Build for a national general strike and organize self-defense committees everywhere!

Statement by the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 27 August 2020, www.thecommunists.net

1.             Once more, U.S. police tried to kill an unarmed Black man. Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old man was shot eight times in the back from close distance by two police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, when he tried to get in his car where his three little kids - aged 3, 5 and 8 – were waiting. According to the doctors, he is left paralyzed from the waist down. As this tragedy was captured on cellphone video and soon widely shared online, it provoked spontaneous mass protests not only in Kenosha but also in Los Angeles, Wisconsin’s capital of Madison, Minneapolis, and in other cities. This uprising resulted in numerous violent clashes with police and the destruction of dozens of buildings. Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers declared a state of emergency under which he doubled the National Guard deployment in Kenosha from 125 to 250. Late Tuesday three demonstrators were shot, two of them died. A man, a member of a fascist vigilante group which exchanged friendly greetings on the streets of Kenosha just before the killing, has been arrested and charged with homicide. President Donald Trump announced to send 500 more National Guard in order to brutally smash the mass protests.

2.             The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) sends its warmest greetings to Jacob Blake and his family. We also send also condolence to the families of the killed demonstrators. We can not remove their pain. But we can assure them that their relatives died for the cause of justice and that their names will not be forgotten by all those fighting for a human future!

3.             Everyone knows that this is neither the first nor the last time that police try to kill unarmed black people (as well as other people of color). It happens many times every year. It happens since many years and decades. This outrageous police blood lust is the logical result of a system where peoples of color face systematic oppression since centuries. It is the inevitable result of a system which is characterized by heavily armed police forces which face no control from the masses and which act only on the orders of the ruling elite. This system has a name: capitalism.

4.             Do not believe that this never-ending story of cold-blood murders and senseless brutality by the police might end if the orange dumbass is kicked out of the White House and replaced by the Democrat Joe Biden. True, the latter said after the shooting of Jacob Blake: “This morning, the nation wakes up yet again with grief and outrage that yet another Black American is a victim of excessive force.” He added that the officers “must be held accountable.” But words – particularly in times of elections – are one thing, deeds another. Everyone knows that police brutality did not start when Trump became President in early 2017. It existed already long before – just remember the case of Rodney King in 1992. It existed throughout the eight years when Biden was Vice-President under Obama. And it existed also when Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, acted as District Attorney of San Francisco resp. as Attorney General of California in 2004 to 2017.

5.             No, the police are neither “workers in uniform” and they can not be reformed – contrary to the silly daydreaming of the reformists and centrists (like “Socialist Alternative”/ISA and ISG/CWI). The killers in blue will continue their bloody job until they are abolished and replaced by a popular militia selected from controlled by the working class and the oppressed people. Such a smashing of the repressive state apparatus can only be achieved by a socialist revolution, an armed popular uprising which overthrows the ruling class, expropriates the monopoly capitalists and opens the road to socialism.

6.             At the moment, President Trump wants to utilize the unrest for his desperate attempt to avoid defeat at the elections in early November. He is building his extreme right-wing campaign on white supremacism and “law and order”. He hopes to impose a kind of state of emergency in order to impede workers and oppressed to participate in large numbers in the election.

7.             The RCIT calls for organizing self-defense units in order to defend the black community as well as political demonstrations against the police and fascist vigilantes. As long as the police and the fascists have a monopoly of arms, the oppressed are at their mercy. They can defend themselves only if they have their own popular militia. Furthermore, it is crucial to avoid a localization of the protest. Trump sends federal troops to Kenosha – in response, we must put the resistance on national level. The organizations of the Black community, of other peoples of color, the trade union and other progressive forces must organize a national general strike. Such a general strike would send shock waves to the ruling class and let them think twice about their strategy of escalation. Furthermore, it could open the road to overthrow the Trump Presidency on the streets (and not via an election which the orange man tries to rig by all available means). In addition, the current mass struggles should be utilized to build a revolutionary black movement – in the U.S. as well as internationally.

8.             The RCIT warns: do not hope for a victory of Biden-Harris. Even if they win, the system of exploitation, of mass poverty, unemployment, of police brutality, etc. will remain the same. The only road forward is the creation of an independent workers party based on mass organizations of the working class and the oppressed. Such a party would remain completely independent from both parties of the capitalist establishment – the Republicans as well as the Democrats. Such a party would fight for a workers government which expropriates the super-rich and nationalizes the core sectors of the economy under workers control. The RCIT wants to unite revolutionary activists on the basis of such a program! Join us!

International Bureau of the RCIT

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The RCIT has published a number of documents on the popular uprising in the U.S. which are compiled on a special sub-page on our website: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/north-america/articles-on-uprising-after-murder-of-george-floyd/.