bureaucrat Jack Heyman to organize aunion contingent that included the sloganto free Jamal at the same time that hemotivated the ILWU to endorse the April

24 "new trial" rally, and correctly underlined that this provided a left cover forthose who did not want to call for Jamal'sfreedom. However, rather than commending the ILWU stop-work action as animportant statement of the kind of socialpower needed for Jamal's defense, weeffectively equated the action with Heyman's pandering to the call for a "newtrial."A resolution passed at the conferenceunderscored the need for our work andpress to highlight the fight for Mumia'sfreedom. This is all the more urgenttoday given that few youth know whohe is. much less see the significance ofhis struggle in the fight against blackoppression. The success of the recentPDC benefits is testimony to both theappeal of Mumia's case among manyblack, youth and trade-union activistsand the sense that much more needs tobe done in the fight for his freedom.Intervening in American Society:Black and Union Work

Among the decisions of the conference was to form a national Black Commission, whose purview will include theBlack History and the Class Strugglepamphlet series. This Commission willalso monitor national developments ofimportance in the fight for black rights,including in the South, and coordinatethe work of the Labor Black Leagues,which work in conjunction with most ofour party locals.The conference agreed on the need for

more articles in WVon the fight againstblack oppression, and many delegatesspoke to the need to continue addressing the increased acceptance of the "N"word particularly among black ghettoyouth, an expression of internalizedoppression based on their enforced segregation at the bottom of society.The Black Commission, which metduring the conference, voted to encouragethe Labor Black Leagues to add a demandto their ten-point program expressingopposition to laws against prostitution aswell as the other "crimes without victims," such as pornography, gambling anddrugs. This demand, subsequently adoptedby the LBLs, is particularly importantin addressing the contradiction that muchof the black population-which oftenconstitutes the most militant fighters inthe workers movement-is politically advanced in awareness of the draconianstate repression and brutal oppression thatcharacterizes American society, but at thesame time tends to be politically backward on social questions like abortionand gay rights, due in part to the continuing, weighty influence of the blackchurches.Another issue that received considerable attention was how we conducted ourdebate with the League for the Revolutionary Party (LRP) in May 2003. TheLRP leadership cadres are the directdescendants of Max Shachtman, whosplit from the Trotskyist movement in1940. refusing to defend the SovietUnion. But their views were also centrally shaped by the 1960s New Left. andthus their politics are defined not simplyby "State Department soc ialism." butalso by cheerleading for petty-bourgeois"Third World" nationalism abroad and

continued 011 page 11WORKERS VANGUARD


9/12

Redfern ...(continued from page 2)class. Many of the most politically conscious Maori, Asian. Arab and Turkishworkers living in racist White Australiaidentify with the struggles of Aboriginalpeople. Meanwhile leftist and workermilitants in the neocolonial countries ofAsia and the Pacific see in the brutaloppression of Aboriginal people a mirrorof their ov.n SUbjugation under U.S.,J a p a n e ~ e and Australian imperialism. Tounite across race lines in t h i ~ country andto \vin the In!'.t of. and hence a crucialfighting alliance with, the workers of theAsia-Pacific region. the proletariat mustshow determined opposition to the racistcampaigns of the White Australia capitalist rulers.No Illusions in theCapitalist State!

In response to incessant cop brutality,some left groups and Aboriginal leadershave raised calls for some form of "civil-

Iraq ...(continued from page 1)Kurdish nationalists who collaboratewith U.S. imperialism.For the first time in centuries, Shi' iteswill rule an Arab country, which is a reason al-Sistani and many other Shi'iteleaders pushed for the elections. Thishas Sunni Arab rulers apoplectic thata Shia "Crescent' will run from Iranthrough Iraq to Lebanon, via Syria.Notably, the oil wealth of Saudi Arabia isconcentrated in Shi'ite areas, as is thelargest concentration of oil wealth in Iraq(apart from Mosul), not to mention theoil wealth controlled by Iran's Shi'itetheocracy. Now, why would the Bushadministration, which considers the Iranian Shi'ite Islamic regime at the pinnacle of the world "axis of evil," maneuverthe elections in Iraq to bring the Shi'itesto power, thus strengthening Iranianinfluence in the region? Answer: theBush administration doesn't know whereit is, much tess where it is going.Attempting to disprove new revelationsby Seymour Hersh (New Yorker, 24 January) that U.S. commandos have alreadybeen dropped into Iran, Cheney toldMSNBC's Don Imus, "We don't want awar in the Middle East if we can avoidit." Where do these lunatics think Iraq is,Greater Texas') France, Germany and Britain are worried about Bush waging another war inthe Near East. They have substantial economic investments and trade deals withIran and are urgently negotiating to getthe Ayatollahs to foreswear developmentof nuclear weapons. Cheney's disavowalof war plans against Iran was anythingbut. Stating that "Iran is right at the topof the list" of world trouble spots, Cheney dropped that "the Israelis might welldecide to act first and let the rest of theworld worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards." The Zionist neocons in the Bush administration havelong had their ~ i g h t s on "regime change"in Iran as part of their overall plan toredraw the map in the interests of Israeli4 FEBRUARY 2005

ian review" of the police or for governments to "empower" and resource policing of areas like The Block by eldersin the black community. For example. a25 August letter to the Koori Mail by theFSP proposes "the estahlishment of independent elected civilian reviev. boards"as a "mechanism of accountability" ofthe police. But the police, along with themilitary. courts and prisons are at thecore of the capitalist state which was created, exists, and is replenished for thevery purpose of enforcing the rule of theracist exploiting class over the w o r k e r ~ and dispossessed. While it is possible.through social struggle, to win temporaryconcessions from the capitalists such aswage increases or greater access to socialservices. the bourgeoisie are no moregoing to cede control of their armedthugs, the police, than they are going to. hand over power to the toiling masses.Any pretence of "civilian review" ofthe cops invariably serves to simplylegitimise the police by propagating thedeadly illusion that they are serving andbeing directed by the whole community.

Opposition to racistcop presence in- Redfern emblazoned onpart of the AboriginalTent Embassy inCanberra, Australia'scapital. Aborigines setup Tent Embassy in1972 as a protestagainst Australiangovernment's denial ofland and other rights.

security and American imperialist interests. As we reported in "Mullahs, Monarchists, Neocons and Zionists" (WV No.820, 20 February 2004), Pentagon planners Richard Perle and Douglas Feithfirst schemed a new N ear East plan manyyears ago in a position paper they draftedin 1996 for incoming Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In 2002, Perleprepared a slideshow for Pentagon chiefsthat explained U.S. goals for bringing"democracy" to the region as follows:" I r a q ~ a tactical goal, Saudi A r a b i a ~ a strategic goal, and E g y p t ~ t h e greatprize."

No wonder then that the entire Arabworld and "old Europe" are on edge.Growing discontent within the Americanmilitary and a real shortage of troops willnot necessarily stop a zealously ideological Christian fundamentalist WhiteHouse, no doubt anxious to hasten Armageddon, from widening the war in the

A polling stationin the northerncity of Samarrablown to rubblein lead-up toJanuary 30"elections."

r e g i o n ~ a n d certainly not from launchingmurderously destructive bombing raidson Iran. U.S. keep your bloody hands of fIran!Democratic rights for all the peoplesof Iraq, and across the Near East morebroadly, cannot be achieved under capitalism, but require the overthrow ofbourgeois rule in the region and the

Australasian SpartacistSydney: Spartacus Youth Club supporters join Redfern march in memory ofTJ, February 2004Similarly. any "community policing"

of areas like The Block that is set up andfinanced by the ruling class will be usedby it to legitimise racist repression andmake complicit some Aborigines in theoppression of their own people. And theonly elders whom the bourgeoisie would"empower" to police their communitieswould be those that the capitalists seekto buy off or those who have alreadyshown themselves willing to be alliesof the racist r u l e r s ~ l i k e the peoplewho have accepted invitations to joinHoward's hand-picked Aboriginal "advisory" councilor Mick Mundine, whohas welcomed racist cop raids targetingThe Block.What is needed is a program of unioniblack/minority action against racist terror as part of a class-struggle fighthackagainst the all-sided capitalist attacks onthe unions. the poor. women. Aboriginesand immigrants. To realise this perspective requires a political struggle to break

establishment of a socialist federation ofthe Near East. This is the Trotskyistprogram of permanent revolution.' Thismeans combining the struggle againstthe occupation with a struggle against allmanner of bourgeois nationalism andreligious fundamentalism, and poses theurgent need to forge Marxist parties tolead the struggles for workers rule. International extension of the revolution tothe rich centers of i m p e r i a l i s m ~ c h i e f l y the United States, Germany and J a p a n ~ is not only essential for world wide egalitarian socialist economic planning, buttaking power out of the hands of the warcrazed U.S. imperialist rulers is essentialfor the future of life on the planet!Imperialist Warand Workers Revolution

The imperial ambitions so blatantlydisplayed in Bush's second inauguralspeech were couched in bizarre Christian

fundamentalist rhetoric. They were alsoinspired by Zionist neocon ravings, asformer Soviet dissident and right-wingIsraeli minister Natan Sharansky is nowbeing touted by both the born-again president and Secretary of State CondoleezzaRice. A London Guardian (22 January)writer quipped that Bush's speechwritersuffered a heart attack while working on

(in the first instance, the most c l a s ~ -conscious) workers from illusions in thepotential reformability of the capitaliststate and to expose the Laborite misleaders who tie the working class tothe bosses' state. We need an authenticLeninist-Trotskyist party to lead the proletariat and its allies in a socialist revolution to sweep the racist capitalist systeminto the dustbin of history. On the way tothis goal we need to defend all thosewho have courageously stood against theatrocities of racist capitalism: Drop thecharges against the Redfern and PalmIsland black militants!

* * *Fax protest statements demanding

the dropping of charges against theRedfern defendants to the NSWAttorney-General, Robert Debus on011-612-9228-3166. Fax copies to thePartisan Defence Committee on 011-612-9281-2185

the inaugural address, "and its fire-andbrimstone rhetoric seems to have beenaimed at having the same effect on someof the world's leaders."The template for the U.S. imperialpresidency was set a long time ago. Andthough this ruling class may currentlyhave a Christian wacko at the helm, nonetheless the power behind the ship of stateis the relentless U.S. capitalist drive forprofits, which in a world economy necessarily results in imperialism, the inevitably bloody expression of capitalism at itshighest stage. Imperialist aggression andwar are not "policies" that can be endedwithin the framework of c a p i t a l i s m ~ t h e entire system must be overturned.

Rejecting this Leninist understandingof imperialism, the reformist organizersof the antiwar movement, like WorkersWorld and the International SocialistOrganization, peddled the lie that the capitalist system can be reformed to workin the interest of human needs. Theybuilt antiwar demonstrations designed toappeal to liberal Democratic politicianswho argue that the Iraq war is damagingto the interests of the U.S. On January 12,16 Congressional Democrats issued anopen letter to Bush calling for "immediate steps to begin the withdrawal of U.S.forces from Iraq." These Democrats aregetting themselves in position to play thesame role they did before the war: to corral antiwar sentiment into the safe fold ofthe capitalist Democratic Party.

The fight against imperialist war mustbecome a fight against the entire capitalist system which breeds it, and againstboth U.S. capitalist parties. Democrats aswell as RepUblicans, who take turns presiding over an increasingly cruel anddivided society. Largely because of itspro-capitalist misleadership, the workingclass, which alone has the ability to overthrow capitalism and open the road tohuman progress again, has been absentfar too long as a contender for politicaland social power. Our task, as a smallMarxist international organization, is tofight to reestablish the u nderstanding thatthe road to human freedom lies throughworking-class socialist revolution.

9


10/12

Narratives ...(continued from page 5)often shared platforms with abolitionistFrederick Douglass and also worked onthe North Star. Eventually becoming afrequent letter contributor to the New YorkDaily Tribune, she gained courage towrite her autobiography and later servedas a correspondent for William LloydGarrison's the Liberator, as part of activist circles in Rochester, New York andBoston. Her views were no doubt shapedby her involvement with organized reformers from the anti-slavery and women'srights struggles in Rochester.These abolitionists were part of abroad, bourgeois social radicalizationamong the 19th-century heirs to theEnlightenment, Protestant religious idealsand the American Revolution. Althoughopposition to slavery was by no meansas widespread in the 1830s as it wasto become immediately before the CivilWar, nonetheless many prominent men,such as the wealthy Tappan brothers ofNew York and Gerrit Smith, the biggestlandowner in the North, had joined the


11/12

saw rations and rent deducted, resultingin a cycle of debt bondage.However, Reconstruction posed a possibility of socially revolutionary transformations in the South: the regional rulingclass, based on land and slaves, had beenmilitarily defeated; under the occupyingNorthern power. black men and women,formerly slaves, exercised political rightsfor the first time in the South. Beforethe defeat of Reconstruction. many political offices in the South were held byblack men.Reconstruction not only brought aboutvoting rights for black men and evenmany poor illiterate Southern white menbut also ushered in the establishment ofthe South's first public schools, liberalized the South's barbaric penal code andreformed the planters' property tax system. These measures allowed for realprospects for schooling, land and jobs forblack freedmen. But northern capitalistsbetrayed the promise of Reconstruction,allowing it to be physically smashed,aided by forces such as the Ku Klux Klan.In 1877, the last of the Union troops werewithdrawn from Southern occupation,marking a compromise that put Rutherford B. Hayes in the White House. From,this defeat of Reconstruction grew thepostwar Southern system of sharecropping, poll taxes, chain gangs, lynch lawand "separate but equal"-i.e., unequalJim Crow facilities.During Reconstruction, Jacobs andother female abolitionists working asteachers risked their)ives to participate in

Conference ...( continued from page 8)tailing black nationalism while accommodating white racism at home. Delegates were angry at the decision of severalcomrades in the central party leadership totake the "high road" with the LRP in ourdebate presentation. Thus, we did not

Plekhanov, founder of Russian Marxism, faced task of explaining basicMarxist worldview.thoroughly enough lambaste the LRP for,e.g., their opposition to busing to achieves-chool integration, though our speakersfrom the floor at the debate did this.At its meeting, the Trade Union Commission stressed the need for increasedattention to the party's trade-union fractions and discussed the work of our locals,analyzing the successes and problems. TheCommission took up the Million WorkerMarch, called by the more left-wing tradeunion leaders to corral dissatisfied workersto vote for the Democrats. As well, theCommission reviewed our propaganda onlabor struggles, raising several questionsthat require further discussion and recommending one correction.Thus, on the recommendation of theCommission, the conference adopted acorrection to 'a sectarian error concerninga September 1997 "community picketline" at the Port of Oakland that aimed tostop the unloading of the scab ship Nep-4 FEBRUARY 2005

freeing black people from the chains ofbondage-their fight for free quality education was put front and center. But thesharpest debate raged over the question ofland ownership. Freedmen and destitutewhite Unionist Southerners wanted thesecessionists' estates confiscated, as atPort RoyaL and distributed to them. Tri-. umphant Northern rulers, however, wouldnot permit an attack on "property rights,"particularly as Northerners and Northernbanks were grabbing up a good deal ofSouthern property. Intensive exploitationof black agricultural labor was allowed asthe only way to rebuild the Southerneconomy. rather than industrial development or capital investment in modernization of agriculture.This failure and betrayal of Recon-

tune Jade in solidarity with the Liverpooldock workers strike in Britain. While weactively participated in the subsequentdefense of the picketers, the ILWU andthe Inlandboatman's Union against theport bosses, we dismissively declaredin WV No. 681 (2 January 1998) that"ILWU officials refused to picket out theNeptune Jade because they fear retaliation by the PMA [the employers' PacificMaritime Association]. Covering for thebureaucracy's capitulation to the bosses'rules, the protest organizers substituteda demonstration organized by leftists fora real picket line." As the conferencedocument notes, "While this picket linewas not officially sanctioned by theunion, it allowed longshoremen to refuseto cross the line (under a contractualagreement that the situation created a'health and safety hazard'). In fact. theship was never unloaded in Oakland (orVancouver or Japan) and was reportedlyeventually sold in Taiwan with all itscargo on board."Another issue addressed by the delegates was the need for systematic education in the fundamentals of Marxism,which the "Tasks" document underlined.Responding to widespread demand formore Marxist education of our newermembers and cadre, a group of comrades set up an informal Education Commission at the conference, whose meetings were flooded with delegates andguests.A Step Forward

In a vibrant if somewhat chaotic process, delegates submitted numerous amendments to the main conference and 'Tasks"documents. Amendments were voted upor down by the delegates, with some substantial controversy on a few of them. Theamended versions of the conference and"Tasks" documents were adopted unanimously. Delegates decided to continuethe discussion begun at the ICL Conference on whether or not Marxists shouldrun for executive office (e.g., mayor, governor, president) in bourgeois elections,and the section of the document on thisquestion was removed.In a final session, closed to all butelected and fraternal delegates, the conference discussed a slate for CentralCommittee, which had been proposedby the outgoing Central Committee andthen amended by a Nominating Commission based on the recommendationsof individual delegates. After debateand further nominations, a new CC was

struction perpetuated the oppression ofblacks as a color caste at the bottom ofAmerican capitalist society. This racialdivision, with whites on top of blacks,has been and continues to be the mainhistorical obstacle to the development ofpolitical class consciousness among dieAmerican proletariat. It will take a thirdAmerican Revolution, led by a multiracial workers party against capitalismitself, to break the fetters on blacks,women and all the oppressed.Jacobs served with valor in the antislavery battles through Radical Reconstruction, but her story also fell victim toits defeat. At the time of her death in 1897,her name was barely remembered in theBoston abolitionist circles she once frequented. Even in her obituary, the Jacobs

elected and met following the conferenceto elect national officers and the PoliticalBureau, a resident body subordinate tothe CC, and to assign comrades to various commissions.The 12th National Conference represented a significant step forward. It reaffirmed the importance of maintaining ourinternational flagship publication andcentral tool for intervention in the U.S.,the bi-weekly Workers Vanguard. Ourtest now is how we deal with questions,opportunities and dangers as they arise,including those we cannot now predict.Our opponents may well be tempted totake heart (and some cheap shots) fromour own frank assessment of the party'sproblems. Unfortunately for them, thepurpose of our rigorous internal accounting and making such public correctionsas we deem necessary has to do withthe fact that we are serious about ourtasks and historic responsibility, includingundertaking more effective combat againstour opponents. Comrade Lenin did notspare Bolsheviks from withering criticism when departures within the partythreatened to undermine its revolutionarypurpose.For our opponents, "sectarianism" isan all-purpose epithet aimed at denigrating the struggle to forge a revolutionary

oo'"n(i)VJVJ

Soldiers of the 107thU.S. Colored Troops atFort Corcoran, nearWashington, D.C.Black soldiers werekey to Union victoryin the Civil War.

School and her relief work during the CivilWar and Reconstruction were completelyomitted. As the years passed, the memoryof Jacobs faded and photos and records ofher Alexandria school were lost. Even herbook came to be seen as Child's.Anyone who has ever wondered howblack people managed to struggle andsurvive the hideous tortures meted outduring slavery and afterward would gaina lot from reading these books. They offerinspiration to a new generation of fightersfacing the daunting task of toppling thedominance of capitalist exploitation andsexual oppression today. Though theCivil War smashed slavery, the dreams ofmen and women like Jacobs remain to berealized. Finish the Civil War-For blackliberation in a workers' America!.

party that embodies and applies the lessons of past proletarian struggles. Comrade Trotsky, vilified as sectarian bythose "socialists" who had made peacewith their own bourgeois rulers, wrote ina 1935 article, "Sectarianism, Centrism,and the Fourth International":"Reformists and centrists readily seizeupon every occasion to point a fingerat our 'sectarianism.' Most of the timethey have in mind not our weak butour strong side: our serious attitudetoward theory; our effort to plumb everypolitical situation to the bottom, andto advance clear-cut slogans; our hostility to 'easy' and 'comfortable' decisions, which deliver from cares today,but prepare a catastrophe on the morrow. Coming from opportunists, theaccusation of sectarianism is most often acompliment."

We have made our share of errors. Andwe have fought to rectify and reconstruct. As the ICL Conference documentstated:"What is critical is that future workersrevolutions must have a Bolshevik political arsenal: their cadres must be educated in the experiences of the BolshevikRevolution. the earlv Communist InternationaL Trotsky's Fourth Internationaland our own ICL. New gaim, will be wononly by those who prove able to fightto defend past gains. The ICL tenaciously fights to uphold the banner ofnew Octobers:'.--- SPARTACIST LEAGUE/U.S.--Local Directory and Public Offices

Web site: www.icl-fi.org E-mail address:[email protected] Office: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 (212) 732-7860Boston Los Angeles OaklandBox 390840, Central Sta. Box 29574, Los Feliz Sta. Box 29497Cambridge, MA 02139 Los Angeles, CA 90029 Oakland, CA 94604(617) 666-9453 . (213) 380-8239 (510) 839-0851Chicago Public Office: Sat. 2-5 p.m. Public Office:3806 Beverly Blvd., Room 215 Sat. 1-5 p.m.

New York 1634 Telegraph3rd FloorBox 6441, Main POChicago, IL 60680(312) 563-0441Public Office: Box 3381, Church St. Sta.New York, NY 10008 San FranciscoBox 77494Sat. 2-5 p.m.222 S. Morgan(Buzzer 23)

(212) 267-1025Public Office:Sat. 1-4 p.m.

San FranciscoCA 94107299 Broadway, Suite 318

TROTSKYIST LEAGUE OF CANADA/LiGUE TROTSKYSTE DU CANADATorontoBox 7198, Station AToronto, ON M5W 1X8(416) 593-4138

VancouverBox 2717, Main P.O.Vancouver, BC V6B 3X2(604) 687-035311


12/12

\":-

WfJlillEliS ""'II'lilJ

Racist Outrage: Cops AwardedMillions for Beating Black Youth. os Angeles

LOS ANGELES-The capitalist courtshave in effect issued an all-points-bulletin'to their racist thugs in blue: Beat blackswith impunity, win millions of dollarsOn January 18, a civil jur:' in Los Angeles awarded Jeremy Morse. the thenInglewood cop who was \iueotaped leading a viciously racist attack on blackteenager Donovan Jack,un-Chavis on 6Juiy 2002, $1.6 millinl1 lo r "wrongful termination." saying the city's decision tofire him amounted to "reverse racial discrimination"! Morse's partner on thescene, Bijan Darvish, who was suspendedfor ten days, was also awarded $811.000for "unfair discipline." And in a vindictive move aimed at silenL"llg any victimwho would dare speak out against racistpolice brutality, Jackson-Chavis is nowbeing threatened with prosecution forperjury for allegedly giving conflictingtestimony about the incident that sparkedcriminal charges against the two officers.This is a racist outrage!The jury, deciding a else centered inthe city of Inglewood, where 47 percent ofthe population is black, h"d not one blackperson on it. They awarded the over $2.4million based on the "pain and suffering"Morse and Darvish experienced (!) andthe potential loss of future earnings. "I tseems they're getting millions of dollarsfor beating someone," said Nancy Goins,Jackson-Chavis' aunt. Indeed, this awardclearly gives the green light for furtherracist cop terror. Morse has a documentedhistory of brutal beatings: one of severalout-of-court settlements that the city ofInglewood reached with one of his victims involved a man who went into a

coma after being placed in a choke-holdby Morse two weeks before the beating ofDonovan Jackson-Chavis! While JacksonChavis reportedly has reached a tentativesettlement with the city ofInglewood, thepayoff to Morse and Dan'ish can onlyserve to embolden the cops whose job itis to repress the seething black and Latinoghetto masses through violence. It sets aprecedent, making it even more difficultfor victims of cop brutality to pursue anyredress in the courts, even with damningvideo evidence.Multiplied nearly a hundredfold. the

12

APInglewood, California, 6 July 2002: Cops beat 16-year-old Donovan Jackson.awarding of millions to Morse and Darvish is reminiscent of the '535,000 racistbounty awarded to Orange County childkiller cop Anthony Sperl as "workers' compensation" for "psychological damage"after he killed Patrick Mason, a five-yearold black child, by shooting him in thecheq in his own apartment bedroom 20years ago. We noted at the time of PatrickMason's killing that "the gestapo policeforces of Los Angeles and Orange County"are "trained in the My Lais of Vietnam."They know their job is to terrorize blackpeople, "and the victims had better notsquawk about it" (WV No. 339, 7 October1983). Today, the racist, marauding copsand prison guards trained in torture on the-;rreets and in the prisons of America areusing their "expertise" in the torture chambers of U.S. imperialism in Iraq.The civil lawsuit alleged that Morseand Dan'ish-both white-were punished more severely than a black officer,Willie Crook, who also struck JacksonChavis and was suspended for four days.Morse's attorney claimed that the city ofInglewood did this to appease blackswho felt Morse and Darvish's actionswere racially motivated. As if it weren'tracially moti\'ated for a bunch of copsblack or white-to harass a black manabout his car tags in a gas station and brutally attack his developmentally disabledson for nothing more than coming out of

'U:::To

Los Angeles,April 1983:SpartacistLeague protestsracist cop killingof five-year-oldPatrick Mason.

the snack shop at the wrong time. At leastone of the cops involved called JacksonChavis a "n----r." Jackson-Chavis wasstruck repeatedly on the face, head and.eyes, and then body-slammed to theground and maliciously choked with asilver chain he was wearing until rendered unconscious. Mitchell Crooks. whofilmed the assault from a motel across thestreet, captured Morse lifting the limp,unconscious body of the handcuffed youthoff the ground, viciously slamming hishead onto the trunk of a police car andpunching him in the face. Out of revengefor Crook5' capturing the battering onfilm and turning it over to the media, L.A.County District Attorney Steve Cooleyhad Crooks arrested!Shortly after the beating, the L.A.County grand jury returned indictmentsagainst both Morse and Dan'ish. Morsewas charged with "assault by a peace officer under the color of authority," whileDan'ish was accused of filing a falsepolice report. Not surprisingly, Darvishwas quickly acquitted, and Morse wastried twice with both juries deadlockingand mistrials being declared. From thebeginning, black people were barely represented on the juries, with only onebeing allowed on during the first trial.The District Attorney announced lastFebruary that he would not prosecuteMorse a third time, saying that he did notbelieve 12 jurors could agree on whetherMorse broke the law. Last year, an"impartial arbitrator" found Morse didnot use excessive force and recommendedthat the city of Inglewood compensateMorse with full back pay.As L.A.'s Democratic Party bosseslike Mayor James Hahn and councilmen Antonio Villaraigosa and (ex-LAPDchief) Bernard Parks continue to push formore police to wage war on the ghettosand barrios, it is no wonder that widespread hatred of the cops in largely blackareas of Compton, Inglewood and SouthCentral Los Angeles helped to sink lastNovember's ballot Measure A. The measure would have raised the county salestax to hire more cops. A string ofpolice abuse cases dating from before the1991 Rodney King beating through last

year's flashlight beating of Stanley Millerin Compton is \\ ell remem bered b y theblack population,Speaking at a January 21 protest againstthe verdict, prominent black DemocraticCongresswoman Maxine Waters declared,"There are good cops and bad cops. We arenot going to roll over for the bad cops:'This is not a question of "good" or "bad"cops. What the award to Morse and Darvish demonstrates is that there is no justice for black and working people in thecapitalist courts. By the standards of bourgeois legality. the cops who beat JacksonChavis broke no laws. \Vhat they did waspart of the job they are paid to do.Racist cop brutality and killings areinherent in capitalist society because itis the job of the cops-whether white,black, Latino or Asian-to "serve andprotect" the interests of the racist. capitalist rulers. And in the U,S .. where racialoppression is fundamental to the American capitalist order. the primary targetsare often blacks and minorities. Thepolice, like the prisons and courts, are atthe core of the capitalist stale. which is aninstrument of organized violence whosepurpose is to maintain the class rule of thecapitalist exploiters against all those theyoppress. While Los Angeles has seensome successful union organizing drivesand a number of hard-fought strikes in thelast 15 years. particularly involving theimmigrant and Latino proletariat of thearea, it is a historically anti-union citywhere the racist cops have never had togo toe-to-toe against the mighty powerof the multiracial labor movement. As aconsequence. the police are notoriouslybonapartist.We in the Spartacist League fight tobuild the revolutionary workers partyneeded to instill within the American proletariat the consciousness that the copsengaged in the daily racist occupation,beating, torture and terrorizing of blacksand Latinos in America's ghettos and barrios work for the same capitalist state thatseeks to bust the unions and break strikes.They work for the same state whose military is engaged in the racist, neocolonialoccupation of Iraq-in the name of the"war on terror"-\\ ith tpe concomitantkilling and torture of Iraqis. Led by sucha party, the working class must be mobilized in defense of its own interests andthose of all the oppressed.

At the time of the assault on JacksonChavis, we pointed out in "Black Democrats Smother Outrage" (WV No. 785, 9August 2002) that the attack"came in the midst of a contract battlepitting the powerful ILWU longshoreunion against the shipping bosses out togut the union, An ILWU strike woulddemonstrate the social power of the labormovement, a power that needs to bemobilized in defense of the ghettos andbarrios against the marauding racistcops. But the labor movement is ham-strung by the union tops, whose programis one of class peace and collaborationwith the bosses, in particular throughtheir support to the Democrats ..."The working people need their ownparty-one that champions the rights ofblack people and all the oppressed; aworkers party committed to the fight forworkers revolution .... Only then wiII copterror and racist oppression be foreverdone away with.".

4 FEBRUARY 2005

workers vanguard no 841 - 04 february 2005

Documents