In the midst of imperialist war for oil profits, May Day 1999 brings a ray of hope to the working class around the world. In Washington and San Francisco, throughout Latin America and in India, thousands will march under the red flags of Progressive Labor Party, pledging to fight as long and as hard as it takes for communist revolution and a world without bosses.
The composition and leadership of these May Day marches contain the seeds of this potential. We come from the factories and offices and shops, from the fields and barracks, from the schools and communities. We are young and old, men and women, black, Asian, brown and white. We are united, as one class, with one aim. We know our enemy: the world's capitalist class. Our leaders are chosen for their commitment to the working class and their skill in serving it. Our reward isn't money, but the privilege of fighting for the working class and building our Party. We fight for a world without wages, profit, racism and bosses' wars. May Day measures our progress, challenges us to correct our shortcomings, and points to a lifetime of fighting for communism. May Day is the future.
In contrast, last weekend's NATO gathering of mass murderers was supposed to celebrate a "new world order" dominated by US imperialism. Drenched in blood and stinking of death, it was more like a wake. Capitalism belongs in the grave. Our job is to bury it, by building a mass communist movement. We have confidence that our Party can challenge and defeat the enemy.
Communism is more than our vision of the future. It's how we live our lives, organize our collectives, and wage class struggle today. Personal ties, especially unity in the class struggle, create the basis for the political struggle that will transform the working class, and ourselves, preparing us for the seizure of power. This is how we can make communist ideas mass ideas.
We are on a long march through a grim night of growing war and fascist terror. Every red flag that flies on May Day is another torch to light the way to communist revolution. We have learned from the mistakes of those giants who came before us--Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao. Now we must live up to their strengths. Every May Day marcher should join PLP and fight for a world where the main goal of society is to meet the needs of the international working class, those who produce everything! Workers of the World, Unite! March on May Day! Join PLP!
Undoubtedly, there are individual reasons why these two young men committed mass murder. But all the psychobabble in the world cannot obscure the fundamental political cause of this massacre. If you applied their latest "reasoning" of "twisted minds" or suffering from "bad parents" to the German Nazis, you would have to conclude that an entire nation was "demented" and "bad parenting."
Ironically, and to divert attention from the real reason for the massacre (the violence of capitalism), Clinton appears routinely on TV explaining the events in Littleton as an "aberration." Repeatedly Clinton deplores violence as a method for settling differences. Clinton yaks about the "horrors of violence" as he bombs Yugoslavia back to the Stone Age. And to make the point about how bad violence is, Clinton and the other "humanitarian," British Prime Minister Tony Blair, continue the daily bombing of Iraq to protect oil profits.
The media and local authorities make a slight reference to the Nazi ideology and to good old-fashioned U.S. racism. But generally these political aspects are sloughed over or ignored. Make no mistake about it, these two (and others) are--in their undisciplined way--only carrying out the general policies of U.S. capitalism. This makes the bosses nervous because the open fascist/racist ideas of the killers hit too close to home. They expose the fundamental thinking and actions of the U.S. ruling class.
Capitalism kills millions each year to preserve its profits. The old Charlie Chaplin movie, Monsieur Verdoux, made the point that if you kill a few people, you're a murderer; if you kill thousands or millions, you're a patriot and hero.
The Colorado killings give the capitalist game away. It's not that difficult to connect the local murders to the big picture of violent capitalist culture and mass slaughter. This is the "big crime" of the Columbine killings. They shine a light on capitalism; hence, the torrent of personal analysis to change the direction of that light.
"Hitler was the head of Germany who with his Nazi troops invaded the major part of Europe, and left great destruction and death all around him. He fronted for the German bosses who wanted to conquer Russia, and said that he wanted the world dominated by the white Aryan race. His fascist troops killed millions of Jews and more millions of Russians and many others. Hitler's troops were defeated at a famous battle, the Battle of Stalingrad. Thanks to the heroic efforts of millions of communist workers led by Josef Stalin, a great Russian communist, Hitler was defeated. If the communists hadn't defeated Hitler, maybe some of us wouldn't be living today. These young people in Colorado were following in Hitler's footsteps."
"Another thing," I continued, "if you multiply the feelings of the parents, relatives, and friends of the victims in Colorado and the feelings that we ourselves feel by hundreds of times, then you'll feel what the people of Yugoslavia feel now. Because the bombs and missiles that the U.S. and NATO are dropping have killed several hundred men, women and children. Now I ask all of you, who is the bigger killer--these young people, or Clinton, who is behind these bombings in Yugoslavia?" "Clinton" responded the students in unison.
"But Clinton is bombing because there is `ethnic cleansing' over there," said a student. "Well, if that were the case, why would he bomb the towns and cities and kill and drive out the people and make the situation worse? He's killing people for oil profits. That's why we need a revolution," I said.
The next day the Mayor got on the radio calling for more sweeps in the inner city schools and for all students to wear uniforms. They keep talking about guns in the schools. But they don't talk about the racism and fascism built by the big bosses and copied by Nazi thugs like those of Columbine.
When we arrived it was early so some of us decided to put up as many May Day stickers as we could while we looked for a place to eat. Some marchers who were in a restaurant noticed us, liked the stickers and not only asked if they could have some, but exchanged phone numbers with us. They offered to help build for May Day by stickering the city until "people are sick of 'em."
After this and with much confidence, we went back to the starting point of the march where I met several other people, we discussed communist politics and listened to speakers, songs, and even a short skit reenacting the false imprisonment of Mumia with giant epitaphs. During this time I made my way around the growing crowd and distributed about 40 Challenges.
The march itself made its way around the city, through the Filmore District and down to the city's convention center in the heart of downtown San Francisco. Before I knew it, people were coming up to me asking if I was the one putting up all those stickers and if they could have some as well. Later, other PL comrades from the Bay area who didn't know I was there were quite surprised to see all these people with stickers on their backpacks, their shirts, all over their clothing and everywhere along the streets.
At the end of the march, I was stopped by a couple from Sacramento who asked me for the paper and donated money. They were familiar with PLP through the internet and other means, but had never seen us in action. They admitted that they thought our organization was the most advanced politically, but had some reservations about involvement. Yet at the same time they expressed a lot of interest in coming to May Day and developing further relations with PLP in the Bay.
Overall, the march was very inspiring. I had never been in a march of about 20,000 people. It was also a pleasure to see so many high school kids out there marching. The power of the feet stomping, the hands clapping, the voices of thousands and the positive reaction I received from others was truly an experience that shows me the tremendous potential we have.
And while I do not deny the great importance such demonstrations may offer in the long-term struggle or the subjective magnitude such an event may have for individuals, it is nevertheless relatively easy to be against something. Demonstrating against police brutality, against racism and against the prison industrial complex is only the beginning. The next step, a qualitatively greater one, is to be actually fighting for something and to articulate that into struggle. To understand how racism, sexism, deportations, and imperialist war are products of the same capitalist system is to understand the material roots of our oppression and the fundamental solution to it. Only communism can cut the capitalist cancer from our world. And it is our responsibility as workers and students to fight for this line among and with the masses.
PHILADELPHIA, PA, April 24 -- Several thousand youth gathered here to demonstrate against the proposed execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal, capital punishment in general and police terror. PLP youth and friends attended the march to distribute leaflets and Challenges.
Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther and one-time president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists, has been on death row for 17 years. In 1981 Abu-Jamal was accused of killing Philadelphia cop Daniel Faulkner. Actually he was framed because of his political beliefs and outspoken opposition to racism and police brutality. In October, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court turned down Abu-Jamal's appeal for a new trial.
Many of the groups which organized this demonstration call themselves leftists and even put forward some anti-capitalist ideas -- like bosses need racism to divide workers and youth and obtain maximum profits; connecting the police murder of black and Latin youth to the war in Kosovo, etc. However, in practice these groups organize for reforming capitalism with the misconception that it can "work better." They don't call for building a mass revolutionary party to smash capitalism with communism.
The main demand of the march was to call for a new trial for Abu-Jamal. But even if he gets a new trial and is found innocent, the courts will continue to be as racist as ever. This is something the leaders of this movement never emphasize, and therefore they are winning many youth and workers to the illusion that there can be justice for the working class under capitalism.
PLP fights against the racist justice system and believes that the most of the nearly 2 million people in U.S. jails are victims of racism. But our main emphasis in this fight is to show workers and youth that the cornerstone of capitalism is profits based on racist terror. We can smash the bosses' racist justice system by fighting for communism. The cops and the courts can never serve the workers; they are part of bosses' fascist state that terrorize and imprison our youth. There is no justice under capitalism!
We distributed over 4,000 leaflets that applauded the youth who were demonstrating. When we marched in New York City on April 15th, thousands of youth and workers took to the streets to protest the fascist killing of Amadou Diallo by the NYPD. We called for all the participants at the Mumia march to kick it up a notch: March on May Day! Only by destroying the capitalist system will we do away with fascist police murder.
The strike is being waged against the authorities who are imposing changes in academic requirements, working conditions, budget changes and increasing fees. Zedillo reduced the budget for education, while he sent more than $60 billion to capitalize the banks. These measures are steps to privatization and reducing the curriculum, making the university more elitist. The authorities are trying to reduce the university to the needs of capitalist competition for markets that are saturated by the crisis of overproduction.
Another capitalist gang is supporting the students. The government of Mexico City, led by C. Cardenas and the PRD (Social Democrats), want to keep the student struggle within the limits of the fight for power between different groups of capitalists in the coming presidential elections. The university has always been used by the capitalists to prepare the cadre they need to manage their system. That's why the critique and struggle of the students needs to expose the roots of the problem. Capitalism is the source of inequality, corruption, unemployment and oppression. Students should refuse to take part in the fight among the capitalists.
This struggle has shown the potential of the youth, the majority of whom are between 15 and 20 years old, to become the promoters of social change, uniting with workers in the fight for communism. This also opens the possibility of ideological struggle, to fight the division between mental and manual labor, capitalist individualism, and bourgeois democracy, to fight against racism, sexism, nationalism and imperialist war for profits. Student members of PLP are giving leadership in this strike, distributing Challenge to their friends, and sharpening the ideological struggle in favor of communism. Communist revolution is the only way to end authoritarianism, manipulation, and to guarantee a truly scientific education that serves the interests of the working class.
Like you, we face layoffs, cuts in vital services and the growing misery created by the crisis of capitalist overproduction. We confront the fascist police installed by the bosses in their desperate drive to maintain their criminal and decadent system that goes from crisis to crisis, creating hunger, genocide and wars.
Communist revolution and the international unity of workers, soldiers and students are vital to confront the imperialist warmakers and to smash reformism and the electoral circus that lead the workers' struggle down the road to failure. We must spread our struggle to millions of workers around the whole world, to free ourselves once and for all from this capitalist hell, and to build a communist society.
LET THE BOSSES START THEIR WARS! THE WORKING CLASS WILL FINISH THEM WITH COMMUNIST REVOLUTION.
As the plenary session opened, the smoke from the auto plants bombed by NATO in Yugoslavia was still rising, along with the death toll of Serbs and Kosovars. At home, 48,000 Boeing workers had been laid off to protect the profits of the 20 plus Directors of the company. The contracts at the heart of the labor movement and the capitalists' economy--auto, steel and aerospace --are to expire this year. Yet the West Coast Conference attempted to ignore all this.
On top of that the organizers were happy to bury the powerful history of the old communist movement which was central to building the CIO in the 1930's. Organized under the eye of Santa Clara Labor Council President, Amy Dean, this was a conference that wanted to mobilize students yet not challenge the power of the main wing of the capitalist class--the Rockefeller grouping!
But, everywhere we went--in plenary sessions or workshops--we met students dissatisfied with this or that aspect of capitalist life. Here was a student angry at racism. "How can I help and get into contact with workers," a pre-med student asked. Another activist questioned the controlling role of NGO's (so called Non-Government Organizations) in limiting the agenda of organizers.
While we met an openness to communism and PLP among many, we also met an opposition. That was clear from the opening plenary. We were constantly interrupted from the chair as we raised questions about imperialist war, communism and the contracts in auto, steel and aerospace. That was good. Our central role has to be to draw the attack from the leadership. How else are we going to establish the basis of unity with the forces who are looking for real social change from movements like this?
Such a stance presents us with tactical difficulties, of course. But we should be confident. Few students really want to support someone like Amy Dean who talks of the times they are a-changin' but keeps quiet about the destruction of auto plants (and with it union jobs) in Yugoslavia! Few students really believe that capitalist sponsored NGO's are really going to correct the deadly conditions in Silicon Valley's hi-tech industries. Yet, unless we bring up the discussion, most of these students will remain skeptical about the abilities of workers to organize a revolutionary alternative--communism. And, if there is no alternative, then all that's left is the NGO, Amy Dean and the AFL-CIO support of imperialist war!
To the extent that we were able to raise revolution we advanced, and we did come away with names and contacts. But we should demand more of ourselves. Our leadership is crucial in these movements and we have to fight for it. That is what building PLP is all about and how we are going to do it!
CASE TEST QUESTION: "In India, as elsewhere, the patterns of traditional culture helped ensure stability and order. Describe ONE way that the caste system contributed to social and economic order."
CASE ANSWER KEY: "The caste system contributed to stability and order in Indian society by showing each person his or her place in society and by setting rules of behavior for each caste."
There you have it. U.S. capitalism calls itself a "democracy" instead of a "caste system." So the schools take on the task of teaching young workers to "know their place" and follow the rules the bosses lay on them.
And this CASE test doesn't come from the "conservative religious right." It comes from Clintonite liberals and their "standards" movement.
The capitalist crisis of overproduction leads to mounting global instability and disorder--culminating in world war. Thus capitalist "educational reform" (liberal and conservative alike in content, though different in form) actually intensifies fascist propaganda as well as repression in the schools.
Resistance to the liberal bosses' "standardized" tests is growing among students from Chicago's Whitney Young High School to suburban Marin County, California. PTA's have taken up the fight in Virginia, Ohio, Wisconsin and elsewhere. Self-described "progressive" educational groups (such as FairTest in Boston and Rouge Forum in Detroit) are rallying around the cause.
For the most part, these protests put forward traditionally liberal values such as non-discrimination, equal access, critical thinking, and the liberatory power of education. But these values (not communist in themselves) cannot be realized in capitalist schools for the masses of working class (or even "middle-class") students.
Progressive Labor Party comrades are becoming more involved in organizing around the testing issue. In the process we are better able to understand and explain how the education our class needs can only take place through the revolutionary movement. We begin to glimpse the immense potential of mass education in communist society.
Enough of this shameful story. Now I've met PLP and consider it a great revolutionary, pro-working class organization promoting international working class solidarity.
I belong to the teachers' union of the Cauca Valley, affiliated with FECODE (the national teachers' union), Colombia's biggest union. But again, its leadership is sellout and patriotic--wedded to the bosses' flag. We have waged huge strikes, but they are always limited because of the outlook of the union leadership. They want to "improve the quality of education," but under capitalism education, no matter how "good," serves to exploit workers.
We've been on strike for over a week now, and the union leadership again limits our struggle to simple economic demands. There is very little mention of the worldwide crisis of capitalism, of the civil war ravaging Colombia, etc. Also, on April 21st--during a national day of solidarity with teachers--thousands of parents, students and other workers came out to march in support of our strike. This was in sharp contrast with our union leadership's position of never supporting other workers' struggles.
Using Desafío-Challenge as a tool, I have begun to rectify my past mistakes. At a mass teachers' meeting, I talked to fellow teachers about the war in Yugoslavia, relating it to the situation in Colombia. Some teachers said that Yugoslavia "has nothing to do with us," but others asked where I got my information. I showed one Desafío. He was very surprised at finding revolutionary communists in the U.S. He also asked, "How can there be communists when the Soviet Union no longer exists?" All his questions led to a useful discussion with him and several other teachers.
I made copies for them of the only paper I had. Now we have a group of four teachers reading and studying Desafío-Challenge every week, to understand the world and to learn how to change it. We want to help build PLP, showing that language barriers and borders are obstacles erected by capitalism to keep us divided.
I am looking forward to May Day as a way to build our forces to get rid of this criminal system and build a worker-led society--communism.
A New Friend of PLP in Colombia
As Challenge has repeatedly pointed out in recent weeks, saving the lives of Albanian Kosovars has nothing to do with the bombing. In fact, the air war has helped Milosevic consolidate his ground position in Kosovo. This is primarily a war for profit, particularly oil profit, and strategic advantage among imperialists. U.S. bosses want to control the vast riches of Caspian Sea oil. Russian bosses want the same thing and see Caspian wealth as a way to reverse their decline as a world power.
To reach the market, the oil has to pass through a trans-Balkan pipeline. The U.S. has one such project, from Bourgas in Bulgaria to Vlore in Albania. It is in direct competition with a Russian-Bulgarian-Greek pipeline from Bourgas to Alexandropoulis in Greece. The U.S. pipeline focuses on Skopje, Macedonia, where the U.S. has already stationed ground troops. These two rival pipelines are the only options for getting Caspian oil to the Mediterranean.
Clinton twisted enough NATO arms to launch the air war. But he and his pals made a huge mis-estimate. They thought a few days of bombing would bring Milosevic & Co. to heel. The opposite happened. Now they are carpet-bombing a widening list of civilian targets in the desperate hope that Milosevic will cave in to domestic political pressure. The chances are slim to none.
This defeat makes a ground invasion of Kosovo very likely. But besides the U.S. and British rulers, whose oil interests coincide for the moment, most other NATO rulers don't buy Clinton's agenda. The "alliance" has basically fallen apart over the question of ground war. The Germans and French don't want it. The Italians and Greeks have begun to oppose even the bombing. So if a ground invasion takes place, the U.S. and Britain will probably have to launch it alone. This scenario can lead only to wider war and sharpening conflict between the U.S. and major European imperialists.
Events in Yugoslavia raise the question of a possible armed conflict between the U.S. and Russia. "Could the U.S. and Russia wind up at war?" asks a recent article in the Boston Globe. "What would Russia do [if NATO...began invading Serbia]?" asks Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov. If Russian planes delivered weapons to the Serb military and "NATO were to shoot [them] down...how would Russia respond?" What will happen on the high seas if Russian ships break the oil embargo NATO has imposed on Yugoslavia?
We can't predict how events in the Balkans will unfold. Several scenarios are possible. But the general trend is clear. This is the era of fascism, local war and, eventually, world war. The profit system makes war and fascism inevitable. The bosses will continue to rule over us, oppress us, kill us, and make us kill each other--as long as we let them.
The choice this May Day is well defined: the bosses' never-ending genocide, or the ongoing struggle for communist revolution. This year's May Day marchers have taken an important step in the right direction. The next steps are to join the Progressive Labor Party, build it, and help lead it. Thousands of communists today can become tens of thousands in the foreseeable future, and, ultimately, millions. Communism is the future of humanity, and the working class has a world to win!
In reality, the Pentagon is behind Arnett's firing. Last summer, the Pentagon, along with some retired military officers, began a campaign to get him off the air because of a CNN segment titled, Operation Tailwind, which Arnett narrated. This report, about a 1970 Army special forces raid into Laos presented strong evidence that the army had used the deadly sarin gas to kill U.S. soldiers who had defected into Laos from Vietnam.
This report was immediately attacked by the Pentagon, by Kissinger--who was the architect of the Vietnam war under Nixon--and by retired General Colin Powell. CNN immediately caved in, but the producers of the program, April Oliver and Jack Smith, refused to retract their report. Peter Arnett, on the other hand, denounced it in an attempt to save his job. This kept his job for a while, but the Pentagon and big bosses who own CNN couldn't afford to trust him during the Yugoslavia war.
The moral of this story is that the bosses' media serve the bosses who own it. CNN is part of Time magazine, owned by Eastern Establishment capital tied to Big Oil. The job of the bosses' media is to spread propaganda that helps them, to lie about the essential causes of war, about who and how many people have been killed, etc. The war against Yugoslavia has so far been a war against civilians. The bombings by NATO is very similar to the kind of bombings the Nazis used to carry out to terrorize the civilian population of the countries they were attacking. And very similar to bombing the country back to the "Stone Age" ordered by Democratic President LBJ and Republican President Nixon against Hanoi and Haiphong during the Vietnam War.
If you want to know the truth about capitalist war you have to read Challenge. We ain't got no Peter Arnett or Dan Rather, but we got the truth which we must have to win against this murderous system.
I am angry at the system. Sometimes, I wish I could
Put a face or name on the system, but you know that's hard.
It keeps changing. Today it looks like this, yesterday it looked like that,
Tomorrow...who knows what it will look like. One thing I do know, it has
Never or may never look like me.
I am not the system. I want to see the system destroyed, blown up, torn down, dismantled brick by brick, piece by piece. I want to be able to hold a piece in my hands and say, "Looks dead." The way I see it, they want to take my smile from
Me and by taking mine they're taking a lot of others' smiles. I can see them balling them up and throwing them into a sea. I cannot swim, so I cannot see a way out of that sea. I die, and others do, too. I am angry about it, because my smile is so beautiful it brings me so much joy. With my smile I see, with my smile I feel, and,
Most of all, with my smile I live.
I am angry because they-the system-have destroyed my family, my friends, my neighbors. My blood boils every time I hear them- the system-talking about the conditions of the family and the need to have "strong family values." From where? From the slaves that they tortured? From the freed men that they lynched? From the junkies that they sell to in the street? This is my family whether I want it or not.
It's my family. The problem is that they can't teach me any values because, you see, no one taught them any " family values."
Chicago Youth
During the first week in March, Boeing ordered all its workers at Kelley Air Force base in San Antonio, Texas to attend a meeting led by retired Air Force General Kellum. General Kellum said union members at Boeing were too unpatriotic to be trusted with war production. The union's chief negotiator answered by stating that: "It is our union's members that made all those cruise missiles the US is lobbing over in Yugoslavia."
We march today to answer both these agents of imperialism. We care most about out class. Workers have no country. Our flag is not red ,white and blue. It is only red. If we have to make weapons, let those weapons be used to benefit the working class, not our imperialist masters. We march today so that, in the future, the fruits of our labor will be used to benefit our class, not enhance the power of one or anther imperialist!
Two weeks ago, our bosses held pep talks with the crews to celebrate Boeing's profit gains and increasing share price. Many workers wanted to know how many workers were sacrificed on the alter of Boeing's profits. Twenty thousand have already been laid off and 28,000 more will be fired in the next year. Meanwhile, Boeing continues to use prison labor at Monroe Reformatory in Washington State.
Make no mistake about it, layoffs kill our brothers and sisters. It was not long ago that our brother, Ricardo Close, was gunned downed by the LA Sheriffs. As we discussed at our union meeting, the sheriffs had been called because Ricardo was despondent. He had recently been laid off. The bosses cast off Ricardo because they could no longer make profits off of his labor and the LA Sheriffs--following the inhuman logic of capitalism--snuffed out his life. We march today because we are more than figures on the bosses' accounting sheets! We march to smash all racist cop terror!
Layoffs and prison labor is the only future Boeing has to offer young workers. Boeing, like all capitalist businesses, produces for profit. Layoffs and prison labor are essential to preserve profits in this time of capitalist crisis. We march today to organize for a communist world were workers produce for their needs, not the bosses' profits!
This coming fall our contract expires at Boeing--along with contracts in the auto and steel industries. Last contract, thousands marched through the plants--forcing the union to call a strike. Some of the leaders of those marches are marching again today.
Today, we march to finish the job with communist revolution!
Not surprised? After all these scenarios are not from another world. We know that things can get worse--in the blink of an eye. In 1914, WWI brought about a similar situation on a larger scale. In half an eye blink after, in 1939, imperialism was forced to wage WWII. In the present time we know where things are going--to more and bigger wars. And we're at the heart of it--in the U.S. army. Here in the army, we are given orders to kill and die. No discussion. No debate. But I've had many discussions with a lot of friends. Some have been general discussions, but some have already led to introducing the Party. As far as I can see, nobody really wants to go to war, especially war for profit. And there's always that questioning of the reasons for going to war. A friend told me that if he's sent to war, he'll shoot himself in the foot so he can be sent home. Another friend who will become an NCO told me he's NOT going to be the NCO they're trying to shape him into--disciplined, patriotic, etc. Another good friend who I already consider a comrade says she's ready to stand up against racism with all her heart.
There an many opportunities to organize in the military. The situation is demanding more of each and every one of us including soldiers. We soldiers will have a very important role in where things finally head. We must organize to oppose the rulers' plans for imperialist war. We can't just allow ourselves to follow orders. We make up the army and we should use our training to build a red army for the benefit of the entire working class. If we must give our lives, let's fight together for communism Let's not shoot ourselves in the feet. We have to build a movement that will end the exploitation of the working class, bury production for profit, and smash racism to the ground.
Red Soldier
Dear Challenge:
"My high school is fifteen or so miles from Columbine," began an e-mail message I received this week. "Many of our students had friends and/or relatives there and all of the math teachers knew people there. Our whole school is devastated. Every teacher here felt numb and scared and angry. Our students were very subdued."
My school is a thousand miles further away, but this week it didn't seem very far. One student I know has a friend whose cousin died at Colombine High School. "I'm really, really angry," she said. "If those guys hadn't killed themselves, they should have been executed," her friend added. We talked about how other students remembered the gunners as racist, anti-black and anti-Latin, and how the bosses' media build those ideas.
Another conversation was with a couple of guys who describe themselves as revolutionaries. I've been trying to win them away from anarchy to communism. This week they both wanted to talk about Littleton. They knew about, and despised, the gunners' Nazi ideas.
"Do you remember last week when you told me you just wanted to create chaos?" I asked them. "And I said that capitalism was already creating plenty of chaos--we need to build something positive for the working class." "Yeah," one replied, looking very serious. "This is really bad."
A freshman said, "The principal told us we should be glad we have metal detectors." I mentioned this to the anarchists. "You see how fascism develops," I said. "The capitalist crisis creates chaos, and capitalists respond by trying to tighten their control." My friends didn't think metal detectors would have stopped the Colorado killers. "See that window?" one pointed. "You could bring anything into this school through there."
Most of my friends see that the Colombine attack was political. And that authorities do nothing to stop Nazi-type racists from organizing in the schools, there or elsewhere. A 78-year-old retired teacher mentioned to me that she had been talking about Littleton with her 85-year-old friend. "I told her that if they had been communists, the school would have kicked them out a long time ago," she reported.
One of my friends has put a lot of effort into preventing student-on-student violence. He has seen several of his students die from gunshot wounds right outside the school. His response to the Littleton slaughter was, don't try to offer explanations or analysis; sympathy and solidarity are what's appropriate. I agree with him about the second part, but not the first. We can't hope to end fascist violence unless we understand its roots.
HS Teacher
Dear Challenge:
Last week one of my students asked me if was I afraid of an attack by students in our school, similar to what happened in Colorado. I told him, "No, because I do not fear the students in this school" (although I told him it was possible it could happen here, or in any school).
This led me to ask the class, "Why do you think these students killed their classmates." One student replied, "Because they followed Hitler." Another added, "They were Nazis." I asked them, "What is a Nazi?" None of the students knew. One student said simply, "Nazis followed Hitler."
This led to our discussion of what and who were the Nazis. I told them from what I knew, Nazis are people who believed in fascism and racism and explained that fascism is rule by force. [See Challenge comment below.] For example, I think the use of metal detectors is an example of fascism in our school. Then I asked the students, could they give me any examples of fascism that they experienced.
A student asked, "Is it fascism when we get stopped by the police and frisked for no other reason than we are late to school?" I replied yes, that's another example. Another student said he heard the Columbine students who attacked the school were just angry because the athletes and others picked on them. I said that might be true, but the fact that they followed Nazi ideology is what led them to act out and kill their fellow students.
In discussing this conversation with my club, a comrade asked me if I had asked my students, "Why didn't anyone fight back against the gunmen?" I replied that I hadn't thought of that. In essence, the comrade was saying that by not asking this question, I was teaching my students to be passive, just as the teachers in Columbine H.S. had done in instructing their students to hide under the desks. When we teachers teach our students passivity, we are teaching them capitalist ideology which eventually leads to their deaths.
Capitalist passivity is so ingrained in us that I had not heard anyone anywhere mention even the idea the teachers could have risked dying fighting against these gunmen instead of dying under a desk. (Another comrade reminded me that in one of the previous school massacres, an unarmed student had tackled the gunman and disarmed him, thereby saving the lives of all his fellow students.)
Communists must develop themselves to always be on the offensive. Hiding under a desk is not an offensive approach. This is the same for teachers, bus drivers, hospital workers and the entire working class. I realize my responsibility as a communist teacher is to teach my students to fight back against attacks on our class, not to be passive and die.
High School Teacher
Challenge Comment: Under capitalism, the bosses rule with the carrot (band-aid reforms) and the stick (direct force). When the bosses' profits and ability to maintain their rule are threatened by the inevitable contradictions of capitalism and/or workers' rebellion against the system's oppression, they cast aside all pretense of "reform" and resort overwhelmingly to direct force. That's what they did in fascist Germany in 1933 under Hitler.
The articles about the bombings of Yugoslavia by NATO have been excellent. They are full of information and really explain what is going on there. All of us, both in and out of the Party, need to do everything we can to expose this imperialist war for what it is. We need to fight at every opportunity to build the communist movement so we can put an end to wars for profit forever.
As a teacher, I can visualize my students being forced to fight for the bosses in a few years when they turn 18. I can also visualize many of them being influenced by communist ideas to be part of a revolutionary movement within the army. The ruling class has these same visions, but to them this last idea is a nightmare. That's one reason that right away the two teacher union presidents came out with a statement supporting the bombing. They want teachers to convey the bosses' lies about this war to our students.
I was not in a position to do anything as dramatic as passing a resolution like they did in LA, but I did bring up the war in my teachers' caucus. Some teachers were interested in what I had to say, particularly that this war is about oil routes not "ethnic cleansing." However, the general feeling was that our caucus should not concern itself with issues such as this, that it would be too divisive because we had differing opinions. Still, after the meeting about half the people there bought Challenge and one teacher gave me $10.
We have plans to further discuss this issue with members of the caucus as well as other teachers at school. There will be a resolution presented at the next union meeting in opposition to the bombing and our union president's support of the war. Also, we have had many lively discussions among the students in my classes, and some of them are preparing a debate to present to other classes.
Teachers and students have nothing to gain and everything to lose from imperialist war. As long as we keep struggling, more will come to realize this.
Chicago Teacher
Every morning this week I've listened to the earnest radio voices urging me to do my part by pledging money to public radio during yet another of their endless fund raisers. "You know you depend on NPR for in-depth coverage every day. Pick up your phone and make that pledge. This station depends on you for over 50% of its budget. Isn't it time that you did your part?" On and on, the endless pitch.
I've never given those guys a dime in years of listening. If I was ever tempted, the sympathetic way they scold the Ku Klux Klan ("poor misguided souls") or the nauseating pro-war propaganda whenever the capitalist rulers need public opinion whipped up (such as now) pisses me off and I restrain the urge.
This time I was finally moved to action. My contribution to support Challenge---where I really find out the story behind the story--is enclosed. The bourgeois media like NPR, CNN, etc., outspends the working class press by about 100,000 to 1, but the workers outnumber the bosses and, thanks to the persistent work of comrades who create and report the news from the workers' viewpoint, our side will win in the long run.
A Reader
As quantitative changes bring about qualitative explosion, there comes a point when a minute change in either direction can bring about opposite results. This stage is highly unstable and short lived. In the long term, only one force emerges as the dominant outcome.
This is also the nature of world economic crisis of overproduction. This general crisis has caused deep, particular divisions in the traditional ruling classes of different countries. The war in Yugoslavia has brought these divisions among and within various sections of the ruling class to the front. The appointment of Chernomyrdin to negotiate with the U.S. was a reflection of the split in the Russian ruling class. Chernomyrdin himself a billionaire banker and oil man wants to revive the Russian economy with the help of IMF and western banks (German). The other faction of which Primakov is the present leader increasingly feels Russia can up-the-ante and challenge the U.S. based on the weakness of U.S. imperialism.
This crisis within Russian rulers make things complicated for the U.S. bosses. If they don't give the Chernomyrdin faction a chance by accepting some settlement in Yugoslavia, a more hostile Russia will emerge. These complications along with splits in Germany, Italy, Turkey, Britain and the U.S. itself, adds to a world where instability and uncertainty cannot last for a long time. In an interview with a German newpaper, Chernomyrdin was asked how Russia can compete with the west given that its economy is in such shambles, he replied, "It took Germany 20 years from 1939, we have only seven years." In either case, Russia and the U.S. are on a collision course. WW III may have already have begun.
Red Internationalist
I was fired last week, working as a book seller for $8/hour, my 6th raise in three years. I was fired because someone the bosses like provoked me and I responded. I had a reputation for not taking any crap from the supervisors and being an open communist. I had witnesses to the provocation but the firing took place anyway.
At first I thought that if there was a union there it wouldn't have happened. After all, when I was younger I had been in tougher, more political scrapes, leading workers to action, getting suspended for 30 days, getting phony evaluations by management and the union had been helpful.
But I've become clearer about the issue now. What I understand now in my gut are the questions: What right does any boss or any class of bosses have to fire anyone? Who are these wretches that they should, by law own my right to food, shelter, clothing and culture. The capitalist class must be eliminated as a class. Just as there is no such thing as a good cop, there is no such thing as a good boss. Do you think that these same bosses at this giant book store were not nice to me sometimes? Yes, they were. But the result was still the same.
But instead of being downtrodden about it I vow to fight that much harder to do my bit to eliminate this class of parasites from the earth. Such a travesty could not happen if communists ran things. Were it not for the PLP and Marxism-Leninism, I would not know that the solution to my problems and those of all workers is state power for the working class and leadership in the hands of the PLP. I only hope I see the day when communism is here. And whether I do or not I know for certain that communism is not dead, not so long as there are wage slaves like me.
New York Communist
Proposal for a National Campaign
Dear Challenge:
Don't Let your school become another Littleton
Kick fascists out of the schools
Do not allow swastikas or death threats
No free speech for Hitler-loving racists