Challenge

At the start of World War II, Josef Stalin, who led both the Soviet Union and the Red Army that eventually crushed Hitler, was asked to identify the Germans responsible for Nazi fascism. His reply: "All Guilty!" By the end of the war, he had changed his mind, blaming instead just the German ruling class and the military High Command. We think he was right the first time. All the Nazis who "were just following orders:" GUILTY! The engineer who drove the cattle cars into the concentration camp: GUILTY! The people who lived near the extermination camps and said they "didn’t know:" GUILTY! Those who passively went about their lives while millions were slaughtered, GUILTY! "ALL GUILTY!"

However, the most important lesson of WWII is not that millions of Germans were passive, or that millions of others looked the other way, or that tens of millions of other Germans were won to fight and die enthusiastically for fascism. The war’s most important lesson is that only communists led by their communist party can and did defeat fascism. In a profound display of internationalism, the Soviet Union and its Red Army led hundreds of millions of workers around the world to grind the Nazis into mincemeat. The Wehrmacht was stopped and crushed at Stalingrad, and ultimately driven back to Berlin, where a Red Army soldier hoisted the Red Flag over the Nazi capitol.

Today we once again face war and fascism. To the degree that we passively go about our lives while the rulers’ cops jail and shoot down a generation of black youth, we are guilty. When we accept racist deportations and concentration camps for "illegal" immigrants, we are guilty. When we fail to act against the rulers’ wars for profit, we are guilty. When we ignore the homeless and hungry, we are guilty. We live in a period of capitalist crisis, fascism and war. That is the real world. As the song "Which Side Are You On?" says, "There are no neutrals here!"

This is a tricky proposition, unavoidably filled with contradictions. We all live in the capitalist world, where capitalist ideas dominate. The schools, media, and culture all belong to the bosses. Hundreds of years of capitalist habits and social relations condition our thinking. In this period, everything the rulers touch turns to fascism.

All Capitalist Roads Lead To Fascism

A divided ruling class is building many mass movements, hoping to win the working class to fight for the greedy interests of one faction or another. The Million Man March, the Promise Keepers’ march and the Million Woman March, are examples of this trend. So is the AFL-CIO, which spends millions on organizing drives and on plans to run 2,000 pro-boss candidates in various elections by the year 2000. Immigrant rights’ groups are organizing to win new citizens and voters. Clinton gave new life to feminists and environmentalists.

All these movements, led by one or another wing of the ruling class, take the legitimate grievances of millions and pervert them into support for capitalism. If our Party is not immersed in these movements, waging the political struggle to expose the dangers of the period we live in, and to build the fight for communist revolution, the ruling class will mislead millions to become active or passive supporters of fascism and war. Winning workers to communism is our responsibility.

Cynicism Puts You On The Rulers’ Side

But there is an even larger fascist movement than all the others put together—cynicism. Many people have grown cynical and feel "you can’t fight City Hall." They believe the rulers are too strong and we are too weak. Cynicism is a two-edged sword. While millions are alienated from the rulers, they are not joining the revolutionary communist movement. And they won’t if we don’t win them. Revolution won’t happen spontaneously. It has to be the conscious political act of millions. The rulers will settle for cynicism. It puts you objectively on their side. If you won’t fight for them, at least you won’t fight against them.

Although many workers are cynical, they still can be won to fight fascism and to choose communism. The ideological battle is far from over. Because workers here remain open to revolutionary ideas, U.S. fascism may be weaker, similar to fascism in Italy during WWII. Unlike the German working class, the Italian workers were not committed to fascism. And in fact, "Mussolini killed and killed communists until there were more than a million communists left." The red-led mass anti-fascist movement hung Mussolini by his thumbs, and defeated the fascists. Millions of those who stop short of fascism or even those who cross just over its boundaries can still be won. Some are being won. The battle against fascism and the fight for communism will be long and hard, but we will win.

Take the first step—March on May Day!

Our Party has made some improvement in waging the political struggle among the masses, and we are slowly growing. As the recent crisis over war in Iraq showed, when we do the work, we get results. But we must not view the world through rose-colored glasses. We are materialists. And right now, the rulers are winning the ideological struggle for fascism. This is how it happened in Nazi Germany. Changing this trend is our responsibility.

Communist Revolution Or Nazi America?

A smaller army must attack a larger army at its weakest points. The rulers’ weakest point today is their military. The "Vietnam Syndrome" is alive and well. The imperialists have not recovered from the mass GI rebellions, desertions, disobedience of orders, and killing of officers that forced Nixon to wage war from the air. Black troops led those rebellions and today make up almost 40% of the U.S. army, almost all in the infantry. As Vietnam and Desert Slaughter in Iraq proved, bombing from the air doesn’t win wars. Imperialism can’t do without ground forces. To save this racist system, the rulers are forced to base their infantry on the same young black workers that face unemployment, police terror, rotten schools, and drug infested neighborhoods in civilian life. Arming your victims is very risky business.

Another imperialist weak point is industrial workers. Millions of these workers turn out the weapons for the rulers. These workers’ interests are in direct opposition to the bosses. The bosses use nationalism in the army and in the factories to divide and control the working class. A refined version of nationalism has been developed to keep workers in the capitalist camp. It is no longer the simple approach that " whitey" is bad. Today’s nationalists utilize cultural identity—each group for its own—to help the bosses weaken and dominate our class . Only a unified working class committed to fighting for communism can win the battle against fascism.

Without a reliable army, the fascist rulers don’t have that much going for them. It is possible they may never field a reliable army again. They are not alone. The Russian army was defeated in Afghanistan and Chechnya. The Iraqi army refused to fight, only to be slaughtered by U.S. fighter jets and tanks in 1991. But again, cynicism among the troops doesn’t mean they will turn their guns around and fight for communist revolution. The countless wars and civil wars raging around the capitalist globe attest to that. Soldiers must and can be won to fighting for communism. The political struggle must be organized and led by our Party. That is our responsibility.

Either fascism is growing or it’s not. This year’s May Day marches will take place under conditions of increasing fascism. But this can be turned into its opposite. This month and beyond, we must deepen our commitment to wage the political struggle for a mass communist movement, and a mass PLP. The bosses may be winning, but they haven’t won. The success of our modest efforts shows that the working class can win. Everything we do for the Party is a step in the right direction and can lead to important developments. The door to communist revolution is opening, but that threshold can only be crossed by a fierce, unending struggle to build the Party. The future belongs to our class if we dare to take it. That is our responsibility!

Black GIs Resist Army Brass Racism

Black soldiers of Bravo company are making a statement. Shamming, doing as little work as possible, has become the code word in this Fort Lewis Transportation Battalion. Some guys are just avoiding details, others are just taking a long time to do what they are assigned to or doing little to cooperate with the NCO’s. But in one way or another the black soldiers of this unit have gone on a slowdown against Army racism. Because of the racism of this society in general and in the military in particular most black soldiers don’t feel that this is their Army. So shamming catches on like wildfire.

Rebelliousness among black soldiers terrifies the Pentagon big wigs and the Rockefeller big oil bosses who are preparing to send these soldiers to slaughter in the next oil war. The Army brass, worried that black soldiers will refuse to be racist killers for Amoco, are doing everything they can to try to put up an anti-racist front.

The Pentagon has started holding meetings at different bases about the McKinney verdict. (the black Command Sgt. Major of the Army who was on trial for sexual harassment.) They are trying to make a big deal about not convicting him of serious charges. They are hoping that soldiers buy into the gimmick. At one meeting the Sgt. Major in charge asked the soldiers what they thought of the McKinney verdict. One guy said that McKinney only got off because of his rank. If it was a lower enlisted man he’d be doing life. The Sgt. Major couldn’t believe that’s how soldiers feel. So he said, "You mean you think the Army would treat the CSM of the Army different from a private?" And it seemed like the whole place yelled out "Hell Yeah!"

To try to bolster their image the Army is now launching an investigation of the CID (Criminal Investigation Command) agents who led their investigation against McKinney. It looks like the Army is preparing to hang these racist agents in the name of building unity around a bigger racism, the killing of Mideast workers.

As Challenge has pointed out the Army is up for grabs. Many Fascist movements are being built by various groupings of capitalists. The sex scandals that led to the indictment of McKinney was a reflection of a bitter fight going on inside the military. "New Money" forces who don’t trust black and women NCO’s and Officers are trying to build a smaller, more white, more openly racist military, and Rockefeller forces who are preparing the military for war in the Middle East are trying to convince women and blacks to go along with their racist war plans.

The slowdown, and the reaction of soldiers at the McKinney meeting, are more indications that the majority of soldiers are not gung-ho to follow the bosses to war. The are more examples of how the capitalists are having a hard time fielding a reliable army that will blindly kill and die for the bosses. But the good sentiments of these soldiers will be turned around unless a communist movement with the out look of turning imperialist war into revolution is built inside the military.

In the same unit having the slowdown, a black soldier and a white soldier were play-wrestling in the motor pool one day last week. Before too long several white soldiers had jumped in on the side of the white guy and several black soldiers jumped in on the side of the black guy. While it didn’t turn into a real fight, it took on racist overtones nonetheless.

Communist ideas will not fall from the sky. We must organize soldiers into the Party. The PLP is making some modest inroads in the military though much more is needed. Both these above units will be represented at the upcoming May Day march.

PLP Young Communist Cadre School: Fighting for a World Without Racism, Without Imperialist Warmakers

LOS ANGELES, April 7 — "Our generation is desperately seeking hope. Communism is that hope," said one high school student at the PLP cadre school held last Sunday for LA college and high school students. Another said, "Communism means hope that, in the near future, we will really be free." More than 40 people attended. Youth led and organized this event to politically educate ourselves and others to fight for communism and build a mass May Day and a mass PLP.

We began the school with a short introduction about the role youth have in building a revolutionary communist movement. We showed the video "Road to Revolution," which gave a history of the communist movement and showed that capitalism has failed workers, as well as the impact PLP has had in leading the fight against fascism and war.

We had three workshops and two planning meetings for building May Day. There was a workshop on communism, what communism will be like, and why there is so much anti-communism. The workshop discussed how the role of the individual would change in a communist world. One student said that, "Communism will reshape the way individuals look at society. People will be more focused on the needs of the many over the few."

Another workshop dealt with some of the fundamentals of dialectical materialism. We talked about the world views of idealism and materialism and how communists use a materialist approach not to just understand the world, but to change it. We talked about how the church deals with poverty and homelessness. Their solution is to pray for the homeless and feed them a few times a year. They rest on idealism which only supports the status quo while materialists try to figure out why people are hungry in the first place and organize them to fight the cause of the problem-capitalism. We also used the category of appearance and essence to talk about the recent trip Clinton made to Africa. It appeared that he went to help promote democracy and apologize for slavery. The essence is that African workers will be even more oppressed than before. The situation for black workers and soldiers in the U.S. is more exploitation, fascism, and war, with Clinton trying to sugar-coat it with the appearance of anti-racism. The dialectical concept of contradiction was used to help show how we can overcome obstacles and capitalist ideas to win our friends to participating in May Day.

The third workshop was on the growth of fascism and imperialist war. The leaders distributed questions to all the participants. They handed out a sheet which showed that we are living in a society that was more fascist than Hitler’s Germany was in the 1930’s. The students all had something to say, especially those who are seeing school police carrying shotguns, conducting searches and police terror. Many gave personal stories about how repression against workers is increasing. They discussed how fascism is linked to preparations for war. They talked about how the bosses need to win youth to fight their wars for them, and that PLP is encouraging youth to organize in the army to turn the bosses’ war into a communist revolution.

Everyone went to each workshop. It was a learning experience both for the participants and the group leaders. The last meeting, with everyone together, focused on plans for bringing as many people to May Day as possible. Social activities, mass stickering and leafleting, visiting friends and raising May Day in classes and mass organizations were planned for the next few weeks. The future rests on our ability to understand our world situation, and to fight against fascism, toward a communist world. A high school student was right when she said, "Capitalism means that they hold the key to our future. Communism means that we hold the key."

No Apologies For Racists

NEW YORK, April 7 — The bosses’ use of "an apology" as a way to rewrite their blood-drenched history sank to new depths this week when fascist NYC Mayor Giuliani apologized to the fascist Lubavitch Zionist movement for the Crown Heights rebellion of August, 1991. The "apology" was part of a $1.1 million court settlement to be paid to the family of Yankel Rosenbaum, who was killed during the rebellion. At the same time, the city, after two trials in which he was acquitted, succeeded in its campaign to convict Lemrick Nelson, the young black man framed for Rosenbaum’s killing.

Not to be outdone, David Dinkins, the black mayor of New York at the time of the rebellion, is defending his record in crushing the rebellion. And Al Sharpton, the reborn voice of liberal nationalism, agrees with Giuliani but wants a second apology to the black family of Gavin Cato, the 7-year-old black child whose death sparked it all. Apparently we need to feel the pain of the fascists as well as the actual victim of this whole horror show. Let’s have no illusions that any of these mouthpieces for capitalism are speaking to the needs of our class.

Gavin, and his cousin Angela, were playing on the sidewalk in August, 1991, when they were run over by a car participating in a motorcade of the Lubavitch movement. These Hasidic Jews use accusations of anti-Semitism as a shield to hide behind as they build their own little capitalist empire in Brooklyn. For example, their private ambulance service, Hatzolah, arrived at the accident scene but did not help Gavin or Angela who were crushed under the front wheels of the car. Instead they took the rabbi who was a passenger in the car to the hospital. The city EMS ambulance did not arrive for another half hour. This racist contempt for the dying children is what sparked the anger of the black residents of Crown Heights.

The genuine anger of black workers, and the genuine sympathies of many Jewish residents, was drowned in a sea of nationalist leadership from black and Jewish opportunists. Yankel Rosenbaum, a young Hasidic man, was stabbed to death in Crown Heights in the days of the rebellion. But he was also a member of a Hassidic "patrol" that was "guarding Jews from blacks" in the very same community. No doubt he was influenced by, and probably a member of the most extreme fascist wing of the Lubavitch sect. (By the way, Yankel died because of rotten medical care, He bled to death at Kings County Hospital when not one bothered to turn him around to check a wound in theback).

His death was exploited as an example of the uncontrolled violence of black workers while Gavin Cato’s death was ignored. A savage house-to-house search for his murderer was conducted by the NYPD while the driver of the car that killed Gavin was never even ticketed, never mind being charged with a crime. Rage boiled on all sides.

Crown Heights, a neighborhood in Brooklyn with a mix of Caribbean and Eastern European Jewish immigrants, is exactly the kind of racial boiling pot fostered by capitalism. The liberals blather about tolerance, cultural identity, etc. In reality, nationalism and racism are ruthlessly promoted as covers for the development of fascism against all workers. And historically Jews and blacks have been among the first victims of fascism. Only capitalism benefits from this process.

The PLP alone spent the days and nights of the rebellion fighting for working class unity, calling on all workers to oppose racist violence within our class. We called on all workers to turn the violence against the racist capitalist system from which it stems. We distributed many Challenges, made contacts and recruited workers through that struggle. We must continue that work in these weeks as we build for May Day.

Swift Workers Response Needs Communist Understanding

LOS ANGELES, April 6 — "Support us! We are being fired because we confronted the boss about his hiring more people when there isn’t enough work for us!" said the eight workers from a section of a garment shop, as they were walking toward the door. The workers’ responses was swift. Four workers, three women and one man, took the lead in calling on the workers to stop work. They shut down the machines of those that refused to do so. In a few minutes, some 300 workers were on strike.

The boss immediately tried to get the workers to go back to work. But the workers were mad. For over a month they had been working only four days a week, and some of them for only a few hours, and the boss is now bringing in his favorites from another shop that he’s closing! When two workers of that section confronted the boss over this, he said, "If you don’t like it, you can go home!" All eight workers decided to leave. The boss threatened, "If you leave, you’re fired!" It was then that they decided to ask for their coworkers’ help.

Seeing the work stoppage, the boss and his foremen tried to scare the workers into going back to work. When this failed, he told those fired that they could come back to work if they would sign a blank sheet of paper. They refused to and the strike continued. The boss threatened to close the factory and send everyone home. The response of one of the strike leaders was to shout to the workers, "In that case we will surround the factory and won’t let anyone in!"

Once more the boss said the fired workers could have their jobs back if they signed the blank sheet of paper. Once more the workers refused. Meanwhile the workers’ anger grew. "Our next strike will be to fire the kiss asses and the despotic secretary!" shouted one of the strike leaders. When the boss saw that nothing he said worked, he told the workers to go back to work, and that the fired workers could come back to work the next day. The strike was ended. Workers made plans to continue the strike if the boss did not keep his word.

But the next day, with the workers divided into their different sections, the boss took advantage to intimidate them. He also took advantage of the fact that one of the main leaders arrived late that morning. She doesn’t know if the fired workers showed up or not. One thing is certain, they are not working there anymore.

In this case the reform struggle was lost. But the workers learned a great deal. They learned of the need for workers’ solidarity, that in unity there is strength, and that the bosses only listen when we stop production. But workers need more than this. They need the commnunist understanding that we don’t need the bosses, that bosses are parasites that live off our labor, that we can smash them and their capitalist system and build a communist society. They need to know that capitalism is heading toward World War and fascism, that communist revolution is our only viable alternative.

These ideas do not spring automatically out of reform struggle. They have to be introduced by communists. That is what we are doing. One of the leaders of the strike, invited by a relative, came to one of our May Day dinners. She brought co-leader and another friend. In two weeks she is going to have a dinner-party at her home to invite more friends to May Day. She has agreed to be in a study group to learn more about communism. We should welcome, encourage and participate in workers’ struggles against the bosses’ fascist attacks, but, most importantly, we should use them to build the revolutionary communist movement.

George Washington: Model Fascist High School

NEW YORK CITY, April 4 — It is 8am at George Washington High School in Upper Manhattan. In the pouring rain 1,500 students are being herded into a small space to pass through metal detectors one by one. At 8:45 another 1,500 students will follow. The line stops. One of the coded cards shows up red. Julio is denied "entrance."

Luis goes in, but his card is coded, too. He is allowed in for limited periods of time and is not supposed to talk to anybody. Teachers are told, and many refuse, to report on his whereabouts. Security guards, under their head Ismael Noriega, trail after him.

What was Luis’ "crime?’ As senior class President he openly criticized the school’s new athletic policy to the principal, Euclides Mejia. "Before this year, students could fail two classes and still remain on the athletic teams," explained Luis. "That’s according to NYC’s athletic team regulations," added Zoraida. "Now if you fail any classes, you’re kicked off the team." "I told Mejia that the policy hurts the students," said Luis. "We’re losing teams." For his suggestion, Luis was suspended on the trumped-up charge that he threatened a security guard.

"This school is fascist," said Jennifer. "The principal is fascist." "But what they did to me is illegal!" exclaimed Luis. "They change the rules whenever they want," said Jennifer, "just like in your case."

"This Dominican principal in a high school of black and latin students, mainly Dominican, is carrying out the Board of Education’s racist policy," said Susan. "But how can you call Mejia a racist," said Jose. "He’s latin like us. He’s just a bad apple." "Far from being just a bad apple he is the Board’s principal of choice at George Washington," replied Susan. "The Nazis used Jews, called " Judenrat," to rule their labor camps, in which they enslaved Jews and others," she continued. "They helped decide which Jewish people were to be sent for extermination. Many Jewish people trusted the Judenrat and didn’t believe this could be happening. Communists were not deceived, Communists exposed the role of the Judenrat and led resistance movements and rebellion against the Nazis. Just as we expose Mejia’s role and organize to fight back."

Some students have responded by demanding changes in the school rules and circulating a petition against harassment of the senior class president. A walkout was attempted.

Chancellor Rudy Crew, another Judenrat, and the Board of Ed. have "redesigned" George Washington. They have "reassigned" 50% of the faculty, including activist teachers and those with close ties to the students. New teachers survive in an atmosphere of fear.

The entire school is surrounded by a 20-foot high wire fence. All, except specific exits, are locked. A fire would make a walk down the wrong corridor to exit a deadly mistake.

In order to change the "culture" of the school, a new North Campus was set up for incoming freshmen. In what many here call a "concentration camp," 9th grade uniformed students are not allowed to move from their barrack-like classrooms from 8:30 am until 12:20 pm. Teachers are trained in "class management skills" to get students to conform. A separate security detachment patrols the North Campus.

"It’s like basic training," said Domingo. "They’re getting students geared up to go to the 5th floor, which is where they have Junior ROTC." Some of the same "reassigned" teachers waged a six year fight against bringing in the ROTC. "When they draft them into the army," said Domingo, "they’re already trained."

As we go into the school’s Copy Center, there is confusion as humiliated, untrained slave labor WEP workers fend for themselves. These are among 10,000 WEP workers who have been assigned to the schools in NYC

What’s May Day Got To Do With It?

PLP’s communist ideas are finding their way into this concentration camp and are slowly taking root under fascist conditions. Students have gathered over dinner to view the "Panama Deception" video about the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989. War in Iraq was debated in connection to the militarization of George Washington. More students and staff are reading Challenge and learning about communism.

Students have seen the PLP May Day video. "Let’s go to Washington to fight back against Mejia and this whole society. May Day represents our future," said Susan. May Day stickers and leaflets have begun to appear around the school.

"This leaflet is junk," a student said to Susan. "Why do you say that?" she asked. "Because everything it says true, but they’ll never get it." "Yes we will, as we continue to raise our ideas and organize to fight back."

As students and staff learn the lessons about capitalist war and fascism and how to defeat it with communist revolution, more will do their "homework" by joining PLP and leading the struggle at George Washington and beyond. Fear will turn to anger and fervor for change. Marching on May Day is an important part of that process.

Newark PLP Forum Reveals ‘There Ain’t No Fixin’ Capitalism’

NEWARK, NJ, March 28 — More than 30 people attended a PLP forum on imperialist war entitled "Only Communist Revolution Can Defeat the Warmakers." Our first speaker described the sharpening of inter-imperialist rivalry in the Middle East, and the development of the worldwide crisis of overproduction, that is behind the U.S. threat of war in Iraq. Another speaker showed how war is inevitable under capitalism and called for a revolution for communism as the only answer for the working class.

The speeches were followed by a discussion, which involved most of the people there. We debated what PLP puts forward within mass organizations. This discussion raised the question of how we participate in reform struggles. Several people opposed the idea of the Party putting forward the slogan, "U.S. out of Iraq," within the growing movement against war. It was pointed out by these comrades that there is no way to "fix up" capitalism to make it less warlike.

We also discussed the nature of violence in a class society. One person said that deaths due to capitalist-caused mass starvation and on-the-job "accidental deaths" are just as violent as being shot in a robbery. Another question was how we win people to the Party, and what is the process of basebuilding. Significantly, several people who are not members of the Party contributed to this part of the discussion.

At the close of the discussion, the PLP chorus sang songs in English and Spanish, including one anti-imperialist song, which was rewritten to reflect the current Mideast crisis. The forum closed with the singing of The Internationale in English and Spanish.

The main weakness in the forum was our failure to politicize the discussion enough. We did not sufficiently address the question of whether a mass communist party can be built in the camp of the enemy, both here and around the world. Despite this weakness, this forum represented a step forward for the work of the Party. Participants took a lot of Party literature and many May Day ticket books. The forum was led by women Party members, reflecting the development within the Party here of several new women comrades. On to May Day!

Racist, Anti-Communist Attack on Students: Campus Cops Arrest Red Prof

CHICAGO, April 7 — PLP member Paul Gomberg, who teaches philosophy at Chicago State University (CSU), was arrested April 1st by campus cops for passing out communist fliers. Paul was in the Harold Washington Hall showing the PLP May Day video to students on a portable TV/VCR when an administrator told him to stop. He was told he would have to stop because the fliers "had not been stamped" by the administration. Paul said no way; he wouldn’t stop.

So the cops were called. They pushed him into a stairwell as Paul made a speech protesting his arrest, advocating communist revolution to the students who had gathered around. Then the cops told him they would arrest him for making a speech, not for passing out fliers. "You mean I haven’t been arrested yet?" Paul asked. So he returned to talk with some student friends. A minute later cop Steward rushed him, handcuffed him, threw him into a police vehicle, and held him handcuffed to an iron bar at the campus police station for an hour and a half before releasing him.

What fascist crap! The cops manufactured reasons to arrest him. On the college campus, the great center of "learning" and "open discussion," a teacher is arrested for passing out communist literature. Why is this happening?

This arrest is in part a racist attack on the students. In the U.S. the capitalists have intensified terror against workers, particularly young black workers. They have introduced fascist labor policies, driving down wages with Workfare and prison labor. "Full employment" has been achieved, as the Nazis did, by driving wages down. Many workers work for less than minimum wage. 1.7 million working class youth have been thrown into jail where many now slave for the capitalists. (This is six times the rate of incarceration of thirty years ago.) Blacks are in jail at six times the rate of whites. On the streets there is increased police terror, community policing (turning older workers against the youth is part of fascist terror), and the growth of a criminal justice program at 90% black CSU to turn young black people into the fascist jailers of other young black people.

As part of the general growth of fascist terror must also be increased against CSU students. The lesson they wish to send is "stay away from the reds, play along with the system, and we will have a job for you (helping to jail other black people)." PLP members bring the only answer to this racist, fascist terror: workers can unite, overcome racism and nationalism, overthrow the bosses, and build a communist society where all workers can flourish.

The fascists cannot tolerate communism because only communism can destroy fascism. So they arrest Paul to try to drive the students away.

But it will not work. After being released from jail, Paul went back to where he was arrested to pass out more literature. That night he and another comrade met with students in a dormitory to talk about the May Day March for communism and the arrest. The next day he, other comrades and many students flooded the campus with fliers describing the arrest, linking it to fascism and to the racist control of students. Many Challenges were sold. Students who had remained aloof became curious about communism, taking our Party more seriously than before. Nationalist students praised Paul’s resoluteness and integrity. Students began to make plans to take classes that Paul teaches. Ten students gave their names to find out more about May Day. Students signed up and gave money to go to the march.

The future is bright. Every attack will be turned into its opposite. Young working class black students will respond to communism as the only way out of this racist morass. They will unite with their class sisters and brothers and join PLP. The coming wars will give us an opportunity to move forward to communist revolution. On to May Day!

May Day: ‘It’s what we need’

McFARLAND, CA, April 6 — "If you’re going to the march, invite me. Seriously, this is what we need." This was the response to being invited to the May Day March from the friend of a friend of a friend who had organized a dinner in her home.

The organization of these May Day dinners in the McFarland area was different from other years. In past years, the leaders organized the all aspects of the dinners—from the details of what to serve, to the people who came. This year we paid more attention to the great potential leaders we have in our midst. We’ve had two dinners so far, and others are planned. Both were organized in the homes of other participants in the clubs who want to help build the Party and who are regular readers of the paper, but not yet members. The struggle is for them to become members of the Party.

At both dinners, the discussions were very interesting, including, "Why do we say now that imperialist war is imminent? We haven’t said that in other years." "Why is reformism a dead-end?" "If we fight for higher wages and ‘win,’ in one way or another will the boss take away what we’ve won?" "Why do we say that communism is the only alternative?" "Why is the May Day march so important for the working class?"

At these dinners, the hosts invited their friends and organized the food, which was delicious. The political discussions came out of collective presentations in which everyone participated and gave their views. We hope to learn from this, to recruit these hosts and their guests to the Party as we build for May Day and to have much greater success next year.

Rulers’ Tool in Winning Workers to Fascism: Deception

(This is third article in a series on the development of fascism)

Just as bosses organize first to devalue, and then destroy, other bosses’ capital, they impose fascism to devalue the cost of labor and to destroy sections of the working class. This sets up a contradictory task: bosses aim to win as many workers as possible to new levels of brutality against other workers in defense of capital. At its core, capitalists look to bury class consciousness and try to halt class struggle by winning workers to identify with the bosses’ class interests: their need for profits. This is what the bosses call "the national interest." It directly opposes the workers’ class interests.

Dealing with such a contradictory task would be impossible without the help of liberal institutions like the Democratic Party, the unions, churches and revisionist—fake communist—movements. They belittle class struggle, lower expectations and lie about the causes and nature of the crisis. They try to get workers to rely on the liberal rulers rather than on themselves.

Take Workfare, for example. It’s a program that devalues all workers because it drastically lowers the cost of direct wage labor while eliminating costs that sustain a part of the reserve army of labor. Yet masses of workers are won to being neutral toward, or even supporting, Workfare, thanks to the role of the churches and unions.

In many cities the churches help screen the applicants, while the unions have developed a two-pronged strategy: (1) demand extra pay for their members who are being asked to supervise Workfare workers; and (2) support attempts to directly unionize these workers. Either way their strategies amount to institutionalizing Workfare by making it a more permanent feature of the workforce. They try to lower all our expectations and actually devalue work. They try to win us to fascism!

By contrast, the communist PLP sets out to win workers to smash Workfare, along with the general system of wage slavery that keeps workers competing against each other for jobs owned and controlled by the capitalists or their state.

The same story is repeated again and again. The explosion of workers and youth jailed in U.S. prisons is justified as "making the streets safe from gang wars." The bosses bend every effort to get the working class to accept prison labor. Passively ignoring it amounts to accepting it. Movies like Spielberg’s "Schindler’s List" are really an advertisement for prison labor with a "gentler, kinder face." (Schindler, who profited from prison slave labor and intense racism, is portrayed as a hero in the movie). This has an effect on workers. When Boeing workers discovered that the company was using skilled prison labor to assemble its planes, they found that the union had accepted the scheme—as a "community service!" The PLP aims to win workers to see that slave labor in all its forms is an attack on all workers, and that it must be smashed with communist revolution.

Rampant racist murders by cops occur in almost every major city. Racist police terror is rising, and has become national policy. In their book, Fixing Broken Windows, Kelling and Wilson try to win the general public to support the campaign to "restore order to cities" by attacking youth, especially black and latin youth, harder and harder. The police departments are acting as death squads. Fast-track deportations and increased harassment of immigrant workers are part of the fascist attack on all workers, echoing nationalist rhetoric about "protecting our [the bosses’] borders and our jobs." These, and other fascist programs, have won a degree of support in the working class that communists must and can combat.

In fact it is racism—the major "cultural achievement" of U.S. imperialism—that plays the key role in splitting and immobilizing the working class. Racism, then, is a key ingredient of fascism. It blurs class consciousness and sets the stage for liberal capitalist ideas such as nationalism and class collaboration.

Splits Among U.S. Capitalists Produces Two Fascist Movements

In the U.S., as elsewhere, the fight against fascism is complicated. The split among the capitalists has produced two fascist movements.

One, supported by the Republican right-wing, attacks affirmative action, unions, "big government," NAFTA and land war in the Middle East. It builds movements like the Promise Keepers, Farrakhan Muslims and so on.

The other, supported by the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, advocates affirmative action and unions, attacks NAFTA but supports big government (Federal rights over state rights), and wants a land war in the Middle East (to defend Rockefeller’s oil). It builds movements like the unions and the NAACP, immigrants’ rights groups, and many churches that talk about "respecting all races," but accepts prison labor and Workfare. The liberal bosses plan to increase these movements at this time to lull workers into accepting fascism. In order to expose these liberals and to build the Party, we must be in these movements.

The different movements and programs reflect the different needs of the two main capitalist groupings: one whose power and interests lies mainly in the domestic economy (centered around domestic oil); and the other, the main Rockefeller wing, whose power and interests are tied up as well with U.S. imperialism (with its interests in Mideast oil).

One of the first aims of fascism is to "discipline" the capitalist class. One wing, probably the Rockefeller wing in the U.S., will emerge dominant and discipline its rival. The fight between the two wings, however, can provide an opening for the working class. In the ’60s, for example, just a few years after it had viciously crushed the Civil Rights Congress (a mass anti-racist movement lead by the Communist Party), the Rockefeller wing co-opted the Civil Rights Movement. Black workers and youth in the U.S. were beginning to openly rebel against overt type of racism. At the same time, newly-independent African countries were turning away from U.S. imperialism and toward the Soviet Union. The African working class, it turned out, hated segregation in the U.S. as much as it hated apartheid in South Africa. So the liberal wing of the ruling class saw ways of co-opting the working class’ hatred for racism and its long, glorious history of fighting it,

But the liberal bosses did not have an easy task. Anti-racist rebellions shook most major cities in the U.S.—from Harlem (the bosses blamed PLP for it) to Watts to Detroit. At the same time, the war in Vietnam produced a massive anti-imperialist student movement; an Army which, in large parts, refused to fight this racist war; and the growth of PLP. The bosses used the carrot (some anti-racist concessions) and the stick (mass repression) to get out of this one.

Today, as fascism deepens, the stakes for the working class are even higher, and the opportunity and need to build the PLP are even greater.

How the Catholic Church Helped in the Extermination Campaign by the Ustasha Nazis in Croatia

Challenge has written extensively recently on fascism and the Nazi era. One aspect that must be emphasized is the role of religion and the occult under fascism. Even though the Nazis were not very religious, in the traditional sense, they used many ideas to promote "Aryan superiority" and other racist garbage. Hitler himself believed in astrology.

But organized religion did play a role in helping the Nazis. Recently the Vatican and the Italian Catholic Church "apologized" for the church’s anti-semitism during WW II. This apology, besides being a little too late, really did not go deep enough into the role played by the Vatican in support of the Nazis. U.S. News and World Report magazine (3/30) reported of how the Croatian Ustasha fascists who were put into power by the Nazis when they invaded the Balkans:

"...the Ustashas exterminated an estimated 500,000 Serbs, Jews, Romany (Gypsies) and looted their properties....It is a matter of historical record that the Croatian Catholic Church was closely entangled with the Ustashas...Several high Catholic officials in Yugoslavia were later indicted for war crimes. They included Father Dragutin Kamber, who ordered the killing of nearly 300 Orthodox Serbs; Bishop Ivan Saric of Sarajevo, known as the ‘hangman of the Serbs’; and Bishop Gregory Rozman, a known Nazi collaborator. A trial held by the Yugoslav War Crimes Commission in 1946 resulted in the conviction of a half-dozen Ustasha priests, among them, former Fransican Miroslav Fluipovic-Majstorovic, a commander of the Jasenovac concentration camp where the Ustashas tortured and slaughtered hundreds of thousands with a brutality that shocked even the Nazis..."

The article also detailed the role the Vatican in helping the Croatian Nazis. Father Draganovic became the unofficial emissary to the Vatican of the Ustasha leader, Ante Pavelic. After the war, the Ustasha used their connections with the Vatican to flee, mainly to Argentina. Almost the entire Ustasha leadership escaped this way.

By the way, the rulers of Croatia today, which, with the support of Germany and the U.S. became independent after the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, are all followers of the Ustasha Nazis.

And finally, to prove that the Vatican is no more than a capitalist operation with a religious cover, Vicenzo Calrara, a Mafia goon who is now collaborating with the Italian justice department, declared last week to judges investigating the 1981 attempt on the life of Pope John Paul II, that Bishop Marcinkus, a U.S. bishop who headed the Bank of Vatican, was involved with some top mafiosi in the plot, because the Pope was "breaking the economic and political balance" in the Vatican. The Mafiosi canary said that Pope John Paul I, whose Papacy lasted for a very short time, was "eliminated for the same reasons." The Vatican Bank under Marcinkus had, with the Banco Ambrosiano (BA), handled shady (drug) money. The President of BA was found dead under a bridge (recounted in the movie, Godfather III).

LETTERS

Ecuador: PLP steps up communist activities as May Day approaches

Dear Challenge:

PLP members have distributed 10,000 communist leaflets in Quito, a city of almost 2 million people about May Day. We painted revolutionary graffiti in the downtown and southern and northern parts of the city. Our graffiti and leaflets have rejected the sellout policies of union leaders and fake leftists and called on workers and students to join PLP to fight the bosses and to fight for communism.

Last week, a group of PLP students went to the city of Sucua, in eastern Ecuador, with the aim of bringing the communist politics of our Party to workers in that very poor region of the country. We had a very interesting talk with some friends of the Party about why we had criticized socialism and now say that workers must fight directly for communism.

Then we went to leaflet in the city. We notice some cynicism among the masses towards communism. It is a region mostly inhabited by Indians, and there are many religious sects and others trying to "evangelize them" (to lobotomize the workers and peasants). But there are still a lot of opportunities to build a Party group there, as long as we build a strong political base with our friends and turn them into communist organizers.

Meanwhile, conditions for all workers in Ecuador have gone from bad to worse. Capitalism’s economic crisis, the glut (overproduction) of oil and El Ni�o have made workers and peasants even poorer and their lives more miserable. El Ni�o has brought about losses estimated at $4 billion. The bosses want workers and poor people to pay for this. The bosses’ government is trying to get loans from imperialist banks to pay for their losses. Fake left sellouts in Congress have supported this scheme, which will only benefit bosses, and the workers will pay even more with more cutbacks in services, jobs, etc.

The currency (Sucre) has been devalued, turning Ecuador in the country with the highest inflation rate in Latin America. Gasoline prices in this oil producing country have been increased again, becoming one of the most expensive in the region.

As May Day approaches, workers and their allies are really angry. There are indeed ample opportunities to build the PLP if we do our work.

PLP Comrades, Ecuador

Anti-Klan group in Coal County wants PL’s ideas

Dear Challenge:

Just read your article on "Only Communism Can Smash Racist Terror." Yeah, we pretty much agree that it will take a revolution against Capitalism to put an end to fascism. Yeah, and you are also right that a bunch of clowns, dressed up like nuns shouting racist slogans are nothing compared to the bourgeois state and its armed thugs.

Did you get the information on our anti-Klan rally in the Coalfields of Western PA. It’s too bad you couldn’t have been there to sell your paper to people and give them a different view. We had to protest the Klan with anyone and everyone we could organize. Please let us know if you got the information.

Coal County Anti-Klan Coalition

Women Workers Fight Fascist Conditions, Support MayDay March

Dear Challenge:

I am a woman worker in a food factory that employs 300 workers. The plant has no windows or ventilation of any kind. We work on the line with products that cause our noses to itch. One day the smell of pepper was so strong that we couldn’t breathe. The situation was so bad that I couldn’t take it and told my co-workers that I wasn’t going to wait until I got sick and that I stopped working until the conditions would improve. Thirty other workers on the line joined me in a 20 minute stoppage.

The bosses came to ask what was going on. We asked why they were holding their noses. We told them that they were only there for a few seconds. Imagine us who had to smell this all day, every day. This action made the bosses move the smelly machinery to another part of the plant.

Every time the bosses bring new, modern machinery they do it not to improve our working conditions but to speed up our work and to make more profits.

Last week most workers were laid off and our line was sent home for two or three weeks without pay while they were moving the machinery. We will probably be called back to work, but conditions will not get any better and our wages will probable be cut.

PLP is right, as fascism continues conditions on the job worsen. All the fight back at this plant is not spontaneous. I am distributing 20 Challenge-Desaf�os here. I’m trying to bring my fellow workers to May Day. I want them to come to march with us to show them that there is an alternative to the fascist capitalist system—the communism that PLP is fighting for.

NYC Comrade

Fight racism and nationalism at CUNY

Dear Challenge:

I am a college student at the City University of NY (CUNY) trying to organize for the Party. The Student government, of which I am a member, wanted to invite a black professor, Leonard Jefferies, who has said racist things about whites and Jews was going to be invited and paid to speak on the topic of Open Admissions at CUNY.

I said that nationalism is a tool used by the bosses to win black workers to identify with their black boss instead of their working class brothers and sisters and that the attack on Open Admissions was part of the bosses’ war plans. They need black, latin and white working class soldiers instead of college students.

I opposed this racist coming to speak but the people I had been working with invited him. They don’t see politics as being primary. This is what leads to the growth of fascism. As workers rely on the bosses of their same skin tone to save them instead of their working class brothers and sisters of all "races" and "ethnicity’s," they will be led into fighting for one group of bosses or another like in Rwanda or Bosnia.

We must not underestimate the allure of nationalism for black workers, who see nationalism as anti-racist. The bosses are beginning a fascist campaign to win black soldiers to fight and die for their oil profits. Prof. Jefferies has no solution for the racism that is necessary to maintain a profit system, but students can identify with his descriptions of the racism they face every day. We must not underestimate this or our Party’s line on nationalism.

Only PLP can fight nationalism. On the one hand, there are fascist nationalist Jews in the JDO, and on the other, there is Prof. Jeffries. I could not support either of them. I had to make it known that the racist nonsense Jeffries was preaching was not even worth discussing and I refused to hear him speak. At the same time I had to be sure that students did not think I supported Jewish nationalists. While a few agreed with my position that there should be no free speech for racists, and that ending open admissions is part of the bosses’ war preparations, they were unwilling to denounce Jeffries.

We must struggle about nationalism. It is a complicated issue. I had to put forward communist ideas because nobody else was going to do it. Our analysis will bring black and white workers together because we see that class is primary not something called "race."

Nationalism only offers workers more racism and war. Only a system based on need can end the tremendous suffering of workers from the holocaust to slavery. Both are the oppression of workers to increase bosses’ profits. Let’s fight the bosses to the death instead of each other. We must not back down from the fight against nationalism in mass organizations. Black workers are key to making a communist revolution.

Red Student

Anti-racist anger and political action

Dear Challenge:

I attended the Chicago public hearing on police brutality reported in Challenge (4/8) and would like to add something to the report. The hearing was organized by a community group that some of us are working in. Many of the workers who came to testify against the cops didn’t get an opportunity to speak because the politicians took up more than half the scheduled time talking mainly about voting.

I and another comrade leafleted and sold Challenge at the door until most people were inside. When we got into the meeting room, my comrade was very angry to see that the person leading the meeting was the same lawyer who had betrayed the Party nearly 20 years ago when we were working to organize against the klan in Tupelo, Mississippi. He began opposing very loudly the lies coming from the front of the room and the fact that people weren’t being allowed to testify. After a couple of warnings, he was ushered out by security (one of whom whispered on the way out, "Thank god for what you did in there, brother").

The disruption of the meeting was not done in the best political way. My comrade’s reaction was as much emotional as political; he did not raise communism or the Party in his comments. However, I believe that this weakness was outweighed by the fact that he did something to break up the hearing that was being taken over by the politicians. Working in community groups doesn’t mean that we accept all the BS the leaders of these groups dish out.

We need to give leadership to the rank-and-file in rejecting the leadership of racist and nationalist politicians, We need to plan disruptions of these kinds of meetings when we know they’re going to be used as platforms for voting and other anti-communist ideas.

Chicago Comrade

Racism against one section of the working class affects all

Dear Challenge:

In the last couple of weeks two stories have appeared in Challenge from the San Francisco Bay area that to my mind reflect the advanced stage of fascism we are living through today.

The first story recounted how a department head at San Francisco General Hospital justified the firing of a worker by claiming that all that mattered were the needs of her department, next to which the needs of any worker were insignificant. The other recounted how a black teacher who had obtained a restraining order against a white teacher who had spit at him found themselves not only fired, but escorted out of the school by two armed cops.

Where did the hospital boss get such an inhuman, one-sided view of needs? From the practice of the hospital itself in employing welfare recipients in Workfare programs and forcing them to be identified by wearing special name tags.

Where did the Principal get such a fear of a black teacher that cops were required to "assist" him in leaving the school? From the massive jailings of black and latin youth and young workers (in proportions that far outstrip Hitler’s peacetime Nazi Germany).

The fact is workers belong to a class. It’s a fact we cannot escape. It means that the degradation of one section of our class inevitably results in the degradation in the other sections.

And that is why May Day is so important. It is the key demonstration that organizes our class as a class. It’s a rehearsal for the day the working class takes power and the whole of society will be run solely to meet our own human needs!

A Bay Area Reader

FORD Complicit in Argentine torture

Dear Challenge:

Challenge (4/8) reported how Henry Ford loved Hitler and how his company made profits out of slave labor in Germany during the war. Ford’s love for fascism has not stopped. Workers in Argentina during the mid-1970 military ruler were detained and tortured in a clandestine detention center at Ford Motor Company’s factory in an industrial suburb of Buenos Aires, according to legal documents submitted on March 16th in a Madrid court by union representatives of the Congress of Argentine Workers (CTA). The court is investigating the crimes during the dictatorship involving 600 Spanish citizens. The victims were selected for detention, torture and execution in consultation with management at Ford’s Argentine subsidiary, which provided the military with facilities in Ford’s General Pacheco plant and even donated vehicles to transport prisoners to military prisons and torture centers. The union’s document described the repression by Ford and other major Argentine companies as an attempt to "implement state terrorism and genocide with the objective of socially disciplining the working class and thereby obtaining a higher rate of profit...." Within a year after the junta seized power, Argentine wage levels were cut in half, all union contracts were suspended, factory committees were outlawed and tens of thousands of union activists were fired.

A Queens Reader

Organizing for May Day among transit workers

Dear Challenge:

Our transit collective sent this letter to our friends and coworkers who read Challenge. We have been visiting Challenge readers to ask them to help us organize for May Day.

Why I march on May Day! Going on my first May Day march was a culmination of years of struggle with my fears, my religious beliefs, and my doubts. My only dealings with the communist party had come about because of their stance on the issues of racism and job reform. These were my answers to fixing what was wrong with the American dream.

Knowledge as a weapon! Talk of overthrowing the government and armed revolution was the main thing driving my fears of communism. All I wanted was to be treated equal, and get paid better. Black leaders and preachers always told me "to pull myself up by my bootstraps, that I could succeed if I worked hard and obeyed the law." I did not want to have someone change the things I had been taught all my life. Under reforms I made more money but my living conditions got worse, and as far as racism I was still treated as a black person.I had to find out for myself what was wrong with a system where the rich got richer on the backs of the poor. My life taught me that it didn’t matter how hard I worked, the "bootstraps" didn’t work. I had no knowledge of communism and I had my doubts as to if it would work. But as I read more and went to study groups, the lies and contradiction of the capitalist became very clear to me. For example, I had to pledge "liberty and justice for all", but I found out that justice was only for the rich. This knowledge made me want to fight to change the system. Things I believed all my life started to change.

Now I began to understand that it was the capitalists that had "cut off my bootstraps." I also understood that these bosses would not just give up a good thing, and workers would have to take it through revolution.

Understanding class! I started to understand that I was more like other workers of all races, than I was my so called black leaders who got rich fighting racism, and never taught class struggle, or class awareness. I was more like my fellow workers of all races than I was my so called union leaders who got rich fighting for job reforms but never talked class struggle, of putting yourself in the shoes of the lowest of workers.

First march! I went on my first May Day march in 1988. I met and marched with exploited workers from around the world: farm workers, garment workers from sweatshops, bus driver from Mexico, auto workers, and the list goes on.

I look forward each year to meet and march with new friends in the struggle, who understand as I do that a system born on exploitation and contradictions will never give up without a fight. This is why I will march on May 2, 1998.
Retired Red Bus Driver

Capitalism has no lifeboats for the working class

Dear Challenge:

Last week I saw a TV program about the movie, Titanic, which was followed by a program about why airplanes crash. Both programs said that modern technology has brought us super boats and planes that have revolutionized travel. But the airplane program said that most airplanes today are "accidents waiting to happen" because of 40 year old computers controlling radar, understaffed, overworked air flight controllers, cutbacks in maintenance and poorly trained pilots. The program predicted that a major air crash involving two superliners was imminent and that hardly a day goes by without some near miss or incident.

Then I realized that the "unsinkable" Titanic was also an accident waiting to happen. There were no lifeboats for the working class passengers, and they were trapped in crowded quarters behind iron gates protected by the bosses’ armed guards. This was all done "legally" because the bosses make the laws to satisfy their needs. The Titanic could have safely gone around the icebergs but the bosses needed to break their competitor’s speed record, so safety was sacrificed. The great improvements in technology which was supposed to enrich our lives since the turn of the century has instead brought us the horrors of WW I and WW II with hundreds of millions of workers’ sacrificed on the altar of capitalist profits.

And since then what has changed? Hundreds of smaller wars have happened and continue as we find ourselves in another period of fascism and heading to WW III. The lessons of the century for us is that capitalism has no lifeboats for the working class and that only communism can provide for our needs and safety. March on May Day—Fight for communism.

A Comrade