Mobilize all of Labor to Defend Longshoremen

Obama/Solis/Government hands off the ILA!

Smash Taft-Hartley strike-breaking through

all-out working class struggle!

ILA/ILWU unite to shut down the ports on all three coasts!

The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) has been in negotiations with the USMX (United States Maritime Alliance) bosses for the last several months. No contract agreement has been reached yet, but the ILA leaders have agreed to a contract extension until February 6th, thus averting a strike for the moment. As negotiations drag on, a February 6th strike is a possibility. On the West Coast, the International Longshoremen’s and Warehouse Union (ILWU) in Portland is also under attack by the bosses. There has been saber-rattling in both struggles by the bosses and their supporters. More than 100 business owners, along with Florida Gov. Rick Scott have called for Obama to impose Taft-Hartley strike-breaking. On the West Coast, Obama’s Coast Guard has been deployed for the express purpose of escorting any scab ships if it comes down to a strike or lockout, while private security strikebreakers stand in the wings.

Instead of mobilizing support for these struggles, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka had all his energies focused on the fiscal cliff; propping up the Democrats and beating up on the Republicans, and in the process, not even denouncing Obama and Pelosi outright over their proposed chained CPI Social Security cost of living increase calculation (which was eventually withdrawn at least for the time being.) The fiscal cliff doom was a lot of hype to divert and scare workers while lining the pockets of corporations by protected enshrined tax dodges as the ruling class promises to go after past social gains like Social Security and Medicare in the run up to March 1st debt ceiling deadline. One other thing is real though; the working class and the oppressed are being led off a cliff by the Democratic Party sellout union tops that are unwilling to do what is necessary to defend our unions or to defend even the minimal remaining social safety net that is under attack.

The miserable fiscal cliff deal pleases no one except Grover Norquist. Obama January 1st spin was that he carried out his campaign promises to avoid unnecessary cuts to social services. However, the fiscal cliff deal is only temporary, until the automatic spending cuts take effect in March unless a new deal is reached. The State Federation and Central Labor Council layers of the AFL-CIO bureaucracy will all fall into line behind Trumka and the Democrats even as they catch fire from the rank-and-file members who are being left high and dry by this largely one-sided class war against the working class and the oppressed. And now in the direct line of fire are the Longshoremen.

To the misleaders of the AFL-CIO and Change to Win labor federations must be added the reformists of the Workers World Party and the Southern Workers Assembly who are distributing an online petition to ask Obama to abstain from imposing strikebreaking Taft-Hartley provisions on the ILA. This petition is couched in the language of disappointed Democrats not that of militant trade unionists who understand where the class line lies. This online petition came our way from Occupy Oakland Labor Solidarity and we can only hope that they have better plans for supporting the Longshore struggle and opposing government strikebreaking.

For their part, the ILA bureaucracy already has plans to conduct a potential strike with one hand tied. Their strike preparations include instructions to handle perishable goods, military cargo, automobiles, non-containerized cargo and mail. This is nonsense. Shut down the ports tight, all the cargo and all the ports!

Both the ILA struggle on the East and Gulf Coasts, and the ILWU on the West Coast are key labor battles by unions that wield enormous power and that have traditions of labor militancy. In the wake of the defeat of labor in Michigan, once a bastion of organized labor, we cannot afford many more defeats. It is time to fight! United ILA/ILWU struggle that shuts down the ports with the backing of much of the rest of organized labor and the oppressed could not only stop the string of working class defeats, but could also be mobilized to fight the attacks on social welfare.

It was the ILWU which hot-cargoed goods from South Africa during the apartheid regime, ILWU locals 10 & 19 supported the immigrant worker led May 1st Great American Boycott where Latino labor coast to coast went into the streets and reminded the American worker what May 1st is about. The ILWU local 10 initiated a political strike against racist police repression and the murder of Oscar Grant in Oakland, CA. It is reasonable to expect and correct to call upon the port communities of the oppressed to support and defend Longshore labor Action. It is correct to see Longshore labor action as a form of your own self defense.

The Communist Workers Group (CWG) encourages workers to keep a close eye on the ILA struggle along with that of the West Coast ILWU. Bring these struggles to your union and community and spread the word! An injury to one is an injury to all! Mobilize all-out support for the Longshoremen on all the coasts!

CWG January 6, 2013

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/01/05/18729502.php

http://www.ilaunion.org/

http://www.ilaunion.org/pdf/StrikePreparations.pdf

reblogged from cwgusa

 

India: Struggle in Maruti-Suzuki at Manesar and the Workers Socialist Party

 
We reprint an article on the long standing workers struggle at Maruti-Suzuki by the Workers Socialist Party of India. 

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Two day protest dharna on 7-8 November, organised by the 546 dismissed workers of Maruti-Suzuki at Manesar, under the banner of now defunct trade union, Maruti Suzuki Workers’ Union (MSWU), failed to make any dent, as the pro-corporate media ignored it and its Centrist-Stalinist leaders isolated the action, consciously.


Giving no weight to the protest, Maruti-Suzuki India Ltd. announced that it is gearing up to increase production. “Production is normal at Manesar. By December, we plan to roll out 1,950 cars per day, compared to the 1,700 units we produced in July,” said a company executive.

At present 4000 workers are employed in the Manesar plant, which company is planning to increase to more than 6000, recruiting about 500 per month.

Earlier, Maruti Suzuki had cut by a third its regular workforce and dismissed 546 employees in connection with the violent labour unrest at its Manesar facility on July 18, out of which more than 160 are still languishing in jail.

Workers had been conducting struggle against the sweat shop working conditions and total absence of minimum trade union rights, since 2009, inside the Manesar plant. The month long strike in 2011, had resulted in production loss of 77,000 units to the company. Entering into a blind alley in face of determination of the workers to a spontaneous strike action in 2011, the management had smothered the struggle through outright purchase of the trade union leaders in 2011.

After the whole leadership of MSWU, headed by Sonu Gujjar, had betrayed the struggle, receiving hefty bribes from the company, the company had started to virtually pulverise the workers inside the Manesar plant. The result was a clash on 18th July 2012, between workers and the ‘bouncers’ appointed by the management, resulting in arson inside the plant, death of an official and injuries to many.

The trade union bureaucracies under Social-Democrats (HMS), Centrists (NTUI), Stalinists (CITU-AITUC) and Maoists (AICCTU, IFTU etc), took no time in condemning the ‘violence’ terming the same as ‘unfortunate’ or a ‘wrong turn’ to the ‘peaceful’ struggle.

Immediately after the incident, on 20th July, the Deputy Commissioner of the city called a meeting of trade union leaders to pacify the nerves of workers, preventing them from starting a broad solidarity action in support of the Maruti Workers.The trade unions affiliated to Social-Democrats, Centrists, Stalinists and Maoists of many hues, not only obediently came in attendance, but pledged support to all efforts aimed at “industrial peace”. These trade union leaders forthwith intervened to prevent the workers at other plants in Manesar, from starting a strike action. This emboldened the pro-corporate state to unleash a reign of repression against the struggling workers. The police immediately arrested more than 100 workers who had been most active in the struggle and started a blind hunt to rope in others. While the trade union leaders held back the Maruti workers to fight back and other sections of workers from coming to their aid, the police registered false cases against the workers, continued to arrest them and subjected them to most brutal torture, as is described in a later investigation by the PUDR team. With the implicit collaboration of these trade union leaders, police thus succeeded in imposing savage terror.

To further isolate the dismissed workers, the trade unions have facilitated the signing of a separate wage settlement with the management in September this year, stipulating historic increase in monthly salaries upto Rs. 14,800/-, and regularisation of 1870 contract/ casual workers. What is being done to meet the imperatives of future increase in production, would be used as a tool to isolate the dismissed and arrested workers.

To keep the movement under their grip and hold back the workers under their control, these capitulationists, covert servants of the capital, have forged an alliance among themselves into a 'unity forum' that includes 14 such trade unions affiliated with different stalinist-maoist-centrist parties and groups. The task of this forum is to keep the workers at Maruti within confines of legal action and insulate them from influence of revolutionary idea of initiating a class action against their class enemies.

Arrest of around 160 workers on fake charges of conspiracy, arson and murder had presented itself as a great opportunity for opening a huge political offensive against the Congress government in Haryana and at Centre. Bare fact, that majority of those arrested included the workers having roots in agrarian communities in surrounding villages of Manesar, cutting across the caste divides of dalit-jat-gujjar, the divide upon which rests the critical built-up of bourgeois politics in Haryana, was a ready bastion for united class action of workers and peasants against the corpoarte state and bourgeois parties. But the trade union leaders, those compromisers, pushed the workers into blind alley of 'peaceful and legal demands'.

Shamelessly opposing the proposal of activists of WSP for giving clarion call to the workers in Manesar and all over Haryana, for a indefinite general strike against the state government, these trade union bureaucrats, misled the workers towards alleged ‘peaceful’ means of sloganeering outside the Haryana Bhawan at New Delhi, representations to state authorities, sending fact-finding teams, legal action in courts etc.

While outrightly rejecting the idea to support the two day protest dharna of Maruti workers, Union leaders at the Gurgaon plant of Maruti-Suzuki, Maruti Udyog Kamgar Union (MUKU), have indicated they would render limited support to protest rally on Thursday, as expression of ‘solidarity’. “We will not participate in the hunger strike but will support the rally on Thursday”, said Kuldeep Jhangu, general secretary of MUKU.

Trade union leaders have actively assisted the management, since very beginning of the struggle, in failing the workers’ struggle, by inducing divisions among the workers and thereby isolating the struggling workers. Firstly, they isolated the striking workers at Manesar plant preventing other sections of workers from coming to their aid. Then they divided the regular and contract/casual workers inside the plant. Then they isolated the dismissed workers from those who were still working. And lastly they isolated those who are under arrest, by cleverly restricting the demand for reinstatement only for those who are not implicated in criminal cases. “We want the reinstatement of all colleagues not charged by the special investigation team (SIT) and a proper and unbiased inquiry into the incident,” said Om Prakash, a member of HMS. Demand for a ‘proper and unbiased inquiry’ is yet another tool for reposing the faith in legitimacy of the openly pro-corporate state.

Workers at Maruti-Suzuki, despite all of their sincere wishes and best efforts, cannot win the struggle against the united might of corporates and the state under them, through their efforts alone. The struggling workers must join hands with their class brethren to launch a real and broad offensive against the combined might of corporate and the state.

Our Party- Workers' Socialist Party (WSP) calls upon the workers to first break away from the trade union bureaucracies and their false and opportunist leaders and turn to our Party, the only party of revolutionary marxism. Most militant of them must organise themselves in ‘action committees’ to head the struggle. These committees must be developed gradually into soviets of workers. The struggle at Maruti-Suzuki, and for that matter every serious conflict between workers and corporates, must be made a spearhead of a revolutionary offensive against the capitalist class and its political rule. Every such conflict must be looked upon as a conflagration having potential to lead to a real revolution, through dragging of working class to the whirlpool of political struggle.


Check Our Earlier Reports:

http://new-wave-nw.blogspot.in/2011/10/maruti-strike-workers-remain-resolute.html

http://new-wave-nw.blogspot.in/2011/10/unity-of-workers-at-maruti-suzuki.html

http://new-wave-nw.blogspot.in/2011/10/workers-strike-resumes-at-maruti.html

http://new-wave-nw.blogspot.in/2011/10/maruti-suzuki-struggle-social-democrats.html

http://new-wave-nw.blogspot.in/2011/09/maruti-suzuki-workers-struggle-at.html

Draft Action Program for Europe Rising

The revolution will not be twittered says a facebook friend. To which we answer: #tahrir #spanishrevolution #Libya #Yemen #Syria #italianrevolution #frenchrevolution #palestine etc. What is happening in Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, France and elsewhere in Europe, is the opening of a social revolution promoted by social media, inspired in part by the Arab Spring, the pro-democracy revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East, and also by the 'outrage' sparked by the treacherous role of social democracy. But all of these uprisings have their roots in the resistance of the labour movement to capitalist austerity coming up against dictatorships as in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and the failure of institutionalised social democracy to stop austerity, as in Spain, Portugal and Greece.

This has led to the mobilising of unemployed and educated youth by means of facebook and twitter against these austerity regimes. In MENA the unions have been outlawed or repressed by the dictatorships. In Europe the unions have been tied to social democracy to act as barriers to mass mobilisations. Ostensibly, these uprisings take the form of democratic revolutions rejecting the political system and main political parties that are ‘owned’ by the banks, or by corrupt dictators. There is a common opposition to being mere ‘commodities – bought and sold by the banks’ with no political rights. 

A moment’s reflection shows that rejection of fraudulent politics ‘owned’ by banks and corrupt politicians is objectively targeted at the heart of capitalism at a time when to survive it has to force young workers to work for slave wages to pay for its structural crisis. We can therefore see that the content, if not the form, of these uprisings are in fact the opening shots of potentially anti-capitalist and socialist revolutions. This seems to be taken for granted on the streets and is reported in the mainstream media. What is not yet widely understood, is that these revolutions that are beginning, to meet the demands of the youth and other working people, must become openly socialist to succeed, and failing that they will subside into defeat and worse, counter-revolution.

So what has to happen to make these revolutions succeed? There are many competing theories and programs on offer each putting forth a program for success but we can roughly put them into three categories, liberal, radical and Marxist.

Liberal Reform

If we start with the liberal reformists such as Democracia real Ya! their program asks for no more than making capitalists pay their fair share of austerity rather than imposing it upon the youth and other workers. Their understanding of capitalism is how capital presents itself at the level of distribution of income shares. They don’t want to be bought and sold by the banks, but do not object to fair wages paid by fair employers. So these street reformers have rejected the institutionalised reformists such as the Spanish Socialist Workers Party, who they see as ‘owned’ by the banks, but they are not opposed to the masses creating new parties or backing more radical parties, to challenge the excess power of the finance sector. They are not yet anti-capitalists. This is the stage that the Egyptian revolutionaries have reached. They are negotiating with the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces (SCAF) to prevent the old parties, notably the PSA of Mubarak, and the Muslim Brotherhood, from dominating politics and open the elections to the new forces for change. Its reformist objectives embrace both secular and liberal Islam currents.

These street reformists will quickly find their liberal assumptions are put to the test as they come up against the class character of the state which is to manage exploitative class relations on behalf of the ruling class. So if the European uprisings that we are now seeing spreading from Spain and Portugal to Greece, Italy and France etc., are in part inspired by the MENA revolutions, then the reformists will quickly learn the lessons of those revolutions as the struggle to make even the most minimal changes to the existing ‘system’. The reformists will be radicalised as anti-capitalists.

Radical Reform

The second grouping is of the anti-capitalist radicals who speak of the need to make a revolution to overcome capitalist exploitation and oppression but without taking state power. This includes a range of modernist political currents from anarchist, autonomist to indigenous and Islam. They view really existing capitalism as exploitative at the level of exchange. This means they are still stuck at the level of the appearance of inverted production relations as exchange relations. It appears that to get profits bosses pay workers less than the value of their labour. The state is totally complicit in its legal backing of this unequal exchange. Typically, Radicals think they can defeat the power of the capitalist state by non-violent mass movements that refuse to play by the rules of existing institutions. Therefore to break with the state and the law mass resistance is necessary in refusing to work as wage slaves. The state will try to smash resistance to work by bringing out the police etc, but resistance on the street and workplace will destroy the state’s legitimacy so its moral authority will dissolve and with it the employers ability to enforce unequal exchange.

The pitfalls of this radicalism all flow from its fetishised exchange analysis. The masses cannot impose a radical reform that equalises exchange without a social revolution that overthrows the capitalist state and capitalist social relations. The capitalists and their state are not constrained by a morality that acknowledges unequal exchange. They think they have the total right to impose their property rights on workers and to force them to work, and will use the state to smash resistance unless it is organised as a revolutionary power capable of defeating capitalist state power in an armed struggle for socialism. The danger of radical anti-capitalism is that young workers won’t learn these lessons until they have been defeated. To avoid this danger it is necessary for Marxist revolutionaries to use the conditions for intense ideological struggle and debate to convince reformists, radicals, and non-Marxist socialists that they need a Marxist program for revolutionary socialism.

Marxist Revolution

While the liberals think that capitalism can be reformed to produce a fair distribution of income, and radicals think that capitalism can be reformed to produce equal exchange of value, Marxists understand that capitalism is based on fundamentally unequal production relations that have to be overthrown before social equality is possible. But this is not a consciousness that can be arrived at spontaneously by camping in the city square or even by heated ideological debates. Capitalism is able to hide its exploitation at the point of production by turning production relations on their head as exchange relations which makes it appear that individuals can be made equal by getting paid the full value of commodities they produce. Marx called this commodity fetishism because instead of labour-time being understood as the measure of value, value now presents itself mysteriously as inherent in the commodities themselves. Marx discovered that while workers got paid the full value when they sold their labour power for a wage, that unique 'queer' commodity is able to produce more value than its own value.

The result is the expropriation of surplus value from the working class in the production process. Surplus value is the source of profits, and when insufficient surplus value is produced profits fall. When profits fall capital is not invested in production but in speculation in existing values. This causes price bubbles in excess of values that must go bust. Capitalist crisis therefore begins at the point of production not in the banks which must go bust when the speculative bubbles burst. Thus the role of Marxist revolutionaries in the revolutions that have begun in MENA and Europe is to critique liberal and radical reformist politics as unable to confront the basic cause of capitalist crisis and austerity – capitalist social relations and the state which exists to reproduce and enforce those relations. Marxists explain what causes the ‘outrage’ and ‘indignity’ and also what must be done to eliminate that cause by means of socialist revolution.

What Must Be Done!

Commodity fetishism means that workers do not become spontaneously revolutionary. Things are not as they appear. It is necessary to go from surface appearances to the essence of capitalist production relations. Marxism is a revolutionary critique of capitalism that penetrates this essence and exposes the fundamental contradiction between use value and exchange value as the basis of class struggle - the motor of history. Marxist revolutionaries intervene in these uprisings of the outraged and indignatos to resolve the basic contradiction by overthrowing capitalism and creating a socialist revolution. Our method is the transitional method of Trotsky.

Trotsky’s method is called transitional because it starts with what is necessary to resolve the contradiction, not what seems to be possible. We start with what we need to live, not what the bosses can afford: that is, immediate democratic and economic demands. We recognise that we are in a structural crisis that has two possible outcomes – either the bosses’ need to defeat the uprisings and make us pay for the survival of their rotten system, or we need a make a revolution to expropriate the expropriators and create a socialist society. By raising these demands we prove that in fighting for them worker must then ‘cross the bridge’ to fight as an independent class prepared to take state power. There is no halfway house. For the working class to survive, capitalism must die!

Democratic and immediate economic demands:

Jobs for all by cutting working hours!

Living wage and basic income!

Freedom of speech and assembly!

Equal rights on basis of nationality, gender and sexual orientation!

Revolutionary leadership is necessary to transform ‘peaceful’ demonstrations in city squares from Egypt to Spain into armed working class revolutions. Our demands are designed to take workers consciousness from liberal pro-democracy to the proletarian dictatorship through the process of ‘fighting and learning’ how to become an independent class. Class independence means a total break from the bourgeoisie and its class state. We can prove that the state is not class neutral by fighting for ‘bread’ and ‘freedom’; being the best defenders of bourgeois democracy when the capitalists cannot afford it. We can expose the union bureaucracy as the agents of the bosses’ by demanding they take sides. We can unmask Social Democracy as bourgeois parties run by the labour bureaucracy to impose austerity. We demonstrate that popular fronts which trap workers in political alliances with the bourgeoisie are in fact counter-revolutionary disarming workers preparing the way for fascists to smash the working class. We prove beyond doubt that the armed forces of the state exist to defend the class interests of the capitalists when they attack peaceful demonstrations. We do this by praxis - saying and doing. Our main tool for this revolutionising of proletarian consciousness is the Political General Strike.

Class independence demands

Break with the bureaucracy! Rank and file control of unions!

Break with bourgeoisie! No to Social Democrat traitors! No to popular fronts!

Down with the Officers caste in the Military!

Smash the Fascists, no quarter!

The Political General Strike

There is an almost universal vagueness in talking about the General Strike. That's because it has been debased by reformists to mean days of action to pressure bourgeois governments. But revolutionary Marxists regard the Political General Strike as a political strike to take power. We strike until we win state power. For that reason the demand should never be raised unless we also state what must be done to prepare for a successful General Strike. A General Strike concentrates workers power by taking control of production, and by splitting the army and winning over of the rank and file so that a ‘dual power’ situation is created. .But it can only do that if it is armed to defend itself from state forces, paramilitaries and fascist thugs. There is never a peaceful transfer of power from a ruling class to a revolutionary class. Only a revolution that is armed can defeat the armed counter-revolution.

In Egypt the revolution is currently contained by the SCAF. This is because those who rose up to remove the Mubarak regime had illusions in the army and the bourgeois state as class neutral. To win, the revolution must now unite the youth rebels with the unions and prepare a general strike to split the army and create a dual power situation. In Greece where the pro-democracy revolutions are most advanced in Europe, the same demands are necessary. Workers have to prepare for a Political General Strike by forming strike committees, councils, militias and the national coordination of these organs to win the strike and take power, smash the state and impose a proletarian class dictatorship, or Workers Government.

Workers Power Demands:

Build workers councils!

Form defence committees and workers’ militias!

Unite workers’ councils nationally and internationally!

For an Indefinite Political General Strike!

The Workers Government

The crowning demand of a revolutionary program is the seizure of power and smashing of the state. This was the only major change that Marx and Engels made to The Communist Manifesto after the defeat of the Paris Commune in 1871. The crisis of Marxism and of revolutionary leadership in the period since WW2 has forced a retreat from the Marxist/Bolshevik position on the proletarian dictatorship. Reformists of all colours have baulked at the use of this term and watered down the question of taking power to one of a peaceful evolutionary transition from bourgeois democracy to workers democracy. But Marx proved in 1871 that bourgeois democracy is only a mask for bourgeois dictatorship and that a revolutionary class must be a dictatorship to defeat the reactionary class. The Bolsheviks confirmed this in practice in 1917. For the first time in the history of class societies, however, socialist revolution can create the conditions for the revolutionary proletariat to end classes and with it the need for a class dictatorship.

So when Trotskyists talk about a Workers Government, we do not mean that in Egypt workers will vote for a party where the working class majority is represented. Or that in Spain or Greece a new workers party will successfully defeat Social Democracy and resolve the contradiction between use-value and exchange-value peacefully. That is a reactionary utopia that can only lead to the defeat of the revolutions that have begun. Our revolutionary utopia is based on the real prospect that capitalism has prepared the way for socialism. The working class is the revolutionary class, the vast majority. It is proving every day that it is ready, willing and able to fight. All that is lacking is a revolutionary Marxist party that can intervene with a revolutionary program as a guide to socialist revolution, to transform the necessary fight for survival into the utopia of a socialist future.

For a new World Party of Socialist Revolution based on the 1938 Transitional Program!

For Socialist Federations of North Africa, Middle East and Europe!

Worker of the World Unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains!

Victory to the international working class revolution!

Correspondence between IRL Zimbabwe and former FLTI Minority over China

 We publish the exchange of letters between the Zimbabwe Revolutionary Internationalist League which broke away from the International Socialist Tendency recently to enter into fusion talks with the FLTI.  The IRL comrades wrote to us questioning our split from the FLTI and we responded.

Letter from IRL comrades

Dear Comrades of the HWRS and CWG


Hullo there comrades, we hope you don’t need an introduction from us but we have found it important to remind you to read our struggle within the IST and our subsequent disengagement with it to understand where we have come from and where we are going.

We wish to reiterate the point that through our fights were initially more administrative, a closer look at our perspectives and programmes proved that the differences between us and the IST were actually over policies.

It is such programs you are advocating that sees us parting ways with the reformist IST that is, the Labour Party in America. We view your policies as anything but a weapon to strangle the struggle of the workers to bourgeoisie democracy. The struggle in the ISOZ started as far back as 2000, the fight in particular was over the character of the party we wish to build. A Popular front or a a true Revolutionary Independent Workers Party with whose majority of members are the working class and other oppressed groups lead by the proletariat.

The conclusion, which we still defend, is for a Revolutionary Independent Workers party, however, the entryism into MDC amounts to urinating on one the most fundermantal principles. Our active participation in WSF (World Social Forum) another extension of capitalist imperialism set on foot to divert the working class from fighting the real enemy, the call for workers to participate in the deflected process of the constitution making process current underway in Zimbabwe, the use of bourgeois courts to resolve conflicts amongst workers organisations evidently proves the trust in which the IST has in bourgeois machinery and their institutions. This amounts to building illusions in the oppressed class that elections will led them to socialism, that capitalism can be peacefully transformed to socialism.

Important is the approach of IST on international socialism. In Zimbabwe we never, as known to us, discussed the historic struggles of our class brothers across the world. That is to say we were just a national "reformist Leninist Trotskyist" current, the left part of the MDC in Zimbabwe. We were never involved in discussions pertaining to the construction of the organisation; never did the Tendency say a word about the exploitation and starvation of African people who are reduced to destitution in their own country - in a continent with abundant resources. No resolution was democratically debated or voted on. If the practice in Zimbabwe is a reflection of the organisation of the IST then the proper term for it is international bureaucratic centrist, to repeat your description of the SCI.

Therefore, we are very anxious for more information about the activities of the FLTI, an international current with which we are in the process of affiliating. We have to avoid a repeat of, in the case of HRS, " joining" to then immediately "split". Your example is of a temporary affiliation, like a marriage of convenience, or else you did not know enought about the ‘treacherous’ program of the FLTI. Or perhaps you had the view that the majority of the leadership of FLTI had yet to renounce their ‘Morenite’ program.

We are not convinced that the split is over the different views on China, and if this is the sprimary reason then in our view it doesn’t warrant a split. Difference are expected in a healthy organisation, differences promote debate and positive development of the organisation. This China issue alone doesn’t amount to fundermental programmatic differences/issue of principle, Remember we are supposed to see things differently to enrich and come up with a well thought out perspective or analyisis of the situation. Hence the debate on China to us is very important and educative. Still more important the debate is not over China alone but it’s a description of the world situation today, so to study or understand China a lot of factors are at play, more importantly its historical background, its current economic (who owns what) and political conditions (its military supreriority and influence / areas of influence).

Therefore the debate was quite excellent in a revolutionary sense, besides, the world working class is keenly following the debate. The working class is not interested in the name calling part of the discussion but are enthusiastically waiting the conclusion of the China position. Therefore your unexpected and untimely split does nothing more than confusing the very constituency we intend to inform/equip, you abandon them to the mess of the bourgeoisie thesis. After your split any discussions between FLTI and yourself are deemed factional fights before the eyes of the working class. If we (IRG-FI) were in your shoes we could hold on the split until after a disagreement endorsed, in this instant case, with the impending FLTI congress. If we were in your shoes we would vigorously and tirelessly bring more new evidence proving that China is indeed becoming or is an imperialist country. Remember the debate is not bilateral that is, it is not between certain individuals within FLTI but is for the whole movement and the whole world working class.

But your letter dated 2 March 2010 tells that the differences are more than just the China question, this is the hidden information we are anxiously seeking otherwise you need more than that to convince that your split was justified before the eyes of the worlds workers.

After carefully examining the contents of your letter, we are seeking clarifications or more particulars to the following issues; what is your program and the FLTI program and tactics towards Nancy Pelosi. Did you put forward your proposed policy for discussion and what was the response of other affiliates members of the FLTI and the SCI?

We have since requested the constitution of the FLTI to verify the allegations; failure to convene meetings of the IEC, change of membership of the SCI. However, we comradely, request you to brief us the efforts made to address this anomaly including the reasons put forward as to why the SCI failed to produce the IWO that carries both the Minority and Majority positions on China. We received both positions ( Minority and Majority) just after your 1st Congress, we also get a hard copy of the positions in English in December 2009 though off course it was available in Spanish as early as Septemeber 2009. The other information we have is that the delay in publishing the document was your fault as you were responsible for the layout and translating of the document. Besides the documents were readily available on the websites of many affiliates of the FLTI including your site as well.

Notwithstanding the above, and if the allegation is genuinely over the bureaucratic centralism of the SCI, then the impending congress or an extraordinary congress, if it was so urgent, to deal with these important issues, was important for the life of an organisation particularly a revolutionary one like the FLTI. We are raisng this because as it is (after your split) no one is there to defend or push your otherwise progressive arguments and concerns. The rank and file is left asking whether your issues where genuine or were simply motives to divide with ultimate goal of liquidating the FLTI.

However, we believe your program was not the FLTI program, you opportunistically signed all resolutions so to work with as an enemy (workers' enemy) within. Thus our conclusion in the absence of further information that we found you guilty of intending to destroy the organisation from within but decided to dump your imposible task prematurely. You are not alone, there are many fake lefts. My own non-governmental organisation (MONGOs) was created and funded by imperialism to defeat the agenda of the working class. Many out of desperation resort to fascist methods to silence the revolutionary wave; you are decendants of Stalin.

We were following closely the deliberation of your founding congress in Buenos Aires in July 2009 and the agreements thereto agreed. We even at the initial agreed with your position that China is becoming an imperialist force basing our arguments on the activities of China mostly in Africa. But further analyisis proved the opposite – that China is just fronting America. The conclusion we reached is China is just a semi-colony of America and the other super powers. But still we will have changed our position if you or anyone had provided concrete evidence not intellectual facts, that China is an imperialist country. You are learned intellectuals, but we won't respect you when you say Israel is a nation.

The other question is over your call for a Labour Party in America, you defended this reformist mandra by raising it as a tactic. However you failed to advise the reader of the ultimate goal of your tactic. Are the conditions in USA not ripe to call for the formation of an independent workers organisation and independent working class party? We all know the history and role of labour parties across the whole world. Do you wish to conquer the program of the conquest of power by the workers through this two stage approach. Whether you call it a transitional program or what we don’t think given the phase we are in - the phase of capitalist decay – any serious, true revolutionary socialist can make a call for the formation of a labour party even as a slogan, especially given the well documented treacherous character and their limited objectives.

In this epoch of imperialism decay where we are witnessing the formation of Anti-Capitalist parties internationally as a possible replacement to the discredited Popular Front partties, your call amounts to supporting further attacks on the masses. Your call in our view is a call for the working class to donate their remaining energy of life to their exploiters. With that call you are found guilty as an accomplice of murder – oppressing the already oppressed poor majority. One can term it ultra-leftist or secretarian to denounce the call for a Labour Party in USA today, but our only question is if the "consciousness of the working class in USA remained the same" as the those of the 1930s - can capitalism still give crumbs to the labour bureaucracy. If they have changed, we guess it could change only for worse, recent developments prove so - global financial crisis, attacks of the immigrant workers etc. Thus this makes the call for a Revolutionary Workers party an urgent one and a correct program. We must not forget the USA workers will be inspired by events that are taking place across the world and today they are watching with so much interest the developments in Greece, Mdagascar etc. Instead you must call for the American workers (natives and immigrants) to support the struggles i Greece and to defeat their own imperialist government and national bourgeoisie.

It is from these fights (class fights) they are likely to decide the kind of party they wish to build. The condition of the worker today (internationally) proves that the only party the workers will support, after several defeats due to sellouts by their leaders, is a independent party of workers, lead by the workers. Workers internationally are questioning their loyalty to these Popular front parties who are persuing anti-poor policies. In Zimbabwe, the Movement for Democratic Change, another project of Britain and USA has lost credibility and is now resorting to fascist methods to scare and silence opposition.

My dear comrades we demand you to burn that program as it serves to promote the continued exisitence of imperialism. Why should the workers be used to save the decaying system of capitalism. Instead the workers must form their own party, they should occupy themselves not with a hopeless effort to save the bankkrupt capitalist structures. We must, on the contrary, with all our strength, accelerate the process of liberation of the masses. There is no longer any path back to a peaceful democracy. Events are leading inevitably and irresistibly to a conflict between the proletariat and imperialism.

Anywhere these are other discussions which we believe are nowhere nearer the split issue as they are current, besides we found that in contrary you were instead during the 1st Congress of the FLTI you presented a program of class independence which was subsequently adopted as FLTI program – you sharply shifted from this otherwise your own program. You left us confused, please guide us accordingly we are in wilderness of darkness its only a clarification by yourself that can help us here – which one is your (the program you are presenting to the working class - proletariat program) program the 1st or the latter(the one you are advocating now). You are not only confusing the rank and file of your fraction but the whole rank and file of other currents who were/ are in posession of the resolutions of the 1st Congress of the FLTI. You seemed to renouncing the same policies you signed as your resolutions at the 1st Congress, you changed your position on China more than once, we hope you won’t change it again this time.

We are not accusing you to be in consipiracy with Socialist Fight, but nevertheless we request you to comment on the contents of his letter in particular its characterisation of the SWP as an organisation rooted in the working class organisation. Particulary we request you to comment on the program of the FLTI which you still sincerely and faithfully abide to. Do you still believe in that or those resolutions reached and conquered at the 1st Congress of the FLTI - what is really your interpretation of these resolutions. We are aware you have publicly declared your defense of the 23 points but you seemed to already have breached one of those resolutions by calling for a Labour Party in USA. Yes tactics can change varying with particularities but not policies or programmes. Here in our view you have changed not the tactic but the strategy.

Disciplined comrades could not split for such an issue before exhausting all channels of addressing such, what you did amounts to disregarding the importance of the congress the supreme/decision/policy making organ of the organisation, constituted by the rank and file of the movement - that is pure bureaucratisation - do the members of your organisations really participated and agreed in these debates that lead to your split. Do they really endorse a split, we are very much interested to receive exchange of notes of this issue. We are requesting all this because we do not want to be associated with another (International Socialist Tendency) IST.

We have send our delegate to Argentina to study the activities of FLTI. We are in constant touch with him, but his observation detailed in the report we are using as the basis of this letter, shows shocking contradiction with the issues you raised. Apart from different positions on China, all other accusations according to the report supported by some materials prove your allegations as unfounded. The only issue left is to have a copy of the constitution and found how meetings are held, but still your claim is of no importance given that you did not request a meeting of the IEC after the 1st Congress, even for procedural sake. Besides according to the report we found that were it not for the delay in exchanging position papers on China the 2nd Congress could have held in December 2009. Surely with such a spirit one wonders where really are these so-called bureaucratic motives hidden.

Our delegate has attended five meetings so far, in fact, his diary is full of meetings with workers in the industrial areas. He reported that everything is done democratically with comrades voting on every item or resolution. He reported that because the Congress date is approaching cells are busy discussing proposals from different cells including those from other fractions of or affiliate members of FLTI. Cells are freely pushng their own position without pressure from anyone. He reported that he attended National Council meetings of the LOI-CI another fraction of FLTI in that meeting he witnessed independence of thought. Comrades agree or disagree and every member is free to defend or push for his idea or position without any hinderance or victimisation as was the case with ISOZ. If our comrade (reliable) is telling the truth, as we believe he is, what could be the objective of comrade G, who labelled the FLTI as movement without any roots in the working class.

If our delegate has within such small time already attended more than five meetings (with workers in industrial zones) with his calendar still full during the whole period of his stay, then our conclusion is simple – comrade G (of Socialist Fight) is serving the enemy of the working class – capitalist imperialism. Honestly the comrade is our class enemy, this won’t surprise us within this epoch of capitalist decaying there are many petty bourgeois intellectuals who are desperately and patiently queing for crumbs, which though are hard to come by, to defeat the cause of the working class- Judas Iscariot.

In this phase when it obviously clear that the working class is marching to conquer power by force – we are frightened of characters like comrade G - because the era we are entering is the era of disappearance and elimination, we hope comrade G is not send to do the dirty work of his bankrupt master. Capitalism was declared bankrupt sometime long ago but the activities of these so-called progressive intellectuals/ researchers are bent on propelling the structures of imperialism of course for a few crumbs. We know they are many of you scattered in every location, your work is to intellectualise the struggle of the working class, to you a 'revolutionary' slogan is your program. We need honest revolutionaries, international revolutionaries in practice not in theory or in word.

Everywhere comrades we must not drop the red flag, the flag for the the total emmancipation of the working class, the flag for the total independent self activity of the working class who are the suffering majority, diverted by these trival issues. The real debate is how could the working class in Greece, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, USA etc come out victorious. What is the best tactic to defeat/smash fake-Trotskyists mushroomed in every country where they are supported institutionally directly or indirectly by their national bourgeois or some ‘radical’ non-governmental organisations. We hope our fellow comrade G is not caught in this web.

Nevertheless, the concerns you raised- though unfounded according to the information before us- help to enrich the organisation of the FLTI. It demands that the FLTI revisit its criteria when joining with any other currents. We don’t think the challenge is anywhere near negative but is more positive. Its a neccesary phase in the construction of a serious movement, you need challenges (up and downs) for you to see clearly or interrogate your future and your past - though one can not invite such situations. This is how one can come up with a well thought well researched program with correct strategy, and even changing those tactics will be simple as they will be informed by a well knighted program of action. Only that our comrades of the HWRS and CWG disappear before concluding the debate, even if the debate continues, it no longer commands the same significance as it was if it was carried as a collective group.

Well we wish you good luck in your endevour. Your program is an IST program perhaps you are one of many other little groups of the IST paid to support its opportunist petty-bourgeois policies.

Down with petty bourgeois mentality!

For the formation of International Revolutionary party!

Ady

Political Committee
Revolutionary Internationalist League-FI (Fourth International) Zimbabwe (Ex-ISOZ)

18 / 03 / 10

Build a fighting Socialist Alternative

Reply to IRL Comrades

Dear Comrades,

Thank you for writing to us. We have kept our reply brief. 

We are not interested in responding to provocations. Calling us stalinists and splitters is designed to muddy the waters around the question of China. The quality of debate from the SCI/ISC on China was poor (personal attacks, slander and distortion of our statements) and a minimal amount of Marxist debate - which we believe we countered sufficiently. No new Marxist issues were raised in the screeds of Majority slander we received just before Conference was due - so we had no confidence of any useful debate at conference.

Lets focus on China. You say that initially you thought we may be correct on China, but on reflection decided the majority was correct.

We take it you are now convinced that China is a semi-colony and that its role in Africa is one of acting as the agent of Anglo/US imperialism.

Lets look at this position.

First, you expect us to believe that the US is increasing its political, military and ideological intervention in Africa to provide backup for China's growing investment and financing of oil and other deals.

Why should China need such a big US build-up in Africa in order to pursue its investments? In the cases where China has built strong relations with the national bourgeosie eg DRC, Sudan, Angola, Zimbabwe, the regimes do not need AFRICOM to ensure the success of China.

But perhaps, these regimes need to be protected from workers rising up in revolutions against China's exploitation. Yet in reality, these regimes are being pressured by AFRICOM to reject China in favour of Anglo/US and other imperialist deals. Why would the US do that if China was its proxy in Africa?

So here we have factual evidence that AFRICOM is not designed to protect the US 'proxy' China, but rather to undermine and block China's growth as an imperialist rival.

In fact the ideological and political stand of the US in Africa is to warn and condemn those doing deals with China. China is blamed for genocide in Sudan. It is accused of doing deals with dictators. The US is trying its utmost to target China as authoritarian and undemocratic, and a supporter of dictators and terrorists. It would not do this if it controls China as a semi-colony, but it would and is because China is becoming its big rival.

Let us look more closely at Zimbabwe where this position is particularly clear.

Zimbabwe is a clear case of a semi-colony  forced to break with Anglo-US imperialism leading to a major internal crisis which it is now turning to China to solve. ZANU/MDC are looking to China as the alternative to Anglo/US finance capital. You must be aware of the recent trip that Tsvangirai made to the West where he failed to raise money, only to then say that he had the money from China. Thus the regime can present China to workers as a progressive alternative to Anglo-US imperialism to draw the masses into a new popular front which we analyise in our document on Chavez 5th international.  

But even if we consider for the moment that China is a proxy of US imperialism, how do we explain China's accumulation of capital? When a semi-colony serves imperialism, its surplus value is extracted as super profits. The national bourgeoisie gets a small share of the surplus as the junior partners of imperialism.

Imperialism never allows a semi-colonial ruling class to get rich and become the creditor of the imperialist country unless they are minor allies like the oil rich Gulf States. Semi-colonial corporates cannot compete with US multinationals (eg oil and gas in Africa) since the US monopolises the super-profits for its own MNCs.

It therefore contradicts the ABCs of Marxism to say that China is a semi-colony and a proxy for the US. A Marxist would then ask the question: what is China?

Our answer is the Marxist answer. Despite its heavy reliance on imperialist Foreign Direct Investment, The Chinese ruling class has managed to retain its independence of US, Japanese etc imperialism, and accumulate enough capital to export its own finance capital. There is only one Marxist category for such a country - imperialism.

Once we understand this, it is easy to explain China's growing role in the world and its long-term threat to Anglo/US imperialism. Its size and growth make it the major long-term rival of US imperialism. Both in terms of huge demand for vital raw materials and also in terms of competition for spheres of interest.

That is why for us the question of China is decisive for our relations with the FLTI. We cannot stay in a tendency that would be on the other side in a war between China and the US. It is obvious that the major factor shaping the international situation today is the growing inter-imperialist rivalry between the US bloc and the China/Russia bloc. To ignore that is to be blind and workers do not need to be led by the blind. We hope that you open your eyes.

Regarding the activities of FLTI / LOI-CI and apparent democracy -

CWG were also impressed with the rank and file involvement within the LOI-CI in our first meetings.  Unfortunately we were not able to be with the LOI-CI for enough time / nor did we have enough Spanish language skill to observe fully. However the real test of democracy is when a position is in opposition to the leadership. The rights to self-determination of the indigenous Mapuche people was an issue which rank n file members raised and were abused/ridiculed for raising - at an earlier Liaison Committee conference in 2006. 

Have you received all minority statements? Listed below

Revolutionary Greetings

Al and Dave for CWG

 (list from http://www.humanistsforrevolutionarysocialism.org/IFLT_index.htm )

 Joint Letter from HWRS and CWG-NZ Announcing the Split

Letter from HWRS and the CWG to the FLTI (March 2010)

Internal Debate Documents Preceding the Split

The Debate in the FLTI and the Resulting Crisis (Feb. 2010)

The Labor Party in the US and the Subjective Sectarian (Feb. 2010) - statement to clarify of our position

Letter to the National Committee of LO(CI) (Feb. 2010)

In Defense of the Minority on Haiti (Feb. 2010)

Minority Resolution on Haiti

Response to Letter from a Metal Worker (Feb. 2010)

Letter from a Metal Worker (Feb. 2010)

USA Being Replaced by China: Just the Facts (Feb. 2010)

The SCI’s Rejection of Dialectics Is Taking the FLTI into the Centrist Swamp (PDF) (December 2009)

Let’s shed Light, light and more light (Nov. 2009)

A Critique of the SCI’s Method (Nov. 2009)

Is China Imperialist? (December 2009)

The Truth Is Concrete (PDF) (December 2009)

The Implications of China’s Contradictory Nature (Fall 2009)

For Revolutionary Defeatism of Both the US and China in the Event of Inter-Imperialist War (November 2009)

China’s Role Is Not Progressive (July 2009)

Minority Resolution on China from the July 2009 IFLT Congress

Why Israel Is Not Fascist (submitted by HWRS to the IFLT) (Summer 2009)

Resolutions adopted by the IFLT Congress, Buenos Aires, July 2009

Heart of the Beast: Resolution on the USA

Resolution on Peru

We Are All Mumia

Minority Resolution on China

Resolution on Honduras

Additional resolutions were printed in International Workers Organizer No. 1 (part 1) and in International Workers Organizer No. 1 (part 2). These publications are no longer available on this website.

Other IFLT Documents

International Socialists (IS) Factional Struggle in Zimbabwe (October-November 2009) (updated December 2009)

WIVL Statement on Budget Speech by New ANC Finance Minister (October 28, 2009)

Free the workers and popular fighters of Peru! (October 2009)

Emergency appeal to all the fighting workers organizations! from the Editorial Board of Democracia Obrera (publication of the LOI(CI), Argentina) (September 16, 2009)

Zanon Occupation Sold Out by the Reformists (September 15, 2009)

Open letter to South African union members from the Workers International Vanguard League (South Africa) (September 8, 2009)

Message of solidarity with unionized rank and file South African soldiers from the Workers International Vanguard League (South Africa) (August 27, 2009)

Message of solidarity to BART workers from the Workers International Vanguard League (South Africa) (August 20, 2009)

Letter from IFLT to JRCL on the occasion of its 47th International Antiwar Assembly (July 31, 2009)

In Defense of Proletarian Principles and Morality (IFLT Statement on LIT attack on Brazilian Comrades, October 2008)

Dossier on ELAC (Fall 2008)

IFLT Points of Unity

USA: Sellout of NUMMI workers: Occupy Now!

Feb 12: NUMMI union leaders orchestrated an event with Democratic politicians and other unions tops from the AFL-CIO, Teamsters, CWA, and AFSCME who gathered in Fremont, CA (Trumka appeared via video)  to put the final nail in the coffin of the NUMMI worker's fight to save their jobs and ultimately to sell out up to 50,000 jobs in California.  These sell out union mis-leaders came together to prove to the capitalist politicians they still intend to deliver votes despite layoffs and plant closures!

These dues sucking hacks paraded the capitalist politicians on stage while they chased union militants from the parking lot for calling for militant actions such as plant occupations.  The back room deal making UAW tops have canceled membership meetings and instead put on this show to prove to the politicians that they can still be counted on to keep a lid on the workers anger about the piss-ass severance pay 14k-40k for years of work. 

Then they wrap themselves in the American flag and turn this fight into a chauvinist movement of the "victimized" American workers facing down the "mean" Japanese of Toyota who "lost their way" with out saying one word about GM who ran the factory for decades before their failed joint venture with Toyota went south.  Not one word about the failed bail out of the auto industry.  Not one word about the methods which built the UAW in the first place such as factory occupations. Not one word about Nationalization of the industry under workers control. Instead they turn what should be industrial working class battle for jobs into a consumer boycott of Toyota products.

Right now the only way to save the plant is a full on labor battle using the only power we still have, the power to seize the factory and mobilize labor nationwide and internationally for solidarity actions.  But these clowns in their khaki pants and UAW polo shirts have no plan to win.  It is totally disingenuous to argue that a boycott can win in a period when workers can't afford cars in the first place.  Those who can afford cars do not respect picket lines (in front of dealerships or factories) and those who do respect picket lines cannot afford cars!

To no surprise fake socialist leader BL of the mis-named Voz de Trabajadors, American section of the Morenoite LIT (Workers International League - a Latin American current that claims to be Trotskyist), have tail ended the bureaucracy with a promise to support this consumer boycott project in any way they can* (maybe they should change their name to Voz de la Buracracia).  Some one should tell the Morenoite International we have enough reformists and renegade Trotskyists in the USA you could have kept this lot of poorly trained reformists and sent us some real communists instead (but alas your organization is buried so deep up the kazoo of the bureaucracy that you don't know up from down in the class struggle) and real communists run from your organization as fast as they can. 

Counter to the rotten no win strategy of the LIT and the UAW (United Auto Workers) the militants of the HWRS point to the factory occupations in Argentina in 2001, the Chicago Republic Windows and Doors action in 2008, and the massive factory occupations which consolidated the power of the UAW in the 1930's. 


The HWRS brought this message to the workers of NUMMI:

 

Organize a Rank and File Occupation Committee to Occupy the NUMMI Plant!

The bosses are about to lay off all NUMMI workers with severance pay that will not last very long. The question is, to whom does the NUMMI plant belong: to the brutal capitalists of Toyota and GM, who made huge profits off the workers' sweat and blood, or to the workers themselves, who are the ones who produce the cars? The workers at Republic Windows and Doors workers showed us the way: When a company wants to cut its losses and run, it can be stopped only if the workers occupy the plant. Workers have also occupied many abandoned factories in Argentina and elsewhere, in some cases turning them into productive factories run by and for the workers themselves.

The UAW rank-and-file had a long tradition of sit-ins and factory occupations in the 1930s. But today, the union bureaucrats only collaborate with the capitalists and their government, as they collect their fat paychecks and leave the workers out in the cold and on the streets.

Trumka did not and will not lift a finger to save a single job. He is just coming to town to make few militant noises and leave the workers with nowhere to turn on April 1^st. He has the power to call for and initiate massive strikes and walkouts in solidarity with NUMMI workers, which is also the only way to stop future massive layoffs and plant closures. But he proposes to do exactly nothing to save your jobs. The UAW bureaucracy is not any better. They just recently forced GM workers to accept massive concessions, which include closures of many GM plants and layoffs in the thousands. If NUMMI workers take action, they will not be alone.

Only the rank-and-file workers can change the situation. We need to set up a rank-and-file occupation committee as soon as possible, so that we can make a plan to occupy the plant before everybody is too demoralized and it's too late.

NUMMI Belongs to the Workers, Not the Capitalists!

Form Rank-And-File Action Committees to Occupy the Plant!

Occupy the Plant and Refuse to Leave Until All Jobs are Saved!

Nationalize Toyota Without Compensation
and Run It Under Workers' Control!

 
And that is why the UAW hacks chased us out of the worker's hall yesterday!   
 
Humanist Workers for Revolutionary Socialism Feb 13, 2010