Challenge, Vol. 35, No. 15, Nov. 11, 1998

The liberal Democrats and their allies in the unions and other mass organizations are claiming that the November 3rd election results were a big victory against the "fascist Christian Coalition-led forces." Was it a "victory" against fascism or for more fascism? Will the Democratic Party elections stop workfare, racist police terror, INS terror, mass downsizing, or another oil war? On the contrary.

The elections represented a fight between two groups of bosses over which road to take towards fascism and war. Although the turnout for these mid-Presidential term elections is always lower, this election turned out more voters than expected. In California, the turnout was even higher than in the rest of the country, 47 percent.

The unions were key to the "get out the vote" effort to defeat the Republicans. In New York, Dennis Rivera’s 1199 hospital workers’ union and other unions did most of the work to defeat Republican Senator D’Amato and elect Democrat Schumer.

During the 1997 California election, the unions and the Democratic Party pulled out all stops to defeat the New-Money sponsored Prop. 226, which called for ending union PAC (Political Action Committee) money going to the candidates. This effort helped win many union members and others to fall for the line that voting for the "lesser evil" was the way to stop fascism. This dangerous illusion is based on the appearance that the Republicans are more openly racist and hypocritical than the Democrats. That’s why many workers support Clinton. But when we look at Clinton’s actual record, we see that he has carried out even more racist attacks against the workers than previous presidents. The crisis of capitalism requires this. Grey Davis in California and Chuck Schumer in New York are no different.

LA Teachers Union: Good Example of Rotten ‘Lesser Evil’ Politics

An example of the dangerous illusion that supporting "lesser evil" bosses will stop fascism is the line of the LA Teachers’ Union. Pete Wilson and friends put Prop. 8 on the ballot in California. Prop. 8 would have abolished tenure for teachers, given principals the right to transfer teachers anytime and demand "greater accountability" for teachers from site councils stacked with the principals’ hand-picked lackeys. The teachers’ union spent millions of dollars and mobilized their members and base to oppose this proposition. Teachers who fought it felt they were fighting against the destruction of their unions. The Proposition was defeated, but the union itself, which gained more credibility in this effort, is planning to institute these measures themselves. They are instituting their own "peer review" and accountability. They’ll be the body to police the teachers, and help to eliminate teachers who won’t knuckle under to the new standards, etc. As teachers in PLP pointed out, it will be the union, not Pete Wilson’s oversight board, which will institute the fascist attacks on teachers and students.

Fascism and war will not be defeated by voting. In fact, to the extent that workers are won to voting for liberals as the "lesser evil," we are being set up to cut our own throats. The liberals are the greater evil, because they build the deadly illusion that, by relying on the top fascist rulers, we can stop fascism. Only a working class led by a mass communist Party can crush fascism and war. The PLP has our work cut out for us!

EDITORIAL

Join the Communist PLP: Big Oil Bosses Beat War Drums Again

Barely a week after the newest Clinton-Netanyahu-Arafat "peace" bargain, events in the Middle East are moving steadily towards war:

• Netanyahu can’t set foot in the streets of Israel without fear of assassination. Contradictions between factions of Israeli bosses are sharpening by the minute.

• Hoping to undermine the Wye deal, Hamas, Arafat’s main rival, continues to launch terrorist attacks in the West Bank and occupied territories.

• Sensing U.S. imperialism’s political weakness, Saddam Hussein is once again provoking a military confrontation by threatening to expel UN arms inspectors unless economic sanctions end against Iraq.

• Despite sharp internal differences, major forces within the U.S. ruling class are demanding preparations for an eventual land invasion to seize Middle Eastern oil fields for Rockefeller & Co.

The process leading up to this invasion may take a number of years. U.S. rulers have to solve several problems before they can launch it. But launch it they will, even without solving all these problems, because they have no choice. Oil remains the lifeblood of capitalist industry, and control of oil to a great extent defines the pecking order among imperialists. Imperialism, instability, and war go hand-in-hand. Estimating the timetable for the next Middle Eastern bloodbath for oil is one thing, preparing for it now with a sense of urgency is another. The imperialists are making long-range plans to go on a war footing. To defeat them, our class and our Party can do no less. Our actions now and in the immediate future to build our revolutionary forces will significantly determine our ability to begin turning the guns around for communist revolution whenever the next war starts.

Rewriting Oslo Bribe

The inevitable failure of the Wye deal was built into the profit system. Wye was an attempt to rewrite the 1993 Oslo "peace" agreement. Well, Oslo was nothing more than a crude attempt by U.S. imperialism to bribe/threaten the Israelis and Arafat into shutting up and co-operating. The bribe part was the promise that the boom economy of the time would create "trickle down wealth" in Palestine and Jordan (Business Week, 11/9). But a funny thing happened on the way to the bank. The worldwide crisis of overproduction hit the Middle East with a vengeance. The Israeli economy’s growth rate has shrunk to a measly 1.5 percent. Interest rates have zoomed to 11.5 percent. Meanwhile, "the Palestinian economy is in terrible shape…Per capita income in the Gaza strip has fallen to $600 from $800 before Oslo, while on the West Bank it’s down to $1,300 from $1,600" (BW, 11/9). In other words: hitch your wagon to U.S. imperialism’s star, and you’ll be even worse off than before! No wonder Arafat’s credibility among the Palestinian masses has dwindled to zilch.

The great alliance Oslo was supposed to launch among Israeli, Palestinian, and Jordanian rulers has nose-dived because of this economic collapse. Only money from the U.S. can keep the appearance of this alliance glued together. As the world’s biggest debtor nation, the U.S. can’t provide unlimited outside financing. Anyhow, the key to such a deal is a political base among the Israeli, Palestinian, and Jordanian populations, which don’t exactly unanimously view U.S. imperialism as a savior. Look for more instability on this front.

The Return of Saddam, Again

Saddam Hussein’s gamble in threatening to kick out the UN inspectors can be viewed as a shrewd calculated risk, given the contradictions in which U.S. rulers find themselves. He wants the sanctions ended so that he can do business, particularly with his oil. France, Russia, and other U.S. competitors want his oil back on the market. He has a number of options open to him. The worst-case scenario for him is to risk U.S. retaliation through another wave of bombing raids against Iraq. He probably figures he can withstand them politically. Like Rockefeller, Saddam Hussein is more than willing to hold power at the expense of thousands or even millions of workers’ lives, and he can crow about standing up to U.S. imperialism, which most workers around the world consider their main oppressor. He also probably figures that more bombing will further isolate and weaken U.S. imperialism. And he’s probably right.

But that doesn’t mean the U.S. won’t launch another wave of terror bombing against Iraqi workers. Led by the New York Times (See New York Times editorial, 11/3), major groups within the Eastern Establishment are raising their voices to call for some kind of military action now, presumably as a warm-up for things to come. Remember Scott Ritter? He’s the U.S. member of the UN Iraqi inspection team who resigned in a big public huff several months ago, accusing Clinton of chickening out in the struggle against Saddam Hussein. The Rockefeller gang have decided to make Ritter a saint. According to an article in the New Yorker magazine (11/9), "Last month (Ritter) was flown to Aspen for the annual Forstmann Little & Company retreat, where Colin Powell, Sam Nunn, Henry Kissinger, and others took turns anointing him a ‘great American.’ "

But, like the big bosses who have taken him under their wing, Ritter isn’t just a mad bomber. He and they are after bigger game. Ritter was the first to expose Gulf War commander Norman Schwartzkopf’s lie that U.S. bombing raids had destroyed Iraqi Scud missile bases. Later, Rockefeller mouthpiece Foreign Affairs magazine brought to light the ineffectiveness of Patriot missiles. The point should be clear: only ground war will do the trick. The Rockefeller camp seems to be uniting around this strategy.

The word is getting out in the liberal mass media. Writing in the New York Times Magazine (11/1), Foreign Affairs managing editor Fareed Zakaria bemoans U.S. imperialism’s "hollow hegemony." He complains that U.S. foreign policy is the prisoner of "narrow interest groups" and lambastes politicians for "not wanting to lead." He lashes out at "cheap hawks," who rely on ineffective economic sanctions and air power, "while in fact doing little to change the reality on the ground."

Zakaria’s article is significant. It means policy shifts are moving from debate in the ruling class think-tanks into the mainstream media. Zakaria defines the Rockefeller gang’s agenda for the coming period: impose internal discipline among the big bosses (i.e. fascism) and build a base among workers to prepare for a mammoth land invasion of the Middle East. Last week’s Challenge described the ongoing plan to prepare 19 huge troop transport ships by the year 2001. The Rockefeller interests now face the task of mobilizing the political will to carry out this genocide.

Elections and War

As the modest turnout for the November 3rd elections proves, the bosses have their problems in this regard. Many people are disgusted and cynical about the system. But disgust and cynicism go only so far. They can’t smash imperialism. Only communist revolution can do that.

With all their problems, the rulers still have enormous maneuverability, based on the collapse of the old international communist movement and the small size of our Party today. So their strength is fundamentally a function of our current weakness. We should understand this and soberly evaluate the long-range struggle ahead. We have a long, hard job before us. On the other hand, we, too, have a great source of strength, because we have the ability to carry out our line. We can grow under any and all circumstances. If we persistently put forth the PLP’s revolutionary line within the mass movements, communist ideas can become mass ideas and we will grow. Quantity will turn into quality. The nightmare and horror of imperialist war and fascism will eventually be ground into dust by millions of communist workers. Great days, as Lenin wrote, are made of many little moments. Our side will win. Everything we do to build the Party, today, tomorrow, forever, will advance this inevitable process.

Capitalism Creates Conditions That Turned Mitch Into A Mass Killer

The toll in Central America is huge: the politicians say that 9,000 are dead, many thousands are missing, countless will die from injuries and diseases, and hundreds of thousands are homeless and practically naked. The appearance—and the bosses’ media are screaming about it for the world to hear—is that all this pain and misery was caused by Hurricane Mitch. The essence—the truth—is that capitalism is the real culprit.

In Honduras, all the bridges in the country fell in the face of the storm. Thousands of homes were destroyed. A million have no shelter. In Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico, there are more dead and homeless. People who have been without food, water and shelter are dying in droves. Yesterday, Honduras instituted martial law to protect the bosses’ private property from the hungry masses.

Natural phenomena, like hurricanes will always happen. But it is the poverty and depravation that capitalism imposes upon billions of workers worldwide that turn hurricanes like Mitch into monsters of mass destruction and death. The dead, maimed, injured, missing and dispossessed, mainly the poorest of workers, are forced by capitalism to live in the most dangerous places, where they, their families, and their huts are easily be swept away by swollen rivers or buried by tons of mud.

Countless lives were also lost because of the racist disregard that the rich rulers of these countries and their imperialist masters, specially the U.S. bosses, have for these workers’ lives. Even though there were early warnings of the approaching storm, people were not evacuated in time. People in coastal villages and small towns evacuated on their own, seeking higher grounds in the hills and mountains with nothing but trees to protect them. In the bigger cities the few public buildings and churches open to refugees quickly filled up, and tens of thousands crowded into open stadiums or simply slept on the streets pounded by the wind and the rain. Those lucky enough to have gotten into the so-called refugee centers have no food, drinking water, medicine, showers, proper toilets, nor even a cot or a blanket.

When it comes to saving workers’ lives the bosses say they are helpless. Yet they could quickly mobilize tens of thousands of soldiers to protect their economic and strategic interests. During the 1970’s, 1980’s and early 1990’s, war ravaged Central America as U.S. bosses battled Russian and European backed insurgents for control of the area. Honduras was turned into a huge military base where tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers were flown in, ready to invade Nicaragua. A great part of the U.S. naval power patrolled both Central America’s coasts ready for action. Under communism, the workers Red Army’s planes, helicopters and ships will be used to evacuate and rescue workers whenever needed. But the imperialists’ war machinery is not for savings workers’ lives. It is for destroying them, like the thousands killed in Panama in 1989 when the U.S. flew in over 20 thousand soldiers over night to make Panama safe for U.S. banks.

Another example of the imperialists contempt for workers’ lives is the economic help they are offering. Clinton pledged $2 million and Spain is donating $100,000 it collected from Spanish workers. The Central American armies—that slaughtered over 400,000 workers from 1960 to the early 1990’s—were for decades equipped, trained and funded by the U.S. to the tune of more than $2 million a day! Clinton has also put together a $30 billion packet to bail out Brazilian and U.S. bankers. In the last years Spanish banks have invested over $20 billions to exploit Latin American workers but have no money to spare for these workers in need.

This catastrophe in Central America also sharply shows a glaring contradiction of capitalism that cries out for communist revolution—the present capitalist crisis of overproduction. The capitalists are flooding the markets with products they can’t sell, thereby curtailing production, closing factories and laying off millions of workers. In the auto industry, for example, there is the capacity to produce 20 million vehicles that can’t be sold. How many workers’ lives could have been saved in Central America with the proper transportation? In steel there are over 200 million tons that can’t be sold. How many sturdy bridges, houses and buildings could have been constructed, and still be constructed with that steel, to save countless lives? The world is awash with everything from clothes to food to medicine, everything desperately needed by hundreds of thousands of workers in Central America. But under capitalism these products will never be distributed to these workers. Capitalism doesn’t produce for workers’ needs. The capitalist slogan is "If you can’t sell it for a profit, let it rot." Profits before human needs and lives.

Capitalism is the greatest scourge of workers. Earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, etc., are natural phenomena for which there is the knowledge and technology to minimize their damages. Capitalism’s unbridled death and destruction is unnatural, a creation of the bosses greed. It can only be ended with communist revolution.

PLP knows that workers will help with a massive effort to send needed supplies to their brothers and sisters in Central America. We’ll help organize this effort, as we urge our friends and co-workers to join the Progressive Labor Party to end the horrors of capitalism.

If We Don’t Bury Bosses, They Will Keep on Killing Us

EL SALVADOR — Like buzzards, the bosses and their politicians along with an assortment of all kinds of profiteers, are flying over the dead bodies of thousands of workers and their children to see how they can profit. Natural disasters, like hurricane Mitch, are part of life, but under capitalism it all means death, pain and misery for working class families. The big problems are not storms, but the profit system.

Some 15,000 have died because of Mitch in all of Central America. In El Salvador, although not as bad as Honduras and Nicaragua, there are hundreds dead in the Eastern part of the country, and many more are missing and 50,000 are homeless.

"The National Emergency Committee (COEN) was late in warning the population," was the headline in one newspaper here, referring to how Mauricio Ferrer, director of COEN and member of the leadership of the ruling ARENA party as the hurricane approached. He told the press just a few hours before Mitch arrived that the possibilities of it reaching El Salvador were small. Naturally, most people did not prepare for the storm.

Natural disasters have a class character, they affect mainly poor working people. The conditions created by capitalism force many to live in lousy houses made of straw, cardboard and tin, next to rivers and hills.

This rotten system, which for so many years has murdered workers and their children by the thousands through hunger, death squads and war, now cry crocodile tears over the disaster caused by Mitch. What a bunch of hypocrites! The best answer to this massacre is to fight to destroy the bosses and their system.

These same rulers now beg for "humanitarian aid" for the victims of Mitch. And many workers all over the world will show their international solidarity with their fellow workers in Central America. Already, in LA, New York, Miami, San Francisco and other U.S. cities, where millions of immigrants from Central America live, workers are beginning to send aid. Unfortunately, knowing how corrupt and sick capitalism is, most of the aid will end up in the hands of politicians and generals and their lackeys. Businesses in El Salvador are already taking advantage of the pain of the masses by raising the price of basic items like eggs, beans, bread, milk, more than 150 percent. This is the essence of capitalism: make profits on top of the bodies of thousands of workers.

Capitalism is incapable of anything decent as far as workers are concerned. In this period of crisis of overproduction, where millions have no jobs, and live even more miserably, natural disasters become genocidal, killing us while we sleep.

We in PLP feel the pain of our fellow workers and youth, but instead of mourning we must organize even more to build a mass communist movement and bury this deadly system. Under communism we will use all the resources of society including our labor to make sure all precautions can be taken against natural disasters. Meanwhile, we must participate through our unions and mass organizations in all the activities to help the victims of Mitch and to expose capitalism and imperialism, in order to build our movement.

Jersey City Man Killed By Cops: Police Terror Won’t End in The Courtroom

JERSEY CITY, NJ, Nov. 2 — On May 7, 1995, Julio Cesar Tarquino, a 21-year Bolivian immigrant visiting from West Palm Beach, Florida, became another victim of the wave of racist police killings in the U.S. This wave of police terror—which in 1998 has been accelerated under the Clinton administration’s plan of providing money for hiring 100,000 more cops—has made even the old anti-communist Amnesty International put the U.S. on its list of violators of human rights.

On the morning of that day back in 1995, Julio and his fianc�e Jennifer Fiallos went to buy gas at the Amoco station on Kennedy Boulevard and Madison Street. They were subjected to racist insults by two men in the station. A security guard in the station put an end to the fight between Julio and Jennifer and the two racists.

But then cop John Chisuolo came in. He was in civilian clothes and not on duty, and in a racist way assumed that Julio, Jennifer and Jorge Canas, who was driving the car, were attacking the racists. He arrested them. Julio was handcuffed and thrown on the top of his vehicle. As cop Chisuolo beat him on his head with a black object (either his billy club or a flashlight). Julio started to vomit, went into a coma and died five days later in a hospital.

When Julio, Jennifer and Jorge were brought to the precinct, now retired police lieutenant James Ahern, determined that they were not hurt and booked them for disorderly conduct and attacking a police officer, and ordered their jailing.

The trial has become an international affair. Roberto Moscoso, head of the Human Rights Commission of Bolivia, has come from La Paz to attend the trial. In a case of solidarity against police brutality, Iris B�ez, mother Anthony B�ez, who was murdered by cop France Livoti in the Bronx, NY, also came to support the Tarquino family. She compared her son’s case with that of Tarquino, saying "it is basically the same. False or contradictory statements, confusion or intimidation of witnesses and an accused police agent who walks around the courthouse as if nothing had happened."

Cops are racist thugs whose job is not to "fight crime" but to protect the profits of their masters, the bosses. In this period of crisis of overproduction and threat of war, the racist cops of today will become the Gestapo of U.S. capitalism. PLP has been involved in the organizing against this racist murder—as we have been involved in many others, including the murder of Anthony B�ez. Our aim is to show workers and youth that whether or not one cop is convicted (which happens once in a blue moon as in the case of Livoti, who was convicted of denying Anthony B�ez his "civil rights," not for killing him), police brutality will continue because it is needed for the bosses. The only way to end police brutality is to build a revolutionary communist movement to do away with its cause, capitalism.

Brooklyn PLP Youth Says: ‘Fight Back!’

(The following is an interview with a high school student in Brooklyn)

Challenge (C):How would you describe the atmosphere in your school right now?

Youth (Y): I think the atmosphere is very tense because everyone is trying to find a way to deal with the changes that are going on with school safety and the police officers.

(C): Could you give us more details on what you mean by ‘what’s going on with school safety and the police officers?’

(Y): In my school, a lot of students have been getting hurt, and the police are making excuses for what they are doing to us. They are handcuffing us for no reason, just because we want to speak our mind. They are trying to dominate us by making examples out of students.

(C): Why do you think the Board of Education is working more closely with the NYPD now?

(Y): I believe the reason why the police were put into the school system is to hold us down, because if you have a police record, it messes up your future, and it stays with you for life. There are fewer jobs now, so they want to ensure that their people get the jobs now, and we don’t.

(C): So it relates to the problem of unemployment. How would you explain to your friends the reason we have unemployment in society?

(Y): The reason why we have unemployment is because the people with the businesses don’t want to hire the young people. It makes them lose money that way. The more people they hire, the more they have to share their money with the workers.

(C): Do you think everything would be better if there were no cops in the schools and youth had more jobs?

(Y): No. There would still be unemployment. There would still be war and suffering.

(C): How would communist revolution change the problems of police brutality and unemployment?

(Y): I believe that it would change for the simple reason that under communist revolution there would be no need for cops to be walking around with guns, threatening people. Whoever does something wrong would be disciplined by the community, and helped by friends. The unemployment question comes naturally because under communism everyone works their fair share. Everyone puts in to get in. There would be no unemployment because everyone would be working together.

(C): What do you suggest young people in your school do about police brutality and unemployment?

(Y): I think the young people should speak out about what they see. They can do this at student government meetings. We could use camcorders to watch what security and the police do. They could come to the Party. I think young people need to put their talents together and make jobs for themselves. They could make a game room, a drink stand, people who know how to cook could make food, people who know how to bake, they could bake, and start their own little business.

Wanted For Racist Murder: NY Methodist Hospital

BROOKLYN, NY, Nov. 1 — The capitalist-run health care system murdered Shannell Coppage, a six-week-old black baby girl. In a recently-revealed story (N. Y. Times, 10/26), last February Tatiana Cheeks and her daughter Shannell, then one week old, were refused a scheduled routine check-up at an outpatient clinic of New York Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn for lack of $25.00 or a Medicaid card. Five weeks later, the baby died of malnutrition.

Ms. Cheeks, who had been breast-feeding her daughter, was jailed and charged with criminally negligent homicide and second degree manslaughter! In July, the charges were dropped after lactation experts and pediatricians testified that even their best-educated breast-feeding patients do not recognize when a baby is not thriving until the infant is weighed during a routine check-up, the check-up denied by Methodist Hospital.

Although the State Department of Health faulted the hospital for its action, no charges have been filed against the hospital’s CEO or administrative staff.

The Flatbush clinic, site of this incident and one of many Methodist clinics in Brooklyn, is in a black community where many people have no health insurance. Capitalism’s racism killed this baby.

Over 45 million Americans do not have health insurance. When patients arrive at a hospital, usually the first question they’re asked is not, "How can we help you?," but rather, "What kind of health insurance do you have?" Wealthy patients are placed in the hospital’s best units and get special attention; poor patients are sent to other units where there is not enough staff much of the time.

The New York Methodist Hospital and others in the city are competing not for better patient care but for profit. Advertisements and coupons are used to attract patients to satisfy this insatiable drive for profits. Very often patients are discharged without receiving proper medical attention, forcing re-admission shortly afterwards, usually with serious complications. With the downsizing and cutbacks in what has become a vast, profit-making, trillion-dollar industry, it is clear that a capitalist-run health care system—by design—cannot save lives. Only under a communist society led by a mass PLP will workers get health care.

We must fight to destroy this profit system and the entire class of capitalists who live off the misery of the working class.

Crossing Borders—Building The PLP Under Fascism

The profound economic crisis, unemployment, and poverty in Central America forced me to leave my family and friends to travel and look for a job in the north (the U.S.). The trip was long and dangerous. It took 60 days to get to my destination. If I could have come by plane, it would have been a five hour trip.

When we crossed the first border, between Guatemala and Mexico, the guide told us, "We’re not going to walk. We’re going to travel by sea." In a small boat, they fit in as many of us as they could, about 22 immigrants, along with more than a dozen barrels of gasoline, since we had to travel 16 hours on the open sea. It was so rough that the boat tossed and turned so much that we almost capsized. We didn’t have any lifesaving vests. Many of the women cried, yelled and asked god to help them escape with their lives. I cursed this rotten capitalist system, that put my life in danger.

After this nightmare, we got to a town in Mexico where they were waiting to rob us. The police, known as the PGR, robbed us of everything we had and wished us a good trip. There was a long discussion in the group about the police. Why do we need them if they only protect the bosses and the borders that are only used to divide us and exploit us more, no matter where we come from? During the trip several of our companions were arrested and deported, because they didn’t have money to pay bribes to the cops. Then in a town near the U.S.-Mexican border, a young woman got sick. She was near death and the smugglers didn’t want to take her to the hospital. But a group of us insisted that she be given medical attention. They took her, but she never returned. One more victim of putrid capitalism. When we crossed the U.S.-Mexican border, an armed group robbed us again. We crossed the border, and now we’re ready for the bosses in the North to rob us again.

This experience helped me, because it made me deepen my commitment to being a revolutionary communist. I had the opportunity to know many people from different countries. There were many ex-soldiers from Ecuador. We discussed with them a lot about the need to fight for communism. And I met some ex-guerrillas from the FMLN.

At the beginning of our wait for many days in a house together, we started to talk about politics and we formed a Club. The first few days we were only four, but after the rest started listening, they must have liked what they heard, because later we were ten. We talked about the plans and the ideas of the Party and the need to organize. Some of them asked me "How can there be a communist party, if communism is over?" It was a big and happy surprise when one of the group said, "I’ve read this paper, Challenge. But I never thought that you were a communist." A worker said, "Why do we have to travel so far and risk our lives, if the only thing we want is a better future for our children?" I answered that the only way that we will have a future is by fighting for communism.

They asked me so many questions that it was hard to answer all of them. It was then that I asked myself, "Why didn’t I bring a Challenge?" After two months of living among this group of 80 people, 20 of them were talking about the Party and some of them wrote on the walls, "Bosses, soon we’ll give you what you deserve: PLP".

I made many contacts with workers of different countries. There was a youth from Ecuador who always came close to listen, but never said a word. One day we were having a discussion about nations and how patriotism affects the workers. He stood up and said, "The nation is nothing. My father is dying and the nation does nothing for him." Later he said that he wanted to join our Club and to join the Party. During the trip, many saw me as the leader, since I tried to help the other workers in every way that I could.

The line of the Party was primary. Organize the PLP and communist revolution—no matter where you are!

Is The Glass Half Empty or Half Full?

Behind the News By Red Inquirer

"Despite months of financial turmoil and heightened anxiety about contagion from the rest of the world, the U.S. economy is holding up far better than most experts expected….‘In the face of worldwide economic turmoil,’ Clinton said at the White House on Friday morning, ‘our economy remains the strongest in a generation.’ " So wrote Sylvia Nasar, NY Times economic analyst, in an October 31st front page article that reported a 3.3% economic output growth in the U.S. economy in last quarter.

This is a typical example of looking at the world from the point of view "is the glass half full or half empty." Ms. Nasar sees it half full, making believe that somehow the U.S. economy is going to escape the economic turmoil affecting the entire capitalist world. But if you read further into the article, or even in other newspapers’ accounts of the same news report, it becomes clear that what made the economy output grow more than expected was consumer spending (already the average individual credit card debt is $7,000, plus mortgage debt, car loans, etc.). But consumers won’t go into debt forever using those already overused credit cards to keep the economy growing.

Two days later, Jeff Faux, president of the Economic Policy Institute, wrote in Newsday (11/2): "The risks of recession are rising. Consumer confidence is fading, the trade deficit is relentlessly expanding and stock market prices remain higher than profit margins justify….This is a particularly dangerous time for the U.S. economy to turn down. We are facing the most serious economic crisis since the 1930’s. The world’s governments and central banks are struggling against a rising tide of financial instability that has already engulfed Asia and Russia, and is threatening to flood Latin America."

So who is right, Mr. Faux or Ms. Nasar? We believe Mr. Faux. But, Mr. Faux doesn’t have any real solutions to the crisis. He offers the same old Keynesian cure of increasing government spending to boost the economy. He points to a General Accounting Office estimate that $100 billion more is needed for the "physical upgrading of our schools to fix leaking roofs, get the rats out of the basements and rewire classsrooms for computerized learning. But, again, Congress just tore down the president’s modest request to make a down payment on that need."

Basically, neither Congress nor Clinton can do anything about the crisis. For example, Mr. Faux himself says that "the increase of about $20 billion spending in the federal budget was too small to stimulate the economy and scattered over too many trivial projects to add up to much investment in the future. For example, almost half went to expand the Pentagon and CIA budgets."

Exactly, this is the only way bosses can "solve" their crisis of overproduction—a military solution to knock down the capitalists in other countries (along with the smaller domestic ones) who stand in the way of the Eastern Establishment imperialists.

As far as workers are concerned, the glass has always been more than half empty under capitalism, and it is getting pretty empty now as the bosses try to make us pay even more for their problems. In September, the same period Ms. Nasar talks about income growth slowed to a crawl and workers in the U.S. had to dip into their savings for the first time in nearly 40 years. The savings rate—that is savings as a percentage of after-tax income—was minus 0.2 percent, the worst since 1959. In 1998, the average family worked 240 hours more than in 1989—six weeks of additional work—with no increase in income.

The bosses will get away with murder and war as long as we let them make us pay for their problems. The only solution, as far as workers are concerned, is what this paper has to offer—organizing and building a communist-led movement to smash capitalism once and for all.

Send your contributions to the Behind the News column to Challenge, 150 West 28th Street room 301, NYC 10001 or e-mail it to PLCD@Compuserve.com

60 Youths Killed in Racist Attack

GOTEBORG, Sweden, Oct. 30 — Fire broke out at an immigrant hangout during a dance where 400 teenagers had gathered, killing 60 and seriously wounding 173 others. While fire officials in this port city claim they are investigating the cause, many of the immigrants say it was arson and the cause was racism.

"Immigrants feared that the Macedonian Assn. community hall may have been targeted by neo-Nazis or ethnic enemies of one of the 20 immigrant groups represented at the party. ‘Somebody did this. It wasn’t an accident,’ insisted an 18 year old student of Moroccan descent...This fire couldn’t have spread so fast if it was just an accident.’" (LA Times 10/31) One of the doors was blocked. Some 400 people had to try to leave through the only other door, as the fire spread very rapidly.

One Tunisian-born taxi driver said that resentment against immigrants is seething below a calm surface. He recalled that a fire broke out a few years ago in the school his daughter attends, and he and other parents rushed to help with the evacuation. "I was told not to interfere," he recalled with bitterness. "This fireman told me ‘You’ve taken enough of our jobs already.’ "

We don’t know for certain how this fire was started, but we do know that capitalism in crisis must pit worker against worker, to weaken our class and divert us from uniting against the monster of capitalism. It’s the job of PLP to show that workers all over are part of one class, with one enemy: capitalism. Our goal must be to build one Party, the PLP, to bury the racist bosses and their crisis-ridden, racist profit system with communist revolution.

ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION…

DO IT AGAIN, THIS TIME FOR COMMUNISM

How bad is capitalism for Russian workers? The government has admitted that this winter, without enormous food aid from Europe and United States there will be mass starvation. This, in a land that was one of the world’s great breadbaskets. How bad is capitalism? For Russian workers, unemployment skyrockets. Millions routinely miss pay days, sometimes for months. Repeated ruble devaluation and inflation have put 80 percent of the workers at poverty level. Old people on fixed pensions are condemned to early death. The homeless and beggars are everywhere. Once outlawed and defeated, racism and anti-Semitism are having a tremendous revival. On-the-job accidents are up, infant mortality and disease and illness rates are way up, workers’ standard of living by any measure is getting worse daily. How bad is capitalism? The worst is yet to come.

Just two years ago, the world was treated to TV pictures of Russian President Yeltsin triumphantly doing the boogaloo on his way to reelection. Since then, Yeltsin has become a caricature for everything ailing capitalism. His public drunkenness, chronic illness, heart surgery and subsequent feebleness are snapshots of a system in crisis, a system that does not work. Built-in weaknesses of Soviet socialism lead to state capitalism over 40 years ago, which in turn gave way to "free" market capitalism in the last decade. Exploitation has steadily increased along with a culture and education of anti-communism for the workers. Russia’s already rich class of bosses became billionaires by privatizing industries and conglomerates. German, U.S., and other investors were welcomed in to take part in the plunder of Russia. Now the dance is over and the working class will pay for the clean up.

Russia’s particular capitalist crisis is magnified and absorbed into the world’s general crisis of overproduction. Russian rulers picked the wrong side of history to join freewheeling capitalist competition. Overproduction and intense rivalry has led to rusting steel in overstocked yards and cars that they can’t sell overflowing the lots of auto plants. After price-cutting that failed to move cars, AvtoVAZ, Russia’s largest automaker, is about to lay off tens of thousands of its 120,000 workers at its Lada plant in Tolyatti, near Moscow. In capitalism’s anarchy of competition, Hyundai has just finished building an auto plant that is supposed to employ laid-off coal miners in Siberia. The coal miners lost their jobs because the collapse of the economy, now too many cars will worsen that collapse.

The Great Depression in the 1930’s was the last time the world faced an economic crisis like we have now. But that depression was not felt in the Soviet Union of the ’30’s. While the capitalist world’s economies were shrinking, agriculture and industry in the Soviet Union boomed. In 1929, the beginning of that crisis, Soviet’s share of the overall world’s production was 3.8 percent. During the Depression, while the rest of the world’s production fell, the Soviet production rose significantly. While tens of millions of workers starved, lost their homes, ate at soup kitchens and went on relief in the U.S., Britain and France; while wages under Hitler’s fascist Germany declined, the exact opposite occurred in the Soviet Union under a worker’s dictatorship. The world’s only socialist country was a paradise for workers. Social services improved all during the 1930’s. Soviet worker’s wages went up and prices dropped while the rest of the world was starving.

So economic depression isn’t inherent in society, only in capitalist society. Had the Soviets gone to communism in 1917 instead of the halfway measure of socialism, we’d all be living a different life. But mistakes were made and paradise couldn’t last. Among other things, keeping the wage system spelled its doom. Today, the competition built into capitalism has lead to a new round of crises, fascism and war.

Fascism in the Land of Lenin and Stalin

The current crisis peaked on August 17th when the Russian government devalued the ruble and defaulted on interest payments due foreign bankers. It was a double whammy that first hit the workers. Savings had already been wiped out in the previous devaluation, now "purchasing power" was dropping like a stone. At the same time, the gravy train for the parasites on Wall Street and in Bonn suddenly halted. A crisis among the ruling class sharpened as competing groups of Russian bosses angled to stay on top of the rotting mess. The dust still hasn’t settled, the bosses’ dogfight will likely continue at least until the next round of elections in 2000. It may include a military coup and ultimately civil war. But, for now, all the plans to "rescue" the economy will increase inflation (probably a 100 percent rise by the end of the year) and cut jobs.

The crisis is provoking anarchy, militant fight-back, open fascist organizing and a budding new communist movement. One governor of a faraway Siberian province is threatening to issue his own money, effectively seceding from Moscow. In many parts of the country, the barter system has replaced money. Workers are paid in the goods they produce which they trade for their needs. Factories and farms pay their suppliers the same way. One opportunist provincial governor suggested this was what Marx had in mind, as if barter was a step towards communism.

Railway workers and coal miners and other workers from all parts of this huge country have been striking, blocking roads and railroad stations, demanding paychecks. Like its counterparts in the rest of the capitalist world, the official trade union movement serves the bosses. However, there are small independent unions, sometimes led by anarchists and other reformists who want to be magicians, equally anti-capitalist and anti-communist. The hatred for capitalism and the new bosses, foreign, fake communists and the flouting Russian rich is intense. At the same time, the political understanding of how socialism inevitably led back to capitalism is missing, workers are cynical about communism. Stuck in reformism, these workers today are a minimal threat to the bosses. Under leadership in a new communist party, they could Challenge unstable, weakening capitalism; without that leadership they are a base for fascism.

Can’t Go Back to Socialism

On October 7th,the gang of sellout "communists," trade unions, ex-military and other professional opportunists called for a day of national protest to demand Yeltsin’s resignation and protest the devaluation. In a mood of growing desperation millions of workers went on strike. Many thousands participated in demonstrations throughout Russia. The demonstration in Moscow reflected some of the confusing, conflicting and reckless trends of this period. Some 25,000 demonstrated, although they were overwhelmingly older, retired workers, and relatively few from the shops and factories. Most were under the leadership of the various established "communist" parties. They roundly booed the union leadership. They chanted anti-Yeltsin slogans and carried red flags, the flag of their country, the Soviet Union.

The main aspect of the demonstration was nationalist. The "wish" is to restore Soviet power along with the socialism of the past. This is closely linked to national pride, patriotism. One of the main revisionist parties even calls itself the Communist Party of the Soviet Motherland. Of course this is a glaring contradiction. Communists are internationalists. Workers have no borders and communists have no national allegiance. Nationalism is being elevated to, "Russia, �ber alles."

The cutting edge of nationalism is fascism. And there may be as many as 150 such groups in Russia today. In the middle of the Moscow demonstration, there was a bunch with the flag of the Southern Confederacy. And there were as many as a half dozen gangs of thugs with Russian versions of the Nazi swastika. The fascists, along with those in the "communist" parties, chanted against the "Zionists." One of the leader of the march had blamed the "Yids" for Russia’s economic problems in a press conference before the demonstration. Anti-semitism is open and routine for politicians throughout Russia. Racism is also on the rise. Workers in the former Soviet Republics, from Georgia to Kazakhstan are referred to with the slur "blacks." It could be that Russia, which once led the world forward in 1917, will now lead on the road to fascism.

Forward!

There was another visible trend at the demonstration. One that reinforces the truth that the great socialist revolution was not for naught. A trend that proves that the desire for communism cannot be smothered. There were groups of young communists passing out flyers, organizing against the reformism and nationalism. Their ideas are incomplete, but they reflect a significant movement to form a new communist party, to eventually lead violent revolution, this time for communism. Many are interested in the PLP. They are attracted to our idea of, "one world, one working class, one communist party." We in PLP will do our best to help and encourage these comrades.

As all workers face the decline of international capitalism, and its intensifying fascism and wars, it is our internationalist duty to struggle to act to build a Party capable of repeating the victories of the Bolsheviks. Russian workers, more than most, have suffered through the worst of capitalism’s horrors: tens of millions killed in two world wars, starvation and now depression and fascism. The strength of Russia’s working class is more than a match for the bosses, capitalists and mafia that rule over them today. This time, the struggle has to be to establish communism under the dictatorship of the working class.

LETTERS

Steel Workers Know Capitalism Is A Bad Batch

Dear Challenge:

Comrades have been discussing capitalism and the current global crisis of overproduction with steelworkers in Gary. Those steelworkers who read Challenge regularly might be curious about what other steelworkers in this area have to say about capitalism.

What are workers saying about the current steel glut?

"They (the bosses) don’t think about what’s down the road. Folks can’t buy anything if they’re laid off and broke. Then they layoff more guys and it gets worse instead of better."

Do steelworkers think the bosses are loyal to workers and look out for them?

No. "They’ll lay you off or let you go no matter how long you’ve been at the mill if they aren’t making a buck. You’re out the door."

Are steel bosses clamping down on workers?

"I can’t stand it when they lay off a bunch of guys who need to work and then they work the guys they keep 10 hours a day 7 days. It’s cheaper for them to work a few guys overtime than to hire on or bring guys back."

"No one talks about it, but the cranes smell like urine because the guys can’t leave them during their shift to go to the bathroom."

Do the steelworkers trust the unions?

"The unions sold out a long time ago." "They’re in the bosses pockets."

"We can go on strike, but it won’t save our jobs down the line."

These are just a few comments we hear weekly. How do we fix this mess? We don’t. We scrap capitalism because it’s a bad batch. Take a look. We know the bosses’ crises will never get better because the working class can see what’s coming down the road. More glut, more layoffs, more people out of work with no money to buy anything. All because the bosses must always make more and more steel to stay in business as their profits fall and markets shrink. We know the bosses are not loyal to workers. They are only loyal to their profits. We know workers are forced to work long hours with few, if any, breaks and no real security for their future. We know the bosses’ unions don’t represent workers or our long-term interests.

What do the steelworkers think of communism?

"Well, that’s the way it should be, but what can you do about it?"

Workers can organize the working class worldwide into an international communist party and destroy capitalism with communist revolution.

"Yeah, but what about those foreigners taking us over?"

"Those foreigners" are workers, too. They know everything workers here know about capitalism and fascism. They want the same things we want: better lives and a secure future for the next generation, our children. Just ask autoworkers in Mexico, Germany, Spain and England. Ask steelworkers in Russia and Asia. The BOSSES are dumping steel here because they are desperate for profits. The WORKERS who produced that steel are NOT YOUR ENEMY! Workers in the Gary area and worldwide want to end wage slavery, racism and imperialists’ wars for profit."

"I think that maybe someday people will be ready for communism." Someday is now. Don’t let the bosses separate us. Fight back with PLP and help build an international communist party. Seize political power with communist revolution. Act like we own the place (i.e. the world) because we do.

Midwest Comrades and Friends

Another Apologist Gets Nobel Prize

Dear Challenge:

Big news! Indian economist Amartya Sen has just been announced as a Nobel Prize winner. When the ruling classes have to use every trick to keep the world’s workers mired in the swamp of illusions, Amartya Sen is an important economist. His specialization is in welfare and developmental economics. His suggestion to societies of the world is to "adopt majority rule" that is "non-dictatorial" where individual choices and values achieve substantial representation (by voting) and by minimizing the differences between individual capabilities, for example by improving general health. He conveyed happiness about living in "democratic countries like Britain, U.S. and India" where he had the freedom to express his views without fear. (India Abroad 10/23)

Economists who muddle the reality of the day are the rulers’ good fortune. Exploitation of the vast majority of the world’s workers by less than 1% of the world’s population is causing poverty, hunger and wars and the choice and solution available to all of us is to join the Party, violently overthrow the capitalist system and establish a communist society. Amartya Sen is willing to say anything else but this. He would advocate skillful begging of every type by all of us. For this he will keep getting Nobel and other prizes.

All the lying newspapers and economic analysts are half-heartedly mumbling half-truths, recently starting with the stock market crash. A friend, with whom I discussed these issues six months ago, called a little while ago and we discussed the possibility of war in Yugoslavia. Bit by bit, my friends are able to see the strength of our line.

The Russian Czar had statisticians and economists at his disposal, willing to lie in every way possible. There were many "intellectuals" who were busy organizing for reform demands, even two days before the Bolshevik Revolution. Promoting a bunch of misleaders and fake specialists is, at best, an act of desperation. That did not save the czar.

Comrade From India

Former Steelworker Discusses Workers’ Power

Dear Challenge:

One of the hospital workers who started coming to PLP meetings here was a steel worker before he was laid off when the plant closed down. At first he was very quiet at our meetings. Then, when we were discussing racism, he told this amazing story of one of his experiences during a steel strike. When we suggested writing about it for Challenge, this is what he gave us:

‘The One Night Stand Off’

Everybody stayed separate at the steel plant. Blacks here, whites there, Spanish over there. We even had a boss who told us he didn’t like dark-skinned people. But he didn’t like white people with no money either.

Then we went on strike. For the first time everyone came together, black, white, Spanish, together.

We had been on strike for a long three months. The case: union vs bosses. They would offer deals. We would refuse to take it. The last deal came a little too late so we struck.

Weeks, months went by until the women got involved. They organized a group of women and children that marched down Dodge Steel Road and staged a sit-down. They blocked all traffic: union members, truck drivers, bosses, hired labor, under the table workers. One of the non-union workers got so upset that they could not work that they pushed one of the children. All hell broke out. Union members, family members fought side by side. For the first time in Dodge Steel history workers were together as a union.

Hospital Worker

CSU Students Fight Back Against Racist Symbols

Dear Challenge:

Here are some letters written by Chicago State students who participated in the demonstration to get the truck with Confederate Flag decals off campus: (See Challenge, Nov. 4)

"On Monday October 16, 1998 two PLP professors had me go and look at a truck on Chicago State’s campus. This truck had a rebel flag on the front plate and two small rebel stickers on the back window. The professors asked me how I felt about this. I said that it was a disgrace for a symbol like this to be displayed on a mostly Afro-American campus. So they asked me how the students in both classes would feel about it, and do you think we should do something about it. I told them we should present it to our classes and ask them what we should do. So the two professors presented it to their classes. After long debate both classes decided to go and find the person who owned the truck.

"We went over to the truck and found the young man who owned it. After long debate he finally decided to move his truck.

"After he moved his truck we made up a petition to present to the University President to let her know that we will not tolerate this on our campus.

"I and a couple more students went to the University President to present the letter."

"We walked over to the JDC [Jacoby Dickens Center] to get the confederate flag removed from this pipefitter’s truck. We came out and we discussed why we wanted the flag removed. We said it stood for slavery. The pipefitter said it did not stand for slavery; it symbolized his heritage. He said he was sorry if he offended anyone, and the truck was removed. I don’t know how I feel because even though he was supporting racism, he also has the right of the First Amendment.

"Today we went out and protested a racist sign on a janitor’s vehicle. Paul brought out a subject of a janitor having Confederate flags on his truck. In a strong sense this is a racist symbol.

"The class after a brief discussion had decided to take action on the matter. We gathered up another class. The students began to go into the gym and find the janitor.

"He came out asking what the problem was, and the teacher asked why the racist symbol of the Confederate flag was on his truck. He said it was part of his heritage, and he was expressing his opinion. I asked him how is that part of someone’s culture? After a lot of comments made by students he asked his assistant to move the truck.

"The way I saw the situation was if a black janitor or student came to an all-white campus such as Loyola or Northwestern with a Black Panther or an African flag, some type of action would be taken.

"At a white campus the students would have reported a Black Panther sticker before the truck had gotten a chance to park. I felt the action we took might have been small, but you must crawl before you walk."

"On Friday October 16, 1998 the students in a philosophy class on racism and a biology class took a step toward progress. In uniting against a racist symbol—the Confederate flag—on campus, 50 students proved that African-American youth are aware of their history.

"At first I was skeptical about protesting. I felt that it was useless trying to get a "harmless" truck with Confederate flag stickers off of the campus. But I started to think about Adolph Hitler and how everyone thought that he was "harmless," and we all know what kind of damage he did.

"This was the first time that I had ever been involved with any type of movement, large or small, in favor of what I truly believe in. I believe in solidarity, peace, freedom, and equality. By contrast, the Confederate flag represents the opposite of my beliefs. It represents the most treacherous and cruel acts ever taken against African-Americans.

DAF

CHALLENGE REPLIES: JA, we think you were right to help drive this truck from your campus. Belief in the "right of the First Amendment" only makes us hesitate in fighting racism; it does not stay the hand of our enemies in attacking workers who fight racism. As DAF points out, there are no "harmless" expressions of racism; the display of racist symbols endorses the racist brutalities of the cops and leads to further brutalities. Racism is racism wherever it rears its ugly head—whether it’s police brutality and killings, or a truck on the campus of a mainly black or white college. When you and your fellow students suppress racism—at least for a time on that campus—you take a step in the long struggle to end racism once and for all. This process is completed only in a communist revolution. We urge you—and the others who wrote and participated—to join our Party in anti-racist campaigns on the campus and to become members of PLP to fight for a communist world.