Regarding domestic policy Since the early 1980s the League and affiliates have also organized mobilizations against
Nazis and the
Ku Klux Klan. They were an early campaigner to save
Mumia Abu-Jamal from
death row. The Spartacist League regards what they term the "struggle for black liberation" as central to
communist revolution in the U.S.; to that end, they promote "revolutionary integrationism" and also prominently support the right to bear arms. The party is radically permissive with regards to sexuality and culture, opposing all the laws which prohibit consensual sexual relations. In addition Their British section was for the decriminalization of prostitution, drug use, gambling, pornography, homosexual sex which they regard as "crimes without victims" and are "generally illegal or heavily regulated under capitalist law."
Regarding similar groups The League rejects
left-wing political
coalitions and campaigns believing they are
popular fronts aimed at providing platforms for bourgeois politicians from the
Democratic Party and the
U.S. Green Party, a strategy the SL's ideas abhor. Instead, the League denounces all support to "
capitalist parties", especially the left-wing ones founded through popular front formation, and instead argue for an independent workers' party aiming for
state power. The Spartacists also devote much attention to
polemicizing against other
communist and
socialist groups. These polemics are usually exceptionally forceful and are often seen by the groups being attacked as unnecessarily disruptive of their activities. The Spartacist League is also highly critical of groups associated with the
reunified Fourth International, whose politics they characterize as
Pabloite. In a book entitled
Death Agony of the Fourth International,
Workers Power and the
Irish Workers' Group claim the iSt's strategy was/is based on, and they quote from an iSt document, "destroying" other left wing groups. They claim this involves occupying rooms where other left groups are due to have meetings as well as other methods. Furthermore, they argue that the Spartacists, while developing a correct position that the SWP were
centrist, did not recognise that the Fourth International had degenerated before it split, and therefore were more critical of one section than of the other.
On Islamic states The
Socialist Workers' Party supported
Ayatollah Khomeini during the
Islamic Revolution in Iran as "
anti-imperialist", but the Spartacists gave no support to this. The League was one of the few communist groups other than the
Workers World Party to hail the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the occupation that followed. At the time the Spartacists believed it provided an opportunity to extend the gains of the
October Revolution to the
Afghan people, especially women, in a struggle against the
misogynistic Islamic fundamentalists of the U.S.-backed
Mujahideen. Later, when the U.S. intervention led to the formation of the successive Islamic governments of the
Mujahideen and the
Taliban, the League echoed its condemnation of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and denounced these governments as
theocratic, capitalist and anti-woman.
On socialist states The League also fought hard in mobilizing to defend the
Soviet Union and
East Germany from what they termed capitalist counterrevolution. Their group in Germany waged a campaign in 1989 calling for
political revolution against Stalinism and opposition to the capitalist
reunification. Today, the Spartacists defend what they see as the remaining
deformed workers' states and have called for the defense of
North Korea's right to
nuclear arms as a necessary component keeping it free of U.S. military intervention. This is a continuation of their earlier positions on what they consider the deformed workers' states of the
Republic of Cuba, the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea,
Socialist Republic of Vietnam, and the
People's Republic of China. On these countries they continue to call for political revolution against the ruling communist parties while at the same time calling for the defense of these revolutions from imperialism and internal capitalist counter-revolution.
On lockdowns In April 2021 the League issued a Supplement to the Spartacist publication ('Down With the Lockdowns!') in which it announced its opposition to the
COVID-19 lockdowns measures established to reduce the spread of
COVID-19, describing these as a "reactionary public health measure" that had caused mass unemployment, and counterposing these measures to 'union control of safety'. ==History==