Index:

Working Class Youth of The World, Unite! Fight For Communism!

It Is Not Just Russia; World’s Capitalism Is Sinking in Never-ending Crisis

The Moscow Summit

Missiles Explode in U.S. Rulers’ Faces

White Workers Oppose KKK

Boeing Workers Debate "War On Terrorism"

War In The Congo Shows Capitalism’s Future.

Fight Against Prop. 227: Don’t Rely on Politicians and Bosses to Fight Racism

Analysis of Capitalist Crisis Makes Challenge the Paper of Choice

ASA Meeting Sharpens Struggle Against Racism

Fascist Cops: Can Politicians Reform Them? Or Is Revolution Needed?

Chicago Teachers Discuss Fascist School ‘Reform’

Doctors and the Third Reich. Part 3:From Euthanasia to Genocide

LETTERS

Review: ‘World War II Through Russian Eyes’

‘Summer Project’ in Military Summed Up

Red-Eye Editor Criticizes Challenge’s Coverage of Chiapas Rebellion

Challenge’s Analysis of Ruling-Class Splits Needs More Improvement+-

Challenge Coverage of Ryan Harris Murder Critiqued

Challenge Should Explain Contradictions in ‘Better’ American Capitalism

The Bitter Fruits of Nationalism In Africa

Working Class Youth of The World, Unite! Fight For Communism!

Hundreds of thousands of angry black and Latin youth will demonstrate at the Million Youth March (MYM) in New York, and the Million Youth Movement (MYM) in Atlanta. We’re angry at the ever worsening fascist conditions we see all around us: decaying and overcrowded prison-like schools, mass unemployment, and racist police terror. New York Mayor ‘Adolph’ Giuliani and his Nazi Storm Troopers, the NYPD, have made black and Latin workers and youth targets to shoot, kill and, imprison. The rulers know the revolutionary potential we have as future workers and soldiers. PLP wants to channel this anger into building a mass revolutionary communist movement that will smash this racist capitalist system of wage slavery.

The working class is the driving force to change history. PLP believes that youth can be leaders in this driving force. We have the potential to fight, lead, and learn about communism. This past summer, integrated groups of young people from Chicago and New York went to Flint, Michigan to support, and bring revolutionary communist politics to GM strikers. The mostly high school students got a tremendous welcome from the workers. This shows that students can learn what is going on in the world right now, and how to change it.

The misleaders of the MYM want the anger of these youths channeled into building the racist profit system. Their main ideological goal is to use nationalism and religion to keep black youth trapped, and loyal to capitalism. KKKhallid Muhammad’s blatant racism is no secret. His aim has always been to divide black and white workers. Khallid is a vicious anti-semitic, media-made misleader, an apologist for Hitler who denies the Holocaust ever happened. But Giuliani is no better. Under his regime, Wall Street profits have swelled the city treasury, while 400, 000 mostly black and Latin workers have been forced from the welfare rolls, many into slave labor programs. Choosing between Giuliani and Khallid is like choosing between Hitler and Mussolini. Supporting nationalists like Khallid is suicide.

In Atlanta, a more dangerous set of misleaders are " Preparing Youth for the New Millennium." The Nation of Islam, led by Louis Farrakhan (Khallid’s former mentor), is one of the main organizers of the weekend. Others include the National Black Policemen’s Association, The NAACP, The Urban League, and Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow-Push Coalition. While organizer for both marches claim to champion the cause of black and Latin workers, this pack of thieves are all wedded to the racist profit system. Their differences reflect the larger dogfight going on among different sections of the ruling class. Each side is fighting for the "hearts and minds" of black youth, so they will be loyal soldiers in a future of fascism and war.

Fighting for Communism is a not an option, it is a necessity. PLP is organizing thousands of young people to lead our class, on the job, in the military, in the schools, and communities, to destroy the racist, sexist oppressive system of capitalism with communist revolution. Black, white, red or yellow, a boss is a boss, a cop is a cop! We are fighting to build a society that meets the needs of the international working class, not Wall St. profits. Join PLP today!!

Eighty one years ago, the Bolshevik Party, led by Lenin and, after him, by Stalin, established the first workers’ dictatorship. The Soviet Union stood as a beacon of hope to workers in every corner of the earth. Its very existence demonstrated that a relatively small communist party could seize power, hold it, and rule society in the working class’s interests. Within 20 years, while every capitalist economy was stumbling in a deep depression, the USSR was thriving. It had virtually eliminated unemployment. It was taking giant strides against racism and the brutal oppression of women. It unleashed a torrent of cultural and industrial energy unseen in world history. When Hitler & Co. threatened to engulf the world in fascist barbarism, the Soviet Union took the lead in mobilizing to smash the Nazi beast. Many of us are alive today thanks to the fighting heroism of the Soviet working class.

Well, it didn’t last. The first working class revolution suffered from a political cancer. It didn’t go far enough. Its leaders didn’t understand that all of capitalism had to be wiped out, not just some of it. They built socialism rather than communism. They preserved the wage system. Despite its great advances, socialism is really state capitalism at its core. State capitalism turned into fascist imperialism. Communists today must learn from both aspects of the Bolshevik experience, its triumphs as well as its deadly errors.

A few years ago, one gang of Soviet bosses had a "better idea." They thought a western-style market economy would be the best form of capitalism. Under Gorbachev and his successor Boozing Boris, they temporarily won out over the state capitalist rulers.

Less than a decade after the old Soviet Union’s breakup, the shame of Russian capitalism is open for the whole world to see. Life expectancy has been lowered. Massive unemployment has returned. Youth have little future apart from drugs and alcohol. The "free market" has been a bonanza only for a handful of billionaire gangster financiers and industrialists. Almost just like the good old U.S. of A.

When the Soviet Union broke up, Rockefeller & Co. planned to make a killing. They fantasized about the Russian market as a low-wage, high-profit paradise. They waxed poetic about cornering Russian oil supplies. The pipe dream didn’t last very long. The worldwide crisis of overproduction took care of that. Capitalism has brought its filthy logic to Russia. As Clinton and Yeltsin toast each other, Russian financial markets and the Russian ruble are going up in smoke. Amid the chaos, a new alliance is emerging between former Soviet bosses, who have the gall to call themselves "communist", and open fascists led by Hitler-fan Zhirinovsky. These forces are bent on restoring the old Russian empire. They consider U.S. imperialism their main rival. From Rockefeller’s viewpoint, Yeltsin was at best unreliable. And Yeltsin & Co. will probably become toast in short order. No matter how the power struggle in Moscow develops—and it could quickly blow up into bloody civil war—its outcome will see a drastic sharpening of the imperialist rivalry between the U.S. and Russia.

This rivalry, along with other sharpening contradictions between U.S. rulers and other imperialists, has already led directly, and indirectly, to many wars. It will eventually lead to World War III. The Clinton-Yeltsin Moscow Follies are a clumsy stab at postponing the inevitable. Here in the U.S., as we have pointed out on many occasions, the faltering Clinton presidency really reflects a series of splits within a divided, weakened, and desperate ruling class.

Our class must draw correct conclusions from the imperialists’ weakness. Capitalism is rotten to the core. But it will not destroy itself. It has the potential to survive any crisis, including nuclear war. We cannot rely on the system to crumble spontaneously. Only communist revolution can rid the world of the profit system and its obscene evils. The current crisis and the world war to which it will surely lead should embolden us to see that workers’ survival depends on what we do to build our Party now. Eighty years ago, the Bolsheviks proved that communism can and will become the future of the working class. The next war can become the tomb of worldwide imperialism. The gravediggers will be many millions of workers and soldiers won to our Party and its goal of international communist revolution.

The "Moscow Summit" between sleaze king Clinton and vodka prince Yeltsin is a low point even by modern capitalist standards. It reveals the utter failure of the world’s big bosses to produce solutions for the international crisis their drive for maximum profits has created. It exposes the profit system’s abject inability to bring workers anything but war and misery. It shows that from Washington to Tokyo to Bonn to Moscow, the bosses are unable to rule in the old way. The parade of political midgets who pose as world "leaders" reflects the depth of the crisis.

Most of all, the Yeltsin-Clinton charade between mass murderers should remind us that building the Progressive Labor Party and winning millions to communist revolution are the keys to our future as a class, in the U.S., in Russia, and everywhere else.

By launching cruise missiles two weeks ago on Sudan and Afghanistan, Clinton exposed the U.S. bosses’ desperate need to gain control over Middle Eastern and central Asian oilfields. But the air raids only increased U.S. imperialism’s worldwide isolation and sharpened internal splits within the U.S. ruling class. However, no one should mistake U.S. weakness for a sign that war isn’t on the horizon. On the contrary, as feeble as they are politically, U.S. imperialists still can and will kill by the millions. History shows that communists can organize workers and soldiers to turn the guns around against profit wars and seize revolutionary power. This is the main lesson of U.S. imperialism’s deepening desperation.

The U.S. is taking it on all sides. Islamic fundamentalists, led in part by Osama bin Laden, this week’s candidate for the U.S. media’s "Worse than Hitler" award, want to boot Rockefeller oil out of Saudi Arabia through an Iranian-style religious coup. Iraqi bosses, backed by major U.S. rivals, have imperial designs on Middle Eastern oil. Russia, in spite of its current problems, must re-assert control over the old Tsarist empire, especially the oil-rich Caspian, and cement ties with Iran. China is muscling the U.S. out of its spheres of influence. So are European capitalists. The current rout of world financial markets isn’t a sign of peace at hand. All in all, things look pretty grim for the likes of Exxon and Mobil. U.S. bosses’ chokehold on Mideast oil is the last economic weapon they have against their competitors. The prospect of losing it will force them to go to war.

But a major oil war requires more internal unity than the U.S. bosses presently enjoy. Clinton’s raids on Afghanistan and the Sudan were intended as much to squelch Rockefeller’s domestic oil competitors as they were to stop bin Laden & Co.

The Rockefeller energy barons want to exploit the Caspian’s huge oil and gas reserves by building pipelines westward to the Mediterranean, safe from Russia, China, and Iran. But California-based Unocal, which was the first major U.S. oil company to develop outside the Rockefeller empire, had plans for a pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan into Pakistan. Unocal courted Afghanistan’s Taliban bosses, who currently harbor bin Laden. Three days after the Tomahawks had struck the Afghan highlands, Unocal suspended its pipeline project, citing "deteriorating political conditions." No wonder the Pakistani bosses, until recently U.S. pals, are fuming. Two days later, Enron, an energy company with close ties to the Rockefeller camp, announced that it was considering a pipeline to carry Turkmen gas westward through Turkey. This is a direct Challenge to Russia, which "carries the only gas export pipeline out of Turkmenistan" (Bloomberg, 8/24/98).

In the Sudan, Clinton told a Big Lie even the pro-Rockefeller New York Times had to Challenge. There was probably no nerve gas. The real target was Sudanese oil investments held by Exxon’s domestic energy rivals. When Sudan went fundamentalist (that is, pro-Iranian), China National Oil and Occidental petroleum took over its oil production, once run by Chevron and Shell. The Hunt brothers own all of Occidental’s preferred stock. Linked to the JFK assassination, the Hunt family has long violently opposed the Eastern Establishment. When thieves fell out in 1997 and, for their own reasons, the Sudanese fundamentalists expelled Occidental, it turned its Sudanese wells over to its Canadian affiliate, Arakis. Clinton’s savaging of the Khartoum medicine factory has gravely devalued the Hunt-Arakis property.

The Rockefeller camp itself is torn with dissension over how to launch the next oil war. The tottering Clinton presidency reflects this in-fighting, among other contradictions. New York Times Op-Ed scribbler Thomas Friedman constantly berates Clinton’s impotence in dealing with Iraq. Shortly after the Sudan-Afghanistan raids, Scott Ritter, the top U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, upped and quit in a blaze of publicity, accusing Clinton of retreating on military action against Saddam Hussein. Major struggles continue to rage within the U.S. Establishment over the economy and plans to control overseas markets.

One thing is certain. However the rulers resolve their internal contradictions, the method will be violent. The same is true of inter-imperialist rivalry. The New York Times warns of a "protracted struggle" against the bin Ladens and Husseins and anyone else threatening the Rockefeller empire. This means increasing fascist terror at home and long, bloody oil wars abroad, leading up to a third world war. Despite appearances, war and fascism reveal capitalism’s deepest flaws. Communists can take advantage of these weaknesses to build the PLP and organize for revolution. The opportunities are ripening!

RENSSELEAR, IN, August 29 — "Death to the Klan, Death to the Klan, Death to the Klan," vowed angry white workers led by PLP. The 100 young and older workers were incensed because the KKK had come to their small town for a rally and induction ceremony of 11 new members. They were angry at the politicians who allowed and encouraged the Klan to rally. They were furious that the fascist police protected the Klan with gusto while using intimidation against anti-racists. And they were grateful that the communist PLP had come here to give leadership to their anti-racist rage.

A group of PLP members, mostly black youth, came to Rensselear wearing red shirts, with "Death to the Klan, Fight for Communism" stickers, signs, Challenges, and a bullhorn. A crowd of about 30 anti-racist white workers soon surrounded us, eagerly buying Challenges and taking stickers to wear. "We didn’t know you were coming, but we’re glad you’re here," one young woman told us. She had been there for three hours with a group of friends carrying signs, giving leadership to the anti-Klan struggle. The one black woman in the group told us about the racism she faced in the area, how she was often told to "go back to Gary where you belong."

The fascist police used their horses to push us down the street, but we continued to rally the whole time. We pointed out that the fascists in the sheets weren’t the only ones—the fascists in the White House were putting more cops on the streets, building more prisons, cutting poor people off welfare, and starting wars. When we got to where the Klan was, a young comrade said "Clinton’s under one of those sheets," and everyone applauded.

We spoke about how the capitalists need to keep the working class divided with racism. We condemned the bombings in Afghanistan and Sudan and pointed out that on top of the millions already killed in Africa by capitalism, more would now die because the U.S. bombed the main plant in the area making much-needed medicine. We said that only communist revolution would free us from the KKK, capitalist wars, and the daily exploitation we face under this system. The workers encouraged us to "keep on speaking".

When we got to the "anti-Klan" cage set up by the cops, we were subjected to a humiliating search. We had to remove all jewelry, hairpins, cameras, signs, the stickers on our backs, and our bullhorn. We had to pass through metal detectors and be subjected to a rigorous pat-down, including our privates. All this, while we were surrounded by cops, including snipers on the roof and a helicopter flying above. Earlier we had tried to go to the "pro-Klan" cage so we could get a piece of them, but the cops kept us away. Person after person demanded to know why the Klan could have a huge loudspeaker and we were allowed none; why the Klan was allowed to wear their uniforms while we were stripped of ours. The class nature of "freedom of speech" became clear.

About 20 Klan members crawled out of the bus provided them by the County. Under heavy police guard, and with a fence keeping anti-racists at bay, they saluted the American flag and played the Star Spangled Banner while 15 supporters cheered. But the 100 or more on the anti-Klan side kept up a barrage of taunts and chants. After a while, we decided to march and rally. About 40 of us marched out of our cage to where more anti-racists were being searched. Police on horses again pushed us down the street, but a woman invited us to use her lawn to hold a rally. Many people honked in agreement.

Many of the workers who had been with PLP all day made sure we had their names and addresses. Before we left, our new friends took stacks of literature to pass out at the local college, which was hosting a "unity day" event. We plan to return soon to help organize a PLP club there.

This day gave us a glimpse of how the present is becoming the future. It destroyed the false image that white workers in small towns are mostly racists and anti-communists. Workers are hungry for solutions to this racist exploitative system. Communism is the answer. Growing fascism will lead more workers to answer the call to join PLP and destroy capitalism with communist revolution. We thank the anti-racist workers of Rensselear for helping us see that more clearly. We look forward to you becoming part of us.

SEATTLE, Sept. 1 — "After that great debate, nobody got any sleep," exclaimed a mechanic while getting off the bus. Her comments represent one part gratitude that our comrade had pushed the issue of the cruise missile attacks by the U.S., and one part annoyance that he had not let the day-to-day routine continue as usual. Apparently, the gratitude part won out. At least, the annoyance part didn’t stop her from coming to our comrade’s party later in the week. There, she talked with other Boeing workers about mounting reports that the U.S. had little or no proof the Sudanese pharmaceutical plant had anything to do with VX nerve gas.

A much broader debate raged throughout the plant during the past week. Since the official explanation for the missile strikes was becoming increasingly feeble, what was really behind these attacks? If this was the precursor to a much wider protracted war for imperialist dominance, what could us "nobodies" do about it?

On Monday, we used an exposé from the British newspaper, Observer, to raise the issue. First, the Administration claimed the pharmaceutical plant was heavily guarded, but as it turned out, there was only one guard. Then, they said, the plant had no commercial production. Actually, it makes half the medicine in Sudan. The plant was supposed to be run by Osama bin Laden, but the CIA said the connection was "fuzzy." British scientists said the facility had no airlocks necessary for VX production. Facts like these helped drive a wedge between the propaganda of the U.S. imperialists and the mass of workers in the plant.

Later in the week, the U.S. came up with the story that they found Empta, a chemical they said can only be used to produce VX gas. The international agency overseeing the treaty that bars chemical weapons said that wasn’t true. There are commercial uses. In fact, Mobil is now exploring such uses. The Pentagon lab said it was sure it found Empta in the soil outside the plant, but even U.S. experts doubt it. The soil sample would have to be refrigerated and tested quickly in order not to confuse Empta with a chemical used in a common agricultural insecticide. Refrigeration and timely testing seemed unlikely since U.S. intelligence had to secretly steal the sample.

By the end of the week, some were derisively calling the cruise missile attacks "drive-by shootings."

It wasn’t long before workers began to speculate on the real reasons behind the attacks. A good number said Clinton was "wagging the dog," but we fought for more substantial reasons. Ever since the U.S. was forced to abort its bombardment of Iraq last winter, Big Oil has suffered one defeat after another. Even a section of the Saudi ruling class is considering breaking with Exxon for an alliance with Iran. Big Oil and the financial behemoths associated with them, like Chase, have concluded that nothing less than a protracted ground war will save their bacon. Secretary of State Albright—and the rest of the Council on Foreign Relations’ butchers that staff the key positions in government—hoped the cruise missile attacks would build momentum for an all-out war.

But a funny thing happened on the way to World War III. The fly-by shooting in Sudan was looking real bad. Even Kuwait—a U.S. lapdog, if there ever was one—called for an international investigation. By the weekend, the New York Times was demanding the administration produce some, any, credible evidence to justify the attack. (They didn’t seem too concerned if it was fabricated or not.) U.S. troops were already none too happy about being in the Middle East. Being accused of blowing up a factory that makes half the medicine for a country with millions of starving children, would not motivate the soldiers to fight and die for U.S. imperialism. Charges of racist genocide would not help motivate an army that relies on large numbers of black and Latin soldiers.

"This is crazy," said a friend on the way home from work, "but what can you and I do about it?"

"There really is only one thing we can do about it: join the Party to build for communist revolution."

"But, what’s to say you guys won’t do the same?" interjected another rider.

"Drive-by shootings and world war result from organizing society to maximize profit. It’s not an abstract question revolving around the accidental personality of this or that president or boss. To eliminate the need for war, you have to produce according to need. You need communist production and communist relations."

"Not in our lifetime!" lamented another.

"In our lifetime or not, it’s the only way out. But these are the times when masses can change. In fact, these are the times when workers can’t live in the old way."

What a week! These debates that have raged on and off the job, must now be brought to the mass organizations. We can gauge our success, and prepare for these battles by starting a big subscription drive to Challenge. These debates are important first steps towards thinking, and then acting on those thoughts, living in a new way.

PLP has warned that sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry would lead to more regional wars around the world, eventually leading to World War III. The war in the Congo is significant because it marks a new phase in the crisis of world capitalism. Small regional wars are developing into massive regional wars powerful enough to create new multi-national military alliances.

The military order established after World War II has collapsed. The Malvinas-Falkland war in the 1980s saw the biggest Naval maneuvers since the end of the Second World War. The Iran-Iraq war saw the biggest tank battle. In the short intense Gulf war more TNT was dropped than in all of World War II. And now the war in the Congo has bought the armies of six countries into conflict with each other.

On one side, Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe are supporting Kabila in the Congo. On the other side, Uganda and Rwanda (two U.S. allies) are fighting against them. Uganda has also been the staging ground for rebels led by John Garang in the Sudan.

Following Clinton’s tour of Africa, Uganda has been getting even more military aid from the U.S., to train "peacekeeping" troops. They are preparing to enter the Sudan on the side of the South in the civil war there! There is oil in Southern Sudan and French troops stationed in a key strategic area just south of it in Djibouti. The French bosses are one of the U.S.’s main rivals in Africa.

Both Uganda and Rwanda are active players in attempts to re-write the maps of Africa. Rwandan Vice-President Paul Kagame has called for a "Greater Rwanda," which would include parts of the Congo that are rich in mines and minerals.

Plague, pestilence and starvation follow these wars. So too, do corporate capitalists anxious to make new deals in mineral rights. They are planning for the future because exploitation of the working class is not the emerging trend in Africa today. Fascism, chaos and crisis are the future. More and more of Africa today is ruled by warlords.

Take out a map and you can run your finger in an unbroken line through country after country that has recently seen either major military developments, terrorist action, civil or regional wars. Start in India and you go through Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Congo, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa

Other countries could be added but this is a line of death and destruction that spans two continents. It is the face of sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry, the future that capitalism has to offer us. It is a vivid illustration that the imperialists can no longer rule the world in the old way established after World War II. It is a line that points to the development of a Third World War. Above all, it’s a manifesto calling on workers of the world to unite, build a massive PLP and lead a revolution for communism and workers’ power.

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 2 — The Bilingual Education Committee of the UTLA (LA Teachers’ Union), MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund), and some parent groups are waging a campaign against the implementation of Prop. 227, which ends bilingual education. Some teachers and students in PLP are participating in this campaign with the goal of showing our friends that the only way to successfully fight fascism and racist terror is one based on revolutionary communist politics.

The anti-227 coalition has sponsored several meetings with parents and teachers at different schools. The purpose of the meetings is to organize parents to sign waivers so that their children will be exempt from the ban on bilingual education. This provision was written into Prop. 227.

Party members have pointed out that 227 is one of many attacks on the working class. Attacks on immigrant workers and black workers are increasing. LA County is kicking 150,000 people off welfare. The cops killed Danny Smith in Twin Towers prison, and more black and Latin youth are being jailed every day. More people, forced to come here from Mexico to look for work, are dying as they try to cross the border. Fascist terror is also international, like the U.S. bombings in Afghanistan and Sudan, along with U.S. support of the Mexican army’s attacks on the indigenous people of Chiapas.

The responses of many teachers and parents have been very positive to our point that the fight against fascist terror and war needs unity against this rotten system. We must fight every attempt to divide black, Latin and white teachers, students, and parents.

On September 2nd (as we go to press), one such community meeting is being held at Manual Arts High School. After a discussion at a local PLP leadership meeting about our goals in this campaign, youth helped write a leaflet to publicize the event. They called on their fellow students to attend the Manual Arts meeting to denounce racism and help build the revolutionary movement to smash it. The leaflet points out that both sides in this fight, the pro-227 side and the anti-227 side, support this racist system, adding that "Waivers won’t stop fascism—we need a revolution".

The 227 fight shows how different groups of bosses are fighting over the way to build fascism and defend their system. On one side are the open racists, like Ron Unz and Pete Wilson. They say, "Be an American. Forget Spanish and learn English so you can succeed in the USA." Their education theorists claim that bilingual education neglects English and handicaps students in later life. They push racism against immigrants and black workers.

On the other side are the "multiculturalists." They say, "Allow students to speak in Spanish and English. As long as they’re taught that this is the best country in the world and worth defending. We can eat tortillas and still be real Americans and defend this country." Their educational theorists say that students learn better when they are moved from their native language to English gradually. That way they know two languages. This side is leading the anti-227 movement. They know how angry people are at the racism of this system. But they support the same Democratic Party politicians who have brought us brutal immigrant laws, three-strikes laws, police terror, and are responsible for the bombing of the pharmaceutical plant that produced half of the medicine for the starving masses of Sudan. They want angry parents, students and teachers to follow the law, sign waivers, and trust that the same system that created racism will defeat it. Capitalism can never defeat racism.

Capitalism is heading deeper into crisis. Youth face a future of racist terror and murderous wars for profit. Neither side of the 227 fight offers us a way out of this nightmare. The Progressive Labor Party does. Both racism and nationalism divide our class. PLP is calling on all students, parents and teachers to unite against all the bosses and their politicians to build the movement for communist revolution.

BROOKLYN, NY—Challenge became the paper of choice to many workers in a hospital here in the last few weeks. More papers than ever were grabbed by workers who looked at our paper’s analysis explaining why the U.S. really bombed Afghanistan and Sudan, what’s behind the Clinton-Monica-Starr triangle, what the divisions mean among U.S. bosses as well as other articles of struggle and analysis.

First, our PLP club at the hospital held a meeting. We discussed the growing dogfight among different sections of the U.S. ruling class, and how each one of these exploiters needs to win workers to their side. We also talked about how terrorism does not help the working class fight the bosses. Terrorism only plays into the hands of the capitalist-run governments.

We agreed that the U.S. has the biggest terrorist training camp in the world. Most of the terrorist groups were all once allies of the U.S. and were trained by the CIA (including Osmana bin Laden).

At work, during the dinner hour last week, groups of four or five workers, who are readers of Challenge started conversations about current events. One worker pointed out that the young black teenager, Michael Jones, who had a water pistol was shot six times (seventeen shots were fired by the fascist cops in Brooklyn on Sunday August 23rd.) "Now that’s an act of terrorism," he said. He went on to make the point that the bombing in Kenya and Tanzania took many workers’ lives. The U.S. government is only concerned with the lives of U.S. embassy personnel. While right here at home the cops are the terrorists, but the government defends them.

Another worker stated, "Clinton did this without investigating who planted the bomb. He wanted to divert the people from his personal problems and turn the U.S. working class against Pakistanis and Arabic speaking people.

Another worker said that, during his vacation in Europe when the bombing occurred, most people of dark skin were stopped and searched. This is another racist attack on the international working class. Another worker declared, "Terrorism is bad, but any time an attack is made on a U.S. citizen abroad our so-called freedom is curtailed here in the U.S. This is another way to control the working class." Another worker said, "We need a revolution." which got support from more workers. However, one worker pointed out that revolution does not happen by shouting "Revolution." First we must organize the workers here to join PLP in mass numbers, so they can expand and reach out to other workers in hospitals and other industries. The capitalist system won’t fall by itself, only a communist revolution organized by the PLP and international working class will defeat capitalism.

SAN FRANCISCO, August 25 — While the U.S. Government was firing cruise missiles at the Sudan and Afghanistan, and the Russian economy was collapsing, 4,000 sociologists met here at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA). Most are liberals who believe that capitalism, and its endless wars, crises and racism, can be changed peacefully. Recruiting these professors and students to the PLP can help build a powerful base among youth. We found many opportunities here to deepen and broaden the base of the Party.

In large and small sessions, at receptions, parties, lunches and dinners, through mass leafleting and one-on-one conversations, the influence of the Party grew considerably. We distributed about 200 P

Party leaflets giving the "Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Join the Communist Progressive Labor Party," and about 50 Challenges and pamphlets. People we had known for a long time and those we just met, expressed their support for the communist ideas we put forward in various discussions. Deeper one-on-one conversations reinforced the sharp public struggle.

We participated in a debate over "white-skin privilege," and another on the relationships among social class, racism and sexism. We attacked the slander that Marxism ignores racism and sexism and offered concrete analyses of how racism is deadly for all workers. We opposed the view that race, gender and class are parallel identities and showed how that view leads to reformist feminist and nationalist politics. We said that the struggle against racism and sexism must be guided by communist politics, and that the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism requires struggle to destroy racism and sexism. When we sharply differentiated our line from the reformist identity politics, most agreed with Marxist analyses, and the few who didn’t were exposed and isolated.

We also played a big part in a large session on the legacy of black sociologist Oliver C. Cox, a leading Marxist sociologist of the 20th Century. In his 1948 book, Caste, Class, and Race, Cox boldly asserted that capitalism created racism to exploit cheap black labor, and that fascism was set up by "the cream of capitalist society" to save capitalism from its inherent crises. He wrote that imperialism inevitably bred world wars, and that communism was the only solution for the proletarian movement. Yet he also thought that President Roosevelt was pro-communist. We analyzed the contradictions between communism and liberalism. We explained how Cox, like the communist movement at that time, misunderstood divisions within the capitalist class during the 1930s. We compared that period to the present one of crisis, fascism, and imperialist war and explained how we could learn from what Cox got right and what he got wrong.

Finally, we confronted the heads of the ASA at a "town meeting" of about 200 people, on the White House Initiative on Race. ASA leaders have worked with Clinton for the past year, gathering data for a report on "race, racism, and race relations." This pathetic group of loyal servants of fascism is compiling statistical data on racial inequalities in income and wealth, education, housing and health, as well as on racial attitudes. They will call for government efforts to reduce inequalities and improve attitudes. They claim that they are taking a scientific approach and avoiding ideological influences.

We exposed their report for having no analysis of how capitalism invented race and is built on racism. It says nothing about super-exploitation as the material basis of racism, and fascist scapegoating as an ideological weapon for dividing the working class. It says nothing about racist attacks on immigrant workers or the use of racism to mobilize support for imperialist wars. It doesn’t attack workfare or prison labor as slavery. Instead of providing knowledge useful to the working class, their report provides cover for the racist Clinton administration that has abolished welfare and murdered millions in Iraq and elsewhere. Following our lead, other sociologists attacked the ASA leaders for leaving out mass movements as the main force that has fought racism, and for refusing to see the growth of fascism. We urged everyone to reject the report, and cited Oliver Cox’s denunciation a half century ago of Myrdal’s Carnegie Commission funded An American Dilemma. That report on race also opposed Marxist analyses of racism, and sought to win black workers to fight in World War II. The current race initiative has the same objective for World War III.

PLP members have been organizing in the ASA for many years. As we’ve turned from reform toward revolution, and built stronger ties with friends between meetings, we’ve seen better results. Our boldest efforts attract the best responses, especially from young black and Latin teachers and graduate students. Some are close to joining the Party. Many others are friendly. When we put forward revolutionary communist politics in a sharp and consistent way, more people become interested in learning more about and working with the Party.

OAKLAND, CA, August 28 — It was a glimpse of the truth and that’s rare for TV. The local news showed a black youth—a robbery suspect—wrestled to the ground, surrounded by cops and then viciously kicked in the groin. You could feel the pain.

PUEBLO, a local cop-watch organization funded by major corporations, responded by calling a rally on Friday noon on the Courthouse steps. The regular meetings of PUEBLO are usually dull affairs attended by a handful of activists stuck in their own agendas. But the Courthouse demonstration on short notice produced 70 odd angry people—black, Latin, Asian and white.

One of the signs they carried linked the fight against U.S.-sponsored State terrorism from the Sudan to Oakland! A PLP leaflet said that firing the guilty cop is not enough. It explained that in terms of jailing, the U.S. justice system surpassed Hitler’s own peacetime records and concluded that only communist revolution could defeat fascism. It was well received by most people and two activists took extra leaflets to distribute. Eight Challenges were sold.

After the demonstration PUEBLO took a Church bus to confront Mayor-Elect, Jerry Brown. No doubt this was set up beforehand because Brown, amid a sense of jubilant victory and in full glare of the TV cameras, signed a statement that within 90 days he would meet with the group (and the community at large) to discuss police brutality.

The very real possibility exists that PUEBLO will lead its angry and oppressed members to endorse Jerry Brown, his "law and order" politics and his "strong mayor initiative." They are trying to convince PUEBLO members and the community that capitalism can be reformed, and when reformed, can work. Suddenly we are in the middle of an extremely political situation where revolution versus reform can become the political issue concretely discussed by hundreds of workers in Oakland.

What started out as a brother been kicked in the groin by racist cops has ended up by PLP members being kicked in the pants and moved to action by our anti-racist fellow workers. Who is going to win the hearts and minds of Oakland’s workers—the corporate sponsored PUEBLO or the revolutionary PLP which is built, supported and maintained by no one except the working class? WE have our work cut out for us!

CHICAGO, Sept. 1 — "At that meeting I went to," my friend, a Chicago teacher, said the other day, "they were talking about the transition schools for the students with low test scores who were kept out of high school. After a whole year of nothing but test preparation, a lot of them still didn’t score much higher. Now the Board says they’ll keep them there up to four years."

"Four years?" I said. "They’ll drop out the day they turn sixteen."

"Of course!" my friend said. "But you haven’t heard the worst part. Some of these programs are in regular high school buildings, and in one school the kids in the transition program all have to wear red shirts every day."

"Why not black-and-white prison stripes or orange jumpsuits?" I asked.

"It’s more like how the Nazis made Jewish people wear yellow stars," she corrected me. "But that’s still not the worst. The worst is how they tried to make us think all this is good. The Board spokesperson was talking about how the average high school test scores had gone up. ‘Look how much we’ve accomplished in just two years,’ they said. That’s exactly what Hitler said. I saw a TV program and Hitler used those exact same words."

"So how did other teachers react?" I asked.

"That’s what was so terrible. They just sat there nodding. And I was thinking that if the students with low scores are in transition schools, they aren’t included in high school averages, so of course the averages go up. Finally some guy stood up and said that. And then people started nodding, like it made sense. I guess they don’t talk about things like that at a lot of schools. At my school we talk about it all the time."

"That’s because some people at your school are influenced by the Party," I pointed out. "Anyway, it sounds like that one guy really made a difference. What do you think we should try to get other teachers to do?"

"Afterward I overheard the Board person saying that it was the teachers who really wanted the transition schools," my friend answered indirectly, "so they wouldn’t have to teach poorly-prepared students. It’s true, I’ve heard teachers say that."

"Maybe, but a lot of teachers want smaller classes, and the Board isn’t doing that. They do what fits into their fascist plans, not what teachers ask them for," I said. "Maybe we should try to make a fight over this in the union, make it clear that a lot of teachers don’t go along with all the fascism, even though the union leaders do."

"Nah," she replied. "This won’t last, anyway. [Head of Chicago Schools] Vallas will move on and up, and someone else will come in with new plans."

"What happens to the students in the meantime?" I asked. "Anyhow, things won’t get better even if Vallas leaves. Fascism isn’t because of one guy, it’s because of the crisis of capitalism.".

"Crisis of capitalism," she repeated skeptically. We’ve talked about that before, and we will again, but right then we both had things to do.

Later I thought about my friend’s cynicism about organizing other teachers to fight what she so clearly saw as a fascist attack. Doesn’t this show the limits of liberal anti-fascism? The school bosses are rapidly exposing their iron fists: with these "transition schools," with daily metal-detector searches and police raids, with open anti-communist attacks on three PLP teachers at Foreman High School, in a hundred other ways. But to build a strong fightback it will take the Party helping more teachers to understand fascism from a communist point of view.

The ability to exterminate Jews and other victims beginning in 1942 was based on prior experience in the euthanasia program. Equipment used to gas patients was moved in 1941 to the concentration camps in the East, and the same doctors, nurses and technicians often followed close behind. The Nazi officers who did the "selection" of concentration camp arrivals for the gas chambers—the ultimate "gatekeepers"—were SS physicians. The medicalized "euthanasia" program was only the beginning of a larger medicalized genocide. Physicians who participated in genocidal selections and gruesome experiments in concentration camps were all volunteers.

Only a handful of Nazi physician leaders were ever brought to trial, and many were pardoned after brief sentences. Most remained in their positions at major hospitals and medical schools, and many were post-war medical leaders. The German medical profession systematically blocked all internal discussion of their complicity with Nazi crimes.

This issue was not discussed at an organized meeting in Germany until 1980.

In 1941, a prominent psychiatrist, discussing retarded children, called for "euthanasia for those hopeless ones who should never have been born—Nature’s mistakes...These should be relieved of the burden of living, because for them the burden of living at no time can produce any good thing at all." This was the American, Dr. Foster Kennedy, presenting a paper published in the American Journal of Psychiatry in 1942. He went on in his presentation to cite U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’ argument for forced sterilization: "It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute degenerative offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind."

Leo Alexander published a classic article in 1949 warning American physicians of the lessons of the Nazis and the dangerous precedent of changing attitudes towards the chronically ill and handicapped, starting with the view that there is such a thing as life not worthy of living. This attitude, in its early stages, concerned itself merely with the severely and chronically sick. Gradually the sphere of those to be included in the category was enlarged to encompass the socially unproductive, the ideologically unwanted, the racially unwanted and finally all non-Germans.

In the United States of 1949, Alexander continued:

"Hospitals like to limit themselves to the care of patients who can be fully rehabilitated, and the patient whose full rehabilitation is unlikely finds himself, at least in the best and most advanced centers of healing, as a second-class patient faced with a reluctance to suggest and apply therapeutic procedures that are not likely to bring about immediately striking results in terms of recovery. From the attitude of easing patients with chronic diseases away from the doors of the best types of treatment facilities available to the actual dispatching of such patients to killing centers is a long but nevertheless logical step. Resources for the so-called incurable patient have recently become practically unavailable. To be sure, American physicians are still far from the point of thinking of killing centers, but they have arrived at a danger point in thinking, at which likelihood of full rehabilitation is considered a factor that should determine the amount of time, effort and cost to be devoted to a particular type of patient."

Some current events make Alexander’s warnings more worrisome today. The Supreme Court has allowed physicians to assist patients in committing suicide, and there is considerable public and professional support for giving doctors this power. Physicians in the Netherlands have been allowed to perform active euthanasia for the past two decades. In a recent book, Herbert Hendin reveals that although courts demand that euthanasia requests come only from competent individuals, over 1,000 incompetent patients have been killed by Dutch doctors. The Dutch have universal health insurance, extensive social security benefits, and less social disparity than the U.S. Wouldn’t the risk of allowing physician assisted suicide be even greater here?

Health care rationing programs now affect the poor, elderly, chronically ill, and handicapped. The state of Oregon has implemented a Medicaid rationing program, affecting health care for its most vulnerable and powerless population. In the book Setting Limits, Daniel Callahan suggests that Medicare not pay for expensive life-extending procedures such as coronary bypass surgery beyond a certain age. The wealthy would not be affected. In his recent book Life as We Know It, Michael Berube writes about his son James who has with Downs syndrome:

"Among the many things I fear coming to pass in my children’s lifetime, I fear this above all: that children like James will eventually be seen as ‘luxuries’ employers and insurance companies cannot afford, or as ‘luxuries’ the nation or the planet cannot afford. I do not want to see a world in which human life is judged by the kind of cost-benefit analysis that weeds out those least likely to attain self-sufficiency and to provide adequate ‘returns’ on social investments."

The Human Genome Project has made tremendous advances in understanding human DNA structure, allowing the prediction and diagnosis of many genetic conditions. But how will this information be used? Will eugenicists exploit this knowledge to attempt to create a "master race"? The view of some scientists and politicians that criminality and intelligence are biological traits adds to these concerns.

Cost-benefit analysis is used increasingly to justify health care policy, often including future wage earning potential and other social utility measures to determine whether certain types of care should be given. Managed care and other forces have reduced physician incomes, created more competition for their jobs, and put them in a conflict of interest: better care for the patient often means less physician income. Will such economic strains make American doctors more willing to accept the type of "gatekeeper" role assumed by the Nazi physicians?

Will we recognize the warning signs already upon us: changing priorities in health care, harsh attitudes toward the poor and powerless, increasing racism and economic disparity? What is our alternative? Can a society with such disparities of wealth and poverty, with corporate profits as its primary goal, truly serve the health and other social needs of the population? Can we afford complacency in the face of these conditions? These are questions we must ponder in reflecting the lessons of Nuremberg.

Dear Challenge:

My wife and I recently visited Washington, DC, and saw an exhibit entitled, "World War II Through Russian Eyes." The exhibit was based on photographs, movies, paintings, flags and personal items stored at the Russian Central Armed Forces Museum.

Large sections of the exhibit were devoted to the battle of Moscow, the siege of Leningrad, Stalingrad, the partisan movement, and the capture of Berlin. There were pictures I’d never seen before: mass Nazi graves, pro-Nazi collaborators hanging from scaffolds, Leningrad workers (women and men) building anti-tank ditches, Red Army soldiers in snow-white uniforms waving the red flag over Stalingrad. Also on display were Nazi army flags and personal effects of Hitler (from his Berlin bunker)—all captured by the Red Army.

This was a moving and educational exhibit. In striking photos it documented the destructiveness and barbarity of the Nazi fascists as they invaded Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. The number of Soviet dead was updated, based on new information, to 26 million. Most important, the exhibit clearly showed that it was the Red Army and millions of Soviet workers, under communist leadership, who were primarily responsible for stopping and destroying the Nazis.

Not surprisingly, the exhibit’s political line was pretty bad. Stalin and party leaders were portrayed as not being prepared for the Nazi invasion. Maybe they didn’t predict the exact day of the invasion, but Stalin and the Soviet leadership had been preparing for war with the Nazis for many years. That was one of the main reasons for the successful industrialization campaign. The exhibit accused Stalin of undermining the war effort by purging generals. In fact, the purges helped weed out pro-German forces in the military leadership. It was another example of war preparation. The exhibit applauded the downplaying of communist ideas and the growth of nationalism during "The Great Patriotic War," as it was called in the Soviet Union. As our Party has shown, nationalism paves the way for restoring full-blown capitalism, like we see in Russia today. At least the exhibit did acknowledge that Stalin gave strong leadership during the war.

The exhibit leaves Washington in early September, and will move to NYC. Look for it. It would be a good place to take a class of students, youth, your own kids, friends, or co-workers. There’s a lot to learn here and a good opportunity for political discussion. When you look at the exhibit’s replica of the famous red flag flying over the ruins of the Reichstag in Berlin, you see what it takes to defeat fascism: mass, violent struggle under the leadership of communists.

Dear Challenge:

This is my final letter about my "Summer Project" of working inside the military. I will try to sum up the lessons I learned. It was a great, productive summer. I learned a lot. I will miss all the great friends I made while at the same time I fear for their lives.

Everyone in my platoon is scared shitless after hearing about the bombing in Afghanistan. I am scared, too. The soldiers knew nothing about the situation but they did know they didn’t want to go. They all just wanted to go home.

The army told us nothing about what had happened. As soon as we got off post on our weekend pass everyone wanted to watch the news to find out what happened. All these young workers wanted to know what was going on in the world.

To me this shows why communists desperately need to join the army. We can explain what’s going on and organize the soldiers to refuse to fight for oil. I don’t want my friends to die. Their lives are worth so much more than the bosses’ profits. A communist revolution is the only thing that is worth dying for.

I need to struggle more to turn my fear of being sent to Afghanistan, Bosnia or Saudi Arabia into more organizing inside the military. Many soldiers I talked to already have elaborate plans of how they will attempt suicide to get out of the army if they’re sent overseas. That’s not the answer. We cannot as a class escape war and fascism.

Instead of letting our own fear make us more passive, we must fight to the death to wrestle state power from the bosses. Being in their clutches this Summer has made my anger grow each day. I have watched them destroy many young workers’ lives as they never make good on their promises. We have an obligation to put communist ideas in the hands of soldiers. This is the only tool they need to take their lives into their own hands and change the world.

Our Party, PLP, believes that we can win soldiers to turn the guns around. It took a lot of struggle by a lot of people to convince me. Thank you for waging that struggle.

Dear Challenge:

When Challenge carries articles about strikes, the militancy of the workers is viewed positively, showing its potential for revolution, while the reformist leadership is attacked. This, to me, seems correct.

But when the subject of the article is Chiapas, where the local inhabitants are refusing to recognize the central government and are endorsing armed violence against that government, no positive mention is made of this militancy, while the whole article is devoted to tracing the plans of the leadership to perpetuate capitalism.

Are auto workers in Flint really further advanced in their militancy than oppressed Indians in Mexico? It seems to me we should be careful not to imply that this is the case.

Dear Challenge:

Last week my PLP Club discussed the article, "The Decline of U.S. Capitalism: Bosses’ Dogfight Turns into Sleaze Carnival" in the September 2nd Challenge. We ended up still wondering about points brought up about the August 19th splits letter by Avid CD Reader. In the third paragraph of the September article Lockheed, Bechtel, GM, and Citicorp are pointed out as enemies to the "Rockefeller" (i.e. Chase Manhattan Bank, Exxon, et al) group. The next paragraph implies that manufacturers make up the second major faction. This seems to be a very broad statement. After all, isn’t Boeing a "Rockefeller" group member? Who exactly are these manufacturers? Or, as we guessed, is it incorrect to think of these factions as concrete entities?

In the next paragraph the "manufacturers" faction was said to share some interests with the "New Money" group but to be mainly separate from them. Previous articles attributed the voucher system for education reform and attacks of the diversification of the military to "New Money." Now these policies are attributed to the "manufacturers" faction. Our club had an unresolved debate about whether this implied that "New Money" is a small non-policy making faction or just that "New Money" is still a large faction that must be dealt with by the "Rockefellers" and "manufacturers" both.

Overall we were glad to see a letter better explaining the previous article. But the new article still failed to explain some issues that we thought were important. It is our hope that through a better understanding of these splits we can better plan strategies to explain PLP’s line to students and workers.

Our understanding of divisions in the ruling class develops without the aid of Nobel prize winning economists—who couldn’t help much anyway. The most useful formulation seems to be state capitalists vs. laissez-faire, free-market capitalists. The bosses who need to control, not just compete, use the government apparatus and labor unions to keep their rivals and workers in line. The New Money domestic oil faction unites with the free enterprisers to fight taxes and regulation. It differs with them, for example, on the need for U.S. troops overseas. Low prices are one factor keeping the Oil Patch down recently. And McVeigh’s death sentence no doubt hurt the Koch-Cato-Libertarian-militia link. The Rockefeller wing does keep strategic manufacturers, like Boeing, in close alliance, and it uses state power to do so. Boeing’s merger came directly from a Pentagon plan for restructuring the defense industry. We need to learn much more about the underlying economic interests that put various capitalists in one camp or another.

Dear Challenge:

We disagree with part of the article from Chicago in the last Challenge about the killing of Ryan Harris and the charging of two boys, seven and eight, with her murder. The article says, "People are outraged....Both boys have good reputations and good school records. No one can imagine a seven year old having the ability to even think of murder, let alone the strength to carry it out." The article continues with other reports that cast doubt on the cops’ version of what happened.

These points are reformist; they divert us from the important lessons communists must draw from the killing of Ryan Harris. Ryan Harris was killed by someone. Does it make any difference, from a communist view, whether it was an adult or a child? We think not.

After the Russian revolution and civil war, gangs of orphans ran the streets robbing, assaulting, and killing workers, some as young as these, or even younger. So we know that children can take up the "me-first" attitude that disrespects the lives of workers or other children. Bolsheviks dealt ruthlessly with these children who were killers; at the same time, they set up orphanages to bring them revolutionary politics and the opportunity to contribute to building a communist society.

The cops violated their own rules to get "confessions" from these children. That is part of fascism. Communist revolution will destroy these fascist cops.

But there is another part of fascism: many working class people have taken up the capitalists’ contempt for workers’ lives. Whoever killed Ryan Harris, it was almost certainly someone who was raised in the working class but who, like so many street gang members, does not respect the lives of workers.

Only a revolutionary communist movement in neighborhoods like Englewood can answer both of these forms of fascism, the fascism of the cops and the fascist outlook that has entered our class. Workers will follow either the capitalist idea of contempt for workers, leading to killings such as this, or the communist idea that the workers must rule society, leading to communist revolution and an end to these killings of one worker by another. Ryan Harris was killed because workers are not following communist leadership.

As we enter the organizations that are protesting the fascist cops we must avoid opportunism; the Challenge article calls the killing of Ryan a "brutal murder" but fails to point out the connection to fascism within our class. We need revolutionary activity to destroy the fascist consciousness that allows workers and working class youth to destroy members of our own class.

Dear Challenge:

Recently our PLP club discussed an article in the July 15th issue of Challenge, "Better Life Is Impossible Under Capitalism." While the article is theoretically true, it needs more explanation.

For example, a comrade has a shopmate, a black worker from Guyana, who reads the paper regularly. He came here ten years ago looking for "a better life." Unemployment is very high in Guyana and conditions for workers are extremely hard. Black workers in that country, as in the U.S., are super-exploited.

This worker, "O.," feels he has bettered himself and the life of his family since moving here. He has a steady job, an apartment with a wood floor (not a dirt floor like he had in Guyana), a car and he eats three square meals daily. You may ask, "Did he move from Guyana to Park Ave.?" No, he and his family live in a small apartment in Harlem, a poor neighborhood of super-exploited working-class families. O. is not blind to the racism and oppression under which we all live, but he does believe his life is better here than it was in Guyana. He also says if he’s able to get more money through raises, promotions, etc., his life would improve even more.

I could not say he is wrong because his life is better compared to what he had. But the last paragraph of the Challenge article implies this is impossible. It states that the home attendant workers are often paid less than the hours they actually worked. Even if they were paid the full amount they were owed, they’re still exploited. What we (and the article) should explain is that no matter how much we think our lives improve materially, we are all exploited by the ruling class.

A doctor we know is better off financially than most workers. He makes $40,000 a year, but is still an exploited worker. He works 100 hours a week to guarantee profits for the hospital bosses. What kind of life could this worker have, and just as importantly, what kind of health care can he give to other workers with those hours?

Because we in PLP believe it’s not good enough for individuals to improve themselves without the entire working class benefiting. Under capitalism, whenever one group of workers manages to wrangle a little something more out of their bosses, the ruling class is always able to make up for it by: (1) taking something away from other workers; and, (2) eventually taking it back, and more, from the "gaining" group. It’s impossible for the working class as a whole to achieve a better life under capitalism, especially when the system is in its current general crisis.

Our club resolved to discuss with our co-workers what "better" means. We thought it would be useful if everyone in the Party discussed this idea with their base.

Dear Challenge:

The recent bombings in East Africa raise the issue of the increasing superexploitation of Africa by imperialism signified by the following: sharp increase in preventable diseases; genocidal violence as witnessed by the Tutsi/Hutu horrors; the increased impoverishment of the working class in both urban and rural areas.

All this reflects a decadent and dying system. The "wicked evils" of world capitalism put the Roman Empire to shame. What has caused this state of affairs? Why is it that much of Africa, even in the industrial areas like South Africa, is in a condition worse than before the great liberation struggles?

The African Liberation Movement itself provides the answer. From 1945 to 1992, socialists saw the struggle for self-determination or de-colonialization, as a major advance in the general political advance of the world’s proletarians. The heroic leadership of this movement gave inspiration to many of us who supported "revolutionary nationalism," particularly since many African leaders claimed to be Marxist-Leninists. Key to Soviet policy in the post-World War II era was strengthening and supporting the liberation of Africa from colonial rule. This period saw insurgencies all over Africa: from South Africa to Algeria; from the so-called Mau Mau uprising (Kenya Liberation Front) in East Africa to general strikes on the docks of Nigeria and Ghana. Communists took part in all this, working with nationalist leaders like Nkrumah of Ghana and Senghor of Ivory Coast. This was a BIG MISTAKE.

All over Africa, the bodies of workers, children, and the elderly litter the road to "national liberation." Regional, ethnic, and civil wars, rage across the continent. High unemployment, deepening poverty, and soaring infant mortality rates plague the workers. Maybe worst of all, the defeat of apartheid in South Africa has led to all the nazi-Afrikkkaner butchers being pardoned for the slaughters at Sharpesville and Soweto, mass poverty for the workers, and continued exploitation in the gold mines and oppression in the shantytowns. The heroic mass efforts of black workers for the goal of a "free and socialist society," came to naught when the African bourgeoisie replaced the rule of the colonial powers.

From 1965 to 1985, part of the symbolism which shaped the consciousness of those of us who came into the Party, was that of this great African liberation struggle. But PLP knew by 1969 that any military and political victories would turn out to be Trojan horses. And wasn’t that the truth. In Angola, where revolutionary forces defeated the genocidal Portuguese army, and the CIA-backed UNITA, the victorious revolutionary leadership made a deal with the Gulf oil cartel to let them continue to control the oil-rich fields at Cabinda FOR THE SAKE OF THE NEW NATION.

Today an AIDS epidemic, fueled by poverty, slaughters thousands in Africa. And the source of this agony is the International Monetary Fund. The African bourgeoisie has become agents, or collaborators with the Fund. The Fund is the symbol of global imperialism, and demands austerity budgets against the workers to pay for the profits, privileges, and power of the African bosses.

It was not the defeat of the African nationalist movement, which caused all this horror; it was its victory. First, the victory consolidated the Africa bourgeoisie’s rule over the workers movement and totally disarmed it from continuing to the so-called second revolution. Second, the victory eliminated the need for capitalists to maintain an expensive military presence in the liberated territories thereby putting more money in their pockets. Third, the nationalist victory temporarily stifled any possibility of a real communist movement forming. As in South Africa, a lot of real communists got killed fighting for nationalism. A lot of good people got fooled into believing that revolutionary nationalism was a "stage" on the way to revolutionary socialism which was a stage on the way to international communism. And worse, was the cynicism created when people identified the National Socialism of their new rulers with revolutionary egalitarian communism. This was the worst defeat of all.

So what lessons can we draw from all this? The only solution is communist revolution. The development of a PLP group in Africa will signal the true beginning of the end for the oldest form of maximum colonialism in world history. Let us not forget that the long road to global capitalism started, on a small scale, with the establishment of slavery-capitalist ports by first the Portuguese and then the English during the 15th Century in Africa.

The horrors of war and starvation in Africa today, are in large part the fruits of nationalism, which kept the working class tied to a capitalist system that is locked in crisis and murdering millions. We will not make the mistakes of our heroic predecessors. Smash self-determination with workers determination to build a communist world.