Supporters of the Militant and members of the Young Socialists and Socialist Workers Party mobilized in Seattle to discuss revolutionary politics with thousands of youth and workers who showed up because they are sick and tired of the normal functioning of the capitalist system. Many mistakenly believed that the demonstrations and actions offered a way to fight the brutalities that capitalism brings to the world.

The Militant sharply took on the reactionary, economic nationalist, pro-U.S. imperialist character of the events and their leadership - including union officials and liberal political figures. We sought to provide a revolutionary perspective to all who where interested, and found many who were.

There is a wealth of experience in the workers revolutionary movement to draw on concerning Patt's questions. V.I. Lenin, the central leader of the Bolshevik party that led tens of millions of workers, peasants, and soldiers in history's first socialist revolution, wrote in August 1917:

"The unheard-of horrors and miseries of the protracted war are making the position of the masses unbearable and increasing their indignation. An international proletarian revolution is clearly rising. The question of its relation to the state is acquiring practical importance." This involves, he wrote, "the problem of elucidating to the masses what they will have to do for their liberation from the yoke of capitalism in the very near future."

Not only must the existing capitalist state be shattered, wrote Lenin, but "the proletariat needs state power... both for the purpose of crushing the resistance of the exploiters and for the purpose of guiding the great mass of the population - the peasantry, the petty-bourgeoisie, the semi-proletarians - in the work of organizing a socialist economy."

These same questions were addressed in a similarly revolutionary fashion in a speech by José Ramón Balaguer to an international workshop on "Socialism on the Threshold of the Twenty-First Century," held in Havana, Cuba, in 1997. Balaguer is a member of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party.

Balaguer argued that "socialism will not appear on the historical scene through a modernization of present society, but through a revolutionary transformation of its dominant structures. In this sense, the question of the seizure of power remains a basic requirement.."

Until the victory in the Russian revolution every state functioned as the instrument of the minority ruling class to defend its interests against the majority. The capitalist state in Washington defends the interests of the tiny handful of billionaire families that rule the United States. The government acts as the executive committee of this brutal ruling class, rather than as the handservant of the social system of capitalism in general, as Patt states.

It was a mark of the anti-WTO actions that U.S. President William Clinton could come to Seattle and not find a single protest against any aspect of the assault his administration has carried out - either at home or abroad. Instead, he was able to trumpet the protests' demands against child labor, destruction of the environment, and for labor laws in other countries, and turn them to Washington's advantage against the governments in the semi-colonial world and workers states.

Washington is the chief world cop of capitalism; U.S. imperialism is the most brutal, exploitative, and oppressive power humanity has ever seen. Its record is literally unrivaled from its wars of annexation, to two inter-imperialist world wars, to the more recent assaults against the peoples of Iraq and Yugoslavia.

But this enormous center of capitalism has also brought into being the most potentially powerful working class in the world, that, together with proletarians in rural areas, can mount a revolutionary struggle where fighters in their tens of millions can take power out of the hands of the ruling rich and, as Lenin explained, guide the great mass of the population to abolish capitalism and join the worldwide struggle for socialism.

Tens of thousands of those in the streets of Seattle, including much of the trade union officialdom sponsoring the nationalist actions, were - verbally at least - in favor of struggles against the evils that abound today and for measures such as canceling the third world debt, a shorter workweek, or a substantial increase in the minimum wage. But for vanguard fighters and young people being drawn toward the working class today such important demands need to be linked to a revolutionary perspective.

- GREG MCCARTAN  
 
 
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