Vicious cop brutality against workers and youth is everyday USA. Many throughout the country immediately related this attack to the racist beating of Rodney King. Police brutality is part of the terror that the bosses are building against workers in the neighborhoods and on the job to prevent rebellion.
Capitalism does not work. The rulers will never admit that their system can not provide the essential of needs for working people. The rulers blame workers for the system's failings. U.S. imperialism has a profitable stranglehold on Mexico. Blaming immigrants who suffer from this exploitation, fleeing to a slight chance at a job and better life, is the focus of a racist anti-immigrant campaign.
The only thing unique about the beating in El Monte was the TV camera.
The response to the El Monte beatings must be to bring down this system of bosses'terror. Beatings must be met with hundreds of workers dedicating themselves to a new, communsit society. We'll deal with the animals in uniform who beat on our class brothers and sisters. We'll destroy the capitalist system and replace it with communism.
Economic inequality is constant under capitalism, but capitalism is not permanent. PLP and the working class will see to that. Capitalism has created the army of impoverished, oppressed workers who will destroy it with communist revolution.
Currently capitalism is in its worst crisis of overproduction ever. In the U.S., tens of millions of workers and others are experiencing first-hand the bitter truth of capitalist economic disparity:
*Real wages for workers have declined at least 12 percent since 1979.
*Executive pay and bonuses have risen 360 percent since 1980. In the 1950s, the average company president made 30 times more than the average worker. Today, the average CEO gets 100 times the average worker's wage.
*The racist wage differential between black and white workers has widened while workers' wages continue to decline. According to the New York Times, "the average American was 8 percent worse off in 1993 than in 1989 while the poor were 14 percent worse off" (3/28).
*By the U.S. government's definition, 14.5 percent of the U.S. is "poor," with incomes below $15,000 a year. This is about a quarter of the work force. This is also based on a 1950s estimate that ties poverty to the percentage of income spent on food. But housing, health care, child care, clothing, transportation, and other necessities have outpaced wage increases. So real poverty in the U.S. is much worse--about 25 percent of the population.
*Real unemployment is well over 20 percent. Despite Clinton's lie that the economy is the "best" it's been in 30 years, 40 percent of the jobs created since 1991 pay an average hourly wage of $7.47, about the poverty level of $15,000 for a family of four.
All of a sudden, the politicians and media have rediscovered the working class. Their newfound concern clouds their real fear of ripening conditions for rebellion. The same New York Times article that discusses growing inequality also warns: "Taken separately, the trends in inequality and mobility are distressing; together, they are kindling for social conflagration."
The bosses fear rebellions like the 1992 L.A. uprising and the recent GM strike. In the short run, they don't like any kind of disruption. In the long run, the specter of communist revolution haunts them. Despite all the lies in recent years about "the death of communism" the rulers know that workers will fight against inequality and that the combination of working class militancy and the PLP's revolutionary communist outlook spells doom for capitalism. They will do anything to try to prevent this.
The coming period will severely test the working class and our Party. Mass rebellion against unemployment and the growing misery of the working and middle classes is in the cards. So is war.
History has shown that workers will follow communist leadership. Led by the Soviet Red Army and inspired by communist ideals, millions of workers rose up in the USSR and throughout Europe to destroy the Nazi murderers. Capitalism is worse today. So destroying it forever means doing something different from the old communist movement.
It means preserving the old movement's dedication and militancy but fighting for nothing less than egalitarian communism. Tens of millions of workers have paid in blood so that workers and communists today could learn this lesson. Communism and only communism offers the working class a future. Joining the PLP and building this year's May Day demonstrations are the keys to this future.
*After 12 years of IMF and World Bank "magic," 20 percent of the work force in Mexico is "officially" unemployed, with another 40 percent "underemployed." Over half the population lives below the government's poverty level.
*Between 1984 and 1990, U.S. and European banks raked in $178 billion in payments from debtor nations. At the same time official poverty in Latin America increased nearly 40 percent. The wealthiest 20 percent of the population has incomes 20 times higher than the poorest fifth. In Africa, 200 million people out of 690 million live below the official poverty line, and the World Bank estimates that this figure will increase by 50 percent over the next few years.
These impoverished, oppressed workers are part of a vast army in every corner of the world waiting for the PLP.
Over 50 young people, mostly black and latin, participated in discussing some of the principles and ideas of dialectics, such as: what is philosophy?; what is the difference between idealism and materialism?, what makes up a contradiction?, etc. During the first part of the day, we discussed the answers to these questions. Everyone was enthusiastic and tried to understand some of these philosophical laws in concrete ways.
For the second half of the day, we discussed what our internal contradictions are about building the Party. This was an introduction to the discussion on how we are going to build for May Day. Everyone in the room spoke honestly about what their internal contradiction are. Many said that their major contradiction is the confidence to put forth communist ideas to the working class.
Many times our comrades are won to the bosses' ideas of "doing your own thing." Comrades at the conference said that we cannot separate the personal and the political: they have to be intertwined, so that communist politics always lead. This contradiction also brought up the question of commitment and how we have to struggle with ourselves and our comrades to fight for communism and build PLP in every aspect of our lives.
Afterwards, we discussed specifically how we are going to guarantee a large number of people from our base to build for and come to May Day. We went around the room and estimated that our group of students and young workers' section was going to bring more than 1,291 people to May Day! And to add nails to the bosses' coffin, four people joined the Party at the conference!
The bosses better watch out because we are going to recruit more, study more, and lead more struggles. The bosses in the world are telling everyone that the youth of the world are stupid and can't learn anything. Well, we are proving them wrong. We can understand the world better than they can because they believe that they can fix capitalism, but we know we are going to destroy it! We are arming ourselves with the ideas of dialectical materialism and recruiting more people so that we can lead the way to a communist future
Workers complained about unsafe conditions to their local union, the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA). Grievances were filed. The workers did what they were "supposed" to do. They followed the rules, they worked within the system, relying on the union and OSHA.
The water tank was supposedly repaired last month. This is the tank that murdered worker Kevin Myers filed complaints against and told his family it made him "nervous." This is the tank that workers wondered why it was placed so close to where people worked. This is the tank that killed Kevin and two others.
Now OSHA officials, engineers, all sorts of "experts" are crawling over the plant like maggots on a garbage dump looking for the "cause" of the explosion, while Beta Steel lawyers will be covering the company's butt.
* The union, supposed to defend the workers, is part of the bosses' scheme to keep workers in line. If Kevin Myers had organized a walk-out, the union would have tried to force them back to work.
Working within the system, relying on OSHA or unions that obey the bosses' laws, will get us killed every time. The only solution to capitalist murder is communist revolution. When steel mills and everything else are run by us for our benefit, workers will no longer be sacrificed for blood profits.
On the one hand there is OSHA and unions like the ILA which tell workers to cool it while companies make millions with unsafe, murderous conditions and equipment. On the other hand, there is the Progressive Labor Party which says that bosses like Beta Steel must be destroyed to avenge these murders, not just of the three last week, but of all the others who have died so the bosses can live in luxury. The choice is clear.
The strike began several weeks ago as public school and university teachers demanded higher pay and protested privatization of state-owned industries. Public health workers, miners, and oil workers have joined the strike. The government may soon impose a "state of emergency" with mass arrests and detentions.
Bolivia shows how workers lose big when the bosses talk about "economic miracles." Ten years ago, the Bolivian economy was about to collapse. International finance capitalists forced the government to begin a "new economic program" of massive cutbacks in government spending on social services for workers, together with privatization.
The election of President Sanchez de Losada in 1992 accelerated this trend. Now the economy is doing better--as far as the bosses' profits are concerned. More goods are being produced and sold, inflation is low, government indebtedness is down, and Bolivian workers still are among the worst-off in South America.
Since World War II, the U.S. bosses have run the show in Bolivia. But this is beginning to change. U.S. bosses are competing against capitalists from Argentina, Brazil, Italy, and Great Britain. These bosses are licking their chops over the juicy Bolivian state-run companies and natural resources.
Italian capitalists bought into telecommunications. Argentinean bosses, who hope to become a regional power, own the largest foreign bank and the former Bolivian national airline. Brazilian and British bosses are going after natural gas. British-based RTZ (the largest mining corporation in the world) is zeroing in on Bolivia's rich mineral resources. British, Japanese, and Korean companies are among those fighting over one of the biggest prizes, oil.
Bolivian workers are fighting a heroic battle against the Bolivian bosses and their foreign masters. But their nationalist and reformist leaders make sure they pose no real threat to the bosses and their government. Even the strikes (including a hunger strike by union leaders) are focused on pressuring the bosses to reduce the intensity of the attacks, not to end them.
Privatization or no, the heavily indebted, dollarized Bolivian economy already depends on foreign capital. "National independence"--the slogan pushed by union officials and some politicians--is a hollow phrase. Workers need to build a revolutionary communist movement and unite with workers all over the world. Workers have no nation. Only through communist revolution can we become independent of the bosses who now grind us down.
On one side of the struggle is a section of the Russian ruling class aligned with some of the major western oil companies such as Chevron, Mobil, Penzoil, Exxon and BP, as well as mineral extraction companies, such as Cyprus Almax. The candidate of these forces is Boris Yeltsin, although it is not certain that he will be their candidate by the time of the election, if it is actually held.
Pitted against this group are sections of the old state-capitalist leadership, seeking to retain or regain their old privileges as the rulers of key sections of the economy. These are nationalists seeking to keep control of the economy in Russian hands and to as far as possible, regain control of the economic resources of the neighboring former Soviet states, such as Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. The agree-upon candidate of this group is Gennady Zyuganov, the leader of the "Communist" Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF). He is also running with the support of Nikolai Ryzhkov and Aleksandr Rutskoi, two of the more presentable nationalists.
The stakes in this contest are enormous. Gazprom, the gas monopoly that is controlled by Russian Prime Minister Chernomyrdin, is the world's largest natural gas producer and holds 38% of the world's reserves. Its assets are valued at about $500 billion. Until recently, Chernomyrdin was a close ally of Yeltsin, but as Yeltsin's popularity has faded, differences have sprung up between them.
A major area of struggle for control erupted over the oil fields of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, which are estimated to have reserves of well over 100 billion barrels. Amoco, Pennzoil, British Petroleum, Exxon, and Chevron have all become players in this struggle. One form of the struggle is how the oil will be exported from the region. U.S. bosses and allies want the oil to go out through pipelines which will pass through Turkey. For this to happen the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia must be settled, since Armenian-controlled areas are part of the proposed route. The Russian nationalists are pressing for export through Russian pipe lines. These however, pass through Chechnya, which helps explain the intensity of the conflict there. The nationalists are determined to reassert control over the resources of the region, with the long range goal of re-establishing a powerful empire which can effectively compete with and challenge Western Europe, the U.S., Japan, and China. Yeltsin can't appear to be too weak, and therefore must pursue the Chechen war.
The real losers in these struggles have been the workers of the former Soviet Union, who have seen their living standards plummet since the so-called "free-market" western aligned forces around Yeltsin took control in 1991. Unemployment has increased, prices have sky-rocketed much faster than wages have gone up. The former benefits of guaranteed employment, free medical care, and free higher education have disappeared, while some have become super-rich. Gangsterism has become pervasive.
All this is the logical outcome of the failure of the Soviet communists to carry through the revolution to the formation of a communist egalitarian society. Zyuganov and his supporters will not carry out such a revolution. The best they will do will be to reform the worst excesses of the now thoroughly unpopular Yeltsin regime. Only a real communist party, the Progressive Labor Party, can lead a revolution to establish workers' power -- the dictatorship of the proletariat. If, as seems likely, Zyuganov should win, we can expect to see some continued mix of state capitalism and "free-market" capitalism, with some bones thrown to the workers. Accompanying this will probably be some move to re-establish the old Soviet Union. However, the economic and political stakes are so large that there are no guarantees that the election will actually be held, and the possibility of a violent political explosion exists.
To undercut Kaiser, these companies started off paying workers lower wages in order to lower costs. Kaiser was driven to follow suit. Instead of wage increases we got one-time bonuses. Part-time and on-call jobs, once a stepping stone to full-time jobs, became permanent.
Over the last three years, as competition in the health-care industry intensified, Kaiser workers have faced increased layoffs, cuts in hours, suspensions and firings. All these attacks have meant less health care, longer waits and higher fees for patients.
Competition for profits is the hallmark of capitalism. Workers--as workers and as patients--are the main victims of capitalist competition.
Kaiser bosses have proved their determination to wring as much as possible out of workers and patients alike. They won major takeaways in wages and benefits from Local 7600 in Riverside/Fontana and are now demanding the same at Kaiser/Sunset.
For example, Kaiser wants a five-year contract with a wage freeze the first year and a 2.5% cut each year thereafter. It wants its own health care workers to pay $250 for a visit to the emergency room!
PLP calls on Kaiser workers to reject this contract offer, demonstrate against layoffs, ally with patients and organize a strike. But not just to stop the give-backs, or to bring back the "not-so-good old days." Let's fight for the future: a future organized around workers' needs and not around the bosses' profits. That future is communism. Come to the rally in front of Kaiser/Sunset, on Thursday, April 18 from 7 AM to 8:30 AM.
We invite you to join the Progressive Labor Party at the May Day March on this international workers' holiday, to advance the fight for communist revolution. A group of Kaiser workers and janitors in SEIU Local 399 will be marching together. Call (213) 293-4538 for more information.
"Nationalism = Racism" was the theme of a leaflet circulated by the Party at CSU. The leaflet was in response to the "Knowledge Corner" (KC), a student group of wanna-be businessmen, inviting the fascist Khallid Muhammed to the campus. Muhammed is the extremely anti-semitic racist of the Nation of Islam.
The KC students, like Farrakhan, want a piece of the action bleeding black workers dry. Billions of dollars are made by the bosses paying low wages to black workers. The KC Junior Achievers are dreaming of grabbing some of that dough for themselves. Their desire to make money leads them to imitate the racism of the big capitalists. They hope to build businesses in the black community, create low wage jobs, and steal enough to wear $1,200 suits like Jesse Jackson and Farrakhan.
The Party leaflet caused quite a stir on campus. There was a definite polarization of the student body. The leaflet called the KC's empty-heads, equated them and Muhammed to the nazis, and called for communism. Muhammed read our leaflet at his talk and attacked communism.
While many students didn't agree with communism, many agreed that these nationalist were racist, and in it for the money. Students came up to Challenge sellers on campus and said, "Why should I pay ten dollars to see Khallid? What's he going to do for me."
Over the past few months, Challenge sales have increased on the CSU campus. Three hundred eighty-five copies were sold of one issue a few weeks ago. Many students have attended PLP meetings. PLP led a struggle against the administration's hijacking of student checks. We have an ongoing campaign to expose and attack the university's racist exit exam and other aspects of the fraud of bosses' higher education. Five students have joined the PLP over the last two months. This communist activity has brought on the nationalist response.
As communists we know that we don't have a corner on knowledge. What we have is political understanding and a plan of how build a society that will end the exploitation of people, forever.
Wsol is a candidate on the Hoffa/Hogan Slate for the Teamsters International leadership. His salary for 1995 was $399,418, making him the highest-paid Teamsters official.
Frank Hogan, Jr., also running on the slate, spoke next. Hogan raked in $266,748 in 1995, making him the third highest paid Teamster official.
Then came Chester Glanton, the only black person on the program. He makes $101,000 a year as a Business Agent for Local 743. He is a candidate for Local president and is a Hoffa/Hogan delegate. The first thing he did was pay homage to his "old and dear friends," Hogan and Wsol.
Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. spoke last. The room shook as 500 Teamsters stood chanting, "Hof-fa, Hof-fa." He attacked Carey as the U.S. government's candidate. Carey was elected under the 1989 "consent decree," (really a plea bargain that kept the old leadership out of jail). In return the government took control of the union. Hoffa asked the crowd, "Do you really think the government wants to see a strong, fighting Teamsters union?" The crowd answered an orchestrated, "No!" And he pledged to "take back" the union.
The Hoffa campaign to "take back" the Teamsters, like the Buchanan and Perot presidential campaigns, wears an anti-government mask to hide its fascist essence. The campaign uses the slogan of being "the real Teamsters," a code word for higher-paid white workers. It relies on the Hoffa name, spreading the big lie that the union is weak because of "that squeaky piece of shit," Ron Carey, being led around by the government. While there is some truth to that, the main reason the union is weak is because the profit system is in crisis, and the unions are part of the profit system.
Like all workers, the 1.4 million Teamsters have seen their living standards drop and their working conditions deteriorate. They have seen the rulers attack workers with deregulation of the trucking industry and all-out union-busting. The Hoffa forces got filthy rich off multiple salaries and pensions. They have dealt with the mob, Nixon, Reagan and other capitalist scum. Their solution is a "return to greatness" with the leadership of the "strong man"--like the Nazis used with Hitler.
The liberals, reformers, and fake leftists are in disarray. Their flaw is their loyalty to capitalism, in particular their loyalty to the Democratic Party. Workers can't win a battle between the Democrats and Republicans, or the mob and the Justice Dept. Carey is used against Hoffa the way Clinton is used against Dole--as "the lesser of two evils," and to divert workers away from real class struggle against the bosses, to rely on the courts, the government and on the bosses' rules.
These lieutenants of the bosses are all on the same side. The vast majority of Teamsters understand this, and will not vote. More than a million sat out the last election. This gives PL'ers who are Teamsters an opportunity to build a significant base for communist revolution. We have our work cut out for us. We must be single-minded in building our Party. May Day is our next target. Mass recruitment is possible, and necessary. Our future is in our hands.
Many reform battles have been fought here to meet the needs of both patients and workers, yet their daily lives keep getting worse. Capitalist-run hospitals don't exist to meet these needs. The bosses' main goal is to make profit. Only when workers overthrow capitalism with communist revolution, will we be able to meet our needs both as workers and patients.
There is severe understaffing throughout the hospital, causing many overworked workers to get sick. Many work long hours caring for patients; at shift's end they are completely worn out. When workers call in sick, the bosses don't replace them, leaving many patients unattended.
There is an OR (Operating Room) nursing assistant, D. who is very dedicated to her patients, as are many others. On one particularly busy day in the OR, they had six add-on patients for surgery. Her shift began at 7 a.m., but she didn't leave until 11 p.m.. Exhausted, she couldn't rest. The next day, on her regular shift, she was overtired and still worrying about all of the patients and not enough workers in the OR.
At the last building service meeting, the workers complained about an increase in the work-load. The bosses wanted them to perform additional work. The workers refused. Building service workers are the backbone of the hospital. They are on the frontlines in the fight to prevent the spread of hospital-borne infections. Yet these workers are not treated with any respect.
The staffing shortage has also caused a problem involving doctors. Too many are very quick to blame overworked workers for not taking a specimen to the lab or for not picking up an order just written on the chart. Doctors truly interested in patient care should point the finger at the bosses and their capitalist-run hospitals. Otherwise one can only conclude they are only interested in themselves and how much they can make when they go into private business.
The bosses have started to renovate this nine-year-old "modern" hospital with the huge profits they've made. In the last three months, the bosses have spent millions renovating departments to provide new technology in order to compete for patients with other capitalist-run hospitals (to make more profits for themselves, the banks and their stockholders). Meanwhile, the emergency room is packed with patients waiting for hours to be seen by a doctor.
Fax machines are now on every floor; by next year the entire hospital will be computerized. The new technology is not to lighten the work-load or to give workers more time to care for patients. Rather, there will be further staff reductions. More patients with shorter hospital stays and leaving without being completely treated creates greater profits for the hospital bosses.
More and more patients are returning to the hospital within days of being discharged due to incomplete treatment. New mothers are sent home within three days of cesarean sections. Many return with serious infections. Many newborns (sent home 24 hours after birth) return within a week with newborn jaundice. Sickle cell anemia patients are discharged only to return the next day in sickle cell crisis once more. Cancer patients overdosed on too much chemotherapy return with gastro-intestinal bleeding, requiring more invasive procedures -- all this so the bosses can make more profit. This capitalist-run system will surely ruin our lives.
Only under an egalitarian, communist society, with the working class dictating the rules, will health care become a right, not the privilege it is under capitalism. Society would be organized by the workers running everything in the interest of the international working class. All workers would be involved in the daily care of the patients. Everyone will have the opportunity to learn and practice in all areas of health care. This is PLP's goal. Therefore, we need millions of workers to join our party in fighting for this communist future.
At a recent PLP club meeting of young workers in Chicago there was a report about building the Party on the job. This report sparked an inspiring give-and-take about how PLP is becoming the mass Party of the working class.
The leader of the club, a 21-year-old postal worker, gave the report. He had distributed a leaflet attacking a pro-Farrakhan supervisor at his station. This boss belittles workers in the station and is hated by the many black workers there. We distributed a leaflet at the Post Office [See copy of leaflet in Box] The leaflet said communism would end the racism that bred this boss. It called on workers to build the Party and march on May Day.
Many workers in the station give out the leaflet. Several workers called the contact number to get more information about the Party. The leaflet was sent all over the city by mail carriers angry at the postal bosses. The Party's communist ideas struck a vibrant note with the workers.
The comrade who wrote the leaflet is the only member of the Party on his job. "I began to think about the contradictions in people after a discussion in the Party about fighting racism and winning black workers to communism," he said. "I wasn't sure it was right for the Party to focus on black workers. But in talking to people on my job about the Party's ideas on racism and race things got clearer."
As a result of these discussions, "I realized that everyone has some communist aspects that are in contradiction to the bosses' game plan--just worrying about making it under capitalism." Everyone has conflicting ideas. Workers are trying desperately to just live a better life under the system, at the same time they hate what capitalism does to people. The leaflet made it clear that a black boss must copy the contempt that capitalism's biggest bosses have for black workers. The leaflet was like a magnifying glass that brought thinking into focus.
Co-workers' minds are more complex than just being thought of as a bloc of people not in the Party. The key to winning more workers into the Party is resolving their contradictory leanings. The main contradiction is between their communist aspirations for a better world for all workers and the narrow view of just taking care of oneself. Resolving contradictions is what makes people change. Because of the activity around the leaflet, a group of workers is organizing a May Day dinner to bring a contingent to the march.
One comrade, a worker at an electronics plant, agreed that there were general contradictions shared by most of the people on his job; but he argued that everyone has their own individual contradictions, too. "I can't see how we're going to recruit masses to the Party when we have to win each one to communism separately."
"I think building the Party is like building a web, you win a couple of people, and then they go out and each win a couple of others and so on," he explained
The club leader and others in the group saw this vision as too limited. "Building the Party in a mass way means sharpening the contradictions among a large group of workers, like we did at the Post Office. If you can succeed in doing this, then people willingly seek out and spread communist ideas. This is how groups of people can be recruited even with their individual contradictions."
Another comrade pointed out that the Party has led mass struggles in the past, bigger and more significant than the Postal leaflet. But we recruited only one or two people and sometimes none out of these fights. So what are we proposing to do differently to recruit groups of people?
This question challenged the club. After a moment one person said that the key is winning people to understand the importance of the Party. "So you mean ask them to join?" Then someone summed up the spirit of the meeting: "It's more than just asking people to join. We have to show them why the Party is a better way to organize society than capitalism."
An article in the N Y Times (3/16) reported, "Low wages are a big attraction for foreign companies doing business in Asia." Nike has talked about shifting some of its production to U.S. prisons, where they can get even lower labor costs.
"Lured by low wages," Nike also has the "assurance that the government will tolerate no strikes or independent unions." Indonesia has a minimum wage of $2.10 a day! That's below what the government itself says is required for one person to live at subsistence level.
Constant clashes between workers and the government has spread "fear that rising wages [above $2.00 a day!] will drive away jobs to even lower-wage countries." What a shell game the international ruling classes are playing: "if you don't work harder for less here, we'll ship the factories and jobs elsewhere."
Workers don't have the right to even "argue for their rights." There is only one "union"--the government-sponsored one that "represents" 40 million workers. When rank-and-file-organized strikes occur (and there are many), the bosses immediately call the cops who give workers the third degree; then the bosses fire them. Organizing "entails the constant risk of arrest."
When 22-year-old Tongris Situmorang led 21 of his co-workers out on strike against the Nike factory in Serang, he was immediately fired, locked in a room at the plant and interrogated for seven days by the military. "This is Indonesia," he says. As investments rise, there are even more brutal crackdowns by the police and the army.
What does all this add up to for Nike? It has 35 plants in Asia, "to take advantage of cheap labor." Its 5,000 workers in the Serang plant produce shoes and sneakers at a labor cost of $2.60 a pair, but which Nike sells for $80 in the U.S. Talk about super-profits! It is on the backs of these exploited workers that Nike has become a multi-billion-dollar corporation, in addition to making "stars" like Michael Jordan multi-millionaires through sneaker endorsements.
The current slave driving Indonesian government was put in power by U.S. imperialism and its CIA after slaughtering a half million Indonesian communists and other workers. It is a classic example of how capitalism uses the state apparatus to enslave the working class. It also demonstrates how the "global economy" works:
U.S. bosses install a dictatorship that enforces a slave-wage economy in a country they control. U.S. companies like Nike set up shop there and reap maximum profits. U.S. bosses then tell workers at home that they must accept lower wages and benefits or be laid off and their jobs sent overseas. Indonesian workers are pitted against U.S. workers fighting over slave wage jobs.
It will take more than independent unions for Indonesian workers to combat this brutal wage slavery. Nothing short of armed struggle by Indonesian workers will free them of exploitation. That armed struggle must be for a system that destroys capitalism, imperialism and its wage slavery altogether.
Only communist revolution can solve the problems of the working class. Then the bosses' global economy that pits low-wage workers against lower-wage workers, will be replaced by an international workers' society without wage slavery, in which workers will share with, and help, each other.
The participants were from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, Korea, Colombia, Dominican Republic and the U.S. They chanted "Jobs Yes, Borders No! Padavan Bill Has Got To Go!" A PLP member spoke about how only an egalitarian communist society, a society without borders, will end racism and attacks on immigrants. He called on the participants to march on May Day, and two dozen Challenge-Desafíos were sold at the march.
The Parent Teachers' Association from a local school sponsored the march to protest the racist Padavan Bill before the New York State legislature. The Padavan Bill is similar to Proposition 187 in California. It would deny educational, medical, and social services to undocumented immigrants.
Other bills presently before the U.S. Congress would not only deny these services to undocumented workers, but would target immigrants with papers and naturalized citizens as well. A few days ago, the House passed HR 2202 which would make it illegal for undocumented immigrants to send their children to public schools.
Speakers at the march pointed out how the attack on immigrants is an attack on everyone--a racist attempt by the capitalists to divide-and-conquer workers and to blame immigrants for the problems of a dying system. PLP members in the area can use actions such as these to win more marchers on May Day, more readers and sellers of Challenge, and more members of the PLP.
Good work, David
During the three weeks the KKK store had been open, hundreds of black and white Laurens residents held peaceful protests. Jesse Jackson showed up and asked the U.S. Justice Department to investigate it.
Peaceful protests, no matter how multi-racial, won't end racism. The U.S. government won't end racism. Only communist revolution and ending capitalism will.
Capitalism is built on inequality: the few exploiting the many. Capitalism created racism and the whole idea of "race" in order to divide and conquer the many, the working class. The Progressive Labor Party is building the communist movement now.
Look in the faces of the black parents whose children have died for want of decent health care.
Look in the faces of those whose children are killed by police bullets or by fires in violation-riddled slum buildings.
Look in the faces of those who see their children turning to gangs and drugs because they see no future in a jobless capitalist wasteland.
Look in the faces of those whose children will kill and be killed in the bosses' wars for profit.
Look in the mirror. These are our children, the children of the working class.
To end racism, we must smash the capitalist bloodsuckers who kill our children.
David Prichard Hunter drove his van in the right direction. But it will take more than a Ford van to trash the racism of the capitalist system. It will take an army of workers, millions strong, in the Progressive Labor Party.
This week, my comrade and I put up May Day stickers in our high school bathrooms, outside the school, on buildings on the way to the bus stops, and at the bus stops. We also showed Challenge to three new people in our social studies class and one to another student.
We plan, starting next week, to put out leaflets for May Day every two weeks until May Day.
Then today two young women students that we know came up to me after seeing a May Day sticker at the bus stop and asked me for more information about May Day. We gave each of them the latest copy of Challenge and plan to talk to them later on. They said they wanted to go to May Day and asked about the events of the day. My comrade and I have to speak to them about selling tickets as well as buying ones for themselves.
This gives me extra enthusiasm to continue agitating and building for May Day. The reaction of these students proves my subjective self wrong. Students are interested in communism and do want to march on May Day. Students can embrace communist ideas and will help build for and lead our communist revolution. There is no doubt in my mind that May Day l996 will be great and that each May Day following will be bigger and more powerful, driving us closer to our goal of communist revolution.
Queens HS student
Last weekend, six workers joined the Party in Los Angeles. Three of them joined at a meeting of garment workers to build the May Day March.
Two, husband and wife, joined after seeing the Road to Revolution video. The husband is a janitor and active in the Grupo Reformista, where he has been boldly selling Challenge-Desafío to other janitors. His wife is looking for work. The other new member is a Kaiser worker who has also been selling Challenge-Desafío to his co-workers for some time.
While each one has their own individual reasons for joining, their sentiments can be summed up by one of the garment workers, who said at the meeting that he's always been a fighter for justice and equality and he sees PLP as the vehicle for that fight to succeed.
The janitor was active in the socialist movement in Central America. He has seen the failure of that movement, and he's glad that we're fighting directly for communism. He liked that the video shows that socialism does not lead to communism, and that it shows our predecesors, Marx and Engles.
He plans to show the video in the home of another janitor and his friends in order to invite all of them to the May Day March. This comrade is a new friend. We look foward to getting to know all these new comrades and their families much better as we learn and struggle together to build a mass PLP.
At the PL leadership meeting here last week, we had a disagreement about whether communists are more different or more alike than other workers. We agreed that we need to intensify the struggle with ourselves and our friends about the need to join, build, and make the growth and development of our communist party primary.
In further discussions, we agreed that every worker, PLP members and non PLP members, has a communist side and a capitalist side. When we sharpen the struggle to make communism primary, we're struggling against the capitalist side and strengthening the communist side. With more intense struggle, the communist side will be primary in more and more workers. It won't be easy. On with the struggle!
LA red
I am a Swedish student who found your homepage on the worldwide web on the Internet very interesting. I am not a member of any political organization, yet.
Although the distance is large, I think our ideas are quite the same. My mother is a member of a small Marxist-Leninist party. While, they have contact with other revolutionary parties around the world, I don't think they know about PLP.
Here in Sweden the situation is getting more and more like it is America. The European Union is growing and hopes to become "The United States Of Europe."
Capitalism is what counts in our social-democratic government. The power over jobs lies in the hands of capitalism. The welfare system is getting smaller. Soon there will be nothing left.
I will be 18 this year and I already fear for our future. But there is hope. I have many friends who are angry at the existing system. The only problem is how to organize, and get something to gather around. Of course our local party is something to hang on to, they also have a youth organization.
The Internet is giving us chances to have discussions over the Atlantic, and I would like to know more about PLP. I think this is the only way for the working class to get united against the capitalist system.
If you have information you think is worthwhile, for me and my friends, please send it to me.
With revolutionary wishes to you,
Swedish student
The topic of this month's Chicago PLP forum was armed revolution. The presentation highlighted the Paris Commune as the first of three examples where the working class has armed itself to fight in their class interest against the ruling class.
The presentation also pointed out the importance of having an organized party. While capitalism gets worse the Party becomes essential to the seizure of and maintaining state power. This opened the discussion up for the question: what does it mean to build a mass Party? Is it numbers? Should the Party be viewed as a big club where membership can be optional? What does being in the Party mean? Who in this room is not in the Party and why? This question put some of our friends on the spot, but posing the question was good. This discussion also drew different responses from comrades on the question of what is a mass Party?
A lively discussion on revolutionary violence vs. non-violence took up the second half of the discussion. The meeting ended with the Party's proposal to recruit 300 new Party members by May Day. Does building a mass Party mean numbers? Yes (millions)! Does joining the Party now make a difference? Yes! Because being in the Party means being armed with communist ideas and being committed to fight for these ideas.
In addition, the sale of Challenge newspaper to our family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, classmates and fellow soldiers is essential. Our involvement in class struggle as communists is mandatory. However, our unyielding confidence that the working class will embrace communism now and join the Party will only make the seizure of state power possible.
Several comrades commented that the discussions on the rides home were just as stimulating. A high school student who has been involved with the Party joined the Party on her ride home. Only 299 new Party members to go!
Chicago comrades
Last week's paper contained an interesting article on the struggle at A/C Transit in Oakland between capitalist, individualist ideas and communist class-conscious ones.
While the discussion was useful, it was marred by one fact. Apparently PLP had proposed a " `small $3 increase' in Union dues for full-timers ( as opposed to the Unions proposal for a $14 increase).
This was a mistake and blurred the good point we were trying to make. A couple of years ago we put out a flyer entitled "Who Rules the Unions?" in which we showed how the union movement served the capitalists and not the workers. We talked about the rotten ideas taught at the AFL-CIO George Meany Center, of Union Presidents sitting on the Board of Directors of major corporations and of the Unions working directly for the CIA in places like Central America. Clearly in this light, `dues' are no different than `taxes.'
No wonder one of the full-timers was quoted as being opposed to the dues increase. It's not the full-timers responsibility to make up any income the Union will lose from cutting part-timers' dues. Just as the full-timers didn't benefit from the bonanza the Union got when part-timers first swelled the membership roll of the Local.
All this is not to say that the particular argument used by the angry full-timer was a good one. However, I can't help wondering what would be the reaction of this driver ( and many others) if we asked him to support the PLP with a contribution of $3 per month!
Collectivity doesn't exist by itself in the abstract as something to be automatically promoted. Feeling any collective responsibility to maintain the dues collection of the Union is a reactionary idea. Feeling a collective responsibility to raise the necessary funds to run a bigger, more effective PLP is a very progressive idea.
When talking about collectivity we all tend to make the mistake of separating form from content. In this light, the mistake at A/C Transit is similar to the mistake we made in school where studying collectively for a reactionary exam was seen as a progressive step toward communism.
An Oakland Reader.
I feel that the Editor's Response to a letter in the April 3 issue was very uncomradely. It ignored the legitimate questions that the reader sent in.
The reader agreed that we need major changes, and that the Party has done a good job of showing what is wrong with capitalism and why it needs to be changed. The reader went on to criticize Challenge for not presenting plans on how the changes could be made.
Challenge's response was to tell the reader to "develop better reading skills," and to "sit around with workers criticizing the boss." These remarks were patronizing and unnecessary.
Challenge referred to recent articles which describe workers fighting back under the Party's leadership. None of these articles put forward a plan for building a communist society on the corpse of the capitalist system. Some of the articles focused on how the bosses abused a worker or attacked a union. The limits of this type of writing is exactly what troubled the reader.
Sure, the system stinks, but how would the Party's program do better? To win masses of people to communism we have to be a lot more thoughtful and precise, and not just say "workers' power will fix everything."
I think that one of the principles which the reader may not fully appreciate is that, to build an egalitarian society, we must attack the bourgeois attitudes that are in all of us-- ideology is primary.
My membership in PLP has helped me analyze the world in a communist way. Out of this clearer "vision," I am able to make plans for change which I could not do when I thought like a liberal social democrat. Perhaps Challenge could make this point clear in a consistent way.
When talking with friends about how communism is better than capitalism, I always think of what it would take to defeat AIDS (I'm an RN). I use the example of how after the revolution in China the Communists virtually wiped out prostitution and venereal diseases using a combination of rehabilitation of prostitutes and drug abusers and repression of pimps dope dealers, etc.
Under capitalism from New York to Beijing, people are "free" to infect as many people as they like by drug use, prostitution, multiple sex partners and unsafe sex. This "free society" does little to protect us from this deadly disease. Capitalism will never beat AIDS because its ideology is so screwed up. Clearly, the communist "plan" is to mobilize many people by winning them to socially healthful thinking, practice and crushing those who benefit from those ills.
Challenge needs more discussions of concern to workers, from how communism will deal with crime, the press, mass transit, etc. Let's involve more friends in discussing these issues and working out the plan for the revolution.
Brooklyn Comrade
We are sorry if our response seemed offensive, but attacking the Party, whether intentional or not, deserves criticism. Once again we would suggest a reading or re-reading of Road to Revolution 4 which does offer a broad plan for the seizure of power and its retention.
This May Day promises to be a large and successful one. Our propaganda against the upcoming November elections has brought about startling results. A few points, though:
* We need to emphasize more the fatal dangers of looking for the "lesser evil" in presidential candidates. Many people who do not know of (or who do not pay attention to) the Party and its line look at things in light of this concept.
After all, under capitalism, this is most workers' only hope that things might turn out for the better! Of course, they never do; but some keep hoping anyway. But we should never fall for it ourselves; and we could, especially since Buchanan is openly fascist and racist while others are not.
* Being that PL's main branch(es) are here in the U.S., we tend to communicate amongst ourselves-that is, we almost never make contact with other, smaller branches around the world and take an active role in their affairs. If possible, more open communication among these groups would strengthen the Party's base by acquiring more members worldwide.
It is especially important to enhance the process this year, which is an election year in the U.S., because affairs here should be as important to others as their affairs could be to PL.
* I am very pleased at the way in which we have stepped even farther away from the prospect of reforming the capitalist system and become more tightly bound with communist revolution.
I understand that our material places slightly more emphasis on maintaining and strengthening our present line because of the elections; but if I may, I'd like to make a request that the Party stick to its present level of stress. In fact, if we keep it relatively enhanced, we are likely to acquire more members.
Again, May Day promises to be successful, as it is every year; but I am especially excited about it now because ... well ... even the title of one recent Challenge-Desafic let me know how PL feels: "World, 1996: Workers Prepare to Destroy Capitalism." I hope we all will be prepared! Long Live Communism!
NY student PLer
I want to thank the writers of Challenge-Desafío for making the paper the best I have ever seen because of its emphasis on communism.
However, I have two comradely criticisms of the March 27 issue. In "How Capitalism Screws Youth out of Jobs," the first paragraph is misleading. It states "Capitalism's anarchy of production (planlessness leading to overproduction) impels each boss...to drive for maximum profits." On the contrary it's capitalism's drive for maximum profits that leads to the anarchy of capitalism. It should be remembered that the former Soviet Union and China had pretty good planned societies which fell back to capitalism because they failed to eliminate profits and money.
The Oakland transit article, begins with the words, "The lunacy of the capitalist wage system...." Maybe I'm a little too picky but the use of the word lunacy to describe capitalism detracts from an otherwise fine article. The capitalists an their labor lieutenants are not crazy but are very sensible representatives of the wage and profit system.
If communists want to win workers to PLP we must put the issue to them straight out. Either they suffer capitalist class divisions and exploitation or they fight for communist collectivity and egalitarianism.
A Reader
I have several fond memories of May Day celebrations in Pakistan I want to share with Challenge readers.
The partition of India in 1947 was accompanied by widespread communal riots and violence throughout British India. Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs killed one another indiscriminately in communal frenzy.
Driven by nationalist leaders whose only claim to leadership was based on their hatred of other religious and ethnic communities, the masses were led to believe that their real enemies were not the capitalists and landlords, but the people on the other side of the religious divide. Hence, after the partition of British India into the two states of India and Pakistan, it was considered inconceivable to organize a movement or a rally which included both Hindus and Muslims.
It was against this background that I recall picking up the May Day issue of The Pakistan Times (Lahore) in the middle 1950s and seeing on the front page something that I thought was impossible. Spread over three columns was a photo of the May Day March organized by the Communist Party of India in the southern state of Hyderabad.
Carrying banners in Urdu (the language mostly spoken by Muslims) and Telugu (spoken by Hindus), Muslim and Hindu marchers, holding one another's hands, walked in the spirit of solidarity of the international working class. No Hindus. No Muslims. Just suffering human beings who were in a common struggle for a better future for themselves and for the rest of humanity. Looking at that photo was a heart-warming and spiritually uplifting experience. My heart was filled with joy and with love for those who had the courage to rise above the religious/communal divide and unite the masses for a common cause.
My second fond memory of May Day relates to the time when I first participated in the May Day march in 1963 in Karachi, the largest industrial center of Pakistan. Thousands of workers, students, journalists, and intellectuals had joined together to organize this huge gathering. People from all parts of Pakistan and from all ethnic backgrounds were represented in the march. No one raised ethnic slogans.
The Pakistan Communist Party had been banned by then. The May Day March was therefore organized by several front organizations of the banned Communist Party. But everyone in the march knew who was the real organizer. One ironic thing is that the president of Pakistan who had earlier banned the Communist Party greeted the workers and peasants on May Day and pretended in his nationally broadcast statement that he supported them in their struggle for their rights.
A friend of Challenge
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