Index:

EDITORIAL #1: When Communists Fight And Organize Against Racist Terror, We Can Break Down Rulers’ Created Divisions

EDITORIAL #2: PLP Leads March On LAPD Terrorists!

Bronx, NY: Fighting Against Killer Cops Helps Spread Communist Politics

NYC Welfare Workers Say, ‘We Won’t Do It!’

Let’s Not Be Turkey$ For the Bosses!

Mass Murder At The Border

CSU Students Rout Racists

Communist Politics Presented At Anti-Racist Conference

A Call For Communism Is Needed

Capitalist Crisis of Overproduction Causes Layoffs and War

Building Castles In The Air

Kosovo: The Fight Between The Fourth Reich And The New World Order

Nigeria: Burned Alive By Capitalist Hell

Communist Ideas Alive And Well At UFT Delegate Assembly

$$$$ Needed For PLP Legal Expenses: Trial Nears For Six Arrested In 1996 Protest Of Clinton’s Racist Policies

Behind The News: Butcher Pinochet Caught In Big Game Imperialists Play

LETTERS

Murdered by Prison of Capitalism

HS Students Use Attacks to Build PLP

Selling Challenge at Roxborough High, Philadelphia

Shakespeare: To Be Or Not To Be A Capitalist

Churchill’s Plan to Invade the Soviet Union

EDITORIAL #1

Many workers still look for solutions to the horrors of capitalism, within the system of wage slavery. They see few alternatives. But when PLP acts, and organizes others to take action against fascist attacks and racist police terror, workers can see an alternative to the capitalists. They can see the possibility of building a mass revolutionary communist movement to crush fascism.

Several experiences from organizing against the racist police murder of 76-year old Joe Joshua by the LAPD, illustrate this point.

When four comrades visited workers who witnessed the murder, we found that many had confronted the cops when they murdered Mr. Joshua. Some denounced the murder on TV. One man took a leaflet from a white woman comrade and said, "This is exactly what we need. I’m organizing a group in the neighborhood. Please come to our meeting Thursday night."

She went to the meeting and brought along a friend who supports the Party and is organizing against police terror in the area. About 30 people attended the meeting, 25 men and five women, all black except for the comrade from the Party.

After the opening prayer, the leader of the meeting said, "This sister has something important to talk to us about," and asked our comrade to talk about our planned demonstration. She passed out the PLP flyer and explained that the demonstration against the murder of Mr. Joshua was part of building a revolutionary communist movement to end racism and wage slavery.

Passivity in the face of racist police terror is very dangerous for the working class. If we act, we can inspire others to join the fight for revolution. Someone commented that police killings were nothing new, but are growing more serious, and must be addressed. Someone said that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton were not going to help black workers. Different people asked, "What are we going to do about what this sister said?" They decided that everyone should come to the demonstration. And many did come. Several helped lead it. And they invited us back to their meetings.

Despite all their dribble about "multi-culturalism" and the U.S. being a "melting pot" of all colors and languages, the U.S. is one of the most segregated societies on earth. This forced segregation has laid the basis for the building of mass racist and nationalist movements, affecting many workers to one degree or another. In this time of political and economic crisis, the bosses are pulling out all the stops to derail the anger of black workers and youth into nationalist, dead-end movements that they control.

Yet in the face of their tireless efforts to isolate black workers in nationalist formations, building every black political hack from Rev. Jesse to Rev. Al, from Farrakhan to Khallid Mohammad, our Party was able to break through and build multi-racial unity against racist police terror at this meeting and the rally that followed. This is powerful proof that a fighting Party, boldly putting forward our line in the heat of struggle, can defeat the rulers’ efforts to divide the working class in order to conquer us.

A worker who is a long-time Challenge reader, took part in several meetings in which members of the Democratic Party demanded to know from the local City Councilman, what he was going to do about this killing. This worker came to our rally. There is great potential here to work closely with him, weaken the ideological grip of the rulers, and build a mass base for communist revolution.

Lenin said, crisis breaks some people, but it toughens others—and it toughens more than it breaks. The process of getting to know these new friends and anti-fascist fighters has just begun, but there is tremendous potential. The process won’t be a straight line, but there is an opening. The potential won’t all be developed immediately, but if we are persistent and patient, these workers and many more will join PLP, and help lead the revolutionary movement to destroy the racist profit system. We don’t underestimate the obstacles, but we have confidence in the working class to embrace revolutionary communist ideas.

Capitalism will not fall by itself. The revolutionary working class must bury it. The growing crisis is showing millions of workers that capitalism has failed us, and fails us more each day. Eventually, the rulers can be taken. When we rely on the angry victims of fascist terror, workers can see that communist revolution is not only necessary, but possible.

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 17 — Today PLP led a demonstration against the racist murder of Joe Joshua by the LAPD. The 76-year old black man was gunned down last Saturday at Manchester and Vermont, where we held the protest. Mr. Joshua’s daughter and several other family members were among the more than 60 people at the protest. Many workers and youth supported us, taking our leaflets, stopping to talk, or honking their car horns. Some people who work in stores on the street, and had witnessed the racist murder, couldn’t march with us because they had to work. But two women stood for three hours, outside the store where they work, waving signs against police terror and for revolution.

Some family members requested that we march to the 77th St. Division police station, which has a long, bloody history of racist murder and terror. Workers we met after the killing helped lead the chants, while others made speeches at the police station. Still others stayed on the corner waving signs and handing out Party leaflets. At the police station, Mr. Joshua’s daughter spoke attacking the cops for being murderers, and vowed that they would pay for their crime. Many black and Latin people living in the apartments across from the police station came out to support the rally.

Cops of all colors stood in formation guarding their pig sty. Speakers pointed out that they are ALL the "blue Klux Klan." We said that the unity of black, Latin, Asian and white workers at our demonstration is what it will take to defeat the LAPD terrorists. One woman called for "power to the people." A PLP member said that the U.S. bombed Afghanistan, claiming they were fighting terrorists. But the main terrorists were standing right in front of us, the LAPD here and the cops in every U.S. city. These are Clinton’s terrorists. Growing police terror is part of the bosses’ crisis, and only communist revolution can end it.

We marched back to Manchester and Vermont chanting, "The cops, The courts, the Blue Klux Klan, all are part of the bosses’ plan." When we returned to the corner, more people were standing there denouncing the police. As the rally was ending, people exchanged phone numbers. One worker said we should rally at this corner every week. Another said, "You know, the problem is not just police terror. It’s much bigger than that." Others said they would try to come with us to the border to demonstrate against the Migra fascists on October 24th.

As the bosses’ crisis deepens, they must resort to fascist terror. The LAPD killed Joe Joshua on Saturday, then killed a black woman on Sunday at Wall and Vernon. They claim she had a gun. This week, they killed another man in a suburb of LA. The racist rulers push racism and nationalism to divide black, Latin, and white workers, and offer us Clinton and the Democrats as the "lesser evil." But this modest demonstration shows that an active Party, leading the struggle against fascist terror, can overcome many obstacles, unite the working class, and build the revolutionary movement.

BRONX, NY, Oct. 16 — José Luis Zareta was murdered on July 18th by NYPD cops William Maher and David Power. José was trying to break up a fight in the El Maguey II restaurant when these two cops came in and shot him six times without asking any questions. José and his brother were working at the restaurant at the time. He is now facing charges trying to link him to the incident. This is just another racist cover up. PLP members have been developing ties to Jose’s family and the Bronx community.

José’s family has not taken this attack passively. They contacted a Mexican civil rights group, Tepeyac, and explained what happened to José and his brother. Instead of supporting the family right away, one of the representatives asked for a fax of the case. She also asked us to attend their demonstration at the Immigration and Naturalization Services building in lower Manhattan. The representative said that she wanted meet the family. She also said that we could announce our struggle around the murder of José Luis.

PLP members and family members came to the demonstration. Most of the 350 people at the demonstration were immigrant workers from Mexico and Ecuador. The 140 Challenges we brought were sold. One problem! The representative we were supposed to meet left in the middle and did nothing to guarantee our speaking at the rally. The family felt misled. One family member had contacted the representative to find out whether Tepeyac would invite its members. This time he was convinced that these people were not serious about helping with this case.

Communists never back down! We persistently pushed the leadership to allow the family and us to speak. Although we had to fight to use the bullhorn, we were successful. The wife of José Luis explained what happened to her husband and a member of PLP also spoke. One family member said, "After we spoke on the bullhorn, everybody wanted a copy of Challenge."

The next action is on October 21st, when José Luis’s brother is having a hearing at the Bronx Criminal Court.

The combination of participating in these mass actions and putting forward our red politics has sharpened the struggle against police terror and exposed the opportunists who try to misguide the masses. We have seen again that working people welcome our communist ideas as long as PLP’ers boldly participate and lead struggles against the racist and fascist terror of the bosses’ goons, the cops. This way more workers and youth will understand that capitalism and racism go together. And they will also see that only by destroying the cause, capitalism—the need for maximum profits and the rulers’ needs to divide us—can we end the cancer and build a world without racist bosses, communism.

NEW YORK CITY, Oct. 18: "That’s extortion, I won’t do it," declared a NYC child support worker who is being trained in a new fascist procedure to oppress unemployed workers seeking welfare. To receive any welfare benefits, applicants are being forced to sign over any child support money owed to them, to the city welfare agency.

Most welfare workers chose their jobs because they wanted to help people. At best, they were able to deliver crumbs off the capitalist table. In a period of capitalist crisis, however, the bureaucracy of reform is rapidly being transformed into institutionalized fascism.

Today this group of city workers took an important step in rebelling against the development of fascism in our workplace. Fights like this help to clarify the need for communist revolution.

One angry worker demanded that the trainer produce the law that gave the city the authority to claim this money. This reflected rebellion against the new procedure, but it also fueled the illusion that "the law" or "our rights" could protect us from the bosses’ moves towards fascism. A veteran worker explained that 400,000 people have been driven off the welfare rolls in the last three years in NYC and that this procedure was part of the plan to discourage new people from applying.

According to the NYC Independent Budget Office, plans to put all able-bodied welfare recipients in workfare by the end of 1999 could cost more than $500 million annually (Amsterdam News, 10/6). It appears that one section of the ruling class, thinking those costs are too high, is intent on radically reducing the welfare caseload while imposing workfare on the rest.

Another section of bosses is alarmed that Mayor Giuliani is moving too far, too fast. It uses the mass media to attack the Mayor’s plans. For example, the NY Daily News (10/16) reported a NYC Coalition Against Hunger statement that the demand for food in soup kitchens and pantries was up by 24% in the last year and more than 58,000 were turned away without being fed. The News says the Coalition, "blamed cuts in government benefits for the increase in hungry people."

It was clear that the above group of welfare workers did not intend to passively participate in this fascist attack on workers in need of welfare assistance. PLP sees both danger and opportunity in these bosses’ attacks. We know that the ruling class is united in attacking our class (and wants to get the union to maneuver the workers into supporting them). Our class must learn how to unite, and with the leadership of a mass communist party, smash the bosses and their system.

The Rockefeller section of the ruling class, through its mouthpiece, The New York Times, wants the AFSCME international union to throw out the entire leadership of its largest Local, NYC DC 37, which has 120,000 members and is headed by Stanley Hill. The basis for the Times’ editorial (10/20) for a DC 37 trusteeship is an assortment of plundering of union finances by various Local leaders looking to get rich off the rank-and-file. Hill himself reported that one Local was $10 million in debt, and expelled its president, Charles Hughes, for cheating the union of $1.7 million. Another Local spent $92,000 on a Christmas party, including $11,000 on 250 expensive turkeys.

Are these the first turkeys to "$trut their $tuff" on behalf of corrupt union officials? Hell no! It’s been going on for decades. The Times, and the bosses and bankers it serves, cheered 20 years ago, when DC 37 chief Victor Gotbaum, met secretly with the Rockefeller-led rulers and convinced workers to bail out the banks by foregoing any wage increase and using our pension funds as collateral for Big Mac bond issues.

But now, the bosses need more fascist slave-labor/workfare. The union lacks a plan to rope workers into supporting these fascist rules. The ruling class wants the union in its hip pocket, not a leadership in disarray and unable to control angry workers. So all of a sudden, corruption (that has been going on for 40 years) becomes the club the bosses use to set up a new union leadership that can quell workers’ rebellion against fascism. And all in the name of "union democracy!" Pretty slick, these Rockefeller liberals.

LOS ANGELES — "Migra: pigs, racists and murderers" chanted members and friends of PLP, together with hundreds of other workers, at the October 11th march for the rights of immigrant workers. PLP handed out a leaflet that denounced the worldwide capitalist crisis of overproduction as the cause for the deaths of workers who try to cross the U.S. border. We explained that the same crisis attacks U.S. citizens also. The only solution is to unite immigrant and citizen workers to destroy borders and the system of wage slavery by communist revolution.

The economic crisis caused by the bosses’ greed that is lashing at the workers in Mexico, Central America and Asia forces many to look for work in the U.S. Bill Clinton represents the biggest U.S. banks, which are among those who have created this very crisis. The government’s answer has been to build walls, use infrared cameras, radar and high-velocity microphones to detect the immigrants’ attempts to cross the border. Clinton has sent more than 7,000 immigration agents and U.S. Army troops to patrol the border.

Many workers risk death to cross the border because their need for work is so great. At the beginning of October, in South Texas, six Mexican workers, who were exhausted from walking so far and lack of water, went to sleep on the train tracks, trying to avoid being bitten by poisonous snakes of the desert. They were so tired that only two of them even heard the train and tried to get up, but it was too late. The runaway train, like capitalism in crisis, killed them all, including the hopes of their families that they would soon receive a little help. A day later, en route to the U.S., ten Guatemalans drowned when they were trying to cross the Pueblo River.

These 16 workers join the more than 400 immigrant workers who have died since Operation Gatekeeper started four years ago, including 155 who were overcome by heat and 115 who have drowned in the All-American Canal. "To evade capture, migrants have headed East toward the Imperial Valley desert, where Summer heat reaches 120 degrees, or the Chocolate Mountains, where Air Force bombers practice." (US News and World Report, 10/19) Others have died in the mountains of Tecate, or were murdered by the bullets of the fascist agents of the Migra.

Inside the U.S. hundreds of thousands are deported every year. In April of this year, during "Operation Needle" in the garment industry in LA, the racist Migra carried out 40 raids deporting 500 workers. Many times special agents of the Migra, in the style of the Nazi Gestapo and the Death Squads, come to workers’ houses at 5 am, supposedly looking for an "individual" but they arrest everyone who comes across their path. The executive director of CHIRLA, an "immigrants’ rights" organization in LA, says "with the most just application of the immigration laws, these tragedies can be avoided." But the reality is that there are no just laws. The laws are made to oppress the workers. When the bosses need more workers in the U.S., they let them in. When capitalism is in deepening crisis and they don’t want more workers, they attack and murder them. A system like this cannot be reformed. It must be destroyed!

A recent report of the National Network for the Rights of Immigrants and Refugees says that the raids are "inhuman and inefficient." They demand that the U.S. Congress investigate the raids and the cooperation between the INS (Immigration Department) and the Police Agencies. But it’s the same U.S. Congress that has designed the fascist immigration policy. They are guilty for the deaths of hundreds of immigrant workers. They are guilty of filling the prisons with thousands of black and Latin youth. They are guilty of the racist murders committed by the police in the U.S. They, together with the biggest capitalists, are preparing for the massacre of World War III. We shouldn’t waste our time demanding that Congress punish itself!!

What we are beginning to do in a modest way, and need to do in a mass way is to organize committees in the factories, neighborhoods and mass organizations to oppose the raids with strikes, marches and protests at the same time we organize for a communist revolution. Communist revolution will put an end to the capitalists, their borders and their whole system of fascist terror.

Our goal is to organize workers in the factories and in the fields, students and soldiers on both sides of the border, in all parts of the world to destroy this system of wage slavery. We will build a new communist world, in which all workers will see each other as class sisters and brothers, without borders, nations, Migra, or bosses, where all workers will work according to commitment and receive according to needs.

CHICAGO, Oct. 16 — Fifty students from two classes at Chicago State University (CSU) confronted three racist pipefitters working in the building. The pipefitters drove a truck onto campus bearing hated confederate flag decals and a confederate flag license plate (the symbol of the KKK).

The initiative and militancy of these students give us hope for a communist future. As they surrounded the truck one student wrote a petition to the president of the university. Two others went inside the building to find the racist drivers of the truck.

One of the pipefitters, trying to defend racist symbols, said, "I’m from Arkansas, and these represent our heritage." Students were not fooled. A young woman took the lead in answering his racist drivel. A younger racist, with a confederate flag tattooed on his arm said, "What about free speech?" The anti-racist students were having none of it. "Just get this racist shit out of here!" The truck was driven off campus to the cheers of the students.

Then 15 students went to the president’s office and presented the petition, signed by the students who had confronted the racists. The petition demanded an end to the tolerance of these racist symbols at CSU. The president’s secretary tried unsuccessfully to intimidate the students. They left the petition for the president.

The action started when a PLP teacher here noticed the truck parked in front of the gym early in the morning. When he returned to his office he told a student and another PLP teacher what he had seen. The three went to look at the truck. The student raised the issue at a class on race and society (taught by the PLP teacher) while the second teacher raised it in his biology class.

The discussion in the first class revealed a division. Some students argued that it was wrong to bring these racist decals to CSU, a predominately black campus, just as it would be wrong to bring black nationalist symbols to a predominately white school. But this implies segregation, that blacks should have communities with nationalist traditions and symbols while whites keep their racist symbols. If we accept this way of thinking we will never put an end to racism.

Racism brings down the entire working class and all workers must unite to smash racism everywhere. Only communist revolution can do this. Eventually we agreed that talking about racism, and doing nothing about it when we had a chance, was very bad. The class decided to go confront the pipefitters. On the way we stopped at the biology class, where there was enthusiasm for the action.

Today’s action revealed many aspects of communism. Students did not ask for money to write a petition or to find the racists inside the building. They did what needed to be done, confident that they were doing the right thing. They did not need capitalist incentives to confront the racists. They did it because the struggle against racism is necessary.

Other students gathered after the action to write a story for the student newspaper, Tempo, because it was important to let other students know that the fight against racism is alive at CSU. Today’s action shows again that youth and workers, motivated by communists, do fight racism, a key struggle to fight for a communist society where the cause of racism—the thirst for capitalist profits—will be wiped out.

COLUMBUS, OH, Oct. 20 — The Anti-Racist Action (ARA) held their annual conference here during this past last weekend. A number of Party comrades, some who are also members of ARA, went to this conference. We distributed Challenge, ten people signed contact cards, and we brought the politics of the Party to over 300 people. We learned more about communism and why it is so necessary to ultimately defeat racism. We also took important steps in learning how to bring communist politics to mass groups and what is the best way we should struggle internally with each other, with our base, and in front of hundreds of people.

The ARA is a very loosely structured organization. They emphasize that all ARA chapters are autonomous and that there is no hierarchy. No one tells anyone what to do or how to do it. So, what unites them? There are four principles that each chapter follows: confront the Klan and Nazis; do not rely on the cops or courts; defend other anti-fascists; and build a movement against oppression in all forms. This might sound good, but it is full of holes. Since each ARA group can basically do what it pleases, it is impossible to reach a consensus on anything. Even the four points of unity can be changed to meet a particular chapter "unique" situation. Individual members may have a political analysis (ranging from reform to anarchy), but the organization, as a whole does not. This has helped in increasing ARA’s numbers by 30% in the last year. The quality of their work however, has not improved. In fact, it has suffered.

The PLP, on the other hand, realizes that the crisis of overproduction which capitalism cannot avoid, makes fascism a necessity for the ruling class. This crisis means that the working class is living under, and will continue to live under, a time of slave-labor (welfare to work programs) and increased racist terror by cops, Nazi thugs, and La Migra. More people are being thrown in jail (especially blacks and Latins) and a war will have to be waged in order to redivide the wealth of the world among the ruling class. This means death for our class. Our Party says that members have to answer to other people, that is, to the needs of the working class. We don’t do whatever we want to. We do what is necessary for the working class to control the world. The Party sets a goal—a communist world—where production is based on the needs of people, and not for profit. This is our answer to the crisis of overproduction and fascism, and this is what we wanted to present to this organization of young anti-racists. The question is how did we go about it?

We set up an information table and passed out Challenges (about 50), talked to people and made contacts, and put forward the Party’s line in the workshops we attended. One comrade is going to begin going to ARA meetings on the South Side of Chicago. We also discussed with each other what is the best way to put forward the line of the Party in these mass groups. When we are in a situation like the ARA conference, the voice of the Party needs to be heard loud and clear, not once, twice, but throughout the weekend. We needed to do this better. Some felt that we forced communist ideas down people’s throats. This is one part anti-communism, but also indicates that we need practice in struggling with people over their disagreements. So we needed to present the Party’s politics more consistently on a mass scale, while also improving our one-on-one struggling skills.

A comrade predicted that the ARA would no longer exist after another four years because of the divisions that will always be a problem in this group. He termed it a movement, not a revolution and that if the ARA failed, it would be a bad thing, because people would become cynical. This could be true, but that is why PLP must win these people to fight for communism. If we could survive the demise of the Soviet Union, we will surely keep on trucking if the ARA tumbles. If we do our work correctly, we could grow.

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 19 — On September 9th about 75 protesters from A Call To Action (ACTA), a national organization, demonstrated at Hahnemann Hospital and marched to Blue Cross to demand an end to profiteering in medicine.

ACTA, which includes health care workers and community activists, is a reformist, not a revolutionary group. It says that health care should not be a commodity sold for profit. PLP members have seen this statement by reactionary Catholic Cardinal Bernardin, before in a newsletter from Physicians for a National Health Plan, which is a group that sponsors ACTA. ACTA also demands that health care be the right of all members of society. But these well-meaning liberals are mistaken in believing that they can win their demands while capitalism still exists.

How can we win a demand that health care not be a commodity sold for profit, when all of capitalist society is organized around the sale of commodities for profit? How can we win equal access to health care for all when capitalism is a class society based on privilege for the wealthy and their flunkies and on the exploitation of the workers? While the demands put forth by ACTA seem honest they cannot be achieved without communist revolution.

At the ACTA rally on September 9th, one speaker pointed out that the cutbacks in medicine are an aspect of the development of fascism. He spoke about caregivers in Nazi Germany actually being turned into killers. Another speaker tied the cutbacks in medicine to the general decline of capitalism. These are positive trends which could help to move people in this group closer to understanding the need for communist revolution.

All in all the demonstration was very spirited. It attracted a number working class people who are enraged by the fascist practices of insurance companies. We think that many people in this group have the potential to move to the left given the proper political organizing.

MEXICO CITY, Oct. 19 — This year 65% of the cars that Ford produced here were for export. Ford increased the number of models in an attempt maintain a market share. As a consequence, the plant in Cuautitlán cut its production by 50%, laying off 260 workers and threatening to fire 680 more by the end of the year. Ford and all the capitalists move factories for their convenience. The crisis of overproduction and war for markets is getting sharper, increasing layoffs and plant closings all over the world. The worldwide productive capacity for cars is 25% higher than the number that can be sold. This crisis will lead Ford, GM, VW, Toyota and Mercedes to an imperialist, military fight over markets. Unemployment and war are the only things that capitalism has to offer.

The union supports the company and pushes anti-worker nationalism. In his September bulletin, union leader Sosa blamed the U.S. unions for supposedly wanting to destroy our collective contract. Through leaflets, rank-and-file workers have denounced this rancid patriotism that only serves to divide the workers. Ford is the enemy destroying the collective contract, using production cutbacks to increase workloads and getting rid of full-time workers. When they increase production next year, as they have planned, they can contract temporary workers and pay them lower wages. Make more with less, lowering costs.

Sosa is an accomplice in this bosses’ project. This is another outcome of the capitalist war for markets: use slave labor to reduce costs and beat the competition. When Malpica, the factory administrator, announced that 950 workers would be gone by the middle of September, dozens of workers confronted the union leaders, demanding that they stop the layoffs. They temporarily reduced the layoffs to 260, and postponed a witch hunt against the most militant workers. But more firings will follow.

The unity of autoworkers of the world is vital to confront this beast of capitalism in crisis. A strike of Ford workers from Canada, the U.S., Mexico, Brazil, India, Asia and Europe would put the workers on the offensive against the crisis, layoffs and plant closings. And, more importantly, it would put autoworkers at the front of the worldwide working class to confront capitalism and imperialism. Our fight is to turn the bosses’ war for markets into a war of workers’ power, to abolish wage slavery and establish communism. That will mean the end of the bosses and their servants like Sosa.

According to the Mexican National Industry of Autoparts, this country could be building a little over two million cars per year by the year 2001. These bosses are dreaming. Mexico, like many capitalist countries, is going through a deep economic crisis, which, instead of getting better, is probably going to get worse. "The specter of the layoffs of workers in the face of economic recession again haunts the national productive arena." (Economist, 10/19).

The current and future layoffs are the direct result of the deepening crisis of overproduction. In Mexico, this crisis will affect every area of the national economy. Contrary to what the bosses want, the automobile industry is no exception. Today there are more than 100,000 units (or almost 20% of the national sale) of 1998 models that have not been sold, and the 1999 models are going on sale. Because of this, total production for 1998, projected at the beginning of the year to be 1.5 million units, could drop 20-30% below this figure, while sales could fall 3% lower in 1999.

But not all Mexican auto production is sold internally. About 65% is exported to the U.S. and Latin America which are also being hit by the same crisis of overproduction. The most probable thing is that the normal figures for export will fall in the near future, contrary to the bosses’ dreams. This will mean big layoffs in the auto industry. Capitalism and the bosses’ dreams are mortal nightmares for the workers. Only by building PLP to bury the bosses with communist revolution can we get rid of this horror.

On Friday, October 16th the German Parliament (the Bundestag) voted overwhelmingly to commit its fighter planes to join the Western "allies" in possible air strikes over Yugoslavia. That this vote signals the arrival of a more independent and aggressive Germany is clear. That it also underlines the development of the split between U.S. and German imperialism is not so well publicized.

The frontline players and victims in the brutal war in Kosovo are Albanians and Serbs. The principal players, though, are the Germans and the Americans. From the start the U.S. favored a united Yugoslavia, the Germans wanted to break it up. The U.S. saw a role for NATO but the Germans favored European peace-keeping forces outside of NATO. The Dayton Accord and the settlement in Bosnia signaled the re-emergence of the U.S. The rapid rise of the Kosovo Liberation Army (the KLA), backed by the Germans, is a direct Challenge to the U.S. The Germans want the KLA to destabilize Yugoslavia’s President Milosevic, who was one of the principal signers of the U.S. backed Dayton Accord. The U.S. has backed their Dayton Accord by stationing the largest concentration of military on foreign soil in any country in the world.

At the beginning of this year the KLA was practically unknown. Today their influence spills across borders. In Albania itself they are the center of political attention. Any resolution in Kosovo will carry direct repercussions in the Greek province of Macedonia, where there is a large concentration of ethnic Albanians. The same can be said for the Yugoslav province of Montenegro, where there is a smaller concentration of Albanians.

Months ago the Turkish Prime Minister, Mesut Yilmaz, warned that present-day German expansion was following the same path as the Nazis in the 1930’s. Turkey and Greece, both NATO members, have a potentially explosive dispute with each other over the control of Cyprus. And so, even before reading the report in The European about the recently botched NATO exercises in Albania, it becomes clear that it is more than the map or political configuration of Yugoslavia that is at stake. The European report indicates that there is a shift among senior European officers away from NATO and toward a European military alliance.

Today’s TV shows us columns of working class families fleeing to safety in the hills. Devastation and terror are the orders of the day just so that either the Banks of Germany or Wall Street can have their way. Retreat and fear are ugly and contagious. Revolution and communism are the only antidotes. Those very same columns can march, not flee, towards the barracks and the banks—the very seat of capitalist power. Wherever PLP is, the task is the same—to organize revolutionary offensive.

NIGERIA, Oct. 21 — Hundreds, if not thousands, were burned alive by a pipeline explosion in Apawor, 180 miles Southeast of Lagos, the capital of Nigeria. The government says that many of the people were "scavengers," sipping oil from leaks in the pipelines to sell. But there were also many people who died as they slept in their homes near the explosion site in the oil-rich Niger delta. In the government’s usual disdain for workers and youth, Nigeria’s military ruler, Gen. Abulsalami Abukakar, visited the area and said no compensation will be paid to the relatives of the victims since the damage to the pipeline was done by "saboteurs." This caused so much anger and fear that the families of the few dying victims who were able to get medical attention, removed them from the hospital rather than have them arrested.

In the last few months, people in the Niger Delta region have been waging mass violent struggles against the oil companies and the Nigerian military rulers. A few weeks before the explosion, groups of youth took over oil wells and equipment, demanding that the oil bosses share some of their profits with the workers and youth revolted against living in extreme poverty. The seven million people who live in the Niger Delta not only suffer extreme poverty, but suffer also from the environmental disasters caused by the oil companies, while Shell made $30 billion in profits in the last 30 years of operating there.

The drop of 600,000 barrels per day (30% of Nigerian production) because of the takeover of oil wells by youth has forced Royal Dutch/Shell and Agip (an Italian oil company) to cancel some deliveries of Nigerian crude, mainly to the Northeast of the U.S., where it is used for heating oil. The contradiction is that in this period of the reduction in world oil prices, oil companies must sell more and more oil, even though there is an international oil glut (the crisis of overproduction).

Workers and youth of Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, need to organize to build the revolutionary communist movement to smash the local generals, bosses and their imperialist oil backers, to escape from this living hell.

NEW YORK CITY, Oct. 19 — How capitalism is destroying workers, whether through hurricanes or through unions that tie themselves to the profit system, was a question put on the floor of the October UFT (United Federation of Teachers) Delegate Assembly by communists in PLP.

When the idea was raised to support victims of the hurricane that swept through the Caribbean, one communist Delegate pointed out that while the hurricane wreaked havoc in the region, it was not the hurricane that killed people there; it was the wretched conditions created by capitalism that killed them.

Then, when another Delegate expressed worry over what might happen to members’ pension funds invested in a volatile stock market, the PLP’er again pointed out that capitalism—and Wall Street—were in decline due to the general world crisis of capitalism, declaring, "Tying ourselves to this crisis will doom our pensions."

Our comrade followed this up with a motion to discuss the question at next month’s Assembly, "Why does the union support capitalism?" Many Delegates were too frightened to raise their hands in favor of the motion—it was defeated overwhelmingly, although over a dozen Delegates did vote for it. But many Delegates approached the PLP’er after the meeting to tell him his ideas were "very good." One said, "that was terrific!"

A worker who was born in Ireland who had heard the PLP Delegate (at a previous meeting) trace the oppression and deaths of millions of Irish workers to British capitalism, told him, "You said just what I wanted to say, raise it as a class question."

At least 30 Delegates bought Challenge before and after the meeting, and between 300 and 400 Delegates took PLP leaflets outside the hall. The leaflets showed how capitalism attacked students and teachers and indicted the profit system as the cause of all workers’ problems. It explained how communism is the only solution to these problems.

Communist ideas are certainly alive and well at these Delegate Assemblies. As the objective conditions of capitalism’s crisis increasingly hit workers, more workers will become open to, and begin to champion, these communist ideas.

CHICAGO, Oct. 19 — President Clinton’s racist policies have ripped the lives of millions of black and Latin workers (especially women). Yet he is cynically turning to these same super-exploited workers for support in his struggle to avoid impeachment at the hands of his enemies within the U.S. capitalist class.

Two years ago, as the Democratic Party convened in Chicago, this same fascist program of increased terror and increased lies was already in force. As police "swept" the streets of the West Side neighborhood, arresting and jailing hundreds of black youth, the Democrats posed for the cameras as the "party of the people." The Progressive Labor Party was out on those same streets exposing Clinton’s true face for the working class to see. No wonder we drew down the wrath of the ruling class!

On the eve of the Convention, in August, 1996, the Progressive Labor Party marched to denounce Clinton’s racist Welfare Repeal as a fascist assault on the whole working class. We warned that this fascist trend—which already included the "Anti-Terrorism" Act and Immigration "Reform"—could only grow stronger, as indeed it has. Hundreds of workers and youth responded well to our call for communist revolution as the only solution.

Chicago cops attacked this march, in spite of its legal permit. They singled out three individuals for arrest, then called in reinforcements who staged a full-scale police riot. Batons swinging wildly, the cops grabbed 19 more comrades out of the march. Those arrested—22 in all—were interrogated by the Secret Service at the police station. Some were beaten repeatedly by city and county cops.

Now, more than two years later, six comrades (selected arbitrarily at the police station) still face multiple felony charges. This frame-up is a fascist attack on our Party and the whole working class. It is part of the pattern of racist police terror that was intensified at the time of the Democratic Convention and has continued to intensify since.

The bosses try to isolate the working class from the communist leadership it desperately needs. They plan to intimidate us from fighting fascism. They hoped to bully the PLP defendants into pleading "guilty" to bogus felony charges in exchange for a promise of "no jail time."

The bosses have not succeeded. Over the last two years, thousands of workers have supported the Party politically and financially around this case. In the workplaces, schools, and the streets of Chicago’s West Side, we have joined with hundreds to fight police terror—from the Jeremiah Mearday case to the police raid on Foreman High School. In court, we have put the State on the defensive by challenging the legality and the constitutionality of the arrests.

One result has been that the State had to reveal background information on the cops involved in the arrests. These records include 109 civilian complaints against the 12 cops. One cop, Rodney Carriger, was recently indicted for extortion for shaking down a guy for 8 or 10 thousand dollars. These are the racist brutes and liars that the State depends on!

We are relying on the workers and preparing for a trial in early 1999. To keep up the legal offensive we are in the process of raising another $8,000. Workers are contributing generously, from factory workers on the Upper West Side of New York to Cook County Hospital workers in Chicago. We are seeing once again that to be attacked by the enemy is a good thing. Our Party and our class are being steeled in this struggle. As we fight back we grow stronger, both in numbers and in political understanding.

Come to Court with the PLP Defendants!
Tuesday, November 24, 1998
9:30 a.m.
26^th & California
Courtroom 504

By Notirojo

This column will appear from time to time, exposing and analyzing what is really behind the news, something the commercial media usually don’t reveal. We invite all readers to contribute to this column

Rolando Godoy, a 66 year old Chilean exile, was a trade unionist in Chile in 1973 when General Augusto Pinochet, with the support of ITT, the CIA and Henry Kissinger (then U.S. Secretary of State) overthrew socialist President Allende and established a murderous fascist anti-communist regime. He was jailed, with thousands of others, in a makeshift concentration camp set up in the Santiago soccer stadium.

Last weekend at a high class London clinic where he was having an operation, Pinochet, the butcher of Chile, was arrested under orders of a Spanish judge who accused him of being responsible for the "disappearing" and murders of Spanish citizens and others during his regime. Several thousand workers and youth were executed by Pinochet’s henchmen. "To this day I can still remember the screams of those being beaten," said Mr. Godoy, one of the 100 Chilean exiles holding a vigil outside the London clinic demanding punishment for Pinochet.

Did the judicial systems of Britain and Spain suddenly become anti-fascist? We don’t think so. The real question is why was Pinochet arrested at this time? After all, he had visited London in the past, when Tory John Majors was Prime Minister. He was welcomed because the Chilean military is a very good customer of Britain’s weapon industry. Pinochet also made sure the Chilean military helped British imperialism during its 1983 Falkland war with Argentina.

We don’t have an inside view of how the British ruling class operates, but obviously things have changed and not just the fact that Labour Party’s Tony Blair is now Prime Minister. Under Blair, British imperialism has begun to distance itself a bit from U.S. imperialism and allying itself more with the EU (European Union) bosses. The EU is in greater competition with the U.S. everywhere including Latin America, which U.S. imperialism considers its "backyard."

The same weekend that Pinochet was put under house arrest in London, the leaders of Latin America were meeting in Oporto, Portugal. Fidel Castro, the nemesis of Pinochet, received a warm welcome by Spain, and even the King of Spain said he plans to visit Cuba soon. Spain, although still a minor imperialist country, is claiming its "historical" rights in Latin America. In 1997, the Bank of Spain reported that for the first time the country became a net exporter rather than a net recipient of direct investment. Spanish direct investments abroad more than doubled during the year to about $10 billion. "The trend has been led by a series of bid deals in Latin America, where investments are already reckoned to total $20 billion. Spain has become the biggest European investor in the region, chiefly in communications, banking and insurance, energy, urban services construction and hotel…Other leading investors include the Repsol oil group, which already lays claim to being Latin America’s biggest gas distributor, the two main Spanish power companies, Endesa and Iberdrola and big Spanish banks, which have taken a conspicuous position and in some countries of the region now control more than 20% of the market."(Financial Times Survey of Spanish Banking and Finance, (FT) 10/19).

The European imperialists are trying to portray themselves as "the more democratic imperialists" compared to the U.S. As the editorial of the same edition of the FT said: "A trial of Gen. Pinochet would, moreover, show that western democracies do not now believe that torture and murder can ever be excused for political or economic reasons. After all, the General was covertly helped to power by the U.S., and he might have thought Britain still owed him a favor after his help in the Falklands conflict."

So Pinochet, who so well used the support of U.S. imperialism to launch his fascist coup, is now being used by the rivals of the U.S. as part of the "big game" the imperialists of the world are playing as they prepare to redivide the world.

Will he really be punished? Will the capitalist class pay for all their crimes against the world’s working class? As Challenge always says, "The only way to punish fascists like Pinochet, and vindicate his victims like Mr. Godoy is to organize for a communist revolution that will destroy all the bosses."

Pinochet did not act alone, he got his orders from his masters in the State Department. A cable from the CIA dated October 16, 1970 openly calls for Chilean socialist President Allende to be "overthrown by a coup." Henry Kissinger, President Nixon’s Secretary of State, led the efforts to overthrow Allende stating, "I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist because of the irresponsibility of its own people." Kissinger is not only responsible for the murder of thousands in Chile, but also for the mass bombing of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, where millions died. Workers: charge him and the entire U.S. ruling class for mass murder

Dear Challenge:

When you mix capitalist misery with racist brutality, murder can result.

On July 28, 1994 Felix Junior Jorge, 25 years old and sentenced to three years in jail, was found dead in his cell at Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora in upstate New York with 15 yards of toilet paper stuffed up his nose and down his throat. He died by asphyxiation. Prison authorities say it was suicide. His mother says it was murder. In a letter to his mother before his execution, Felix wrote, "Madrecita linda, me van a matar, no quiero que me maten, quiero verte blanquita en canas para cuidarte toda la vida..." ((Mommy, they are going to kill me, I don’t want to die, I want to see you grow old and take care of you all of your life...)

A videotape made by officers "to protect themselves from charges of excessive force..." shows Felix "being driven across the prison yard to the hospital, held down in the back of a station wagon by an officer’s legs. When he yells out, an officer is seen wrenching his head back and holding his hand over his mouth." (New York Times 12/19/95) At the hospital he was stripped naked and forced onto the shower floor. On the videotape he continued to yell, "My name is Felix Jorge. They’re going to kill me." (NYT, 12/19/95) He was left alone naked in a cell where he was found three days later.

About 70,000 people, mostly black and Latin and from New York City, are incarcerated at Clinton Prison. Clinton is known for its brutality. "Since 1990, inmates at Clinton Correctional Facility have won seven Federal claims of excessive force by correction officers, and the state has settled 10 brutality lawsuits with Clinton inmates rather than defend them in court." (NYT 12/19/95)

Felix Junior Jorge was born in the Dominican Republic. Premature and brain damaged by a forceps delivery, Felix was mildly retarded. At 14 years of age he, together with his siblings, joined their mother in New York. She had immigrated three years earlier. Felix’s mother had hoped to get him into a center for the care of retarded children. With little experience and no money she was unable to do so. Junior entered a regular school, but dropped out in frustration two years later. On a mean street in West Harlem, he began a life of drug addiction, petty robbery, family court, psychiatric hospitals and eventually jail.

I remember Felix Junior, and his brother and sisters, who went to May Day in Washington DC, in 1984 on the bus I captained. Having been invited by friends of their family, these 14 to 18-year olds took seats in the back of the bus to have fun. I strained and eventually got their attention to explain the purpose of going to May Day. They returned to May Day for the next two years. Their mother and two of their friends became regular Challenge readers. For awhile I lost track of the family. I am anguished and angry at what happened to Felix Jorge.

For so many, capitalism is a cruel and perilous wasteland. Felix’s mother asked me to write this letter to Challenge. She wants to renew her sub to Challenge and talk to groups of PLP members and friends. She has joined the Parents Against Police Brutality organization and has protested with the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights for "justice" for her son.

Unfortunately, there can be no justice so long as the deadly mixture of capitalism and racism exist. We want Mrs. Jorge and her husband to join PLP and help the working class to destroy capitalism and fight for communism—the only way to build a better future for all our children.

Dear Challenge:

This year at Chicago’s South Shore High School three PLP youth have been attacked for talking about communism and distributing literature. We responded to the attack by distributing Challenges and leaflets that talked about communism and explained why capitalism is attacking youth. We explained fascism and the basic attacks. Youth from South Shore support Progressive Labor Party because someone has to expose our school. My two fellow comrades and I couldn’t do this without a collective. The school saw us as "threats to the students and staff." So when we heard Paul Vallas, the Superintendent of the Chicago Public Schools, was coming to our school two weeks after the attack we decided to become a threat.

Paul Vallas said the "gifted schools" over-achieved and the schools which are on probation under-achieved. We didn’t respond that much at his talk, but we got out lots of Challenges and lots of leaflets. Now we have lots of contacts and many youth who would like to come and be a part of the club on the South Side. One student from South Shore would love to join PLP in the near future. PLP will respond to more fascist attacks in the schools during the fight for communist revolution.

Dear Challenge:

I am a student at Roxborough High School in Philadelphia. A couple of days ago two comrades from New York came to my school to help me sell Challenge and talk to some students about communism.

At first I was afraid that nobody would take the paper and I was not very open to the idea of having a sale outside my school. But we were able to hand out 35 papers and talk to many more people.

At one point the cops told us to leave and the Vice-Principal yelled at us. The students were very accepting of our ideas. I will keep having sales and talking to my classmates.

Dear Challenge:

I am responding to the letter of the Santa Cruz comrade last issue. He states that Shakespeare gave ammunition to the capitalist class to explain the world according to their needs by romanticizing the brutality of the profit system with a bourgeois morality.

On the contrary, Shakespeare showed, in such works as Othello, Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, Julius Caesar, etc. how bourgeois morality and the aristocratic morality led to death, suicide and failure for those who practiced it. He did not romanticize the brutality that paid for their deeds.

As for the "vocabulary" he used, who, if any, have used it better?" True, his language is not the language used today, though even here, some of his "words" are not forgotten, and not because they were part of early capitalism, but because of their quality.

Even Marx, the creator of "Capital," who understood the greed of the profit system better than anyone who has yet lived and who is the father of scientific communism thought Shakespeare great, not only for his language, but also for his insights of people, classes and history. Let’s not forget there was history before the capitalists, too.

It is ridiculous to negate Shakespeare and his language because he did not give the proletariat ammunition to explain the world according to their need to overthrow the capitalist system when he lived 100 years before even the French Revolution had taken place and 180 years before Marxism was born.

Yes, each economic system creates a new set of vocabulary to support its conception of good and evil and each class within each system has its leaders with a different morality. But, as Stalin said, although language is not just a product of one epoch, it does preserve word stocks and grammar and is not based on one stage of history or one ruling class.

Because Shakespeare "gave ammunition to the capitalist class and explained the world," he nevertheless explained it with reality and with a quality that has not been duplicated. His works were not "arguments ad nauseum" as the Santa Cruz comrade calls them. They were not just bourgeois vocabulary "honor, jealousy, love, truth and lies." (These are again quotes of the comrade. Honor may by today be a stilted word. But do we not all still use such words today as truth, love, lies, jealousy. Yes, we mean different things by it than do the bourgeoisie. But this vocabulary still exists. If the comrade has new words to give us, please do it.

My last point here is that the bourgeois morality, the deadly rap, the comrade talks about and the bourgeois morality that Marx wrote of in the Communist Manifesto, with such deadly accuracy cannot be wiped out by us looking at words that still do not exist. Yes, language has been changing since Shakespeare’s time while some of it still remains. But whose works could have given ammunition to the proletariat in the late 16th or early 17th centuries to explain the world when even the manufacturing period was barely born?

Dear Challenge:

This letter/article is intended to do the following:

Inform of Churchill’s plans to invade the Soviet Union after the Red Army had crushed the Nazis but before the end of the war;

Give some thought to the significance of this scheme;

Reflect on the legacy of it not having happened.

Radio Havana Cuba (RHC) has revealed that as early as May 29, 1945, Churchill was plotting on invading the Soviet Union. According to this plan, known as Operation Unthinkable, 500,000 U.S. and British troops, combined with 100,000 German troops would attack the Red Army immediately.

Churchill only abandoned this scheme after the British Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), representing the more powerful section of the British ruling class, insisted that this would be less successful than the Nazis were. Furthermore, the JCS declared that if such a plot were carried out the Red Army would "seize" the oil fields of Iran and Iraq. This plot can explain the Red Army’s switch from an offensive to a defensive position in Spring, 1945. (RHC 10/1/98.)

Ludo Martens, in Another View of Stalin, writes that U.S. General Patton wanted to rearm some Waffen SS divisions and incorporate them into his third army, to lead in the attack against the USSR. He raved that he would "kick the Red Army back into Russia," and that he would reach Moscow in 30 days. It seems some nazis never learn.

Such ideas show that there were serious rifts in the imperialist camp even before the question of the A-bomb arose. These divisions centered on the question of the strength of workers’ power, and on how the bosses should deal with the growing specter of communism. On one side was the openly fascist faction represented by Churchill, Patton, Sen. McCarthy, and Douglas McArthur (who wanted to nuke China during the Korean War and was sacked by the other faction of the bosses for his arrogance.)

This faction believed that communism could triumph, but could be prevented from doing so. They believed they could crush workers’ power if only enough force was used. Furthermore, they believed that this pressure must be used even if it meant nuclear holocaust. They nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to intimidate the Soviets. Later, when it became blatantly clear that their armies could not resist communists, they demanded the ability to nuke China. This faction exists today—the military-industrial Citicorp complex backing Ken Star.

The other, liberal faction of the bourgeoisie is best represented by Eisenhower. This faction, which proved dominant, were the British bosses who fired Churchill after he started salivating at Operation Unthinkable. They had decided they needed a reliable servant of their interests. This faction agreed with Eisenhower’s opposition to the use of the atomic bomb against Japan, because would stir up bad feelings toward the U.S.—nuking Japan would prove the Soviets correct about the barbaric nature of imperialism. This faction also opposed the nuking of China during the Korean War bacuase of the threat of Soviet retaliation. This peace platform elected Eisenhower. The liberal section of the international bourgeoisie had come to the solemn conclusion communism was almost certainly inevitable. They hoped that they would outlive Stalin, and then, maybe the Communist movement would collapse from the inside, or that it would grow weaker and they could defeat it. This hope proved temporarily correct.

This strategy revolved around attempting to avoid a full-scale war with the Soviets. This faction also realized that after WWII the U.S. would become the dominant imperialist. If they behaved too beastly it would make it harder for them to exploit the markets, resources, and labor of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This faction remains as the Rockefeller wing of U.S. capital.

After considering this information, if something like Operation Unthinkable had been launched, the Soviets would have destroyed the invading fascists and removed the oil fields from imperialist control. Removing a major source of the life-blood of imperialism might have resulted in the death of the world imperialist system. But it is not certain that this would have resulted in world communism. The Soviets’ victory might have resulted in world socialism. But the political cancer which had begun spreading with the adoption of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in the USSR had been growing for 25 years. Also, socialism does not lead to communism. The defeat of workers' power in one place might have been exposed and denounced in more places if it had happened under world socialism. This might have led to a worldwide cultural revolution. It might have led to world communism.

However, these are all speculations. The answer is to learn from the strengths and weaknesses of earlier communists; to join and build PLP; and to fight for communism. As Mao Zedong said, "Know yourself, and know your enemy; and you will win a hundred battles.