Workers Vanguard No 769 - 23 November 2001

7/29/2019 Workers Vanguard No 769 - 23 November 2001

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No. 769 4 ~ X . S 2 3 50

23 November 2001

U.S.-Backed Killers Take Kabul

AFP U.S./UN/NATO Hicks/GellyOut of Afghanistan andCentral Asia Now!NOVEMBER 20-Surprising even theirU.S. imperialist patrons, Northern Alliance forces seized the northern Afghancity of Mazar-i-Sharif and then Kabul lastweek as Taliban troops retreated from onetown after another. Hailed as "liberators"by Washington and the Western media,the Northern Alliance cutthroats arealready displaying the internecine feuding and murderous barbarity of their fouryears in power in the mid-1990s. Basedlargely on the minority Tajik and Uzbekpeoples, Northern Alliance forces havereportedly massacred hundreds of ethnicPashtun and other Taliban prisoners.Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld brags

that U.S. commando units are now roaming freely through Afghanistan in a manhunt for anyone allegedly connected toOsama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network,while U.S. bombs rain down on Kandahar and Kunduz, where fierce fightingstill rages between the Taliban and itsrivals. On November 13, American missiles slammed into the Kabul office ofAI-Jazeera, t h ~ Arab-language satellitechannel that the U;S. leaders of the "freeworld" have been trying to silence sincethe beginning of the war for its coverageof the death and destruction wreaked bythe imperialists.The war-crazed American imperialistshave already begun plotting "Phase 2" ofthe "war on terrorism," which Vice P r e s i ~ dent Cheney has warned "may never end,at least not in our lifetime." The LondonGuardian (17 November) reports: "Theease with which Kabul has fallen hasencouraged hawks within the US administration who are keen to extend militaryaction, particularly against Iraq." U.S.hands of/Iraq!In moving into Kabul, the NorthernAlliance forces openly flouted U.S. diktat.

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Red Cross warehouse in Kabul destroyed by U.S. bombing. U.S.-backedNorthern Alliance troops murder wounded Taliban soldier on road to Kabul.Now the imperialists are scrambling toconjure up a "broad-based" governmentunder United Nations auspices, drawingin particularly the predominant Pashtuntribes. According to the London Indepen-dent (17 November), U.S., British andFrench strategists worked out a plan where"Afghanistan will be divided between thethree countries into 'zones of influence'."Kabul is supposed to be occupied by "astrong international Muslim presence"dominated by Turkish troops, who areseasoned in the slaughter of the Kurdishnational minority in Turkey. Frenchtroops are slated to move into Mazar-iSharif and British forces are now positioned at the Bagram air base near Kabul.Taking hits on its own territory in theattacks on the World Trade Center andPentagon, American imperialism lashedout at Afghanistan to assert its unchallenged supremacy as the world's nuclearcowboy. Now that the U.S. and WestEuropean imperialists are in the region,they will doubtless try to grab whateverthey can get their hands on, including thevast oil and natural gas reserves in Central Asia. But as one Afghan intellectualrecently observed, "It is impossible topredict what is going to happen in thiscountry in an hour." Having stoked allmanner of ethnic and regional antagonisms, the imperialists have opened up aPandora's box that they may not be' ableto seal with their schemes for "zones ofinfluence" and the like. And whatever

they do, their presence will only deepenthe misery and destruction alreadywreaked upon benighted Afghanistan .. U.S.lUNINATO out of Afghanistan,Central Asia, the Persian Gulf and theNear East!Northern Alliance:Woman-Hating Killers

Mostly in order to mai:ntain liberal support at home for the war in Afghanistan,the imperialists and their media mouthpieces have portrayed the Northern Alliance as bearers of "freedom" for theAfghan masses, especially women. Thisfiction has also been promoted by thesocial-democratic left in Europe. In Parisin late September, the fake-TrotskyistLigue Communiste Revolutionnaire joinedwith the three governing parties-theSocialists, Communists and Greens-inbuilding a rally for Afghan "women'srights" that was shot through with portraits of assassinated Northern Allianceleader Ahmed Shah Massoud.In the U.S., even "First Lady" LauraBush, whose husband's administrationwould be happy to see every abortionclinic in this country burned to theground, gave a radio address on Saturday denouncing the Taliban's "brutalityagainst women." CNN has been televising images Qf women no longer wearingthe head-to-toe burqa in "liberated"Kabul-above a "Women's Liberation"logo, no less! But as Maureen Dowd

We Said: Hail Red Army in Afghanistan!Defeat [IAls Islamic Cutthroats!u.s. Imperialism and theEnslavement of Afghan Women

See Page 4

noted in the New York Times (18 November): "Most have held off burning burkasbecause, as one woman put it, 'Theysay the Taliban beat first and asked questions afterward. They say the NorthernAlliance asks questions first and beatsafterward' ."The display of crocodile tears byAmerican rulers for the enslaved womenof Afghanistan is the most repulsivehypocrisy. TheTaliban, Osama bin Ladenand the rest of the Islamic fundamentalist killers are Frankenstein's monstersunleashed by the U.S. in the 1980sagainst the Soviet Red Army, whichbrought the only hope of emancipationfor the hideously oppressed women ofAfghanistan (see "U.S. Imperialism andthe Enslavement of Afghan Women,"page 4). 'fhe Soviet military presencethere was one of the few truly progressiveacts carried out by the Stalinist bureaucracy, offering the possibility of extendingthe social gains of the 1917 Russian Revolution to the downtrodden and impoverished Afghan peoples. When the Kremlinannounced that it was withdrawing Soviettroops, we declared, "Russia Must WinAfghan War!" and warned: "The price forthis obscene bid to placate U.S. imperialism is to hand over hundreds of thousandsof Afghans to be tortured, flayed alive,beheaded and dismembered as infidels bythe mullahs, tribal khans and feudal landlords. This is tleachery!" (WV No. 444,15 January 198).And the forces that make up the Northern Alliance-not least among them thelate, unlamented Massoud-constitutedthe bulk of the anti-woman cutthroatsbankrolled by the CIA to kill Soviet soldiers. During the four years those sameforces ruled Afghanistan, they killedcountless civilians, perpetrated massrapes and enslaved women in the veil.After a bloody year-long civil war inwhich 50,000 Kabulis were slaughteredand the city reduced to rubble, Massoud'smainly Tajik forces took control of Kabulin 1995, expelling the Shi'ite MuslimHazara minority from the capital.continued on page 10


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Federal Judge Bars Evidenceof Mumia's Innocence AgainThis coming December 9, Mumia AbuJamal will have been behind bars a full 20years for a crime he did not commit, the1981 killing of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. On October 15,U.S. District Court judge William Yohn

Jamal is an innocent man who should nothave spent a day in prison. Free Mumianow!Much of this wealth of new evidenceis detailed in the Partisan Defense Committee pamphlet published in September,Mumia Abu-Jamal Is an Innocent Man!This fall, Jamal filed four additional affidavits which buttress the new evidencein every respect, from exposing the glaring discrepancies in the prosecution'sphysical and ballistics evidence to indicting the treachery of Jamal's former leadcounsel, Leonard Weinglass, who sabotaged Mumia's defense by burying theBeverly confession and other evidence ofJamal's innocence.

Free Mumia Now!barred for the second time the sworntestimony of Arnold Beverly, who twoyears ago confessed that he shot Faulknerand that "Jamal had nothing to do withthe shooting," blowing the prosecution'sframe-up to bits. Yohn's new order is onemore brick in the wall of silence the bourgeois prosecutors, courts and media havetried to build around the explosive newevidence that confirms that Mumia Abu-

Yohn also ruled that Jamal is barredfrom raising Beverly's confession in federal court because he has not yet presented this new evidence in the Penn-

TROTSKY

The Imperialist State:War and RepressionDuring and immediately after the firstinterimperialist world war, the U.S. bourgeoisie jailed Socialist Party leader Eugene

V. Debs and other opponents of the war aswell as scores of IWW labor militants (Wobblies), threw Socialists elected to Congressand state assemblies out of office for "sedition" and deported thousands of suspectedradicals in the 1919-1920 Palmer Raids.Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky noted the ten-LENIN

dency ofall imperialist states, as seen particularly during World War I, to contract thescope of parliamentary democracy in order to defend the class interests and rule ofthe bourgeoisie."Imperialism," wrote Marx of the Empire of Napoleon III, "is the most prostituted,and, at the same tilJle, perfected form of the state which the bourgeoisie, having attainedits fullest development, transforms into a weapon for the enslavement of labour bycapital." This definit ion has a wider significance than for the FreJlch Empire alone, andincludes the latest form of imperialism, born of the world conflict between the nationalcapitalisms of the great powers. In the economic sphere, imperialism pre-supposed thefinal collapse of the rule of the middle class; in the political sphere, it signified thecomplete destruction of democracy by means of an internal molecular transforma-.tion, and a universal subordination of all democracy's resources to its own ends ... Thelast great slaughter-the bloody font in which the bourgeois world attempted to be re

baptized-presented to us a picture, unparalleled in history, of ~ h e mobilization of allstate forms, systems of government, political tendencies, religions, and schools ofphilosophy, in the service of imperialism. Even many of those pedants who slept throughthe preparatory period of imperialist development during the last decades, and continued to maintain a traditional attitude towards ideas of democracy and universal suffrage,began to feel during the war that their accustomed ideas had become fraught with somenew meaning ... Imperialism succeeded by means of all. the resources it had at itsdisposal, including parliamentarism, irrespective of the electoral arithmetic of voting,to subordinate for its own purposes at the critical moment the lower middle classes ofthe towns and country and even the upper layers of the proletariat. ... In all countries thequestion of the control of the state assumed first-class importance as a question of anopen measuring of forces between the capitalist clique, openly or secretly supreme anddisposing of hundreds of thousands of mobilized and hardened officers, devoid of allscruple, and the revolting, revolutionary proletariat; while the intermediate classes wereliving in a state of terror, confusion, and prostration. Under such conditions, what pitiful nonsense are speeches about the peaceful conquest of power by the proletariat bymeans of democratic parliamentarism!

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-Leon Trotsky, Terrorism and Communism (1920)

EDITOR: Len MeyersEDITOR. YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Anna WoodmanPRODUCTION MANAGER: Susan FullerCIRCULATION MANAGER: Irene GardnerEDITORIAL BOARD: Karen Cole (managing editor), Bruce Andre, Ray Bishop, Jon Brule,George Foster, Liz Gordon, Walter Jennings, Jane Kerrigan, James Robertson, Joseph Seymour,Alison SpencerThe Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League (FourthInternationalist).Workers Vanguard (ISSN 0276-0746) published biweekly, except skipping three alternate issues in June, July andAugust (beginning with omitting the .second issue in June) and with a 3-week interval in December, by the Spartacist Publishing Co., 299 Broadway, Suite 318, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 732-7862 (Editorial), (212) 732-7861(Business). Address ali correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. E-mail address:[email protected] subscriptions: $10.00/22 issues. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and additional mailing offices.POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Workers Vanguard, Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116.Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint.The closing date for news in this issue is 20 November.No. 769 23 November 2001

sylvania state court system. But in avicious Catch-22, Yohn also turned downa defense motion to put the federal proceeding on hold while Mumia pursuesBeverly's confession in an appeal pending before Philadelphia Common PleasCourt judge Pamela Dembe.The fight to free Mumia is even moreurgent now, as the racist rulers attackdemocratic rights and massively augmentthe bourgeois state's repressive powers inthe name of "anti-terrorism," allowingwiretaps of lawyer-client communications and trials of suspected "terrorists"in military tribunals. But long before anyof these new measures, Jamal was subjected to a blatant frame-up involvingracist jury-rigging and the denial of hisright to select his own attorney. And later,as he prepared his 1995 Post-ConvictionRelief appeal, state and prison officialsintercepted and opened confidential legalcommunications between Mumia and hisattorneys.The current "anti-terrorist" hysteriaonly underscores that in the fight forJamal's freedom there can be no illusionsin the capitalist courts. Mumia's frame-upreaches into the highest levels of lawenforcement and government: Tom Ridge,George W. Bush's chief of "HomelandSecurity," signed two warrants forMumia's execution when he was Pennsylvania governor, while during her recentre-election bid, radio ads for Philly'sDemocratic Party D.A. Lynne Abrahamcrowed about her "vigorous" oppositionto Jamal's fight for freedom.In a November 2 court filing, Jamal'sdefense team points to the "direct andchilling historical parallel" betweenMumia's frame-up and the 1920s case ofSacco and Vanzetti. These Italian workerswere convicted because they were immigrants who espoused anarchist politics,and were sent to the electric chair evenafter a man involved in the crime forwhich they were framed up had confessedand exonerated them. Hundreds of thousands were mobilized in an internationalcampaign of protest spearheaded bythe International Labor Defense (ILD),whose heritage' the PDC today continues.

WV PhotoSpartacist contingent at August 18San Francisco protest for Jamal.As sharp turns unfolded in the legaland political battles on behalf of Saccoand Vanzetti, ILD national secretaryJames P. Cannon warned against all illusions in the "justice" and "fair play" ofthe courts and other institutions of theclass enemy:"The new developments bring out morethan ever, and with crystal clearness, theclass basis of this famous case. Theyshow that it is a case of workers againstexploiters-with Sacco and Vanzetti, thevictims elected for the holocaust, standing out before the whole world as therepresentatives of the exploited class.The class-struggle policy in the fight forSacco and Vanzetti was right from thebeginning and is a thousand times rightnow. The power that can save Sacco andVanzetti is the power of the masses."-"New Developments-NewDangers" (19 August 1927),reprinted in Notebookof an Agitator (1973)The forces of bourgeois "law andorder" want to kill Jamal to silence forever this former Black Panther Partyspokesman, MOVE supporter and journalist who is an eloquent fighter for blackfreedom. The reasons why are clear: evenfrom his death row cell, Mumia AbuJamal continues to speak out against thisracist imperialist system, denouncing theU.S. war on Afghanistan (see "In Search

of a Holy War," page 3). Today we mustredouble our efforts to mobilize massprotest centered on labor's power todemand: Free Mumia now! Abolish theracist death penalty!.

8eneflt for CIIIII-Wllr PrilOllerlOrganize for Jamal's Freedom...,. N e w y q ~ f ( . ,>II\'Friday, November 306 to 9 p.m.

AFSCME District Council 170775 Varick St. (at Canal), 14th flFor more information:(212) 406-4252

P.O. Box 99, Canal St. Sta.New York, NY 10013

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For more information:(312) 563-0442P.O. Box 802867Chicago, IL 60680

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For more information:(510) 839-0852P.O. Box 77462San Francisco, CA 94107

SPONSOR: PARTISAN DEFENSE COMMITTEE

Get Your Copy ofPARTISAN DEFENSECOMMITTEE PAMPHLETNew E\tidence Explodes Frame-Up:Declarations and affidavits of MumiaAbu-Jamal, Arnold R. Beverly,Rachel Wolkenstein and othersprove that death row politicalprisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal isan innocent man.$.50 (32 pages)Order from/pay to:Partisan Defense CommitteeP.O. Bo x 99, Canal Street StationNe w York, NY 10013

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TODAY. (H. El.1erbe,The Dark Side of Christian History, [1995], p. 50)Are the Taliban unique in their aversion to women?

In Search of a Holy WarThe great Church Father, Tertullian once said ofwomen: You are the devil's gateway: you are theunsealer of that tree: you are the first deserter of thedivine law: you are she who persuaded him (Adam)whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. Youdestroyed so easily God's image, man. On account ofyour desert-that is, death-even the Son of God hadto die. (Ellerbe, p. 115).

"Fervor is the weapon of choice of the impotent."- Dr. Frantz FanonThroughout American history, one thing hasremained constant; the continuous effort of the state,and its ruling elites, to demonize some person, orsome group, as a predicate for war. We are all in themidst of but the latest expression of this exercise.This was visible in the very first hours after the suicide bombings and destruction of the twin towers ofthe World Trade Center in New York City, and theaerial strike against the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.Remember when the politicians lectured the nationabout, 'This is a battle between good and evil"? Howabout, "This is against those who oppose civilization

itself'? There is a close tie, but the latest figures forglobal demonization .are Usama bin-Ladin and theruling clique in war-ravaged Afghanistan, the Taliban.What is interesting, when you look back a fewyears, is the similarity with other historical figures,like Saddam Hussein, or Manuel Noriega of Panama.Why are these disparate figures similar?Well, before the U.S. media machine assured usthey were devils incarnate, they boasted of theirfriendship with the Americans. Messrs. bin-Ladin,

Hussein and the forerunners of the Taliban werearmed, and/or trained by the CIA, or directly by themilitary industries, to fight against the Russians (thenthe Soviets) and the Iranians under the late AyatollahKhomeini.General Noriega was best buds with George I (theformer President) Bush, as long as he was helpingU.S. efforts to destabilize the Sandinistas when theyran Nicaragua. When he got tired of playing alongwith Washington, the media began its drumbeatagainst the General. "He's dealing in drugs!" "Hisgovernment isn 't democratic!"The Taliban's biggest exposure, before 11 Sept.,2001, was the destruction of ancient Buddhist shrinesin Afghanistan. When I heard of it, I could not help butthink of the acts of Pope Gregory I, of whom it is said:Marble statues of ancient Rome were torn down,most notably by Gregory the Great, and made intolime. Architectural marbles and mosaics were eithermade into lime or went to 'adorn cathedrals a ~ l overEurope and as far away as Westminster Abbey inLondon. The ravaging of marble works accounts forthe thin ornate slabs WITH ANCIENT INSCRIPTIONS STILL FOUND IN MANY CHURCHES

The 6th Century Christian philosopher, Boethiusonce wrote, in his The Consolation of Philosophy,"Woman is a temple built upon a sewer."Few are the writers and historians who point tosuch Christian historical figures and label them as"religious fanatics."And before some wag claims I am an apologist forthe Taliban, I need only point out that it was the U.S.CIA, who paved the way for them to come into being,by their support of the destruction of the Sovietbacked Najibullah government. Afghanistan is theway it is today, because the American CIA, and Pakistani intelligence wanted it that way.Let us beware of religious wars. Being human, wehave more than enough madness to go around.27 September 2001 2001 Mumia Abu-Jamal

Send urgently needed contributions for Mumia'slegal defense, earmarked "Mumia Abu-Jamal," to:Humanitarian Law Project, 8124 W. 3rd Street,Suite 105, Los Angeles, CA 90048.

I f you wish to correspond with Jamal, you canwrite to: Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM8335, SCI Greene,175 Progress Drive, Waynesburg , PA 15370.

CIA Provocations, IslamicReactionaries and Soviet InterventionWhen the Soviet Union moved troopsinto Afghanistan on 27 December 1979 todefend its southern flank against a U.S.backed Islamic insurgency, the imperialist rulers seized the occasion to launch arenewed Cold War offensive aimed atdestroying the homeland of the OctoberRevolution. For Marxists, there was nothing tricky about the war pitting the Sovietdegenerated workers state and its leftnationalist allies in Kabul against a reactionary cabal of CIA-financed mujahedin,mullahs and tribal chiefs committed tothe enslavement of Afghan women. Thegut-level response of any leftist shouldhave been the fullest solidarity withthe Req Army. However, virtually everyfake-revolutionary group internationallyechoed the imperialists' howls aboutSoviet "aggression" against "poor littleAfghanistan" and joined in demanding,"Soviet troops out!"In fact, Soviet forces intervened inAfghanistan only after repeated requestsby the Kabul regime and well after theU.S., as well as Iran and Pakistan, hadstarted funneling aid to the mujahedin. Aposting on the George Washington University National Security Archive Web

site, "Afghanistan: The Making of U.S.Policy (1973-1990)," reports: "Startingin April 1979, eight months before theSoviet intervention ... the United Stateshad, in fact, begun quietly meeting rebelrepresentatives." Among those was Gulbudd n Hekmatyar, a mujahedin cutthroat then in Pakistan who was notorious for throwing acid in the faces ofunveiled women at Kabul University. InJuly 1979, Democratic president JimmyCarter signed a secret CIA directive officially launching what would become thebiggest covert operation in the CIA's history. Carter's national security adviser,Zbigniew Brzezinski, later gloated inan interview in Le Nouvel Observateur23 NOVEMBER 2001

Cold Warrior Brzezinski at KhyberPass overlookiog Afghanistan, 1980.(15 January 1998): "That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had theeffect of drawing the Russians into theAfghan trap."The Soviet bureaucracy initially resisted intervening militarily in Afghani-

Socialist WorkerTroops our of Afghanisranlgil!;;1 ~ : 12 January 1980 (British SWP)

stan, even as the People's DemocraticParty (PDPA) regime in Kabul provedunable to stem the rising fundamentalistthreat stoked by the U.S. This comesthrough clearly in a series of Soviet documents from 1979, recently posted inEnglish translation on the National Security Archive Web site. A number of thedocuments are from the period followinga March 1979 uprising by fundamentalists in the Afghan city of Herat, in whichhundreds of government officials and Soviet advisers were massacred. The SovietPolitburo debated desperate requests byPDPA prime minister Noor MohammedTaraki for. an immediate Soviet militaryintervention. In a phone conversation withSoviet premier Alexei Kosygin, Tarakipleaded:"Why can't the Soviet Union send Uz-'beks, Tajiks and Turkmens in civilianclothing? .. We want you to send them.They could drive tanks, because we haveall these nationalities in Afghanistan. Letthem don Afghan costume and wearAfghan badges and no one will recognizethem."

Repeatedly, Politburo members declared: "Under no circumstances may welose Afghanistan." Yet Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko, arguing against

sending troops into Afghanistan, soundedfor all the world like a trade-unionbureaucrat recoiling at the prospect ofupsetting cozy relations with the capitalists by calling a strike:"All that we have done in recent yearswith such effort in terms of detente, armsreduction, and much more-all thatwould be thrown back .... From a legalpoint of view too we would not be justified in sending troops. According to theUN Charter a country can appeal forassistance, and we could send troops, incase it is subject to external aggression.Afghanistan has not been subject to anyaggression."Though aw:1re of the fact that both Pakistan and Iran had provided arms andtraining to the fundamentalist insurgents in Herat, the Politburo rejectedTaraki's pleas for an immediate militaryintervention.What finally compelled Moscow topour troops into Afghanistan was the fearthat the PDPA regime, with Taraki assassinated and his successor, HafizullahAmin, reportedly making approaches toWashington, was about to collapse inthe face of the reactionary Islamic jihad(holy war). Moreover, the Soviet highcommand anxiously watched as U.S.

continued on page ]0

British SWP, U.S. Progressive Labor Party and Revolutionary Communist Party youth group: lining up behindimperialisfanti-Communism against Red Army in Afghanistan.

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We Said: Hail Red Army in Afghanistan!,Defeat (IAls Islamic (utthroats!u.s. Imperialism and theEnslavement of Afghan Women

We print below edited excerpts from apresentation by Spartacist League spokes-man Carla Norris at an October 25 NewYork SL forum.As we meet tonight, cruise missiles,cluster bombs and mortar shells are raining down on Kabul, Kandahar and otherparts of Afghanistan, killing hundreds ofdefenseless ~ o m e n , children and menand driving many others into diseaseinfested refugee camps. What few hospitals exist in that benighted country arebeing flattened and roads and other infrastructure destroyed in what U.S. president Bush promises will be a "sustainedand relentless" military assault. Againstsuch high-tech barbarism, the SpartacistLeague-U.S. section of the International Communist League-stands forthe defense of Afghanistan against imperialist attack, and for class struggle hereat home against the bloodthirsty U.S.capitalist class.So all of a sudden, there are all thesearticles in the capitalist press about theneed to save Afghan women. It's one ofthe ways the U.S. imperialists and theirliberal supporters are justifying this onesided war. There has been a spate of articles and documentaries on the horribleconditions that women suffer in Afghanistan under the Taliban's savage andbackward regime. And the plight ofAfghan women is dire. Women are hideously oppressed: forbidden to evenshow their faces, stifled in 30 yards ofdusty fabric, prey to high levels of tuberculosis as a result.The veil is a physical symbol of thesubjugation of women. They are forbidden to learn to read and write, to work,to walk too loudly or laugh, or to leavetheir house unaccompanied by a malerelative. For some 30,000 widows inKabul, begging is the only way to earn afew coins for their children, and widowsare permitted to beg on the street onlybetween dusk and the 9 p.m. curfew.Medical services are essentially unavailable to women, since there are hardly anywomen medical workers and male doctors are prohjbited from touching women.But the media's sudden attention to thewomen of Afghanistan is tailored to suitthe aims of the U.S. bourgeoisie. For onething, although the oppres,sion has certainly intensified in the last several years,it didn't start with the Taliban in 1996;In 1992, three years after Soviet leader

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Kabul, 1993: Mujahedin forces that now make up U.S.-backedAlliance enslaved women in head-to-toe veil.Mikhail Gorbachev betrayed the Afghanpeople-and the USSR-by withdrawingSoviet military forces, the U.S.-backed,-trained and -financed Islamic fundamentalists took power in Kabul. The recentlykilled leader of the' U.S.-allied NorthernAlliance, Ahmed Shah Massoud, became,as defense minister, the strongman of thisfundamentalist regime, which lasted untilthe Taliban drove it out of the capital. Themain division between the various fundamentalist groups has always been definedalong ethnic and tribal lines: the NorthernAlliance is based largely on the TajiksandUzbeks; the Taliban is based mainlyon the Pashtun people, the largest ethnicgroup in Afghanistan and one whichextends well into Pakistan.In power, Massoud's forces carried outmass slaughter, torture and rape of rivalethnic populations. Massoud's mujahedinregime decreed that the country wouldbe governed by Islamic sharia law. Allworkers were required to observe fixedprayer times. Books deemed anti-religiouswere burned in the streets. A series ofordinances were decreed governing thebehavior of women, including that a

Paris, September29: Governmentbacked rally for"women's rights" inAfghanistan hailedassassinatedNorthern Alliancecutthroat Massoud.

woman must cover her whole body, thatshe must not leave the house withouther husband's permission, that she mustnot look upon strangers, and that womenwearing perfume were to be consideredadulteresses (a, "crime" punishable by, being stoned to death).Where were all the defenders ofwomen's rights when this was happening? Here we get to the crux of the matter: the U.S. had spent billions to arm,train and fund the mujahedin cutthroatsin order to kill Soviet troops and proSoviet Afghans in the 1980s, during thefirst war ever sparked by the question ofwomen's rights. The feminists as well asvirtually every left group in this countrybesides the Spartacist League lined upwith the U.S. government's anti-Sovietcrusade in Afghanistan.In December 1979, the Soviet Union'Sent 100,000 troops, mainly from SovietCentral Asia, into Afghanistan in orderto stem an insurgem:y of mujahedinfighters, mullahs and landlords againstthe left-nationalist People's DemocraticParty (PDPA) government, which hadrequested the Soviet aid. We forthrightlydeclared: "Hail Red Army in Afghanistan! Extend the social gains of the Russian Revolution to the Afghan peoples!"These slogans expressed our recognitionthat despite its degeneration under aStalinist bureaucratic caste, the SovietUnion remained a workers state embodying the historic gains of the October Revolution of 1917-centrally theplanned economy and collectivized property. These were enormous gains not leastfor women and the historically Islamicpeoples of Soviet Central Asia (what isnow Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan,Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan). Withinweeks of the Soviet troops going in, theinternational Spartacist tendency, nowthe International Communist League,held demonstrations calling for military

defense of the USSR and for victory tothe Red Army.Compare the abysmal conditions underwhich women in Afghanistan live nowwith some facts from 1988, before Sovietforces were withdrawn. Then there were245,000 women workers, while 15,000women served as soldiers and commanders in the army. Women made up 40 percent of the doctors and 60 percent of theteachers at the University of Kabul;440,000 female students were enrolled ineducational institutions and 80,000 moreparticipated in literacy programs. TheAll-Afghanistan Women's Council had150,000 members. Western dress wascommon in the cities and women enjoyedsome real measure of freedom from theveil and SUbjugation, for the first time inAfghanistan'S history.Despite the zillions of dollars of aidand weapons provided for the mujahedinby the U.S. and its allies, the SovietUnion was not militarily defeated inAfghanistan. Over ten years of war, theUSSR lost some 13-15,000 soldiers. Byway of comparison, the U.S. lost 50,000soldiers in Vietnam. But in a vain attemptto placate U.S. imperialism, the KremlinStalinists had pulled Soviet troops out byearly 1989, handing over hundreds ofthousands of Afghan women, leftists andworkers to be tortured, flayed alive,beheaded and dismembered as "infidels."We denounced this betrayal. In solidarity with the Afghan masses, who werewaging a bitter struggle for survival in thewake of the Soviet withdrawal, we formally proposed to the Afghan government, in a letter dated 7 February 1989,the following: "To organize an international brigade to fight to the death" todefend "the right of women to read, freedom from the veil, freedom from the tyranny of the mullahs and the landlords, theintroduction of medical care and the rightof all to hn education." And we were deadserious about this.Although the Afghan government declined our offer, at its request the Partisan'Defense Committee (the class-strugglelegal and social defense organizationassociated with the Spartacist League)and the PDC's fraternal organizationsaround the world raised over $44,000 forthe civilian victims of the mujahedinoffensive against Jalalabad, This is theAfghan city closest to the CIA-sponsoredguerrilla bases in Pakistan. The people ofJalalabad drove back attack after attack.The PDPA government held out againstthe mujahedin for almost three years,Anti-Communism was the bond between U.S. imperialism and the mullahs inAfghanistan. Ronald Reagan called thesecutthroats "the moral equivalent of thefounding fathers of this country," WhileI'm not a big fan of the slaveholders Jefferson, Monroe et aI., I think they wouldbe appalled at being compared to a bunchof feudalistic religious fanatics. In 1996,after four years of the horrific rule of theNorthern Alliance types I mentionedbefore, who had already brought Kabul tothe point of famine and devastation, thecapital of Afghanistan fell to the Taliban,One of the Taliban's first acts was to grabformer president and Soviet ally Najibul-

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lah, who was castrated and hanged froma lamppost in downtown Kabul for threedays. The Taliban killers proceeded towreak bloody vengeance against anyremaining vestige of social progress.Fake Leftists: Hate the SovietUnion, Hail the Mujahedin

So why did almost every leftist andfeminist group oppose the Soviet intervention, which alone raised the possibility of social liberation in that wretchedlybackward country? The majority of theU.S. left succumbed to the Carter government's anti-Soviet propaganda barrage, which was unleashed in the nameof "human rights."The various Maoist groups, of whichthere were many during the 1960s (untilChina's alliance with the U.S. made themirrelevant), all lined up against so-called"Soviet social-imperialism." Of these,only Bob Avakian's Revolutionary Communist Party is still around. Likewise,the Progressive Labor Party at the timedenounced the Soviet Union as imperialist. The United Secretariat, the fakeTrotskyist international outfit supportedtoday by Socialist Action and some members of the group Solidarity, condemnedthe 1979 Red Army intervention and oneyear later openly joined the imperialistsin demanding the withdrawal of Soviettroops.The Socialist Workers Party (SWP),which had left Trotskyism far behind inthe 1960s when it sought to attract Democratic Party liberals and pacifists to itsanti-Vietnam War protests, had completely given up on working-class revolution. Instead, they engaged in cheerleading for bourgeois-nationalist forcesand even Islamic fundamentalists, suchas in Iran in 1979 when Khomeini tookpower-in fact, they still think that the"Iranian Revolution" was some sort ofanti-capitalist revolution. The SpartacistLeague, in contrast, said: "Down withthe Shah! No to the mullahs! For workers revolution in Iran!" In regard toAfghanistan, the SWP at first pretendedthat "the issue is not Soviet intervention,but a growing U.S. intervention" (Mili-tant, 15 February 1980). But as everyoneknows, the issue was Soviet intervention,so a year later they changed their line tocall for "Soviet troops out" like the restof the fake left.The most repulsive form of tailing theimperialist anti-Soviet crusade was probably represented by the InternationalSocialist Organization (ISO), at that timeaffiliated with Tony Cliff's British Socialist Workers Party. The Cliffites openlyembraced the mujahedin hailed by Reagan as "freedom fighters," screaming"Troops Out of Afghanistan!" (SocialistWorker [Britain], 12 January 1980). Theymade it clear that only meant Soviettroops. A short time later in Poland, theysupported the reactionary, anti-Semiticso-called "union" Solidarnosc, which wasfunded by the CIA and Vatican for thesole purpose of spearheading capitalistcounterrevolution. The ISO justified allthis by asserting that the Soviet Unionwas "state capitalist," which they evidently consider even worse than real capitalism. At the start of the Korean War in1950, the Cliffites broke with the Trotskyist movement over their refusal to defendthe North Korean and Chinese deformedworkers states against U.S. imperialism.Another organization that labeled theUSSR "stat.e capitalist" as an excuse toavoid defending it against U.S. imperialism is the League for the RevolutionaryParty (LRP). In a 13 September statement, the LRP correctly notes Osama binLaden's "leading role in Afghanistan'Smujahedin" when they were waging waragainst the Soviet-backed regime and thatthese Islamic reactionaries


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Young SparlacusTrotskyism vs. AnarchismBarricada: Which Side of

the Barricades Are You On?The following leaflet by the BostonSpartacus Youth Club was distributed on

November 10 at an antiwar teach-in organized by anarchists, including the Barricada Collective, at the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology (MIT). Spartacistcomrades intervened in the conferencedespite bombastic pronouncements by organizers that "absolutely no party groups"would be allowed. During the previousweek, the SYC also spoke out at a NewEngland-wide anarchist book fair inAmherst and at a lecture on Emma Goldman at Bosto n's Lucy Parsons bookstore,where we counterposed our Marxist politics to anarchism. Reeling from theseinterventions, the organizers sent us an e-mail warning we would be excluded if wetried to "hijack" their teach-in, and wenton MIT radio whining about trouble withus Spartacists.When our team arrived at MIT _.they were greeted with shocked faces andmurmurs of "I can't believe the Sparts arehere!" Believe it! Unable to defend theirrotten politics, fake leftists like theInternational Socialist Organization arewell practiced at excluding revolutionaryMarxists from their events. Now it lookslike the anarchists are taking a cue fromtheir would-be coalition partners in thestinking swamp of the liberal-reformist"antiwar movement." In opposition to thefake lefts and their anarchist "shocktroops of reformism" we fight to winyouth to the program of internationalsocialist revolution.

* * *"Anarchism, if it does not livewithin the four walls of intellectuals'cafes and editorial offices, but has penetrated more deeply, translates the psychology of despair in the masses and signifies the political punishment for thedeceptions of democracy and the treach- ,ery of opportunism," wrote Leon Trotsky,co-leader with Lenin of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution ("The Strangled Revolution," February 1931, in Leon Trotsky onChina [1976]). Today, anarchism is againfashionable among young radicals. Asbefits a trendy college town, Boston hasmore than its share of such tendencies-everything from pompous old windbags like Noam Chomsky, whose "anarchist" veneer is an excuse for viciousanti-Communism and egotistic lust to bea foreign policy adviser to the U.S. andits creature the UN, to far more radicalsounding "revolutionary anarchists" likethe Barri cada Collective, which claims toreject reformism in all its forms.The counterrevolutionary destructionof the Soviet Union a decade ago andthe imperialist rulers' triumphalist, lying"death of communism" propaganda hasobviously had its stupefying effect on leftconsciousness. It was the Russian Revolution which swept aside anarchism as aserious contender for political allegianceamong militants, winning over the best6

WV PhotoSan Francisco: October 20 antiwar protest. Marxists call to defend Afghanistanfrom imperialist attack through class struggle at home; anarchists of 8ar ricadarefuse to d efend Afghanistan, equating victims with their oppressors.syndicalists and anarchists of the time to "the red banner of international Communism, by showing in the real world how arevolutionary vanguard party of the working class could seize and hold power,abolishing exploitation and establishingits own class dictatorship over the bourgeoisie. Today, those lessons must berelearned if radicals are to find the roadfrom militant protest to working-classpower.

Boston's Barricada Collective has doneus the favor of publishing a journal presenting a very left-sounding anarchist worldview. For example, they write: "unlikemany other anarchists'today, we have nointereSt whatsoever in reformism ... An'anti-globalization movement' does notappeal to us. We are not interested in trying to find the (non-existent) human faceof capitalism." They write that they want"a movement...satisfying itself with nothing less than the total destruction of capital and the state" ("Lessons of Genoa,"Barricada No.8, September 2001). However, in concrete struggles of the workingclass and oppressed, the question ofwhich side of the barricades Barricadafinds itself on is not so clear-cut, as wewill see.Defend Afghanistan AgainstU.S. Imperialist Attack!

A key question today for revolutionaries is the current U.S. war againstAfghanistan. We Marxists say, "For classstruggle against U.S. capitalist rulers-Defend Afghanistan against imperialistattack!" In contrast, Barricada and otheranarchists refuse to take sides. In Bostonprotests against what Barricada calls"America's New War," Boston AnarchistsAgainst Militarism (BAAM, in whichBarricada is active) carried banners reading, "Neither State Terrorism nor Relig-

ious Terrorism: Against Bush and BinLaden" and "No War Between Nations, NoPeace Between Classes!" While superficially this may seem rather radical,it's an excuse 'for neutralism, a confession of impotence in the face of imperialist onslaught, and as a political programis fully compatible with mainstreamliberalism.We say it is the simple duty ofrevolutionists to stand in military de

fense of small countries like Afghanistanagainst the most deadly imperialistpower on the face of the planet, not toequate the already devastated victimswith their oppressors. We would welcomea defeat of U.S. imperialism as a victoryfor the oppressed of the world, while giving no political support to the reactionary, women-hating Taliban murderers.Barricada states: "We are opposed tonationalism and other artificial divisionsof the working class. However, we arealso anti-imperialists and as such supportoppressed peoples in their struggles ofnational liberation providing that they

Italian riotpolice attackGenoa protester,July 2001.Police attacksin Genoaillustratedrepressive forceof capitaliststate; rejectingvanguard party,anarchists haveno programto smashcapitalist state.

maintain a revolutionary leftist character"("Barricada Collective Statement," Barri-cada No.9, October 2001). This statement collapses the difference betweenmilitary defense of a people from imperialist SUbjugation and political defense ofa particular regime. What this means onthe ground is that they will politicallysupport the nationalist leaders of somemovements and abandon the rest to military repression by the imperialists. Marxists on the other hand understand the difference between military and politicalsupport, for instance, we have consistentlydefended the anarchists against state terrorfrom Gothenburg to Genoa, but anyonereading this leaflet can tell we don't sharetheir politics.Spartacists Said: Hail RedArmy in Afghanistan!Showing their contempt for the gainsmade by the working people of the world,Barricada explains the resurgence ofanarchism in the misery brought by thecounterrevolution in the Soviet Union."We as anarchists are being presented,thanks to the current global situation, thedecay of the welfare state, and the bankruptcy of authoritarian and statist alternatives to capitalism, with yet another opportunity to present people with the possibilityof a different world," they write ("Lessonsof Genoa," Barricada No.8, September2001).Far from a "statist alternative tocapitalism," the Russian Revolution wasthe first, and to date only, successfulworkers revolution in history. By takingRussia out of World War I and expropri- 'ating the Russian capitalists as a class, itwas also the greatest anti-imperialistaction ever undertaken (a point thatcould be learned by many of today's"anti-globalization" protesters!). The Russian Revolution not only meant the liberation of the myriad of oppressed peoplesin the former tsarist empire, but also thebirth and growth of a genuine and revolutionary communi'st movement in the"third world." In China and elsewhere,not only the advanced workers but alsoanti-colonialist students, emancipated

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women and leftist intellectuals saw forthe first time a way forward from thehopeless perspective of looking to thebackward, imperialist-dependent colonialbourgeoisies as a force for liberation.Among those who rallied to Bolshevism were many of the best 'left-winganarchists of the time. Although hostileto this trend, Barricada still has to admitit. For instance, in an article on earlyArgentine anarchism they write, "Sadly,with the rise of Lenin and his authoritarian brand of communism in Russia, socalled anarcho-bolshevik groups formedall around Argentina, advocating for thedictatorship of the proletariat and justifying the state as a vehicle to an anarchistsociety" ("Anarchism in Early 20thCentury Argentina," Barricada No.9,October 2001).Even as degenerated as the Sovietworkers state became under the misruleof Stalin and his heirs, it continued toobsess the imperialist powers becauseit ripped whole swaths of the globefrom their hands. Not least of these werethe various deformed workers statesthat arose in this period and continue toexist-China, North Korea, Vietnam andCuba-states whose very existence hasbecome increasingly threatened after thefall of Soviet power in Russia, whommany, in particular Cuba, were dependenton for aid. The Soviet Union also gavesome modicum of maneuverability tonationalists in the "third world," whowere able to jockey for position betweenthe world's two "superpowers."In contrast, the imperialist rulingclass cements its rule through supporting the most reactionary tin pot dictatorsand religious fanatics the world over. TheU.S. armed and funded the mujahedinduring their dirty proxy war against theUSSR in the late seventies and eighties.The best hope Afghanistan had at modernization (especially for its horriblyoppressed women) was the Soviet RedArmy intervention in 1979. The USSRgave women not only the ability toread and write, but weapons and trainingin order to defend themselves. So weuniquely said:'''Hail Red Army in Afghanistan!" and "Extend Social Gains of October Revolution to Afghan Peoples!" Incontrast, the social-democratic reformistsaround the world and their left tails, likethe ISO, SWP, etc., joined in the imperialist crusade against the USSR.By 1988 in Afghanistan 15,000women served in the armed forces. Fortypercent of doctors and 60 percent ofteachers at the University of Kabul werewomen, and 440,000 female studentswere enrolled in educational institutions.That's all shattered today. When in 1989the Stalinist bureaucracy betrayed theAfghan peoples by pulling the Red Armyout, we offered to raise an internationalbrigade to fight to the death against theU.S.-backed mujahedin scum. Most anarchists at the time in practice abandonedAfghan women to the mercies of theU.S.'s murderous "freedom fighters" inthe name of fighting "Soviet imperialism." Why? Because anarchists share theanti-Communist hostility of the bourgeoisie to these "authoritarian" states. I f your23 NOVEMBER 2001

~ - - - - - -

December 1917Russian workersdemonstration bannerincludes call: "LongLive Soviet PowerWhich Has Paved theWay for Peace AmongNations." Bolsheviksled workers to powerin greatest victory forproletariat ever.Barcelona, July 1936(right): During SpanishCivil War, anarchistsjoined coalitiongovernment withbourgeoisie, betrayingrevolutionary workers.

only criteria are "authority" and "democracy" as abstract phrases floating abovesocial reality, you end up in the campof the "democratic" imperialist rulingclass. As opposed to this "radical democratic idealism," Marxists ; as materialists,understand that class struggle is the motorforce of history.

We Trotskyists unconditionally militarily defended the Soviet Union, aswe continue to defend the remainingdeformed workers states of China, Cuba,North Korea and Vietnam against imperialist attack and internal counterrevolution, because of the gains made by thesestates in overthrowing capitalism andestablishing collective property forms.We call for the overthrow of the venaland brutal Stalinist bureaucracies throughproletarian political revolution, becauseStalinism, in pursuit of the illusion ofpeaceful co-existence with imperialism,undermines the gains of those social revolutions. Stalinist bureaucracies must bereplaced by workers political rule in orderto defend these revolutions and extendthem throughout the world.The "Anti-War Movement":Liberal Reformismor Class Struggle?

Noting the opportunism of much ofthe so-called "left" in the face of renewedpatriotic frenzy and domestic repression,Barricada asks in "Cowering in theWake" (Barricada No.9, October 2001):"should we as anarchists cut off our linksto groups that display these attitudes? ..A possible answer might be that, weshould not for the moment, as an objective observation of North American anarchism would most likely reveal a movement still too weak to stand on it's [sic]own .... unsettling attitudes of others aside,how do we, as anarchists react in a positive and constructive manner to this newsituation?"The first point here is that, independently of anarchists' attitude, the reformists have already given their answer. Fromattempts to harass the anarchist contingent at the Boston September 20 march tothe Workers World/ANSWER organizers'attempts to playoff the police provocation against anarchists in Washington onSeptember 29 as an attempt by anarchiststo join "their" march, the reformists andtheir liberal masters will alternatelyattempt to co-opt radicals as a "le ft" coverfor their rotte'n politics and then offerthem as cannon fodder to the capitaliststate and disown them. The latter pointwas most brutally brought home in theblood-drenched streets of Genoa.

such a "movement." Despite Barricada'sadmission of the "unpleasantness of a lotof the attitudes of the WWP (and a fairamount of the politics as well)" ("Thousands Demonstrate Against Capitalismand War in Washington, D.C.," Bar-ricada No.9, October 2001), it endsup acting as a left cover for reformism,praising the WWP demo for its "extensive outreach work" and for creating "theb a s i ~ for a strong and combative anti-warmovement." But the only real "anti-war"movement is one that aims at overthrowing capitalism, the basis for wars in theimperialist epoch. Barricada shares thereformists' belief that the capitalist statecan be pressured to end the war, if onlyenough people fill the streets. They simply want these to be more "militant"demonstrations.So it's no accident that anarchistsare being sucked into the orbit of theliberal-reformist "anti-war movement."Barricada's latest issue ("Opposition to'America's New War' Grows in Boston,"Barricada No. 10, November 2001) approvingly notes that "the groundwork iscertainly present for a strong anti-warmovement in Boston. It is now simply amatter of learning to accept some of thedifferences and working together." Meanwhile, on the very same page, Barricada advertises an "Anti-War Teach In" atMIT presenting "Anarchist and RadicalPerspectives" on the war which snarlingly concludes with "Absolutely no partygroups." So, anarchists, while you project"working together" with reformists in ared-white-and-blue "antiwar" movement,you suggest that you're going to practicethe same political censorship againstcommunists that they do?The job of revolutionists is to politically struggle against these reformist tendencies by exposing their rotten classcollaboration sm and counterposing astrategy of class struggle. A revolutionarymovement is not built by seizing on theexisting consciousness of the class intimes of crises, it is. built by explodingthis consciousness and instilling revolu-

This pamphlet presents a comprehensive historical analysis of the origins of anarchism and the views of itsleading figures through the 1871 ParisCommune and the split in the FirstInternational. Later articles discuss thepre-World War I period and the impactof the war, the 1917 October Revolution and the founding of the Communist Il1ternational on the anarchistand syndicalist movements.

The first article addresses radicalyouth today who, in an ideologicalclimate conditioned by the so-called"death of communism," are drawnto all variants of anarchism, Greenradicalism and left liberalism. Thepamphlet is dedicated to the fightto win a new generation to revolutionary Marxism, the communismwhich animated Lenin and Trotsky'sBolshevik Party.$2 (56 pages)

tionary consciousness, the consciousnessof the working class as a class for itselfwith its own interests and power diametrically opposed to that of the ruling capitalist class. This means organizing theworking class independently of the capitalist class. Does this sound likea vanguardist approach? It should! This is theessence of the vanguard party, to bringconsciousness to the working class.Class Struggle in the U.S.:The Fight for Black Liberationand Socialist Revolution

Barricada is for "class war," yet its concept of this reduces itself to individualisticprotest, not a struggle for power: all that'soffered is "direct action, workplace sabotage, property damage, mass confrontation, and civil disobedience" ("BarricadaCollective Statement"). "When 'social turbulence' becomes strong enough to topplethe status quo, r.evolutions occur" ("Cowering in the Wake"). Revolutions do notjust occur; they must be made by a working class conscious of its historic missionof liberating all of humanity. Barricadawrites in "Lessons of Genoa" that theywant to create "anarchist alternatives" to"parties, NGOs, and unions" in order to"render the NGO/party/boss union apparatus irrelevant."But trade unions are not "irrelevant,"they are in fact the first line of workingclass defense against capitalist exploitation. Anarchist dismissal of unions as"irrelevant" essentially leaves the mostorganized sector of the proletariat in thehands of the pro-capitalist trade-unionbureaucrats. The main obstacle to revolutionary consciousness in the U.S. is theAFL-CIO bureaucracy which ties workers to their enemies in the capitalistDemocratic Party. The Barricada Collective "opposes electoral politics, [and] theparty system" but does nothing to concretely oyercome this because it refusesto engage in political battle with the current misleaders of the working class.No one seeking to be a revolutionarycontinued on page 11

The real question here is what attitude should would-be revolutionaries taketoward them, and this is not an organizational question, but a political one. Immediately after Genoa, Barricada wrote: "wehave no interest whatsoever in reformism," noting, correctly, that "we do notbelieve ..that a collection of groups, organizations, parties, and whatnot, whose onlycommon bond is the opposition to a certain facet of capitalism... qualifies as a'movement"'("Lessons of Genoa"). Fine,but now BAAM, Barricada, et al. findthemselves again immersed in precisely Make checks payable/mail to: Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, NY, NY 101167


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Women...(continued from page 5)somewhere between tribalism and feudalism, there was no internal social base forthe relatively minimal reforms pursuedby the PDPA, much less for proletarianrevolution. Conditions were much thesame in Soviet Central Asia at the time ofthe 1917 Russian Revolution. That area,like Afghanistan, was so economicallyunderdeveloped that it did not have aworking class capable of serving as themotor force for social change . The revolution was brought to Central Asia by therevolutionary proletariat in the form ofthe Red Army, supported by those forceslocally who embraced the liberatingideals of the Russian Revolution-notably women who rejected the veil.Like the U.S. did in Afghanistan 60years later, Britain, the dominant imperialist force in the region in the 1920s,armed and funded reactionary revoltsled by the mullahs, who were enragedabove all by the threat of equal rightsfor women. In a sense, the tragedy ofAfghanistan is that when the RussianRevolution arrived in Central Asia, theSoviet Red Army was obliged, because ofthe British presence in colonial India(including what is currently Pakistan), tostop at the bor4er of Afghanistan.

about the war in Afghanistan, one womandeclared: "We will fight to the deathbefore we will put on the veil again."The CIA's Afghan Connection

Now the Soviet Union of 1979 was notat all the dynamic workers state of the late'teens and early '20s. In the period immediately following the October Revolution,no one in the Bolshevik Party-not evenStalin-thought that the Soviet Union,

tence" with imperialism. Leon Trotskyfought against this political counterrevolution, and that's our heritage. Until theday he was assassinated by Stalin's agentin 1940, Trotsky fiercely fought to defendthe Soviet Union against capitalist attackand internal counterrevolution and for apolitical revolution to oust the bureaucracy and return the Soviet Union to theroad of Bolshevik internationalism.So the conservative Kremlin bureauc-

WORKERS "'NtHJ'RI",While carter Stews,Soviet Army IIoIIs Back Afghan MullahsHail Red Army I

W o m e n a n d ~ RevolutionWomen of the East-ProletarianRevolutionorSlavery

The Russian Revolution brought toCentral Asia an immense leap in socialprogress unimaginable in any backwardcountry under capitalism. Despite theinequalities and bureaucratic oppressionthat Soviet citizens suffered under Stalinist rule, the status of women in SovietCentral Asia was not only higher thanin any Islamic bourgeois country, letalone Afghanistan, but in some areas(e.g., representation in government) compared favorably with advanced bourgeoiscountries.

Paris MatchTroops from Soviet Central Asia made up Jarge component of Red Army inAfghanistan. We called to extend social gains of October Revolution toAfghan peoples.

A couple of comrades who visitedSoviet Central Asia in the late 1980sobserved the spectacular gains that hadbeen achieved, despite the corruption andcynicism of the Stalinist regime then inthe process of disintegration. In morethan a week of travel throughout Uzbekistan, they did not see a single veil-to saynothing of the dreadful burqa, the stiflinghead-to-toe shroud that imprisons Afghanwomen. They attended a party at whichyoung women and men were dancingfreely to rock 'n ' roll-including mixedcouples of Uzbeks, Tajiks and Russians.Health care was free and readily available, including for women. There were novisible extremes of poverty; most homeshad a television, many had a car. The population was well-educated, with manypeople speaking at least one Europeanlanguage (in addition to Uzbek and Russian). Even elderly women dressed inbrightly colored dresses and spoke in arelaxed fashion with strangers. Asked

a backward country with a small working class, could stand on its own withoutthe spread of socialist revolution to themore advanced capitalist countries. Ahuge revolutionary wave swept Europeafter the Russian Revolution. But becausethe revolutions in other countries weredefeated-and that's a subject for a wholeother forum-the young workers statewas isolated, encircled by hostile capitalist nations. By the end of the Civil War of1919-1921 against a range of counterrevolutionary and imperialist armies, SovietRussia was impoverished, its workingclass decimated and exhausted.These factors opened the door for aconservative bureaucratic layer within theBolshevik Party, of which Stalin came tobe the leader, to usurp political powerfrom the working class in 1923-24. As aresult of that political counterrevolution,the Soviet Union became a degeneratedworkers state, with a foreign policy motivated by the nationalist dogma of "building socialism in one country," whichmeant seeking illusory "peaceful coexis-

- ~ < .......,., .............' . S P A I i T A C I $ T i ~ ' E A G P E ) U . [ S ' ~ \ - ' - u ......y........... ......" Local D i l ' ! . E t ~ r Y ~ ! I ~ . ~ u ~ l i E g ! f i E ! ~ " . ' ..

8

Web site: www.icl-fi.org E-mail address:[email protected] OfficeBox 1377 GPO,New York, NY 10116(212) 732-7860BostonBox 390840, Central Sta.Cambridge, MA 02139(617) 666-9453ChicagoBox 6441, Main POChicago, IL 60680(312) 563-0441Public Office:Sat. 2-5 p.m.222 S. Morgan (Buzzer 23)

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racy did not pour troops into Afghanistanin 1979 with the intention of carrying outa revolution, as the Bolsheviks had donein Central Asia in the 1920s. Rightlyworried about the threat "of a hostileIslamic fundamentalist government taking power, the bureaucracy sought simply to secure its unstable Afghan clientstate. Nevertheless, we recognized thatan extended Soviet occupation ofAfghanistan would open up the possibility of transforming that country alongthe lines of, Soviet Central Asia. Thethreat of a CIA-backed Islamic takeoveron the USSR's southern flank posedpointblank the need for unconditionalmilitary defense pf the USSR.Lashing 'out against so-called "Sovietexpansionism," Democratic Party president and born-again Christian JimmyCarter launched' Cold War II against theSoviet Union over Afghanistan. Likethe first Cold War beginning in the late1940s, this anti-Soviet war drive wasaccompanied by a massive increase inmilitary spending, in this case a five-year,trillion-dollar program. At the same time,under first Carter and then Reagan, billions of dollars began flowing to theIslamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan inthe biggest covert operation in the CIA'shistory. From 1980 to 1990, the CIA's"black budget" quadrupled, from an estimated $9 billion to $36 billion. Some ofthis was used to fund a war of terror by thecontra mercenaries against the leftnationalist Sandinista government inNicaragua. But most went to an array ofmujahedin groups based in Peshawar,Pakistan and to that country's lSI secretservice. By the mid-'80s, the mujahedinwere getting 65,000 tons of war materielannually. "In 1986, Congress approved a threepronged plan by CIA director WilliamCasey to step up the U.S. proxy war inAfghanistan. Initially, the Afghan reactionaries were supplied only with Sovietand Chinese-made weapons purchasedfrom Egypt, China, Israel and SouthAfrica, so that the U.S. could "plausiblydeny" a direct role in the war. But now theCIA began delivering Stinger surface-toair missiles, along with American military trainers. Secondly, the CIA, the lSIand Britain's MI-6 plotted the launchingof guerrilla attacks into the Soviet Union

itself, targeting the Central Asian republics of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, whichsupplied many of the Soviet troops forduty in Afghanistan.As we detailed in our article "TheAfghan Connection" (WV No. 761, 6July), the CIA' also joined in the campaign initiated by the lSI to recruit zealots from throughout the Muslim worldto join the mujahedin. According to theCIA's own estimates, as many as 70,000Islamic fundamentalists from morethan 50 countries-the so-called "ArabAfghans"-were trained at the ."jihaduniversities," or madrassas, which stillflourish in Peshawar and elsewhere.Among those who flocked to Peshawar toenlist in the U.S.-sponsored "holy war"against Communism was Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden. Another of Washington's firm friends was GulbuddinHekmatyar, who got his start as a "holywarrior" by throwing acid at unveiledwomen university students in Kabul.So there was no outcry from Washington against "Islamic terror" when muja-hedin in Khost used. a U.S. Stinger inMarch 1987 to shoot down a civilian airliner taking Afghan children to study inthe USSR, killing all 52 aboard. Andthere wasn't a peep of criticism from theAmerican government when the Talibanforced thousands of girls to leave schoolafter capturing Herat in 1995, or when itseized Kabul a year later and subjectedwomen to the virtual house arrest of pur-dah (seclusion). On the contrary, theAssistant Secretary of State for SouthAsia at the time stated tha t "it is not in theinterests of Afghanistan or any of us herethat the Taliban be isolated." Besides, theU.S. oil company Unocal was seriouslyconsidering building a pipeline throughAfghanistan to exploit the rich natural gasand oil fields being opened up in postSoviet Central Asia.For Workers Revolution toSweep Away Imperialism!

The U.S.-backed war of terror againstthe Red Army in Afghanistan forced fivemillion people to flee the country, devastated what economy and infrastructurehad been built up during the Soviet presence and led to the re-enslavementof Afghan women. From the AlgerianArmed Islamic Group to the Islamic Jihadin Egypt, the "Arab Afghans" spawnedand nurtured by the anti-Soviet war wenton to foment reactionary movementselsewhere, capitalizing on popular hatredfor brutal nationalist regimes and theimperialist-dictated austerity measuresthey impose.As is usual with Washington, it wasonly once such Islamic reactionaries hadserved their purpose that they weredenounced as terrorists. This shift inU.S. policy was signaled in late 1997when Madeleine Albright cynically chastised the Afghan rulers for their treatment of women. Also in this period, theTaliban refused to hand over Osama binLaden, and the economics of the Unocaldeal no longer added up. By this time aswell, the plight of Afghan women underTaliban rule had become something ofa cause among American l i b e ~ a l s andfeminists.A group that has been getting a lot ofpress is the Revolutionary Association ofthe Women of Afghanistan (RAWA).Their Web site proclaims that "if you arefreedom-loving and anti-fundamentalist,"you 'belong with RAWA. RAWA members do sometimes carry out courageousactions in Afghanistan and Pakistan,exposing the atrocities of the Taliban andsupporting victimized women. And theyissued a statement against the U.S.bombing of Afghanistan, although theythink that there exists some mythical"Afghan nation" that is going to rise upand throw out the Taliban. But RAWAalso brags about how they fought on theside of the mujahedin against the Soviettroops, despite its current denunciationof its erstwhile allies as fundamentalists.RAWA's idea of "freedom" is the sameas that of the CIA's Radio Free Europe:bring back King Zahir Shah and his "tribal council."

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Dock Workers...(continued from p age 12)port truckers. But the Teamsters bureaucracy's chauvinist opposition to allowingMexican truckers on U.S. roads is counterposed to the internationalist workingclass solidarity needed to win union rightsfor the heavily Latino port truckers. TheILWU tops are themselves spewing thischauvinist poison, with Spinosa complaining in his September column thatperforming "security checks" on porttruckers "would be a logistical nightmare" made worse by "NAFTA, with itsprovisions to allow truckers from Canadaand Mexico to drive across the bordersdirectly to our ports," Spinosa vituperates, "Why are hard-working, productivelongshore workers being targeted forextensive security clearances while unknown truck drivers are being allowedfree access to our work environment?"Such chauvinism plays right intothe capitalists' divide-and-rule schemesaimed at pitting white against blackand American-born against foreign-bornworkers. This undermines union powerand strikes back against all the oppressed.Black support was instrumental in pushing through California's anti-immigrantProposition 187 in 1994; that measurepaved the way for the passage of Prop.209 abolishing affirmative action in thestate. Many black people perceive thatlight-skinned immigrants can come tothis country and advance up the ladder ina way barred to the black masses. At thesame time, many immigrants are taughtto believe that the desperate conditionsfaced by much of the black population are"their own fault." Such backward prejudices are promoted by black and LatinoDemocratic Party. "ethnic politics."The idea that immigrants, the majorityof whom labor in the most demeaning,poorly paid jobs, are to blame for keepingblack people at the bottom of Americansociety is reflective of a false consciousness. But it is one born of resentmentagainst the very real color bar in thiscountry which acts as a key prop forobscuring the class divide between laborand capital. Labor must be in the forefront of the fight for black freedom andagainst anti-immigrant bigotry, championing all the exploited and oppressed.As a strategic component of the multiracial proletariat, black workers have thepotential power to smash racial oppression and capitalist exploitation. And farfrom being helpless victims, many immigrant workers have infused the Americanlabor movement with traditions of classstruggle in their homelands.Break with the Democrats-Unchain Labor/Black Power!

As quoted in the Oakland Post (4November), the Local 10 Longshore Bul-letin noted pointedly that "the politiciansare saying-hey, if we can't get BinLaden, Longshoremen with criminalrecords will have to do!" Yet an "Open

Today, the U.S. bourgeoisie cynicallydeclares war on "Islamic terror" in orderto impose its will on oppressed peoplesaround the world. While bin Laden andhis ilk are plenty sinister, the most dangerous terrorists on the face of the planetare America's capitalist rulers. Indeed,mass terror to suppress any semblance ofsocial revolution by the worker and peasant masses is integral to the defense of asystem based on the exploitation of themany by the few. The task of revolutionaries is to oppose the bourgeoisie's"national unity" campaign, to fight forclass struggle against the capitalist rulersat home, to organize and build a workersparty that fights for a socialist revolutionto sweep away the entire system of capitalist imperialism.Instead, the American reformist left,such as the Workers World Party and theISO, has thrown itself into "coalition"building, which always means building abase for capitalist forces willing to profess support for peace, racial harmony or23 NOVEMBER 2001

@M1#ik%H!;U,lU!WW;I.\WWimiilliiM;m;&MW&U!i!!2%%miilli& AVicory for Lab0r niIHHn&mwNN@:@M!'''';ZNM%Wm,u;'%W!li!i@Siu,mii.nW!!State Drops Vendetta Against Charleston Five"The Charleston Five are finallyfree," said Kenneth Riley, president ofInternational Longshoremen's Association (ILA) Local 1422. "This is a tremendous victory for the labor movement in South Carolina." Prosecutors

have dropped bogus felony riot chargesagainst five longshoremen, who wereunder house arrest for a year and ahalf and faced up to five years inprison for defending their union picketline against a massive police assault.The longshoremen-Kenneth Jefferson,Elijah Ford Jr., Peter Washington Jr.,Ricky Simmons and Jason Edgertonwere allowed to plea-bargain "no contest" to reduced misdemeanor chargesof "engaging in a riot where a weaponwas not used," which carries no jailtime.The charges stemmed from a waterfront battle on 20 January 2000, whenLocals 1422, 1422A and 1771 mobilized to stop the Nordana shippingcompany's use of the non-union Winyah Stevedoring outfit to unload one ofits ships. The unionists were met by anarmy of 600 municipal, county andstate police, including prison guards,clad in riot gear and backed up witharmored vehicles and helicopters. Firing tear gas, shock grenades and pelletbags, the cops waded into the largely

Letter to Barbara Boxer" (31 October) bythe ILWU Longshore Legislative ActionCommittee buys into the anti-terroristhysteria and offers up the union ranks topolice the docks as finks for the bosses.Declaring that ~ ' p o r t security is an important concern in the fight against terrorism," it goes on to state that "maritimeworkers can be one of the country's firstlines of defense at ports becausethey . .can report anything suspicious."Meanwhile, the union tops are participating in "security task forces" alongsidebusiness and police representatives. Thenumber of security guards in the ports hasalso increased sharply. These unarmed"watchmen," who bear the metal stars andmilitary green uniforms typical of sheriffs, serve as adjuncts to the capitalistcops. Yet they are members of the ILWU.The job of these private police is to breakstrikes, bust up picket lines and spy onunion members. They are not part ofthe working class and have no place inthe labor movement. Cops and securityguards out of the unions!Beneath the ILWU tops' "progressive"image stands the same pro-DemocraticParty class collaboration .that defines therest of the labor officialdom. Last month,Local 10 adopted a resolution c o m m e n d ~

other good things. In this country, thatmeans the Democratic Party. At this juncture, such "antiwar" Democrats are fewand far between. But this hasn't changedthe outlook of the reformists, who seek tobuild an "antiwar movement" ready andwaiting for any class enemy of the workers who may apply. By pushing pacifismin the face, of U,S. imperialism's war ofterror against Afghanistan, the reformists sow illusions that capitalism' canbe rational, benevolent and peaceful-ifonly the right politicians were elected toadminister that system!Wars of aggrandizement and plunderare inherent to the capitalist system. Burgeoning interimperialist competition overmarkets, spheres of influence and naturalresources-not least oil-will ultimatelylead to a new world war and a nuclearholocaust if the proletariat does not firstseize power. Thoughtful workers andyouth already see that they are beingasked to sacrifice in the interests of Bushand Wall Street. But what is lacking is a

black union picket swinging longwooden clubs (see "Charleston ILABattles Racist Union-Busting Assault,"WV No. 728, 28 January 2000). Workers defending their rights provoked theire of South Carolina's bourgeois establishment, for whom the fight for unionsis tantamount to terrorism. This wasmade clear by state attorney generalCharles Condon when he said on TVfollowing the attack on the World TradeCenter: "I'm against forcing people tojoin unions in order to get a job. And sothis whole idea of ends justifying themeans, as we know these terrorists thatkilled so many people, that's exactlytheir argument."At the heart of this case is that hardclass struggle backed off a viciousunion-busting attack, as Nordana replaced Winyah with a union stevedoring company, returning the jobs to theILA. The defiant stand of the Charleston ILA inspired broad layers of theworking class in "right to work" SouthCarolina, across the country and internationally. The Charleston Post andCourier (9 November) reported, "Brightyellow 'Free the Charleston 5' signs,billboards, and bumper stickers poppedup across the region and ILA officialsraised more than $400,000 for a legaldefense fund from other unions around

ing Oakland Democrat Barbara Lee forher sole vote in Congress against givingBush unlimited war powers. Despite thelockstep alliance between the Democratsand Bush on the war nationally, it is moreacceptable in the Bay Area, a strongholdof Democratic Party liberalism, and inheavily black Alameda County especially,to criticize the bombing of Afghanistan.While Lee simultaneously voted forappropriations to fund the U.S. "waragainst terrorism," her show of oppositionreflected deep distrust of the government.particularly among black people, a faultline in "national unity." At the same time,she and like-minded liberal Democratsstrive to seal that breach.To maintain their image as the"friends" of labor and blacks, the Democrats are obliged to keep around suitableradical-liberal types who can be paradedas showpieces of the ultimate justness ofthe capitalist order. Lee's predecessor andmentor, Ron Dellums, played this role inprevious decades. Such types serve as aninsurance policy for the bourgeoisie. Forexample, if the U.S. were to find itselfbogged down in an Afghan quagmire, Leewould be deemed "prescient" by a wingof the ruling class pushing for a withdrawal in order to cut American imperial-

revolutionary leadership. The SpartacistLeague and Spartacus Youth Clubs arefighting to win students, youth and workers to build the revolutionary workers

the world." Rallies and meetings havebeen held throughout the U.S. and inother countries.The ILA bureaucracy has diminishedthe real story of what happened on theCharleston waterfront-class struggleagainst the employers and the capitalists' armed police thugs-while concentrating on lobbying so-called "friends oflabor" in the Democratic Party. Nonetheless, this case was the first nationwide labor defense campaign in thiscountry in decades, starkly illuminatingthe link between the fight clgainst racialoppression, the cornerstone of American capitalism, and the interests of theentire working class.Riley stated, "We will build on thisvictory to bring greater attention to theplight of working men and women inour state," which had the second-lowestpercentage of union workers in thecountry. However, organizing the racist,"open shop" South will not be achievedby relying on the Democrats or anyother capitalist politicians but throughwaging class struggle. The ultimatedefense of the working class is the abolition of the capitalist system of exploitation and racial oppression throughproletarian revolution. This requires theleadership of a workers party that champions all the exploited and oppressed.

ism's losses. The black Democrats and"progressive" union tops are positioningthemselves to get ahead of and containthe increasing discontents that the capitalists' war at home and abroad will generate among workers and minorities.For decades, the AFL-CIO leadershiphas tied workers to their class enemythrough support to the Democrats, part ofan all"sided program of collaborationwith the bosses that has crippled the ability of the unions to defend themselves.The ILWU was not created and built upas the core of union power on the WestCoast through lobbying the capitalistDemocratic Party for occasional, equivocal favors, but through hard class battle,including the 1934 San Francisco generalstrike. As a Spartacist League spokesmansaid at a recent Charleston Five defensemeeting at the ILWU Local 10 hall:"We believe it is necessary to wage apolitical struggle within the unions toforge a revolutionary workers party thatwill fight for black freedom, for immi

grant rights and for our class brothersand sisters abroad against U.S. imperialism. Such a party will lead the fight toget rid the capitalist order and create aworkers government and a new societywithout exploitation. This is the onlyroad to end racism and war forever.Those who labor must rule!".

party under whose leadership the workingclass will sweep this system of capitalistexploitation and imperialist plunder intothe dustbin of history. Join us! .

Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist Leagueo $10/22 issues of Workers Vanguard 0 New 0 Renewal(includes English-language Spartacist and Black History and the Class Struggle)international rates: $25/22 issues-Airmail $10/22 issues-Seamailo $2/6 introductory issues of Workers Vanguard (includes English-language Spartacist)0.$2/4 issues of Espartaco (en espanol) (includes Spanish-language Spartacist)Name __________________________ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Address ________________________

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769Make checks payable/mail to: Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116

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AfghaRistan. :(continued from page 1)

Matching the speed of their currentmilitary advances is the rapidity withwhich this makeshift "alliance" is splintering into mutually hostile tribal armiesand regional warlords who have littlelove for each other and even less for foreign troops. Meanwhile, former Talibancommanders are now proclaiming theirhatred for the "terrorist" Taliban andreverted to being simply Pashtun triballeaders. Mazar-i-Sharif is the fiefdom ofAbdul Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek.Logar Province has reportedly beenclaimed by the Pashtun Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a fanatical woman-hater who gotmost of the U.S. largesse doled out to themujahedin in the 1980s and has nowreturned from exile in Iran. Herat is inthe hands of Tajik warlord Ismael Khan,who has warned the British to pull out ofBagram and declares, "People are verysensitive about the presence of foreignersin Afghanistan. We don't need them."Announcing that Britain may not deploythe 6,000 troops it was planning to sendin after all, Blair government spokesman Geoff Hoon said of the loomingchaos in Afghanistan, "I t sounds prettydangerous."As correspondent Robert Fisk note dinthe London Independent (19 November),"Ethnic groups and tribes and villagersdon't take orders from foreigners. Theydo deals." The imperialists think they cancobble together a "national" governmentin Kabul by putting enough baksheesh inthe pockets of local khans and tribalchiefs. But Afghanistan is not a nation; itis a region of several nationalities and oflittle coherent economy. There is littlelikelihood of stability there in any case.For Permanent Revolutionin Central Asia!Indeed, the imperialist military presence will only sow further instabilitythroughout this volatile region. The borders separating Afghanistan from itsneighbors, drawn by the imperialists inthe 19th century to create a buffer statebetween British India (which includedPakistan) and tsarist Russia, also carvedup the peoples of the region. Afghanistanhas barely half as many Pashtuns andTajiks as Pakistan and Tajikistan, respectively, and only a small percentage of thenumber of Uzbeks living in neighboringUzbekistan.Afghanistan's bloody tribal and ethnic

Soviet...(continued from page 3)warships were positioned in the PersianGulf in the fall of 1979 and reportsappeared of preparations for a possibleAmerican invasion of Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran. In his 1995 book The Tragedyand Valor of Afghanistan, Russian general Alexander Lyakhovsky describessome of the concerns expressed at a Moscow leadership meeting in early December 1979 that finally convinced the Stalinist bureaucracy of the need to intervenein Afghanistan. Among these were U.S.plans "for creating a 'new Great OttomanEmpire,' which would have included theSouthern republics of the USSR"; "theabsence of a reliable air defense systemin the South, so that in the case of stationing of the American missiles of the 'Pershing' type in Afghanistan, they wouldthreaten many vital Soviet objects"; andthe possible "establishment of oppositionregimes in the Northern areas of Afghanistan and annexation of that region byPakistan."The Soviet military intervention cutagainst the grain of the nationalist Stalinis t dogma of "socialism in one country."The prolonged occupation of Afghanistanby Soviet forces opened up the possibility of social revolution through the integration of that country into the Sovietsystem, which would have represented atremendous gain for the Afghan people.Moreover, a Soviet military victory there10

eatU1kti have ~ w ~ } r S spilled ove. into-the .SUttounding region. As: Tim . Judahnoted in an article in the New YorkReview of Books (15 November):"Iran has helped the Hazaras. Tajikistanand Uzbekistan have' helped the Tajiksand Uzbeks, and still do. And of coursePakistan wants to support the Pashtuns.Russia too has its interests; its chief concern had been to stop the spread ofIslamic fundamentalism. Iran has madeit clear it wants a weak and dividedAfghanistan which could not threaten it.Pakistan has wanted Afghanistan to havea strong central government, dominatedby Pakistan of course, which would thenensure open trade routes to Central Asia

and allow the building of valuable gasand oil pipelines across Afghanistan andthen into Pakistan."At the same time, it is the proletariat ofcountries like Pakistan and Iran that todayholds the key to the social liberation ofthe peoples of Afghanistan, which hasno working class and hence no possibility of social revolution from within. Pakistan, in contrast, has a proletariat numbering nearly ten million in manufacturing,transport and other industries, and millions more agricultural laborers. Iran,likewise, has a sizable proletariat thatwas, until the 1979 victory of the Ayatollah Khomeini's "Islamic Revolution,"historically pro-Communist. The despoticbourgeoisies that rule these countries are

beholden to the imperialist exploiters,whose dictates they enforce. To achievesocial and national justice requires theseizure of power by the proletariat, standing at the head of all the oppressed andled by internationalist revolutionary vanguard parties. As Leon Trotsky stressed in

could have forestalled capitalist counterrevolution in the USSR itself, undermining the Stalinist bureaucracy's program of"peaceful coexistence" with imperialismand pushjng forward the struggle for proletarian political revolution.Preoccupied above all with its vainpursuit of appeasing U.S. imperialism, inthe late 1980s the Kremlin bureaucracyunder Mikhail Gorbachev decided to pullout of Afghanistan even as a militaryvictory over the mujahedin was withinreach. This betrayal of Afghan womenand leftists ultimately set the stage forthe seizure of power by the Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan and for capitalist counterrevolution in East Europeand the USSR itself. In his 1998 interview, Brzezinski crowed, "What is mostimportant to the history of the world?The Taliban or the collapse of the Sovietempire? Some stirred-up Moslems or theliberation of Central Europe and the endof the cold war?"A gamut of fake Marxists marchedin lockstep behind Brzezinski & Co. atthe time of the Soviet intervention. TheInternational Socialist Organization, Progressive Labor Party and the Revolutionary Communist Party tried to justifytheir capitulation to imperialist antiCommunism by claiming that the Sovietdegenerated workers state was itselfimperialist (or "social-imperialist"). Canyou imagine an imperialist ruler askingthe sort of question Kosygin posed toTaraki in 1979: "Do you have supportamong the workers, city dwellers, the

. advancing the perspective of permanentrevolutioJt, only proletarian revolutioncan break the imperialist yoke over suchcountries and, with the spread of workersrule to the advanced capitalist countries,end imperialism forever.For Workers Revolution toSweep Away Imperialist Rule!

In practice rejecting the struggle to render the proletariat in either the backwardor advanced capitalist countries conscious of the need for socialist revolution,the centrist British Workers Power groupand its League for a Revolutionary Communist International, in a 9 October statement on the war, instead concocted fantasies of "united action of all Afghanforces-including Islamist forces-torepel the imperialist assault." Althoughrefraining in print from explicitly echoingWorkers Power's deranged proposal for"anti-imperialist" unity of the Taliban andthe myriad U.S.-backed rival warlordswho are now trying to slit each other'sthroats, the Internationalist Group (IG)has also conjured up the spectre of a U.S.military def

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Workers Vanguard No 769 - 23 November 2001