Don’t separate the struggles

Larry Hales WW photo: Lal Roohk

From a talk by Larry Hales— Fight Imperialism, Stand Together (FIST) leader and Denver community organizer—at the May 13-14 “Preparing for the Rebirth of the Global Struggle for Socialism” conference in New York.

Some in the movement separate anti-war work from anti-repression work, and concern themselves with appealing to moderates. They deem certain struggles as too controversial for the masses to support, such as solidarity with the Palestinian struggle in conjunction with mobilizing against the war in Iraq.

These are the same types that organized around “sanctions not war” and “let the UN finish its inspections.” We know that the war in Iraq didn’t start in 2003, but as far back as 1991, and that war was followed by genocidal sanctions which was war just the same.

We must reject any attempts of compromising the movement by attempting to make it more vapid, or by pandering to sectors of either ruling class parties. What ever allies we win over, we win by being principled Marxists/Leninists and fighting oppres sion, repression, imperialism, show ing solidarity with the most oppres sed workers in their struggle for self-determination and, of course, fighting for socialism.

Our idea of broadening the struggle is to strengthen it and we do this by connecting the struggles, because ultimately we have to build unity in the working class to fight back against the capitalist rulers.

Recently, the struggle has been emboldened and given new life by the mobilization of millions of immigrant workers. We have seen the rebirth of International Workers Day, a commemoration started in this country around the fight for an eight-hour workday, but co-opted and long forgotten by many. An old struggle has been revived and a great giant mass of workers, who have long been regarded as invisibles, have thrown off any fears of the repressive state.

Many of the immigrants rights organizers in Denver have wondered where the anti-war folks were for May Day. Just as there has always been the wonder as to where anti-war movement has gone when Indigenous people organize around the racist Columbus Day celebration in October. For May Day, Denver had the third largest mobilization of that day.

There is a distrust in oppressed communities of some in the anti-war movement, which is justified, because of a history of racist patronizing and ignorance. One of the things that attracted me to Workers World is its history in supporting self-determination of the most oppressed communities.

The party would never be insensitive and thrust itself opportunistically at the forefront, but has shown the willingness to seek out the most determined fighters and show solidarity, with our socialist perspective. It would be unprincipled to force our will onto the struggle for immigrant rights or onto the fighters in the Black liberation struggle, or any struggle of the oppressed against the oppressor.