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	Workers Vanguard No. 1014	7 December 2012

Subscription Drive Success

WV Welcomes Our New Readers

To widen the reach of our press, the Spartacist League and the Spartacus Youth Clubs hold an annual subscription drive for six weeks from late August to early October. This year we again exceeded our quota, selling 2,389 points, which include 1,092 subscriptions to Workers Vanguard, 87 to Espartaco (newspaper of the International Communist League’s Mexican section) and 83 to other sectional press. Congratulations to comrade Alan of the Bay Area for winning the national sub drive.

This campaign is an opportunity not only to motivate our revolutionary Marxist politics to potential readers but also to get a wider sample of the political mood of the country, especially in places where we do not have branches. With the presidential election campaign in full swing, many discussions centered on our class opposition to all capitalist parties—whether Democrat, Republican or small-time outfits like the Greens—and our aim of forging a workers party to lead the struggle to overthrow the capitalist order.

Support for Obama among students and black workers was less effusive than in 2008, as he has since carried out his duties as U.S. imperialist Commander-in-Chief, from attacking unions, shredding civil liberties and deporting immigrants to overseeing drone strikes, military occupations and bombing campaigns abroad. Even so, many were still intent on voting for Obama as the “lesser evil.” This notion is what often makes the Democrats more effective at dishing it out to the exploited and oppressed.

We found black workers and students in hotly contested Southern “battleground states,” a key focus of Democratic “get out the vote” efforts, to be particularly committed to supporting Obama. Elsewhere we encountered black youth who, while not overly excited about the electoral circus, were lining up behind Obama out of racial solidarity in the face of the unabashed racism of right-wing Republicans.

The coterie of union bureaucrats at Labor Day events in Detroit and Los Angeles was smaller than usual, undoubtedly because most were away at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Charlotte, North Carolina. Of like mind were the reformists, who either explicitly or implicitly backed Obama. At the Workers World Party (WWP)-initiated DNC protests, we caused a stir with a display on a placard comparing what WWP wrote in adulation of Obama in 2008 with what we said against such illusions. And at our “Meet the Marxists” event in Eugene, Oregon, three members of the Communist Party (CP) showed up to stump for the Democrats, bewailing the prospect that the Republicans in office would destroy the unions. This is the same tired line used by the labor bureaucracy in politically chaining workers to the Democrats, the other party of racist capitalism. The CPers were visibly shocked that we polemicized against their views, and in short order they stormed out.

One of the main purposes of WV is to promote consciousness of the common interests of the international working class. In this spirit, we have provided ongoing coverage of the August 16 massacre of strikers at Lonmin’s Marikana platinum mine in South Africa, for which the African National Congress (ANC)-led government was responsible, and the strike wave that followed. The bloody crime visited on the Marikana miners finds an echo in the attacks on the unions and the livelihoods of working people in the U.S. and other countries where the capitalists are making workers pay for the ongoing economic downturn. Notably, black union longshoremen in Charleston, South Carolina, who at the time were headed toward a contract showdown with the port bosses, saw a parallel in their own situation.

The struggles of the embattled South African miners featured prominently in our work. Our New York local kicked off its sub drive by building a Partisan Defense Committee-initiated united-front protest demanding: “Free jailed miners—Drop all charges! Victory to the striking miners!” (see “For International Solidarity with South African Miners!” WV No. 1008, 14 September). Our placards and articles that denounced the treachery of the South African Communist Party and COSATU trade-union tops, part of the ruling bourgeois Tripartite Alliance along with the ANC, drew special interest from students at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and Mills College in the Bay Area. A large proportion of the subscriptions sold to other ICL publications were to Spartacist South Africa.

In Chicago, Democratic mayor Rahm Emanuel’s heavy-handed efforts to gut the teachers union sparked a strike that gripped the city for nine days. We sold 37 introductory and two full WV subscriptions on the picket lines and at rallies. Comrades reported that the teachers felt a sense of pride for setting an example for other unions to follow, although few were thrilled by the concessionary settlement. Our article “Victory to Chicago Teachers Strike!” (WV No. 1008, 14 September) also struck a chord in Bloomington, Indiana, especially now that Indiana has officially declared itself a “right to work” state.

One goal of the sub drive was to get back to our readership in the Pacific Northwest, which markedly expanded over the past year as a result of our intersection with the struggles of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) against the union-busting EGT grain conglomerate in Longview, Washington. The ILWU contract with EGT’s rivals was due to expire at the end of September, posing a possible strike or lockout at the time, until the union tops pulled back and the contract was extended. One longshoreman told us that he disagrees with our socialist conclusions but considers it important for working people to read WV, especially the international material. An ILWU casual worker appreciative of our understanding that the labor movement must take up the fight for full equality for black people, immigrants and women commented: “We realized we were somebody after we started getting the paper.”

On some Pacific Northwest campuses, we sold fewer subscriptions than in the recent past, in no small part due to widespread preoccupation with electoral politics and a lower level of student activism. In Portland, we did make a splash among youth familiar with the reformist International Socialist Organization (ISO). Several of them were disgusted that the ISO has for years championed woman-hating Islamic reactionaries, as seen not least in its defense of the call by the Revolutionary Socialist group in Egypt for a vote to the Muslim Brotherhood candidate who came out on top in that country’s recent presidential elections.

The work of the Spartacus Youth Clubs helped net a higher than usual number of subscriptions on several local campuses. In New York, the SYC held a protest in late September at City College against a visit by the secretary general of NATO, the U.S.-dominated military alliance (see WV No. 1011, 26 October). Across the country, our placards on literature tables demanding “Full Citizenship Rights for All Immigrants!” and “Free Abortion on Demand!” drew a lot of attention. The latter especially resonated among women disgusted at the filth spewed about “legitimate rape” by Republican troglodytes. A packet of WV issues containing articles on the fight for women’s liberation was a popular giveaway. Another was, once again, our 2009 pamphlet, Karl Marx Was Right: Capitalist Anarchy and the Immiseration of the Working Class, an indication that a layer of politicized youth was driven to check us out by their hatred of the ravages of capitalism.

Working with the Trotskyist League/Ligue Trotskyste of Canada, our comrades also made trips to Montreal, where students waged a strike this spring and summer against tuition increases. This strike, which ballooned into a larger social crisis, has lessons relevant to students in the U.S. who are reeling under extortionate debt for attending college.

WV welcomes our new and returning readers. The Leninist press plays a crucial role in applying Marxist program and theory to political events and class and other social struggles, promoting the understanding that socialist revolution is the only road to a world free of exploitation and oppression. Let us know what you think, and get involved in the activities of the Spartacist League and SYCs.