Socialist revolution will avenge George Floyd!
Emma Parker, June 2020
This flyer was distributed by supporters of Bolshevik-Leninist at recent rallies in solidarity with the protests in America
The murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin marks the latest chapter of the state violence that plagues Black people in the United States. Since the first imports of slaves to the Americas racist violence against black people in what is the modern day US has existed in various forms throughout the centuries. From the barbarity of chattel slavery, to the legal segregation codified by Black Codes and Jim Crow, to mass incarceration and direct police violence amounting to modern day lynchings, systematic racism against black people persists and flourishes. This horrific oppression reflects the reality of how black Americans are chained as a race-colour caste in the racist capitalist USA. And therefore, no justice can be brought that does not root itself in smashing the capitalist state, including the police, and the ruling capitalist class.
The murder of Floyd has sparked protests throughout the United States, becoming the latest of many protests directed at police brutality against black people. The Floyd protests have been subject to responses of vitriolic violence by local police forces as well as the National Guard including the use of rubber bullets, the use of tear gas and pepper spray, and the assault of hundreds of protestors. The indiscriminate violence of the police has further fuelled the protests, leading to more radical action taken including attacks on property, looting, and the organising of self defence against the police. Capitalist politicians, and their lackeys in media, use these facts to demonise the protest and by extension their goal of ending police brutality; however, these acts, including looting, are reasonable reactions to the material conditions faced by workers suffering under capitalism and represent nothing when compared to the daily looting of the fruits of labour of the working class in America as well as the American imperialist plunder that occurs internationally. To make excuses for the capitalist US state and its armed thugs is to defend the constant oppression and murder of black Americans at the hands of the state.
Much of these injustices that occur in the US have strong parallels to the racist state terror in Australia. Indigenous Australians, ever since they were the target of genocide by the European colonialists, have faced oppression conducted by the capitalist state which continues today, including being a constant target of police brutality, being disproportionally incarcerated, as well as being subjected to a disgusting police/military occupation in the Northern Territory. The ongoing deaths of indigenous people in custody represent a modern state sanctioned genocide of the indigenous population. All the while capitalist media organisations and their journalists endorse and excuse the sickening situation. Throughout the country, immigrants are also targeted by capitalists, where their media has created hysteria over “African Gangs” making Melbourne unsafe. What is really making Melbourne unsafe is capitalism and its cops attacking immigrants, indigenous people and workers.
We must support and defend for the ongoing protests. The protests represent the latest chapter of a rising tide of militant action in the United States. While the response of capitalist thugs and their sycophants in the media represent an attack upon the entire working class. With Trump’s declaration of antifa being a terrorist group, any leftist can be expected to be accused of being a member and attacked. A violent response to repeated violence and provocation is to be absolutely expected and the expectation that one can overthrow a system reliant on violence by nonviolent means is naivety. The difference in response between the protests against the COVID-19 lockdown and the George Floyd killing drive home, not just the racial aspect of the brutality, but the class aspect as the COVID-19 protests represented a movement that wanted human sacrifice in order for capitalists’ interests whereas the George Floyd protests want racial equality which directly affronts the foundations of American capitalism.
The current unrest in the United States and the continued brutality towards the indigenous people and immigrants in Australia and across the world, highlights the need to an armed and organised working class to protect itself from the reactionary capitalist state and its bodies of armed men. The capitalist state, and its political parties, are both unable and unwilling to protect the working class and oppressed groups from racist attacks and therefore communists should make the protection of the working class against the reactionary capitalist state a fundamental tenet of our political program.
For labour action with the protesters against police murders and police repression!
It is insufficient to charge and jail the murderous cops! Capitalism is fundamentally racist and it must be smashed!
We need workers’ defence guards to defend our interests against racist attacks, state brutality and capitalist intimidation!