The ruling class has long gone out its way to give American workers an inferiority complex, to give the working class the false impression that they are powerless to change things, and that struggle is useless. A key ingredient in this bourgeois ideological campaign is the attempt to hide its own history from the working class, in order to prevent workers from building upon the lessons of their experience. In the last issue of Internationalism, we discussed the revolutionary heritage of the U.S. working class as demonstrated by events in 1919, with the tremendous support shown by American workers for the Russian Revolution, the General Strike in Seattle, and the massive strike wave involving four million workers including, miners, transport workers and steel workers. It is important to understand that the struggles of 1919 did not come out of the blue, but were part and parcel of a long history of militant struggle in the U.S.

Great Upheaval of 1877Great Upheaval of 1877

Just seven years after the Paris Commune, a wave of class struggle erupted in the U.S. that genuinely frightened the American bourgeoisie. The Great Upheaval of 1877 began in Martinsburg, West Virginia on July 16 following the announcement of a 10 percent wage cut by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Angry workers began to gather at the rail yard, vowing that no trains would be allowed to move until the wage cut was rescinded. The company was unable to move any trains. Efforts by the sheriff to open the railroad were rebuffed. The mayor’s appeals for order were booed down.

Striking railroad workers were joined by others who clearly understood that the attack against the railroaders was an attack against all workers. A hastily organized strikers’ guard enforced the blockade. Would-be strikebreakers were turned away. Troops sent to disperse the strikers and their supporters, after a brief confrontation, proved unwilling to fight the workers and were withdrawn. No one could be found to scab on the strike, which quickly spread to all of the Baltimore & Ohio line. Unemployed workers, boatmen and coal miners joined in stopping trains. In Baltimore 15,000 workers from an array of industries joined the effort and forced the trains to stop.

In Pittsburgh a mass meeting called by strikers employed by the Pennsylvania Railroad adopted a revolution calling on "all workingmen to make common cause with their brethren on the railroad," a call for generalization of the struggle. And workers throughout country did respond. The railroad strike spread to Ohio and Pennsylvania, to McKeesport and Buffalo, New York, where delegations of workers called others to join the fight. In Chicago workers from many industries joined the strike: from the stockyards and packing houses, the steel mills, street wagons, brickyards, lumber yards and the tanneries. But nowhere was the strike more complete than in St. Louis, Missouri, where it spread throughout the city in a single day. Anticipating the strides that would be made in 1919 in self-organization during the Seattle General Strike, workers in St. Louis created a strike committee to organize the struggle and to take rudimentary steps towards governing the city.

Mass marches were used to spread the strike from neighborhood to neighborhood, marching behind the symbol of the struggle: a loaf of bread on a flagstaff. Just as forty years later, the Seattle strikers would grant exemptions to the strike to maintain the health and welfare of workers and their families, the St. Louis strir families, the St. Louis strike committee decided to allow the continued production of bread to feed the population. A plea from a sugar company to allow continued operations in order to prevent spoilage was granted. At one of the mass meetings in St. Louis, the specter of revolution was raised by one of the speakers:

"All you have to do gentlemen, for you have the numbers, is to unite on one idea – that the workingmen shall rule the country. What man makes belongs to him, and the workingmen made this country."

For more than two weeks the front page of the New York Times talked of nothing else. Federal troops eventually restored order, but the workers had shown their capacity to respond to the attacks of the bourgeoisie, to spread their struggles across an expanse of 1500 miles, from Baltimore to St. Louis, to neutralize the forces of capitalism’s law and order, to organize themselves, and to pose revolutionary questions on an embryonic level.

For the bourgeoisie the struggle of 1877 was a traumatic experience. The New York Times referred to the strikers as "desperate men," and characterized the strike as "rebellion" and "a state of insurrection." Times editorialists blamed t editorialists blamed the strike on the "tyranny of trades-unionism," and criticized "the imbecility" of local authorities who failed to subdue the workers immediately. Supporters of the strikes were derided as "a parcel of fanatics and ragamuffins." The Times urged that the repressive forces of the state be used protect the railroads and their scabs: "Any interference with them, or their employees, must be prevented whatever the case." Regarding the "ringleaders" of the "riots," the Times invoked the specter of the Paris Commune:

"It is not at all necessary to show the vindictiveness in their prosecution which characterized the trials of the French Communists, but it would be at once weak and wicked to forget that they stand charged with crimes which must be severely punished if society is to continue to exist under democratic forms of government…A lasting service can be performed at once to the class to which these men belong and the interests of the community at large by making salutary examples of all who have been taken red-handed in riot and bloodshed."

The New York Tribune described a crowd of striking workers as a "wild beast and needs to be shot down." The New York Sun prescribed a "diet of lead for the hungry strikers." Just as the French bourgeoisie, undertook to alter the streets of Paris after the defeat of the Paris Commune, creating broader boulevards to make it more difficult for rebellious workers to erect street barricades in future outbreaks of class struggle, the American bourgeoisie began to change the face of American cities. In the aftermath of 1877, the ruling class began the construction of armories in the major cities to serve as weapons depots and strongholds for militias and national guards to be able to put down future unrest.

Homestead Strike of 1892

The Robber Baron Andrew Carnegie precipitated the Homestead Strike of 1892 with his attack against the standard of living of the workers and his bid to break the union representing the highest skilled workers. Carnegie announced his intention to impose an 18 percent pay cut and issued a statement saying that the real issue was whether the Homestead steel workers would be union or non-union. He ordered a 12 foot high fence to be built around the plant -–3 miles in length – with 3 inch holes at shoulder height every 25 feet, signaling preparation for an armed fight with the workers. At the same time Ca workers. At the same time Carnegie hired the notorious Pinkerton company to provide armed thugs for the upcoming struggle. An ultimatum was issued for workers to accept the wage cut by June 24th or face mass layoffs.

The workers did not take these provocations lightly. This was the period in the history of capitalism when unions were still organs of working class self-defense, which workers could use to defend their interests, before the onset of capitalist decadence and the integration of the unions into the capitalist state apparatus. They were not about to abandon the union and submit to Carnegie’s dictates without a fight. The Amalgamated Union, which represented the skilled workers, about 750 of the plant’s 3,800 employees, established an Advisory Committee, comprised of five delegates from each lodge, to coordinate the struggle against Carnegie’s attacks. A mass meeting of 3,000 workers from all categories, union and non-union voted overwhelmingly to strike.

The Advisory Committee took responsibility for organizing an elaborate network to track the company’s maneuvers, to monitor the possibility of an anticipated transport of Pinkerton goons by river boat from Pittsburgh. Workers rented their own vessel to patrol the river. Every road within a five mile radvery road within a five mile radius of Homestead was blockaded, and a thousand strikers patrolled the river banks for ten miles. The Committee assumed virtual control of the town, assuming authority over the water, gas, and electricity facilities, shutting down the saloons, maintaining order and proclaiming ad hoc laws. An attempt by the county sheriff to move against the strikers fell flat on its face when he proved unable to raise a posse. The workers offered the sheriff a tour of the plant and promised to guarantee the security of the facility from any trespassers. Sympathy for the strikers was high.

On July 5th a steam whistle sounded the alarm at 4am. Two barges transporting more than 300 pinkertons left Pittsburgh. By the time the thugs arrived at Homestead, 10,000 armed strikers and their supporters were gathered to "greet" them. An armed confrontation erupted. Thirty workers were wounded, and three killed in the early fighting. Armed proletarians from nearby towns rushed to the scene to reinforce their class brothers. The shoot-out continued throughout the day. Finally the demoralized pinkertons, trapped in debilitating heat on the barges, outnumbered and outgunned, mutinied against their superiors.

Most were not regular agents, but reservists who had been recruited under false pretenses; they were prepared to do some bullying, intimidating and terrorizing, but did not have the stomach to confront armed, organized class resistance. Once the pinkertons surrendered, the workers debated what to do with their despised prisoners. Angered by the casualties inflicted by the pinkertons – a total of 40 wounded, 9 killed -- some wanted to execute the thugs, but the Committee reasoned that a mass execution would be used against the strikers by the bourgeoisie. Instead the pinkertons were forced to run a gauntlet. In the end the casualties suffered by the pinkertons were 20 shot, seven killed and 300 injured running the gauntlet.

The strike continued for four months. Eventually federal troops were brought in to crush the struggle, and 160 strikers were arrested and charged with murder and assault. But the bourgeoisie’s repressive apparatus could not find a jury anywhere in the Pittsburgh region that would convict a single striker. All were acquitted. Hugh O’Donnell, one of the strike leaders, was first charged with treason. Following his acquittal on those charges, he was immediately rearrested and tried for murder. And following acquittal on that charge, he was rearrested and tried for assault – again successfully beating back the state's prosecution.

However, despite beating back the criminal charges, the strike morale was broken, and the union driven out. Throughout the country workers were sympathetic to the struggle at Homestead, and needless to say, the spokesmen of the capitalist class were furious. Strikers were referred to as a "mob." The New York Times granted that the company had provoked the battle, nevertheless maintained solidarity with its class brother and insisted that the obligation of the state was,

"to enforce law and order at Homestead, to quell the mob, to put the property of the Carnegie Steel Company in possession its owners and to protect their lawful rights."

Despite ending in defeat, Homestead was an important moment in the history of class struggle in America. What happened at Homestead was not a riot. It was organized class violence, consciously controlled by the workers, as part of the struggle. Homestead demonstrated clearly the capacity of workers to organize their struggles, to resist the attacks of the capitalist class, to achieve an active solidarity in struggle, to organize their own power to rival that of the local state apparatus during the struggle, to organize class violence and exercise it judiciously.

History Demonstrates the Power of Workers’ Struggles

Whatever the efforts of the ruling class to deny workers access to their own history, it is clear that workers in the U.S. possess a glorious history of class struggle – militant, conscious, intelligent, and fully in step with the struggle of workers in other countries. Today, as workers confront an escalation in attacks against their standard of living, even as the bourgeois propaganda apparatus insists that we live in a period of unbounded prosperity, it is essential that workers take up the experience of their past struggles. Our history shows that workers have the potential and the ability to organize their struggles independently, across the false divisions of job and union jurisdictions, and to take the struggle into their own hands and confront the class enemy. Not only does such action provide the means to beat back new attacks, but it lays the groundwork for the development of a class movement that can challenge and destroy capitalist exploitation once and for all.

Jerry Grevin

As this issue of Internationalism was being prepared for publication, news of violence in Seattle, with police clubbing and aiming tear gas at demonstrators outside the meeting of the World Trade Organization, was brought to us by the mass media. The bourgeois press raised the specter of the 1919 Seattle general strike, but this demonstration was not the awakening of a working class movement. It was an inter-classist movement involving many student activists. Nonetheless, we cannot let this moment pass without some comments.

We must denounce this episode of state repression and violence. In addition to using clubs and tear gas, the police shot rubber bullets at the demonstrators. This particular violence was not aimed directly at the working class, but we can be confident, these tools will be used against the workers in future struggles.

There were some 25,000 demonstrators brought by the unions to protest outside the WTO meeting. The United Steel Workers union protested against other countries ‘dumping’ lower cost steel on the American market. The Teamsters union brought contingentsmsters union brought contingents to protest jobs migrating to poorer countries, where the workers get lower wages than in the US. The unions brought out their forces in an effort to reinforce their tarnished image as ‘defenders’ of the working class, all the better to show an image of militancy for the labor struggles to come.

The unions are now claiming to oppose child labor being used to depress labor costs and workers losing their jobs when production migrates elsewhere. These unions are the same ones which have worked so long in cooperation with the state and the corporations to enforce the worsening of working conditions and wages.

This moment was an opportunity to give a warning to the American workers that if they do engage in real struggle, there will be repression aimed at them. After a period of a fairly low level of class struggle in the US, we have begun to see signs of the re-awakening of combativity among the workers.

Let this ‘warning’ to the working class, intended to be a brake upon the struggles of the proletariat which are already on the horizon, help the workers to recognize the serious stakes. The working class must prepare to fight…outside and against the unions.

EF

In an atmosphere of growing worker militancy, contracts for hundreds of thousands of municipal workers in New York City are scheduled to expire in the coming months. The bosses – in this case the city government -- and the unions are preparing to impose new belt-tightening concessions on the workforce and to defeat any attempt by the working class to fight back against this new assault to their living and working conditions. Workers need to prepare themselves to confront their enemies on their own terrain, the terrain of the working class struggle.

During the last contracts negotiations, in 1996 the city government, with the help of the unions, imposed draconian austerity measures across the board. Claiming a "budgetary crisis" and threatening "massive lay-offs" if workers didn’t accept concessions, the city forced through a new contract that included a two year salary freeze and numerous give-backs in workers’ benefits. At that time, most workers were outraged by the boss’ merciless proposals. The discontent was so deep that the District Council 37, of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) – the umbrella organization for most municipal unions - had to resort to rigging the ratification vote in order to ram through the contract. While at almost the same time, the teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers(UFT), had to work overtime to sell on a second try a contract that workers had rejected the first time around.

This work by the unions as the right hand man of the bosses is far from being an aberration as some leftists critics of the union bureaucracy would want the workers to believe. On the contrary these actions correspond completely to the true nature of the unions as agents of the capitalist state within the working class. The function of the unions is not to "represent the workers", but rather to police them, defend the boss’ regulations in the work place, and to sabotage and derail the workers struggles against capital.

Today as the expiration of the 1996 contracts nears, management and its unions are again maneuvering to defeat the municipal workers. As if workers had no memory, the same unions –with some new faces it is true -- that negotiated "give backs" contract after contract are currently talking tough. They want workers to believe in their new found "militant unionism," while in reality they are only posturing with the goal of refurbishing their discredited image. To confront the potential upsurge in workers’ struggles in the context of the upcoming contract negotiations, the ruling class has employed a simple strategy: reestablish the credibility of the union apparatus.

This was the underlying objective behind the governmental investigation of the corrupt practices of several highly placed city union bureaucrats and the exposure of the gangster-like actions used by the leadership of the DC 37 to pass the 1996 contracts. In fact the ousting of a few union officials – with nice monetary compensations for its services, on the back of workers needless to say! -- in the aftermath of the investigations allowed the bourgeoisie to get rid of a bunch of bureaucrats who had become a liability, and to bring in new faces to run the union who are more able to play the game of "militant unionism."

On the other hand, as part of this general refurbishment of the municipal union apparatus, during the last year we have seen the development of a "radical unionist" movement. Left union bureaucrats with links to the Association for Union Democracy, a group with social democratic roots, have been pushing for greater "democracy" in the union and a more "radical" leadership. Their message is the tired old tale of the leftists of all stripes – who occupy the extreme left of the political apparatus of the ruling class – which says that what is wrong with the unions is its structure and/or leadership. This is a lie; the reality is that for most of this century unions everywhere, democratic or otherwise, with good or bad leaders, have been a central instrument of capital against the working class.

Currently, with the negotiations for the new contracts about to begin, the city is already threatening a new round of austerity measures in the name of increased productivity and work flexibility. For their part the official union bureaucrats organized in DC 37 and the left wing unionists organized in the so-called ‘Committee for Real Change (CRC) – a group that includes union bureaucrats and leftists like the trotskyists of the International Socialist Organization -- are both working to set the workers up for a new defeat. Recently, the Municipal Labor Committee, a coalition of city labor unions dominated by DC 37, announced a supposed shift from past bargaining tactics. These bureaucrats plan to abandon their previous policy in which the pattern for the new contracts for the various sectors of the municipal workforce was set by the agreement reached in the first contract negotiated.

This time they will use a novel "coordinated bargaining" tactic, in which they will let every union negotiate its own demands, while keeping each other "informed." From the point of view of the working class, what this "new tactic" amounts to is a further division of its already scattered forces in dozens of different contracts and unions that claim to represent them before the city. The newly re-sanitized union leaders propose to elevate what separates workers rather than what they share in common and drown the workers’ militancy in corporatism. What workers really need is to build in struggle a common front with unified demands independent of professional and category divisions. Only such a common front, independent and against the unions can allow them to fight the city bosses successfully.

As far as the CRC and leftist groups are concerned, they are playing the role of loyal critical left - opposition to the official union bureaucrats, posing alternatives that stay completely in the framework of the union strait-jacket. For example, in the case of the transit workers contract negotiation, the League for a Revolutionary Party (LRP), one of the more "radical" trotskyist groups, advocates a "strategy" that calls for workers to struggle under the direction of the unions – a more militant struggle, of course, they would say. This group criticizes both the right and left wings of the transit union bureaucracy for their supposed lack of a "strategy to win a good contract," but at the same time calls for workers to "demand that the leadership take real steps to prepare a strike," thus illustrating well the function of the leftists as a the extreme barrier of capitalism against a genuine workers struggle.

Despite all the maneuvers that the dominant class is currently developing and the bogey man of the state Taylor law –the law that prohibits public sector workers from striking -- the potential for a city wide workers struggle is very real. Armed with the experience of the past struggles of the working class, all the workers and its most militant minorities need to prepare themselves to wage an effective struggle, to challenge the unions control of the struggle by having the workers take control into their own hands and spread the struggle throughout the public sector.

Eduardo Smith

The second Chechen war, like the first one which lasted from 1994 to 1996, is plunging deeper and deeper into barbarism. Mid-January figures claim 15,000 dead on the Chechen side and 3,000 on the Russian, without counting the hundreds of thousands injured, the children mutilated, the women raped by a permanently drunk soldiery, the more than 300,000 refugees living in filth under the guns of their ‘guardians’, suffering from hunger, thirst and epidemics. And it’s not only the flesh and blood of the Chechens which is being cut or drained. Their homes are being systematically ransacked. The Russian daily Kommersant (quoted in Le Monde 21 January) reported that "carpets, audio and video equipment and other material, altogether worth millions of dollars" were found in the trucks of the elite 22nd Brigade of the ministry of the interior.

A vast mafia-type traffic has been organized in the ‘safety’ zone occupied by the Russian army, commanded by the generals themselves: gasoline, weapons and munitions are all for sale, while corpses are being sold back to their families. And soldiers don’t only become profitable objects when they are dead:

"In correspondence we have received from Russia, a reader informs us of a veritable traffic in hostages in which Russian officers and Chechen rebel leaders are both implicated. This assertion seems to be confirmed by the press itself, in particular the sale and delivery by Russian officers to Chechen gangs...of their own soldiers! These then become a way of putting pressure on their families and held against a ransom which is shared by both sides" (International Review 100).

The capture of Grozny, which according to the Russian high command was going to be a stroll in the park, has been put back again and again. One of the chiefs of the Russian offensive recently announced in all seriousness that the war would be over on 26 February. This is just ideological bombast that impresses nobody. In fact, if the Russians did finish their military operations on that date, we’d be talking about a clear defeat for Moscow, because it is obvious that between now and then they will not have taken possession of a city that is being defended tooth and nail by apparently well-organized Chechen fighters.

Neither would it mean that the Russians had succumbed to the pressure of the western, democraticssure of the western, democratic bourgeoisies who, despite their critical statements, have from the beginning given the green light to the Russian ‘clean-up’ operation. In our press we have constantly pointed out the hypocrisy and complicity of all the big powers towards the massacres in Chechnya. The delegation from the Council of Europe which on 19 January visited an area ‘liberated’ by the Russians, decided, despite witnessing first hand the Russian brutalities, not to suspend Russia from this organization for such a small offence. It is true of course that those who brought about the destruction of Serbia and Kosovo can’t be terribly shocked about what the Russians are doing. And as long as the Russians restrict themselves to the northern Caucasus, as long as they don’t have the means to get directly involved in the melee going on further south, where the USA, the Europeans, the Turks and the Iranians are all struggling for control of the oil of Baku, the great powers will leave them in peace.

The common desire of the other powers not to put Russia in a difficult situation is only temporary and the implacable logic of imperialist interests will give a powerful push to the tendency towards chaos and decomposition in the Caucasus. The Calvary of the population in this region is setpopulation in this region is set to continue.

Albizia, 22.1.00

The movement by 33,000 transit workers in New York City in December, resisting renewed austerity and fighting for a significant wage increase, was clearly a genuine workers struggle, a significant moment in the revival of class struggle. In the anger and combativeness of the workers, in their distrust of the union, in the embryonic reflection on how to struggle, this movement was fully inscribed in the recovery of the international class struggle, we have discussed in previous articles. Simultaneously, however, this movement shared all the weaknesses and confusions that illustrate how difficult it is for the workers to reclaim the lessons of past struggles.

Despite the very real potential for a struggle that could have been a catalyst for a wider workers movement in the region, the capitalist class succeeded in breaking the dynamic of the movement. For this the bourgeoisie relied upon two essential weapons: 1) a masterful use of a division of labor between right and left factions within the union bureaucracy and 2) the threat of draconian repression against the workers. Despite all the positive elements in this movement, in the end the workers were unable to break free of the union straight-jacket and the bourgeoisie averted a crippling stsie averted a crippling strike.

Re-establishing the credibility of the unions

The bourgeoisie knew full well that it faced a potentially difficult situation with the New York public sector workers, who were angry about the previous round of contract negotiations in 1996, which forced most public sector workers to endure a two year wage freeze (called "double zero" by the workers), and a series of givebacks in working conditions (under the guise of increasing productivity) and by the fraudulent ratification vote at District Council 37, the largest municipal union, which was used to ram the agreement down workers throats. The bourgeoisie had undertaken a year-long campaign to reestablish the credibility of the unions and develop an active left-wing faction within the unions to control the growing discontent. Within the Transit Union, there was an already existing left-wing faction, called New Directions, which controls 22 of 46 seats on the local executive board, and has close links to the trotskyist International Socialist Organization.

The Struggle in Transit

Within this context, negotiations began in the fall on the transit workein the fall on the transit workers contract, the first of the contracts to expire (Dec. 15th). Technically, the Metropolitan Transit Authority, which controls the subway and buses is a state, and not a municipal agency, and both the unions and the city maintained the fiction that these workers are not "city employees." The leader of the right TWU faction, union president Willie James, a former police officer, announced that the union was demanding a three year contract with 10 percent raises each year and threatened a possible strike on New Year’s Eve, two weeks after the contract’s expiration date. This threat was made very early in the bargaining process and was never really mentioned again. During the rest of the negotiating process neither the right-wing nor the left-wing of the union bureaucracy ever called for a strike. The union soon decreased its wage demand from 10 percent a year to 9 percent, and the bosses announced their wage proposal: a 2-1/4 raise per year over 4 year contract — in other words 9% raise over a 4 years, which not only would not make up for the lost wages under the old contract, but would not even keep workers even with inflation.

This provocation prompted a large turnout at a December 8th rally, attended by 12,000 -15,000 workers, more than 1/3 of all the employees of the transit system workers, at a time when many transit workers were still on the job (i.e. it was evening rush hour). Several spontaneous attempts by workers to break out of the side street where police barricades confined them and spread the demonstration to Madison Avenue resulted in a series of shoving matches with the cops. Reacting to the militancy of the workers, and needing to appear in control, Willie James declared it might be necessary to strike, but made no specific threats. Workers not only chanted "Strike, strike, strike," but after the rally began to disperse, some began making impromptu speeches to the public who were passing by on their way home from work, explaining to them why there was going to be a strike and asking for their support. After the rally was officially over, workers spontaneously began marching en masse down the sidewalk on Fifth Avenue chanting "Strike, Strike, Strike." Hundreds of workers gathered in the plaza by the library on 42nd Street and impromptu discussions seemed to be occurring randomly.

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From this moment on, the stage was set for a possible strike at 12:01am on December 15th, not because of the union’s maneuvering, but because the workers made it clear that they were prepared to strike when the contract expired. Transit workers discussed little else. Distrust of the union, the threatened penalties of the Taylor law, a New York State law banning public sector strikes, and the blackout on information about the contract were central topics discussed by the workers in shops and depots across the city in informal meetings, outside union control. Workers said that they weren’t afraid of the Taylor law’s penalties of two days wages for each day on strike, and a million dollar fine against the union. The threat of a December 15th strike was very real, but it was a threat that emanated from the workers themselves, not the union. Willie James had only mumbled something vague about New Year’s Eve. New Directions was still not calling for a strike on December 15th; indeed their spokesman said they were afraid that Willie James would take the workers out on strike on the 15th without "> without "adequate preparation." Momentum grew for a formal decision to strike at a mass union meeting on the evening of December 14th.

The threat of draconian repression provides political cover union sabotage

To help its union pals, left and right, regain control of the movement, on the morning of the 14th, Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s administration obtained a sweeping court injunction against the strike, which not only threatened the standard Taylor law penalties, but also threatened to fine each worker who engaged in a strike individually the sum of $25,000 for the first day of the strike, and doubling each day thereafter (i.e., 50,000 the second day, 100,000 the third, etc.). The average transit worker who earns $39,000 per year, would have incurred fines of $175,000 for a 3-day strike. Not only that, members of the public were enjoined from advocating or instigating a strike, i.e. political groups, other workers, who might issue a leaflet or make a speech calling for a strike, could face fines and jail on contempt of court charges. on contempt of court charges. The injunction specifically barred the union from taking a strike vote at the union meeting. Both the union right and left wings quickly used the injunction as political cover to sabotage the strike movement among the workers, and thereby fulfill their obligations to the bourgeoisie.

Breaking the strike dynamic

The mood at the December 14th mass meeting attended by over 4,000 workers, was very militant. Despite the injunction, workers overwhelmingly wanted to strike. In their view the purpose of the meeting was to make the formal decision to strike. For the union, the purpose of the meeting was to let off steam and derail the strike movement. The left-wing New Directions executive board members were deemed best qualified to manage the process, and given control of the meeting. Despite pretenses at a democratic discussion, the only floor microphones that consistently worked were the ones located in the front of the meeting hall, near where the executive board members and the leftists were concentrated. Even when other microphones were finally working, the presidium called on their cronies at the mikes up front to speak disproportionatelynt to speak disproportionately. The presidium ignored calls for a strike vote and insisted this was an "informational" meeting only. A demagogic pledge that the meeting would continue all night was soon forgotten when it was announced that the executive board members had to leave for a secret meeting at union headquarters and the meeting would have to adjourn.

The leader of the New Directions group introduced a motion that the executive board be authorized to call a strike if there wasn’t a good contract offer, and to extend negotiations for 24 hours. Though this completely contradicted the whole discussion and sense of the meeting, which was that the workers wanted to decide themselves, it was quickly rammed through and the meeting was adjourned. Workers were stunned. People left the hall dazed and demoralized. New Directions had accomplished its task. About 500 workers rushed to the union hall to put pressure on the executive board, but by the time they got there the union had already ordered the elevator doors locked and the police arrived to seal off the building, and protect the union from the workers. Shortly after 2am, the union and the government announced that they had reached agreement on a contract offering 12% wage increase over 3 years. The strike was averted. The The strike was averted. The injunction, the confusion sown at the union meeting and the tentative contract had ended the movement of the workers. The strike dynamic was broken.

Confronting the Taylor law

The failure of the workers to take control of the meeting into their own hands prevented an open discussion of how to confront the legal repression of the Taylor law. The leftists from the extreme trotskyist groups employed a demagogic "fuck the Taylor law" rhetoric, which appealed to the workers’ defiance and emotion, at the same time that it kept them stuck in the straight-jacket of union control. Workers needed to discuss the threat of the Taylor law in the same manner in which they would discuss how to respond to any other threat of repression, such as police violence – with conscious action. In the case of the Taylor law this clearly required the mobilization of the broadest possible political support, by extending the struggle to the rest of the working class.

Under the changed circumstances of the repressive injunction, for the 4,000 workers at the meeting to call for the strike under union control was a trap. Instead, workers should have decided upon a plan to return to their shopsn to return to their shops and depots to hold meeting to discuss the situation and to elect delegates to genuinely represent what the workers thought and to meet again the next day to decide what to do. This would have provided a means not only to successfully confront the state repression, but also posed in a very concrete manner a way to challenge the control of the union, left and right.

While the bourgeoisie thus successfully averted a strike, it did not do so without "casualties." Rather than strengthening the union apparatus, the union has been exposed and is being questioned by the workers. Both the left and right are scampering to repair their tarnished images, the right by exaggerating the gains of the contract, and the left by radicalizing its language, calling for a rejection of the contract. At the same time unprecedented legal repression has exposed the lie of bourgeois democracy, not just for transit workers but for all public sector workers. There are many discussions going on among the workers.

There is a sense among workers that you can struggle, that you can go out on strike, that you can successfully resist attacks, and that neither the left nor right of the union can be trusted, but there is not yet an understanding of how to push the unions aside. Contracts for another 200,000 municipal workers are going to expire in the coming period. The Giuliani administration has already announced that it will offer only merit increases to perhaps 10 percent of the workforce, not across the board wage increases. The stage is sent for renewed confrontations in the public sector in New York. The ability of workers to build upon the lessons of the transit struggle will be a decisive factor in the struggle.

Jerry Grevin

What is New Democracy?

Reading the extensive propaganda published by this group (if it is really a group) in Discussion Bulletin and on its Web site, one would hope to find some references regarding its origins, political evolution or some claim of political affiliation. Wishful thinking! ND actually seems to have come from nowhere with some ready-made ideological remedies to the problems of today’s society. This political attitude of hiding one’s past, or pretending to be discoverers of political principles, is already quite suspect about the real political motivations of this group, mistrust that only grows as one goes to the essential content of its printed materials.

Reading ND documents one learns that it stands for, as developed in its "Statement of Principles," "a revolution to create a real democracy;" this revolution is necessary and possible, basically, because the present system is unjust, and "most people want the new world that only revolution can bring." And what is the social force of this revolution? "Ordinary people." It affirms that "revolution is possible because the struggle of ordinary people to humanize the world is the force that drives history."

On the other hand, by its own assertions, ND is "firmly opposed to marxism" and communism. In fact, as they say their raison de etre is to fight marxism: "Our goal in New Democracy is to spread an alternative to marxism" which to ND’s despair "unfortunately continues to be the only coherent and systematic model of social change posed as a revolutionary challenge to capitalism." And certainly, true to this open declaration of intentions, ND does not waste any opportunity in its documents to sneer at all the basics of Marxist theory, from historical materialism to communist revolution, proposing instead ND’s own alternative "model of social change and revolution" based on the "working pepole’s values of equality, solidarity, and democracy".

Thus ND is a group which poses as revolutionary, but whose real function is – even by its own account – to attack marxism: Attacks which it carries out quite well with the historically characteristic class hate that, ever since the appearance of the Communist Manifesto, the bourgeoisie has shown against marxism all over the world.

The methods of these attacks are – as they have been before ND – the most outrageous falsifications of marxist views, as well as the most servile repetition of the mountains of lies that the bourgeoisie has heaped against the working class movement during the last century.

Among these lies ND privileges, just as the bourgeoisie has done worldwide in the ‘democratic’ capitalist countries as well as in the "communist" ones, the lies that equate the now disappeared monstrous state capitalist regimes of Russia and its statellites with communism, and Stalinist ideology with Marxism. In a flyer entitled "the future of democratic revolution: why did communism fail?" ND esentially repeats these lies, adding its own little contribution to the bourgeosie’s campaign that equates stalinism with communism. According to ND the Russian Revolution of 1917 failed not only because it was communist but " because it was undemocratic" and guided by marxism which has "a negative view of working people, seeing them as "dehumanized" and motivated merely by self-interest. (Leading it) to play an anti-democratic and counterrevolutionary role." Of course ND is not referring here to the actual failure of the Russian revolution at the beginning of the 1920’s due to the isolation of the Russian proletarian bastion brought by the defeat of the revolutionary uprisings of the working class in other main capitalist countries of the epoch, but to the collapse of the Stalinist regimes at the beginning of the 90’s.

So again what is New Democracy? Since we understand, in accord with marxism, that political groups are the organized political expression of class interests, we recognize ND--because of its political activity-- is in a general sense a bourgeois group, whose main funtion is to spread distrust in the revolutionary traditions of marxism. However, ND, in its main field of action, seems more precisly to be an organized effort of the bourgeoisie to infiltrate the so-called "non-market, anti-statist, libertarian socialist" political milieu of which Discussion Bulletin is the main forum. And one cannot but be amazed by the welcome given to ND by people such as the DeLeonists that still have not officially renounced marxism. It is not accidental that ND has targeted this milieu and particulary its DeLeonist components. In fact, ND is preying in the DeLeonist milieu’s own confusions about bourgeois democracy and marxism, which we have often criticized. We think that it is time for this milieu to react and take a stand against ND’s activities and in particular for "Discussion Bulletin" to stop being a willing vehicle of the propaganda of this group.

Lastly, we want to express our solidarity with the criticisms that comrade ASm from Internationalist Notes (2) has made of this group in the Jan-Feb issue of "Discussion Bulletin." In particular, he is probably right to say that ND "platform is hardly more than a substitution of words…of those statements from organizations that spring from a marxist background." In other words ND has not really an alternative theory to marxism, and its obliged, in order to sound meaningful and coherent, to STEAL some marxist conceptions, taking them out of context and emptying them of revolutionary content, and then presenting the result of this abortion as ND’s own "theory of social change".

Eduardo Smit Eduardo Smith.

1.-Discussion Bulletin. PO Box 1564, Grand Rapids, MI 49501.

2.- Internationalist Notes PO Box 1531 Eau Claire, WI 54702

This was a social outrage. A demonstration beyond doubt of the license to kill that has been granted to the police to kill ‘suspects’

This man who was murdered was an immigrant to the United States from Africa

The Diallo killing is not the only incident in which police have clearly used inexcusable force in situations where there was not crime taking place

It is one of the most highly publicized, blatant incidents. The complete exoneration in a jury trial is a warning to the population at large

We understand and share the outrage. But outrage is not enough. The ruling class is turning the outrage of workers against the working class itself by unleashing a campaign of democratic mystification. The slogan of ‘no justice, no peace’ is senseless. Under capitalism there can never be justice nor peace. The campaign for better police--minority relations, the calls for more black or Hispaniccalls for more black or Hispanic cops, for more sensitivity training, for more ‘community meetings’ is designed to steer the outrage into meaningless campaigns to reform capitalism’s most hideous aspect--its repressive apparatus. As before, capitalism kills and uses its cops to do so. To end police brutality, we must end capitalism

Diallo was a victim of a ‘street crimes group’ within the police department under Mayor Giuliani’s administration. What is important to understand is not just the anger of so much of the population in New York, not just the fear among the people in the city. It is not just the recognition that the police and the government in one of the largest cities in the world support the shooting of citizens ‘suspected’ of criminal intentions

What is crucial to understand is the connection of the government, the state, to the general population and in particular the working class. The government, despite all the rhetoric of democracy and service to the people, is not in place to be the friend and advocate of the vast majority of the population. The working class and the poor can have no realistic expectation that their needs will be addressed by the state. Only the corporations and the bureaucrats and the wealthy can have such expectations fulfilled under the current system

For all the talk of the victory of freedom and democracy which has been around since the collapse of the old Russian bloc... for all the talk of America as ‘the land of liberty’.... what is happening as the living and working conditions continue on their downward spiral, even as the stock markets, riding high on speculation, go up and up, is that the majority of the population in general, neither shares in the wealth nor feels safe walking the streets in the cities of America, big or small

This is not simply an American problem, although Americans on a daily basis are aware of crime in their community, and what seems worse, the violence perpetrated on the population by the so-called defenders of law and order

The continuing and genuine economic crisis of world capitalism, most often masked by the media reports via television, radio and the press, which glamorize the wealthy who make money on the roulette wheels of speculation

The situation for the vast majority in the US and around the world, even including most of the strongest economies in the world, continues in a downward direction, in terms of real income and in living conditions

Violence perpetrated among the poor and ‘lumpenized’ population may be real, as desperate people strive to survive, but the greater violence comes from the greater violence comes from the government, from the state, which launches teams of armed men and women in uniforms and in plain clothes to keep the people in line through intimidation and violence. The population of major cities in the US are not simply afraid of violence on the streets, today in cities, like New York, are afraid of those so-called friends and defenders of the people, the police, who regularly shoot and beat people who are in the ‘wrong place at the wrong time.’ The working class needs to have no illusions in the police. They are armed bands of men and women in service to the state, which does not represent the needs of the vast majority, but defends the interest of the ruling class

We must never let ourselves acclimate to the police terror of the state.

-- E. Fischer

By the end of the first Super Tuesday primary elections, the campaigns of Bill Bradley and John McCain were stopped. Gore and Bush, the front runners from the beginning, had each reached the point where the two ‘also-ran’ candidates, made of show of deciding that it was not likely that anyone could block their more ‘popular’ respective candidacies. What was most probable in the primary campaigns of the two major parties, was that Bill Bradley and John McCain both ran without the expectation or even the intention of winning their parties’ respective nominations for the presidency. The fact that there was competition in the early races, appearing to make it a ‘horse race’, allowed for a better and more interesting show for the general population and a reinforcement of the credibility of the electoral system in the US. In reality, most of the decisions as to who becomes cisions as to who becomes the candidates of the major parties, are routinely determined outside the glare of public scrutiny and the elections will be manipulated by politicians in concert with the media.

While there may be some specific differences on political points, the issues separating Bush (a center/right candidate) and Gore (a center/left candidate) are not very major. In fact, the most major policy decision seems to have been taken in the loss of McCain. It was McCain who had the strongest policy difference among the four candidates. McCain had differences on the level of foreign policy, particularly concerning relations with China.

Since the Nixon presidency, the US has placed strong emphasis on developing relations with China, seeing the China card as essential to its influence in Asia. China is the most populous country in the world, a nuclear power and over time may become a major trading partner with the US. In fact Asia itself has become a serious concern within the American ruling class. With huge and increasing populations in Asian countries, from India and Pakistan, which are now both in possession of nuclear bomb, to Bengla Desh, Indonesia and Malaysia, this portion of the world has potential for major conflicts in terms of civil wars and international conflicts. Of courseternational conflicts. Of course, the US move to strengthen its links of policy and trade with China have increased the level of tension with one of the most powerful economies in the world, Japan. Japan’s dominant class, without doubt, sees its country as the most obvious and strongest contender for leadership in the region.

Since the 1970’s, the American Presidents’ foreign policy was oriented toward friendly links to China, even when some embarrassments occurred, as in the case of state secrets being leaked to China. This has been the policy despite the fact that Japan is more stable than China. In this year’s primary campaigns, the only major presidential hopeful who voiced disagreements with the general orientation of foreign policy with regard to China, was McCain. And McCain was clearly defeated by Bush. The race in the Republican primaries was therefore much more significant than the counterpart in the Democratic party.

Since the collapse of the cold war with the eastern bloc and the subsequent disappearance of the western bloc (the end of the ‘cold war’), there has been a renewed debate about the China policy. It was this dispute on policy which behind the scenes led to the impeachment process against Clinton. The faction among the AmericThe faction among the American ruling circles which opposed a pro-China policy used the Lewinsky affair and other Clinton missteps to attempt to replace the president. But the anti-China fraction was so badly defeated by the end of the impeachment trial, they have not been able to mount a meaningful challenge to the leading factions in the major parties. The anti-China fraction was represented by the candidacy of McCain, who could only make a symbolic show of opposition.

Bradley’s campaign may have stimulated interest in the Democratic primary elections for a while, but his participation did not represent any real, divergent political viewpoint so much as a different personality. What his campaign accomplished was to generate more interest in the Democratic race, than if Gore was the only Democrat running. Without a primary race in the Democratic party, Gore’s campaign would have had much less publicity and press, and might have been hurt relative to the ultimate campaign against George W. Bush.

With a ‘compassionate conservative’ in George W. Bush and a moderate liberal in Al Gore both running for president, the race for president may boil down to shades of nuance. They are both reasonably placed toward the center of American ruling class politics. Both Gore and Bush are olitics. Both Gore and Bush are sons of powerful American politicians. Al Gore’s father had a long career as Senator from Tennessee and George Bush (the elder) was Head of the CIA, Vice President for eight years under Reagan and President for four years.

Of course, their family lineage is not in itself important except to the extent that we can see that both have strong ruling class backgrounds and are well positioned among the powerful elite in American politics. The fact is, though, that the politicians, the media and others who have worked so hard to manipulate the races in both parties, have made it clear that they do not want accidents or loose cannons. They want a President who has grown up solidly ensconced in the families of the power elite and who is hopefully well prepared to carry on the tradition of political power and leadership.

The joker in the deck, this election year, may turn out to come from a third party run by the likes of Pat Buchanan or some one else on the Reform Party ticket. This party initially put in place with the funding and political force of Ross Perot has continued on and may very well run a candidate for president, potentially impacting the election results. Buchanan’s ability to siphon off right wing votes from the Republican party may once again contrlican party may once again contribute to the loss of a Presidential vote for another George Bush.

What is clear, as of this writing, is that the candidates for President have been carefully screened and put into place, with campaigns that only gave an illusion to the voters that they had impact on the decision of the primary season. The politics supported by each major party nominee is not all that far from the political position of his opponent for the coming election. While this helps to avoid any dangerous surprises in the outcome, it also leaves room for manipulation, via media manipulation and third party campaigns (Reform Party), to get the results most beneficial from the ruling class point of view for the next four years.

What the working class wants and needs is by no means helped by the coming elections. The terrain for workers to fight for the concerns and necessities is the terrain of the class struggle. Whoever gets elected, Bush or Gore, will be the express agent of the capitalist class, and no real friend of the working class. It is only the class struggle itself -- and not the capitalist electoral process -- which will make possible the real and lasting improvement of working and living conditions for the working class. Ultimately, the working class has to confront capitalism, its barbarism and its exploitation to allow an end to capitalist decadence and the growing barbarism, and the construction of a new social order based on the rule of the vast majority of the population.

-- Eric Fischer