Struggle has been sharp about the U.S./NATO air invasion. Early on, most teachers we talked to were comparing Milosevic to Hitler, and telling their students about "ethnic cleansing" and genocide, and the importance of living together in peace and harmony. This system cannot be reformed to be peaceful. Such a liberal approach accepted the bosses' line uncritically and justified the NATO bombing. But now this view is beginning to change.
On the first day of the bombing, teachers' union leaders--AFT President Sandra Feldman and NEA President Bob Chase--sent a letter to President Clinton "on behalf of three million American teachers fully supporting" the NATO bombing of Serbia, and decrying the murder of several dozen ethnic Albanian teachers.
We spent most of our Party teachers' study group talking about Caspian Sea oil, the history of Yugoslavia and reading the Challenge editorials, so we would feel confident to discuss the situation with other teachers and students.
On April 7th, we went to the Central Area meeting comprising teacher reps from Manual Arts and one other high school and its feeder elementary and middle schools. We brought the union presidents' letter and a resolution condemning the bombing of Serbia, pointing out that the real reason for the bombing was the fight for control of Middle Eastern and Caspian Sea oil. We said it's our students who would die in a larger ground war, and urged Presidents Feldman and Chase to refrain from such statements in the future.
Manual Arts in particular, and the Central Area in general, have been the center of opposition to the union leadership. Teachers in PLP, as well as other activists, have participated in the area assembly for many years. At the area meeting, the resolution was passed virtually without debate. Some people thanked us for raising it. The only opposing votes were entered privately, after the resolution had passed unanimously. Too bad. We would have welcomed the opportunity to further expose capitalism, where the thirst for oil profits leads to mass murder.
To bring the motion to the floor of the House of Representatives (the union's governing body) will be a fight. Hopefully we can use that opportunity to bring more information about capitalism's murderous drive for oil profits to more teachers.
When we brought the resolution to the Manual Arts union meeting the next day, some people groaned, while others were glad. The political struggle that these resolutions require has helped broaden the discussion at school. The war in Kosovo, the role of religion, Palestinian refugees, U.S. genocide in Central America and many other topics are hotly debated at least one table in the lunchroom every day. When people asked, "What can we do about this?" it led to discussions about the need to build a mass movement for communist revolution.
A teacher at another school asked us for 15 Challenges to use in his classroom, and then gave us $20 for May Day expenses. Other teachers have sought out our opinion about Kosovo, and asked us for materials. Students and teachers are reading and discussing Challenge, as well as the PLP leaflets distributed weekly in front of school. All this has created an atmosphere in which U.S. policy is debated and challenged in many classrooms. These discussions are helping bring more students, parents, and teachers to May Day.
The resolution condemning the U.S./NATO bombing of Yugoslavia that our comrades raised and got passed in the LA teachers union is an example for all of us to follow. While we won't "win" in every union, our job is to create mass struggle and debate around the major issues of war and imperialism.
Milosevic and Clinton are both fascists. Clinton is the bigger fascist. Both are products of a system of capitalist competition in crisis, hell-bent on war for control of oil routes, oil profits and the world. The union leaders and Jesse Jackson support Clinton's bombing, and the reasons for it. This debate will expose them and their pro-capitalist outlook.
In every union and mass organization, we can expose the role of the liberal misleaders, and link every contract struggle, the fight against fascist Workfare/slave labor, racist genetic violence research, plant closings, police terror and more, to the crisis of capitalism and the drive to world war. In unions, churches, PTA's, and student organizations, we must raise the struggle against imperialism and build a mass base for communist revolution. This is how we can make communist ideas mass ideas.
The first of the U.S. rulers' aims, as Challenge indicated last week, is to guarantee U.S. oil and gas companies' domination of the multi-trillion dollar energy resources in and around the Caspian Sea and the protection of all its delivery routes. Along with the energy treasures of the Persian Gulf, this is part of a projected "new American empire." As early as January 1996, the New York Times spilled the beans: "...the United States is again establishing [domination] over a former foe. The disintegration of the Soviet Union has prompted the United States to expand its zone of military hegemony into Eastern Europe [through NATO] and into...Yugoslavia" (1/2/96).
The Balkans are crucial for access to Caspian oil and gas. The bombing aims in part at preventing Russian, Bulgarian and Greek companies from completing pipeline projects that would replace U.S. and Western European companies as major suppliers of European energy. It also aims to stabilize the region for competing U.S. deals, like the pipeline announced on April 13th from Baku in former Soviet Azerbaijan to Supsa in former Soviet Georgia. U.S. rulers want many more pipelines like this one, which would avoid Russia altogether to carry oil and gas through Azerbaijan across Georgia and Turkey to the Mediterranean. Establishing the Southern Balkans as a U.S. "protectorate," occupied by U.S. troops if necessary, is crucial to this dream of super-profits.
The parallels to pre-Hitler Germany are striking. Like Germany in the 1920's, Russia is being bled to the bone by imperialists anxious to prevent its rise as a major competitor. Right now, the post-socialist Soviet bosses must rely on International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans to stay afloat. The IMF doesn't have enough money to juice up the Russian economy and wouldn't do so even if it could. The idea isn't to rebuild Russia, et al., but rather to keep it barefoot and profitable for European and U.S. imperialism.
Today's capitalist Russia could go in a comparable direction as Germany did. The current NATO bombing attacks are intended to produce the opposite but are, in fact, helping guarantee Russian imperialism's rise from the ashes. Already the New York Times is reporting the rise of a mass base for anti-U.S. fascist nationalism in Russia. In the highly unlikely event that the U.S. could cut a temporary deal with Milosevic over Kosovo, Russia would have to broker it. Russian political influence would therefore increase. And a wider war would only be put off for the time being.
The likely scenario is that the U.S. and other NATO bosses will send more waves of ground troops into the Balkans, to add to the tens of thousands already in Bosnia and Albania. Major voices within the U.S. ruling class are lambasting Clinton and Albright for failing to plan for this eventuality. The loudest among them comes from liberal Rockefeller sources like the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institute. However, dislodging Milosevic's 40,000 troops from Kosovo, who are digging in deeper every day despite the bombing, won't be easy. The process can only further inflame the immediate region, sharpen the competition for Caspian energy and pipelines, and strengthen the Russian generals and politicians who want to restore their empire.
We can't predict the exact details, but by now it should be obvious that the worldwide profit system isn't going to usher in a 21st century of peace. In fact, capitalism is a state of perpetual war. Our class may not be able to prevent the bloodshed from breaking out, but we have everything to say about the ultimate result. We may still have a long, hard road ahead, but under any and all circumstances, our Party can do--and is doing--a lot to point the way toward a communist future for the working class.
Two problems have resulted from this "honeymoon." The first is that Milosevic and Serbian bosses don't want to remain powerless. The current bombing is an attempt to punish them for not knuckling under to the U.S.-German program. All it seems to be doing is killing lots of civilians, forcing many thousands of Albanian Kosovars to flee, and strengthening Milosevic and his Russian buddies.
The second problem is that the U.S. and Germany are basically rivals. Everything they do in the Balkans can only pave the way for eventual inter-imperialist conflict between them. For example, Germany both depends on Russia for much of its fuel and also profits directly from Russian energy giant Gazprom's markets in the old Soviet bloc, including Yugoslavia. Russia accounted for over 30 percent of Germany's 1997 gas imports. Germany's Dresdner Bank is the leading financial house in a $2.5 billion loan made to Gazprom. German rulers would love to make the Rhine-Main-Danube canal a major route for raw materials to Germany from eastern Europe and Russia. But this can't be done unless the Balkans and the Caspian Sea become safe for imperialist exploitation.
So we should expect a trend in which German bosses will drift further away from the U.S. and closer toward an alliance with the Russians as junior partners. Of course, the Russians will have their own ideas about this fantasy. Every "alliance" among capitalists bears the seeds of war.
At last week's Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) meeting, the union president also defended the Sheriffs in response to a resolution condemning the LA Sheriffs' Department for the firing-squad murder/execution of truck mechanic Ricardo Close. After a month's delay, because of the executive board's parliamentary tricks, a motion was made from the floor to condemn the sheriffs' brutal killing and to support the April 17th protest demonstration at Atlantic Park in East LA. This provoked a discussion about capitalist politicians, police and judges.
Union President Silver and Financial Secretary Elizaldez made it very plain that they supported the Sheriffs Department and the police in general. Silver said that an anti-Sheriff motion supporting the murdered worker was "out of order"; he tried to get it withdrawn. The Financial Secretary revealed that the union leadership worked with the LAPD's labor detectives during the '94 ATU transit strike and that the police had been given the names of all shop stewards to keep the strike "orderly." (Do the union leaders get The Lifetime Achievement Award for naming names?)
A new steward argued that the police were not friends of transit workers or of any workers. He pointed out that the LA police carried out a judge's restraining order requested by the MTA bosses, crippling mass picket lines in order to break the strike. "That's the American way!" chimed in union president Silver, coming down with both feet firmly on the side of capitalism and against his own membership and murdered mechanic, Ricardo Close. The steward said that the cops are carrying out their own "ethnic cleansing" here.
The discussion of capitalist laws, the police and the need to rebuild a new communist movement for workers' power was a welcome change in the meeting. The resolution condemning the cop murder was squashed. A worker rose to second the motion and was told it was "too late." After the meeting, several workers slapped the new shop steward on the back saying, "I'll be at the march against the LA Sheriffs."
At the night meeting, the union leadership failed in an attempt to "postpone indefinitely" the motion to give $250 to Ricardo's widow. A group of workers stood in favor of the motion.
The ATU leadership hated giving the money and were able to stop the politically sharper resolution condemning the Sheriff's brutal killing of a worker who was no different from the mechanics in this Local. Still, this is part of the struggle in ATU to win workers to march on May Day. Workers see the union leaders allying themselves with the most fascist elements of U.S. capitalism. These are the same union leaders who support the bombing of Yugoslavia. Challenge and PLP are the alternative.
"Yes, we're going to the March," said many workers taking the leaflets and buying Challenge outside the factory. One worker brought the leaflet to her community organization to show it to other workers.
In this factory, PLP'ers are struggling to bring a contingent of workers and their families to May Day. This March will help to expand and motivate the committee organizing struggle inside the factory. And it can spark a mass campaign to spread the Party throughout the garment industry. Thousands of workers have lost their jobs in the last year as hundreds of factories have moved to Mexico and Central America, paying $3 to $4 a day. The lives of garment workers here have been affected dramatically.
There is a similar militant attitude towards the March in other factories and workplaces. A close friend of the Party, who always brings friends and co-workers to May Day, said, "I have 20 more people who want to come to the March." A militant worker who cleans office buildings declared, "There are 15 of us who are ready to come to the March." Smaller groups from different community organizations are thinking seriously about marching. Many are angry about the bombing of Serbia, about racist police terror and about the deaths of immigrants at the border.
There is great potential for mobilizing groups of workers. Many see more clearly that under capitalism our lives aren't worth anything to the bosses, that fascist conditions are intensifying. Many respect the Party and the struggle for a real communist revolution, even while we participate with them in the daily reform struggle. This May Day, in the face of growing worldwide fascism, the beacon of communist revolution shines brighter than ever.
PLP youth in Brooklyn answered the attacks of capitalism by spending spring break in an intensive week of agitation, political struggle, recruitment and basebuilding.
We began Monday morning with a study of our Party's pamphlet on Political Economy, which was led by a high school student with the help of a comrade. One lesson we drew from Section I was that profit, not the needs of the workers, has always driven the system of capitalism.
Later, we pasted up hundreds of stickers in Flatbush, especially near a local high school and near the homes of new members of PLP.
Tuesday we traveled to GM in Linden for a literature distribution where we got out 300 copies of Challenge's special Industrial Workers edition.
Our demonstration on Thursday in the Bronx against police killing was the BOMB!!! Though we had only about 20 comrades there, we drove the cops into a nervous state. Hundreds of Challenges were passed out. We used our bullhorn without a permit, and their demands that we turn it off angered the workers and youth in the street, who gathered around. Then we marched to the courthouse, chanting, "we are not afraid, FIGHT BACK!!!" and staged a brief rally. As we left, residents asked, "So soon?" We should have stayed longer.
We rounded out the vacation with a hang-out day Friday and a paper sale in Flatbush on Saturday.
PLP youth are trying to win students to spend their free time changing the world and not just playing Nintendo or doing drugs. We are not afraid! Fight for Communism!
The ruling class is mortified by the level of analysis and debate that communist politics can bring to the working class. Sooner or later, the administrators who exhort the staff to meet "higher standards" will seek to squelch the analysis and the debate that communism has brought to our youth. May Day is our most open, bold and important stand for communism. As our school's largest May Day yet approaches, teachers, parents and students must prepare our counter-offensive.
Our action was the BOMB!!! Though there were only about 20 comrades, we drove the cops into a nervous state. Hundreds of Challenges were passed out. We used our bullhorn without a permit, and when they demanded that we turn it off workers and youth on the street gathered around and became angry.
We then marched to the courthouse, chanting, "We are not afraid, FIGHT BACK!!!" and staged a brief rally. As we left, residents asked, "So soon?" We should have stayed longer.
Contrary to opportunists like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, PLP youth show that the role of all cops is to protect and serve the racist ruling class. And contrary to these black politicians, who support Clinton's terror from the sky against civilians in Yugoslavia and Iraq to protect Exxon/Mobil oil empire, we say that the same system that murders and terrorizes workers and youth in the Bronx, murders workers and youth from the sky in Serbia and Iraq. March on May Day!
Some pundits claim this is caused by a war over drugs. But the main reason is, like in Kosovo, the fight among the world's imperialists and their local allies, over markets and geopolitical reasons. U.S. imperialism is still number one in Colombia, but European and Japanese imperialists are rapidly getting piece of the pie, particularly in the important oil industry, telecommunications, gold, emeralds and even the financial system.
And now there is even a more important reason to fight over Colombia. Because of its age, the Panama Canal is becoming more and more obsolete for the newer bigger commercial and military ships and there is need to build a new canal to connect the Pacific Ocean with the Caribbean Sea/Atlantic Ocean.
The Uraba region in Notherrn Colombia is preferred for this canal. The paramilitary death squads supported by the Army, the drug mafias and the CIA operates openly there. Over 5,000 militant workers have been murdered in the last few years by these death squads, busting the most militant unions there.
But capitalism also needs some kind of stability to build the new canal. Now that he figures that URABA is more or less pacified (40 more banana workers were murdered last week), President Pastrana is trying to make some cosmetic changes. General Rito Alejo, accused of being behind the death squads, was removed. At the same time, since the Army has not been able to defeat the anti-government guerrillas which control tens of thousands of square miles of Colombia, Presidet Pastrana is trying to make a peace deal with FARC, the main guerrilla movement here.
The bosses also need a pacified and superexploited working class. The government wants another "labor reform" legislation to end the few benefits workers still have. Previous reform laws have busted many unions (with the complicity of union hacks and of death squads killing militant trade unionists). Unions in the '50s and '60s had a lot of influence among workers. Today, only 8% of the 17 million workers in Colombia are unionized; only 12% have permanent jobs and the unemployment rate is 20%. Over 55% of the population live under what is considered extreme poverty.
There is a small light at the end of the tunnel. There is a small PLP organization in Colombia, which is organizing for the communist dictatorship of the proletariat as the solution to this living hell. Through thousands of leaflets and Desafío-Challenge, we are trying to show workers that the pacifism preached by fake leftists, guerrillas who just want a piece of the pie and President Pastrana is impossible. Capitalism makes war inevitable, and workers are always the main victims. In spite of the attacks against our Party, we are still growing. We will make sure that this May Day become a school of communism for workers.
Our militant anti-racism hit a nerve in this recently integrated Boston suburb. Our signs and chants caught the enthusiastic attention of many passing motorists; a few joined us.
Vincent's caters to blacks and latins, offering a Hip Hop Night on Saturday nights, but the management and its security guards constantly degrade black patrons. This racism has increased, as the Randolph police have been called to handle club "problems." In 1998, there were 199 arrests, 137 on Hip Hop Night. This past January and February there were 49 arrests, eight on one weekend.
Last summer, Ebony LaFrasier was grabbed from behind by a racist cop while waiting to use the club's bathroom. Eight cops dragged her outside, severely brutalized her, knocked her unconscious and arrested her, although she had done nothing wrong. She woke up in handcuffs and leg irons in the back of a police cruiser. Fearing for her life, she kicked out the vehicle's back window to escape. She was charged with "trespassing, disturbing the peace and destruction of police property" (the window). The police report lied that a club bouncer had told her to leave. Far from intimidating Ebony, this incident has only emboldened her. She contacted PLP, and told her powerful story at several events. She also helped lead Saturday's rally.
Another young woman who joined us on Saturday told of being arrested at Vincent's while waiting to get her coat, also for no reason whatsoever.
Racist police terror is not unique to Vincent's nightclub, or to Randolph, Mass. It's on the rise nationally. The Abner Louima and Amadou Diallo murders are only the most prominent examples. Police brutality victims and their families must become part of a growing movement against capitalism--there can be no justice in a system designed to protect their oppressors. Police terror, along with welfare repeal, prison labor and immigration "reform" reflect the rise of fascism, which the bosses resort to when their system is in crisis. Only communist revolution can destroy police terror. March on May Day!
At one Dinner a comrade from a steel workers Local read a power passage from the Communist Manifesto, while at another a high school student from the mass work spoke about spreading their organizing fight against standardized testing. A Party leader from Gary engaged a roomful of college and high school students in comparing the war going on now in Kosovo with what is going on in their lives and others here. Not only did we raise over $400 for the May Day buses but also our commitment to fill them.
During the 1993 Bush/Clinton invasion of Somalia, also ostensibly for "humanitarian" reasons. The barbarism and Nazi-like atrocities perpetrated by racist U.S. elite troops provoked a mass uprising and led to their smashing defeat and quick exit.
A new book, "Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War," by Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Mark Bowden, is a minute-by-minute reconstruction of the climactic battle in the U.S. intervention in Somalia. At "the battle of the Black Sea," over 500 Somalis (soldiers and civilians) were killed and another 500 wounded. Eighteen U.S. troops were killed and over 70 wounded.
The U.S. invaded Somalia on the grounds that clan wars had destabilized the government and anarchy and famine prevailed. Actually, as Challenge reported at the time, the U.S. needed a stable and pro-U.S. government not to relieve famine but to protect the maritime oil routes and make the area secure for oil exploration by Conoco Oil. The U.S.-supplied United Nations commander, Admiral Jonathan Howe, had declared the leading clan militia chief, Mohammed Farah Aidid, an "outlaw" and put a $25,000 bounty on his head. In turn, Aidid put a million-dollar price on "Animal" Howe, as he was called by Somalians.
The hunt for Aidid turned out to be a fiasco. According to the International Red Cross, in a July, 1993, assassination attempt, U.S. Black Hawk helicopters fired high-explosive TOW missiles into a house where clan elders were meeting, killing 54 and wounding over 200. Four Western reporters who rushed to the scene were immediately killed in retaliation by furious Somalians. The bosses' media focused worldwide attention on Somali "killers," ignoring the Somalians' shock and outrage over the helicopter attack that murdered the 54 elders. This was not the only massacre executed from the air. The Black Hawks were widely hated in Mogadishu, the country's capital.
Their powerful Black Hawk helicopters whipped the roofs off whole neighborhoods with the force of their rotor wash, even, according to Bowden, tearing infants from the arms of their mothers. These racist commandos and their helicopters became the focus of the Somalis' hatred. They would make lightning raids to arrest Aidid lieutenants.
It was one of those raids, on October 3rd, that became the Battle of the Black Sea. The Delta Force went in by helicopter, targeting two senior Aidid advisers, in the Black Sea neighborhood. The plan was to leave by ground convoy. The operation was supposed to take 30 to 40 minutes. Things began to go wrong immediately. A Ranger fell 70 feet out of a helicopter. Soon one helicopter was shot down by a well-aimed rocket-propelled grenade. Ground fire was unexpectedly intense.
Then one Black Hawk crew chief began "mowing down whole crowds of" Somalis. There was "overwhelming popular hostility" towards the Delta killers. Somalis turned out in the thousands to kill the aggressors. "Mogadishu felt brutalized...Every death was blamed on the Rangers." To them "it seemed like every man, woman and child in the city had picked up a gun." The "enemy" had become "almost everyone in a city of a million people."
The helicopter mowing down hundreds of Somalis itself was shot down. Then a third one was shot out of the sky. Two others were disabled and limped back to their base. The "invincibles" became confused and panicked. The ground convoy was lost in a maze of city streets and was cut to pieces by Somali fire, all while aircraft hovered overhead offering useless directions by radio. More than half the ground convoy was killed or wounded. As in Vietnam, the aggressors' great technological advantages proved worthless in the field. The Somalis won the war that day. October 3rd is now a Somali national holiday.
A ground invasion of Serbia will make Somali look like a tea party. The only answer for the black, Latin and white GI's is to turn the guns around at their real enemy--U.S. bosses and their Nazi military leaders.
Son of an escaped slave, Robeson was an athletic champion, Phi Beta Kappa scholar, singer, actor, spokesman, activist, leader, knowledgeable in 25 languages, a passionate integrationist, an Africanist and a communist Paul Robeson was truly, "The tallest tree in our Forest."
For those people who came to their maturity (our parents and grand parents) in the late 1920's until the early 1960's, a period when Paul Robeson was one of the most famous people in the world, there was no mistaking what side Paul was on. He made sure his audiences understood the value of black and white working people to the history of this country. He strongly opposed fascism, and racism at home and abroad, openly spoke out against capitalist imperialism in Africa and Asia and was a fierce defender of the Josef Stalin and the Soviet Union when they were in the leadership of the world communist movement.
Known and recognized for his great singing and acting as one of the highest paid entertainers of his day, Paul could have chosen a comfortable pathway through life. All he had to do was sing and act and keep his views to himself. Robeson decided not to live his life this way. While living in England in the early 1930's he came into contact with the British Labour Party and many young African students who taught him about the anti-imperialist struggles in Africa and the historical developments in bringing a classless society to fruition in the Soviet Union.
The long history of racist oppression in this country, the struggles of colonial peoples around the world, the fighting spirit of the British miners and the rising tide of fascism in Europe all came to a head for Robeson in the 1930's. For Paul, the choice was clear: "The artist cannot remain aloof from the struggles around him or her...the artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative." Paul's life was as a sports hero, a concert singer, an actor and a political leader who viewed communism as the future for the working class the world over. We will regain the legacy of this true son of the international working class.
I'm a college teacher in El Salvador. In class, I asked my students to write an essay and discuss the current war in the Balkans.
"This war doesn't benefit the working class, either in former Yugoslavia or in the U.S. The military and political bosses never send the children of the rich to these wars, only the children of the working class to suffer and die in their wars for profit," said one student. Another added that our experience with the recent war here in El Salvador never had the children of the rich fighting. The ones who lost their lives--on both sides--were workers' children. This is what will happen in the Balkans.
All the students condemned NATO and the U.S. One wrote, "These indiscriminate bombings mainly hurt civilians. They attack innocent men, women and children who cannot defend themselves."
We also discussed the potential for a world war, after hearing that Russian president Boris Yeltsin--whose economic interests in the area are being threatened--has warned about a Third World War.
The students didn't know why the Western imperialists were attacking. I tried to explain that they launched this war to control oil transport routes from the Caspian Sea area.
What caught my attention was the lies and manipulation by the bosses' newspapers worldwide. They want people to believe they're bombing for "humanitarianism." It's total hypocrisy on their part to say this is a humanitarian action. The capitalists don't care if tens of thousands of workers die in their massacres. Their only concern is dominating the world's oil supply. With humanitarian aid like this, Hitler, Clinton and Blair can apply to join the Order of the Sisters of Charity of Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
As a PLP member I must expose the capitalist system and its lies. Much can be done among these students, who, with time, will form part of the red army that will destroy this capitalist system. I invited them to march on May Day to demonstrate their hatred of the profit system and its massacres.
SAN SALVADOR -- The hypocrisy of capitalism is profound. There are thousands of Central American refugees looking for a piece of bread. There are more millions of poor workers who were affected by Hurricane Mitch and the "development" of capitalism and have no food or place to live. Even so, the General of the Army along with the Archbishop of El Salvador, Fernando Saenz, and Guatemala Foreign Minister Eduardo Stein, have offered to receive refugees from Kosovo in Central America! The best help we can give the workers of Kosovo, Yugoslavia, Central America and the whole world is to fight to destroy capitalism, the source of these wars of plunder.
--El Salvador comrade
Imperialist war has always been a good way of seeing who is on the workers' side and who is our enemy. Lenin was indeed a great revolutionary theoretician and spent a lot of time attacking the opportunist pro-boss elements that always appear inside the revolutionary movement. Today, just like in 1914 when World War I began, we can see how valid Lenin was in denouncing as traitors the German Social Democrats (who led the most influential Marxist movement of the time). These traitors voted in Parliament for war credits for World War I, which meant siding with their own rulers during that imperialist war.
Today's Social Democrats have gone a step further: they are behind the war against Yugoslavia. UK's Tony Blair, Germany's Schröder, Italy's D'Alema, France's Jospin--all Social Democrats--have joined liberal Clinton's terror from the air against Yugoslavia. Even the head of NATO is Javier Osana, who in his youth was a pacifist leader of Social Democrat PSOE (Spain's second political party).
War has also exposed other so-called workers' friends, like Jesse Jackson, who supports his buddy Clinton's Yugoslavian war. In the height of the impeachment show last December Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and other black liberal politicians, rallied in Washington supporting the government the day after Clinton ordered the bombing of Iraq.
On the other hand, workers shouldn't be fooled by open fascists like Pat Buchanan who oppose Clinton and the war against Yugoslavia. This just reflects the growing split inside the U.S. ruling class. Anti-Rockefeller types oppose the war because it protects Rocky's international Big Oil interests, and not the large, but local oil interests that Buchanan is allied with.
For workers and youth, the big lesson that this war offers is that there are no lesser evil politicians. They are all our enemies.
Red Hammer
I had the privilege of attending a meeting last week where 6 young people were poring over a map of the world discussing the situation in Kosovo. They discussed the oil and the different pipeline routes, war and the possibility of world war. There was a discussion about the nature of imperialism. Its seems that the more oil there is, the more fighting there is. To keep its empire, the U.S. needs to control Caspian oil as well as Middle East oil. If not, their competitors will. One person said, "There will be wars, but there won't be another world war because the big powers have nuclear weapons and they won't use them--that would be crazy." After discussing it, most felt that, when pushed to the wall, if it was a question of losing their empire or using everything they have, they'd do it. So then one young woman said, "Then where can we go to be safe?" An older comrade said, "The safest place to be is to be in the Party, building a base for communist revolution."
We have to build the Party NOW--where we are. And especially building the Party in basic industry and in the military will make us all safer. One of the youths at the meeting will be going into the army soon. We all agreed that he will be in a great position to bring the truths of class struggle and communist revolution to his fellow soldiers. Everyone at the meeting knew people who want to talk about what's going on in Serbia and Kosovo, who are open to seeing that Exxon and Mobil are willing to spill the blood of workers everywhere for their disgusting profits. They made plans to invite more friends to May Day. The bosses' war gives us the opportunity to expose them and build the fight for communism.
Red Map Reader
Wow! Now that's what I call a centerfold worth looking at! I'm referring to the center pages of Challenge. Of course, we all agree that any specific issue of Challenge can only be as good as the struggles that our members have initiated, or been involved in and the articles that reflect them. That said, however, the role of the editorial staff is to solicit, arrange and present those articles in the way that will best help inspire us and our base to organize for communist revolution.
And it's from that perspective I want to thank the Challenge staff. Filling that two page center spread with what I call action-letters around a more or less unified theme made a powerful impact. A letter is less imposing to write than an article. Encouraging these action letters I suspect will induce more of us to write and more of us to do things to write about. This isn't to replace the Letters Page where some interesting ideological struggles take place or the editorial, but should be seen as just another weapon that will make the paper more exciting and an even better organizer. Thanks again.
A Reader
Capitalism offers nothing positive for today's youth. Gangs and drugs are everywhere, unemployment, racism and sexism are running wild, the schools are more like jails and everyday students tell stories of police terrorism in their communities. In the face of all this fascist culture the PLP is winning youth to organize for a communist future.
On the weekend of March 5th , 6th, and 7th PLP High School students and teachers from the Chicago area came together to discuss how to smash capitalism and build communism. We stayed in cabins in the country and participated in many political and social activities. The focus was on how young people can be leaders and, in the words of one student, "take over from the old folks."
The weekend included many discussions led by students. We talked about the current worldwide crisis of overproduction, how to organize for communism in the U.S. military, how to build for May Day and how to have communist friendships and relationships (we read Combat Liberalism by Mao.) One student said " We never used to get along because we were from different schools and communities, but now we are like a family." We also saw videos of South Park and the movie Hamburger Hill, as we discussed the role of capitalist culture. Such culture promotes the dehumanization of our youth and support for imperialist war.
We spent some time carrying out such important tasks as tobogganing, card playing cards and having snowball fights. Here are some of the comments from youth who participated:
"I felt the weekend taught me a lot about leadership and I got a clearer understanding of how the party will get power in the military and the state. Everything was great."
"It brought youth together."
"I like the way we got to know each other...I didn't like the food."
"I liked learning new stuff about communism."
"I had fun this weekend."
"The cadre school was the bomb, especially the youth, our future."
The weekend was generally seen as an advance for the party youth work. Most people wanted to go away together again this Summer and felt energized to bring their friends to May Day in Washington DC. With the all out attack on working class youth, both in the streets and in the schools, the time is ripe for more communist youth to lead more and more fightbacks.
Chicago Comrades
Amidst the Kosovo massacre and other headlines there was something else going on in India. I am not sure if you came to know about this with the kind of biased media we have here. In a period of two months about 70 poor peasants belonging to low castes, former untouchables, were massacred by thugs of rich upper caste landlords in Bihar, India's poorest state (caste is a system of hierarchy in Hindu religion, has been in existence for thousands of years and still observed fanatically in most parts of India. Just to make it simple--one would not marry out of his caste as a general rule. In retaliation of the massacre a militant leftist group called Maoist Communist Center killed a few landlord families, naturally politicians of all hues rushed to take advantage of the situation.
Since our aim is to bring about international class solidarity these things should be brought to the attention of workers here so that they may better understand the concept of bourgeois democracy. It would be difficult for a person who lives in America to understand how it functions, but he would better understand what a farce democracy is to someone who lives in a Third World country, only if he is exposed to the realities of those countries.
FRIEND FROM INDIA
CHALLENGE RESPONDS: Thanks for the information. Capitalist democracy is a farce all over. Here in the U.S. fascist terror is also on a rampage as cops murder black and Latin youth from NYC to LA to Chicago.
Currently, Kosovo fascists are engaged in an armed military struggle with Serbian fascists for the economic and political goodies of that territory. The Kosovo refugees are fleeing for many reasons like avoiding boms, impending war, Serbian reaction to the guerrilla war and to prevent their young men from being drafted into the Serbian army. But when the U.S. capitalists suddenly start to shed humanitarian tears for the Kosovo refugees it might be instructive if we took a brief look back at U.S. history involving refugees.
* After the workers revolution overthrew the Russian government in 1917, even though there was no armed movement against U.S. capitalism, 60,000 U.S. workers involved in unions of every race and religion and others of Russian nationalists (Serbians, Ukranians, etc.) weree arrested and detained during an anti-communist crusade that led to the infamous Palmer raids resulting in hundreds of families being deported.
* Before World War II, when Hitler was putting millions of Jews in concentration camps, a boatload of them escaped from Germany and came to the U.S. for asylum. The anti-semitic and pro-nazi U.S. government refused to accept the refugees and sent them back to certain death in Germany.
* After World War II began, tens of thousands of U.S. Japanese citizens were forcibly taken from their farms and homes and put in concentration camps for four years after a racist anti-Japanese media campaign.
* After the U.S. invasion of South Vietnam for imperialist reasons, the people started resisting with guerrilla warfare. The U.S. reacted by burning most of the villages to the ground and forcing tens of thousands of refugees into "strategic hamlets" (concentration camps).
So when the U.S. capitalists say they are bombing for humanitarian reasons, we must realize that everyting they have done and said has been to protest their imperialist "right" to exploit the world's working class, divide workers with racist terror and to build anti-communism everywhere. We must say death to capitalism, nationalism and imperialism which made wars and fascism inevitable. We need to build the Party. March on May Day.
Refugee From Capitalist Hell
The Challenge (4/7) article titled, "Scratch a Liberal, Find a Fascist," which dealt with the problems of education on the high school level asked for some responses from readers. In our opinion, it is impossible to discuss the problems of our public educational system without looking at the transformations in the capitalist economy which has been heading toward fascism-the terroristic dictatorship of the capitalist class over the working class and oppressed.
In the coalfields of Western, Pennsylvania, and the steel towns, the economy underwent a drastic change in the '80s with the deindustrialization of the country. Most of the coal mines have shut down where a working class person could earn a decent living to an extent. The United Mine Workers of America, which did have a fighting tradition, became a walking ghost. As the mine closed, and the KKK racist terrorists emerged hoping to gain from the deteriorating economic situation,where the unemployment rate is the highest in the state of Pennsylvania. The Service Sector economy has grown drastically, offering people part time jobs with little benefits and low wages. Some factories operate, but most are sweatshops that exploit their workers ruthlessly for little pay.
Now we come to the Public School System in this area. Of course, the wealthier sections have very good schools, but in the small rural towns, education is geared toward brainwashing the students about the glories of "Democratic America" and "Free Enterprise". The military is often seen in the local schools promising poor and working class kids money for this and that if they join and many do.
One student, who reads Challenge, asked these students if they knew that they could end up dead in a body bag so the rich could get richer and dominate the world. But many students were denying that they wouldn't have to fight, that they were only doing it to get money so they could get leave and find great jobs. The Challenge reader told them that there will damn sure be wars and that they will be going to them to possibly end up as dead meat. As capitalism moves toward more war and fascism and most of the jobs here do not really require an education, why is it necessary to be concerned about students' educating. This is the rub.
The so-called gifted students are taught bourgeois ideology and go to college believing that they have the world by the ass. Recently, at the anti-Kazan protest, this paper pointed out that a group from the Ayn Rand Foundation was there to applaud Kazan for being a rat who named Communist Party members or sympathizers. In many schools, these students are encouraged to participate in the annual Ayn Rand Foundation Scholarship Contest. The student must read Rand's pro-selfish, pro-capitalist, pro-material wealth, fascist novel, "Atlas, Shrugged," write a report on it and send it to the foundation. Every year a winner is chosen and given some money. She was such an ass that she wore dollar sign ear rings and her headstone is shaped like a dollar sign.
Most working class kids are regimented and brainwashed for either the military or menial jobs, while the more affluent are indoctrinated with fascist ideology and go to college in quest of a career that will make them "BIG BUCKS". Finally, another phenomenon that developed out here when the mines shut was the rapid growth of the prison system. In fact, this has replaced the mines as the place where a person might find a good paying job as a prison guard and everyone fights to get one. Meanwhile, the prisons are filled with people of color from the inner cities, who capitalism sees as a surplus but can possibly be used as prison labor.
It's is hard to talk about improving education without talking about the need to smash capitalism. The trend in this growing fascistic society is toward providing working class and poor kids with Deaducation.
Coal County Coalition
The looming ground war in Kosovo once again shows the crucial role of soldiers. The U.S. bosses are in a bind in part because they are not sure their own soldiers are willing to sustain heavy casualties. They are trying to win their soldiers to carry out fascism. In Bosnia, soldiers stationed there are being taken on tours of "Serb atrocity sites." This is a cynical effort to try to mask the imperialist fascist nature of the U.S. war in Kosovo. Of course there were no tours of Croatian or Muslim atrocity sites, or where NATO bombed trains, houses and hospitals, because the U.S. strategy is to try to paint the Serbs as the only Nazis in Yugoslavia. Soldiers influenced by the PLP are now winning their friends to see that this is a war over oil routes and imperialist control of central Europe, and who will exploit the workers in Europe.
Right now there seems to be a lot of confusion over what the war is about. Many soldiers who joined the army for a job or chance to get away from home are outright opposed to dying for this country. The most commitment the U.S. has been able to muster so far seems to be soldiers who want to go to Bosnia because it is boring just going to the motor pool stateside every day. They think it will be more exciting there and they will get extra pay. This is reminiscent of soldiers who wanted to go to Vietnam in the early sixties, because they thought the U.S. would win easily. Ten years later that army broke down completely. It seems that few now are ready to go into a meat grinder of a war.
What will the army do when it sends troops to war? While there are positive signs that soldiers are not yet goose stepping to Clinton's war drums, the army in Vietnam killed over a million people before it self-destructed, so we can't leave the fight against fascism to chance. This means an all out effort to win soldiers and sailors to smash imperialism with communist revolution.
A Red Veteran