The latest weak response by U.S., British, and French imperialists against Bosnian Serb bosses underscores the following developments:
The recent fall of Srebrenica means that the creation of a Greater Serbian state, led by the fascist Slobodan Milosevic, is close to being a done-deal. A newly formed Serbian federation allied with Russian bosses can make a bargain with German-backed Croatia to maintain a weak Bosnian Moslem state. This reflects the growing strength of German imperialism and the alliance between German and Russian bosses. Remember that civil war in the former Yugoslavia broke out in 1991, after German rulers had recognized Slovenia and Croatia as independent states. The Germans now seem to be getting what they wanted out of the gamble.
By the same token, U.S., British and French imperialists are unable to do much more than bluster over Bosnia because they are weak individually and divided by sharpening rivalries. This is particularly true of the U.S. and French. French rulers wanted to back their threats against the Bosnian Serbs by sending 1000 ground troops to reinforce Goradze. However, after their own recent Somalia fiasco, Clinton isn't ready to risk U.S. casualties in an area that doesn't have the strategic importance of Asia, the Middle East, or the Americas. So the U.S. forced the French to accept the feeble tactic of threatening air bombardment.
French bosses have repeatedly rejected this approach, because they know that air attacks only kill civilians but have little military value. Since Bosnia is in the heart of Europe, it affects French bosses far more vitally than their U.S. competitors. However, the French are powerless to act alone on the ground; their military doesn't have enough transport helicopters to move troops. They would need to use American helicopters, which the Klinton Krowd refuses to provide. This situation is particularly ironic, because the French-German consortium Eurocopter just sold thirty helicopters to the Turkish military, a deal beyond the means of the current French military budget.
In order to act independently of the U.S., French imperialists went to the very tactic they had just turned down. According to the July 25 New York Times, they ineffectively bombed the Bosnian Serb stronghold of Pale, near Sarajevo, in retaliation for the killing of two French soldiers.
Until now, the Serbian and Bosnian Serb nationalists have been able to thumb their noses at U.S., British, and French imperialism. However, their success doesn't mean that the war over Bosnia is under control. For example, a number of governments in predominantly Moslem countries, including Egypt, Malaysia, Pakistan, Turkey, and Iran, have started to break the UN weapons embargo on Bosnia. If they become actively involved in the Balkan war, a spillover to the Middle East is only a matter of time. Some forces within the U.S. ruling class, including Dole, also want to start shipping weapons to the Bosnian Moslems.
U.S. rulers are now unwilling to make a major military commitment in the Balkans. However, if the war spreads to the Mideast, they will have to intervene to protect their oil interests and investments. As the old song goes, "The leg bone's connected to the thigh bone..."
All of the above proves the obvious. The logic of capitalism and nationalism is war and more war. U.S. workers do not want to fight and die for the profits of a few parasites. However, U.S. bosses have no choice but war. As this contradiction sharpens, our Party will have many opportunities to grow and to show the world's workers that communist revolution is the only way out of imperialist murder and mayhem.
This cadre school was a step towards developing more communist leaders of the working class. To give clear communist leadership, we need to inspire our friends and co-workers -- not only about what we're against, but also what we're for. We all need to be thinkers and doers, capable of mastering and teaching many different skills.
We need to analyze and make plans, whether it's organizing a shop committee, writing a leaflet, talking to a friend, or leading a meeting. Understanding what kinds of problems, obstacles and contradictions may occur helps us avoid getting de-railed by them, and how to turn a bad thing into a good thing.
One group debated whether or not you really could "do what you want to do." The capitalists lie to us and tell us we have the freedom to be whatever we want under capitalism. "if you want something badly enough and work hard enough you can do it." Yet there at the school were garment workers, condemned by capitalism to life at the minimum wage, inspired by communism to believe they can change the world.
"We can win communism," said one youth. "I used to think being in the Party was a good thing to do, to do things for people. Now I realize the Party is a necessity."
The reason the Soviet workers were able to defeat the Nazis, while the French workers did not was due to their politics, their determination, organization and leadership. The working class can be the strongest class in history -- with a Party that has a communist line, confidence that we can win, and a plan for revolution.
An essential contradiction exists within capitalism, as within all processes. In this case, the contradiction is that while labor is organized to produce goods socially, the wealth created by the working class is not shared socially. It is usurped by a few rich capitalists. That basic contradiction can only be resolved by the development of a society in which all that is produced is shared equally, in other words, communism.
This change will come about as all change does, in small quantitative steps that lead eventually to a qualitative leap -- in this case, a violent revolution led by PLP. Having resolved the contradiction between the working class and capitalist class, a new working class, egalitarian society, with its own, new contradictions, will be born out of the old. We know we will win because scientific study of capitalist society, and societies before it, shows us that communism must be the next stage of human history.
*In 1970, the U.S. aeronautics industry dominated the world market for civilian aircraft with more than 100 seats. Airbus, a European consortium with heavy French investments, now claims a 30 percent share of this market.
*The German-French Eurocopter now sells as many helicopters as the entire U.S. helicopter industry.
*Over the last twelve years, the French Ariane rocket has taken over more than half the market for satellite launches.
*The French telecommunications giant Telecom has deals for half the Chinese market, potentially the most lucrative in the world.
*French arms exporters have beaten out the U.S. competition on a number of major deals, including a sale of 439 tanks in 1993 to the United Arab Emirates.
*French and U.S. oil companies are fencing with each other throughout Africa and the Mideast, and French and U.S. agribusiness are constantly sniping across the Atlantic.
No wonder the Clinton White House has retooled the CIA to make economic espionage with U.S. imperialism's main rivals a top priority. A recent article in the magazine L'Expansion, a French version of Business Week, gives details about a bagful of U.S.-inspired dirty tricks, including the sale to one French defense company of industrial secrets about another, disinformation campaigns, and perhaps even the murder of leading technicians in the French space program. According the July 24 International Herald Tribune, similar operations have been launched against Japanese and German imperialists. The French caper was a little too crude, even for the CIA, and the cat got out of the bag, forcing Clinton & Co. to redesign their tactics. But the general direction is clear. Competition for profits is heating up, and U.S. rulers will stab anyone in the back to make a buck.
No, I haven't turned into a science fiction writer. I've just been thinking a lot recently about what happens to older people today. I've been thinking about that because hundreds of old people just got killed by the heat wave we had. And it seems to me that one reason they died is because they've been separated from the rest of the working class.
See, to me there's a big difference between working class morality and capitalist morality. It might be more truthful to say there's no such thing as capitalist morality. For capitalists, the only morality is money. They can honestly sit and talk with each other about whether putting air conditioning in a senior citizens home would be "cost effective." After all, retired people don't produce anything a capitalist can sell anymore. The cheaper they live, and the sooner they die, the better for the bosses. Bourgeois[1] morality consists of discussing how many deaths due to heat stroke are "acceptable." Of course, their discussions are conducted in their air-conditioned board rooms, filled with glasses of brandy and cigar smoke. And of course, the care of their elderly relatives doesn't need to be cost effective. It is so revolting that the children growing up in that scene in the first paragraph won't even believe it. (That's why they'll need to listen to the knowledge of their elders!)
The bottom line of capitalist "morality" might be the bottom line, but they still preach a certain type of morality to us -- the way they want us to live our lives. Things like "look out for number one," and "if you don't take care of yourself, nobody else will take care of you." Things like "those people aren't like you. Don't worry about them." Not only do they preach that stuff to us. They also manage to engineer our lives so we believe it. After all, if you don't have enough money to pay your bills, you can't expect society at large to help you out. And if your neighbors can't pay their bills, can you pay them? Are you about to go knock on doors in a senior citizen building, or do you have too many problems of your own to deal with? See what I mean? They've effectively isolated us from each other. Black over here, white over there; men over here, women over there; young over here, old over there. Especially in a time like this, when there's not much of a revolutionary movement going on. Everyone's looking out for their own.
A good friend of mine works in a public senior citizen building. No air conditioning. Last Monday, they took four people out of that building, dead from the heat. Sometimes in that building, people die and no one knows until their body starts stinking. Imagine what those wasted lives could have offered to us, to our class, to the living. Imagine the experiences and knowledge those people had. Imagine their ability and desire to coach us, to help our children, to be productive. Down the drain, because they are not "cost effective" to capitalism.
The words I want to use to describe how I feel about this can't be printed. We'd better be about building that revolutionary movement fast.
Three million patients visiting the hospital for everything from treatment for sore throats to broken bones to vital prenatal checkups would have no place to go. LA's 150,000 garment workers will lose their health care and other vital social services. So will hundreds of thousands of other low-paid workers.
A Local 660 business agent prepared a 20-page document responding to the County's plan for managed health care. "Managed care" is the capitalist class' name for spending less money on taking care of working people, who will get less health care. This document was introduced into the RN Bargaining Unit's negotiating committee July 20. The document accepted that layoffs would take place, and talked about managing the conditions of the layoffs, not fighting against them. This sellout by the union leadership is an attack on all the workers who will be denied health and social services, as well as Local 660 members.
The exploitation of garment workers is international. The majority of garment workers in Mexico and Central America are young women like Judith Viera, a Salvadoran girl of 18 who sews clothes for Gap and Banana Republic. Judith earns 36 cents an hour and must request a pass from her supervisor in order to go the bathroom. Meanwhile the executive director international of Gap, Donald Fisher has an annual salary of $2 million plus benefits. Ford magazine reported that Fisher maintains a fortune worth $1.5 billion. Last year, Gap amassed net profits of $3.6 billion from the sweat, blood and misery of thousands of workers around the world.
Communists bring to the masses of workers the idea that the capitalist system cannot be reformed, it has to be destroyed. Communist ideas clearly show that no matter how militant or how honest a union may be, it is limited to working within the laws of capitalism. The importance of an international union is that it can unite en masse thousands of workers and can serve as an example to millions more as it fights for a shorter work week, equal work for equal pay, union solidarity, etc.
The job of the Party is to guarantee that through these union struggles and struggles for reforms, thousands and millions of workers learn and see the need for international working class solidarity. Our goal is to build communism where neither Guess?, nor Gap, nor Rockefeller, nor any other boss can exploit us because they'll be six feet under ground! And then we will finally be rid of the rotten capitalist system that creates riches for Guess? and Gap while it produces misery for the workers at Good Times, for Judith and for millions of other workers. Communism! where all workers share equally what we produce.
The Party members who work in garment shops and the Summer Project volunteers are supporting the striking workers by collecting food. We are also bringing the strikers' experiences in struggle to thousands of workers. This strike is potentially the first step in a general unionization campaign in garment in LA and around the world. We want the strike to grow and its lessons to be learned thousands of garment workers in the U.S. and worldwide. These new experiences should be used to encourage more enthusiasm, increase the desire to fight, and to show that working class solidarity is possible, and that all bosses, not just Mr. Lee, put profits first.
Through our participation in this struggle, we can demonstrate to garment workers and all workers that we can win. It is possible to organize a militant union as well as fight for a new society based on communist equality. To unionize garment we need a very militant struggle. We need to stop scabs, stop production, confront the bosses' laws, their police, liberal social fascists, and the anti-communism of the union leaders.
Most importantly, we need the support of thousands of garment workers as well as thousands of students, teachers, city workers, janitors, carpenters, hospital workers, etc. Send telegrams of support and donations to the striking workers in care of the Progressive Labor Party, 2601B Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., Los Angeles, CA. 90018.
*fighting for jobs with the demand of a 6 hour day for 8 hours pay;
*defying anti-union, anti-strike laws and smashing scabs;
*and organizing the unorganized.
Speaking on behalf of this resolution, a member of the PLP pointed out that a change of the faces at the head of the trade union movement won't stop the crisis of capitalism that is facing all workers.
Massive unemployment, racist cutbacks, and union-busting are features of growing fascism that face each of us in one way or another. Both the forces of Sweeney and Donahue have advocated collaboration-concessions, "team concepts," and obeying the bosses' rules. Both live in luxury, typical of business unionism.
Communists in the unions see this crisis as a challenge and an opportunity to organize our class. We will not be overwhelmed or defeated by the bosses, or tricked by their agents within the union movement. Our goal is to win workers to increased communist led class struggle and membership in Progressive Labor Party.
The newspaper bosses have hired goons supplied by Huffmaster Associated Inc., a security firm well known for its confrontational style. Four picketers were injured when they were hit by a goon van driven by ex-cops. So far, three picketers have been arrested. This has not dampened the determination of the strikers who see this strike as a fight for their jobs, and dignity in the work place.
This is the first strike to hit either of Detroit's major dailies the Detroit News and the Free Press in 15 years. The Detroit Newspapers which runs the Joint Operating Agreement between the two companies has reaped over $56 million in profits last year while cutting five hundred jobs. And now they want to make even more!
Upon visiting the picket lines and talking with the strikers we found out that the company wants to impose merit pay raises instead of traditionally negotiated pay raises. In other words, kiss your bosses' ass. If he likes it, you get a raise. If he doesn't, you don't get a raise. The other issue is the cost of health care. The company wants the workers to pay half of the cost. The company's wage offer of a 4 per cent raise over three years is essentially a pay cut. In response to growing support from other workers some businesses have pulled their ads from the scab papers.
In the literature that Progressive Labor members distributed at the picket lines we called for getting support from othe unions, fighting for the 6 hour day, organizing the unorganized and breaking the bosses' laws. We plan to take high school students with us when we revisit the picket lines so that the students experience real life lessons in the war of workers against their bosses.
Puerto Rico, which U.S. imperialism used as its showcase for Latin America, has turned into a living hell. Drug related crimes crimes has skyrocketed despite the National Guard patroling housing projects. Immigrant workers (particularly from the Dominican Republic) are victims of daily harassment by cops. The bosses use them as scapegoats for the many problems caused by capitalism and drugs (the same cops that are deeply involved in the drug trade).
A general strike must not be used as an electoral vehicle for the opposition Popular Democratic Party (PPD), which is using its influence among union leaders to channel the anger of workers towards voting for the PPD in next year's gubernatorial elections. Rosello is basically continuing the policies of PPD hack Hernandez Colon, the previous governor. Both the PPD and the PNP parties support U.S. imperialism.
The building of a PLP grouping here is necessary in order for the general strike to become a school in which workers learn that such a rotten system must be smashed.
This situation is so scandalous that even President Cardoso was forced to make a speech on radio saying, "This must end." Of course, he doesn't mean it. Cardoso's Minister of Agriculture, Jose Eduardo de Andrade Vieira, has been accused of using forced labor on his own fazenda. And not one slave owner has been prosecuted for violating Article 149 of the penal code, which prohibits enslavement. These slave owners have the cops and judges in their pockets.
The fact is that capitalism means mass poverty and enslavement. 40.9% of Brazil's 155 million people live below the poverty line while the richest 10% control more than 50% of the wealth. Only a communist revolution can end the wage slavery of capitalism.
The volunteers went to see some of the maquiladoras. They made speeches calling on workers to organize on both sides of the border and to smash all borders. 153 copies of Challenge-Desafios were sold and 1500 leafets were given out at a bus depot used to transportmaquiladora workers . (More next issue)
UC is one of the most racist universities in the U.S. It was at UC that the crucial research in the production of the first atomic bomb was conducted. The University sponsored the racist eugenics movement in the early 1920s -- the theory that claimed that blacks and immigrants are genetically inferior. The university conducted Defense Department research to support the war in Vietnam and was one of the staunch supporters of the apartheid system in South Africa.
Five years ago, 50 businessmen and bankers representing the largest banks and industries in California formed a group called California Roundtable on Education. The study by this group found that there was an alarming trend of "surplus college graduates" in California. Immediately after this study, the administrators started increasing tuition fees, making it difficult for the minority and working class students to enter universities. The tuition increased by 300% in five years as the racist bosses carried out their policy of reducing `surplus' college graduates.
In the late '60s and early '70s affirmative action was used to admit a certain number of black and minority students. However, admitting minority students did not scratch the surface of the racist high school education system where over 90% of these students don't even qualify to enter the UC system.
At the Regents meeting, the first speaker to defend affirmative action was the long time black politician from California, Willie Brown. Brown made his career helping large corporations increase their profit and attacking labor unions. He said that he would not be where he is today had it not been for affirmative action. All other speakers after him echoed this sentiment. The last speaker was Jesse Jackson. Jackson and Brown are worried that if the universities don't produce a certain number of minority graduates, it will become very hard to push the illusions of capitalism to millions of unemployed youth. They have no strategy to fight against racist education and for living wage jobs for the working class.
Jesse Jackson and other liberal politicians, both black and white, are the biggest roadblock to fighting racism. They claim to oppose open racists like Wilson but they embrace the same racist capitalist system. Jackson literally exhibited this, when, during the meeting, he gave Connerly, the black UC Regent who called for the end of affirmative action, a big hug while black ministers applauded.
As fascism grows, and intensifies, the bosses will increasingly put forward people like Jackson as their alternative to the open racism of Wilson. We must vigorously and boldly expose these lies in other organizations and win masses of workers and students to fight racist unemployment. We must break the bosses' laws and build Progressive Labor Party. In the coming months hundreds of thousands of students across the country are going take up the fight against racism. We must change the nature of this fight. The fight around affirmative action must be transformed into the fight for jobs, the fight against academic racism, building a worker-student alliance, and joining PLP to organize for communist revolution.
The Challenge-Desafío article (7/19) on how the use of the A-Bomb against Japan by the U.S. was basically to threaten the then communist-led Soviet Union was right to the point. Truman knew that when the Red Army, after defeating the Nazis, entered the war against Japan and defeated the one-million strong Japanese army in Manchuria, that Japan might have fallen to the Soviet Union.
All the capitalist air forces bombed civilian targets deliberately during the war, except the Soviet Air Force (but now that the former USSR no longer exists, the Russian Air Force bombed civilian targets in Chechnya).
The air attacks against civilians began before W.W.II. The Japanese fascists did it in 1937 against Shanghai, and the Nazis did it against Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. The fascist Axis continued to bomb civilian targets during W.W.II. During the first day of saturation bombing by the Luftwaffe against Stalingrad in 1941, 40,000 people were murdered. The U.S. and British did it against Germany, killing at least 35,000 civilians in Dresden in February, 1945. A few weeks later, on March 9, "100,000 to 200,000 men, women and children died...when the U.S. 20th Air Force doused Tokyo with jellied gasoline; all told, in the months before Hiroshima, bombs killed up to 500,000 in Japanese cities and left 13 million homeless." (U.S. News and World Report, 7/31/95).
A W.W.II Buff
The new series "From a Red's Point of View" adds positively to the paper. I just want to make a comment about the connection between the militia movement and the U.S. government.
It is true, as Red says, that the militias and the feds are on the same team, in spite of their apparent contradictions. This team is in essence racist, fascist, anti-communist and anti-working class. But on the other hand, there are important contradictions between the militias and certain sections of the ruling class.
The contradictions are on how to carry on the vicious attacks against workers. Both sides agree on disbanding what is left of the so-called welfare state (meaning, getting rid of the few benefits workers still get, like medical insurance, unions, pensions, etc.), but not how to. The militias want to do it at a faster pace, imposing a fascist system sooner than later. This line represents the point of view of certain sections of the ruling class (open right-wing Republicans and Democrats, talk radio Nazis like Gordon Liddy and Rush Limbaugh, and the capitalist interests they front for). They cover their fascist aims with fake anti-government rhetoric, blaming the feds for all the problems of U.S. capitalism.
The other side, the so-called liberal establishment, which still controls the federal government, wants to do it at a slower pace, for now. This group of bosses also wants fascism, while maintaining a so-called democratic cover as long as possible. They want to continue to do what they have done very well: the buying power of U.S. workers have been going down since 1972, 100,000 workers die each year because of health and safety violations on the job, etc..
Dogfights among sections of the ruling class get many people killed, like those in Oklahoma City. This fight also speeds up fascism, as one section of the ruling class uses its control of the state to discipline the other (fascism came to Germany and Japan during the 1930s not just to attack workers and communism, but also to impose capitalist discipline on those bosses who were a hindrance to the big bosses). Any worker who sides with any of these two fascist sides is only putting a rope around his/her neck.
Big Apple Red
On July 22 and 23 I participated in the cadre school held in Los Angeles. This school consisted mainly of local garment workers and the youth who are here for the summer project.
I have participated in several cadre schools before, but this was one of the most impressive. The youth involved have a tremendous level of commitment and political understanding. Even those who were not yet members of PLP were willing to discuss their contradictions and were open to struggle.
The workshop I participated in spent most of the time applying dialectics to working in the high schools and also trying to build the PLP in a small town where there is a lot of gang activity. We used these specific discussions to learn more about dialectical materialism's laws and categories.
Having youth around at such an advanced stage politically is a qualitative improvement over other summer projects and schools. It is due to factors both internal and external to the Party. Externally, the working class is hungrier than ever for tools to fight the class struggle. Internally, we are doing a better job than ever in developing new leadership, the leaders we need to make this revolution.
Bronx PL Member
Dear Challenge:
The cadre school was surprising to me. I felt like it was going to be a big lecture on dialectical materialism and everyone would be taking notes -- then we would apply the principles to our lives. However, it turned out that we as communists basically think dialectically already, and that the various laws or rules simply categorize our way of life.
Self critically, I could have contributed more to the cadre school. I was writing notes to my friend and doodling on paper when I could have been speaking up more. But the main reason that I didn't participate is because I wanted some of the other people who were not very outspoken to feel more comfortable. However, instead of just listening to and analyzing what people said and then responding, I just kept all of my ideas to myself.
What I feel is one of the most important lessons to get from dialectical materialism is that everything is constantly changing. At the school itself, people changed from being close to PL and our ideas to actually joining the Party. People also changed from saying very little in the discussions to speaking up more frequently. These small steps let me know that change in this capitalist system is occurring and will continue to happen until the time comes when workers have the strength to take power over the bosses and create a communist society.
Cadre School Participant
Dear Challenge:
The cadre school on dialectics explained the ideas and prepared me to take the initiative in continuing to study and practice the building of a communist society.
Unfortunately, the school had to be divided into two large units, one for English speakers and another for Spanish speakers. Because it was the garment workers that were basically in the Spanish unit and students and teachers in the English unit, many of the experiences between the students and garment workers could not be shared in the workshops. However, if the school had not been divided by language, the constant translation would have made it difficult for a serious, and in-depth discussion to take place within each workshop.
The language barrier that I observed in the cadre school reflected the dialectical principle that there are limitations to every process. In this particular instance, a lack of enough translators for every workshop, and a lack of time for the translations to take place limited the Party from enabling the volunteers and garment workers to interact and communicate as well as they could have.
While the language difference separated many of the cadre school participants, this difference does reflect the internationalism of our Party. And as communists we must realize that just as change takes place in every process, we can defeat the various barriers which keep our class separated, and truly become one class, one flag, one world.
Internationalist Participant
Dear Challenge:
Today was the first day of the cadre school. My group was made up of teachers and students. In the morning we talked mainly about the differences between Idealism and Materialism. Everyone contributed what they thought and in the end I think we were all fairly clear on the differences.
In the afternoon we put Dialectical Materialism into practice by investigation. We asked questions about the life of one of the group members. We asked questions to better understand her life so we could figure out what would be the best way for us to convince her to join.
Another point brought up was that there are likenesses and differences in everything. And how in every process there are contradictions. I enjoyed today even though I thought I'd be bored.
The second day of the school was a little different. It started off good but was not as good at the end. Maybe that's because I got sick. I participated a lot this time because we talked about growing up around the Party and trying to talk politics with your friends. I know a lot about these subjects. The rest of the time I was a little out of it. Overall I think it was a success.
Learning About Recruiting
Dear Challenge:
I've been here in LA for two weeks with the Summer Project. One of the main things we have been doing is visiting garment workers and discussing the need for a union as well as to build PL. I went to visit the relatives of a comrade here last week. A few of us came into the living room and spent a few hours talking.
There was agreement that only by involving masses of workers could we unionize but that it would take a few committed workers to get the ball rolling. We heard stories about all kinds of abuse on the job, as well as walk-outs and struggles. The family was impressed that the Party had organized so many young people from around the U.S. and Mexico to come to LA. The comrade brought up ideas about why we see communism as the solution, the limitations of unions, and the need for a truly egalitarian society.
We also visited a family where the husband had been involved in union activity in Mexico and the wife had just been laid off, along with all of her co-workers, when the company took off to Mexico. They were very open to our ideas and program.
Garment workers welcomed us into their homes because they are sick and tired of their exploitation. Here, in the pages of Challenge-Desafío, I would like to thank all the garment workers I met for their hospitality as well as solidarity. Hasta la vista.
Summer Project Activist
[1]French word -- means the same as capitalist, boss, ruler, etc. Return to Text