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Socialist Action 2005
Draft Political Resolution
(The general line
of this resolution was adopted by the Socialist Action Political Committee
on March 2005 for presentation to the April 1-3 2005 National Committee
plenum.)
The 2004 Political Resolution adopted at last summer's
National Convention devoted considerable attention to the state of the
world political economy. We
stressed the impact of the deepening world economic crises, brought on by
ferocious competition between the U.S. and its powerful and increasingly
united imperialist adversaries in Europe as well as Japan, on the policies
of the leading imperial powers.
We similarly evaluated the effect of the associated
crises of profits and overproduction on world political and military
developments.
It is not our intention, therefore, to review the ground
we have covered quite thoroughly over the past several years. World
imperialism has found no way to mitigate its growing contradictions other
than at the expense of the world's working classes. These include continued
and deepening attacks on living
standards everywhere as well as war and more war. We have reproduced last
summer's National Convention-approved Political Resolution
as background material for this plenum's deliberations
as well as other documents under discussion in Socialist Action.
In this conjunctural resolution we want to focus on
several of the key issues in world and U.S. politics that require our
immediate attention.
The war in Iraq
First and foremost is the ongoing war and occupation in
Iraq, a devastating war that had already taken a toll in Iraqi lives in
excess of 100,000 in addition to some 1,500 U.S. soldiers. Contrary to U.S.
projections virtually nothing has changed in regard to the quality of life
of the
Iraqi people. The infrastructure that was destroyed to a
considerable extent two years, in fact 14 years ago, remains largely in a
shattered state. Whole cities like
Falujah have been leveled. U.S. troops continue to terrorize the Iraqi
masses.
The quick victory, stabilization and
"democracy" projected by the Bush Administration have not come to
pass. While hundreds of billions of dollars have been allocated to U.S.
corporations to advance the extraction of oil and otherwise rebuild sectors
of the state's infrastructure that are required for the extraction of
profits little has been accomplished.
Even here the U.S. has largely failed to reap the
benefits of conquest.
This is in large part due to the Iraqi resistance, a
diverse combination of forces including fundamentalist and secular groups
that have dealt some major blows to a qualitatively superior U.S. force.
The extreme repression of the resistance has relegated
it to an underground existence. But its continued capacity to challenge the
occupiers is an indication of its mass character. While four workers'
federations do operate, they too are repressed with their leaders often
murdered by the U.S. occupation forces. They are also plagued with
internecine conflicts.
During the period of the open military struggle of the
Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr several months ago and prior to the January
2005 elections, polls indicated that 67 percent of the Iraqi population
opposed U.S. intervention and occupation. This was the highpoint of the
opposition when it appeared that significant sectors of the Shiite
population would or could find common cause with Sunni fighters.
Moqtada al-Sadr's initial open defiance of imperial
forced a temporary and partial retreat of U.S. military ventures in Sadr
City, a poor slum-dwelling area of Baghdad. A similar standoff took place
in Falujah where the Sunnis were in control. But this short-lived hiatus
soon gave
Way to full-scale bombardment and a massacre that left
no doubt that the U.S.had no intention of negotiating anything of
substance.
Moqtada-al Sadr and his forces, representing some 20
percent of the Shiite population, have since retreated. Their political
representatives have taken posts in the majority Iraqi Alliance party of
Ayatollah Ali Sistani. In the Sunni
areas voter turnout was some two percent, with the main Sunni above-ground
organization, Association of Muslim Scholars, advocating
boycott.
The imperialist overseer's claim that the election
turnout approached 56 percent although here too there is mounting evidence
that the figures were rigged by the U.S. "specialists" assigned
to conduct the elections.
We are nevertheless compelled to recognize that the
holding of the election in Iraq, regardless of the occupation and
corruption of every sort associated with it, represented a victory of sorts
to the U.S. occupiers. In the absence
of the kind of united and massive popular opposition to the election and
occupation that was required to thoroughly discredit it,
The Bush Administration was able to modestly advance its
plans for further exploitation of Iraq's people and resources. Despite this
setback, however, U.S. imperialism's first effort of this magnitude since
Vietnam is far from secure. It is not at all guaranteed that the occupiers
can securely remain in Iraq to implement their plans to exploit what will
amount to a U.S.-controlled neo-colonial state. It is more likely that they
will be mired down in a hostile environment for years to come.
Among the most important conclusion we can draw from
this experience is that the Iraqi resistance has significantly reduced the
capacity of the U.S. to intervene elsewhere, thereby making a major
contribution, conscious or otherwise, to the struggle against world
imperialism.
Limitations of the
resistance
The Sunni-led resistance declaration that anyone who
voted in the January 2005 election was an enemy of God, and therefore a
target for murder, certainly failed in every respect to advance the cause
of unity against the occupiers. Similarly, Shiite leaders who declared that
not voting was in opposition to God's will did nothing to challenge the
occupation. Shiite/Sunni unity will
not be advanced with these politics and methods.
The historic oppression of the Shiite majority by the
Saddam Hussein regime, which based itself on the relatively privileged
Sunni minority, was no small factor in fostering illusions among
significant numbers of his Shiites victims, as well as the oppressed Kurds,
in U.S.-style democracy.
Both the failed nationalism of Hussein and his Baathist
Party in Iraq and of the region's former nationalist pro-capitalist leaders
more generally, as well as the historic collapse of Stalinism, opened the
door to an Islamic fundamentalism that is incapable of achieving the unity
necessary to advance the cause of the Middle East's oppressed masses.
Having made our position on the political inadequacies
of the Iraqi resistance absolutely clear we continue to affirm our
unconditional support to the fight against the U.S. occupation. We place no
equal sign between the desperate, if not incredible human sacrifices of
Iraqi
Fundamentalists (and others who similarly offer their
very lives to oppose U.S. occupation) and the monstrous actions of American
imperialism, the central purveyor of terror and mass murder in Iraq and in
the world.
While we differ strongly with those in Iraq who mistakenly
focus their justified hatred of the U.S. murderers on civilian Shiites, we
place total responsibility for the horrors in Iraq on imperialism. As with
the just struggle of the Palestinian masses we look to the day when a
mass-based opposition capable of uniting all the oppressed emerges to
challenge the
war-makers in state and regional struggles that combine
opposition to national and class oppression.
For now, and we do not hesitate to repeat ourselves, the
desperate acts that take place in the name of the resistance, however
futile and misdirected in some cases, have been brought on by a ruthless,
torturing and murderous imperialist occupation intent on crushing any and
all forms of opposition to its plans to plunder Iraq far into the future.
The default of the U.S.
antiwar movement
We have discussed the antiwar movement's potential for
the past two years. We have often
been surprised at the movement's resiliency and have attributed a great
portion of it to the capacity of the Iraqi people to resist the occupation,
despite the great cost in human lives. Had there been a collapse in the
face of the U.S. "shock and awe" bombardment, what most expected
to be the case, the U.S. movement would have inevitably followed suit. But
we have learned that there are limits to what the resistance can achieve,
in part because of its political deficiencies but also because of the
massive repression and slaughter it faces. The weapons
at its disposal have also been limited by the tightening
military grip of the imperialists.
Another critical factor limiting the potential of the
U.S. antiwar movement is the almost total leadership capitulation to the
Democrats in the 2004 elections. We have rarely witnessed such a spectacle.
The United For Peace and Justice coalition (UFPJ), in particular, literally
disappeared for some nine months as its constituent groups and leaders
abandoned independent mass mobilizations and instead pursued a victory for
pro-war Democrat John
Kerry. While we have experienced similar phenomena in
the past, especially during the Vietnam War, the depth and duration of the
capitulation must have set a record. During the Vietnam era, it must be
said, the ruling class offered Democrats who at least claimed to be
"peace candidates." Today
the "peace" movement was reduced to supporting a war candidate,
indeed a candidate who called for more troops and more funds for the war
than George Bush!
At base the capitulation exposed the huge gap between
the rhetoric of the UFPJ leaders, purporting to champion a broad
multi-issue agenda, and their abject subordination to whatever Democrat
reached the top of the near-pre-arranged primary contests.
The ANSWER "coalition" made no effort to fill
the void left by the UFPJ. The
central leaders of this similarly tightly-controlled group also preferred a
Democratic Party victory although they were less craven and more
sophisticated in how they presented their politics. But deeds, or their
absence, speak louder than words. ANSWER's absence from the field of
action and it's political focus on fighting "Bush's
War" told the story well.
The glaring absence of a mass democratic united
front-type antiwar coalition with a principled leadership weighed heavily
on the movement and still does. The capacity to resist the most horrible
assaults on the Iraqi people, not to mention the incessant threats of war
against a growing number of nations deemed by U.S. imperialism as the
"axes of evil," was severely restricted.
The UFPJ, conscious of its objective of providing a left
face for the Democratic Party, literally transformed itself into a
multi-issue coalition of the first magnitude. With funds and grants from
its earlier successes, it put on a significant size staff and established a
division of labor
designed to have the UFPJ address virtually every social
issue imaginable. They aimed to
cast the broadest possible net to capture voter for Democratic Party.
The UFPJ essentially became an organizing center for
local, state and national Democrats. It abandoned mass antiwar mobilizations
almost entirely with the exception of the 500,000 protestors at the
Republican Party National Convention. This New York anti-Bush
demonstration, while evidencing deep antiwar sentiment, also demonstrated
the futility of
reliance on either of capitalism's twin parties. The
potential power represented by a half million protestors in the streets was
significantly muted and undermined by the organizer's reliance on bourgeois
politics and politicians to end imperialist war.
The power generated by the Vietnam antiwar movement, a
movement capable of forcing the world's greatest military power to withdraw
from Vietnam, was in large part due to its independent and mass character.
Of course, there were other decisive factors that forced the U.S.
withdrawal, particularly the courageous and heroic struggle of the
Vietnamese. But the capacity of the 10-year long U.S. movement to
essentially sustain its independent character was critical to its success.
The success of the struggle, including its capacity to join
forces with the powerful civil rights movement, opened the door wide to the
emergence of several other social struggles that similarly won important
gains for the oppressed and exploited.
The Republican electoral victory has further demoralized
UFPJ and its liberal reformist followers, convincing them that resistance
to the system outside the Democratic Party is not productive. Understanding
this single point is key to re-building the U.S. antiwar movement. There
will be no viable social movement in this imperialist colossus that is
dependent on,
subordinate to or in any way associated with America's
capitalist parties.
The February 2005 UFPJ national assembly in St. Louis
was initially aimed at maintaining the UFPJ's multi-issue course and
orientation to capitalist politics. Central leaders had already begun
discussions on how best to relate to the 2006 elections.
But the group's top cadre changed gears a few weeks
before the assembly and decided to again "focus" on the Iraq War.
The pro-Democratic Party leadership core "discovered" in advance
of the gathering that UFPJ "lacked the resources" to take up all
the issues originally contemplated. This sudden shift took many of group's
liberal cohorts by surprise.
Convinced
that periodic mass demonstrations are near worthless in
comparison to electoral politics and that the only road to social change
was through the Democrats, they initially resisted what they considered a
fruitless focus on a single issue, like the war in Iraq.
"Leftists" in UFPJ argued that the Iraq war is
only a "symptom" of the problem. "We need to address all the
issues that are a product of "the system itself," they argued.
But "the system" they referred to was notcapitalism but rather
the "fascist" Bush Administration and the "fascist"
government they accuse him of heading.
Groups like the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) and
their associated group, Not in Our Name! likewise advanced the
"fascist" argument with RCP leader Robert Avakian and the RCP all
but calling for a vote for Kerry.
Bush was declared to be the leader of the "Christian
fascists" who had taken over the country. He had to be stopped. The
UFPJ's rhetoric did not
differ to any significant extent.
In the days when the Socialist Workers Party played a
leading role, if not the leading role in the struggle against the Vietnam
War, the reformists of every stripe offered the same arguments. They tired
of repeated mass actions; they resisted a central focus on the war; they
rejected democratic functioning (which at that time was represented by the
principle of
one-person-one-vote) in mass decision-making united
front-type assemblies and they fought tooth and nail to subordinate the
movement to support to Democratic Party "peace candidates" like
Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern.
But the reformists in all their combinations did not
prevail. They proved incapable of derailing the movement in large part
because the struggle against the Vietnam War was truly a mass movement. An
entire generation of youth and a great proportion of the larger population
become involved in one form or another. These forces helped to stamp the
movement with its
independent character. They acted as a bulwark to ward
off any and all efforts to undermine its independent character.
With the mounting threats and/or actuality of U.S.
intervention in Iran, Cuba, North Korea, the Philippines and Syria as well
as the accomplished interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti and
Yugoslavia, we believe that a general demand, of course subordinate to a
central focus on the Iraq War, against U.S. intervention and U.S. support
to occupations everywhere, is
necessary and appropriate. This includes Palestine,
where U.S. aid to the Zionist, colonial settler state of Israel guarantees
the continued denial of all Palestinian rights.
We also support the inclusion of demands for fundamental
democratic rights, especially since these are under severe attack and
infringe on several of the basic rights whose exercise is necessary to
build a mass democratic movement. Opposition to the Patriot Act, including
its provisions for increased government spying on movement organizations
and individuals
And all others can also be easily included in a succinct
statement in the text of organizing leaflets, fact sheets and other antiwar
propaganda.
Tactics: We advocate the organization of massive, legal,
peaceful demonstrations designed to involve the largest numbers possible in
the antiwar movement. We have no fetish about organizational forms of
protest. In different times, when the
level of class combativity is on the rise and the situation warrants, other
tactics, including mass strikes, would be appropriate to give expression to
the power of the movement. But this is the music of the future.
For now, mass actions are the most appropriate tactic to
maximize the expression of the full power of the movement. They are
effective in challenging the false notion that the government represents
the majority of the people. They increase the confidence of the movement in
its own power. They expose
participants to a wide range of issues that they do not ordinarily
consider. They help lead participants to the conclusion that the capitalist
itself system is responsible for today's social evils as opposed to
whichever political party or personality happens to be running the
government.
Periodic mass actions also reinforce the continuity of
the movement, allow for a visible measure of its growing strength and
unity, maximize its capacity to involve new sectors of the population in
struggle and help convince increasing numbers that the power over public
decision-making truly rests in their hands.
Mass actions indeed challenge the prerogative of the
war-makers to make war. They raise
the political price paid by the ruling class to act contrary to the
interests and wishes of the majority. They lead toward the isolation of the
ruling class and help expose its minority status and reactionary interests
in governing.
For revolutionaries, mass action is not an end in
itself, but a step toward even more powerful challenges to capitalism.
For reformists, mass actions are a sometimes necessary
routine to convince the ruling class politicians to change their evil ways
AND to present a platform for "liberal" Democratic Party
politicians to convince the masses that change is possible within the
framework of capitalism.
We have no interest in promoting individual acts or
small-scale non-violent civil disobedience protests, whether they are
conducted by pacifists or faith-based groups. These usually facilitate the
victimization of participants and severely limit the participation of the
vast
Majority who have no desire to risk imprisonment in
order to demonstrate their support for the antiwar movement. We do not
object to others who are insistent on organizing such actions, but we argue
that such actions should be conducted separate and apart from the mass
legal protests organized by the broader movement. We have no interest in
lending any credence to
The sometimes uncontrolled anarchist actions that have
disrupted or detracted from peaceful mass protests.
Democracy in the movement: This is not an abstract
question. The present competing antiwar organizations are essentially
dominated by competing political currents on the left who are more
concerned with subordinating the movement to their own ends than in
maximizing its potential power.
UFPJ and ANSWER often dominate their respective decision-making
meetings by a variety of representational formulas that guarantee that the
groups and individuals they support remain in absolute control.
Our tradition, massive decision-making conferences open
to all and based on one-person-one-vote, is designed to include and
democratically engage the entire movement. We describe our organizational
format as a united front-type organization because in reality it is not a
united front.
The classic or historic united front is a temporary
association of mass organizations to achieve very limited and immediate
objectives. If a striking union, for example, is under attack and faced
with scab-herding cops who threaten to break a strike, the broad
workers' movement has been called
upon to join the battle. The basic decisions regarding strike
strategy, tactics, negotiations, etc., remain with the
striking union.
Organization and control of the united front
mobilizations emanating from the unity of the broader trade union movement,
its component parts, federations or whatever labor structures exist, are
determined by votes of the chosen leaderships of these bodies. Where the
components of the united front are democratically organized, the mobilized
rank and file has a direct and immediate voice.
The primary objective of the united front is to amass
the essential class power to effectively defend and advance the cause of
the beleaguered strikers. Victories emerging out of such struggles usually
increase the possibilities of further mobilizations against the
prerogatives of the ruling rich.
In the antiwar movement today, there are no such mass
organizations of workers who consciously participate with their ranks. Nor
are there leaders who aim to mobilize their ranks. When unions and
unionists do participate it is usually minimally, with a few officials and
a rank and file that more often participates in small numbers, usually
without the knowledge of the union itself.
When the point is reached that a reinvigorated and
militant trade union movement decides to engage its ranks in the struggle
against imperialist war, the forms of the movement will qualitatively change.
Under these circumstances it would be the height of foolishness to propose
that an engaged union, able to mobilize thousands and more have the same
weight
In an antiwar conference or in any other gathering than
a single isolated individual.
At present, this is not the case. UFPJ conferences are
organized with some form of delegated representation with the formulas
selected in advance to achieve the desired result. Those who attend
claiming to represent this or that organization usually have as many
followers as the typical antiwar activist who may or may not belong any
organization.
During the Vietnam era Communist Party-led national
coalitions used a variety of delegated formulas that essentially excluded
the vast number of independent activists. It was only when the strength and
breadth of the movement reached a point where the Stalinists and their
liberal allies could no longer control the movement that truly democratic
forms emerged.
The size of the national gatherings increased from a few
hundred essentially hand-picked "delegates," representing various
Communist Party front groups and those of their liberal allies, to
conferences where thousands regularly participated in the deliberations.
The rapidly
exploding movement soon rejected any restrictive
formulas and welcomed all comers on an equal basis. No one political
tendency could dominate. The will of the preponderant independent majority
almost always prevailed.
None of the above, however, happened by accident. The
SWP and the YSA along with the campus-based Student Mobilization Committee
to Bring the Troops Home Now (SMC) worked hard to educate the broad
movement as to the merits of the new and more democratic organizational
forms as well as the critical importance of principled "Out Now!"
politics and a sharp focus on the war.
The SWP's central antiwar organizer, Fred Halsted, in
his book, "Out Now!: A Participants Account of the American Movement
Against the War in Vietnam," describes the strategy and tactics we
employed with great success during those times. The central lessons, albeit
with the appropriate modifications based on political changes in U.S.
society, are applicable today.
Socialist Action's
momentary tactical retreat
We have taken the time to review these matters to remind
comrades that the retreat we were recently and briefly compelled to make in
regard to taking on the kind of leadership role we had played for almost
two decades was a product of simple necessity. Following our split with the
Nat. W. group, the very existence of Socialist Action was brought into
question. Our
Focus had to shift to maintaining our fundamental party
institutions and to recruiting and educating sufficient comrades to
continue as a revolutionary organization.
Our retreat was a temporary measure to insure Socialist
Action's continued existence.
It was a recognition that the forces we had to assign to
help initiate and build the necessary mass actions and democratic antiwar
coalitions were insufficient to achieve the required results. We made one
major effort to do so in 2003. It started with great promise and ended with
a mass action of 350,000 people in San Francisco. But along the way we were
not able
To maintain the very democratic coalition we initiated.
The combination of ultralefts, reformists, Stalinists and others were dead
set against a united and democratic antiwar movement. The significant but
relatively small number of independent forces we had assembled proved
incapable of withstanding their persistent efforts to eliminate what had begun
with great promise. We have reviewed this experience in the past and need
not dwell on it further here other than to state that we have not ruled out
efforts to help re-orient the antiwar movement. Our ability to do depends
only on our capacity to win new forces to Socialist Action. Hopefully, that
time is not far away.
We conclude this section with a brief assessment of the
recent March 19, 2005 national and international mobilizations against the
Iraq war. These were modest in the U.S., with the largest actions taking
place in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Our estimates indicate
that all were in the range of 10-15,000 people with smaller protests in the
range of 1,000 -5,000 taking place in several other cities and modest
protests in the hundreds or less in an estimated 700 locations.
Internationally, there were more impressive
mobilizations. London, Rome and Athens were perhaps the largest with an
estimated 100,000 participating in each action. Tens of thousands mobilized
across Europe, in the Middle East and elsewhere. It is noteworthy that the
size of the protests was generally greater outside the U.S. than in the
heartland of imperialism, an indication of the still weakened and divided
nature of the U.S. movement.
While we were eager to participate in and help build the
modest actions that did take place, as we have always done, it will take a
bit of time and require significant changes in the U.S. and international
situation until the movement returns to the massive size that we saw just a
few years ago.
The possibility of a
return to draft army
There is one factor in the present equation that could
make an immediate and qualitative difference, the reactivation of the Selective
Service System and the establishment of a draft. We have already seen
differences among the ruling rich as to the advisability of such a move. On
the one hand it is clear that to police the world U.S. imperialism requires
many more troops than it presently has available. The experience of Iraq
demonstrated that "shock and awe" aside, for the kind of victory
imperialism seeks, a victory that at minimum would allow for the long-term
exploitation of Iraqi oil, more than a token force is required. The
U.S. is not presently capable of another such venture.
A draft is required by the ruling class rich to supply
the necessary human cannon fodder to expand imperialism's reach. But the
social consequences would be enormous. Drafting American youth to fight and
die for capitalist profit, no matter how much U.S. war aims are concealed
by a compliant media, would bring on to the political scene a layer of
youth that we have not seen since Vietnam.
In combination with the rising economic and social
crises, a draft would inevitably lead to a radicalization that would cut
deep into the fabric of society.
We have already seen initial and promising signs of
youthful opposition to military service. The growing number of protests
against high school and college military recruiters is a first indication.
A generalized draft would qualitatively change the character of this effort
and the antiwar movement itself.
There have been several reports that legislation is
already readied for passage that would implement a draft within 75 days.
Such a move would indicate more about the crisis of U.S. capitalism than
has been previously revealed. A resort to a draft could only be based on an
imperialist gamble that the political price to be paid was low enough to
risk what they now
consider to be only limited possibilities for a deeper
radicalization.
But war is inherent in the system of capitalist
production. It is, as has been said many times, a reflection of politics
(and economics) by other means. It is pursued for profit and the very
survival of the system, without regard to the human consequences.
Socialist Action is profoundly opposed to any draft in
capitalist America. We reject the
right of imperialism to make war anywhere. A resort to a draft at this time
may well be viewed by the ruling class as a necessity to advance and extent
imperialism's interests against its capitalist rivals as well as against
the oppressed of the world. In the present circumstances we estimate that a
return to a draft army would signal immediate and new wars for plunder.
But the institution of a draft would also represent a
direct and immediate threat to the lives of today's youth. We would expect
their response to be massive, leading to a qualitative advance in the
movement's capacity to fight back.
The advance of the
Cuban Revolution
We have closely followed the Cuban Revolution for many
years and have established fraternal contacts with the Cuban government.
The Cuban Interests Section in Washington regularly sends copies of our
paper to Havana where our views are read with interest.
A brief review of what is new in our relations with Cuba
and Cuban developments in general will be helpful to comrades.
-Socialist Action has been invited to visit Cuba to
discuss ideas with several of Cuba's central leaders in many fields. We
have been informed that this will include a meeting with Fidel Castro. We
plan a legal visit of Socialist Action journalists as soon as possible.
-The Cubans have indicated their appreciation of the political
positions we took last year in regard to the so-called Cuban dissidents, an
array of U.S.-organized and funded counterrevolutionaries whose activities
were overseen by the U.S. State Department. Our political defense of the
Cuban actions in the matter of the U.S.-encouraged Cuban boat and airline
hijackers was similarly noted. In this regard, we published some critical
articles and a pamphlet challenging the reactionary positions taken by
several U.S. liberals including, Noam Chomsky, as well as several social
democrats who initiated petition campaigns attacking the just and defensive
actions of the Cuban government.
We presented our class position on the death penalty,
differentiating its use by capitalist regimes as opposed to its rare
application in the beleaguered and revolutionary Cuban workers state,
facing a 40+ year blockade and near state of siege at the hands of U.S.
imperialism.
-The Cubans expressed their appreciation of the actions
we have taken in defense of the Cuban Five, including our successful Bay
Area Cuba Conference last year where attorney for one of the Cuban Five,
Leonard Weinglass, addressed a large gathering initiated by Socialist
Action and broadly sponsored by several solidarity groups. The Cubans have
made defense of the Cuban Five a major priority.
-We visited the Cuban Interests Section twice in the
past year or so for discussions with both the Cuban Ambassador and the
Interest Section's First Secretary. The purpose of the meetings was to
exchange ideas, to discuss difficulties faced by the Cuban Revolution and
to inform the Cubans of the political activities we have undertaken in
defense of Cuba's sovereignty. We
have also presented our views on a number of important questions including
the 2004 elections where we differed to some extent with our Cuban
comrades.
-We attended an important meeting in Washington, D.C.
sponsored by the TransAfrica Forum, headed by Bill Fletcher and Danny
Glover. The meeting included a presentation of the Cuban view of U.S.-Cuban
relations. Following the Cuban
Ambassador's departure the group, representing some 40 U.S. organizations
concerned with non-intervention in Cuba, discussed
the political basis for the formation of a U.S. movement
for normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations.
-In the context of our support for normalization, we are
helping to propose and initiate the undertaking of a major project designed
to advance this end. This would be a follow-up to the 1999 University of California
at Berkeley (UCB) broadly-organized "Dialogue With Cuba
Conference" that attracted 2,000 participants and featured some 30
Cubans in plenary discussions with their counterparts at UCB and from other
institution and organizations
favoring dialogue with Cuba.
This new initiative would require extremely broad
support nationally. It would
involve extending an invitation to Fidel Castro and other Cuban leaders to
visit the U.S. to dialogue with prominent Americans on normalization. The
visit would include several venues across the
Country and would be initially hosted, as in 1999,
assuming agreement can be reached, by the University of California. A
prominent University of California at Berkeley professor has agreed to
explore possibilities for launching this project.
In the event that visas are granted to the Cuban
delegation, it would open the door wide to a national dialogue that would
represent a great blow to those who prefer war and invasion.
In the event that visas are denied, the most likely
variant, the Cuban delegation would still be invited to participate but via
a live nationally broadcast satellite hook-up which would allow us to have
President Fidel Castro participate at universities and other designated
locations
Across the country in the context of
university-sponsored conferences. The basic concept is to once again move
beyond the usual left-initiated small-scale Cuba solidarity events and
reach out to a very broad audience ranging from Congress people who favor
trade with Cuba to educators and others who desire lifting travel
restrictions to individuals prominent in public life who prefer dialogue
not war. Needless to say the Cubans would be extremely eager to engage in
such an effort, believing that a U.S. war against them is a real
possibility.
Celia Hart fosters a
discussion on Trotskyism in Cuba
There have been some developments in Cuba concerning the
opening of a still-limited but very important dialogue on the politics of
Leon Trotsky. We outline these
below:
-The discussion began with an important essay on
Trotsky's major contributions to revolutionary politics that was published
in the leading Cuban journal Tricontinental Magazine. Authored by Celia
Hart, the article presented in a sharp and simple form Trotsky's basic
ideas on permanent revolution, "socialism in one country" and
"peaceful co-existence." The
context was a damning indictment of the reactionary
politics of Stalinism and a championing of Trotsky's life work and
politics. Trotsky was placed at Lenin's side as among the foremost leaders
of the Russian Revolution. "Our
first soldier," he was called. Celia Hart is a member of the Cuban CP. Her parents, Haydee Santamaria and
Armondo Hart were legendary leaders of the Cuban Revolution who were
captured, arrested and imprisoned along with
Fidel Castro following the July 26, 1953 abortive attack
on the Moncada military barracks in Havana, the opening shot of the Cuban
Revolution. We promptly printed the
entire text of Hart's essay in Socialist Action and began inquiries
as to Hart's availability for discussion and
collaboration.
-Hart has followed up on her first essay with some 20 additional articles on Trotsky's contributions. She has launched a major attack on the role of Stalin and Stalinism, characterizing these as counterrevolutionary forces in the world socialist movement. Her articles are situated in the context of hailing the achievements of the Cuban Revolution and its ongoing struggle for socialism in contrast to the capitulation of the USSR and China to capitalism and capitalist restoration.
-We proposed to Hart that SA publish her essays in book
form. This was a project jointly initiated by SA and our comrades in the
Labor Standard group, with whom we have been collaborating closely on other
projects, as well as on our newspaper. Hart agreed, after contacting
several groups and prominent individuals familiar with U.S. politics and
Socialist Action. We are in the early stages of preparing first-rate
translations. With Hart's approval the book will include two 1961 speeches
by Joseph Hansen presented to young people on Trotsky's theory of permanent
revolution and its relation to the Cuban Revolution. Additionally, our SA/Labor
Standard book will include a summary of Trotsky's theory and an
introduction jointly prepared by leaders of both organizations.
-Hart continues to write on Trotsky's ideas. The April
issue of SA contains a major four-page piece deepening the discussion.
-We have just received a fascinating article written by
Hart's father, Armando Hart critiquing the ideas of Joseph Stalin. This
represents another breakthrough and a further indication that Trotsky is
alive and well in Cuba.
-A major seminar on the fall of the Eastern European
states and the USSR was recently conducted in Cuba with five leading Cuban
intellectuals participating. We have the complete text of the presentations
as well as the audience discussion. The central thrust of all panelists was
a rejection of Stalinism. One participant explained that the main pillars of
the state emerging from the Russian Revolution were
soviet democracy, nationalization of capitalist property and the
revolutionary vanguard or Leninist party. It was agreed that Stalin
destroyed the soviets and the party. There were several favorable
references to Trotsky. A public discussion of the issue of soviet democracy
represents an enormous contribution to the further development of the Cuban
Revolution.
-The recently concluded annual Havana Book Fair included
a booth organized by the British-based Militant Group that featured books
by Trotsky including his "Permanent Revolution." Some 900 copies
were sold, according to Celia Hart, who helped staff a booth that displayed
huge portraits of Lenin and Trotsky. Hart is a collaborator of the Militant
Group and has
attended its conferences in Spain and Pakistan.
-Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has stated publicly
that Trotsky's ideas on permanent revolution and socialism remain valid
today. Chavez's daughter purchased ten copies of Trotsky's Permanent
Revolution at the Havana Book Fair. We will return to Chavez shortly.
-Finally, we have been informed that a 1986 book on
Trotsky, written by former SWP member, is under consideration for
publication in Cuba. The book was written for high school-aged youth as a
photo essay of sorts and designed to introduce newcomers to Trotsky's basic
ideas.
The above summary indicates that a discussion is
underway in Cuba, however modest, of the fundamental revolutionary ideas of
Leon Trotsky. The discussion verifies once again that the Cuban's decision
to reject capitalist restoration in all its manifestations and continue
their fight for a socialist world has led to an exploration of the full
range of authentic revolutionary socialist political thinking, with
Trotsky, of course, foremost on the minds of important political thinkers..
We have been informed buy knowledgeable friends that
Hart's objective is to encourage this discussion inside Cuba and outside,
of course. We have no facts to confirm that the Cuban CP itself is engaged
in such discussions. But it is
reasonable to conclude that when several very prominent Cuban intellectuals
and Cuban CP members take up these questions without the slightest
interference, a broader discussion may not be far away.
We reaffirm our view that the Cubans are revolutionaries
of action in the best sense of the term and deeply imbued with
revolutionary socialist traditions and practice. But the Cuban CP is not
without major divisions, including a still influential but minority
Stalinist current that, like
Its counterparts in the ex-USSSR and China, prefers an
accommodation with imperialism. The majority of the CP, led by Fidel
Castro, has made a conscious decision to reject capitalist restoration.
More and more it recognizes that Cuba's fate is inextricably tied to the
emergence of revolutionary currents outside Cuba, including in the United
States.
Isolated, beleaguered and blockaded, revolutionary Cuba
has been compelled to maneuver in very troubled international waters. The
fact that its direction remains revolutionary and internationalist is a
credit to its leadership. The fact that significant deposits of oil have
been
Discovered off Cuban shores offers at least a temporary
reprieve from the worst effects of the world embargo/blockade. The fact
that Cuba retains fraternal and comradely relations with small
revolutionary groups like Socialist Action is testimony to the stress it
places on politics and program as opposed to material aid, where we can
offer virtually nothing. Our modest
capability of initiating some worthy solidarity
projects, some of which can serve to open a few doors in the U.S. and
politically serve to stay the hand of the imperialist beast, is similarly
appreciated.
We are aware of Cuba's limitations and have predicted
that its continued isolation could only lead, in time, to the further
development of bureaucratic tendencies and worse. But the capacity of the
Cuban leadership to resist these pressures has truly been remarkable, a
testament to the quality and dedication of the central leadership team
headed by Fidel Castro. The Cubans have remained on the revolutionary road,
ever in search of new ways to give expression to the aspirations of its
courageous people for direct involvement in the decisions that effect their
very lives. The possibility that this will now include a serious
examination of Trotsky's contributions as well as movement toward
soviet-type institutions of
workers democracy cannot be excluded.
The new developments in Latin America, driven by the
massive upsurges of the oppressed people revolting against capitalist
neo-liberalism, has also opened new possibilities for Cuba to advance its
ideas and win new support.
It is also reasonable to assume that our invitation to
visit Cuba and discuss with Cuban President Fidel Castro is no accident.
Our first visit to Washington was undertaken at the initiative of the
Cubans. At the second visit their invitation to send an SA delegation was
emphatically repeated. We were told
that it has been a while since we had serious talks on
Many issues and that the Cuban government desired to
explore a number of ideas with us. The government proposes to fully host a
delegation of five comrades to Cuba.
We informed the Cubans that we accepted their
invitation. We will use the opportunity to travel legally to Cuba utilizing
our legitimate credentials as professional journalists. We fully intend,
therefore, to use the opportunity to expand our newspaper coverage of Cuban
developments and to continue in related publishing projects as well as to
deepen our
dialogue.
Needless to say, a formal decision of the Cuban CP to
embrace the revolutionary ideas of Leon Trotsky would be a momentous event.
It would represent an opportunity the likes of which our world movement has
not had since its formation in 1938.
In the Fourth International, SA remains a fraternal
minority current in regard to an appreciation of the importance and
vitality of the Cuban Revolution. The majority has consistently bent to
pressures to distance itself from the actions of the Cuban leadership. The
FI's most recent
attacks on Cuba for the defensive actions it was
compelled to take against the CIA-financed "dissidents" and
hijackers is a sad example. We remain hopeful, however, that these new
developments will lead to a major adjustment in the FI's stance toward the
Cuban Revolution.
The opportunities before us are enormous. We have some
profoundly important openings to deepen SA's involvement in the political
defense of revolutionary Cuba and to fraternally collaborate with Cuba's leadership.
A note on Trotskyism
We should pause a moment to ask why, of all the
revolutionary leaders and ideas in the world today, important figures in
Cuba and elsewhere have turned to Trotsky? The same phenomenon is repeated
in Latin America as Trotskyist groups, many beginning to overcome their
sectarian past, have emerged capable of some important initiatives. In the
United States, it was Mumia Abu-Jamal, perhaps the most well-known
political prisoner on earth,
who quoted the "great revolutionary leader Leon
Trotsky" in his taped remarks that were played on March 19, 2005 at
the San Francisco and New York antiwar demonstrations.
In Europe Isaac Deutscher's Trotsky trilogy, long out of
print, has just been republished. Reviewed in a March issue of The Nation
magazine under the title "The Impermanent Revolution," social
democrat Ronald Aronson felt compelled to present a favorable account of
Trotsky's life and accomplishments, being careful, to be sure, to inform
readers of his view
that in today's non-revolutionary times and in
consideration of the fate of the USSR, Trotsky's ideas, including permanent
revolution, were no longer relevant.
The answer to the question concerning the renewed
interest in Trotsky in Cuba and elsewhere is simple. Trotsky's banner and
politics, in continuity with Lenin's, as well as the ideas and program of
Marx and Engels, remains unstained. Celia Hart pointed out that Trotsky was
the most maligned figure in revolutionary history. But she was quick to add
that those who attacked him most viciously, those who distorted and
misrepresented his views,
Were the Stalinists as well as the capitalists around
the world. Among the Stalinists, of
course, are the Maoists, whose legacy is the restoration of capitalism in
China and the immiserization of hundreds of millions.
Similarly discredited are today's social democrats, who
in a number of countries around the world head up capitalism's offensive
against the working class.
For the best revolutionary fighters, Trotsky represents
the struggle against Stalinism, social democracy and capitalism, all of
which are associated with, in one form or another, the continued rule of
capital and the ruin associated with it.
Cuba was offered the choice between the Stalinist road
leading to capitalist restoration or the socialist road leading to human
freedom and full social equality. Cuba's choice for socialism, to stand
alone, if necessary, in the face of incredible obstacles, has led the first
layer of Cuban thinkers to turn to Trotsky. For this initial layer,
Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution is reduced to its essence. That
is, today only socialism can address and solve the problems facing
humankind. Capitalism is bankrupt. It must be replaced by the revolutionary
action of the masses everywhere. Socialism is the pre-requisite for human
liberation and
progress. Trotsky, proudly described by Celia Hart as
"our first soldier," today exemplifies what is best in our Marxist-Leninist
tradition.
We cannot resist a final anecdote on the meaning of
Trotskyism. During the height of the U.S. struggle against the war in
Vietnam William F. Buckley, the rightwing conservative founder of the
reactionary publication, National Review, invited the SWP's central antiwar
leader Fred Halsted, to appear in a debate format on his
nationally-televised program, Firing Line. Buckley had taken great pleasure
in demolishing America's leading liberals, who
frequently appeared on his show. But "Big Red
Fred," as we called him, was no liberal. Following his debate, where
Buckley himself was undone, Buckley remarked, and we will paraphrase here,
"We have always been able to deal with the Stalinists. We can negotiate
anything with them. But if the Trotskyites ever get power, we are in
trouble. They will not
compromise."
Buckley inadvertently paid our movement a great
compliment. He understood thoroughly that Trotskyism represented an
unadulterated and uncompromising challenge to capitalist power. The
historic defeat suffered by world imperialism in 1917 at the hands of Lenin
and Trotsky's Bolsheviks, Soviet power and the Red Army, shook the world
and changed the course of
history. Trotsky's
heirs, those of us who are here today and in other revolutionary organizations,
and those to come, will shake the foundations of capitalism once again.
Trotskyism, in the hands of the Cuban Revolution will prove to be a potent
weapon in the rebuilding of the world revolutionary movement. While we must take care to avoid getting
too far ahead of ourselves, we are duty-bound to pursue this opening with
everything we have.
Venezuela: Another new
prospect for revolutionary development
We have carefully followed the ongoing developments in
Venezuela. We summarize our basic views and observations as follows:
1) Venezuela remains a capitalist state with a
capitalist government led by a capitalist party headed by Hugo Chavez. Both
the Chavez government and its closest observers, including the Cubans,
affirm that few significant encroachments on capitalist property have been
undertaken. But this is still the beginning of the story.
2) The Chavista majority includes highly contradictory
elements, with Chavez in control but in association with a minority and
still powerful right wing opposed to any fundamental change in the social
system. Outside the formal
government institutions stands a rightist bourgeois intent on removing
Chavez by any means available. It is intimately connected to U.S.
imperialism.
3) The Chavez government has overcome at least two major
imperialist-inspired and organized efforts to overthrow it, the U.S.-backed
and approved military coup attempt followed by the U.S.-backed referendum that
sought Chavez's removal. Both indicated a deep fear on the part of the leading
Venezuelan capitalists and U.S. imperialism that Chavez's Bolivarian
Revolution may go beyond the bounds of bourgeois reform.
4) There is an ongoing class polarization in Venezuelan
society with a native bourgeoisie frightened that its power and property
may be challenged by the revolutionary mobilization of the masses. Chavez
has given considerable impetus to innumerable mass mobilizations that have increased
the confidence of the workers and oppressed in their own power. At the same
time he has refused arms to mobilized Venezuelan
peasants to defend themselves from death squads organized by large
landowners to protect their property.
5) The Chavez regime has allowed a few nationalizations
of capitalist property and takeovers of idle land. Following an official investigation,
it was decreed, for example, that a portion of the land owned by a major British
corporation was idle and therefore subject to government
nationalization and distribution to peasants. land and
factories that have been abandoned by their owners were subject to
nationalization. In the case of the abandoned and subsequently occupied
Venepal factory in Caracus, it today functions under a system of worker's
control with the. Government retaining 51 percent ownership. The details of
this agreement are not yet clear. In recent weeks the government announced
the distribution of 100,000 hectares of idle land to individual peasant
families
6) Chavez has used funds from Venezuela's prosperous oil
industry, enriched for the time being by a huge rise in the price of oil,
to fund significant educational, health, water and other social programs
that have won him a mass following.
7) In the international arena Chavez has opposed the
U.S. imperialist war in Iraq and extended his government's solidarity to
revolutionary Cuba, pledging that an attack on Cuba would be considered an
attack on Venezuela. He has
rejected imperialist projects in the region from the FTAA to Plan Colombia, counterposing an
anti-imperialist trade association of Latin American states that, while
operating in the framework of capitalism, would
nevertheless prioritize, he asserts, the needs of the
region's people as opposed to U.S. corporations. He has made bold and
principled assertions rejecting imperialist interventions everywhere. He
has rejected the ongoing U.S. threats against Iran going so far as to state
that Iran has the same right to possess nuclear weapons as the imperialist
nations
8) Chavez has publicly opposed the capitalist model of
development and proclaimed his adherence to socialism. The Cuban news
agency, Agencia Cubana de Noticias (AIN), in a recent article entitled,
"Venezuela Begins a New Era Despite US Interventionism," notes:
"Havana, March 24 (AIN) While Washington continues
its efforts to find an excuse that will justify stepped up aggression
against Venezuela, the people of that South American nation are getting
ready to defend their sovereignty and begin a new era, an era of Christian
socialism." It is still too early to evaluate Chavez's intent when he
declared his socialist
persuasion. It is far better to learn about his ideas
based on deeds rather than formal definitions or even Chavez's words, which
may be chosen for defensive purposes. We will soon see.
Chavez has rejected the Stalinist caricature of
socialism in the ex-USSR and implies that a vibrant revolutionary socialist
model may be in accord with his thinking. He has praised the ideas of Leon
Trotsky, including permanent revolution, counterposing them to Stalinist
politics and practice. We will soon see if the "Christian
socialism" reported by the Cubans is a cautious defensive formulation
utilized to buy time in the face of increasing U.S. threats or a populist
term for an enlightened capitalism.
9) Socialist Action supports all progressive measures
taken by the Chavez government. We defend Venezuela against any and all
imperialist threats. We view the recent referendum as the second effort of
U.S. imperialism to remove the Chavez government and believe that it was
entirely within our principles to oppose the referendum without granting
political support
to Chavez's bourgeois populist government.
10) We support all efforts aimed at the deepening
mobilization of the Venezuelan people to fight for their own class
interests. While we have little information about the Venezuelan Bolivarian
Circles we would not oppose participation in them to the extent that they
aim at the
independent mobilization of the masses to challenge
bourgeois prerogatives.
11) The formation of a mass revolutionary party based on
the historic program of the Fourth International remains a critical next
step to help guide the unfolding revolutionary process underway in
Venezuela. While such a party would by its very nature join in all united
front mobilizations to advance the interests of the workers and their
allies among the oppressed,
it would never subordinate such struggles to any
political formation that does not share its socialist program and struggle
for a workers and peasants government that fights for socialism.
12) Whatever our justified skepticism (to say the least)
regarding the capacity of a bourgeois populist political figure like Chavez
to break from capitalist politics and lead the kind of mass democratic
mobilization sufficient to challenge and conquer Venezuela's capitalist
state power and establish a workers state, it must be subordinate to a factual analysis of the actions
taken by Chavez and his followers. Regardless of Chavez's actions, however,
the need for an independent revolutionary socialist party rooted in the
Venezuelan reality and oriented to the revolutionary seizure of power and
the overturn of capitalism cannot be disputed.
13) We remain wary of facile comparisons between the
ongoing Venezuelan process and the Cuban Revolution. Despite the initial
political limitations of the Castro team and its petty-bourgeois origins it
proved capable of leading a revolutionary war that toppled a U.S.-backed
dictatorship. It crushed the essential bourgeois institutions of Cuban
society required for
the continued oppression of the masses, that is, the
Batista police and army. It armed the masses to advance and defend their
own class interests. Having
successfully undertaken these momentous incursions on the bourgeois power,
the Castro leadership then proved capable of leading the mass mobilizations
that toppled capitalism entirely. To date, Chavez has yet to demonstrate
such capabilities. But we do not close the door to the possibility that he will.
Latin American
revolution on the rise
There are ongoing developments of critical importance to
revolutionary socialists in Latin America. These include the successive
electoral victories of bourgeois populist-type parties that in part oppose imperialism's
neo-liberal project that has reduced the quality of life and
living standards of hundreds of millions. Gerry Foley
will review these developments in detail as a supplement to this report.
The U.S. crisis deepens
There has been no let up in the attacks launched by the
Bush Administration in alliance with its friends in the Democratic Party.
The latest assault is aimed at the last great bastion of funds accumulated
by America's workers over a lifetime, Social Security. As with all such
"great debates" between Republicans and Democrats the sound and
fury will soon be replaced by "realistic" compromises that allow
the ruling rich to loot Social Security
to the tune of trillions of dollars in the name of saving a system that has
already been looted to the tune of trillions. We fully expect that whatever
forms the looting takes, working people will be the victims.
Make no mistake! Wherever there is money owed to workers
and regardless of the legal guarantees in place to assure that it remains
their property, the ruling rich will find "legal" ways to steal
it. In California, the largest state employee pension fund in the country
is today under scrutiny, with the Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
administration looking for ways to
Raid it to raise funds for their capitalist bosses.
A recent Supreme Court decision allowed a major coal
mining corporation to sell its operations and free itself from its legal
obligation to pay mineworkers' pensions that were earned over decades. The
legal rationale? The multi-billion
dollar corporation said that the price of its sale would be too high for
anyone to pay if it included an obligation by the new
owners to pay the pensions. The court ruled that it was
supposedly better for the workers still employed by the purchasing company
to have jobs than it was for the mine to close down and the old owner
obligated to pay the pensions. The idea that the pensions and the workers
should be paid apparently did not occur to the astute capitalist judge!
Stealing money from workers' pensions is nothing new. One
of the world's largest corporations, General Motors, has regularly financed
its operations by "borrowing" from its workers' pension fund. If
GM goes under or finds some "legal" "restructuring"
ploy to change its ownership structures in order to negate its pension
payment obligations, it will likely be
Forgiven trillions owed to workers who have spent a
lifetime on the job.
Nothing is sacred in capitalist law or politics.
Virtually no social programs remain intact with both parties daily
assigning their budget experts to cut every hard won social program to the
bone or to eliminate it entirely.
Parallel to these efforts is the continued allocation of
hundreds and billions more to the military industrial complex, U.S.
capitalism's version of Keynsian pump-priming designed to salvage sinking
corporations whose ever declining average profit rates threaten one
corporation after another with bankruptcy.
World capitalist competition has reduced some of the
mightiest players to desperate and often corrupt solutions. The New York
Times recently reported that in addition to the most obvious corporations
like World Com and Enron, that cooked the books to show profits that never
existed, an additional 300 capitalist enterprises resorted to illegal
accounting measures to hide their losses in order to avoid a collapse in
the price of their stocks. But the collapse was inevitable. Smoke and
mirrors do not compete on world markets, where weaker players are weeded
out faster than in any time in history.
Continually demanding new tax concessions and outright
gifts from the government, the flagging corporate establishment has taken
out its growing incapacity to effectively compete on world markets on the
broad American working class. Three million jobs have been lost since 2001.
In the U.S. today the formal unemployment rate stands at 5.2 percent but
these same government statisticians who produce this fundamentally flawed
figure are compelled to admit that 34.2 percent of the eligible U.S.
workforce have no job, a startling figure that indicates the depth of the
economic crisis.
Unlike John Maynard Keynes's solution to impending
capitalist disaster, based on his interesting but incorrect assessment that
capitalism's central problem rested in what he called a "lack of
aggregate demand," today's ruling rich lack the means to implement any
form of public works program to increase workers' purchasing power. Even in
Keynes's time the ratio of money spent on the military as opposed to public
works was perhaps 99 to 1. War
spending not public works helped to partially lift capitalism out of the
depression that began in 1929. "Prosperity" returned only after
the U.S. emerged victorious in a world war that killed 80 million people and
destroyed the industrial infrastructure of both America's enemies and allies.
War solves lots of problems for capitalism!
In the name of national security, or bringing
"democracy" to the world, or whatever pretext is convenient, ever
new schemes are invented and promoted by the corporate owned media to
justify the expenditure of incredible sums on war materials. The
expenditures, literally gifts to the ruling class-owned corporations, are
required to prevent a collapse of the system itself. And they are still
insufficient to counter the constant decline in average profit rates that
threaten to explode the entire system.
With corporations paying virtually no taxes and workers
incomes shrinking, U.S. Treasury revenues are in constant decline. A revealing
March 13, 2005 New York Times editorial entitled "Bush's Stealthy Tax
Increase," reports that in the coming years the number of two-income
essentially working class families whose taxes will be dramatically
increased will rise from 3 million taxpayers to 30 million. This will
include 94 percent of two-income families with children, who earn a total
of $75,000 to $100,000. Bush's virtually hidden and delayed
"alternative tax" provision is designed to rob workers to pay for
the trillion dollar tax cuts to the rich previously approved by the U.S.
Congress.
In order to maintain the constant flow of dollars to
U.S. corporations that have more and more difficulty in competing on highly
competitive and saturated world markets, borrowing ever larger sums from
U.S. and especially international banks is a necessity. The figures on how
much of the debt is paid by increasing the running time of the printing
presses at the U.S. Mint is not known!
In the past year alone the U.S. debt has increased from $7
to $8 trillion. That rings up to an
average monthly deficit of $83.3 billion. In February 2005 the U.S.
registered the largest single monthly budget deficit on record, $114
billion. At this rate 2005 will record an annual budget deficit of $1.368
trillion, boosting the national debt to almost $9.4 trillion, another
record.
The annual trade deficit has also increased to
stratospheric heights, today representing 22 percent of the Gross Domestic
Product an astounding andunprecedented figure by all accounts. For decades
the percentage stood at approximately 3-4 percent. In January 2005 the U.S.
trade deficit recorded the second highest monthly figure in history, $58.3
billion.
The massive U.S. debt, constantly demanding interest
payments (not to mention principal), coupled with the incapacity of the
government to reduce the annual federal budget deficit, also requiring
unprecedented interest and principal payments, has driven the value of the
dollar to historic lows as measured against major foreign currencies.
We have written about this in Socialist Action.
Here it is only necessary to state that for the first time in modern U.S.
history the stability of the U.S. financial system is in doubt. These are
not idle conclusions. They are publicly discussed in the leading capitalist
journals across the globe. Japan,
China and indeed all of Europe have threatened to dump continually
devaluing dollars, thereby threatening the underpinnings
of the world financial system. No one wants to hold on to an increasingly
and rapidly declining U.S. currency. And today trillions of dollars of it
are nervously held by the world's foreign banks.
The growing U.S. financial crisis, similar to the crises
facing all capitalist nations, has driven American imperialism to new
militaristic adventures everywhere. The slightest rise in the class
struggle brings on threats of U.S. intervention, whether it be Bolivia or
Venezuela or any
other Latin American nation where the masses resist
imperialist exploitation and threaten to control their own destinies. The
same is true on every continent.
As with all bullies the U.S. imperialists understand
that it is only a matter of time until their victims fight back. In some
places this will take the classical form of mass mobilization and class
struggle to end the capitalist system once and for all.
The danger of nuclear
war
In others, the solution is not so clear. The bully
exploiters fear that absent any other option to liberate themselves from
foreign domination, some groups, if not nations, might well resort to
nuclear weapons to ward off their oppressors. As irrational as this may
sound, the continued
horrors perpetrated by world imperialism could well
result in such a catastrophe. The U.S. government is well aware of the
danger. This is among the main reasons why it exerts the massive pressure
it does on Iran to stop its plans to develop fissionable material for
nuclear power plants.
A recent New York Times article made it absolutely clear
that by all international standards Iran has the right to refine and
otherwise process nuclear material for the purpose of energy production.
The Times pointed out that this fact is well known to the entire world. It
explains, says The Times, why most European nations have failed, at least
until recently, to follow the U.S. lead in threatening military action
against Iran. Despite the fact that Iran's actions are totally within the
framework of "international law," The Times notes, the U.S. consciously
disregards such legalities because it fears an Iranian nuclear attack.
The U.S. is the first and only nation to use nuclear
weapons. It seriously contemplated their use during the Korean and Vietnam
Wars as well as during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. In their pursuit of
power, profit and the inherent imperative to world domination U.S.
warmakers know no limitations. The
danger of nuclear war is greater today than at any other time.
The state of the U.S.
labor movement
We have written much about the crisis facing the
organized labor movement including the fact that at 8.2, percent the
organized work force stands at the lowest point in the past century.
The timid and bankrupt SEIU-led "opposition"
to the present AFL-CIO misleaders see no way out of the impasse other than
so-called structural reforms that are based on forced and bureaucratic
consolidations without a semblance of democracy, coupled with increased
support to the Democratic Party.
The feature articles in the last few issues of our
newspaper by Jeff Mackler and David Jones present our analysis of the
current debate and in broad outline review our class struggle alternative.
But as with all things in politics, ideas designed to meet the needs of
workers to defend and advance their interests take hold only when the
living forces capable of giving them expression are in motion. This is not
yet the situation we face.
The tremendous and still unanswered attacks, including
plant closures, reconstitution of entire industries abroad and the general
feeling that it takes more than labor has readily available to defeat the
bosses, have frustrated an important layer of trade unionists and delayed a
response. Additionally, millions of
unorganized workers remain atomized, lacking
The most minimal organization with which to fight back.
We need not review our assessment of the nature of the
bureaucracy. We have no confidence in any of the competing forces in the
AFL-CIO. All are looking to save their jobs and privileges by any means
necessary except a fight with the boss class.
We have no magic formulas to offer that will turn things
around today. There is no magic set of transitional demands that will
galvanize workers to combat. In the context of the relocation of major
sectors of the industrial workforce and the demise of entire industries
demands like
30 for 40 seem more relevant to bygone times when the
introduction of a few new machines here and there and minimal workforce
reduction were the threat.
What has been lost in the trade union movement for many
a decade now is its mass social character. Narrow trade unionism isolated
from the broad issues that effect all workers and the oppressed has led to
a dead end.
A recent Socialist Action article presented a
hypothetical scenario outlining how workers can fight back and win. It was
designed to be a very practical assessment of a difficult situation. In
referring to how the UFCW-led Southern California grocery strike of 70,000
workers last year could have been won we began with the simple idea that
the Teamsters Union,
hypothetically speaking, did have the power to stop
deliveries to the UFCW-struck supermarkets. In fact, for a few days, for
the record only, Teamster drivers did stop deliveries in solidarity with
the striking grocery workers. But the IBT bureaucracy quickly put an end to
this solidarity.
But what if Teamster drivers, en masse, and until
victory, had respected the picket lines? That would have presented the
bosses with a profound problem; no food to sell in the entire Los Angeles
area!
We pointed out, hypothetically again, that the bosses
would resort to allsorts of injunctions, police scab-herding, media attacks
on the heartless "food-denying workers," and all the rest. We
responded that there were 100,000 other Teamsters in the area. They too
could have joined the effort and stopped the scabs cold, countering the
corporate media charge that
The strikers were isolated anti-social if not greedy
high paid workers.
This in turn would have presented the bosses with new
problems. They would respond by bringing in additional thousands of police
and would-be scabs, if not the National Guard, to break the strike.
By this time the workers would have had a real taste of
their power. They would call on
their families, friends and neighbors for help, and on the unemployed and
oppressed nationalities, not to mention on the dockworkers, city workers,
construction workers, oil workers and everyone else. Such a mobilization
would serve to raise the stakes qualitatively beyond the
issues involved in the original strike. Essentially, the
city and surrounding areas would be brought to a halt with the threat of
further solidarity actions mounting daily.
The idea is simple. Solidarity is the essential
ingredient for success. And solidarity
is a two-way street. It means that when you help us, we help you. It means
that your strength becomes ours and visa versa, that organized workers
fight to organize the unorganized, to incorporate them in union structures,
that unions champion the struggles of oppressed
nationalities and women and gays and lesbians, the youth
and everyone else.
This hypothetical scenario is not in the cards today,
but only because there is not a single trade union or trade union leader in
the country who believes in the class struggle, who has the courage to lead
workers in a real fight, who is not tied hand and foot to either the bosses
or the politicians or both.
Until we see a change in the composition of the trade
union leadership, there will be no real victories. The central premise of
our Transitional Program and its underlying method is a fighting labor
movement. It's demands, immediate, democratic, and transitional grew out of
an era when workers had demonstrated their capacity to fight and win. Our
demands were designed to deepen the struggle and educate workers as to the
very nature of the state power and to challenge it, once and for all. It is
not just the individual corporations who are the workers' enemies but the
ruling class as a whole and the capitalist government that represents them.
In our view the sustained and deepening attacks on
workers, in the trade unions and outside as well, must eventually give way
to new formations of class struggle fighters. These newcomers, helped along
by the cadre that we and other revolutionaries educate, will find a way to
the ranks and begin the process of
engaging them in struggle. It is this struggle and
Nothing else that will produce the new leaders and
inspire the ranks to transform the trade unions from top to bottom, taking
on the bosses in the process.
The revitalized and fighting trade union movement to
come must and will become the champion of the whole class, not only as a
matter of philosophical principle but as matter of survival. With workers
in motion, everything that seems impossible today will become the norm
tomorrow. Every apparently insurmountable obstacle will be challenged as
never before.
The rules of the game as they have been laid out by
today's labor misleaders, politicians, court decisions and all the rest,
will be re-written as they were in the past.
What is lacking today is not some new structure for the
unions or consolidation project but rather a will to fight. Given that will
the unity will follow as night follows day, regardless of what structures
exist.
Finally, it is not true that unions are too small to win
today. Virtually any union can win, if it wins the solidarity of the rest
of labor and its allies.
This pertains to every problem facing labor today,
including the de-industrialization of significant parts of the productive
process and the outsourcing of jobs beyond U.S. borders. For the
bureaucracy the solution to the boss's shifting production to China or
Mexico is tokenism, that is, sending a few AFL-CIO representatives on an
international junket to
this or that country and offering a few dollars to
organizing efforts there. Or, they
propose one or another form of protectionism, counterposing U.S. jobs to
those of our sisters and brothers in other countries. Serious workers, if
not all workers, more and more understand that these are ineffective, if not
reactionary solutions that are incapable of answering the assaults
they face.
However important international solidarity is, and it is
essential, the fight begins at home against our own bosses, the most
powerful on earth. With a few victories under our belts here and the bosses
on the run, our capacity to repeat our success everywhere, including in
China or Mexico or El Salvador or Haiti, will be magnified.
American workers fighting back and winning will inspire
workers everywhere that they can win as well. Once this process begins
there will wondrous ways that our sisters and brothers everywhere will find
to win and we will find ways to help them that are concrete and immediate.
Having said the obvious, we must patiently prepare now
for what is to come. That means
education and propaganda, winning the best fighters to our revolutionary
program, explaining the relationship between a union fight for a decent
contract, job security and all the rest and a fight to win the hearts and
minds of the broad working class. Our jointly published new pamphlet is a
good start in this educational process. The patient work our union comrades
do today will pay off tomorrow.
U.S. Labor Against War,
the Labor Party and Million Worker March
Here are three formations that in one way or another
seek to bring about some important changes in the labor movement and in the
broader working class. They are quite different formations but we will
begin with some general observations that apply to them all.
All are essentially organized, led or kept going by
radicals and socialists of one sort or another, None have any deep or even
significant connections with labor's rank and file. None emerged from a
major fightback where class struggle policies resulted in a victory that
inspired their formation. None are capable of mobilizing significant
numbers of workers to challenge the bosses at the point of production or
anywhere else. All have associated
with them a layer of union officials that give the
organization some credibility. None of these officials have a reputation of
leading workers in struggle. Many of these officials are radicals or socialists
who have found a home in the secondary ranks of the labor movement.
Having stated the obvious, we do not oppose our
comrades' participation in these formations when it serves our aim of
meeting radicalizing rank and filers and advancing working class interests.
We generally agree with the basic political ideas formally raised by these
formations. We see a crying need for labor to become involved in the
struggle against war. We totally support any efforts educate about the need
for a fighting labor party based
on a reinvigorated labor movement in alliance with the
oppressed, unemployed and other fighting social movements. We see an
absolute need for labor to organize millions in the streets to challenge
the warmakers, oppose the twin parties of capital and champion health care,
public education and all the other critical social issues.
We have a single criterion in assessing the nature and
level of our participation in these formations. Do they offer us an
opportunity to meet workers in any significant numbers who are beginning to
radicalize under the impact of the boss's offensive? If the answer to this
question is "yes" we urge our comrades, as they have already done
and presently do, to
Become involved to the extent that gains can be made for
our tiny revolutionary nucleus.
These are the kind of national organizations whose
affiliates exist at the local level in a relatively small number of cities
across the country. In some
instances they include important numbers of rank and filers. In most, however,
they are limited to a grouping of radicals and minor officials, with few
independents, who eventually tire of small meetings and
Constant infighting and shift to other priorities.
We have noted that the main limitation of all of the
above organizations is that they are largely artificial, that is, they are
not a product of a real fightback that galvanizes workers to explore new
ways of fighting the bosses. They are instead, the best intentions of their
organizers aside, very modest, sometimes barely effective formations, that,
because of
The difficult times, are incapable of attracting
fighting workers and/or significantly advancing important ideas.
We will not take the time to analyze and assess the
various political tendencies or socialist currents that tend to dominate
these formations. Most are not
friendly to SA or to each other, to say the least. Our starting point,
however, is not whether this or that group leads but
Rather whether there is productive work to be done and
new forces to do it.
We have left the decision to participate to our
comrades, whose judgment we respect. We have no rigid formulas to determine
how we approach these still limited and experimental-type formations that
could modestly advance the interests of working people.
Our correction in
regard to the Million Worker March
Comrades should note that we did make a correction in
our assessment of the Million Worker March (MWM). The first of the two
articles appearing in Socialist Action essentially overstated the
importance of the broad layer of initial endorsements the march won from
several important unions and union-related organizations. We incorrectly
saw these, in the context of AFL-CIO opposition to the MWM, as representing
something new, that is, a will to express labor's power in the streets. We
were sadly mistaken, substituting wishes for fact, a bad method for
effective work. Without going into all the leadership problems and extreme
narrowness of the forces leading this effort, we did correct our
exaggerated assessment of the nature of the development, believing that
this was the best, if not the only way, to inform our readers that our
newspaper is to be taken seriously. We are not a newspaper that hypes
reality to make it fit our political objectives.
The Lynne Stewart
conviction
Lynne Stewart's conviction on multiple felony counts of
conspiracy to aid and abet the commission of terrorist acts is a prime indication
that the government has every intention of tightening its control of all
forms of political activity.
We have written extensively on this case and need not
repeat the details. We will note
that after six years of government spying on Stewart and her legal
associates, after 85,000 wiretaps, and every other form of illegal (now
made "legal") surveillance, after finding absolutely no evidence that
Stewart had engaged in any activity that did harm or threatened to do harm or
resulted in harm to anyone, she was convicted on charges that carry a prison
sentence of 30 years. Stewart is 65.
Conspiracy charges have long been employed by capitalist
governments to imprison innocent people solely because they are alleged to
have had contact with others who MAY have engaged in what has been
designated by a repressive government as an illegal act.
Stewart's conviction by a frightened Manhattan jury is
an indication that the government has had some success in at least
temporarily convincing some Americans that the U.S. and its citizens are
truly faced with a real threat and that it may well come from radicals and
socialists residing in the U.S.
The vigorous defense of Lynne Stewart is critical to the
entire progressive movement. If her
conviction, now under appeal, is allowed to stand, it will represent a
major defeat for fundamental
democratic rights and will result in deeper incursions on the right
to effectively organize against injustice in every arena of social life.
It is no accident that the government chose a well-known
socialist and lifelong defender of the oppressed to prosecute and test the reactionary
laws they have put in place to stifle dissent of any kind. As with all defense
cases Stewart's freedom rests in the capacity of her supporters to mount a
broad and mighty fightback that reaches out to everyone concerned
with political freedom and the right of association.
Socialist Action has been deeply engaged in Stewart's defense and will
continue to be so.
Mumia Abu-Jamal
2006 will mark the tenth year of our effort to free
Mumia-Abu-Jamal. We have won a national reputation as being among the best
and most consistent of his defenders. Mumia's legal case is winding through the federal courts
with many twists and turns. As with Lynne Stewart, we seek to build the kind
of powerful defense that will make his continued imprisonment on frame-up
murder charges impossible. But nationally-coordinated mass
mobilizations for Mumia, as we were able to initiate in
1999, are not in the cards today unless there is an immediate threat to
life.
Our Mumia efforts have met with considerable success,
with Mumia's name and the basic facts of the case becoming increasingly
well known among a broad layer of social groups and political activists. We
have also noted the continuous growth of Mumia as a political leader and
thinker. His support to the Cuban Revolution and to virtually every
struggle where workers
Fight back against oppression and injustice make him our
comrade in the deepest sense of the term. He is a regular reader of our
paper and has come to trust our judgment on many important matters. Mumia's
greetings to the founding convention of the YSA indicate his solidarity
with our efforts as well.
"Red" states
and "blue" states
A few words on the red state/blue state analysis are
worthy of mention. The corporate media is fond of using these terms to
signify major political divisions in U.S. society, that is, among U.S.
workers. Red states, according to the liberals and media pundits, stand for
Republican, if not Christian conservatism while the blue indicate
Democratic Party bi-coastal liberalism.
We question this analysis, noting that roughly half of the
eligible electorate declined to vote. An important New York Times poll
conducted shortly after the 2004 election that included the opinions of all
eligible voters, regardless of whether or not they voted or were
registered,
indicated that on virtually all major social, political
and economic issues the majority, or large plurality, held what we would
consider progressive views, that is, opposition to war, support for
abortion rights and women's equality, wariness of increasing business
influence on government and all the rest.
It would be difficult to conclude otherwise. In the face
of across-the-board government and corporate attacks on the vast majority it
is to be expected that anger, frustration, distrust and questioning of government
policies would be on the rise, despite the corporate media's attempt to
deflect these sentiments and channel them toward reactionary conclusions.
Whatever success the ruling class has had in momentarily bending the minds
of the ignorant has been more than offset by its incapacity to solve
fundamental and growing social crises.
While it is obvious that the ideology and actions of the
ruling class has shifted hard to the right, it is not at all clear that the
same is the case with the working masses, the victims of their policies.
It is true that many workers have been stunned and feel
helpless in the face of the loss of their jobs, pensions and other
incursions on their well-being and security. They are wary of engaging in struggles
where the possibility of victory seems remote because the forces arrayed
against them seem all powerful. But American workers have far from accepted
the
permanent nature of their present state.
When the opportunity arises and the call of necessity is
matched by a leadership that shows it has the strategy and tactics to win,
we can expect an unprecedented response. To assume the opposite runs
counter to a materialist analysis and the history of the world class
struggle. The victims of oppression and injustice do not long seek
salvation at the hands of their exploiters. We have appended a revealing
article to this resolution that contains a number of revealing statistics
that reveal the deepening class divide in the U.S.
The democratic right to
same-sex marriage
The important and democratic right to marriage by
same-sex couples was defeated in some eleven state initiatives in 2004. The
defeats were, in our view a product of a discussion that rapidly emerged on
the political scene without an opportunity to seriously debate and counter
the reactionary media assault on gay and lesbian rights and the right to
same-sex marriage in particular.
We do not view this development as evidence of deepening
prejudice. The national discussion over this fundamental democratic right
has now become part of an important dialogue that widens the opportunity to
expose and fight against the not so hidden discriminatory laws that deny
basic rights to gays and lesbians in many areas of public life.
A March 2005
California state court decision annulling last November's passage of an
anti-gay marriage ballot measure as a denial of the equal protection
provisions of the U.S. Constitution is but one indication that reactionary
laws on this subject are more and more difficult to defend, even in
bourgeois courts.
We also note the virtually complete collapse of
supposedly enlightened Democrats on this issue, who subordinated their
alleged support to equal rights for gays and lesbians to a
"political" decision to avoid embarrassment to their anti-gay
presidential candidate.
We fully expect this fight for basic equality to
continue as well as many others associated with combating LGBT prejudice
and discriminatory legislation. Socialist Action will continue to solidly
support this struggle.
Global warming
In recent months several serious reports have indicated
that the rate of progression of global warming is roughly double the
previously accepted figure. This simple fact signals a rapidly approaching
environmental catastrophe that will likely threaten or take the lives of qualitatively
more people than die in imperialist war.
While there have been several impressive conferences and
studies on this subject, there is virtually no organized mass effort to
respond. Of course, the prime cause of global warming is the capitalist
mode of production and its overwhelming reliance on fossil fuels as the
primary source of power production. According to the studies, the damage
already done cannot be
reversed before a major price in human life is paid,
even if the level of fossil fuel emissions is qualitatively reduced
immediately.
For most, these conclusions are difficult to absorb. The
creeping death that approaches seems imperceptible when observed on a day
to day basis and it seems obvious to most that there are more pressing
issues of personal and family survival confronting humanity, not to mention
war.
Wars kill tens and hundreds of thousands and more each
year. The effects of global warming are not as obvious. While we will pay
close attention to any and all opportunities to educate and organize on
this question, we must recognize that our best opportunities to build the
essential mass revolutionary party capable of challenging the system as a
whole remains in
those areas where significant forces are already in
motion and beginning to challenge the status quo. Such is the case with the
Iraq War, where we cannot fail to take advantage of the actual openings
that exist to win new forces to our movement.
As a very small group of revolutionaries we must be
totally conscious of the difference between when our work is necessarily
limited to patient education and when mass action is the order of the day.
The participants in the latter struggles provide the human material we need
now to fight on other fronts as soon as conditions allow. We can expect the
issue of
War and the associated issues of a possible draft,
combined with massive cuts in all social arenas, to lend impetus to
increased levels of struggle that will more easily facilitate the building
of our combat party in formation. But
we must not fail to educate now on the terrible environmental catastrophe
ahead.
Capitalist restoration
in the former workers' states
We began an internal literary discussion on this issue
with a discussion and debate at last summer's national convention, hoping
to conclude the discussion by a full debate and vote at this plenum. But
the press of events has severely restricted our capacity to conduct a
thorough discussion on this important issue. We propose therefore to
continue the
literary discussion, provide additional material to
comrades, encourage more participation and postpone a vote to a least to
the next National Committee plenum, approximately six months from now.
The founding convention
of Youth for Socialist Action
Of all the activities to which our youth have devoted
their energies over the past many years, perhaps the most important is the
building of a revolutionary youth organization that has fraternal and
collaborative relations with Socialist Action. Despite the modest numbers
our
Youthful party leaders and YSAers have won to this project,
the existence of the YSA has significantly improved our capacity to meet
fine revolutionary-minded youth who have a passion for involvement in the
struggle for human equality and liberation. The growth of the YSA, a project to which we must devote our
consistent attention, will be a measure of the growth of Socialist Action.
The YSA's ten-point program, its essential criteria for
membership, is an excellent summarization of the program that anchors
Socialist Action.
Building the YSA has engaged our youth in a broad range
of activities from labor organizing drives to alliances with fighting
farmers to struggles for gay and lesbian rights and against all forms of
discrimination against gays and lesbians to fighting against the
imperialist-created horror in Iraq.
It took almost seven years to assemble the necessary
critical mass of youthful, talented and educated party cadre to give life
to a project that bodes well for engaging both the YSA and SA in the
struggles ahead.
Socialist Action seeks the closest collaboration with
the YSA. We are pledged to spare no effort to help it grow into a mass
revolutionary youth organization that will prove to be fully capable of
winning the future fighters to challenge capitalist barbarism and
contribute to building the mass revolutionary party of the American
socialist revolution.
Important regroupment
possibilities
For the first time in a long while we have engaged in
discussions and collaboration with a group of comrades who we hold in great
respect and with whom we hope to soon work together with in a common
organization. These are a small but
very experienced group of comrades who have worked together for many years
producing Labor Standard (LS), first in
Magazine format and more recently in an on-line website
format.
Most of the comrades involved are former members of the
SWP, who were expelled or forced out at the same time as the founders of
Socialist Action, some 22 years ago.
We have found that there has been a substantial
convergence on several very important issues. These include:
1) A common assessment of the state of the present labor
movement, the important debate in the AFL-CIO and the key tasks facing
class struggle labor militants inside and outside the trade union movement
today. The convergence is reflected in the fruitful exchanges and political
collaboration that has resulted in our joint publication of a new pamphlet oriented
to serious labor activists. The pamphlet is entitled, "New Unity or
Six Feet Under? Where is the AFL-CIO Going?: The leadership debate and the
underlying issues." Authored by LS Twin Cities railworker and labor historian,
David Jones and including two fine and very relevant
articles by oldtime SWPers Frank Lovell and Tom Kerry,
the 32-page pamphlet will serve
us well in helping to educate the new generation of
fighters who will emerge to challenge today's labor fakers and embark on
the class struggle road.
2) A deep appreciation of the continued revolutionary
course of the Cuban Revolution and the discussion inside Cuba initiated by
Celia Hart on the relevance of the ideas of Leon Trotsky. Our collaboration
consists on an agreement to jointly publish a book, including some 20 of
Hart's essays on Trotsky and related issues. The book, approved for
publication by Hart,
will include two excellent 1961 speeches by Joseph
Hansen on Cuba and permanent revolution.
3) Initial discussions indicate a convergence on our
assessment of the state of the present antiwar movement and the need for a
principled "Out Now!" democratic, united and national coalition
oriented to independent mass mobilizations against the U.S. warmakers.
4) A common appreciation of the importance of the youth
in rebuilding the revolutionary party. Our Mid-western comrades have
already met and exchanged ideas with Dave Jones and to some extent with
Michael L., who reside in the Twin Cities and who have offered to help
educate our youth on our common revolutionary socialist heritage.
5) A shared appreciation on the importance of the
fundamental ideas of Trotskyism and the best traditions of the SWP,
including the absolute necessity of building a mass revolutionary socialist
party as the indispensable instrument for the socialist revolution.
6) A shared appreciation of our historic working class
approach to electoral politics including support for socialist campaigns
and independent working class political action as opposed to middle class reform-oriented
electoral projects.
Several LS comrades have been regularly contributing
valuable articles to Socialist Action thereby enriching the paper with a
range of articles that we would not otherwise have been able to obtain.
We have engaged in meetings with David Jones directly and
have collaborated and have had discussions with a number of other LS
comrades in regard to newspaper articles, developments in Cuba and the
labor movement, antiwar work and a broad range of other issues. Dave has
visited our SF national headquarters and a number of comrades, including
our youth leaders have had fruitful exchanges with him in the Twin Cities.
At least three LS comrades will be attending our April
plenum and founding YSA convention.
SA comrades Gerry Foley and Adam Ritscher will be attending an April 23 Kansas
City labor activist conference initiated by LS member Bill O. and his labor
activist associates in the region. They have scheduled time for Gerry and
Adam to meet with other LS comrades who will be attending that gathering.
In summary, we are engaged in a fruitful series of
common projects, common work and ongoing discussions that we hope will
result in the unification of our forces inside Socialist Action. We place a
high priority on continuing and deepening this collaboration. Our capacity
to welcome, embrace and fully include these experienced revolutionary cadre
will represent a
Major advance in building Socialist Action and will
serve to inspire other experienced revolutionaries, who are similarly
working closely with us in Connecticut and San Francisco, to join our
common project.
The new and inspiring developments we have described on
the world and national scene coupled with the new forces with whom we have established
comradely and collaborative relations
bode well for out tiny nucleus of revolutionary fighters. If we prove
capable of taking advantage of the opportunities before us we will
significantly improve our capacity to
advance the building of Socialist Action and our
capacity to join with the new fighters who will inevitably appear on the
class struggle scene.
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Appendix:
The Cavernous Divide
by Scott Klinger,
AlterNet. Posted March 21, 2005.
http://www.alternet.org/story/21544/
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