workers vanguard no 816 - 26 december 2003

7/29/2019 Workers Vanguard No 816 - 26 December 2003

1/12

soC!:No. 816 ~ X . 5 2 3 26 December 2003

fofWQrtWJI:llfil:. ii!D'ougfiout:II1eRmericas!Delend the Gains 01 theCuban Revolution!

June 12: Over a million demonstrated in Havana against European Union support to U.S. anti-Communist "human rights" campaign against Cuba. Banner indefense of "Miami Five" reads: "Free the Five Heroic Prisoners of the Yankee Empire."We print below, edited for publi-cation, a presentation by SpartacistLeague spokesman Paul Collins givenat an SL forum in New York City onSeptember 25.We are the Spartacist League/U.S.,section of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist).We are Trotskyists. Leon Trotsky was theco-leader with Lenin of the October 1917Russian Revolution, the only successfulworkers revolution in history. Our program is revolutionary, proletarian andinternationalist. We think it is necessary toforge Trotskyist parties in every countryon the planet to work to transform theconsciousness of the working class to a

realization that those who labor mustrule, that the capitalist system is overripefor removal from the face of the planetand that the failure to do so can onlyresult in barbarism, most likely through athird, nuclear, world war. The capitalistsystem of exploitation must be replacedwith working-class rule, which can laythe foundation for a world of socialistplenty and egalitarianism.Tonight's talk is on Cuba. We call Cubaa deformed workers state. That is, a society in which capitalism has been overthrown and workers property forms established: nationalized means of production,collectivized property, central planningand state monopoly of foreign trade. ButCuba is a society run by an anti-workingclass, petty-bourgeois nationalist, Stalinist bureaucratic caste which rules underthe program of "socialism in one country," which means renouncing the strugglefor international socialist revolution. Weare for the unconditional military defenseof the Cuban Revolution against imperialist attack and internal counterrevolu-

52

7111'25274118103011117

For.Wo.rkers Pol.itica.I..Revol.utiont.Og$JStall,istBgreau-.;racyltion. The Bush administration has provocatively used the U.S. military base atGuantal\amo Bay in Cuba to imprisoncaptives from the U.S. war on Afghanistan. This is an obscenity-we say: U.S.out of Guantanamo Bay!What do we mean by unconditionalmilitary defense? Despite the rule of theparasitic StalInist caste, we defend theCuban deformed workers state against

capitalist attack. A good analogy isto a trade union, a workers organization which, despite its treacherous procapitalist leadership, we defend againstcapitalist attack. Further, itS a necessarypart of our defense of the Cuban Revolution, we are for the completion andextension of that revolution internationally. For that you need a Trotskyist partyto bring the consciousness of those tasks

WV Photo5 May 2000: Spartacist contingent raises call fo r workers political revolution inCuba at NYC demonstration in defense of Puerto Rican activists.

to the Cuban proletariat and to leadthe necessary political revolution tooust the Stalinist bureaucracy andinstitute workers democracy, i.e., thedirect rule of the working class inworkers councils (soviets).We in the Spartacist League valueour revolutionary continuity, standing on the program of revolutionaryLeninism and Trotskyism going back toLenin and Trotsky'S Bolshevik Party, thefirst four Congresses of the Third (Communist) International, the fight of Trotsky's Left Opposition against the rise ofStalin's bureaucratic caste in the USSRand the struggle for a Trotskyist FourthInternational, the U.S. party of which wasthe Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Andthe Cuban question looms large in ourcontinuity. In the aftermath of the 1959Cuban Revolution, our forebears in theRevolutionary Tendency (RT) in the SWPfought the SWP's degeneration and abandonment of revolutionary Trotskyism. TheRT challenged the SWP leadership's analysis that Cuba was a healthy workers stateand that the Castro leadership were"unconscious Trotskyists."As we stated in Marxist Bulletin No.8,"Cuba and Marxist Theory":"In opposing the SWP Majority's revisionism, our original tendency came intoexistence and fought for three mainprogrammatic points in orienting to theCuban revolution and its defense: insistence on the Permanent Revolution, i.e.the view that no essential task of the revolution could be achieved short of thevictory and consolidation of a workersstate; and, correspondingly, insistence onthe struggle for hegemony of the working class in the revolution; together withthe necessity for a conscious Trotskyistparty as the proletarian vanguard to leadthat struggle."

For those of you who are not familiarwith it, the theory of permanent revolutionholds that in the backward and impoverished countries, even the resolution ofbasic democratic questions like land redistribution requires a revolutionary struggle to overthrow the bloody bourgeoisies, which act as junior partners to thecontinued on page 8


2/12

On the WCPI and AbortionToronto25 November 2003 opened a "right to life" tract by mistake.Here is how the section begins:Dear comrades: "Few phenomena like abortion, i.e. thedeliberate elimination of the human embryo because of cultural and economicpressures, display the inherent contemptfor human life in the present system andthe incompatibility of existing class society and exploitative relations with human life and well-being. Abortion is atestimony to the self-alienation of people and their vulnerability in the face ofthe deprivations and hardships that theexisting class society imposes on them.The worker-communist party is againstthe act of abortion." [emphasis added]

In "For Workers Revolution in Iran!"(WVNo. 807,1 August), the article polemicizes against the Worker-CommunistParty of I n ~ r i (WCPT) as follows: "TheWCPI accommodates prevalent socialconservatism; while, for example, sayingthat the decision to have an abortion restswith women alone, the WCPI nevertheless calls for state counseling to dissuadewomen from the procedure." This significantly understates this group's retrograde position on abortion. Only after all this does the WCPIacknowledge that "adverse social circumstances do drive a large number of womento resorting to backstreet abortions," grudgingly conceding that abortion should belegalized "up to the twelfth week of pregnancy," and in fact that it should be freeuntil that point. Any later than this, abortion would only be legal "i f there is danger

WV correctly notes that the WCPI isunique on the Iranian left in its emphasison women's rights, including forthrightopposition to the Islamic veil. But leftistswho start reading the section titled"Abortion" in the WCPI's basic programmatic statement, "A Better World,"could be excused for thinking they had

Free All Class-War Prisoners!As long as the system of capitalist exploitation remains, those who fight against itwill be subject to persecution and imprisonment by the ruling class. Following' theRussian October Revolution of 1917, whichinspired workers around the world, theAmerican rulers launched a vicious antiCommunist campaign of arrests and deportations. James P. Cannon, a Communist Party

TROTSKY leader who went on to become the head of LENINthe CP-initiated International Labor Defenseand later the founder of the American Trotskyist movement, dedicated May Day 1921to the memory and defense of class-war prisoners.

Every war has its hazards: the class war more than any other, for the organizedworkers wage it for the largest stakes in all the world's history-for the Earth and all itsfruits, for the complete expropriation of the present-day ruling class. In this worldwidestruggle there is no compromise and no quarter. The aim of the workers is nothing lessthan the complete abolition of the capitalist system. Both classes are organizing on aninternational scale.The list of the prisoners of the class war-the Workers' Roll of Honor-is a longone and it increases steadily in spite of all the predictions that "normal conditions" ofcivil liberty will be restored. There can be no more normal conditions. This is the era ofthe world revolution. The war is on and there will be no more peace until the workerstriumph everywhere.It is to be expected that many will fall in battle and many be taken prisoner by theenemy before the final goal is reached. The ruling class today is the capitalist class.They maintain themselves in power by force and violence. They make the laws according to their own class interests. The revolutionary movement is a menace to their system. Therefore it is an outlaw movement. Everyone who takes an active part in thestruggle for the liberation of the working class takes a chance of going to prison. Whenthe workers get on top they will reverse the order of things. The workers will make thelaws then according to their class interests. They will outlaw their class enemies and putthem in jail. That is what they are doing in Russia today. It is a very simple proposition.Absolutely natural, absolutely necessary ...The day is coming when the toiling masses of America will hear that appeal andact upon it. Then the prison doors will be opened and the prisoners set free, for themasses have an authority higher than that of any court. To redouble our efforts to hasten on the day of liberation is the pledge we make to our imprisoned comrades on thisFirst of May.

2

-James P. Cannon, "The Political Prisoners" (1921), reprinted inJames P. Cannon and the Early Years ofAmerican Communism(Prometheus Research Library, 1992)

! . ' l ! ! ' ! ! ! y o " - . ' l l ! f ' ! . ~ f ! . I ! . . IRECTOR OF PARTY PUBLICATIONS: Len Meyers

EDITOR: Alan WildeEDITOR, YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Michael DavissonPRODUCTION MANAGER: Susan FullerCIRCULATION MANAGER: Jeff Thom asEDITORIAL BOARD: Rosemary Palenque (managing editor), Bruce Andre, RaY.Bishop, Jon Brule,Karen Cole, Paul Cone, George Foster, Liz Gordon, Walter Jennings, Jane Kerrigan, James Robertson,Joseph Seymour, Alison SpencerThe Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League(Fourth Internationalist).Workers Vanguard (ISSN 0276-0746) published biweekly, except skipping three alternate issues in June, July andAugust (beginning with omitting the second issue in June) and with a 3-week interval in December, by the SpartacistPublishing Co., 299 Broadway, Suite 318, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 732-7862 (Editorial), (212) 732-7861(Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. Email address: [email protected] subscriptions: $10.00/22 issues. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY POSTMASTER: Send addresschanges to Workers Vanguard, Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116.Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint.The closing date for news in this issue is 16 December.

No. 816 26 December 2003

Letters

Worker-Communist Party of IranTehran, March 8: Demonstrators defy Islamic regime by openly celebratingInternational Women's Day.to the health of the mother" as "ascertainedby the competent medica l authorities."The call for state counseling beforeundergoing an abortion, to which theWVarticle referred, reads: "The decisionwhether to have or not to have an abortion rests with):he woman alone. The statehas the duty, however, to inform herbefore her final decision, of the dissuasive arguments and recommendations ofthe scientific authorities and social counsellors as well as of the financial, materialand moral commitments of the state toher and her child."As the WV article explains, the fight forwomen's liberation against religious bigotry and all-sided, imperialist-enforcedsocial backwardness will be a centralmotor force for socialist revolution inIran. The fight for free abortion on demand, like opposition to the veil, is inte-

gral to this struggle to free women fromcenturies of enslavement. The WCPI isgenerally very critical of religious obscurantism. But their stand on abortiontreating it as a repugnant, immoral actrather than a medical procedure that awoman might need-shows they arefirmly wedded to bourgeois morality.Like their declared willingness to opena "dialogue" with the U.S.-backed supporters of the blood-soaked former Shah,like their call for UN imperialist troopsto be sent to Iraq, the WCPI's stance"against the act of abortion" showshow they are an obstacle to the fightfor a revolutionary vanguard party thatcan lead the struggle to sweep awayIran's theocratic rulers through a socialistrevolution. Comradely,John Masters

On Cuba and the SWPNew York5 November 2003Dear Workers Vanguard,

Referring to the California gubernatorial campaign of the Socialist WorkersParty (SWP), to which we gave criticalsupport during the recent recall vote, wewrote: "The SWP fails to characterizewhat kind of society Cuba is, leaving theimpression that it supports Cuba from thestandpoint of Third World national liberation" (WV No. 810, 26 September). TheSWP platform, as printed in the officialstate handbook, indeed did not make thepoint that Cuba is a deformed workersstate. But during the campaign, the SWPalso described Cuba as follows in an editorial titled, "Campaign for Britton inCalifornia" (Militant, 15 September):"The Cuban Revolution today is a livingexample that working people have thecapacity to transform the world. Theroad charted in Cuba is necessary andpossible in the United States and aroundthe world, too. It is the road of workingpeople developing the kind of leadershipthat can transform our unions into fighting organizations and lead working people to take political power."

The SWP certainly recognizes that aclass transformation took place in Cuba.But the SWP does not fight for socialistrevolution in the U.S. and for proletarianpolitical revolution in Cuba itself to oustthe Stalinist Castro bureaucracy-i.e., it

does not fight for genuine defense of theCuban Revolution.Leon Trotsky was a leader of the October 1917 Russian Revolution, the first andto date only successful workers revolution. He explained that in the SovietUnion it took a political counterrevolution for the Stalinist bureaucracy toachieve its domination. In the deformedworkers states of Cuba, North Korea,China and Vietnam this usurpation ofpower existed from birth. In Cuba, forexample, a petty-bourgeois movementunder highly exceptional circumstances- the absence of the working class as acontender for social power in its ownright, the flight of the national bourgeoisie and hostile imperialist encirclement,and a lifeline thrown by the SovietU n i o n ~ w a s able to overthrow the oldBatista dictatorship and eventually smashcapitalist property relations. But the bonapartist regime the Castro clique threw upbecame a roadblock to extending anddeepening the revolution. There is noworkers democracy in Cuba-i.e., theworking class does not have politicalpower. In the absence of the direct rule ofthe working class, someone else fills thatvacuum, and that someone is Castro andhis cohorts.The overthrow of capitalism in Cubain 1960-61 has served as an acid test forcontinued on page 5

Note to Our ReadersWorkers Vanguard subscribers willnotice that the 2003 article index is notin this issue of the paper. Since 1981,our annual index has always beenincluded in the last issue of the year.The index is an extremely useful

tool-not least for those comradeswho write and edit WV-as it givesreaders the opportunity to easily searchfor an article by category. Unlike many

of our political opponents on the left,we have always prided ourselves onour honesty and our historical record.The indyx provides an easily accessible way to search the historical recordof Workers Vanguard.We plan to have the 2003 index outvery soon. It will be mailed to all oursubscribers, and it will be included inthe 2003 bound volume of the paper.

WORKERS VANGUARD


3/12

LettersExchanges on the California Recall Elections

4 November 2003To the Editor

The October 24th issue of WorkersVanguard contains, along with your regular barrage of polemical fury against allthose on the left who d ~ r e to stand outside your ranks, a blatant and easilychecked falsehood. In the article "TheCalifornia Recall and the Left," you arguethat members of the socialist organizationSolIdarity work in the Democratic Party,asserting, "The DSA and CCDS actuallywork in the Democratic Party, as do somemembers of Solidarity!" No memberof Solidarity works inside the Democratic Party and opposition to the classicCP/social-democratic strategy of realignment in the Democratic Party is one ofits founding points of unity. "The capitalist parties, especially the Republicanand Democratic parties, are fundamentally anti-working class, racist and sexist.We oppose any form of participation inor support for these parties. We call forthe working class and its allies to forma new, independent political party thatfights for their needs" (Solidarity Basis ofPolitical Agreement, 1986, available atwww.solidarity-us.org). I expect to see apublic correction in the next issue.

WVReplies:

Comradely Greetings,Will Fulford-Jones

We have no idea if Fulford-Joneswho is a supporter but not a formalmember of Solidarity-is naive or cynical. Solidarity's 1986 "Basis of PoliticalAgreement," which he quotes, has neverprevented individual members fromworking within capitalist parties-Democratic Party included. In 1987, whileSheila Jordan was a prominent supporterof Solidarity, she was elected, as a Demo-crat, to the Oakland, California schoolboard. Active in her campaign was hercompanion, Larry Cooperman, a memberof Solidarity's leading committee (fordetails see "Third Camp Over the Rainbow, Again: 'Sheilagate'," WV No. 438,16 October 1987).

ber of Solidarity and a disarmament activist" when he wrote in Against the Cur-rent (September-October 1988):"As a revolutionary socialist, I wasexcited when Jackson first campaignedfive years ago. I worked on the 1984 campaign and attempted (unsuccessfully) tohelp build a post-election Rainbow Coalition in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, Michigan. In 1988, I defended Jackson in Solidarity-a lonely task. In between I wasintermittently involved in local Democratic Party politics, largely in the hopethat Rainbow activism might advancesocialist goals."

In the end, Schwartz reported being disillusioned with Rainbow politics. Far frombeing thrown out of Solidarity for violating its putative "principles," his viewswere published in the journal-all part ofthe oh-so-cornradely debate.Fulford-Jones would probably like toclaim that Solidarity's flirtations with theDemocratic Party in 1987-88 representednothing but a temporary spell of weakness while the newly founded organization got its feet on the ground. Notso. We remember the way the late fakeTrotskyist Ernest Mandel-whom theFourth Internationalist Caucus of Solidarity looked to for years as their international leader-treated his cothinker, thePolish dissident and Solidarnosc adviser,Jacek Kuron. All throughout the 1980s,Mandel and his Paris-based United Secretariat (USec) lauded Kuron as a "Trotskyist" and Solidamosc-the reactionary,pro-capitalist and clericalist movementbacked by the CIA and the Vatican-asa revolutionary organization of Polishworkers. But when Solidarnosc finallytook over the reins of government in1989, with Kuron as labor minister, andbegan repressing workers struggles as itdismantled the Polish deformed workersstate, Mandel suddenly disowned Kuron,insisting, "I don't speak to ministers."How dare Kuron take the next logical stepand give the game away!American Solidarity took its namefrom counterrevolutionary Polish Solidarnosc. Its entire political strategy isbased on building "movements"-localand national-whose aim is to get the

WV PhotoSpartacist contingent at February 2000 NYC protest against acquittal of copswho gunned down Amadou Diallo.We assume that Jordan, who is currently the superintendent of schools inCalifornia's Alameda County, has longsince departed the reformist Solidarityswamp in search of firmer support for herelectoral ambitions. Her election as aDemocrat was something of a scandalfor Solidarity. But it was no personalaberration. In 1987-88 Solidarity wasembroiled in an internal debate overwhether or not to support Jesse Jackson'srun for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. While Solidarity as awhole did not support Jackson, some'members did. Take, for example, JustinSchwartz, who was described as a "mem-

26 DECEMBER 2003

bourgeois state to change its prioritIesand start acting in the interests of theoppressed. Such movements are inevitably saturated with the politics of lesserevil electoralism and dominated by theDemocratic Party. So it's the height ofhypocrisy for Fulford-Jones or anyoneelse to complain when they suddenly discover that, for some members, the maskinevitably fuses with the face.If Against the Current has not latelybeen publishing the testimonials of Solidarity members working within the Democratic Party, this simply reflects thecurrent lack of enthusiasm for any of theDemocratic Party's lackluster presiden-

tial hopefuls. This could change. In themeantime, there's the Green Party, latelythe darling of the petty-bourgeois milieusin which Solidarity plies its wares.Against the Current published a glowingaccount by one Michael Rubin, describedas "a member of Solidarity in the BayArea, a public worker trade unionist anda Green," of Peter Camejo's 2002 bidfor California governor ("The CamejoWarren Campaign: Greens Grow in California," Against the Current, JanuaryFebruary 2003). When Camejo again ranfor governor in the 2003 recall election,Solidarity co-sponsored, along with theInternational Socialist Organization andthe Greens, Camejo's University of California at Berkeley campaign appearance (Against the Current, NovemberDecember 2003).Camejo cut his political teeth as areformist hack (and sometime presidential candidate) in the reformist SocialistWorkers Party of the 1960s and 1970s, asdid many of Solidarity's Mandelite members. During his 2003 campaign, he statedhis admiration for Democratic candidateCruz Bustamante, declaring, "I met withBustamante for two hours in July, wetalked mostly in Spanish, and I saw a guywho's very frank, very straightforward. Idon't see a guy who's slamming the doorin my face, like Gray Davis" (San JoseMercury News, 22 September). FulfordJones should wake up and smell the(organic?) coffee-the Greens are one ofthose "anti-working class, racist and sexist" capitalist parties that Solidarityclaims (on paper) to be against.

* * *October 16,200 3

Dear WV editor,In regard to your September 26, 2003issue of WV, I'd like to make two points.First, on page 10 you wrote, "The working class must seize power and establishits own government to expropriate thecapitalist system."Any honest, fair-minded and reasonable Marxist understands what you aretrying to say and totally supports it. Butyou are saying it in a very slovenly way,and that's the problem. The two chiefcomponents of the capitalist system arecapitalist property (the m ~ a n s of production and its ancillaries), and the organs ofgovernment. Following the revolutionthese two factors are to be handled verydifferently. Marxists wish to replace the

capitalist system by expropriating themeans of production and abolishing allcapitalist state organs. There is a hugedifference here. To expropriate means totake over someone's property and use itfor different ends. Marxists will expropriate the means of production and putthem under workers' control in orderto create an egalitarian society. Marxists do not wish to expropriate or to putunder workers' control the Marines, CIA,Treasury Dept., and the US Congress,etc. for the achievement of socialism.Marxists wish to dismantle/abolish theseorganizations.The formulation you employed---expropriate the capitalist system-can easily beopened up to a reformist interpretation,i.e. Marxists will take over (expropriate)the capitalist system and put a humanface on it. I know your penchant for usingwords precisely in order to avoid programmatic ambiguity and/or misunderstanding. It is in that sense that I bringthis misleading misformulation to yourattention so that it will not be used again.Secondly, in the same issue of WV, Iread with disbelieving eyes your supporting the recall of Governor Davisand your critical support to the SWP'sgubernatorial candidacy in the Californiare-call election. You justify the formerby quoting, with great approbation, theWWP. "The Workers World Party cor-

Sheila Jordan, a supporter of Soli-darity, registered as a Democrat in1987.rectly points out that 'organizing fora novote on the recall gives legitimacy to theGray Davis administration.'" (WV page11) That's absolutely true. That's whatthe positive act of opposing the recall votedid in effect-support Davis.But let's apply the flip test. What didthe positive act of supporting the recallvote do? It supported the anti-Daviselectoral putsch of the Republicans.Every vote for the recall of the jejuneand featureless Democratic Davis wasobjectively one vote for election of thatmuscleheaded misogynistic RepublicanSchwarzenegger. Everyone knew thatshould the recall have been successfulSchwarzenegger was destined to win.Every vote for the recall, regardless ofone's succeeding vote for a minority candidate, was just another step forward forSchwarzenegger.The other candidates from PeterCamejo (with his glib petit-bourgeoisutopian capitalist schemes) to thewashed-out dwarfish TV child star andthe jiggling big-boobed porno actressrepresented nothing but a hilarious commentary on an increasingly dementedcapitalism. Whichever way you lookedat the recall movement, pro or con, onewas supporting either the Republicans orDemocrats despite all assurances, protestations and the 133 other candidates tothe contrary.I believe that the only correct strategywas to abstain on the recall question andtell the workers, "Stay home! This is onlyanother capitalist election. Whicheverside wins, workers and minorities willlose-big time!" Or, given your criticalsupport to the SWP, you should have toldyour readers, "Don't pull either the 'yes'or 'no' lever on the recall portion of theballot. Just pull the lever for the SWP."Now I have no problem in principlewith giving critical support to the SWP.My questions are "What was the point?What did you really accomplish?"In your article you adduced only twopositive reasons for voting for the SWP:A. Vote for these reformists. When theyget into power you will see how theybetray the workers. B. The SWP calls forbringing home all the troops now.Regarding the first reason, it is valid ifone is dealing with a mass reformist partywith broad roots in the working class-aparty that has some kind of realisticchance of getting in and exposing itselfbefore its working class base. The SWPhas neither mass roots nor a workingclass base. So the call for critical supportof the SWP speaks to absolutely nobodyof any historical significance. Secondly,the SWP had zero chance of getting intothe governor's mansion. So absolutely nocontinued on page 5

3


4/12

Canada: Anglo-Chauvinist Provocations on the RiseIndependence for Quebec!

We reprint below an article from Spartacist CanadaNo. 139 (Winter 200312004),newspaper of the Trotskyist League!Ligue Trotskyste of Canada, section of heInternational Communist League.

With the Parti Quebecois [PQ] out ofoffice and a hard-line federalist government in place in Quebec City, the Canadian rulers are gloating that the Quebecnational question has been "solved.""Mission accomplished," bragged [thenPrime Minister] Jean Chretien as he prepared to hand the federal Liberal Partyreins to Paul Martin: "The country ismore united than ever." Far from it. Thepolls show support for sovereignty inQuebec back up to 47 percent, and suchsentiments will surely rise further in theface of new chauvinist provocations fromEnglish Canada and savage austerity attacks by the Quebec Liberal government.Encouraged by the new provincialregime of [Quebec Liberal Party premier]Jean Charest, anglophones in bourgeoisWestmount and the middle-class suburbson Montreal's West Island are agitatingto withdraw from the largely francophone city and re-establish separate, privileged enclaves. Electronics giant Sonycreated an uproar in Quebec by marketinga video game whose object was to shootdown "terrorists" from a "Quebec Liberation Front" attacking Toronto malls andSUbways.One of Chretien'S parting insultsrenaming Dorval Airport in Montrealafter his mentor Pierre Trudeau-has alsoprovoked widespread opposition. Trudeau is despised in much of Quebec forinvoking the War Measures Act in October 1970. Using the excuse of two kidnappings by the Front de Liberation duQuebec, he sent the army to occupyMontreal, suspending civil liberties andjailing hundreds of nationalists, leftistsand labor leaders.Recent revelations that the federal government was again ready to send troopsto Quebec in 1995 if the Yes side wonthe sovereignty referendum underscorehow the forcible retention of Quebec in a"united" country is a cornerstone of capitalist Canada. As revolutionary internationalists and fighters against all aspectsof oppression, we Trotskyists advocateindependence for Quebec. This is--a crucial component of oUI: fight to make theworking class conscious of the need tosweep away the rule of the exploitersthrough a socialist revolution.

4

[ S P A R T A C I S T ~ A ~ A ~ l ______ . ~ ~ ______ ~ e n l $

"War on Terror"=.War OIl IlIImigrants, Workers

Subscription: 4 IssuesC$3 US$5Order from/pay to:Spartacist Canada PublishingBox 6867 Station A, Toronto ON M5W 1X6

Spartacist Publishing Co.Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116

Quebec is a distinct nation with its ownlanguage, culture and increasingly separate development. The SUbjugation ofthe Quebecois at the hands of Canada'sAnglo rulers has sharply divided theworking class on national lines, deeplyundermining the prospects for proletarian struggle. In English Canada, theworkers are imbued with reactionary"pro-Canada" patriotism, including bythe NDP [social-democratic New Democratic Party] and the trade-union bureaucracy. In tum, this poisonous anti-Quebecbigotry has driven the historically moremilitant Quebecois working class into the

"Based on rhetoric alone, the chances ofviolent federalist reprisals against sovereignists seemed more plausible thanthe reverse."Ottawa's repeated moves and threatsto use military force against nationaland social struggle in Quebec testify tothe violent, chauvinist reality behindCanada's "tolerant, peace-loving" image.The army was sent to Quebec to "restoreorder" amid nationalist anti-conscriptionprotests during World War I. Less thantwo years after Trudeau sent the troopsin 1970, several dozen top Canadian military leaders met secretly at a Montreal

CanapressCanadian troops occupied Montreal in October 1970, arresting hundreds ofunionists and leftists.arms of the bourgeois-nationalistPQ andBloc Quebecois. Meanwhile, immigrantsand Native people are caught in thenational-chauvinist crossfire, targeted forracist scapegoating on all sides. Quebecindependence would remove a majorobstacle to proletarian class consciousness, laying a basis for workers in bothnations to see that their "own" capitalistexploiters are the enemy, not each other.Ottawa's Military PlansAgainst Quebec

The rulers in Ottawa also declared a"death of separatism" after the PQ lost theelections in 1985. At that time, supportfor even a watered-down "sovereigntyassociation" had plummeted to 15 percent. But only a few years later, angeredby the Anglo-chauvinist bigotry that. swept the country against the MeechLake Accord's simple assertion that Quebec was a "distinct soCiety," hundreds ofthousands of Quebecois were marchingin the streets with fleur-de-Iys flags. By1995, Canada was on the brink of breaking apart, as the sovereignty referendumfailed by a single percentage point.A new book by Lawrence Martin, IronMan: The Defiant Reign ofJean Chretien,describes the panic that swept the federalLiberal cabinet as they realized theymight lose the referendum. While Chretien prepared a speech declaring that awinning referendum would merely be a"consultative exercise," the governmentworked out contingency plans to send inthe army "to protect federal property."The book quotes then defense ministerDavid Collenette: "I was in a tough position .... There were things that went onthat we had to prepare for that I don'teven want to talk about."Chretien, of course, denies it all. "C' estde la bullshit," he told reporters. But asChantal Hebert noted in her [Toronto]Globe and Mail column (24 October):"For anyone who followed the federalscene in those tense 1995 days, the surprise would be that the issue of usingtroops to deal with civil strife after a Yt;Svote did not come up ...

hotel on 18-19 April 1972 to discussplans for a more sustained invasion andoccupation of Quebec. Also present weresenior British military officers, who described their experiences in the armyoccupation of Northern Ireland.This high-level plan for a militarycrackdown, "Exercise Neat Pitch," cameamid major social turmoil and workingclass radicalization in Quebec. Hundredsof thousands of public-sector workerswere embroiled in the first of two generalstrikes that swept the ,province thatspring. The second, which included theindustrial private sector, saw strikersseize whole towns in the most deep-goingproletarian struggle this country has everseen. The story of "Neat Pitch," stilllargely suppressed in the English Canadian media, only came to light thanks toone of the few francophone officers present, Captain Jean-Rene-Marcel Sauve,who became so troubled that he leaked acopy to an aide to [senior PQ figure]Jacques Parizeau (Presse Canadienne,5 April 2002).Faced with a wall of hostility fromEnglish Canada-NDP leader DavidLewis openly supported the jailing ofQuebec labor leaders-the aspirations ofthe Quebec working class were channeledinto the bourgeois-nationalist PQ. Then,following the 1976 election of the firstPQ government, Trudeau again threatened to "use the sword" against anymoves toward independence. And whilethe details of Ottawa's military preparations in 1995 remain shrouded in mystery,the months leading up to the referendumsaw several military provocations. OnAugust 26, a convoy of hundreds of military vehicles was sent across Quebec. Thesame month, the secretive "anti-terrorist"Joint Task Force 2 conducted an exercisein an east-end Montreal suburb. Residentsof Anjou were awakened in the middle ofthe night as soldiers descended in TwinHuey helicopters and fired ear-splittingstun grenades.As support for sovereignty surged inthe late days of the referendum cam-

paign, the government in Ottawa and topbusiness circles added economic blackmail to the mix. Paul Martin raved that amillion jobs would be lost if the Yes sidewon. Chretien warned the elderly thatthey would lose their pensions in a sovereign Quebec. Capitalist magnates likeLaurent Beaudoin of Bombardier threatened to shift operations out of Quebec inthe event of independence. In the finaldays before the vote, the Canadian rulersworked with top business leaders toorganize a massive flag-waving "unity"rally in Montreal. Employees were encouraged to take time off (with pay) toattend, while Air Canada and Via Railslashed fares to Montreal by 90 percentand phone companies offered free longdistance calls to build this chauvinist"We love Canada" event.Quebec and the Left

We called for a Yes vote in the 1995 referendum, headlining our leaflet "Breakthe Grip of National Chauvinism-Independence for Quebec!" (SC No. 106,NovemberlDecember 1995). Our principled stance was in sharp contrast to "leftists" who placed themselves in the campofAnglo chauvinism. The NDP, of course,was front and center in the "pro-Canada"campaign. The Communist Party similarly campaigned for a No vote, issuing an"urgent appeal for a united Canada."Bringing up the rear was the tiny antiSpartacist sect called the "InternationalBolshevik Tendency" (lBT), whose leaflet (issued only in English) also called onQuebec workers to vote No to independence. So outrageous was the lBT's standthat their only Quebec member, as he quit,denounced the group's "de facto bloc withthe Canadian bourgeoisie." The lBT waseven invited by federalist organizers toattend the chauvinist "Canadian unity"rally in Montreal on the eve of the referendum! As their ex-member noted, "Tobe fair, you quite properly rejected theinvitation, but it shouldn't have been madein the first place. The issue this raises ishow the lBT's propaganda effort wasperceived by the 'Canadian Unity' business lobby. You were viewed as standingon the 'right side' of the political divide."(For more details, see '''Bolshevik Tendency' Opposes Quebec Independence,"SC No. 108, MarchiApriJ 1996.)In the wake of the narrow referendumdefeat, popular agitation for independence receded, as the PQ concentratedon managing capitalist Quebec on thebacks of working people and the poor.Chretien took the opportunity to pushthrough the Clarity Act, legislation thateffectively denies Quebec's democraticright to self-determination. The NewDemocrats again underlined their adherence to the chauvinist Canadian statusquo by supporting Chretien's antiQuebec edict.

Chauvinist "Canadian unity" rally inMontreal, November 1995.WORKERS VANGUARD


5/12

Cuba andthe SWP. ..(continued from page 2)revolutionaries from the beginning. TheSpartacist League originated as the Revolutionary Tendency (RT) in the SWP in1961-63. The RT reaffirmed that a pettybourgeois, peasant-based guerrilla movement could not replace the Leninist partyof the working class. as a revolutionaryvanguard. The model Marxist party is theBolshevik Party that led the RussianRevolution. The SWP emerged from theCold War in the early 1960s having lostconfidence in the prospect of workingclass revolution. They eagerly leapedonto the massively popular Fidelistabandwagon, and they have never gottenoff. In the WV article on the recall elections, we rightly noted: " The S WP is ...utterly uncritical of Fidel Castro, whoseaccommodation to U.S. imperialismhas led him to stab in the back countless struggles of workers and peasantsthroughout Latin America."When the SWP gave uncritical supportto the petty-bourgeois Castro government, they abandoned a revolutionaryproletarian perspective and the vanguardparty necessary to bring communist classconsciousness to the proletariat, not onlyin Cuba but elsewhere-witness theirtalk of the Cuban Revolution being amodel for the U.S. working class. Theirlabeling of the Cuban regime as a"Workers and Farmers Government" wasa cover for a bureaucratic caste exercising a monopoly of political power overthe working class.At an October 15 event of the LosAngeles Coalition in Solidarity with Cubawhich the SWP helped organize, a Spartacist League comrade spoke from thefloor:

"Fidel Castro's policy, which is sup-ported hy the Socialist Workers Partyand Workers World Party, has heen toconciliate the imperialists--like Demo-cratic Party politician Jimmy Carter, whowent to Cuha to promote the StateDepartment-funded counterrevolutionaryVarela Project. Castro welcomed Carterand gave him a platform just as he didthe reactionary Pope .... In contrast toreformist groups like the SWP, we giveno political support to the Castro bureauc-racy. There needs to be a proletarianpolitical revolution in Cuba to put political power into the hands of the workingclass organized into soviets. Defense

Today, some elements in the youthfulactivist milieu, notably among the anarchists, dismiss the Quebec national question as an irrelevancy, or merely a trap setby the PQ and Bloc to lull workers and theoppressed. This could not be more false.The national oppres'sion of the Quebecois'within the Canadian state cannot bewished away: English Canadian chauvinism and the Quebec nationalism it engenders are constantly used by the bourgeoisrulers to tie the workers to the classenemy, undermining the class struggle.Take the struggles now brewing inQuebec against the Charest government'sausterity onslaught on welfare, socialservices and union jobs. Quebec unionleaders are vowing to "momlt the barricades" against Charest's "declaration ofwar." Working-class struggle mobilizingQuebec's poor, unemployed and minorities is indeed urgently needed. But thelabor tops' main goal is to channel theanger accumulating at the base of Quebec society into revived illusions in thePQ-the same party that attacked workers' jobs and livelihoods as well as socialprograms like health care while in office.The PQ government's attacks provoked widespread opposition, notably thehugely popular 1999 nurses strike. Butnow, in opposition, the pequistes [members of the PQ] and their labor lieutenantscan again play the card of "national solidarity" against English Canada and fegeralist politicians like Charest. PQ leaderBernard Landry cynically gloats, "We areno longer in a position to create dissatis-26 DECEMBER 2003

of the gains of the Cuban Revolutionmeans, most importantly, struggling forworkers revolution in this country, theimperialist belly of the beast, contrary toCastro's Stalinist ideology of 'socialismin one country' that is supported by theSWP."With the Boris Yeltsin-Ied counterrevolution in the Soviet Union in 1991-92,the gains of the Cuban Revolution havebeen thrown into the gravest danger. TheSWP supported Yeltsin in the name of"democratic rights," a position they coverfor now by ludicrously claiming that Russia is still some kind of workers state!

The fact of the matter is that the SWPnot only glorifies the Castro bureaucracybut also bourgeois third-world nationalists and social movements far more retrograde. In our recall article, we wroteof the SWP: "In 1979 it actually hailedAyatollah Khomeini's assumption ofpower in Iran as an anti-imperialist victory! Increasingly, the SWP has driftedtoward enthusiasm for Third Worldnationalists like Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, and statements by Islamic reactionary Osama bin Laden have been printed inthe Militant (see Militant online, 29 October 2001, for an example)."In 1982 Jack Bames, then and stilltoday leader of the SWP, formally renounced Trotskyism and permanent revolution. But programmatically and organizationally the SWP abandoned Trotskyismin deed two decades earlier with theirembrace of the Castro regime and expulsion of the Revolutionary Tendency, thepredecessor of the Spartacist League.

Recall ...(continued from page 3)

Comradely,Karen Cole

one would see what those weird reformistscoundrels are really capable of doing inthe event of their victory.And as for their call of bringing thetroops home now, you are quite correct.That is an eminently supportable slogan.But wait! The SWP called for bringinghome all the troops during the VietnamWar during their 1964, 1968, and 1972presidential campaigns. You never gavethem critical support then. Yet you gavethem critical support now! Has the SWPchanged for the better in this 40-yearinterval? No, they have openly rejectedTrotskyism. So why have you reversedyour 40-year-old position of not sup-

faction, and the Liberals are," adding: "Atthe end of the present cycle we will makeQuebec an independent nation" (Globeand Mail, 21 June).

Bourgeois labor haters like the PQ andBloc use the all-too-real provocations ofthe English Canadian rulers to tie theworkers to their coattails. As forthrightopponents of Angro bigotry and champions of Quebec independence in EnglishCanada, we Trotskyists can with cleanhands explain to the Quebecois workerswhy nationalism is an obstacle to thestruggle to emancipate working peopleand the oppressed.Our proletarian internationalist stanceis in sharp contrast to the "left" nationalistgroupings-Union des Forces Progressistes (UFP), D' Abord Solidaires, etc.-who peddle illusions about the "progressive" nature of Quebec nationalism andact as pressure groups on the PQ and itsallies in the labor bureaucracy. The UFPin particular aspires only to be a Quebecois version of the NDP, another socialdemocratic obstacle to anti-capitalist classconsciousness and struggle.The Trotskyist LeaguelLigue trotskystefights to forge a revolutionary vanguardparty which takes up the cause of allthe oppressed. While supporting Quebecindependence, we also fight to mobilizelabor's power on behalf of Native peopleand immigrants, who today face steppedup racist attacks from the capital ist rulers,anglophone and francophone alike. Thisnotably includes Quebec 's large Arab andMuslim population, who are particular

porting their bring-the-troops-home-nowelectoral campaigns and supported theSWP electoral campaign in 2003?I e ~ g e r l y await your response!Sincerely,P.S.(A very long time WV reader)

Letterbox, WV,

* * *Detroit MIOctober 14, 2003When you come out with no support

for the Democrats, no more than for theRepublicans, aren't you, in this particular case of the coming presidential election-aren't you, albeit unconsciously,repeating Stalin's grotesque error in theearly-'30s?-his telling (or ordering) theGeruan CP to have nothing to do withthe Social Democrats, absolutely nounited front with the latter, calli ng , emsocial fascists. It enabled Hitler to win.Not that you're calling the Democratsfascist, but might your outlook on thiscoming election be analogous to t hat Stalin Third Period?

S.C.WVReplies:

P.S.'s initial point is well taken. It isprecisely to explain why it is necessary toforge a workers government to expropri-ate the capitalists and abolish their machinery of class oppression that revolutionaryMarxists intervene into bourgeois elections. In the U.S., where the workers aretied to the ruling class through the tradeunion misleadership's allegiance to theDemocratic Party, a key task is to advancethe understanding that the labor movement must have a party of its own, onethat stands completely independent of thecapitalists, their state and their parties.Our call for a "yes" vote in the Californiarecall election, and for a vote for theSocialist Workers Party (SWP) gubernatorial candidate, was the most effectiveway to underscore our principled opposition to all capitalist parties.As we said in "The California Recalland the Left" (WV No. 812, 24 October),the SWP's Joel Britton was "the one candidate on the ballot whose campaigndrew even a crude class line against capitalism and war." Our vote to Britt on wasfrom the perspective of critical support,and we noted that the SWP's quirky reformist program and nominal existencemeans that it is not a step to the kind of

targets of the rulers' reactionary "war onterror." Stop the deportations of Algerian,Palestinian and other refugees! Full citizenship rights for all immigrants!The "united Canada" upheld by theEnglish Canadian labor bureaucracy andespecially the NDP can only mean continued national oppression of the Quebecois people and a dampening of class

revolutionary party the working classneeds. In that context, P.S. has a factualerror that is quite instructive. We did infact campaign for a vote to the SWP inthe 1964 presidential election, despite itscall to "Withdraw the troops from VietNam and send them to Mississippi,"which disarmed civil rights activists bybuilding false illusions that the federalgovernment would "protect" them fromracist attack. At the time, the S W P from which our tendency had just beenexpelled-stilI professed to stand on theprinciples of revolutionary Trotskyism,and our critical support for its candidatesbest enabled us to expose its reformistpractice. By 1968, the SWP had completed its slide from centrism to outrightreformism, and it was actively building abloc with liberal Democratic politiciansspeaking for a defeatist wing of the bourgeoisie over the Vietnam War. As therewas no longer a contradiction betweenits formal program and its practice, wedid not give it critical support in thatelection or the ones to follow. In therecent recall elections, however, theSWP took a clear position on the side ofIraq against the American invasion andoccupation, and was explicitly criticalwhen the current antiwar movement espoused the same class-collaborationistpolitics that the SWP pursued three decades before.In the face of an even critically supportable working-class candidate, P.S.'sposition of abstention in the Californiarecall would have been in fact to lendbackhanded support to the DemocraticParty. Indeed, though he does not holdthis position, the logic of P.S.'s argumentis what is expressed explicitly by S.c.:support for "lesser evil" electoral politics-i.e., the Democrats. Contrary towhat S.C. implies, the Republican Partyis not a fascist party; nor is the capitalistDemocratic Party, unlike the GermanSocial Democratic Party, part of theworkers movement. Moreover, Trotsky'spoint in Germany was not electoral sup-port to the Social Democrats, which implies an endorsement of their politicalprogram. He argued for a fighting united front-a series of actions-betweenCommunist and Social Democraticworkers organizations to defeat the fascists, in the course of which the Communists could make clear to the SocialDemocratic ranks that only the Communists had the program that could makethe necessary socialist revolution .

struggle. We fight for the only perspectivethat can weld together the struggles ofworking people-English Canadian, Quebecois; immigrant, Native-against thebrutal and bloody capitalist system thatoppresses us all. Down with Anglo chauvinism! Break with bourgeois nationalism! For Quebec independence! Forwardto North American socialist revolution!

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) 839-0851ChicagoBox 6441, Main POChicago, lL 60680(31 2) 563-0441Public Office:Sat. 2-5 p.m.222 S. Morgan(Buzzer 23)

Toronto

Public Office: Sat. 2-5 p.m. Public Office:3806 Beverly Blvd., Room 215 Sat. 1-5 p.m.New YorkBox 3381, Church St. Sta.New York, NY 10008(212) 267-1025Public Office:Sat. 1-4 p.m.299 Broadway, Suite 318

1634 Telegraph3rd FloorSan FranciscoBox 77494San FranciscoCA 94107

l,4fLtlll.TIlQT$KYatEDu CA ,VancouverBox 7198, Station AToronto, ON M5W 1X8(416) 593-4138Box 2717, Main P.O.Vancouver, BC V6B 3X2(604) 687-0353

5


6/12

"We Need to Build Our Own Workers Party"We reprint below, in slightly editedform, speeches by Spartacist Leaguespokesman Mo Pirouzy and Labor BlackLeague spokesman Jido Cooper to thePartisan Defense Committee HolidayAppeal for Class-War Prisoners, heldon December 7 in the San Francisco Bay

Area.Mo Pirouzy, Spartacist League

I'd like to start with crying out loud:Down with the colonial occupation ofIraq! Down with the colonial occupationof Iraq! The U.S. imperialists are looters and murderers. What has happenedin Iraq is not so much a war but a onesided slaughter. Untold thousands ofIraqis have been killed through air strikesand overwhelming American militarymight. The U.S. war against the Iraqi people continues in the form of colonialoccupation, which has sparked popularand justified resistance among Iraqis andproven deadly for American soldiers.

WV PhotoWe recognize that both Iraqis and theAmerican workers are facing a commonenemy, the U.S. capitalist ruling class.Our message: It is impossible to opposewar without opposing the capitalist system that breeds it and the capitalist partiesthat carry it out. We challenge illusions inthe reformability of the bloody Americanimperialist state. We are for mobilizingthe only force that can challenge the ruleof the capitalist class-the working class.

It is important to understand that theenslavement of Iraq is yet another pricethat the international working class ispaying for the destruction of the Sovietdegenerated workers state through capitalist counterrevolution. Today's imperialist global rampage would have beenimpossible when the USSR still existed.And unlike most of the reformist leftwho howled with the imperialist wolves,we Trotskyists of the International Communist League fought to the bitter end indefense of the Soviet workers state and

its collectivized property. This defensewas despite and against the Stalinist misrule that had opened the door to counterrevolution.This year's benefit takes place in thecontext of heightened state repression athome. The so-called "war on terror,"backed by both Republicans and Democrats, is the government's pretext forincreasing its power to spy on the population, target leftists, attack civil liberties,break the power of the unions, deportimmigrants and "disappear" citizens.Over the last two decades, America'scapitalists have secured fabulous richesthrough increasing the exploitation of theworking class, while slashing social programs benefiting the poor and particularly the black ghetto masses. America'srulers hate and fear the people. It is inthis context of growing social inequali ty-and the potential for an upsurge insocial struggle-that the capitalists' state

reinforces its arsenal of state repression.For example, when the ILWU was lockedin a showdown with the union-bustingshipping bosses in June 2002, HomelandSecurity chief Tom Ridge threatened thatany strike action by the workers would bea threat to "national security." The repression the government seeks to unleashis completely consistent with the military dictatorships that the U.S. has supported over the years-the Shah of Iran,Somoza of Nicaragua, Batista, Pinochetof Chile, just to name a few; Our pointhere is that what the government can getaway with will be determined in the classstruggle, on the picket line and in thestreets.

youth. The question is under which leadership and under what banner will themasses wage their struggle. The tradeunion bureaucracy's policy is that of"America first" chauvinist protectionism,which divides the working class internationally, and the promotion of the Democratic Party, to which the union bureaucracy is intimately linked and obligated.From February 9, 2002, when wemobilized workers against the antiimmigrant witchhunt, to our Revolutionary Internationalist Contingents defending Iraq at the big antiwar demos, wehave sought to show how a revolutionaryparty would fight to mobilize the working class independent of the capitalistparties, Democrats and Republicans both.The reformist socialists who organizedthe antiwar demos deliberately keptthem "respectable," deliberately obscuredthe fact that imperialism is a systemand deliberately channeled people into

6

Attacks on labor, racist assaults by thecops, the reactionary assault on women'sright to abortion, cuts in education, theIraqi quagmire-all will bring, inevitably,a response from the workers, unions,immigrants, black militants and the

Statement by Mordechai VanunuDefense CommitteeThe following s'tatement by Jeannie' Shaterian ofthe Bay Area Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunuwas read out at the Bay Area PDC Holiday Appeal onDecember 7.Mordechai Vanunu was kidnapped by Israel'sintelligence service, Mossad, September 30, 1986,given a closed trial, convicted of treason and espionage, and sentenced to eighteen years. The first elevenplus years were spent in solitary confinement.Recently he was returned to solitary confinement forthree weeks for disobeying prison regulations. Hismail is censored and delayed, his visitors restricted tohis family, legal team, and priest. He has been repeatedly denied parole.What did he do? For nine years he was a technicianat the so-called Negev Nuclear Research Center near

Dimona, in reality a plant manufacturing componentsfor atomic and thermonuclear weapons. As the yearsprogressed he grew more and more disturbed by hispart in it. He was deeply affected by the devastationwrought on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, by the unjustnature of Israeli society, and by the insanity of Israel'sopen secret-the bombs everyone knew about and noone mentioned, the lack of public debate about suchan important issue. Before he was laid off, he smuggled in a camera and took extensive pictures of theplant (available on the U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu's Web site). He didn't get them developedfor many months, after traveling through Asia to Australia and converting to Christianity. -(His OrthodoxJewish parents emigrated from Morocco to Israel when

he was eight years old. He is the second of eleven children.) Although he didn't seek out publicity, but toldhis story to a small church group, the Sunday Times ofLondon heard of him and sent a reporter to chec k himout. By the time his story and photographs were published in October 1986, he had already disappeared. Ittook the Israeli government (Shimon Peres, one of thefathers of the Israeli bomb, was Prime Minister) sixweeks to acknowledge his presence in Israel. He wastreated especially harshly because he had broken twosacred taboos: documenting the manufacture ofnuclear weapons and breaking with Judaism.Almost immediately an international campaign forhis release arose, with its most active branches inIsrael, the UK, Norway, and the U.S. He has wonnumerous awards in absentia, inclu.ding the Right Livelihood Award and. the 2002 Nuclear Free Future Awardfor Resistance. Amnesty International, Nobel PeacePrize Laureates Mair!,!ad Corrigan Maguire and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have spoken out for his release,as have government, religious, scientific, and creativearts people and activists throughout the world. Ofcourse, it has been in the interests of both Israel andthe U.S. to keep him as quiet and forgotten as possible,for if the U.S. admits Israel has nuclear weapons, allits aid to Israel becomes illegal according to U.S. law(the Symington Amendment of 1977).Over the last few years there have been many significant cracks in Israel's policy of nuclear ambiguity,both within and outside of Israel. This March the BBCproduced a documentary, "Israel's Secret Weapon,"

Vanunu at pro-Palestinian rights rally inIsrael, 1985. Sign reads: "Israel-Palestine:Two States for Two Peoples."

dealing with Israel's weapons of mass destruction,chemical and biological as well as nuclear, the historyof its nuclear build-up, the Vanunu case, worker safetyand environmental hazards at the reactor, the secrecypolicy and U.S. official reaction to all this. The Israeligovernment broke its ties with the BBC because of thisshow. On October 12 the L.A. Times did an extensivefeature, "Israel Adds Fuel to Nuclear Dispute," thatattracted international attention.Mordechai Vanunu's official release date is April 22,2004. His spirits are excellent. He remains unrepentant and committed to global nuclear disarmament. Heplans to leave Israel as soon as possible and settle inthe U.S. That may be easier said than done. The international campaign is doing everything it can to ensureit happens. For much more information and what youcan do, contact the U.S. Campaign to Free MordechaiVanunu, www.no"nviolence.org/vanunu. (520) 323-8697. You can also write to him. The address isMordechai Vanunu, Ashkelon Prison, Ashkelon, Israel.

WORKERS VANGUARD


7/12

Muslim Women Banned from Work in PublicThis October, an arbitrator upheld aNew York City Transit (NYCT) rulingthat three black Muslim bus drivers musteither violate their religious convictions,

or be banned from public work. NYCTlaunched its crackdown on these workers for wearing their Islamic headscarvesin the summer of 2002, when the antiMuslim "terror" hysteria was in fullswing. The arbitrator's ruling, whichmandates that these women wear officialcompany caps on top of their headscarves in violation of Islamic teaching,constitutes an attack on New York's busdrivers and their union, Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100, because itasserts that the NYCT can remove Muslim workers from their jobs. This is anoutrage! We defend these women. Unionaction should be organized to have themimmediately reinstated to their originaljobs and to fight the NYCT's racist antiMuslim attacks. A union leadership thatdefends its members would have led awalkout on the spot when supervisorsfirst victimized these union sisters.Two of the victimized unionists,Stephanie Lewis and Deirdre Small, hadworn their headscarves (also known askhimars) while driving city buses since1989 and 1998, respectively, without incident. A third, Malikah Alkebulan, was aprobationary bus driver in March 2002when the Flatbush Depot bosses begandisciplining her for not wearing an official company cap over her headscarf.Recently, another Muslim bus driver, Gladys Muhammad, came forward to protest

the Democratic Party.Gore Vidal said there's one party in theU.S., the property party, and it has tworight wings. The Democrats run this system in partnership with the Republicans. It was Clinton who, among manyother things, rammed through Congressthe Anti-Terrorism and Effective DeathPenalty Act of 1996, which opened thedoor to the Patriot Act and under whichmost of the immigrants held by the government today are detained. We stand forfull citizenship rights for all immigrantswho have made it to this country.Perhaps because both parties are soright wing, some garden-variety liberals are now calling themselves Greens.Matt Gonzalez, running for San Francisco mayor, is a case in point. But theGreens, too, are a capitalist party with acapitalist program. The "Nader campaignhad a strong component of flag-wavinganti-immigrant protectionism and strident anti-Communist China-bashing. Thereformist International Socialist Organization (ISO) is busy supporting Gonzalez, as they did Nader, although theydo have a complaint-thatGonzalez supported the arrests of thousands of demonstrators in S.F. after the bombing of

being pulled from passenger service forthe same reason. All four workers arereportedly pursuing lawsuits against theNYCT.These attacks are part of the domestic"war on terror" launched after the criminal September 11 attack on the WorldTrade Center. The "war on terror" targetsin the first instance immigrants and Muslims; it feeds the fire of anti-Muslimbigotry: racist attacks were particularlydirected at Muslim women wearing theheadscarf after September 11. Now, the"war on terror" is being used to go afterjust about anyone perceived as an opponent by the racist capitalist rulers, suchas those who are opposed to the colonial war and occupation of Iraq. NYCTbosses are going after black Muslimwomen right now, but TWU members better know that it's the entireunion and workers movement that's ulti

mately under fire. Blatant racism againstimmigrant and other minority workersby NYCT management has been on therise. However, Lewis, Small, Alkebulan,Muhammad and other victimized transitworkers are not simply helpless. Theyare members of TWU Local 100, adiverse, multiracial 36,000-strong unionthat has the ability to mobilize thousandsof its members in their defense.Local 100 officers correctly point topost-9/11 religious bigotry as the backdrop of this case, and the union held ademonstration on February 28 before anarbitration hearing. However, appealingto the spirit of "national unity" patriot-

Iraq started. But they're not letting thisminor point stand in the way of theirsupport. This tells you a lot about notonly Matt Gonzalez, but also the ISO.In conclusion: We seek to educate theworking class in the historic necessity forall mankind of the reorganization of society on the basis of a planned economywhere production is based on humanneed, not profit. We seek to convinceworkers and their allies to build a workers party which will fight for a socialistfuture. We seek to act, as Lenin describedthe role of the vanguard party, as a tribuneof the people. Where there is a workersstrike, we'll be there; where there is protest against the-injustices of the capitalistclass against blacks, immigrants and theoppressed, we'll be there. As Rosa Luxemburg said long ago, the choices are clearsocialism or barbarism! We have a wholeworld to win. Workers of the world, unite!Jido Cooper, Labor Black League

for Social DefenseThe Labor Black League for SocialDefense, fraternally allied with the Spartacist League, stands for mobilizingblack and working people in militant,

Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist Leagueo $10/22 issues of Workers Vanguard 0 New 0 Renewal

(includes English-language Spartacist and Black History and the Class Struggle)international rates: $25/22 issues- Airmai l $10/22 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 __________ _

816Make checks payable/mail to: Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116

26 DECEMBER 2003

February 28: Stephanie Lewis, oneof the bus drivers victimized forwearing Islamic headscarf, at unionprotest at arbitration hearing.ism, the union issued a leaflet to the busdrivers with the main slogan of "Religious Discrimination Is Un-American!"Religious discrimination and racism-asthe roundups of thousands of Arab Americans and immigrants have shown-is asAmerican as apple pie. The union topspromote "national unity" as an act ofloyalty to U.S. imperialism and the capitalists' political parties, especially theDemocrats. An example of this was inLocallOO's recent union elections, wherenot a single candidate or slate even mentioned this case as a priority for beating back the NYCT's anti-union assaults

integrated struggle against the brutal system of racist oppression that is capitalistAmerica.The war against "terrorism" is in fact awar against oppressed peoples abroad andworking people, blacks and immigrantsat home. While backing the $87 billionwar budget for the colonial occupation ofIraq, the Democrats have demanded moreof your tax dollars for repressing youright here in the so-called "homeland."Last April, Congresswoman BarbaraLee led a rally in Oakland to channel angeragainst the Iraq war into support for theDemocratic Party. Labor Black Leaguemembers were there to say: "Break withthe Democrats! We need to build our ownworkers party!" We pointed to our unitedfront demonstration in Oakland the previous year, to show what a workers party inaction looks like--mobilizing the powerof organized labor in defense of immigrants, blacks and the unions against thePatriot and Maritime Security Acts, independently of the capitalist parties andtheir state.Cops kept a very low profile at the Leerally. But you look at two days later,when antiwar activists took their protestdown to the docks, just symbolicallytouching the question of labor's socialpower, and the cops moved in with gunsblazing, seriously injuring both demonstrators and longshoremen with woodenprojectiles.So after that attack, liberals and reformists demanded a city council reviewof the police violence. Well, the existingcivilian review board was bypassed, yousee. There's no surprise there. It provedtotally worthless regarding the [Oaklandpolice] "Riders" reign of terror, just as itssister body has regarding SFPD brutality.Anyway, their so-called "independentinquiry" disappeared before starting. Andwhat about the courts? Well, they turnedthe Riders loose, and they're prosecutingthe victims of the cop rampage down atthe docks. In the name of the "war ondrugs," the Oakland and San Franciscocops continue to terrorize ghettos, barriosand workplaces. Labor Black League

on this heavily immigrant and minorityworkforce. The TWU should not onlygive full support to the bus drivers' legalchallenges against the company; it shouldalso intensify its protests and stage unionwide job actions to get their jobs back andfight for their rights!As Marxists, we defend the right tofreedom of religious beliefs. At the sametime, as we wrote in "New York TWU:Fight MTA Attacks on Muslim WomenWorkers" (WV No. 799, 14 March), "Werecognize that the headscarf prescribed bythe Koran-most obviously in its extremeforms, like the head-to-toe chador in Iranand the burqa in Afghanistan-is anexpression of the SUbjugation of women,who are oppressed by all religions. But inpost-9/11 America, it's the capitalists andtheir government that are making life hellfor all Muslims, including women."The arbitrator's latest decision gives agreen light for more crackdowns onworkers, including Sikhs, men who wearskullcaps or yarmulkes and anyone elsewho doesn't "look right" to the boss.There is nothing "neutral" about the capitalist courts and the system of arbitrationin disputes between labor and management-these are institutions set up tomaintain the bosses' system of exploitation and oppression. In fact, the companynow has an excuse to never hire anotherMuslim woman who wears a hea dscarf asa bus operator, train operator, token boothclerk or many other jobs. The full powerofTWU Local 100 should be used to stopthis and all company acts of bigotry!.

members took part in many of the recentprotests against police brutality to say,"No illusions in civilian review boards orcommunity control of police. Down withthe racist and anti-labor 'war on drugs'!For the decriminalization of drugs!"These are among the demands added toour Ten-Point Program in an updateadopted early last year.Last year, together with the SpartacusYouth Club, we counter-demonstratedagainst gay-bashing pickets of memorials for murdered trans gender youthGwen Araujo. The bourgeoisie and theirstate use religion to help control themasses. That's why we added "Defendthe separation of church and state!" toour demands in the Ten-Point Program for "Full democratic rights forhomosexuals!" and "Government out ofthe bedroom!"The imperialists have intensified theirdrive to restore capitalism in the deformed workers states of China, Vietnam, Cuba and North Korea. We call forthe international working class to defendthe remaining gains of those countries'anti-capitalist social revolutions. Theymust be defended not only from imperialist military attack and economic pressure, but also from their treacherous Stalinist bureaucracies who aid the forces ofcapitalist restoration. So our Ten-PointProgram now calls for the workers themselves in those countries to oust thebureaucracies through proletarian political revolution.During its 20 years of activity, the BayArea Labor Black League has helpedbuild numerous actions to stop the KKKand Nazis, to defend civil and unionrights for blacks and immigrants, and todefend abortion rights. You can see someof those activities represented in the displays around the room. So pick up a copyof our newsletter. Look over our TenPoint Program. And if you agree withit, join the Labor Black League to fightraCist capitalist oppression and to helpbuild the party that can lead tue workingclass to state power and to a socialistfuture .

7


8/12

Cuba ...(continued from page 1)rapacious imperialists. In the neocolonialcountries, the only road to the resolutionof the burning democratic tasks is theconquest of power by the working class,at the head of the peasantry and all theoppressed, and the extension of the revolution to the imperialist heartlands andbeyond.The RT also fought for revolutionaryintervention into the mass civil rightsmovement in the U.S. South on a program of revolutionary integrationism,which holds that black people in theUnited States can have social and political equality only through the overthrowof the capitalist system and the forgingof a workers state. This position was inopposition to the SWP leadership's tailing of the reformist Martin Luther KingJr. leadership of the civil rights movement and later of black nationalism.

APMembers of the Cuban women's antiaircraft unit prepare to leave Angola,1989. Cuban forces smashed South African apartheid invasion in mid 1970s.

Trotsky said correctly that those whocannot defend existing gains will neverwin new ones. I want to talk a little aboutthe gains of the Cuban Revolution. Priorto the 1959 Revolution the immenselycorrupt and brutal U.S. puppet regime ofBatista and his cronies ruled over a society marked by mass unemployment andilliteracy, with miserable urban slums anda destitute rural population squeaking bythrough seasonal employment. On top ofthis was the systematic and brutal oppres-

women. The influence of the Catholicchurch was broken. Abortion is a freehealth service, and the birthrate is only1.5 per woman, more typical of richcountries. Prenatal care is a high priority,which has contributed to an infant mortality rate lower than in parts of the"First World." One of the first acts ofthe Castro regime was to outlaw racistdiscrimination-one reason why blackCubans are especially hostile to the predominantly white gusanos (worms) inMiami, who since fleeing Cuba have

Despite the Stalinist bureaucratic degeneration, the Soviet Union was theindustrial and military powerhouse protecting every other country that had overthrown capitalist rule, from China toNorth Korea to Vietnam to Cuba. It wasonly fear of possible Soviet retaliationthat held American imperialism backfrom using nuclear weapons againstNorth Korea and China in the Korean Warof the early 1950s and against North Vietnam in the 1960s. And now the SovietUnion is gone, sold out thanks to decades

Camera PressLeft: Cuban militiaman guards U.S. oil refinery expropriated in 1960. Above:Soviet tanker unloads oil at Havana refinery formerly owned by Exxon. SovietUnion provided vital support for Cuban deformed workers state.sion of black people; indeed, heavilyblack Santiago province was a center ofguerrilla struggle against Batista. Such isthe Cuban "democracy" upheld by theanti-Communist rabble in Miami today.Following the overthrow of capitalism in 1960-61, the resources of Cubansociety-with heavy Soviet aid-wereinvested in a centralized, planned economy, with everyone guaranteed a job,decent housing, food and education. Thefree health care system; despite the crippling effects of the U.S. blockade, is stillfar and away the best among so-called"Third World" countries, and Cubanmedical schools train doctors from countries like Honduras, Nicaragua and ElSalvador. Cubans now enjoy one of thehighest literacy rates in the world, andnearly one in eleven hold universitydegrees. The island has more doctors andteachers per capita than just about anycountry in the world.The revolution especially benefited

been a bulwark of racist bourgeois politics in South Florida. And black peoplein Florida and Haiti and New York knowthis too!Counterrevolution in USSR:A World-Historic Defeat

Now, as internationalists we have totalk about the international context inwhich we think Cuba must be viewed. Foranyone who reads the daily newspapers'and is not a hopeless bourgeois ideologueor anti-Communist leftist of the stripe ofthe International Socialist Organization(ISO), Socialist Action, the League forthe Revolutionary Party (LRP) and suchlike, it is clear that since 1991-92 theworld situation has changed enormouslyfor the worse; that is, the counterrevolutionary destruction of the Soviet Unionled by Boris Yeltsin and Bush Sr. was anunparalleled defeat for the internationalworking class and the colonial and excolonial peoples of the world.

Marxist Bulletin No.8Cuba and Marxist TheorySelected Documents on theCuban Question, 1960-1966

The fight o f the Revolutionary Tendencyin the Socialist Workers Party and thedevelopment of the Spartacist League'scharacterization of Castro's Cuba as

8

a deformed workers state. Includespreface from 1973.$1.50 (48 pages)Order from: Spartacist Publishing Co.Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116

of Stalinist betrayal. Another result of thecounterrevolution is that the nominallyindependent countries Of the Third Worldcan no longer maneuver between the "twosuperpowers"; the Ame rican imperialiststhink they can do anything to anyone andget away with it. The bombing of Serbiaback in 1999 by the Democratic Clintonadministration was one example. The current U.S. mass slaughter in Iraq-following the 1991 Gulf War massacre and 12years of a United Nations starvationblockade which resulted in the deaths ofone and a half million Iraqis-and theensuing colonial occupation today isanother. The world has become a verydangerous, and for untold millions a verydesperate place.Further, the destruction of the SovietUnion has inflamed the rivalries betweenthe imperialist states of North America,West Europe and Japan, whose conflictsof interest are no longer restrained by theircapitalist rulers' shared commitment tothe former anti-Soviet alliance. Currenttensions between French and Germanimperialism on the one hand and U.S.imperialism on the other over how todivide up the spoils in Iraq are indicatorsof this. All the imperialist powers haveratcheted up their exploitation of the ThirdWorld countries and their own workingclasses. And not least, there has been catastrophic destruction within the formerSoviet Union itself. The ICL intervened inEast Germany and the USSR in the late1980s and early '90s to fight for workerspolitical revolution against the Stalinistbureaucracies, whose appeasement of capitalist imperialism opened the door to thefinal undoing of the deformed workersstates. Meanwhile the rest of the lefthowled with the imperialist wolves about

the victory of "democracy"-i.e., bourgeois democracy-the dictatorship of thebourgeoisie being restored to the land ofthe great October 1917 Revolution andstrengthened throughout the world.The imperialists in general and American imperialism in particular are makingit their business to destroy the remainingdeformed workers states on the planetChina, Vietnam, North Korea and Cubathrough a policy of economic strangulation and military pressure. They arealso trying to regain these areas of theglobe for capitalist exploitation through"free market" economic incursions intothe deformed workers states, a policy ofcounterrevolution through "constructiveengagement" which is applied to Chinaand hotly debated by the U.S. rulers withregard to Cuba. It is emblematic of theAmerican imperialists' fury toward anypart of the world that was ripped out ofthe capitalist system that, having won theCold War against the Soviet Union, theynow target the deformed workers statesof North Korea, China and Cuba for apotential nuclear first strike in the Pentagon's "Nuclear Posture Review"-that is,nuclear irradiation of hundreds of millions of people.

We are for the unconditional militarydefense of the deformed workers statesagainst imperialist attack and internalcounterrevolution. The imperialists areexercised by the North Korean nuclearprogram; we defend the right of thedeformed workers states to have nuclearweapons. In today's world, it's about theonly guarantee of national sovereigntyjust look at the different reactions of thePentagon to North Korea and Iraq! Andwe think that a key element of defense ofthe deformed workers states is not onlyto defend the gains of the revolutionsbut to complete them and extend theminternationally.Defend Cuba AgainstU.S. Imperialism!

Since the Cuban Revolution led to theestablishment of a deformed workersstate, it has been an article of faith of theAmerican imperialist administrations,from Democratic president "Bay of Pigs"Kennedy to RepUblican Bush Jr. today,that the gains of that revolution must bedestroyed utterly. Bush's administrationis rife with gusanos, such as presidentialenvoy to the Americas Otto Reich. Otherprominent members of the Bush teaminclude John Negroponte and ElliottAbrams, who in the 1980s directed theCIA-backed contra terrorists in Nicaragua and the death squad regime in ElSalvador.They have tried from day one todestroy the Cuban Revolution. You hadthe Kennedy/CIA-engineered 1961 Bayof Pigs invasion, numerous assassinationattempts against Castro, and an economic embargo which has now been inplace for over 40 years. For more thanthree decades, the biggest obstacle toWashington's drive for capitalist restoration in Cuba was the Soviet Union,which gave Cuba some $4 billion a yearin aid and provided a crucial militaryshield against imperialism. In the wakeof the destruction of the Soviet degenerated workers state in 1991-92, the imperialist rulers see their big chance to burythe Cuban Revolution once and for all.At the same time, many U.S. corporations that seek to compete with capitalists from West Europe and Canada inexploiting Cuba have long pressured theU.S. government to ease restrictions andloosen the 44-year economic embargo.Representative of this imperialist policyof "constructive engagement" was lastyear's visit to Cuba by former Democratic president Jimmy Carter."Human rights" Carter is in reality aSouthern peanut farmer who, during hispresidency, had "ethnic purity" on hismind, for U.S. policy at home and thedestruction of workers states internationally-and he has not changed his spots.Carter led Cold War II, a drive for counterrevolution which raged with the Sovietintervention into Afghanistan in 1979. WeTrotskyists supported the action by theMoscow Stalinists, for once solidly on the

WORKERS VANGUARD


9/12

side of social progress against the CIAand their cutthroat Islamic fundamenJalists. We said, "Hail Red Army in Afghanistan! Extend the gains of October to theAfghan peoples!"Carter's visit to Cuba was timed tocoincide with a propaganda campaignknown as the Varela petition campaign.The supporters of that campaign formthe bulk of those imprisoned by theCuban government in April of this year.In addition to calling for freedom ofexpression and association, the Varelapetition also demands "free elections andthe right to private enterprise"-demandsthat amount to a call for "democratic"counterrevolution, the "electoral" rise topower of capitalist-restorationist forcesfinanced by American imperialist largesse, which would be accompanied by abloodbath of workers and Communists.Yet Carter was welcomed by Castro andoffered a platform on Cuban TV andradio to spew his imperialist propaganda.The Varela project was named aftera 19th-century Cuban priest. It waslaunched around the time of the 1998visit by Pope John Paul II to Cuba-againwith Castro's blessing. It is led by thehead of the "Christian Liberation Movement," Oswaldo Paya, and supported andfunded by the U.S. State Department,the National Endowment for Democracyand the Catholic church. The U.S. impe-

Harvey/MagnumCuba's Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology is a leading interferon producer. Plannedand collectivized economy enablesCuba to be in forefront of medicaldevelopments.rialists see Varela as a Cuban versionof the counterrevolutionary Polish Solidarnosc movement, as the WashingtonPost (13 January) made clear in thefeature on Paya headlined "Solidarity,Cuban-Style." The Castro bureaucracy'spolicy of appeasementof imperialism andthe Catholic church is deadly dangerous.Come to think of it, some of the noiserecently emanating from the social democrats and liberals about Cuba "is reminiscent of their performance as "left".spokesmen for counterrevolution in theperiod of the rise of Solidarnosc.On the heels of the colonial invasionand occupation of Iraq, the imperialistregime in Washington has intensified itsdecades-long counterrevolutionary crusade against Cuba. Seizing on the trialsand convictions this April of 78 Cuban"dissidents," most of whom were apparently working with James Cason, headof the U.S. Interests Section in Havana,Colin Powell raged that Cuba is an"aberration in the Western hemisphere."The U.S. expelled 14 Cuban diplomats,canceled all educational travel to Cubaand is threatening to cut off familyremittances to Cuba that amount to asmuch as $1 billion a year.And, while the imperialists raised ahue and cry over the arrests in Cuba,they have carried out their own campaignagainst defenders of Cuba in the U.S. Acase in" point is the Miami Five, whohave been sentenced to 15 years to lifefor the "crime" of monitoring the terroristactivities of gusanos. Free the MiamiFive now!Taking their cue from "democratic"imperialists like Carter, a wide array of"left" liberals and trade-union bureaucrats in the U.S. and internationally have26 DECEMBER 2003

circulated a petition which denouncesCastro's crackdown as "brute repression"and says not one word about the U.S.invasion of Iraq or the so-called "war onterror" against immigrants, blacks andworkers in the U.S. This petition was circulated by United Federation of Teachers official and Democratic Socialists ofAmerica member Leo Casey, and supported by Stanley Aronowitz and BogdanDenitch, as well as Nation types likeKatha Pollitt and Todd Gitlin.For those who were squeamish aboutsigning such an outright statement ofsupport to the Bush regime, there wasanother petition circulated by the Campaign for Peace and Democracy, signedby Howard Zinn, Cornel West and allpurpose anti-Communist Noam Chomsky. The petition criticizes U.S. policytoward Cuba and Iraq but states, "Wesupport civil liberties and democraticrights everywhere, regardless of thecountry's economic, political or socialsystem.... We support democracy inCuba. The imprisonment of people forattempting to exercise their rights of freeexpression is outrageous and unacceptable." The principal author and promoterof this petition in the U.S. was JoanneLandy, a social democrat and lifelongenemy of the Chinese, Vietnamese andCuban Revolutions and member of theCouncil on Foreign Relations, one of themajor institutions advising the U.S. government on its imperial policies for overhalf a century.For the record, it should also be notedthat Joanne Landy is a former memberof the International Socialists, whichspawned the ISO and Sy Landy's LRP,which are also hostile to the Cuban Revolution. For these outfits, the abstractnotion of "democracy" and not the proletarian class character of the Cuban stateis the be:all and end-all. These groupsare horrified by the overthrow of capitalist class rule.I would note while we're on the subjectthat in May 2003, as part of its crackdown, the Castro government executedthree boat hijackers. Unlike WorkersWorld Party and the Socialist WorkersParty, for whom Castro can do no wrong,we are Marxists. We do not condone theexecutions, though. we support thosemeasures that are taken in defense of thegains of the Cuban Revolution, includingthe imprisonment of "dissidents" who areactively collaborating with U.S. imperialism. Marxists-including the Bolsheviks-are in principle opposed to thebarbaric death penalty being part of thejuridical code of any state.For Workers PoliticalRevolution in Cuba!

After the collapse of the Soviet Union,which had accounted for 85 percentof Cuba's trade, Cuba entered a periodof grave economic crisis. In particular,the Soviet Union supplied oil 'at belowmarket prices, and without oil there is not'much basis for an industrial economy.The Castro bureaucracy dubbed it a "Special Period in Time of Peace," i.e., Cubasuffers degrees of scarcity and hardshiplike a country at war. The government'sofficial figure in the mid 1990s was thatthe economy declined 34 percent from1991 to 1994. Housing is cramped anddeteriorating. Public transportation isdying for lack of new parts, including formaintenance. In the countryside, the tractor is not the norm, but rather carts drawn

-I3"CD

Havana markethas emptyshelves, whilethose who holdU.S. currency shopat special "dollarstore." Castrobureaucracy'sintroduction of thedollar into Cubaneconomy hassharply increasedsocial inequality.

by various beasts of burden.There are "friends of Cuba" like theeccentric Socialist Workers Party andWorkers World Party who would like usto think Cuba is socialist. But as KarlMarx said, the attainment of socialisma society of such material abundance thatclasses no longer exist-requires the victory of proletarian revolution in at leastseveral of the advanced capitalist countries in order to create an internationalplanned economy based on the highestmaterial and technological development.The reactions of the Castro governmentto the imperialist pressure have not beenthat of a 'revolutionary socialist regimebut of a nationalist bureaucratic caste inisolation. In 1994 the regime introdu