20 years since anti-WTO Seattle protests: the communist stance

….What is the communist stance towards the WTO? The imperialist powers, and above all Washington, constructed this body to serve their interests. Communists call for its abolition as part of opposing the policies of Washington and its imperialist allies. At the same time they explain that Washington, not the "ultra-national" WTO bureaucracy, is the chief enemy of working people in the United States and of humanity.

The political demands and explanations put forward by the liberals, trade union bureaucrats, and other activists who are involved in organizing the anti-WTO protests in Seattle take a completely different tack. The WTO, they say, violates "our" national sovereignty.

Following the U.S.-China trade pact last week, many of the protest leaders have started to concentrate their fire on China. AFL-CIO president John Sweeney AFL-CIO vowed forcefully to fight against approval of the deal by the U.S. congress, which means the labor tops will organize a larger mobilization in Seattle. Sweeney cited the jailing of labor activists in China.

This stance provides cover and rationale for Washington's warlike policy towards China and dovetails with the anticommunism and the America First program of the ultraright. Fundamentally, the U.S. rulers are not cultivating long-term closer ties with Beijing. Rather they are preparing militarily, especially on the nuclear front, for more confrontations. They recognize that the "hidden fist" described by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman — the U.S. navy, army, and air force — is their only sure road to overturning the gains of the Chinese revolution.

Instead of promoting trade and other sanctions against Beijing, the labor movement needs to expose and oppose Washington's war preparations. It must stand in unconditional solidarity with the workers state against these threats, in spite of the bureaucratic, Stalinist character of its leadership.

What of "labor rights" in China and the Third World? The labor movement needs to organize solidarity with the struggles organized by the farmers and workers of countries oppressed by imperialism — taking care to sharply differentiate its policy from the self-serving, crocodile tears of the powers that be in Washington and other imperialist citadels. It needs to support demands by many working people in those countries for the cancellation of the Third World debt.

But this is not the approach of the union bureaucracy. At best, they bewail the "White Man's Burden," looking on these toilers as victims needing the civilizing hand of the imperialist powers to protect them from local despots. They extol the virtues of imperialist democracy.

At worst — and this is much more fundamental to their policy — the AFL-CIO officials depict workers in the Third World as rivals for the jobs that they claim belong to "American" workers. The Teamsters union is conducting a campaign against the NAFTA-provided entry of more truck drivers from Mexico into this country. This is blatant chauvinism ! It drives working-people away from the international solidarity they need. At the same time, it opens the workers movement to the conscious enemies of the labor movement like Patrick Buchanan. In recent remarks, the ultrarightist politician praised Teamsters president James Hoffa. The latter, for his part, said Buchanan's "tough trade policies… would protect American workers."

Buchanan said he's joining "his friend" Hoffa in Seattle, urging his supporters to sport Teamsters jackets and accompany him to "speak to some troops." The Buchanan brigades are attracting cadre for what will become fascist, antilabor street gangs.

These are the kinds of political questions the socialist propaganda teams will address in Seattle in the next two weeks. As the socialists raise the banner of international solidarity and revolutionary struggle, they will find individuals and groups of young people — especially those being politicized by experiences along the natural lines of resistance of the working class — who have strayed into these actions, who have been sucked toward this nationalist campaign looking for an answer to the evils of capitalism. The YS and SWP members will work to peel off these individuals from the morass of America Firstism and into joining the communist movement.  

 

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https://themilitant.com/1999/6342/634220.html