Challenge, Sept. 3, 1997
While UPS, Hacks Fight Over $60 Billion Pension Fund
Turn Teamster strike into communist-led class war
The first nation-wide strike against UPS, by 185,000 Teamsters, is in its second week. The strike is costing the company $50 million/day, and it will start costing the union $10 million/week in strike benefits. Scores of workers have been arrested trying to stop scab trucks from moving out of UPS terminals. As we go to press one scab has been stabbed, and a supervisor drove his truck off a freeway ramp, killing himself.
The main demand of the strikers is for 10,000 full-time jobs. Teamster president Ron Carey claims the union is "drawing the line on part-time work." But Teamsters union leadership, in accord with AFL-CIO policy, agreed to a two-tier wage system and unlimited use of part-timers, as far back as 1982! Over 110,000 strikers are part-time workers, making less than half pay. Since 1993, UPS added 46,000 union jobs. Only 8,000 were full-time. If the Carey leadership was serious about fighting the superexploitation of part-timers, they would demand equal pay and benefits for part-timers. That demand would lead to a battle that would strike a responsive chord in millions of workers.
But, what if the fight really was against half pay jobs? Higher pay, while welcome, is not the solution to worker's problems. As long as the bosses rule, they can wash away the pay with inflation, taxes, speed-up and a dozen other ways. As long as we live under capitalism, we live under a system of racism, police terror, rising fascism and imperialist war. $20 an hour won't wash away that reality. Only building for communist revolution will.
PART-TIME WORKERS, FULL-TIME WAGE SLAVES
With over $1 billion in profits, UPS controls a lion's share of U.S. shipping. The whole shipping industry, UPS, FedEx, and the Post Office, is built on part-time and temporary work, and multi-tiered wages. So is the rest of the "booming" U.S. economy. Currently there are 23 million part-timers, about 18% of U.S. workers. That's more than double the 10.6 million part-timers in 1968. More than 80% of these workers have no health insurance. Less than half have paid vacations and holidays.
Millions more are temporary. All these, and millions of full-timers, live below the poverty level. Now Clinton's "welfare reform," workfare/slave labor, and increasing prison labor, are adding a new bottom tier of wage slaves, forcing down the living standards of the whole working class. The U.S. economy is booming like Nazi Germany's did 60 years ago, and we ain't seen nothing yet.
PENSION FUND: $60 BILLION DOGFIGHT AMONG BOSSES
While the workers are standing up to cops and scabs to fight for jobs, Teamster leaders are using this anger to fight to keep control of the pension funds. In 1996, UPS paid $1 billion into the funds, with assets estimated at $60 billion. UPS bosses want to pull out of the multi-employer funds, and set up a fund just for UPS workers, to be managed by UPS and the union.
There is more to the pension battle than meets the eye. UPS is an Atlanta-based company, a major backer of the "Republican revolution," giving $1.5 million to congressional candidates in the last election, mostly to southern Republicans. Newt Gingrich, whose home district is in Atlanta, is calling on Clinton to side with UPS.
But Clinton says he will not use Taft-Hartley to break the strike- at least not yet. Labor Secretary Alexis Herman has told UPS not to hire scabs. The Clinton administration and the media are siding with the union. But they are not backing the working class! They are using the strike to beat up on the New Money rivals to Rockefeller's Old Money.
UPS is the largest trucking company with a Teamster contract. With two-thirds of the work force young and part-time, most will never retire from the company. The needs of 185,000 workers and their families for full-time work and secure futures are not the point of these negotiations. And they will never be realized - no matter who controls the pensions - as long as we remain capitalist wage slaves.
The strike of 185,000 mostly young workers, black, latin, and white, in every major city from NY to LA, from Seattle to Houston, is a major rebellion against the rise of fascism. The pro-capitalist union leaders are in control, but here and there, that could change. UPS has raised the threat of hiring scabs to smash the strike. If that happens, things could escalate, and fast.
The response of the strikers to PLP has been very positive all over the US. Hundreds of Challenges, and thousands of fliers have led to dozens of strikers giving us their names and phone numbers. We are doing the minimum, but we must do better.
For example, UPS is making "emergency" deliveries to hospitals. PLP hospital clubs must organize our co-workers to disrupt, and stop these deliveries. If we can bring hospital workers to the picket lines, the chances are better we can bring UPS strikers to our job sites to help stop these deliveries.
Postal workers are working overtime to handle UPS customers. The postal service and postal unions are pushing the line that "we can steal their business." PLP postal clubs should organize against this forced overtime, and to refuse to handle scab deliveries. Groups of postal workers should walk the UPS picket lines, and invite strikers to picket the post offices. Auto, steel, aerospace, transit, and garment workers can all organize similar activities. Any UPS truck on the road is fair game.
Actions like these, and more, can strengthen class consciousness, spread the rebellion, and lay the basis for sharper actions. Most of all, they can lead to many workers joining the Party, on our jobs and on the picket lines. Carey & Co. will never "draw the line" on who holds power. They will do nothing to hurt the bosses ability to "compete." Communist revolution will abolish wages and money, and meet the needs of the workers. This strike is an opportunity for strikers, and others, to break the chains of wage slavery. It is the biggest victory we can win.µ
Notes From the Picket Line
New York. "I think we should go back to work," said a young striker on the UPS picket line I Manhattan. She had just taken a Challenge and was engaged in a vigorous discussion with a fellow striker and a high school comrade in PLP. A group of teachers and students was on the picket line in solidarity with the strikers and in struggle over the politics of the strike.
"You mean you's vote for the bosses' offer?" we asked. "No, no!"she snapped, "We need to fight, but we weren't ready for this. The union didn't make plans. If you're going to push up a hard hill, you need to be your strongest." We then discussed how only the rank-and-file workers will organize themselves. We exchanged phone numbers.
That night she called to say she really liked the idea of the strikers organizing their own rally. She had discussed it with others and they were calling one for this Thursday (Aug. 14th). She invited us to return for it and asked advice about ho to do such an event. "I've never done anything like this before but I'm starting to light a fire under myself and others. We're ready for more."
There are many such fires that get lit during a strike. On the day we visited the picket line, we distributed 25 Challenges. Another group of teachers and students in the Bronx had a similar experience. Many workers feel loyalty to the union and to UPS, since the full timers are still relatively well-paid workers. But they were solid on the strike out of loyalty to the part-timers who are now 60% of the union. The two loyalties are now in conflict within this strike. Fires grow, and workers advance in their political develpment as this conflict sharpens.
200 RIBBONS, AND CHALLENGES, FOR MARIANNE
University of Chicago Hospitals-8/1: Two hundred workers wore black ribbons today, in a small act of defiance, remembering co-worker Marianne Coyle, who died over the July 4 weekend. As reported in Challenge, the 37-year old single mother of two, was forced to take time off from work because her 6-year old daughter needed heart surgery. She was harassed and threatened with suspension if she missed any more time, by supervisor Laura Hedman. When Marianne took ill, she was too afraid of losing her job to go see a doctor, and died of a ruptured brain aneurysm.
The workers acted without the knowledge of Teamster local 743, who prefers fighting the workers to the bosses. The action was planned and carried out mostly by women workers, including those in Marianne's department. One worker wrote a flier, based in part on what she read in Challenge, which was distributed under the boss' nose. Most workers hadn't heard of Marianne's death until they got the flier, or Challenge. Workers were asked to wear and distribute ribbons in their work areas. Today, fifteen workers distributed the 200 ribbons in at least five departments. All reports indicate that with better planning and preparation, many more workers could have distributed three times as many ribbons.
PLP's influence is deepening, and the workers' confidence in us is growing, as we struggle with them to view, and respond to these attacks from a communist point of view. The wasted life of a young mother who worked in the $150 million Center for Advanced Medicine (SCAM), laid bare the absurdity of capitalism for all to see. Almost 75 workers took Challenge this week, more than usual. Together with a mass distribution at shift change, the total for this issue was about two hundred, with ten more workers giving us their names and phone numbers for more discussion. One Party group has started meeting, and another will very soon.
The bosses and union hacks are temporarily being held at bay by a pending Unfair Labor Practice charge (ULP) against them with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). But they are plotting their counter-attack. Their attempts at ignoring and belittling PLP, are coming to an end. When they attack, we'll be ready. And we will grow.
BROOKLYN, N.Y., Aug. 8--"The union leadership is cutting the work-force and doing the bosses' dirty work."
This was one worker's reaction at a Brooklyn hospital to the latest sweetheart deal cooked up by the hospital bosses and the leadership of Local 1199 as they re-open negotiations under the current agreement which expires next June.
During every contract meeting at this hospital, one worker always declares that the hospitals belong to the working class and that the workers should lock out the bosses at every unionized institution.
A union contract spells out the conditions for the sale of workers' labor power. In return, workers receive a small amount of wages (as little as the bosses can get away with). The contract's rules and regulations also disciplines the workers. It bans any work stoppages that interfere with the bosses making profits.
The current 1199 contract (negotiated in 1994) was supposed to guarantee job security to all members hired before 1992. But in New York City, the hospital bosses are in fierce competition. The large institutions are taking over the smaller ones. The bosses are "restructuring" and downsizing. This means layoffs, hospital closings, slashing the number of beds and using fewer workers to do more work. It all adds up to decreased patient care.
The bosses broke the rules by closing down departments and laying off workers. They also have been making huge profits by sub-contracting work to outside firms who pay their workers less than the unionized workers. No matter how much of these super-profits the bosses grab, the 1199 workers are limited to the 3% or 4% wage increases stipulated by the contract. Meanwhile, union dues rise, along with the salaries of the union officials.
Through all this, the union leadership says workers are "benefiting" from the contract. However, under capitalism contracts serve the bosses' interests. They build illusions that workers' lives can be improved under the capitalist-run system. But only under communism will there be no need for contracts with the bosses -- there will be no bosses -- and the workers will be in command of our lives.
Three years ago, the union re-opened the contract before it expired to "negotiate" a deal with the hospital bosses. The union head, Dennis Rivera, had said every union delegate and member would contribute to the settlement. But, in fact, he had already struck a deal with the hospital bosses. Now, in 1997, the union is putting on another charade.
The bosses say they "need" to reduce the work-force by as much as 10,000 workers. So the union has concocted a plan which will fit neatly into the bosses' "needs" and be fully paid for by the workers! They are creating layoffs disguised as an "early retirement plan." Estimating that up to 15% of the workers intend to retire in the next three years, the union leaders are encouraging workers to seek early retirement and offering a lump sum payment of $20,000 for each retiree.
Where to get the money? They will steal $100 million from the pension fund. They claim the remaining workers will have "guaranteed" jobs. But, as happened after the last "guarantee," the hospital bosses will lay off -- and close departments and entire hospitals -- as fits their profit picture.
At this Brooklyn hospital, many workers are calling this plan a forced layoff. One worker declared, "How can these [early retiree] workers survive under the capitalist-run system? What happens if you're not old enough to get Social Security and full pension benefits (hardly sufficient anyway)? And it's unlikely they'll get jobs elsewhere at their age and in a shrinking hospital industry."
The 1199 leadership boasts it has $4 billion in the pension fund so the $100 million giveaway will not bankrupt it. But the money in the pension fund supposedly belongs to the workers. It is there in lieu of wage increases the workers gave up over the years in order to establish such a pension. Any "surplus" should be given to the workers -- period.
Under capitalism, once workers are locked into a system of wages in which they receive only a small part of the value they create, the bosses can use this set-up to cook up deals every which way to screw the workers. The union leaders have adopted the bosses' world outlook. They collaborate to maintain the bosses' profit system. They help the bosses regulate the labor market, the value stolen from the workers' labors, and other working conditions contained in union contracts or legislation.
As the bosses compete fiercely with bosses around the world, they must drive down the wages and health care of workers here at home. Reduced patient care and squeezed workers are built-in features of a profit system. Only when wages are abolished altogether and workers receive the total value created by their labor, only in a system based on workers' needs, without bosses, can health care be delivered humanely.
In a communist society, where workers -- not the hospital bosses or the HMO's or the bankers who finance them -- make the decisions, the health of the working class will get top priority. That's why workers must build and join the revolutionary Progressive Labor Party -- to destroy capitalism and its for-profit health "non-care" system.
HMO 'Standard of Care' Is Fascist Medicine
A patient, his wife, and a hospital worker cornered a doctor in the hallway of the HMO hospital. They demanded he give the patient authorization for lung cancer surgery at an outside hospital the next day.
The doctor said he was too busy. He said he didn't know the case, which was on his desk. As our voices grew louder, he said he'd give the authorization.
The successful operation was performed the next day. The HMO had first declared it inoperable. After chemotherapy shrank the tumor, they said it was operable but that such an operation was not called for by their "standard of care."
Last year this HMO member in his late 30's was diagnosed with cancer. The HMO missed the diagnosis for several months. Early detection and treatment of cancer provides the only real hope for survival. But diagnoses are routinely missed for months, even years, while tests aren't given, or the cheapest tests and treatments are tried out first, like a routine x-ray, and pain killers.
The ultimate in fascist cost-saving is letting the patient die. In this case, the cancer was diagnosed when our friend passed out at home and an x-ray revealed a tumor. Surgery revealed "unresectable disease" - a tumor too extensive (or too expensive?) to be safely removed. The doctor hinted that Hospice (going home to die) might be called for.
The patient and his family were outraged and insisted on the most aggressive treatment possible, which at this HMO was chemotherapy and radiation. Midway through radiation the patient started asking about the possibility of surgery. If the tumor had been shrunk enough by treatment, why couldn't it be removed? This is where the trouble started.
The doctors wouldn't recommend surgery-it wasn't "standard of care" - what the majority of practicing (capitalist) physicians would recommend as treatment for this particular disease, with documented success rates. The patient had a fighting attitude and a communist understanding. He began to do some research, turning up an extensive national study looking at the addition of surgery with very promising results. But the HMO wasn't interested, even though another doctor recommended the surgery.
After weeks of knock-down, drag-out fights with various doctors a verbal approval (for the surgery to be done and paid for outside of the HMO) was finally given and the surgery was scheduled. But the day before it was to be done, the necessary paper work still hadn't been filled out. Phone messages went unreturned. We decided collectively to go see the doctor in person.
We cornered the head of the department on his way to a meeting. He was angry that we were making him late to his meeting and insisted there was nothing he could do. We loudly told him that patient care came first, and he reluctantly agreed to talk to the outside physician.
A number of workers saw the confrontation. Our friend had his surgery the next day and it seems that it is going to be paid for by the HMO. Next time we will be better prepared and act more quickly and with more forces.
Our friend's immediate response was "If I survive this surgery, I'm going to devote the rest of my life to helping others fight to get the care they need and expose the fascist nature of health care."
We all learned some important lessons:
Many patients die of cancer because the surgery is "too expensive". The fight he and his comrades have waged over the past several months to get the maximum, not the minimum "standard" of care, may have saved his life.
This experience of communist hospital workers fighting alongside patients to get the care we all need, pointing out the need for a mass PLP to defeat the fascist bosses, must be repeated and expanded.
The job of HMO workers is becoming like guards in a concentration camp. We must not be passive. We cannot trust the bosses to do Anything in the interests of the workers! Patients and hospital workers have to fight for the life of the working class. This means fighting to defeat the profit system and its fascist standard of care. Communist revolution WILL defeat fascism.
Los Angeles - On August 1, the PLP summer project in LA held a forum on US imperialism and organizing in the military. We discussed the imperialist fight over Middle Eastern oil, and understood that this fight will cause small wars, and eventually World War, considering that many imperialist countries are concentrating on this oil.
We also talked about the situation in Central Africa, where France and the United States are competing for influence in Zaire, again for oil. Realizing that the ruling class is preparing for war, as indicated by the rapid growth of fascism, we need to be prepared.
This is where our strategy on organizing in the military comes in. We talked about soldier rebellions in Vietnam, where soldiers weren't won to fighting for imperialism, and disobeyed orders and even killed their own officers. The fact that this happened, even without communist leadership, shows what can happen if there are communist organizers in the trenches.
"PLP needs to organize a base in the military and turn their imperialist war into a communist revolution," said a comrade. A brief history of the Bolshevik Revolution was given, explaining how the Russian communists succeeded in 'turning the guns around..' This is exactly what we need to do.
The following day, 15 dedicated comrades made a trip to a town near a military base in the desert. Our mission was to locate as many soldiers as we could in the town and get the military edition of Challenge out to them. Despite the intense heat, we were successful and distributed 25 Challenges. We also had many interesting conversations with soldiers who were very open to communist ideas. After talking about the nature of capitalism, and their position in this system, how they are being used to fight a bosses' war, we got very positive responses.
One soldier said "Yeah, man, I know that they're just using us for their wars." Two white soldiers told us that their fathers had been in Vietnam, and had been forced to kill children, and that they wouldn't do that. A black soldier told us that he was sure from the training that he had been getting, that a war in the Middle East-a war for oil-was coming soon.
The bosses' system is in crisis - here and in the Middle East, which is why war is coming soon. Other experiences we have had during the summer project have given us the chance to talk to workers about the effects on them of increasing fascism and a war economy.
At the UPS strike, we talked to many workers who understood that the fight against part-time work is part of a struggle against an economy moving towards war-with part-time work, workfare/slave labor and prison labor on the increase. They were open to our ideas-that communist revolution is the only alternative. At McDonnel-Douglas/Boeing, workers involved in building planes for war also were open to our ideas - nobody wants to send their sons to die for oil.
Some people involved in the summer project are more committed to joining the bosses' military. Their job will be to organize their fellow soldiers now and during the coming war to fight for communism. As we saw in the movie "The Battleship Potemkin," soldiers and sailors, allied with workers under communist leadership, can be a key force in turning the bosses' war for profits into a communist revolution.
The general strike called in Ecuador on August 11 was only partially successful. It was carried out mainly by teachers and workers in Indian communities. Workers blocked highways. However, most workers ignored the call by the union and went to work. What happened?
The strike was called to oppose the postponing of a Constituent Assembly. A referendum on May 25 voted in favor of such assembly, after former President Bucaram was overthrown. The new government of President Alarcon put off the assembly till August 1998.
The demand of a Constituent Assembly just builds illusions in capitalism. There cannot be any real freedom for workers in the cities and the Indian communities under capitalism. Bourgeois democracy is just one of the masks the rulers use to impose their exploitation and racism. When Bucaram was no longer useful to some bosses, like the Noboa, and U.S. imperialism, they got rid of him. The Noboas spent over $1 million to bribe some fake leftists and union hacks to organize the general strike which led to the toppling of Bucaram.Now, these traitors and the rulers have a disagreement: whether the Assembly be at the end of 1997 or in the middle of 1998. Big Deal! A Constituent Assembly was held in Colombia recently reforming the 1886 Constitution. It has worsened the attacks against workers, punishing striking workers and increasing taxes.
We in PLP are organizing a movement to destroy capitalism, instead of trying to make it better (impossible as far as workers are concerned). Workers need the only system that can satisfy their needs: communism.
One Company, One Vision, Many Prisoners
Boeing and McDonnell Douglass Merge
Washington DC, Aug. 4-Boeing CEO Phil Condit and COO Harry Stonecipher held a national press conference at the Smithsonian Museum today to publicly announce the merger of Boeing and McDonnell Douglas into the largest aerospace company in the world. The company beamed the event by satellite to pep rallies at everyone of its work locations. All 220,000 employees were given paid leave to attend.
The motto of the new Boeing: "One company, one vision: building the future of flight together."What Phil and Harry mean: "One company, one vision, many prisoners: Building a future of war and fascism with slave labor."What we need: "One working class, one party: Building for communist revolution."
Dick Clark productions staged the "Day One" event. The Seattle press estimated Boeing spent over $10 million in Day One propaganda alone. Of course, our tax dollars paid the bill in Pentagon sponsored merger incentives.
Despite this propaganda orgy, most workers were not impressed. "None of this stuff is for us," a former McDonnell Douglas worker told a Challenge seller at a California merger event. "This merger, war, this system has never been for us." Not only is this stuff not for us, but this merger advances the march to war and fascism. It is an attack aimed directly at us. Condit emphasized that Boeing is now a global company. What he means is an imperialist company dedicated to preserving Rockefeller, Inc.'s empire (see accompanying article). As the capitalist crisis of overproduction intensifies, that job becomes increasingly dangerous.
The Chinese are forming their own global alliance. China's new 80-120 seater jets will be configured to match the Airbus family of planes. Commercial aerospace production leads directly to enhanced military capabilities.
Meanwhile, the German government has just voted to fund the $60 billion Eurofighter project despite effort to cut spending to qualify for Europe's single currency. Boeing and Lockheed Martin are developing prototypes for a new US Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). Make no mistake about it, this is a new $100 billion plus arms race! The final production alliances to make the JSF and the Eurofighter will parallel the military alliances of the next world war.
Bosses Build Fascism To Prepare For War
The merger is not the only response of the Rockefeller, Inc. to this developing crisis of overproduction. Condit wants to create an "industrial relationship rather than a traditional buyer/seller relationship" with Boeing's customers."We are exploring very seriously where the boundaries between the operators (e.g. Airlines and Military) and the manufacturers (e.g. Boeing) are," said Condit to the International Herald Tribune. He is looking for areas were those boundaries can be crossed. Sounds a lot like Mussolini's fascist Corporate State.
Even more ominous is Boeing's recent introduction of the use of prison labor. The last time slave labor was employed in aircraft production was at Daimler Aerospace in wartime Nazi Germany. "The character of modern war requires that the entire organization of industry and man-power...shall be organized for the purposes of war," wrote R. Palme Dutt, on the eve of W.W.II. A fascist Corporate State and captive prison labor are the ominous signs of preparations for the next holocaust of capitalism.
Communism Can Defeat The Mightiest Of Arsenals
Our party greeted Boeing workers on Day One with a thousand leaflets. Two hundred Challenges were distributed to Boeing workers in Washington State and California. Organizers have gathered a hundred signatures on our letter to protest the exploitation of prison labor by the company.
What can these pieces of paper do against the billion dollar arsenals of the bosses? If that's the end of it: nothing. Yet, these papers represent the beginnings of a potentially overpowering counter force to the bosses' war and fascism. When workers embrace the call for communist revolution printed on those pieces of paper and join our party, all the money and might of the bosses will be swept into the trashcan of history. In fact, we can use the bosses' weapons against them.
Condit never tires of calling the merger historic. We workers can write a history Condit never imagined-a history of communist revolution.
Who Rules Boeing? A small group of ruling class agents that meet in secret to decide our fate.
Namely, the Board of Directors!
Before the merger, Rockefeller, Inc. ran the Boeing Board. Boeing added four members from the former McDonnell Douglas Board of Directors to the new Boeing Board. Does this mean other bosses are gaining influence? Don't bet on it!
Harry Stonecipher, John McDonnell, Kenneth Duberstein, and John Biggs are the new Boeing directors.
New Money Didn't Make The Cut
Equally as revealing is the list of those that didn't make the cut. For instance, there is William Cornelius and B.A Bridgewater. They are the only two former McDonnell Douglas board members tied directly to banks. Banks play an especially important role in the network of interlocking directorates which control US industry. Nonetheless, both were cut. Clearly, they were the wrong banks! William Cornelius was on the board of Boatmen Bancshares, a Mid-Western bank. Boatmen was taken over by NationsBank, from Charlotte, North Carolina. Cornelius made millions on the deal. B.A. Bridgewater, another former Boatmen director, now sits on NationsBank's Board.
Cornelius is also on the board of ICO, a Houston oil and gas outfit. Bridgewater is a director of EnSerch, an offshore oil firm from South Texas.
NationsBank and the "Oil Patch" domestic oil and gas producers are "New Money." Their strategic interests run counter to those of Rockefeller, Inc. They gain nothing from the billions spent to protect Rockefeller's oil in the Mid-East. They are opposed to Rockefeller, Inc.'s plans for war to stabilize pro-US regimes in that area. They can't be trusted with control over a key war production company.
They're out!
Old Money Is In
Now, let's look at who's in. Stonecipher was the former CEO of McDonnell Douglas. He squashed the plans for McDonnell Douglas to seek capital independent of the Old Money New York Banks. His reward: the position of Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the new Boeing.
John McDonnell was the former chairman of McDonnell Douglas. His retirement paved the way for the takeover. His appointment was a face-saving courtesy.
Kenneth Duberstein, former Reagan White House Chief of Staff, is now most famous as General Colin Powell's top political advisor. He runs the Duberstein Group, a Washington, DC consulting firm. With Walter Mondale's counsel, Michael Berman, at his side, The Duberstein Group became one of the capital's hottest shops. Its well-healed clients include General Motors, Goldman Sachs, Inc. and Dow Corning.
New Money Republicans hate his guts. The New Republic, a New Money mouthpiece, vilified him in the cover story entitled Colin's K-Street Crowd (11/27/95). Oil Patch republican Dick Armey is up in arms because Fannie Mae hired Duberstein as a lobbyist.
"To the new right, [Duberstein is one of] the traitorous Svengalis robbing Ronald Reagan of his Reaganism," wrote Ann Reilly in March of 1983 (Dun's Business Month).
Duberstein's mentor was the Princeton bred attorney Howard Baker. Duberdog, as he was affectionately known by Baker, started his career as an aide to Rockefeller republican Jacob Javits, the late senator from New York. He was a good friend of former House and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkwoski. "We trust him," said Rostenkowski's aide.
Apparently, so can Rockefeller.
John Biggs is chairman and chief executive of Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association-College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA-CREP). Headquartered at a fancy New York City address, TIAA-CREP is the largest private pension fund in the world.
Its Board of Overseers oozes with Old Money. All seven overseers were educated or teach at Ivy League schools-mostly Harvard. Former TIAA-CREP chairman and CEO Clifton Wharton, Jr. is a director of Ford, the New York Stock Exchange and the Rockefeller Institute of Government. John Whitehead is chairman emeritus of The Brookings Institute and board member of Rockefeller University. Both are former US Deputy Secretaries of State.
William Bowen was never Deputy Secretary of State, but he was Princeton University's president. He's now president of The Andrew Mellon Foundation and director of the Rockefeller Group, Inc.
The list goes on. John Biggs was a shoe-in with recommendations from this crowd.
"Merger Burgers" and "Merger Blend Coffee" giveaways can't hide what's going on here. Rockefeller, Inc. is consolidating its hold over this key war industry.
They are preparing to fight their rivals economically and militarily. This clique secretly hatches their foul plans for war and fascism. The Boeing Board will continue to guarantee the company follows a strategy consistent with designs of Rockefeller, Inc.
The Chicago Police Department is once again the recipient of the Mark Fuhrman award for racist cops. Andrew Durham was hanging out last Sunday when two cops approached him and a friend. Andrew ran from the cops and a chase ensued. The officer caught up to him and tackled him with her gun drawn. He broke free, but the cop hung on to his legs, and was dragged along. The cop shot. Durham fell to the ground, raised his arms over his head and screamed, "You don't have to shoot me again!" One witness described him as a "beaten man". The pig shot two more times, one more fatal bullet entering his buttocks and traveling through his stomach, heart, lungs, and liver. He died at the scene.
Cops are trained to terrorize workers, especially blacks and latinos. For Andrew to have run is not surprising, for people on the West Side of Chicago know that cops are not there to serve and protect, but rather to intimidate, harass, and murder. This is the cops' service to the ruling class, keeping workers under their thumb so that their exploitation can continue, so that the super-exploitation of black and latino workers can continue without worry of rebellion.
Andrew Durham was another of the tens of thousands killed by racist goons every year, making this type of murder a daily occurrence. Our ceremony to Andrew and all the others killed will be a revolution for communism, a revolution that will exterminate the rodents that perpetrate and support this murderous system. We are in contact with the Durham family to lend them our support
NEW YORK-Abner Louima, a Haitiian worker living in Brooklyn, must have thought he was back in Haiti under the reign of terror of the TonTons Macoute. He was tortured by NYPD cops after he was arrested for trying to break up a fight outside a night club. The cops beat him up badly and shoved the wooden handle of a toilet plunger up his rectum.
As the rulers gear towards war and fascism, cops become more and more fascist goons and torturers like the Gestapo or Macoutes. All workers, including UPS strikers who see how cops protect scabs, must denounce this latest case of police brutality.
PLP is organizing against it. We have joined the angry protests by residents in Flatbush against the 70th Precinct, where the cops were stationed.
Israel Runs Interference for U.S. Bosses
The letter from L.A. Supporter in the most recent Challenge sharply disagrees with our Party's line on U.S. imperialism's plans for oil war in the Middle East. It also contradicts Lenin about the inevitability of war under imperialism.
The author questions Israel's importance as a defender of U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf. True, a thousand miles separate Israel from the oil fields. But Israel has a nuclear arsenal and a powerful air force capable of striking anywhere in the region. It also has a well-trained, modern army that for years has functioned as a gunslinger against anti-U.S. Arab nationalists. Israel's original military pur- pose was to serve as the western flank of a pincer movement in the Middle East. For nearly three decades, iran played this role in the east. With Iran now an enemy of U..S. imperialism, Israel has more military importance than ever for Rockefeller & Co. The loss of Israel as a pro-U.S. enforcer would be as great a disaster to the Eastern Establishment as the loss of Iran in 1979. This threat explains in part why the Clinton White House went to such lengths in its failed bid to influence the most recent Israeli elections. Netanyahu and the Likud are far less reliable U.S. underlings than are Peres & Co. In fact, as we have often pointed out in Challenge, Netanyahu has distanced himself from U.S. imperialism in ways that Rockefeller ultimately can't tolerate. Remember the recent pro-Bibi ad in the New York Times paid for by dyed-in-the-wool Oil Patch "Christian Right" U.S. anti-semites Ralph Reed, Jerry Falwell, Oral Roberts, & Co.
Israel is also an economic entity in its own right U.S. bosses helped create it and, as the initial response to L.A. Supporter's letter pointed out, still give it "aid" to the tune of $3 billion a year. Virtually all this aid covers military grants or military debt service. U.S. imperialism has invested many billions of dollars in Israeli businesses. This aid and investment are part of a grand strategy. They also reflect Rockefeller's need to create a U.S. style capitalist economy in the Middle East. Again, as Challenge has mentioned several times, U.S. New Money has begun to compete with the Eastern Establishment for Israeli profit opportunities.
The next point in the letter concerns Iraq. Here the author makes a major error in interpreting Rockefeller's interests and aims. The issue for the imperialists isn't to keep the price of oil high by blocking Iraqi crude's access to the market. In fact, the oil companies can turn a nice profit with prices relatively low and did so in the last quarter. As we have said many times, oil is the lifeblood of all capitalist production. It is not merely a source of high profit; it is also the key to imperialist domination. Whoever controls the flow and price of oil has a choke-hold on the competition. All the world's bosses understand this and develop their foreign policy accordingly. Rockefeller & Co. need more than the billions they make from the sale of oil by Mobil and Exxon. They also need to dictate the conditions under which their main European, Japanese, and other rivals buy and refine oil. This requires the domination of all possible oil markets. Saddam Hussein's unforgivable crime wasn't just his invasion of Kuwait. It was his intention to provide French, German, Japanese, and other bosses with non- Rockefeller energy sources. L.A. Supporter views the main Iraqi threat as military. This is a mis-estimate. The crucial threat is Iraqi and other oil as a viable alternative to Exxon et al. U.S. rulers killed half a million workers in "Desert Storm" to keep it off the market.
Their sanctions kill thousands more each month in Iraq. They don't want the Europeans, Japanese, and others striking separate deals for this oil and are obviously prepared to spill buckets of blood to realize this goal.
Finally, L.A. Supporter asks why the Rockefeller oil companies should bother to risk war in the Middle East when they can profit handsomely from oil fields elsewhere. The question essentially attacks Lenin's view of imperialism, a view our Party shares. As Stalin pointed out in his 1952 pamphlet Economic Problems of Socialism, average profit and even super-profit don't meet the needs of imperialism. Every imperialist needs maximum profit. The letter implies that somehow the imperialists can reach a rational understanding that will prevent war. The nature of their system precludes this. The vast oil resources coming on stream in the Caspian, South America, the Gulf of Mexico, perhaps the South China Sea, and elsewhere don't mean, as the letter further implies, that there's more than enough to go around and that therefore the imperialists can share and share alike. Just the opposite is the case. The more oil there is, the greater U.S. imperialism's need becomes to monopolize it, and the greater its rivals' need becomes to break away from this monopoly.
This contradiction is playing out in the crucible of armed struggle today. One of the hottest flashpoints is Afghanistan, where Pakistani and Turkmen bosses would like to open a pipeline that could reach the Indian Ocean. As the July 23 Wall Street Journal points out, "their desire to open this strategic corridor and Russia and Iran's determination to block it, is quite literally fueling the war."
This "small" war is hardly isolated. The entire Caucasus has been a tinderbox since 1990. Russian bosses want to dominate oil and gas exports from Central Asia to the West. Since the oil in the Caspian region has no outlet to the sea, the struggle to control pipelines becomes paramount. And the Russians aren't U.S. imperialism's only opponents in this deadly game. Chinese bosses are also in it to the hilt, with a massive effort to build a new eastern route out of Central Asia. In June, the China National Petroleum Corporation made China's single largest foreign investment ever when it bought 60 percent of Kazakhstan's Aktobemunaigazs oil company. To make this deal, the Chinese beat out Texaco and Amoco, among others.
Chinese rulers' interests here are obvious: the bosses in Beijing want to lay the groundwork for energy self-sufficiency. The logic of the profit system drives them to replace the U.S. as the dominant imperialist force in the 21st century. Russian bosses have global strategic interests as well. They aren't about to twiddle their thumbs while nationalists in the former Soviet Republics cast around to make deals with U..S. oil companies.
So, despite L.A. Supporter's contention, new supplies of oil serve merely to sharpen all existing contradictions among the world's bosses. These include the rivalry between Rockefeller and non-Russian European capitalists, who are in an all-out dogfight with U.S. Big Oil for leverage in the Caspian.
In this context, Middle Eastern oil assumes greater importance than ever. It is plentiful, cheap, and easy to get. Every imperialist wants it, and the Europeans have particularly targeted Iran and Iraq and center of an oil zone to dominate. As Gregory Norwell shows in the July 17 Left Business Observer: "The general thrust of a 'European oil offensive' would be to break with the U.S. over its attempt to isolate Iran and to encourage the building of pipelines from Iran and.Turkmenistan through Turkey and into Europe -- moves the U.S. opposes. By contrast, 'American' oil policy will emphasize continued attempts to isolate Iraq and Iran (forcing Europe to rely more on Kuwait and Saudi Arabia) and blocking pipelines running from Iran and Turkmenistan through Turkey."
The nature of imperialist rivalry, of oil, and of profit will force a ground war to establish Rockefeller control over Middle Eastern oilfields the European bosses covet. L.A. Supporter may not intend to disagree with Lenin's and our Party's line about imperialism but this is objectively his position. We hope that he will reconsider his views long before the next oil war contradicts them in the most brutally obvious way.
Youth learn police role In UPS strike
Dear Challenge:
Supporting striking workers and trying to win them to commmunist ideas were the goals of nine PLP members and friends (3 adults and 6 students) who joined the UPS picketers in Maryland on Saturday, August 9.
During the hour we were with the strikers, several UPS scab trucks barrelled down the road returning to the depot. We all yelled at them, gave thumb down signs, and urged other motorists to honk in support of the strike. The students were particularly lively and vocal and lifted the morale of the UPS workers with their enthusiasm on a very hot day.
Then a security guard came out to accuse a student of throwing a can at one of the scab trucks. We told them no one threw anything but apparently they called the police based on a complaint by one of the scab supervisors driving by. When we were going to our cars three police cars drove up with the supervisor and arrested one of the female students after yelling at her, putting her up against the car and frisking her. The same cop was abusive and rude to the adults who intervened as well.
This performance by the cops seemed to be aimed at intimidating the strikers and friends, since there was no physical evidence and much less any injury done to UPS driver or truck. The student was handcuffed and taken to the police station with no adult present. She was later released to her parents after being charged with vandalism.
Clearly the militancy of the UPS strikers elsewhere in the US has UPS bosses very worried about their efforts to destroy the teamsters union in what may be a prolonged struggle. We learned a valuable lesson about the seriousness with which the police serve their capitalist masters.
We also understand that a much larger movement must be built around revolutionary communist ideas. The bosses are preparing for fascism to control the workers and they were practicing for this on us last Saturday. We are resolved to become more serious in our political struggle by inviting more friends to these activities and study groups when school starts. Class struggle is not a game, it's for keeps and we intend to win.
Maryland PL Members
Putting communist emotions into motion
Dear Challenge:
What does the PLP means to me? Well, first: the reason that I joined the PLP. During the last couple of weeks before school ended a friend of mine tried to read "The Communist Manifesto" but found it difficult to read and soon gave up. Interested in the subject, I picked it up and tried my luck. At first I would only read a bit at a time and found myself looking in the dictionary for clarification on words. What I read made me think of many things that I had been a witness to.
I began to see things in a whole new light. I never really bought into the whole American dream crap. I always saw the real side to things or tried to find it out, like how we lust over things that really mean nothing but had been forced onto us as we grew up: things like big cars, big houses, and the big one: MONEY. I could never see the whole fascination with money.I guess what made me think of communism was when I read a quote "When I gave food to the hungry, they called me a Saint. But when I asked why they were hungry, they called me a communist."
From that day on, I began to gather information on Communism. I found myself in most part agreeing with the ideas of communism. Meeting a PLP member from my high school helped put these new emotions into motion.
Now as a party member myself I hope to accomplish many things. One of these things is helping form a PLP club in the area where I live with the help of some of my fellow comrades.
A Young Comunist
Old Money bosses the most dangerous fascists
Dear Challenge:
I agree with the comrade's suggestion that we participate in protests against the racist, sexist "Promise Keepers" October mobilization in Washington. As this comrade noted, we can reach many people with our line on the growth of fascism and, specifically, on how New Money forces are using PK to rally workers and small businessmen against their Old Money opponents.
However, I think that our most important political task around this event will be exposing how Old Money similarly works behind the scenes to rally anti-PK forces around their own, even more dangerous, brand of fascism. Groups like the National Organization for Women represent the mass line of the Rockefeller interests, the dominant section of U.S. capital. These organizations push reformism, especially reliance on the Democratic Party, as the way supposedly to defeat fascism.
Our Party must make it our highest priority to show that Old Money fights New-Money fascism only to strengthen its own fascist hand as it prepares for another deadly oil war. We must be clear, and make it clear to all, that we do not "go farther" than NOW and other liberal groups in exposing and fighting racism and sexism. We go in the opposite direction.
Liberal multi-culturalism marches behind the U.S. rulers who have already wreaked the most havoc on workers' lives and who will commit even worse crimes against our class as their war plans unfold.
Communists, in contrast, lead workers, soldiers, youth and professionals to turn the bosses' wars (both imperialist wars and civil wars) into revolution against capitalism itself. Comrades in liberal organizations that are mobilizing against the PK march should develop this analysis by exposing the liberal leaders and their line in all the particulars.
Also, we should think about how to sharpen the distinction between communism and liberalism in practice at the march, perhaps with some sort of break-away rally.
Chicago comrade
Dear Challenge:
On August 2-3, PLP members in Colombia met in a cadre school. The theme of the school is fight reformism and build the communist PLP in the mass movement. In the Colombia school we analyzed the worldwide crisis of capitalism, and how to build our Party in this period of growing fascism and the threat of imperialist war.
A worker remarked that if in the past, these conditions have not stopped the communist movement from growing. The old saying in Italy under fascism was that Mussolini killed and killed communists until there were a million reds. He pointed out that we must show workers that the best protection against fascism is to build a mass communist party. We must take advantage of the hatred many workers feel day after day because of the horrors they suffer.
Another worker said that we must break completely with revisionism and tell workers that the only solution is communism. He said that we must go into all the places where workers are, and contrary to what the revisionists do, talk only about their immediate needs, we must use their daily struggles to show workers that capitalism cannot solve their problems and that we must smash it with a communist society.
A young comrade said that we must do more work among youth, to show them that their alienation comes from capitalism. A teacher said that a student at her school died when he tried to earn a few dollars in a dangerous dare game, another example of how the poverty caused by the system murders youth.
There was a lot of struggle in the school of how to improve our political work. We talk about mass firings. One comrade said that where she works 500 workers have been fired. A worker in a chemical fertilizer plant said that workers there face the same. We said that these workers must be shown that the deepening crisis of capitalism is the problem and that our main task is to show them that fighting for jobs, higher wages, etc. won't end the problem, that communism is the solution.
One worker new to the Party took five Challenges to distribute among his fellow workers, saying our newspaper must play a fundamental role in the building of the Party. Another worker spoke how in the past she did not believe in PLP but as time passed she saw how we were correct in our analysis and that now she sees changing the system as the only solution.
As we ended, everyone shared the feeling of a worker who said the school was very important and that even though we have a lot of work to do, there are new workers coming around and that made him feel sure that our movement is on the right track. We ended chanting long live PLP and communism and death to capitalism.
A Comrade, Colombia
Sexist boss caught with his pants down
Dear Challenge:
A comrade garment worker from LA and myself went to the Dominican Republic the first weekend of August to participate in the cadre school our Party grouping held there. The school is part of a struggle the Party is waging internationally to fight reformism, to increase the circulation of Challenge and to build our Party boldly in this age of worldwide capitalist crisis, fascism and war. The school was a modest step forward for our movement.Participants in the school shared many experiences. Garment workers from the free enterprise zones and the comrade from LA shared experiences common to both, showing that oppression of workers is very similar worldwide.
There were many stories at the school. I want to mention one that showed the sexism of the bosses and how to fight it. A supervisor in a garment shop in a free enterprise zone was in the habit of going into the women's bathroom whenever a worker took what he thought was too long. He took pleasure from humiliating these workers, plus from his own degeneracy of seeing them doing their physical needs. One day, a comrade and a couple of other workers (all men) decided to put a stop to this. When a woman worker went into the bathroom, the supervisor soon followed and was trying to drag her out saying she was taking too long. He didn't care the woman had her pants down. The three other workers came in and grabbed the supervisor and put his pants down. They asked how humiliated he felt. He nodded and never went into the bathroom again.
Little struggles like these, accompanied with our politics, help bring men and women workers together and show them that a system that creates degenerate like this supervisor must be destroyed.
A NYC Comrade
Dear Challenge:
On Friday, August 1, we read that the Klan was planning a cross burning on private property for Saturday night in Crofton, Maryland. An anti-klan rally was planned for the same time at a nearby church. Since the cross burning was at an undisclosed location on private property, and we didn't have the forces to fight, we decided to attend the anti-klan rally and distribute literature.
The rally at the church was really just a church service and once the program began, we were forced to go down to the sidewalk in front of the church. There were about 10 of us and we sold Challenge to late arrivers, handed out leaflets, and held up signs saying "Smash the Klan" and "Honk if you Hate the Klan". In no time, we were joined by about 20 teenagers and we ended up having our own rally in front of the church.
I was amazed by the response we got from the community! It was an almost all white neighborhood and about 200 came to the church rally. Everyone was really receptive to us: we distributed 110 Challenges and 150 leaflets. Many people also honked and we got some contacts as well! One girl from our base, who doesn't agree with the militancy of PLP, was ready to track the KKK down and said she didn't care if she got arrested. Later, we read in the newspapers that the Klan didn't hold their cross burning, after all. I thought the entire evening went great and was a success. I think that if the Klan schedules another activity in the area, we're going to be able to organize better and maybe fight them next time.
A Maryland Comrade
Spread the strike to the fight for communism
Dear Challenge:
We've been going to the UPS picket line to talk to the striking workers about the need for communism, pass out leaflets, sell Challenge, and make contacts so we can visit them in their homes. We've had a number of interesting conversations, and one involved a striker who was commenting on how the UPS strike not only affects UPS workers, but workers all over the country. Future labor contracts will be affected by the outcome of the strike, the one-third of working people in the U.S. who work part-time will be affected, and U.S. Postal workers are affected right now, by having to work on Sundays. He was very clear on this and realized that an attack on one worker is an attack on all workers. He realized which class he belonged to.
He was then invited to come to our weekly sale at the post office or at the Ford factory, to speak on the bullhorn and let other workers know what is going on. He commented, "I need to stay here to take care of my business first. I can't help anybody until I help myself. I'm needed here on the picket line." We discussed how it was important that other workers support the strike, that postal workers get involved, that the UPS workers would be stronger with their support.
We also discussed the need not to just win the strike but to organize for communism, to look past just being a full-time slave instead of just a part-time slave, but to build a society where our livelihoods take precedence over everything else. He was taken aback at this point, saying we were talking about things that they couldn't even think about at that time. But when the contradiction of him saying at one point that all workers are affected, and displaying a sense of class unity was compared to his other comment of taking care of our business first, he said maybe he would come down to the post office after all, even if just for an hour.
Chicago Comrade
Communist ideas profoundly affect soldiers' lives
Dear Challenge:
The military pages in the August 13 Challenge have made me think about my own family's lifelong experience in the U.S. armed services. Even if our Party members are in the military for only a short time, many enlisted men and women and their families will spend their entire lives there, and they are not necessarily in the service for patriotic reasons.
My father was an Appalachian farm boy who lied about his age (16) and enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1920. The army disgusted him. He returned to his home town and worked construction for a short time, but the appeal of regular pay, meals, and a place to sleep was too attractive and he spent the next 25 years in the service, fighting in World War II, in the Korean War and moving his family eight times before I was eight years old. Our family was only nominally patriotic; we saluted the flag and pledges our allegiance, but my father's only attempt to further the service's aims was to urge my sister and I to join the WAC (Women's Army Corps). My mother's ambition was to keep the family together and maintain her sanity through the frequent uprooting and loss of friends. I believe that without the strong support of my mother's family we could not have survived the alienation caused by these frequent military moves.
For those thousands and millions of enlisted men and women, of which my father was just one, the introduction of communist ideas into their lives can profoundly effect their ideas about fighting in a bosses' war and supporting a system which asks for their lives and gives nothing lasting in return. I believe our Party can make a revolutionary difference not only for the men and women in the service, but for the millions of family members who keep them going.
To that purpose, to build a communist movement, our Party should not only send young people into the service and agitate at military bases, but should spend time getting to know service families through our contacts at these bases and at work and school. We must also actively and consistently correspond with and support those who go into the service to organize. The service life of quasi-discipline and dull regularity is just as weakening as its patriotic propaganda.
Regular Challenge sales at military bases, especially where we have internal struggle, as well as outside support and letters (and food!) from Party clubs, will help to maintain the revolutionary fervor of our communist comrades, and will also strengthen the commitment of those of us who stay at home.
Army Brat
Soldier organizes other soldiers
Dear Challenge:
I talked to a fellow soldier about what a rotten racist system this is. He had a lot of agreement. At first I didn't tell him I was a communist. Later, when we knew each other better, I decided to show him Challenge. I told him to read the "what we fight for" section. He said it was just like what his father used to tell him. He has read three issues of Challenge since then, and when he saw the title on the military issue that said "Don't Fight for the Bosses", he said "good", and took it to read and share. This soldier understands that Challenge is for the soldiers and we should pay attention to how we distribute it. There is a lot of potential for winning him and many many other soldiers to see that capitalist war is inevitable and that we shouldn't fight for the bosses' profits. We should fight to build a mass party to fight for communism.
GI Joe
No surprise: Open to PLP, now take it to Boston
Dear Challenge:
From July 11th to 13th, six younger Boston comrades spent a weekend in Brooklyn participating in the PLP summer project. We had two main goals for the visit. First, we hoped to support the party's work in New York by joining in the weekend's activities and discussions. Primarily, though, we aimed to strengthen our commitment to building the PLP and return to Boston in a better position to further improve college and youth work this fall.
The weekend was a success. We joined our New York comrades in mass Challenge sales, discussions of how to raise communist ideas in the classroom, visiting students in the party's base, and an open communist demonstration against racist police murder. The most obvious accomplishment of the trip may have been our public distribution of Challenge. All six of us sold publicly, although some of us had been reluctant to do that in the past. One comrade who had never distributed more than three papers at a public rally before distributed more than 60 over the course of the weekend. As Saturday's demonstration closed with a bullhorn rally, we were inspired to see hundreds of people from the neighborhood walking down the street with a copy of Challenge in their hands. Most of us had never before seen the party's ideas so well received by workers in such a mass way.
We are determined not to let the energy that developed over the weekend go to waste. We are currently making plans that will allow us to use what we learned in New York to help the party grow in Boston. For example, the six of us are going to step up our involvement in building a campaign to protest the recent racist mass arrest of forty-seven black youth and workers, including a PLP member, at a local graduation party. While selling Challenge on the streets of Brooklyn and talking to New York youth in their homes, we were reminded that workers and students are open to communist leadership and need it more than ever. Now our job is to provide that leadership.
Boston Comrade
Dear Challenge:
I came to LA to participate in the party's summer youth project. As my plane crossed the continent I would never have expected what happened to me. As always my luggage was the last to come out of baggage claim and of course I had a huge suitcase, a handbag and my purse. I'm a petite Latin woman and I was nervous. As I stepped out of the baggage claim a man jumped in front of me and flashed an ID that said "LAX". He asked me who was I with?, why am I in LA?, where do I live?-about 10 questions in 2 minutes. I was shaking. He asked if he could look inside my suitcase. I didn't know what to say except "Do whatever your supposed to do."
A big woman came from behind and, right in front of everyone, opened my suitcase. As she looked through my personal stuff, the man told me they were part of the narcotics team. They suspected me of carrying drugs. In my disbelief he said drug dealers chose unsuspecting women like me to carry suitcases full of drugs. I noticed that they weren't stopping wealthy white women.
Finally, after finding nothing, the woman closed the bag and they left as fast as they came. I stood there in shock not believing that they had the right to do that. I put myself together and all I could think to myself was "Welcome to Capitalist LA."
East Coast Student
Dear Challenge:
A few nights ago, as I searched through the Internet (Netscape), I came across your program of the Progressive Labor Party. I recall hearing of this party about a month ago but was never clear as to what this party stands for until I discovered it on the Internet. I quickly became fascinated with the ideas and philosophies of a better community.
My name is Sandy. I am seventeen years old and attend high School as an incoming senior to the 12th grade class. I have always been disappointed by society's ways of life. A society that bases its foundations on the beliefs of capitalism is not the answer. As I enter college and the working world, I would like to know that I can decide for myself and not have a boss to take advantage of me. As a woman I would like to see all forms of male chauvinism end as well as all forms of prejudice. I believe that in nature human beings are not the greedy, selfish, and evil people that a capitalist society makes us. We need a revolution.
I am interested in joining the Progressive Labor Party. Please send me any information. I appreciate your time.
Sandy
Dear Challenge:
Recently I participated in my first ever summer project and it's the summer I will cherish the most. I became aware of many political aspects-it's as if the blindfold I carried over my eyes all these years had been removed. The party to me means a lot. It showed me a lot of things that I never really thought possible. At first a revolution didn't seem possible to me, but I attended the meetings and it became clear to me that it could actually happen. It has before in Russia and China, and if they could do it, we can, if we all fight together and if we try and struggle.
I'm grateful for the summer project. Every Challenge I distributed in the summer project meant something for me and for the person who read it. This made me grow in the political sense. I knew what I was doing was right-a step forward to the revolution.
In the beginning I was there for the fun, but then I began to see it differently. J [a volunteer from out of town] and I had a lot of political talks (I guess that's why she was put at my house). It made me view things the way that I never really had before. For me it was like a lot of people say-the world is f***ed up--who gives a sh**-why not commit suicide?. Then you guys came along-now I say why not do something about it?
A high school student and new member of PLP
Summer Project changes youth's perspective
Dear Challenge:
Looking back at this year's summer project, I realize that it has changed my perspective in life. Learning about communist ideas and accepting them are two very different and difficult subjects, but I'm glad to see that the new members, including myself, have become a part of the Progressive Labor Party.
Attending activities such as study sessions, forums, newspaper sales, and etc. gave me a sense of what we are really looking and fighting for. It opened up my eyes to a lot of the truth in our history and to the things that the bosses use to control us.
Most important of all is what I had experienced during the Summer Project when we went on retreats. Whether it was the trip to Delano and listening to veterans talk of their past experiences with organizing or the beach trip and bon fire, I got to be with my comrades and we all worked together as communists would. It was one of the best feeling ever.
I firmly believe that as humans beings, we are not like what a capitalist society tries to make us today, selfish and greedy. As more and more youths are educated in the Summer Project, we come closer to a better society for everyone.
I recall once when I was involved in a discussion at a school club about how to end poverty and racism and someone answered, "they will end when we all die." This goes to show that many people feel that society has always been and will always be this way. It just isn't fair. After participating in this year's Summer Project, I hope to have the right answers next time and all the time.
Thanks, A PLP student
"He is (one hopes) the last of the awful 20th-century dictators whose fantastic bloodshed was inspired by the teachings of Karl Marx. Lenin - Stalin - Mao - Pol Pot. With luck the line ends here." Newsweek, June 30th 1997.
Once again Pol Pot has almost replaced Joseph Stalin as number one on the capitalists' all-time hate list.
But there's a big difference. Comrade Stalin was a great communist. Pol Pot, however, never was one.
History of the Cambodian Left
In 1951 the old Indochina Communist Party (ICP), dominated by Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnamese, split into Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian groups. Like the world-wide communist movement as a whole by that time, these groups were rotten with nationalism and eager to compromise with "progressive" (anti-colonialist) capitalists.
In the mid-50s, the old ICPers were joined by a number of militant nationalist students returning from France, including the future Khmer Rouge (KR) rulers Pol Pot, Ieng Sary, and Khieu Samphan. A party, the CPK, was formed by these two groups in 1960, but its existence was kept secret until 1977, long after it seized power. Apparently this was an unprincipled concession to the anti-communism of the nationalist ex-students. When anti-communism is not fought it grows, as we shall see.
Repression by the monarchist government under Prince Sihanouk soon forced the party underground. Most of the communists of the former ICP abandoned the struggle, returning to North Vietnam. Only the nationalist Pol Pot group remained.
When a peasant revolt began in 1967 in the Samlaut region near the border with Thailand, the Pol Pot group joined it. Never communists in anything but name, they assumed a line they thought they could easily win some peasants to - that the cities (home of the absentee landlords and exploitative state which taxed the peasants) and everyone in them were the enemy, including professionals, teachers and workers.
To this peasant dislike of the cities Pol Pot's faction added a fierce hatred, amounting to racism, for anything Vietnamese. Hatred of Vietnam is a nationalist view developed by the Cambodian elite, who remembered the conflicts in past centuries between Vietnamese and Cambodian kings.
In 1970 the military under Lon Nol, backed by the United States, overthrew Sihanouk. U.S. rulers then began huge bomb strikes against North Vietnamese troops and supply lines in Northeast Cambodia. The bombing killed many thousands of peasants and virtually destroyed village life.
As hatred of the U.S. and the Lon Nol government grew, peasants flooded to join the KR army. But on returning from North Vietnam to join the movement, the old ICPers found themselves under suspicion, sometimes even killed by the Pol Pot group. Thus the CPK, which took power in April, 1975, was a tense alliance of two distinct groups. The pro-Vietnamese ICPers and the Pol Pot faction had distinct areas of influence, the former being more influential in the East (near Vietnam). Their soldiers even wore different uniforms.
The Mass Killings Begin
Although anti-communist hacks portray the evacuation of the cities in April 1975 as an atrocity, even capitalist scholars admit it was necessary (e.g. Zasloff and Brown, in Problems of Communism, Jan.-Feb. 1979 - a journal published by the U.S. State Department). For example, the capital, Phnom Penh, had grown to 2 million from about 600,000 from peasants fleeing the U.S. bombings. As in South Vietnam, the U.S. had completely destroyed the peasant economy in order to wipe out the village society in which the KR flourished. Phnom Penh was provisioned only by massive imports of U.S. food, which stopped abruptly when Lon Nol fell. If the city population hadn't been evacuated, they'd have simply starved to death!
Though there were occasional instances of brutality against former city-dwellers in areas held by Pol Pot supporters, mass executions didn't begin until 1977, when the Pol Pot group consolidated its power. A blood purge of all those suspected of being pro-Vietnamese or insufficiently "pro-peasant" began. In 1978 the remaining pro-Vietnamese forces in the CPK led a revolt, which was brutally crushed. The Pol Pot government then slaughtered anyone who had supported this group, plus the many ethnic Vietnamese in Eastern Cambodia. This led to the Vietnamese invasion of 1979. The KR had no support except its army, and the Vietnamese easily set up a puppet regime of the defeated ICP faction, which ruled Kampuchea in the 80s.
U.S. Rulers Murdered More Cambodians Than Did Khmer Rouge
How many people were killed during these mass murders? The U.S. media, following Dith Pran of The New York Times (on whom the movie "The Killing Fields" was based), claim about three million. When talking about "communists," no figure under the million mark will satisfy the capitalists. Writers like Vickery, however, show that 300,000 - still an appalling figure - is about the upper possible limit. In contrast, Zasloff and Brown write of the "heavy toll in lives" which "the enormous U.S. bombing and the intensity of the fighting" caused before 1975, and imply the KR claims of 600,000 to "more than 1 million" dead are credible. When it comes to genocide, Pol Pot & Co. were amateurs compared to the U.S. imperialists.
Whatever the number, though, these killings were not the work of communists. While it is true that the Pol Pot group described themselves as communists occasionally between 1975 and 1977, that was because they were wooing China for aid. In fact Foreign Minister Ieng Sary insisted in 1977: "We are not communists...we are revolutionaries [who do not] belong the commonly accepted grouping of communist Indochina."
Khmer Rouge Anti-Communists Propped Up By U.S.
In the 80s in order to weaken pro-Soviet Vietnam, the U.S. ruling class actually supported a coalition of Cambodian rebel forces, of which Pol Pot's KR were by far the strongest element. It is only a mild embarrassment to the U.S. bosses that the group they kept afloat is the very one they point to as guilty of "communist" genocide!
For the world's workers, the lessons of the Pol Pot experience are clear: There is no substitute for communism in the fight against imperialism and capitalism. The KR tried to build a "new kind" of revolution based upon peasant radicalism. Instead, they plunged Kampuchea into a nightmare.
You can't believe anything the U.S. media or ruling class say about communism! The capitalists care nothing for the hundreds of thousands who were murdered. In December 1981, The New York Times Magazine published a story in which the author said he'd visited KR "freedom fighters" leading the war of independence against the Vietnamese occupiers. Jones, the author of the story, claimed to have seen Pol Pot directing the struggle, an heroic figure silhouetted against the sky.
The Times' editors thought it was so good they printed it without the checking-up they usually give an article from an unknown writer. It turned out that Jones had made it all up while sitting on a beach in Spain! Nothing could demonstrate more clearly the willingness of the liberal ruling class to clasp to its bosom any fascist murderer who can help out in the fight against communism.
Bibliography
David P. Chandler and Ben Kiernan, editors, Revolution and Its Aftermath in Kampuchea: Eight Essays, New Haven, CT: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies Monograph No. 25, 1983.
Michael Vickery, Cambodia: 1975-1982. Boston: South End Press, 1984.