As the pace of Washington’s moves to assert its dominance in the Western Hemisphere and worldwide accelerates, intensifying the war moves of its rivals in Europe and elsewhere, the stakes for working people are increasing.
Washington’s Jan. 3 attack on Venezuela and tightening economic blockade on Cuba; its imposition of a “Peace Board” to stifle Israel’s efforts to defeat Hamas in Gaza; its threats to take over Greenland and intervene in Iran- — these moves make it clearer to growing numbers of working people that the ruling rich and their governments are marching toward a third world war.
Working people want to live in peace with fellow workers around the world. Members of the Socialist Workers Party and the Communist Leagues in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom are campaigning to discuss with them that the only way to prevent the unimaginable horrors of a new world conflict is for workers to take state power into our own hands.
The deepening crisis of the capitalist system is provoking resistance on many fronts, drawing workers and young people into politics. Growing numbers of workers and youth are open to considering the need to break from all capitalist parties and make a socialist revolution, like working people did in Cuba in 1959.
Going door to door in working-class areas, Socialist Workers Party members in Dallas-Fort Worth have found that working people there want to talk about what to do to defend the interests of working people.
Originally from Mexico, one of six recent subscribers to the Militant there told SWP member Alyson Kennedy that he opposed the invasion of Venezuela. “What if some other country did the same thing here? This country doesn’t have the right just to go into another country like this.” He also said he didn’t like Washington’s threats against the Mexican government. He bought three books on revolutionary politics, including Pathfinder’s newest title, Cuba and the Independence War in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde: The Fall of the Last Colonial Empire in Africa by Cuban combatant Víctor Dreke.
Oppose U.S. attacks on Venezuela
At a busy transit stop near the party’s headquarters on Chicago’s southwest side in December, as the U.S. rulers were ramping up their attacks on Venezuela, Naomi Craine campaigned for David Rosenfeld, the Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. Senate in Illinois. She met a swimming pool cleaner originally from Colombia. Responding to the Militant headline “US hands off Venezuela! No to US economic war against Cuba!” he told her that Washington was also threatening the Colombian government.
After some discussion, including him disagreeing with Craine on the tremendous threat of new assaults on Jews by Hamas, he subscribed to the Militant and purchased Revolution and the Road to Peace in Colombia: The Example of the Cuban Revolution by Fidel Castro. He was also interested in politics in the U.S. and picked up The Clintons’ Anti-Working-Class Record: Why Washington Fears Working People by SWP National Secretary Jack Barnes.
Craine invited him to the Jan. 10 Militant Labor Forum celebrating the 67th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution and protesting Washington’s assault on Venezuela. He came with his roommate, another worker from Colombia, who subscribed to the Militant and bought several books.
Fight for amnesty for immigrants
On Jan. 10 SWP members Barry Fatland and Michele Smith joined a protest of more than 100 people in Bellevue, about 10 miles east of Seattle, against attacks by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on immigrant workers. They carried signs calling for “Amnesty for all immigrants” and “U.S. hands off Venezuela and Cuba.”
They met a nurse who works at a nearby hospital and her husband, a Mexican American from Houston. Both said they felt compelled “to do something” after the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis.
Fatland described how “major unions, including the AFL-CIO in Minnesota, are giving increasing support to the fight for immigrant rights.” He said this was important as many ultraleft groups there threatened to derail the protests and lead to government repression. After a wide-ranging discussion, the young couple subscribed to the Militant.
In Montreal, Joe Young, Communist League candidate for the Quebec National Assembly, and CL member Annette Kouri joined an action of 150 people in the snow Jan. 17 calling for an end to attacks on the Kurdish areas of Syria and Iran, known as Rojava and Rojhelat. “Kurdish rights are human rights, protect Rojava and Rojhelat” read a banner in French. Kurds from Syria, Turkey and Iran chanted in Kurdish.
Young and Kouri spoke with many fellow protesters, expressing the Communist League’s support for the fight for the national rights of the Kurdish people and giving out campaign leaflets. In discussions on the recent wave of protests throughout Iran, including in Kurdish regions, they pointed to the 1979 revolution in Iran and the subsequent counterrevolution there that showed the need to build a revolutionary working-class leadership.
One participant, who remembered the League from earlier actions in support of Kurdish rights, bought a Militant. Another got a copy of The Fight Against Jew-Hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch: Stakes for the International Working Class in French.
Several participants expressed an interest in attending the Jan. 24 Militant Labor Forum “Solidarity with the Iranian people’s freedom fight.”
At a Jan. 18 protest of thousands against the repression in Iran, Los Angeles SWP members set up a campaign table for SWP candidates Norton Sandler for California governor and Laura Garza for mayor of Los Angeles. The sign at their table called for “U.S. hands off Iran. Solidarity with anti-regime protesters.”
Pro-monarchist forces calling for the return of Reza Pahlavi, son of the shah overthrown by the 1979 Iranian revolution, organized the action. SWP campaigner Bernie Senter reports there was almost constantly a lively debate at the SWP table. One young woman disagreed sharply with him on Israel’s need to defeat Hamas in Gaza, but still subscribed to the Militant. Party members sold two Militant subscriptions, two books in Farsi and one in English, six single copies of the paper and received a $20 donation.
To join in the campaigning, contact the campaign office nearest you.