Challenge Newspaper - Progressive Labor Party

Millions upon millions of workers and youth have been pouring into the streets in a series of megamarches for immigrant rights in large and small cities across the country. The working-class immigrants participating in these demonstrations honestly want to fight the racism they suffer in their daily lives in jobs that treat them like semi-slaves. But the leaders and organizers of these marches have something very different in mind.

The ruling class needs millions more troops to act as an oil-protecting army and millions of low-wage workers to produce the weapons of war in super-exploitative factories (and now Iran is on their hit list). They see these 12 million immigrant workers and youth as a huge source to fill their needs. So the liberal Democrats — Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Charlie Rangel, Al Sharpton, LA Mayor Villaraigosa— along with the Catholic Church, the corporate-supported Spanish-language media and union misleaders and even right-wing Republicans like John McCain who have spoken at and supported these marches are building this movement to spread pro-war patriotism (waving American flags, shouting "USA, USA." They want to create illusions that somehow they’re less racist than the gutter racists like Sensenbrenner and the Minutemen. The only difference between these liberals and the gutter variety is over how to best super-exploit immigrant workers and use their youth as cannon fodder in the endless imperialist wars they are planning.

These liberal rulers need pro-fascist social control of this work-force and their youth, which is why they’re backing the McCain-Kennedy bill which would put the millions of undocumented workers in a state of indentured servitude and to not "make trouble" for 11 years in order to become citizens. Deportation will be hanging over their heads for over a decade.

The liberals are more dangerous precisely because many workers and youth think they are their friends. But workers and youth must understand the hard lesson that if you rely on "lesser-evil" bosses to lead our battles, we will end up dying for them.

PLP’ers were able to bring revolutionary, anti-racist, working-class politics to these workers, distributing tens of thousands of leaflets and CHALLENGES. We must do much more to win these and all workers away from the deadly illusions of relying on their exploiters. (See reports on our different activities in various articles in this issue.)

CALIFORNIA, April 9 — On March 25, millions of workers and youth marched against the proposed HR4437 anti-immigrant bill. Two days later, tens of thousands of students walked out of school. Responding to this, the Schools Superintendent urged teachers to organize teach-ins about immigration reform and about students’ rights and responsibilities, although what he really wanted was to forestall another walkout. At many schools, teachers took this seriously and organized teach-ins. The following is a report about one of them.

As we entered, we saw a slide show with comments like, "Do you really know why you’re walking out?" "An injury to one is an injury to all." And, "How can building a wall bring us together?" interspersed with photos of past student walkouts, including those here on March 27.

The bosses’ mass media try to pit black workers against immigrants, blaming immigrants for higher unemployment in the black community. This assembly, organized by a group of mostly young teachers, black, Latino and white, placed immigration in a broader context. Pictures, movies and photos showed past student struggles, in the civil rights movement in the South, in the Chicano blowouts of 1968 and other student movements internationally.

The bosses try to limit immigration as just an "Hispanic issue." We watched a video clip showing African immigrants crossing into Spain. Someone said that as long as colonialism, imperialism, racism and capitalism exist, workers will migrate to places where they can survive. The immigrant in the video, risking his life searching for a better life, said he didn’t see himself as "illegal," but that the world is for all of us. Many students echoed his sentiments.

In two assemblies, a lawyer talked about students’ rights and how they would defend students who got tickets for walking out. Part of the assembly discussed the bills before Congress and explained about how the "lesser evil" McCain-Kennedy Bill would create a new bracero program, allowing immigrants into the U.S. temporarily, with no rights — its "long road" to legalization is more illusion than reality. They also analyzed the Dream Act which uses patriotism to push immigrant youth into the military.

The student comments were the most exciting part. Those who had walked out and marched downtown said it was their social responsibility, responding to the famous remark by Martin Niemoller, "First they came for the communist, I did nothing because I wasn’t a communist. . . .Then they came for me and there was no one left." One student said she had stuck up for a special-needs student facing attack by two other students, and linked it to the need for solidarity against all attacks.

This became one of the main themes of the debate — how does the working class improve its situation? Some students said they had to look out for themselves, that an education is the only way to get ahead. Others declared that it’s not enough to look out for yourself, that you have to fight for the working class. Students said they marched for their parents, who work their fingers to the bone.

About three-fourths of the students are Latino and one-fourth African American. Many are immigrants or the children of immigrants. A growing number are Afro-Belizeans. Some African American students repeated the bosses’ propaganda that blames immigrants for unemployment or overcrowding. But many more said it’s important that black and Latino students stick together against racism: "We all live in the same community. We all go to school together. We have to stick together to fight for a better life for all of us." Several students said it’s important for the whole working class to stick together and fight these racist attacks.

When some students attacked those who marched and demonstrated, saying their only responsibility was to get an education and get ahead, another responded by declaring she was proud to have helped leaflet with PLP in the big march downtown. Still another said, "As the youth of the working class, we have a responsibility to continue fighting and not be discouraged by the principals or the police or any consequences that would make us not want to fight in the future." She invited everyone to march on May Day.

This assembly will help all those involved to take more seriously the need to fight against racist attacks on immigrants and all workers. It will help our PLP club build for a great May Day, to help our class organize for revolution in the face of the bosses’ growing racism and plans for wider imperialist wars.

NEW YORK, April 1 — Tens of thousands of immigrant workers marched today across the Brooklyn Bridge to protest the racist Sensenbrenner Bill (HR4437), which criminalizes undocumented immigrants and those who help them. PLP’ers also marched, giving political class content to some chants, changing "The People United Will Never Be Defeated" to "Workers United;" and "Un Pueblo Callado No Será Escuchado" ("a Quiet People Will Never Be Heard") to "Quiet Workers Will Never Be Heard"). We also chanted "Las Luchas Obreras No Tienen Fronteras" ("Workers’ Struggles Have No Borders") among others. We also distributed 14,000 leaflets and 1,000 CHALLENGES.

Our multi-racial group provided a small antidote to the rotten nationalist politics of the Democratic Party hacks (Charles Rangel, Adolfo Carrión, Guillermo Linares, Nydia Velasquez, etc.) and the religious tone of some of the church leaders who organized the march (like conservative Democratic Party hack Rev. Ruben Diaz). We also called on workers to march with PLP on May Day, the international working-class day.

While the march showed the anger of millions of immigrant workers nationwide who want their dignity respected for the hard work they do (at very low pay), it mainly reflected illusions many of these workers have. The leadership pushed the politics of U.S. patriotism ("we’re all Americans"). Some banners read, "We Are Not Terrorists," insinuating anti-Arab racism. This is exactly what the McCain-Kennedy alternative Senate bill means: win immigrant workers to be docile servants of the main wing of the ruling class which needs them as cheap labor and cannon fodder in their endless imperialist wars.

The march consisted mainly of newly-arrived immigrants from Mexico and Central American countries. The lack of multi-racial unity was visible. There were small contingents of Asians and black English-speaking Caribbean immigrants, and a very small presence of Dominican and Puerto Rican workers, with South Asian taxi drivers honking support while the marchers crossed the bridge. But the 50,000 undocumented Irish workers in the NYC metropolitan area were missing, along with the many Haitian workers. The unions did nothing to mobilize their multi-racial membership. This lack of multi-racial unity played into the hands of the gutter racists like Sensenbrenner and the Minutemen, as well as the racists in the mainstream of the U.S. ruling class.

Our revolutionary communist politics must make a bigger inroad among these anti-racist marchers and among all workers, to break the hold these liberal and not-so-liberal racists have on these marches.

Why Liberal Warmakers Nailed ‘the Hammer’

By forcing Tom DeLay (Republican Congressman from Texas and former Majority Leader) to resign from Congress last week, the liberal Establishment weakened a serious hindrance to its war agenda. While the media focus on his shady deals with lobbyists and fundraisers, DeLay’s most grievous sin was obstructing U.S. imperialism.

To finance ever-widening military efforts, U.S. rulers require significant monetary sacrifice from all capitalists (in addition to the sacrifice of workers’ blood). DeLay, however, represented business interests just beginning to acquire wealth and power and thus unwilling to part with a penny of their profit for any reason. DeLay, himself the founder of an exterminating firm, championed tax cuts benefiting upstart bosses.

Dubbed "the Hammer," DeLay fought ruthlessly to slash taxes on capital gains (quick profits) and eliminate the estate tax. Whacking him hamstrings the petty capitalist voter base that helped put Bush in the White House and to which he still panders.

Following the Bush-DeLay cuts, federal tax rate trends today are well below 30%. Franklin Roosevelt hiked the top rate over 90% during World War II. Liberal imperialist JFK kept it there. With the Pentagon’s budget now soaring past a half trillion dollars, DeLay’s demise will have a big effect on future tax-policy votes.

Having failed to win a constitutional amendment against tax increases in 1998, DeLay spoke out against Clinton’s bombing of Serbia the next year. His faction saw the liberals conducting and planning increasingly costly warfare that would cut into its bottom line. When U.S. ground troops followed the bombers, DeLay became a prime mover in Clinton’s impeachment.

Three years later, insisting that the second U.S. invasion of Iraq be done as cheaply as possible, DeLay successfully led congressional forces urging early action with only 150,000 troops. The Establishment, including the Rockefeller-led Council on Foreign Relations and many top generals, had wanted a longer build-up to a more heavily-armed force of at least 300,000. DeLay is paying dearly for the Iraq fiasco.

DeLay is also atoning for peddling state power to anyone with a big enough checkbook, a practice the rulers can ill afford in wartime. They want the imperialist interests of J.P. Morgan Chase and Exxon Mobil steering the government, not the casino operators implicated along with disgraced DeLay lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Along with cracking down on lobbyists, the Establishment has tightened up campaign financing, to the DeLay faction’s disadvantage. By courting small-time bosses bearing big bucks, DeLay ran afoul of the McCain-Feingold law that strictly limits contributions by corporations and individuals. Jay Rockefeller had championed this bill in the Senate. Financing from liberal billionaire George Soros greased its passage. The law tilts the electoral balance back in favor of the Establishment, which can use the media, unions and other institutions it controls to push its candidates.

Hypocrisy hangs thick around McCain-Feingold. Rockefellers have personally purchased high offices ranging from the governorship of Arkansas to a West Virginia senate seat to the vice-presidency. U.S. Rockefeller wealth and influence has catapulted into power countless family protégés, like Kissinger, Carter and Clinton. Soros’ imperialist Open Society foundation has bankrolled pro-U.S. election candidates internationally, from Poland to the Ukraine.

The DeLay scandal forms part of a more general ruling-class housecleaning in Washington. Conservative Josh Bolten, a former executive at ultra-Establishment Goldman Sachs, has replaced Andrew Card as White House chief of staff. Treasury secretary Snow is thinking of quitting. Leading waiters-in-the-wings are bankers from — you guessed it — Goldman Sachs. Liberal Democrats, including a large contingent of militaristic veterans, are confident they can unseat DeLay-style conservatives in November’s congressional elections.

Emboldened liberals, says the Washington Post (4/5/06) "are doing the rain dance, whooping it up, high-fiving, backslapping, spiking the ball in the end zone. Tom DeLay's announced departure...is practically a national holiday." The New York Times’ April 5 editorial gloated over "The Fall of the Hammer." But DeLay’s trouble does not do the working class much good. It reflects a concerted effort by the biggest U.S. capitalists to discipline their entire class — even as they impose a police state on workers — necessary for intensifying (eventually global) military conflicts.

Like Germany’s Nazis in the 1930s, U.S. rulers need a war economy and single-minded war politics. We need to build a PLP-led communist movement that can survive this period of growing fascism and lay the groundwork for a wartime revolution.

Hundreds March vs. War Profiteer and Democrat Ally

PASADENA, CA., March 19 — "Parsons Profits, People Die — Stop the War!" chanted hundreds of area residents marching through the Old Town business district today, marking the third anniversary of the Iraq war. They targeted the Pasadena-based construction and engineering firm Parsons, whose huge contracts in Iraq include building new prisons there. Marchers also targeted the local office of Democrat Congressman Adam Schiff who has consistently voted billions for the war and who co-authored the USA-PATRIOT Act; he regularly gets large campaign contributions from Parsons.

Passers-by eagerly took leaflets and applauded as marchers chanted, "Old Town, Baghdad, New Orleans — Stop the Racist War Machine!" Leaflets distributed to the marchers by student members of "Students and Educators to Stop the War" explained that the "war machine" is imperialism; they linked it to the racist "immigration reform" proposals before Congress.

Predictably, media coverage focused on the four candidates running against Schiff who attended the rally. The tension between militant anti-imperialism and electoral politics led to some very good discussions — during and after the event — about the nature of the system and how to fight it. While many peace activists are still mired in the swamp of liberalism, it’s clear that many others hunger for the kind of analysis and direction PLP can provide.

CUNY Students Indict Karpinski As War Criminal

QUEENS, NY, March 20 — "Today I really felt like we were on the offensive," declared an anti-war CUNY student after PLP members and anti-war activists attacked Janis Karpinski, the commanding general at Abu Ghraib prison during the torture scandal.

Karpinski spoke at a panel on "Women and the Iraq War" sponsored by the Women’s Studies program at Queens College. Karpinski, one of the few women generals, took the fall for other officers higher in command and was demoted.

Although this may reflect sexism in the military, it doesn’t mean she’s innocent. Karpinski worked as a targeter for the bombardments of the Gulf War, and was the first woman to lead U.S. troops in a combat zone. She shares responsibility for the blood of 100,000 civilian Iraqi workers during the current invasion and occupation. She was also in command of 16 other Iraqi prisons. If she was anti-sexist, she’d be challenging the beheadings of unveiled Iraqi women by the "coalition forces" the U.S. military has established.

During her talk, some people stood up with signs, one reading, "There Are No Innocent Generals In Imperialist Oil War." Two young PL’ers disrupted her for several minutes, demanding she take responsibility for her actions and exposed her as a war criminal. They noted that she only publicly exposed the torture of Iraqis after she was demoted, and that most of these jailed "insurgents" are people who simply took a loaf of bread to feed their families or stayed out past curfew. Although some in the audience asked them to quiet down, many others nodded in agreement. As a result, during the question/answer period, some were able to confront her more directly. She actually ended up meagerly condemning the war as "illegal."

It’s not often we’re able to attack these people in this format, when we actually encounter the scum who’ve committed such abominable crimes. It was important not just because we exposed her to others, but also because we become stronger when we stand up against these criminals. One faculty member who held up a protest sign described it as "transgressive and exhilarating" to confront her. A student who attended the panel is now meeting with a PL study group.

Maybe next time we’ll get to give her a Fascist Of The Year award.

PLP Politics Needed To Win Immigrants Away From Liberal Fascists

Recently liberal organizers of the March 27 Los Angeles demonstration against HR4437 (Sensenbrenner anti-immigrant bill) announced plans for a follow-up boycott. This campaign to mobilize immigrant workers represents the liberal bosses’ need to win them, their children and workers in general to their imperialist and increasingly fascist agenda of war and "sacrifice for the good of the nation."

The capitalist media praises this misleading of the working class as the "rebirth of the civil rights movement." This push to win workers’ minds represents the intensifying contradictions for U.S. capitalists and an aggressive ideological offensive against the working class. While the recent nationwide demonstrations against HR4437 present the threat of workers being won to nationalism and the U.S. imperialist agenda, it’s also an important opportunity to turn the bosses’ offensive into a vehicle to spread communist ideas and build the Party now in every area.

It’s no accident that the follow-up "Great American Boycott" is set for May 1. We can expect the liberal bosses will continue to try steering immigrants away from our politics and into the military and low-wage factories. U.S. rulers want these demonstrations to emphasize the American flag and citizenship. Thus, they hope to follow Nazi Germany’s model of nationalism to mobilize for imperialist war. With the DREAM ACT, the McCain-Kennedy bill, a guest worker program (the "carrots" ) and the threat of the Minutemen and the Sensenbrenner bill (the sticks), the bosses plan to secure this source of cannon fodder and slave labor for their current and inevitable wars. But while the ruling class is keeping the focus of the recent demonstrations mostly patriotic and reformist, it’s a double edged sword.

The walkouts by 45,000 working-class high school students following the March 25 demonstration provide a good example of how the bosses’ mobilization of workers can produce unintended consequences, with opportunities to expand the reach of PLP and communist ideas. The students’ booing and heckling of the mayor’s attempt to cut their demonstration short — telling them to return to school — was not in the bosses’ plans.

Many workers and students are weary of capitalist politicians after years of broken promises, both here and their country of origin. For a large majority of these working-class students, as well as for many of their parents, these walk-outs and demonstrations represent their first conscious political acts. Their enthusiastic responses to CHALLENGE, PLP leaflets, and communist speeches in the streets indicate their revolutionary potential. They haven’t been won to a clear ideology; they’re among the most exploited members of our class, open to our leadership and winnable to our communist politics over time!

Many of these students will probably soon be in factories — one in four manufacturing workers is Latino. The 20% of all "undocumented" workers already in manufacturing are the parents of these students. This movement comprises mostly workers positioned to play a vital role in the rise and triumph of communism. It’s in their interest to smash the capitalist system that labels and treats them as "illegals." Cynics said they’d never come out of the shadows to fight, fearing deportation, but capitalism is proving once again that it creates its own grave-diggers.

But what are so many diggers without shovels? These demonstrations prove that the most exploited and oppressed workers will stand up and fight if they believe in the cause. But what will be their cause? This question defines the work PLP faces now. We must put communism onto the table. After all, they cannot fight for a cause they do not know.

How can we do it? First, we need to make CHALLENGE the mass media that gets them into the streets by building our distribution everywhere we can, with our friends and their friends, with our co-workers and their families. We also must continue to find and develop potential leaders, strong organizers who will build the Party; this means patiently finding ways to meet more and more workers, on the job, in the unions, and in some of the reform mass organizations involved in these demonstrations.

We should take advantage of the fact that millions of workers are talking about this issue. We can organize house forums and dinners to discuss immigration with co-workers and friends, exposing the capitalism behind racism and imperialist war. We can organize lunch-hour discussions and anti-racist committees in our factories, schools, churches and barracks.

Such committees could organize workers for the "Great American Boycott" on May 1, or for future demonstrations, dinners, house forums, or lunch-hour discussions mentioned above. There are many creative ways of carrying this out to expand the Party. We should seize this time of political tension and enthusiasm to bring communism to the workers, make new friends for the Party and win those who are already friends to become members.µ

A Red Industrial Worker
(son of immigrant workers)

ALL Workers Must Unite to Fight ALL Bosses

LODI, CA., April 4 — The ruling class is fighting hard for the hearts and minds of the working class here. There’s a "war-on-terror" trial, full FBI racism against the Muslim community, and falling wages and living conditions for immigrants and U.S.-born citizen workers alike. Lodi is part of California’s breadbasket. The battle over which immigration policies will best drive down wages in the fields is playing out in the Republican Congressional primary between current Rep. Richard Pombo (11th District) — who voted for the Sensenbrenner bill (HR4437) enforcing outright terror against immigrants — and ex-Congressman Pete McClosky who supports the "carrot" approach of the McCain-Kennedy proposals.

These political attacks have provided opportunities to spread class consciousness, anti-racism and internationalism. Communist ideas and practice are alive and well in Lodi.

At the planning meeting for the March against HR 4437, I described the demonstration against the Minutemen and arrests at Garden Grove, CA. A group of students from the University of the Pacific, and some unionists and a few retired union members were present. Eighteen people received the Anti-Racist Legal Defense Fund pamphlet. I discussed all the immigration bills, noting that even the McCain-Kennedy bill was aimed at bosses profiting from controlled, cheap immigrant labor ("guest workers"), with little offered to the workers.

The March 25th anti-racist march in Stockton was impressive and inspiring, uniting us as brothers and sisters. I made and carried on high signs saying, "Las Luchas Obreras no tienen fronteras" (The workers’ fight has no borders) on one side and "Obreros unidos jamás serán vencidos" ("The workers, united, will never be defeated") on the other.

The people around me were reading the signs and chanting them loudly. On a few occasions when passing restaurant and garden workers standing on the side of the march, the marchers broke into a spirited, "Las luchas obreras no tienen fronteras." The workers on the sidelines thrust their fists in the air and joined the chant. We were comrades; we were getting the message out.

The second chant produced disagreement. My friends — an Iranian, a Japanese language professor from Eastern Europe and a local activist — and I were chanting, "Obrera/os, unidos, jamás serán vencidos!" Other marchers behind us chanted, "El Pueblo unido jamás será vencido" ("The people, united, will never be defeated") or "La raza unida jamas seran vencido."

In conversations (and in a letter to the local newspaper), I was able to raise international and multi-racial workers’ unity. It’s better to invite WORKERS to join our fight, regardless of background. If you’re only inviting "La raza" (Latinos or Mexicans) to unite, you’re dividing your forces in trying to win battles against the rulers on the education or healthcare fronts. If you’re inviting "El Pueblo" (the people), this could include the exploiters (the oil bosses and the brass who make war in Iraq).

If our ranks are open to all workers (who produce all wealth), we become an invincible anti-racist force. Imagine our ranks swelling if we had had black healthcare and transit workers or Muslim farm workers from Lodi and the San Joaquin Valley, white construction workers and representatives from the oil workers in Iraq or Iran. We all join the Latin workers in OUR fight against all the racist immigration laws, whether carrot or stick, that attack all workers, each and every one of us.

Retired red

FBI Terror Trial

The FBI and local authorities put two Pakistani Lodi men on trial under the racist "Patriot Act." A local newspaper headlined, "Terror Deputy Living in Lodi? FBI informant testifies he often saw al Zawahri at local mosque." This claim was ridiculed by local Pakistani Muslims and even terrorism experts nationwide. "What would he be doing here? We’re Pakistani," said shop owner Mohammed Shoaib. "If there were an Egyptian speaking Arabic, somebody would have seen him." Most of the estimated 2,500 Muslims in Lodi speak Urdu or Pashto, two major Pakistani languages." We don't know what’s coming next. Maybe he'll say he saw Osama [bin Laden] in Lodi or Stockton."

There are fantastic tales of "training in terrorist camps": "An underground room in a different province of Pakistan where 1,000 masked men, including Americans, fired machine guns, swung curved swords and learned to pole-vault across bodies of water." The FBI’s terror campaign in the Muslim community here is using a high-paid informant ($217,000) as its main witness, and "confessions" made with coercion.

One juror, excused after a few weeks, "said outside court that the government had not proved its point and expressed skepticism about an alleged confession that a prosecutor described as the ‘meat of the case.’ Beyond a reasonable doubt — that hasn't been proven." (SF Chronicle, 3\22\06)

The FBI can’t even win "hearts and minds" in the ideologically-controlled atmosphere of the courtroom. They may succeed in railroading these two men, but seeds of doubt are everywhere, waiting for communists to harvest them.

Teachers Challenge Pro-War California Democrats

SACRAMENTO, CA., March 26 — Delegates at the annual convention of the California Federation of Teachers (CTA) got a lesson on the limits of liberal trade-unionism this year. CTA leaders organized a delegate march to the State Capital on March 24 behind State Treasurer Phil Angelides, a Democratic Party candidate for governor, for a thinly-disguised campaign rally. However, they totally ignored a march of thousands of workers for immigrant rights the very next day just a few blocks from the convention hotel. At least a dozen delegates joined this march on their own, but unfortunately no effort was made to organize a CTA contingent.

The CTA leadership typically uses up a lot of convention time promoting and endorsing Democratic Party candidates (and congratulating itself). This year a group of delegates, led by members of U.S. Labor Against the War, challenged the endorsement of incumbent Senator Diane Feinstein and several Democratic congressional representatives mainly because of their ongoing support for the Iraq war. To the leadership’s dismay, the convention voted to withhold these endorsements. However, important resolutions on "opposing exploitative immigration reform" and other anti-racist issues were tabled for "lack of time."

CTA events are very "democratic" in form, so it’s tempting to see them as a chance to "move the organization to the left" through the resolution process. However, the CTA — an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers — is fundamentally committed to working within the limits of capitalism and its bogus electoral process, which supports current moves for patriotism and wider wars. As members push these limits, the leadership will increasingly push back. For example, when a floor proposal arose to refuse endorsements to ANY candidate who supported the war, the leaders squealed, "We can’t do that!" and made sure it failed.

CHALLENGE readers who attend such conventions need to prepare more carefully to bring aspects of PLP’s analysis to other delegates, and to mobilize action around them. This opportunity exists every day at our own schools and campuses. It’s important for more people to be reading the paper; the potential for this exists.

If the union leaders’ reformism goes unchallenged, it consigns millions to a future of murderous imperialist war and racist exploitation. However, anti-war and anti-racist activists who read CHALLENGE can constitute the basis for a mass fight to destroy the war-makers with communist revolution.

Fight Racist Anti-Immigrant Occupancy Law

HYATTSVILLE, MD, April 10 — As millions march to fight national anti-immigrant laws, a fight has begun against a local version of xenophobia (fear of foreigners) in Hyattsville, an inner-suburban town outside Washington, D.C. The Hyattsville City Council, with visions of transforming the city into a yuppie-style "historic district," is trying to implement an "overcrowding" ordinance to prevent unrelated people from living together. The unspoken goal is to reduce the town’s growing Latino and African population by forcing unrelated roomers out of houses.

For six years, the multi-racial "Bridging Cultural Gaps" book club has met here and has taken up this issue. Club members have met with other residents, distributed hundreds of leaflets, and built opposition to the law at public hearings in every ward. The book club members are regular CHALLENGE readers and have discussed PLP’s ideas for years. Some will march on May Day.

Thirty years ago, Hyattsville was composed of white working-class families. It has become increasingly diverse with Africans, Latinos, black Americans and yuppies moving in, the former two groups often with large extended families and social networks. Yuppies control the City Council. They tried to pass this law under the radar screen, but word got out, and in January angry residents came to the required public hearing and denounced the bill. One worker took the floor to say that if it got passed, it would bring the Minuteman and she didn’t want that!

Now it appears that even the local newspaper is reporting that the Minutemen in Prince George's County are planning to expand into Hyattsville. One resident declared, "You warned us about this in January, and it's true!"

The book club invited CASA (Central American Solidarity and Assistance) of Maryland, which has played a big role in mobilizing the immigrant demonstrations, to help, but their organizer has done little, so the book club will continue to take the fight to the Council. The club is circulating a petition and leaflet demanding the City Council withdraw the bill. It must pass the bill a second time to become law, but people are determined to stop it by relying on Hyattsville’s multi-racial working class.

Last year, the City Council in Manassas, Virginia, passed a similar law, but was forced to withdraw it under fire from the local residents and an ACLU threat to file a lawsuit. In nearby Herndon, Virginia, there continues to be a big fight over a day-laborer center. The Herndon City Council established one despite efforts by the Minuteman chapter to stop it. But they continue to harass the day laborers. The Minutemen have recently expanded into Maryland and are harassing day laborers in Silver Spring, Maryland. They’re planning to start actions in Langley Park in Prince George’s County and will doubtless start action in Hyattsville if this bill passes.

By taking on these local racist attacks, the PLP can build a base in unions and communities to roll them back, and from this process build international, multi-racial unity. That’s the foundation to win the political leadership of these workers away from the liberals and nationalist misleaders who channel their anger into the agenda of endless Wars and Fascism.

[Photo]

Workers read CHALLENGE during march in Costa Mesa on April 1st. When union leaders led the chant "USA, USA!," others answered "Las luchas obreras no tienen fronteras" (Workers struggles have no borders) While Teamster Union leaders tried to keep them from speaking, nonetheless others (who we didn’t know) spoke attacking imperialism and the McCain-Kennedy bill as well as the Sensenbrenner bill. Many workers eagerly bought CHALLENGE.

Worker-Student Unity Forces French Rulers to Back Down; Struggle Continues

PARIS, April 10 — Workers and students in France won one of their main demands today when Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin announced that the CPE provision of the "law on equal opportunity" would be replaced with measures "to help minority youth get jobs." The CPE would have allowed bosses to fire young workers for no reason during a 24-month trial period.

This partial, temporary victory was achieved through active worker-student unity and militant direct action. It also has a distinct anti-racist character. Despite its "equal opportunity" name, the law is distinctly racist. The Movement against racism and for friendship among peoples (MRAP) said that both the CPE law and lowering the age of apprenticeship to 15 are intended to shunt minority youth into dead-end jobs. Virulently racist policies like this ooze from the capitalist system, because the bosses make super-profits both from the super-exploitation of minority workers and from the way this super-exploitation drags down wages for all workers.

The anti-CPE movement began on the mostly-white campuses, but in recent weeks increasing numbers of minority youth from the housing projects began joining the demonstrations. They were March marshals in the April 4 demonstration in Paris. This growing unity was one of the elements forcing the government to back down.

Student-worker unity was also a big factor. It put over 2.5 million protestors into the streets on April 4 only because of widespread worker support. More workers were joining the movement. The chief editor of the bosses’ newspaper France Soir observed that union leaders were prisoners of the rank and file, who wouldn’t allow them to cut a deal.

Student protest escalated, aimed at disrupting the economy. Highways and railroads were temporarily blocked in dozens of cities, as were two seaports, and Orly airport in Paris. The head of the French bosses’ association squealed that the student actions, combined with the effects of the November revolt in the housing projects, were endangering the French economy.

Students actively sought worker support, especially from the rank and file. They leafleted the Peugeot-Citroen factory in Saint Ouen. In Toulouse, 200 students demonstrated at a shopping center to protest the insecurity of part-time supermarket workers. And workers responded warmly.

Workers and students united to blockade the Airbus factory in Toulouse. On April 8 in Rennes, students blocked access to the Rennes-St. Jacques postal sorting station. When the police charged and violently dispersed the students, the postal workers walked off the job in a show of solidarity. The bosses’ media could hardly find a car driver or train passenger willing to condemn the disruptions.

The eight-week long struggle was inspiring youth and workers throughout Europe. Dozens of European trade unions sent solidarity messages to their French counterparts. French embassies were picketed as far away as Buenos Aires, Argentina.

But the bosses and their government see these events only as a temporary defeat. Capitalists here need more worker insecurity (the call it "job flexibility") to compete with their worldwide rivals.

But the only way for workers and students to win a real victory will be to break with the fake "leftists" and union hacks and turn the struggle into a school for revolutionary communism.

Both the unions and the student movement here emphasize that this reform struggle is not over. The CPE decree still allows small businesses to fire workers of all ages for no reason during the trial period. Students across France voted today to continue blockading their campuses until the government withdraws the whole law.

President Jacques Chirac looked ridiculous by simultaneously promoting the law while telling the government not to enforce it. The right-wing UMP party tried to get the student and trade unions to sell out in closed negotiations. In the face of rank-and-file multi-racial unity and worker-student unity, it failed.

Workers and young people in France learned — and showed the world — that the bosses’ attacks can be challenged. Now it’s necessary to develop communist leadership for the real victory, to destroy the bosses’ system.

Anti-Racists Hit Anti-Black, Anti-Latin Minutemen

MUNSTER, INDIANA, March 25 — About 35 black, Latino, Asian and white students and workers from Chicago and Indiana mounted a militant protest against the racist "IFIRE" organization, an Indiana affiliate of the racist, anti-immigrant Minutemen. IFIRE has been protesting a local bank’s giving loans to all qualified borrowers, which includes immigrant workers without official immigration documents. The anti-racists drew participants from a local Catholic church, students and workers from Chicago, including PLP members, and students from Indiana colleges. Our militant counter-protest completely neutralized the racists.

Most of the time we circled them with our signs, our chanting drowning out their message, distributing flyers exposing their racism while calling for working-class unity. A scuffle broke out over a racist sign one of the IFIRE group was waving. He charged into the middle of our group and assaulted an anti-racist. Big mistake! After warning him several times to stop, the scuffle ended with him on the ground and getting treated for "cuts and bruises" by an ambulance crew.

But the importance of our protest goes beyond one racist getting what he deserved. The 35 anti-racists got to see just how racist these anti-immigration groups really are. IFIRE’s website and literature claim "It’s not about race," but their language was viciously racist against Latino and black working-class people. After the event a local campus group received a threatening e-mail from one of the IFIRE members filled with racism against black people. It linked to a neo-Nazi website with a cartoon joking about a black man being shot in the head.

The anti-immigrant forces are not "about jobs" but about racism. These groups are allied with hard-core Nazis and use this issue to expand their fascist base. The biggest Nazis, the liberal super-rich capitalists, will use these groups to attack all workers as their crisis worsens.

In addition, many of our anti-racist protestors — for the first time in their lives — participated in a face-to-face militant protest against fascists. It was an important experience in training our forces for bigger battles to come on the road to communist revolution.

This process is putting theory into practice; it is one of building multi-racial unity, including between black and Latino workers. The capitalist media is working overtime to try to turn us against each other in every possible way. It is also a process of building trust, of learning to organize and of actually fighting back. The demonstration accomplished all this and strengthened the anti-racist movement and the PLP.

We’re all enthusiastic about organizing similar actions and expanding our movement by bringing a large group to our May Day celebration this month. We must and will combine long-term base-building, militant action and careful organization to forge a revolutionary communist movement to destroy forever this capitalist system of racism and war.

Cold War 2:

Russia, China vs. U.S.

In last issue’s article, we noted that Russia’s ruling class was not the first in history to commit political suicide when it allowed the former Soviet Union to implode. The old state capitalist system that ruled there was not useful for the Russian bosses. They needed to eliminate whatever gains Soviet workers had retained from the communist-led era. After Yeltsin and his mafia almost blew away the new plan, becoming a servile lackey of the U.S., Putin and his gang took power and began turning things around.

Russia still has a lot of problems — a declining population, turmoil in Chechnya and so on. But in recent years the Russian economy has significantly recovered: registering budgetary surpluses for five consecutive years, accumulating foreign-currency reserves of $180 billion, making its debt repayments ahead of schedule and beginning to integrate into the world capitalist economy.

Accompanied by an entourage of 1,000, on March 21-22 President Vladimir Putin visited China to launch "The Year of Russia In China," signing about 30 mainly economic agreements. China looks to Russia for supplies of arms along with oil and gas to fuel China’s rapidly expanding economy.

After meeting with his counterpart, Hu Jintao, Putin said a new gas pipeline system — the Altai — could be built to deliver gas from western Siberia to China. Another system would deliver gas from eastern Siberia, altogether totaling 80 billion cubic meters annually.

Russia has the world’s largest natural gas reserves and is the second largest producer of oil. It now supplies only 5% of China’s oil imports. The pipeline deal will enable China to achieve its target of doubling the proportion of gas in its total energy consumption in four years.

India is a key part of the U.S. bosses’ plan to weaken China’s growing power in Asia, so Beijing and Moscow are also trying to use their energy resources to woo India away from U.S. bosses. Last year, India was granted observer status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) of Central Asian states (dominated by China and Russia). An SCO meeting held in Kazhastan last year gave the U.S. a deadline to close its Central Asian military bases.

Last year, for the first time in many decades China and Russia held joint military exercises on China’s coast, as a warning to Taiwan’s rulers; Beijing still considers Taiwan part of China. Russia and China plan similar exercises next year on Russia’s southern border (the Caucasus).

As stated in the last issue of CHALLENGE, U.S. bosses have begun to react against Russia and China with what many are calling a New Cold War. So 16 years after the implosion of the Soviet Union, the "peace era" championed by many apologists for world capitalism has turned into endless wars, from Iraq to Afghanistan to the Congo to the Balkans to the Caucasus. The super-exploitation of workers worldwide has increased.

We in PLP must redouble our efforts to show workers and youth that as long as capitalism exists, "peace" means death and wars for workers. The only road out of this imperialist hell is to rebuild the international communist movement and fight for a world without any bosses, from Beijing to Washington to New Delhi to Moscow.

LETTERS

CHALLENGE Articles Internationalize Class Struggle

The letter on "Developing Writers for Challenge" did exactly what it talked about doing: helping workers from all countries realize that the struggle for communism is international. It also explained the importance of writing about our struggles so we all can learn from them.

I’ve been struggling with my co-worker, Chris, about reading the paper. He’s been receiving it for a while but I had a hunch that he wasn’t really reading it. So I tried something new. An article from our Salvadoran comrades seemed like the perfect thing to show him. When I asked him what he thought, he asked, "They have this over there?" I said, "Yeah, we’re in a lot of countries. In different languages, too." I’ve told Chris that before, but until he actually read it in the paper, it never really set in.

Writing for the paper is essential, just as our comrade said, not only because it helps other workers realize the struggle for communism is international but also because it helps us become better communists by writing about our activities and therefore better understanding them.

The way we write for the paper is also important. I’m glad to have seen these comrades writing more because Chris and I thought the style was very good. We hope to see more articles like this in the future.

A Red industrial worker

Fantasy Stories Aid Children’s Imagination

Concerning the column on how children will be raised under communism (CHALLENGE, 3/15), the author contends that capitalism teaches children to enjoy fantasy and that under communism children will be taught about the objective world. I don’t think reading fantasy is bad. I believe it helps children develop their imagination. My nephews are big fans of the Harry Potter books, which is not all that bad.

Some fascist Christians claim these fantasies teach magic and witchcraft. But most young people who read fantasy understand it’s just that — fantasy. I myself read fantasy novels and watch the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings films.

Actually I was the only working puppeteer in the coal fields for years and have had a lot of experience entertaining children. My show, "The Wacky Woods Puppet Theatre," played in elementary schools, church festivals, Christmas and birthday parties, women’s shelters, hospitals and a detention home. It was based on fantasy with a message and also relied on, and encouraged, the children’s participation. Most of my hand puppets were animals but I also had two witches. I wrote the story of many of my shows but also did "Hansel and Gretel" and Dickens’ "Christmas Carol."

I often thought puppeteering would be my job preference in a communist society. I would base my shows on fantasy with a good message, such as the need for cooperation, anti-racism or respect for handicapped people. I really love to entertain children; they make the best audience and are so enthusiastic about it all.

I think fairy tales will always be around. Perhaps new ones will emerge and children will enjoy them. Other than that, I thought the column made good points.

Red Coal

CHALLLENGE COMMENT The editors of the UNDER COMMUNISM column respond: We agree in general with the writer and apologize for putting down fantasy without qualification. This was partly a reaction to particular fantasies, such as the get-rich-quick of Cinderella and the underlying racism of The Lion King, etc. Fantasy and imaginative play among children has a useful role in children’s learning about the real world and about relationships. It can also have a useful role among adults, if only for relaxation and recuperation. It’s mainly when fantasy is presented as reality or contains racist, sexist or patriotic (nationalist) messages that it harms the working class — children and adults alike.

Aim Agitation at Communist Consciousness

As CHALLENGE said in response to my letter, "Selling Communism," (3/15), what’s needed most of all is for more readers writing what they think communism is. I’ve tried to promote this discussion. Frankly, I feel a little over my head and want to know what others think.

As CHALLENGE says, organizing must be focused around industrial workers and the military, and that allowing the capitalists to continue taking more and more surplus value (in the form of reduced wages, benefits and jobs) without a fight would be disastrous. I’m not for abandoning industrial concentrations or for not fighting layoffs. I am suggesting that agitation be more deliberately aimed at creating communist consciousness and a spirit of internationalism. "From each according to commitment, to each according to need" should be primary everywhere in political work. As CHALLENGE has written numerous times, revolutionary ideas won’t just grow spontaneously.

I think it was important that CHALLENGE’s response clarified how bad things are for most U.S. workers. I kind of overlooked that, though I completely agree, in the course of describing how bad things are for others worldwide. However, in no way did I try to say that U.S. workers, or any other workers, benefit from imperialist war. That’s a big leap from saying that we must do more on behalf of others, or that some of us are spoiled.

However, my generation grew up in the post-WW II era learning that we should not, as a class, stand idly by while others are attacked, wherever and whenever. This doesn’t mean that PLP is not trying to arouse us to stand up to the capitalists, which it is and always has. It just means that, in my opinion, we could encourage a different emphasis in regard to internationalism, stressing an all-for-one-one-for-all loyalty that is sorely lacking in the world.

I did not say that communists would just appear out of the blue. I agree totally that cold-blooded, careful, long-term, professional planning and assessment is the only way to recruit a mass and invincible revolutionary party, if that’s what’s being suggested.

Red Rider

Pink’s New Song A ‘Breath of fresh air’

Today, in a capitalist society so horrendously sexist and degenerate that the song "My Humps" by the Black Eyed Peas is regarded as merely the latest straw in a field of poisonous wheat, a little of cultural anti-sexism manages to squeeze through. Compared to the constant objectification of women that’s a centerpiece of most music videos, this year’s February single by Pink, entitled "Stupid Girls," is a badly-needed breath of fresh air.

"Stupid Girls" is not what its title might seem. Pink is not calling women and girls stupid; she’s calling the sexist, superficial society surrounding them stupid. The video opens with an impressionable little girl sitting in a TV recliner, while in the ether around her an angel appears by one side of her head, a devil on the other. The girl switches on the TV, and the video shows us what’s wrong with society’s treatment and portrayal of women. This is pretty daring for a mainstream music video.

At the video’s conclusion, the "devil" element, presumed to have been advocating all of the above, is vanquished by the angel. Ultimately, the little girl decides that instead of playing with dolls, she’ll play football and learn music, rejecting the other sexist elements.

The song is not much more than an indictment of superficiality. Instead of advocating the collective unity of workers to fight sexism, it follows the dominant line of individualism, only this time it’s in the form of "independence" from "stupid things" and concentration on a career, on deeper personal fulfillment and on developing intelligence. These goals don’t challenge the system. You can be an individualist and still believe them. In fact, Pink’s song is in many ways akin to the many forms of ethnic nationalism that also recognize the awful superficiality of capitalist culture, but approach the solution on an idealist "get-back-to-your roots" level.

Still, this single is a mainstream example of even a moderately anti-sexist message, and perhaps just as importantly, a pop tune that briefly made it into the Top 20 as well as produced a pretty well-done video — meaning it has been, and will be seen by a wide variety of people, including, most likely, many of the working-class people we want to recruit to PLP.

Young Red

On the March 25^th Immigrant March in Los Angeles

I invited some fellow workers to the march, Asian workers who speak Spanish. We translated some signs from Spanish into mandarin Chinese, saying, "Asian, Latin, Black and White, Workers of the World Unite." We've known these workers for several years and today was a great opportunity to develop a sharper political struggle with them.

I also won my brother's respect who's opposed my political ideas. I was greatly surprised that he was organizing his co-workers. He called to ask me for leaflets which we passed out at his shop. Several of his co-workers went with us to the march. The consistent work over several years brought good results.

Since then we've discussed the actions. I'm learning that political struggles always have some positive results. Soon we'll meet to plan to get even closer to these and other Asian workers.

PLP garment worker

I was impressed with the number of people at this march. I had never been in something like this. My group totaled 12 people. It was important that they are part of my communist political base.

Among the signs we made the most popular said, "Workers United will never be defeated." Our group led chants like "Las luchas obreras no tienen fronteras" (Workers' struggles have no borders.)

A comrade

It's three days after the march and I'm still in shock at the responsibility I took. For the first time I led a group by myself. When I arrived at our meeting place, there were about 30 people who came from a leaflet handed out by a group of garment workers. First I wanted to leave, but instead I welcomed everyone and gave a speech about why workers are forced to immigrate, distributing a few leaflets and practicing a few chants.

Then our group rode a public bus to Los Angeles. On the bus were more workers headed to the march. I gave them leaflets and talked about the march.

At the march many things happened that caused me to think revolution is possible. The workers saw each other as class brothers and sisters, helping each other with children, sharing water and food. We tried to stay and shout the same chants together. The most surprising thing was the reaction of the people.

On our return ride, we chanted "Long live the Workers of the World!" and people chanted back, "Que vivan!" With a lot of mutual confidence people were inviting others to dinner. There were fellow workers from China on the bus, with signs written in Chinese saying, "Asian, Latin, black and white, workers of the world, unite!" I invited them to May Day.

Garment worker

Today is a great day to be immigrants! Better still, to be a member of PLP!

This march in LA on March 25 has been an emotional day of personal and community growth with so many people united to demonstrate against the fascist anti-immigrant laws! Today all the immigrants of the world, with our politics, were represented here, when immigrants in the U.S. confront the world's most powerful and fascist bosses.

It was very inspiring to witness the masses' anger, going beyond the bosses' leadership. The call was for 10:00 AM but people started arriving the night before. By 8 AM 100,000 people were assembled.

At other times our club, friends and families have participated as a group, but this time every member gave leadership in his or her community. This was an important step for personal leadership development. Generally as a group, we tend to depend on decision-making by one or two people. But this time each of us put into practice what we've learned and took leadership, even if previously we doubted our ability to do so. We're leaders of PLP who know that the truth of the working class is universal. A leader who has the truth on his/her side will always find support for slogans that advance working-class struggle, like "Workers of the world, unite!"; "La Clase obrera no tiene frontera" ("The working class has no borders"); "The workers united will never be defeated." These truths unite and invite class struggle. Today we gave leadership to massive groups of immigrant workers who easily identified with other workers in their same struggle.

Today, although alone, we went as leaders and more than ever as PLP members who moved many workers to the line of class struggle we proclaimed.Congratulations to immigrant workers! To Workers of the world! To PLP!

PLP Marcher

CHALLENGE comments: The comrade's enthusiasm and actions are inspiring. A note of caution, however. While immigrants marched against racism, some of the most powerful and fascist bosses in the world are encouraging these marches for their own imperialist ends. Along with uniting with angry workers in struggle, we need to warn them of the plans of the biggest imperialists who are actually calling for more of these marches. Of course, their slogans are "si se puede" ("Yes, we can do it") — reform capitalism — and "USA! USA!" At our actions, we need to explain what these bosses and their friends in the media, including the Spanish-language media, have in mind.

‘North Country’ Exposes Oppression of Women, But Not Its Source

It’s been 30 years since the first class action sexual harassment case and the same super-exploitation of workers still exists. The bosses use racism, sexism and nationalism to divide workers and weaken their ability to fight back. "North Country," recently released on DVD, starring Charlize Theron as Josey, follows the true story of Lois Jenson, a leader in the fight against sexism in Minnesota’s coal mines. The movie traces her exodus away from an abusive husband, to her parents’ house in a mining town. Against her coal miner father’s wishes, Josey gets a job at the mine.

There she’s confronted with sexist co-workers. The hostility towards the women miners takes the form of numerous acts of harassment and even sexual assault. When Josey challenges the boss about the situation, she’s fired. She takes her case to court and pleads for support from her female co-workers. The movie ends with an emotional courtroom scene in which Josey’s family and both female and male co-workers stand up for her.

Capitalism creates the sexism that Josey and many other women face. In the movie, this manifests itself through the special oppression of women workers, abusive personal relationships and harassment at the workplace. The capitalist need for maximum profits drives the bosses to super-exploit some workers to isolate them from the rest. They do this also by driving down wages of some workers which impels other bosses to follow suit to compete.

In the movie, the women were divided from the men and paid less. This leads the men to react with, "They are taking our jobs." In 1975, the time of the Lois Jenson story, when jobs in Minnesota mines became scarce, hostility towards women worsened, blaming them for job cuts.

Josey experienced sexism all her life — raped at 16 by her high school teacher, later beaten by her husband and then harassed on the job. Abuse is used to terrorize women and prevent them from becoming powerful working-class leaders. In Josey’s case, it prevented her from connecting with her father, one of her co-workers. Josey, like the women employed in sweatshops at the border (maquiladoras), was degraded by being forced to get a pregnancy test as a job requirement. The bosses don’t want to hire pregnant women.

In "North Country," the bosses use sexism to divide the workers, just as they use racist deportations and nationalism to divide immigrant and citizen workers. Similar to the current "solution" offered immigrant workers, the movie says reliance on the capitalist government and the courts will somehow eliminate racism and sexism.

Josey’s lawyer disagreed with her desire to take the boss to court, saying, "It’s an illusion to think all your problems will be solved in the courtroom; the reality is even when you win you don’t win." Similarly, even if workers defeat the anti-immigrant bills, the bosses will still use racism and terror to weaken the working class and divide it to stop a united fight against our true enemy, capitalism.

In the final courtroom scene, Josey’s lawyer says, "What are you supposed to do when the ones with all the power [the bosses] are hurting the ones with none….You stand up and tell the truth, you stand up and help your friends; even if you’re all alone, you stand up."

The workers certainly have great potential power, but we must organize with other workers to stand up together against the bosses. CHALLENGE is our truth and we need to share it with the rest of the working class. The world’s workers are our friends; we must stand up and fight with them for communism!

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

Liberal author says layoffs terrible, but…

The layoff, Mr. Uchitelle argues, has transformed the nation. At least 30 million full-time American employees have gotten pink slips since the Labor Department belatedly started to count them in 1984. But add in the early retires, the "quits" who saw the layoffs coming, and the number is much higher….To Mr. Uchitelle, layoffs in one way are worse than the unemployment of the 1930’s. At least then, most of the jobless came back to better-paid, more secure jobs. Those laid off in our time almost never will….

The heart of Mr. Uchitelle’s book is his detailed, wide-ranging reporting. He is present, taking notes, while….One mechanic ends up running a water taxi for tourists. Another goes into maintenance. Others find jobs "throwing boxes" at Federal Express….

It nettles Mr. Uchitelle that even the center-left politicians have said so little about this trend — or have done so little to stop layoffs….Mr. Uchitelle particularly blames Mr. Clinton….

In this retelling of American history, Mr. Uchitelle is baffled by the collapse of any serious resistance to these mass layoffs….

Still, in a brief concluding chapter, it is unclear whether Mr. Uchitelle sees any good solutions now… (NYT, 3/29)

Sellouts didn’t work: GM jobs down 75%

What if you could go back in time and show union workers and leaders that since 1985, the number of hourly factory workers at G.M.’s American plants would fall to just 113,000 from 457,000?....

Giving new meaning to the term "labor-management cooperation," union leaders and General Motors executives joined forces years ago. However unwittingly, they have been working hand in glove ever since to wreck the place. Bringing G.M, to its knees is a big job, after all, and neither side could have done it alone….It’s enough to make you wonder if we might have been better off with more old-fashioned labor strife. (NYT, 4/2)

US paid Latino thug to ‘fight communism’

A…Judge in Miami found a former Honduran Army colonel responsible for killings and kidnappings in Honduras during the 1980’s and ordered him to pay $47 million to several torture victims and surviving relatives of the dead. Judge Joan A. Lenard found that the colonel, Juan López Grijalba, served as chief of an intelligence unit known as Battalion 3-16, which received money and training from the United States. The unit, organized as part of the Reagan adminstration’s effort to stop the spread of Communism in Central America, was responsible for systematic abuses against civilians suspected as subversives. (NYT)

US-Euro imperialists trap Africa in poverty

To the Editor:

The World Bank, controlled by its United States and European majority, helps trap Africa in its low-growth role as exporter of raw materials, and the worst poverty is found in refugee camps created by civil wars against thugs who were armed and aided in return for cooperation with American military, covert and mineral operations: Savimbi in Angola, Mobutu in the Congo, Doe in Liberia, Barre in Somalia and Nimeiry in the Sudan. Today’s American aid to regimes that cooperate with the "war on terrorism" plants the seeds for the civil wars, and the poverty, of the future. (Caleb Stewart Rossiter, The writer teaches in the School of International Service, American University) (NYT, 4/2)

GI’s go to Canada to escape Iraq service

Hundreds of deserters from the US armed forces have crossed into Canada and are seeking political refugee status arguing that violations of the rules of war in Iraq by the US entitle them to asylum. A decision on a test involving two US servicemen is due shortly and is being watched with interest on both sides of the border. At least 20 others have already applied for asylum and there are an estimated 400 in Canada out of more than 9,000 who have deserted since the conflict started in 2003. (GW, 4/6)

Liberal Mass. health plan will rob workers

To the Editor:

The new health insurance law in Massachusetts is in effect a new tax on what should be as free as public education. It forces individuals, by government decree, to put dollars directly into the pockets of insurance and drug companies and H.M.O.’s.

The fear of "socialism," in the form of single-payer health insurance — something most working Americans favor — is the excuse politicians use to protect the profits of their big business contributors. The so-called compromise touted by Massachusetts legislators shortchanges working people as usual.

That "government subsidies to private insurance plans will allow more of the working poor to buy insurance" is an outrage. People who by definition are poor will be force by law to spend some of their small income on what a civilized society should guarantee them as a right.

Not good enough… (NYT, 4/9)

Hard Struggle And Shedding Illusions The Road To Communism

The CHALLENGE series, "Under Communism," has produced a number of instructive, thought-provoking articles. The ones devoted to the forging of communist class consciousness in the heat of class struggle are particularly useful and inspiring.

Among the best are the pieces about the achievements and ordeals of Soviet women pilots in World War II, revolutionary upsurge in post-World War II Poland, and the elimination of syphilis, prostitution and schistosomiasis in China. These stories and the political lessons flowing from them belong to working-class history. Future generations of communists can learn invaluable lessons from them, and the series has made an important contribution by setting the record straight.

However, some of the other articles — "How will we eliminate racism?"; "How would disasters from hurricanes like Katrina be avoided?"; "What will prisons be like?"; "What will science be like?"; "Will you have your own toothbrush?"; "How will children be raised?"; "How will we achieve and maintain economic equality" — could unwittingly lead to dangerous illusions about the conditions likely to prevail for a long time while the worldwide revolutionary process unfolds.

The objection here is less to the points these articles make than to the ones they don’t make. Discussion of the above questions must account for the character of the present period and the strong likelihood that the foreseeable future holds many years of turmoil, war, class struggle and destruction. These are the conditions under which the revolutionary process will unfold and under which masses will be won to communist consciousness and to our Party.

History teaches us that communist revolution occurs in the wake of imperialist war, which produced the Paris Commune, the Bolshevik Revolution and the Chinese Revolution. Even the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution erupted during the so-called "Cold War" and U.S. imperialism’s anti-communist aggression in Southeast Asia.

We don’t yet fully grasp the implications of this history. The most instructive example for our future organizing should be the two wars the Soviet Union had to fight immediately after the October Revolution in 1917. The first, often called the "Civil War of 1918-24," had an important component of civil war: the former capitalists and Czarists within Russia tried to smash Soviet state power. More pointedly was the support these counter-revolutionaries received from 17 capitalist countries that had just finished fighting each other in World War I. All these capitalists united to invade the fledgling U.S.S.R. and, as Winston Churchill said, to "strangle the infant in its cradle." This "War of Intervention" failed miserably, but it had created enough disease, famine and violence to cause 4.5 million working-class deaths.

The "infant" survived, and the Soviet working class proceeded to build socialism, with all the triumphs and errors our Party has frequently described. The world’s imperialists didn’t give up. They allowed and helped a defeated Germany to re-arm with the specific mission of succeeding where the "War of Intervention" had failed. The bosses of Britain, France and the U.S. viewed Hitler’s main job as the destruction of Soviet socialism. But Hitler double-crossed his pals, leading to a two-front European war, which overextended the Nazis. Nonetheless, 80% of Hitler’s armies were engaged on the "Russian front." The main casualties were 27 million Soviet working-class dead and millions more wounded.

We must remember this history when discussing fighting racism, building a penal system, reacting to natural disaster, distinguishing between individual and social property, raising children, advancing science or promoting economic equality under communism. It will be a long, long time before we can remotely conceive of accomplishing any of these goals, absent periods of raging class struggle and war. This series doesn’t explicitly deny this estimate. But it barely mentions it and therefore seriously miscalculates it.

Let’s imagine a scenario for revolution in the U.S. Suppose that over the next 10-20 years, U.S. imperialism becomes further embroiled in a military occupation of the Persian Gulf. The bosses will be forced to restore a military draft. The wars will widen, and the destruction and casualties will eventually far surpass even those in Vietnam. The rulers will need a much sharper police-state crackdown domestically. Class struggle will erupt in the teeth of fascist repression. Our Party will learn to recruit and to grow under far more challenging political and physical conditions than we face currently. Simultaneously, antagonisms will drastically sharpen between the U.S. and all other imperialists. These contradictions will lead to armed struggle, eventually pitting U.S. bosses against virtually all the others, led most probably by the Chinese, Russian and European blocs. It’s difficult to see how this Third World War could avoid a nuclear confrontation.

We can’t predict the timing of this scenario. It may not be imminent, but is on a somewhat distant horizon, and the bet here says it’s inevitable. But we’re only discussing the conditions most likely to lead to revolutionary upsurge and the potential seizure of power in the country we now call the U.S.

Suppose the Party recruits millions under these circumstances, during mutiny within the military and revolutionary class struggle on the home front, establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat here. This will occur amid economic devastation and destruction. People will have to learn to share, to fight racism, to punish counter-revolutionaries, to raise children, to advance scientific knowledge, and so on, under wartime conditions that have never prevailed in this country and are likely to last for years.

This period will probably be that long because making revolution and seizing power will be just the first of many arduous challenges. The hardest part will undoubtedly follow. Suppose we succeed under these conditions. How will the bosses of other countries react to Proletarian Dictatorship in the U.S.? History teaches us to expect another, probably far more destructive version of the "War of Intervention" in Russia mentioned above. So we would have to prepare mentally, politically and practically for an era of war, revolution, counter-revolution and international armed struggle against counter-revolution.

None of the questions raised by our series "Under Communism" is irrelevant or unimportant. But we make a dangerous error if we imply that for a very long period ahead, the answers to them will come in any context different from the one sketched out here. As our Party often says, our job is not to warn about peace.

This estimate should not discourage us or make us pessimistic. Communists don’t fear the truth, and the truth is that the international class of imperialist rulers will stop at nothing to preserve its rotten, murderous profit system. The truth is also that history confirms the working class’s potential to take their best punch and turn it into its opposite. Workers will absorb and act upon the profound revolutionary lessons the CHALLENGE series correctly endorses. However, we must fight hard to shed all illusions about the conditions under which communist consciousness and power will develop. Struggle, sharp struggle, very far into the future, remains the crucible from which a new humanity and a new society will emerge.

Great opportunities await our class and Party. We have the potential to make the most of them, but only if we take full account of the challenges we will face.

UNDER COMMUNISM

How Will We Achieve and Maintain Economic Equality?

Part III of three parts: The Abolition of Money and Wages

"Money is the root of all evil" might better be said, "Money and wages are the roots of all evil."

Money developed as a means of exchange in early markets, where craftspersons or farmers sold their products and then wandered elsewhere in the market to buy food and other things they needed or wanted. This presupposed that each transaction involved equal amounts of value. Money permitted fairness in each exchange. However, simultaneously over time, money lent itself to unequal accumulation by some people at the expense of others.

But Marx discovered one type of transaction in which value was not exchanged equally, namely wages in exchange for labor power. He proved that the exchange value of labor power was different from the exchange value of the product of labor. The value of labor power was determined by the necessities of life that it took to keep the laborer alive and in shape to work every day. The value of the product of labor, on the other hand, was the value of what the laborer produced every day, which in general far exceeded the value of what it took to keep her/him alive and working each day. Marx referred to the difference between the two as "surplus value."

The swindle that Marx unveiled was that the capitalist employer pays the worker wages for her/his labor power and then seizes the product of that labor and sells it, reaping far more than the worker is paid. The difference is the capitalist’s profit, which is pocketed by the capitalist as pure theft of labor from the worker. The neutral word "profit" hides the underlying theft, and money keeps this robbery invisible.

Commonly, some of this profit is distributed to other capitalists in the form of interest to bankers for loans; to landlords for rent; and to the owners of raw materials or machinery necessary for the original capitalist’s production. Thus, many capitalists take part in this swindle of the original boss’s workers. (For a full explanation of this hidden swindle, see the PLP pamphlet "Political Economy: a Communist Critique of the Wage System," available at www.plp.org.)

If, under communism, people worked for the welfare of the working class as a whole — following the principle "from each according to commitment, to each according to need" — necessities of life could be distributed without money. Working people could go to a distribution center for food, say, and receive whatever the family needed. Their "payment" over the long term would be in the form of the labor each family contributed to the collective good, whether it be growing food, manufacturing, means of transportation, clothing, houses, etc., or providing some service such as health care, schooling, parks, etc.

Accumulation of money, acquired as wages, foils this collective attitude. PLP has identified the retention of wages in the Soviet Union and China as the chief factor that undermined the political resolve of the working class, focused workers on their own immediate income instead of on the welfare of the collective, maintained the basis for differentials among workers’ income, weakened their hold on power, and led directly to the return to capitalism. (See PLP’s "Road to Revolution IV" for a fuller explanation, available at www.plp.org.)

Today, members of PLP who write and edit CHALLENGE, sell the paper (below cost) at workplaces or in neighborhoods, organize meetings and demonstrations and carry out many other aspects of building a communist party, do so for no money. Under communism, those leading comrades who have to travel or meet frequently to sustain the overall development of society would receive no more than needed to sustain the average working person or comrade.

To summarize this series: (1) capitalism arose through massive theft and genocidal murder and continues these crimes against humanity to this day; (2) the solution to the poverty, starvation, sickness and misery produced by capitalism is collective ownership of productive wealth, not the redistribution of it in small packets; and (3) abolition of money and wages is necessary for the working class to hold on to political power once it is seized through revolution.

Of course, the economic development toward this goal is not automatic even when workers take power. In order to serve the interests of the working class, communists must fight to make these politics the property of the entire working class internationally, and even before the revolution is won.

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, April 12, 2006

Information: 12 April 2006 728 hits

Can't Fight Racism Relying on Liberal Rulers
MILLIONS PROTEST RULERS' RACIST ANTI-IMMIGRANT BILLS
LA STUDENTS IN MASS WALKOUT
Liberals' `Legalization'= More Exploitation
Anti-War Vets' March Backs Katrina Victims
Pentagon/Harvard `Humanitarianism' Kills, Maims, Terrorizes
Putin Flexes Old Muscle in Imperialist Dogfight
Detroit Teachers' Pay-Cut Racist Attack on Black Youth
GM `Restructuring' Follows Führer's Footsteps
2.5 Million March As Protests, Strikes Sweep France
Women Workers Face Great Job Insecurity in France
CONVERSATION WITH A WORKER OF THE WORLD
Immigration Struggle Sharpens Political Debate Among Workers
PLP Grows Out of March at Bronx Recruiting Center
Vets, Military Families Bring Anti-War Message to Multi-racial Community
L.A. Dinner Kicks off Planning for May Day
LETTERS
1. Guard Bars Katrina Evacuee From Home
2. Red Carpenter Goes To New Orleans
3. Clean School in 9th Ward Despite Legal Ban
4. Bring PLP's Ideas to Chicago March
5. Answer Anti-Immigrant Laws: `Destroy Border'
McCain Moderate? Or Pro-War, Anti-Immigrant Racist?
REDEYE
1. For imperialist schemes, US gov't lies
2. `Most murderous' junta backed by US
3. Led by Reds, they fought MetLife racism
4. More training = good pay? Not in US today
Movie Review
1. V for Venerating Anarchism
Chimps and Us: Does Human Nature Exist?
Under communism
1. How Will We Achieve and Maintain Economic Equality?

Can't Fight Racism Relying on Liberal Rulers
MILLIONS PROTEST RULERS' RACIST ANTI-IMMIGRANT BILLS

LOS ANGELES, March 27 -- "We workers have no country and no borders. What we have is our power to work and to fight together. That's why we chant "Este puño si se ve los obreros al poder" ("See this fist -- workers to power"). That's what one worker said as hundreds of workers took up this chant in the march of over half a million immigrant workers and their supporters here protesting anti-immigrant racism and the fascist Sensenbrenner bill (HR4437) -- which would make being undocumented a felony. Similar marches are occuring across the U.S.

The fact that marchers took up that chant while simultaneously waving U.S. imperialism's flag represents both danger and opportunity: we cannot underestimate the danger of the bosses winning workers to patriotism and imperialism, but we should not underestimate the opportunity to win them to communist revolution to destroy these evils.

Workers began assembling at 7 A.M. for the 10 o'clock march. Downtown was jammed. The march was built by the Spanish-language radio and TV stations, by the Catholic and other churches, the unions and by the English all-news radio as well. Many garment bosses encouraged workers to march, paying for buses and even marched themselves, since the Sensenbrenner bill would limit their access to immigrant labor, especially the low-wage undocumented workers, thereby reducing profits. Mayor Villaraigosa called for Congressional passage of the McCain-Kennedy bill (see "Liberals' Legalization = More Exploitation" box page 3).

A worker we'd never met took the bullhorn to explain to his fellow marchers the importance of the chant, "No sangre obrera por ganancias petroleras" ("No workers' blood for oil profits"), saying the bosses wanted us to die for their empire.

The anger of Latino workers overflowed in the streets, part of nationwide mass marches against the Sensenbrenner bill. But we should have no illusions -- the march was organized by the bosses and their agents who championed the McCain-Kennedy bill.

There was a wonderful and enthusiastic response to PLP's entire point of view. Using bullhorn rallies, we noted the importance of immigrant workers to the capitalists' economy, especially to its war machine. We said workers must reject not only the Minutemen but also the Republicans and Democrats and both HR 4437 and the McCain-Kennedy bill that would legalize slave-labor conditions. We called on workers to renounce as well the sellout union leaders who push confidence in the Democratic Party. We called on workers to fight for power through communist revolution, uniting with black and white workers and soldiers.

Their response to the truth that workers create all value and should run society in their own interests was electrifying. They eagerly grabbed over 9,000 communist leaflets and literally demanded all the CHALLENGES we had (unfortunately only about 900, including some older issues). They bought red communist T-shirts and asked to carry red PLP flags. This should give us confidence that in the factories, schools, barracks, unions and churches we can fight for the Party's communist line and that workers will respond -- more than we think.

When our PLP contingent joined the march, others helped carry our bullhorn and led chants. We continually linked the racist attacks on immigrants to the war. Young PLP'ers and their friends tirelessly led chants for four hours. When the leaders chanted "Si se puede," these youth added "destruir racismo...destruir imperialismo...destruir fronteras...destruir capitalismo." One worker we just met who helped then came to the PLP May Day Dinner that night.

Other comrades and friends marched in union and church groups and some in the general crowd took the initiative to lead chants. Some gave speeches. Other workers gladly helped lead chants, carry bullhorns and distribute literature. One worker said we were marching not just against the Sensenbrenner bill but also in honor of the thousands of workers who have died trying to cross the borders and the millions of workers worldwide fighting oppression and imperialism.

Then hundreds joined this speaker in the chant "las luchas obreras no tienen fronteras!" ("Workers' struggles have no borders!"). They also added to the leaders' chant of "Si se puede": "Contra muros y fronteras" ("Against walls and borders").... "Contra la migra y patron" ("Against the Migra and the boss").... "Contra la Guerra imperialista" ("Against imperialist war"). Workers exchanged phone numbers to stay in contact.

The liberal imperialist bosses are fighting for the hearts and minds of immigrant workers and all workers -- with U.S. flags, patriotism, demands to have supposedly less racist laws (which are equally racist -- see box right). No capitalist law will end racism because capitalism survives on racism. But it's also clear that these angry workers are open to our Party's line.

PLP has a unique opportunity now. Taking advantage of it means bringing CHALLENGE and all our ideas into the shops, schools and barracks. We should have had more leaflets and printed more CHALLENGES to reach out to angry workers hungry for answers. But to be decisive, that fight must be carried out in the workplaces.

We intend to ensure that the many workers who, in the last weeks, helped the Party fight the bosses' patriotism, racism and pro-war propaganda, regularly receive CHALLENGE. These workers and students can become the leaders who will help guarantee that our presence in future marches is more organized and bolder still. They can help build more CHALLENGE networks and a mass PLP.

LA STUDENTS IN MASS WALKOUT

LOS ANGELES, March 28 -- Today and yesterday high school students walked out of their schools all over LA and even in some suburbs to demonstrate at City Hall against the anti-immigration bills in Congress. They grabbed PLP leaflets and even old issues of CHALLENGE (we ran out of the current one). They wanted to talk about war, capitalism, and the politics of the anti-immigration drive. A similar militant high school walkout occurred in Dallas, where students stormed City Hall and were attacked by cops.

The fight against the racism suffered by immigrant workers is full of opportunities as well as dangers (since it is being led by liberals and the churches). But PLP can win many of these youth if we put forward our politics boldly, attacking racism in general and the liberals who are attempting to mislead masses of workers and youth into the rat hole of poverty wages and as cannon fodder in their oil wars.

Liberals' `Legalization'= More Exploitation

A recent LA Times editorial admitted that mass deportations -- as called for in HR 4437 -- would be "economically suicidal" because of the key role played by immigrant workers in the U.S. economy. In addition, U.S. imperialists need immigrants and their children as boots on the ground in their expanding oil wars. The McCain-Kennedy Bill, supported by Hillary Clinton, Villaraigosa and other Democrats, calls for a foolproof national ID, tighter border control, a long "road to legalization," and a "bracero" program (guest worker). Workers would have to prove their consistent work history, clean criminal record, take civics classes and pay large fines, facing deportation if they are unemployed for 60 days. It amounts to legalizing slave-labor conditions while pushing U.S. patriotism. Another bill the Dream Act calls on undocumented youth to enter the military or complete an Associate degree to get a green card.

Anti-War Vets' March Backs Katrina Victims

From March 14 to 19, veterans, military families, and hurricane survivors marched from Mobile, Alabama to New Orleans under the banner, "Every bomb dropped on Iraq Explodes Along the Gulf Coast." They found immigrant construction workers laboring under slave-like conditions in a newly-created company town. PLP members need to link the rulers' victimization of these workers, New Orleans residents and the Iraq war to their source -- the racist, exploitative capitalist system.

More than one combat veteran said the Gulf Coast's devastation reminds them or Iraq. Months after the storm; houses are flattened and crushed in the lower 9th ward neighborhood.

In many poor areas, especially black, Latin, and immigrant communities, working-class people and church volunteers were reopening schools, clinics and small businesses against police orders and with no help from the government or corporations. Some veterans visited sub-contracted relief workers -- immigrants mainly from Mexico and other Latin American countries -- forced to live in the company compound surrounded by armed guards. They pay $150 a month for a tent on a plot of dirt. The company pays workers in coupons which are only good at the company store. They're supposedly paid $10 an hour but receive $100 a day even if they work 14 hours. The company calls the immigration bloodhounds on those who challenge inhuman housing conditions or confront bosses about their pay. "It's slavery," said one Latino vet.

In one housing project, the mostly black residents returned to find the doors and windows on the lower floors locked behind steel. FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told people they erected steel doors to "protect the apartments from looters." But residents said the housing authorities have been trying to move them for years, and these doors might discourage them from returning. Still, most have returned and are planning to stay. FEMA handed over the keys but hasn't removed the barriers.

The first neighborhood marchers visited was a Vietnamese immigrant community. The streets are filled with trash. FEMA said they would collect the garbage but six months later, it's still there. Thirty years ago these Vietnamese immigrants came here searching for "the American dream." Now they're finding out that capitalism exploits workers the world over.

Wealthier communities affected by Katrina have largely returned to normal. In the French Quarter signs read, "Luxury Condominiums for Sale. Only 10 left."

On the last day protestors rallied in front of a high school taken back by community activists. Marchers, led by Iraq Veterans Against the War, chanted, "Make levees, Not bombs!" while pumping clenched fists in the air. At one point a military family member tried to get a few young Iraq vets to chant, "Stop Bush! Stop Bush!" They didn't. Instead they talked about how it was bigger than Bush, how it's about a whole system that only cares about money. One of those vets received his first CHALLENGE on the march.

Many displayed militancy but most participants flashed peace signs and anti-Bush slogans. Most of the organizations involved want to stop the war and rebuild the Gulf Coast by pressuring Congress to stop funding the war. One military family and a peace group urged their Congressman to back a bill calling for withdrawal in writing. The politician's statement supported the bill but made it clear that the military would be in the Mid-East indefinitely to protect U.S. rulers' interests. Still the group felt they could change his mind. PLP'ers and CHALLENGE pointed out that there is a capitalist ruling class and that this war is a neccesary part of this system, ideas otherwise largely absent from the event.

While many tied the war in Iraq to the situation in New Orleans on various levels, many veterans and survivors had racist and confusing attitudes towards Iraq's working class. One vehicle had a sign that read, "Abandon Iraq, Help the Gulf Coast." A college student summed up her feelings, "Iraq for Iraqis, America for Americans." A resident from the lower 9th ward said, "The Iraqis don't want our help. Fine. But we need help here." Two young survivors and college students disagreed. "Why can't we do both? Oh, but wait. That would mean we care about all people, not just Americans," one sarcastically remarked.

The fact is U.S. rulers are not in Iraq to "help Iraqi workers" but to seize the oil and murder tens of thousands of Iraqis who get in their way. The same Exxon Mobil and Halliburton bosses exploiting workers in the Middle East are the very ones profiting from the victimization of New Orleans workers.

One powerful event was a series of short talks by U.S. vets from WWII, the Korean War, Vietnam, the clandestine cold wars in Latin America, the Persian Gulf War, and the latest wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many still clung to the idea that Bush is exceptionally bad but many also clearly saw that wars for money preceded Bush. One vet was ten years old when the Korean War started and said the U.S. has been at war somewhere all his life.

Pentagon/Harvard `Humanitarianism' Kills, Maims, Terrorizes

U.S. imperialism kills, maims and terrorizes millions in its relentless, profit-driven wars. So when liberal spokesmen for the imperialists start charging the top brass with "human rights abuses," look for an ulterior motive. A NY Times editorial (3/23) about a soldier convicted of torturing an Iraqi prisoner decried that such abuse "was organized and systematic, and flowed from policies written by top officials in [the Bush] administration.... Virtually all high-ranking soldiers have escaped unscathed," the Times complained, "and not a single policy maker has been called to account."

On one level, the liberals are trying to use their hypocritical anti-terror crusade as a smokescreen for a purge. They seek to rid the Pentagon and White House of Rumsfeld-school "cheap hawks," who think U.S. imperialism can continue to function without a general militarization of society.

On a deeper level, liberal humanitarian hype reflects a broad effort, led on the academic side by Harvard, to make the U.S. war machine ever more lethal. In 1999, with the Clinton gang preparing the shift from air raids to ground warfare in Iraq, Harvard founded the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. Its mission statement reads in part, "the means of military intervention have dramatic implications for the security of civilians in the target country, the security of intervening forces, and the effectiveness of the intervention itself....The project aims to affect the way nations intervene militarily, making the use of military power more consistent with humanitarian principles."

Though completely committed to mass murder and inflicting unspeakable pain, Harvard's warmakers understand that highly-publicized atrocities like Abu Ghraib can sidetrack U.S. imperialism. Liberal strategists have said that securing the Middle East and its oil could require five million troops, perhaps soon. (See CHALLENGE, 2/1/06). But revelations of torture have damaged U.S. rulers' ability to undertake such an effort by boosting anti-U.S. sentiment in the Arab world, alienating potential allies, and, most importantly, weakening public support for the military at home.

Headed by Sarah Sewall, a deputy secretary in Clinton's Defense Department, Harvard's Carr Center works closely with the Pentagon to portray war criminals as missionaries. Last November, the Carr Center and the Army's War College co-sponsored a "human rights" conference in Washington that involved dozens of high-ranking killers from all four service branches. To help ensure that future atrocities will wear a humanitarian fig leaf in the media, Harvard invited representatives from the Times and the Wall Street Journal.

But despite its name, "human rights" is only a temporary concern of the Carr Center. Its ultimate, purpose, vows Sewall, is "to make U.S. use of force more effective." As a longer-term goal, Harvard, just as the Nazis did in Germany, is trying to win the public to value imperialist bloodshed over humanitarianism. The Carr Center and the War College have jointly revised the Pentagon's counter-insurgency doctrine in a document that awaits official approval. Anthony Cordesman spoke at Carr's November meeting about the home-front aspect of the new outlook: "It is critical that we honestly prepare the American people, the Congress...for the real nature of the war to be fought and prepare them to sustain the expense and sacrifice through truth, not spin."

The profit system itself, with its constant exploitation and endless wars, constitutes the greatest human rights abuse in history. As the atrocities unfold, we must not side with the liberals, who would manipulate our revulsion to serve the capitalists' war needs. We call on all workers and youth to repel the warmakers, from Harvard to the Pentagon, by marching with PLP on May Day to build the revolutionary communist movement that will destroy this nightmarish capitalist system.

Putin Flexes Old Muscle in Imperialist Dogfight

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev allowed the West German capitalists to swallow East Germany, refusing to employ the powerful Soviet army there to stop it. In 1990, Gorbachev told President Bush, Sr. that he wouldn't oppose a U.S. invasion of Iraq (then armed with Soviet weapons). In August 1991, Yeltsin completed the implosion of the Soviet Union, crushing an attempt to stop its dissolution.

The U.S. and European bosses claimed victory in the Cold War. It was "the end of history" according to State Department scribbler Francis Fukuyama-- U.S. capitalism would rule the world unopposed. Some said it was the first time in modern history where a ruling class surrendered power peacefully.

We in PLP disagreed. We saw it as a result of a section of the Soviet state-capitalist class deciding to go capitalist openly, ending whatever gains Soviet workers retained from the old socialist era. Long before 1991, the Soviet Union had become state capitalist (see PL Magazine, ROAD TO REVOLUTION 3 AND 4, 1971, 1982), given the concessions to capitalism like wage differentials, privileges for the elite, etc. (See CHALLENGE, 3/15, article on the 50th anniversary of Khrushchev's slanderous anti-Stalin speech).

The standard of living of Soviet workers plummeted. Civil wars erupted in many former Soviet republics. Soviet state capitalists stole the huge enterprises built by Soviet workers, and a mafia-style capitalism emerged. An alcohol-ridden Yeltsin tried to please the whims of NATO and Washington. He abandoned Russia's allies in Afghanistan, and the Russian army was humiliated in Chechnya.

The U.S. and NATO responded by surrounding Russia with military bases in the former Soviet republics. The final embarrassment came in the former Yugoslavia when NATO-U.S. forces declared war on Serbia, angering Russia, whose tanks seized the Pristina airport in Kosovo when the war was ending, beating NATO there. Putin was now in power and things were changing.

China's rise as a major capitalist power and India's growing energy needs, plus the U.S. quagmire in Iraq combined to escalate energy prices and turn around Russia's oil-and-gas-based economy. Increasingly Russian rulers, led by Putin, began flexing their muscles. They jailed Russian bosses who wanted to sell the country's energy giants to ExxonMobil. Now it's revealed that "Russia provided intelligence to Iraq's government on U.S. military movements in the opening days of the U.S.-led invasion in 2003." (Reuters, 3/24)

Although not necessarily on a par with the U.S., the Russian military remains the only force capable of matching U.S. military technology, with a system able to neutralize U.S. rulers' dream of a so-called Star Wars program. Russia's emerging power, its alliances with China, Iran and others, has driven U.S. bosses (the torturers of Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, etc.) to use the "human rights" weapon, a Cold War tool.

On March 5, the influential Council on Foreign Relations released a 94-page report entitled, "Russia's Wrong Direction: What the United States Can and Should Do." It concluded that Russia's foreign and domestic policies were harming U.S. global interests; that a U.S.-Russian partnership was no longer feasible; and that the U.S. should lead a coordinated Western policy of "selective cooperation" with Russia, a variant of the policy of detente during the Cold War years.

A week later, the U.S. State Department's annual "human-rights" report roundly criticized Putin for authoritarianism by "virtually stripping parliament of power...; continuing media restrictions and self-censorship...; continuing corruption and selectivity in enforcement of law, political pressure on the judiciary, and harassment of some non-governmental organizations," all of which has eroded "the accountability of government leaders to the people."

The next week a White House blueprint -- the National Security Strategy -- distinctly hardened its tone toward Moscow not only calling on Russia to respect freedom at home, but specifically warned that the Kremlin's "efforts to prevent democratic development at home and abroad will hamper the development of Russia's relations with the U.S., Europe and its neighbors."

The same day, March 16, while visiting Australia, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, told a town-hall audience in Sydney she saw "a very difficult and shaky path" right now for Russian democracy, and expressed the hope that the Russian people "will find their voice to demand accountable, transparent institutions and to demand the ability to organize themselves to petition their government and, if necessary, to change their government." (Next issue: Russia flexes its energy muscles, sharpening the imperialist rivalry and exposing a too costly aspect of the U.S. Cold War victory.)

Detroit Teachers' Pay-Cut Racist Attack on Black Youth

DETROIT, MI, March 23 -- Today, 54 schools closed when about a quarter of this city's public schools' 6,500 teachers called in sick. They were protesting the first of five reduced paychecks. They'll be short one day's pay every two weeks through mid-May as part of a cost-cutting measure. Meanwhile, principals and assistant principals are receiving raises.

More than 38,000 students were sent home. One parent said, "If it's a choice between giving money to the principals or the teachers, I say give it to the teachers." Teachers have not received a cost-of-living increase in more than three years and their contract expires June 30.

That's about the same time the City finance department expects Detroit to run out of cash. About $74 million is owed to the city's pension fund. On April 12, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick will announce a restructuring of city government with even deeper attacks on workers and youth to pay for a $300-million deficit. The key is getting major concessions from city workers, as is occurring in the auto industry. Some in the Mayor's office are pushing to cut whole departments, like recreation and health.

During last fall's mayoral election, Kilpatrick blabbered about Detroit's "rebirth" and "renewal." Happy days were here again. Just last month, Detroit hosted a two-week long Super Bowl party for the rich, that had Kilpatrick and the media squealing like pigs about over $300 million being added to "our" economy. Kilpatrick, the City Council and the auto bosses that own them turned downtown Detroit into a millionaire's playground while the homeless were swept off the streets for a few days. Now the party's over.

This city of almost 900,000 mostly black workers and youth has been ravaged by the retreat of GM, Ford and Chrysler on the car-wars battlefield. And things are about to get a lot worse as GM and Ford close 30 factories and abolish 60,000 jobs (half of the GM workforce is in Michigan). On top of that, Delphi bosses continue to try to cut jobs and wages by two-thirds at the country's largest parts supplier. All this is added to the rulers' trillion-dollar failing occupation of Iraq, which has cost Detroit's workers and youth a racist surcharge in blood and budget cuts, and 100,000 Iraqi lives.

Detroit, like GM -- whose world headquarters towers above downtown -- is in critical condition. The "official" unemployment rate is 15%, more than 2_ times the national level. One-third of the population lives in poverty, the highest rate in the U.S. Of the 150,000 public school students, about 80% are black and 70% of those black students live in poverty. Hundreds of city workers have been laid off, fire houses closed, transit and sanitation services slashed and nine recreation centers boarded up.

One teacher in an alternative high school said that the dropout rate on the city's southwest side is 87%. She said, "I live on the East Side, which probably has one of the highest poverty rates in the country, and I teach high school dropouts on the Southwest Side. My students have horrific problems, many of which stem from these economic and social conditions. It's disgusting."

Detroit's workers and youth need revolutionary communist leadership. Organizing a group to march on May Day is a way to begin to provide it.

GM `Restructuring' Follows Führer's Footsteps

DETROIT, MI, March 22 - "When we look back at this particular period, what we are going to realize is that we were right in the middle of the most dramatic restructuring period in the history of the automobile industry." That's how David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan, described the agreement reached between General Motors, the bankrupt auto supplier Delphi and the United Auto Workers union.

GM, which lost $10.6 billion last year, will offer buyouts and early-retirement packages ranging from $35,000 to $140,000 to all 113,000 unionized U.S. workers. GM will also pay 13,000 UAW members $35,000 to leave Delphi, which was spun off from GM in 1999 and became the country's largest parts supplier. Another 5,000 Delphi workers who are former GM workers will be allowed to return to GM through the end of September 2007, and be offered a retirement package. That means that Delphi could eliminate as many as 18,000 of its 24,000 union workers, with GM footing the entire bill and with the UAW's blessings. Delphi has another 9,000 non-union hourly U.S. workers.

GM has about 36,000 workers who are eligible to retire with full pension and benefits. Another 27,000 nearing the 30 years needed to retire will be offered up to $2,900 a month, on top of their regular pay, if they agree to retire when they reach the 30-year level.

About half of all U.S. GM and Delphi workers live and work in Michigan. The elimination of tens of thousands of factory jobs, and its ripple effects, will only add to the racist tsunami that has devastated cities like Detroit and Flint.

The GM and Delphi buyouts, along with $15 billion in health care concessions last year, were accomplished without the union leadership formally reopening the contract which -- for what its worth -- expires in 2007. Whatever hasn't already been given back by then will certainly be on the table.

This is a major part of GM's plan to cut 30,000 U.S. jobs by 2008 and Delphi's emergence from bankruptcy. Delphi was still demanding 60% cuts in wages and benefits by the end of March. Otherwise, it's threatening to have a bankruptcy judge void the contract and impose the lower wages. This scenario is less likely, given this agreement.

With more than 60,000 GM and Delphi workers either at or near retirement, and most workers not trusting the union as far as you can spit, the bosses and their union leaders are likely to get away with throwing money at their problems, for now. But they are not making any friends, and not winning the loyalty of the workers. This "most dramatic restructuring" is similar to the "restructuring" done by Hitler and the Nazis. Our job is to build an international PLP, led by industrial workers, to make sure that GM's restructuring ends up like the Führer's.

2.5 Million March As Protests, Strikes Sweep France

Paris, March 28 --Today, over 2.5 million workers and students marched in 250 demonstrations across France, including 700,000 in Paris alone, while strikes blanketed the country. The protests against the CPE law continue to grow in size and extent. The law attacks workers' job security, especially youth under 26, giving bosses a free hand in firing young workers without a reason in the first two years of employment. Polls show two-thirds of the population oppose the CPE.

Most threatening for the government is the many workers in the private sector who walked off the job, especially the industrial workers. There were 740 strikes in the iron and steel industry, and six Total oil refineries were hit, as were the telecommunications and banking sectors.

One-third of public sector workers struck. The schools were hardest hit, while one-fourth of the rail workers and one in eight electricity and gas workers also went out, as did postal workers and social workers.

During previous protests, the newspaper "Libération" reported, Paris riot police stood quietly by while thugs beat up high school demonstrators. They were rescued by union security marshals. Interior Minister Sarkozy used the incidents as a pretext to order the police to crack down.

But now the workers and students are answering. The main danger is a deal between the union leaders and the government. Suspicions were fueled by memories of the 1968 Grenelle agreements, when the unions and the fake left parties (mainly the Socialists and "Communists") sold out that general strike. That betrayal fed cynicism among workers and youth about the possibility of revolution. But they must overcome this and realize that without a fight for workers' power, with the goal of destroying the system that spawns all this exploitation, the bosses will continue to attack them, even if the anti-CPE forces win this battle.

The liberals are wringing their hands and worrying that an entire generation of young people is losing confidence in bourgeois democracy. They are calling on President Jacques Chirac to intervene - in other words, to fire his Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin.

Meanwhile, Villepin continues to fiddle, declaring today in the National Assembly that he will not withdraw the CPE and sending a letter to the trade union confederations inviting them to meet on March 29 to discuss "adapting" the CPE. Under rank-and-file pressure, this transparent attempt to split the trade union united front was turned down flat. The university and high school student unions didn't even deign to answer him.

Right-wing support for Villepin is becoming shaky. His arch-rival on the right, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, said that as a result of today's strikes and demonstrations "the government is going to have to budge."

But Villepin hopes to cling to power for two weeks, when Easter holidays will begin on many campuses, and in particular in the Paris area. He hopes that will defuse the crisis.

Workers and students need to continue and intensify their struggle. Student leaders have already called on the trade unions to launch a general strike on April 4. Broad sections of the population are learning that the bourgeois political system is stacked against them, and they are striking and demonstrating to get what they need and want outside that system. As communists point out, bourgeois democracy can only be done away with by doing away with the capitalist system that it serves.

Women Workers Face Great Job Insecurity in France

PARIS, March 20 -- The anti-CPE struggle (Contract for First Employment) has put job insecurity in the spotlight here in France. Workers and people generally have gained a new awareness of the difficulties young people face in making a start in life, due to job insecurity (see CHALLENGE, 3/15). But another, often forgotten group also suffers from insecurity: women workers.

Today, holding a job is more important than ever for women. Changing attitudes to marriage and new marital contracts have made separation and divorce more common. A jobless woman -- especially a mother -- can be plunged into poverty from one day to the next. In 2003, 80% of French women either had a job or were looking for one.

Under capitalism, however, "women's work" is not steady. Most often, women's jobs are temporary, part-time, unskilled or semi-skilled, with crazy working hours. The hard working conditions and low pay result in jobs with high turnover. Women enter and leave the job market more frequently than men -- not simply when they have children, but also because of intolerable working conditions.

Their insecure jobs include cleaning ladies, home helpers, checkout clerks and temporary sales staff. Government employment involves school canteen workers or being behind a post office counter. Women on these jobs do a few hours at a stretch and have work schedules that change all the time.

Eleven percent of women have a temporary work contract, almost twice the rate for men (6%). In 2003, of four million part-time workers, 82% were women, and 890,000 wanted full-time work. Of five million semi-skilled workers, 61% were women. Of two million unskilled workers, 78% were women. These women face an additional hardship in their work schedules -- only 15% of unskilled factory workers (mostly men) work on Sundays, compared to 30% of unskilled pink collar workers (mostly women).

In addition, 80% of the workers in the low-wage category are women. Male factory workers make 44% more than their female counterparts. This combination of low wages and part-time work not only means women's take-home pay is inadequate but leads to an inadequate pension upon retirement.

Large numbers of French women are stuck in this unsatisfactory situation because there is a "glass ceiling." Their part-time jobs don't lead to full-time ones; temporary work doesn't lead to a permanent job; and unskilled jobs don't lead to skilled ones. Often, the only choice for women is "take it or leave it"-- that is, withdraw from the job market altogether -- and doing that only increases their insecurity.

The precarious labor market for women robs them of their dignity and independence, and may force them to stay in bad relationships (10% of French women suffer from wife-beating). This scandalous situation only benefits the capitalists who profit from the low wages they pay women -- low wages that drive down men's wages as well. The CPE law would bring still more insecurity to women workers. It's no surprise that women of all ages have participated massively in the anti-CPE demonstrations. But the only way to eliminate job insecurity -- for women workers and for everyone -- is to destroy the capitalist system that produces insecurity.

CONVERSATION WITH A WORKER OF THE WORLD

B.R. is a tall man with a rugged face. His twinkling eyes belie his almost 60 years. He is full of tales about his old home in Ethiopia. He's worked in many lands in many kinds of jobs, from merchant marine to cab. driver.

"My mother told me how the brutal Italian army crushed whatever little independence Ethiopia had and how that S.O.B., Hailie Selassie, ran off to his masters in Britain while the working class and others fought the fascists."

His mother had been a teenage servant on a farm in 1936 when Mussolini's modern army came from Italian Eritrea in the west with 20th century weapons and airplanes against people with 19th century rifles, and annexed Ethiopia. She, like many others, slipped into the forest to become part of the somewhat disorganized resistance against the fascists. Later, during the Second World War, while the Italian army retreated, the British army put Selassie back on his throne.

B.R. described the repressive nature of Selassie's regime when he was the Emperor of Ethiopia. Most people viewed Selassie as being above the common man, and so did B.R. But one day when he was at work, he saw Selassie in the post office, surrounded by his armed guards. Now he could plainly see that Selassie was just a man like everyone else, and a very frightened one, at that.

During the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union had many client states. In the mid-1970's, a military council staged a coup de'etat and placed Mengistu (a Soviet client) as head of state. It was later reported that they poisoned Selassie and created an even more repressive dictatorship in Ethiopia. A number of groups opposed it, and often the army would drag young people out into the middle of the street in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital, and kill them. One day, Mengistu's soldiers banged on B.R.'s front door. He exited from the back and, through many twists and turns, arrived in the U.S.

One might think that all these events would make him cynical. But he believed in the working class; he believed in the struggle against the ruling classes. However, there seemed to be nothing but sellouts. He came upon CHALLENGE and was changed, both by his own experience and the understanding that he gained. He became a CHALLENGE seller and one day bumped into two working-class Rastafarians, who view Selassie as a god. Hearing that B.R. was Ethiopian, they asked him about the glory and magic of Selassie. He gave them a few home-grown truths, about how coward Selassie ran to England while the young stood and fought. The two, though not convinced, walked off with the paper.

His final remark in our conversation was, "Those sons of bitches, the ruling classes. We must smash them. They have us all enslaved."u

A Brooklyn comrade

Immigration Struggle Sharpens Political Debate Among Workers

The night before the LA immigration march I visited a garment worker who was making a sign condemning the Sensenbrenner bill as fascist. He wanted my help in drawing a swastika. While working on his sign he was chatting with his sister, his mechanic brother-in-law and three construction workers. Except for his sister, they were all undocumented. He and his brother-in-law had been here for over a decade. The others were more recent immigrants.

When I arrived, an hour-long political discussion began. My friend was an avid CHALLENGE-DESAFIO reader but hadn't seen it for over a year. He had moved and we had lost contact. His brother-in-law knew me as a communist but we had never discussed politics because my friend had told me his brother-in-law was an anti-communist and had been a soldier in his native country. My friend was frantically trying to finish his sign so was too busy to participate in the conversation.

We started talking about the upcoming march and how these bills, Sensenbrenner and the McCain-Kennedy, were racist, but that the latter was more dangerous because while appearing "humanitarian," it sought to win immigrant workers and their children to fight and die for U.S. imperialism and to slave in their industries for low wages and no benefits.

I explained that the power of the working class lies in strikes and class struggle, not in electoral policies, and with communist leadership we could learn how to organize a revolution,. The sister said immigrant workers work hard and are exploited but white workers aren't. I noted that everyone who received less in wages than what he or she produced was exploited. Later when someone repeated that white workers were not exploited, the mechanic pointed out that it had already been explained that "exploitation was receiving less in wages from the capitalist than what one produces."

On war and the draft, the mechanic said that most countries have the draft, that it's a soldier's duty to defend the motherland. This led to defining "motherland" as a capitalist concept that chains the working class to its national bosses -- explaining that workers have no nation and that our goal should and will be the abolition of borders. All bosses are enemies of the working class.

Then we said that the bosses' plans for immigrant workers in their war industries and in the army should be seen as an opportunity to lead the whole U.S. working class in a fight against racist working conditions and imperialist war, that these struggles could be turned into one for workers' power.

This touched off a discussion on capitalism, socialism and communism. The workers said that communism was not an option because it had failed. I explained that what failed was socialism, and why. The mechanic said that exploitation had always existed and no matter who took state power they will become exploiters. This led to a discussion of primitive communism and the material basis that gave rise to exploitation. We then ended the evening on a friendly note and agreed to continue the discussion another time. They all took CHALLENGE and the Party leaflet about the march.

In a short time we covered a lot. This ruling class racist immigration debate has politicized Latin workers. As the above experience shows, this issue is so political that it provides a framework to put forward many aspects of PLP's ideas.

PLP Grows Out of March at Bronx Recruiting Center

BRONX, NY, March 18 -- A multi-racial group of high school and college students, workers, college professors and school teachers marched on a local Army recruitment center here today, marking the 3rd anniversary of the U.S. oil war in Iraq. Thousands of leaflets and hundreds of CHALLENGES were distributed in an hour and a half. This action led directly to three new people joining PLP.

In trying to attract youth, this center had a black Humvee akin to the ones used in hip hop videos and was blasting reggaeton music. The black and Latin recruiters were wearing their Army fatigues and black berets while handing out flyers to passers-by.

When we appeared, they quickly vacated the premises and locked up the center. The militant youth chanted, "Workers of the world are under attack; cops out of the 'hood, troops out of Iraq!" The police used a flatbed truck with a large sign to try to hide our picket line. But comrades holding banners were chanting directly across the street so the cops eventually moved their sign.

The working-class youth from the inner city at this rally expressed lots of rage at the police and the recruiters. They see Army recruiters on their campuses trying to convince them to die for this wage-slave plantation called the USA. They're quickly learning they need only one loyalty -- to their class -- and that they must organize to fight for communism. Such youth possessing communist consciousness are a real threat to U.S. rulers.

After the rally, the PL'ers led a march to another location to watch an anti-war movie. Several comrades directly linked the war to the U.S. ruling class's need to increase profits and its threat to wage war with Iran. Some at the march advocated a "moral argument" against war. But the bosses in power will never feel guilt about those they exploit. Confidence in the working class and rage at injustice -- class hatred -- not guilt, will fuel the drive to communist revolution.

Today's action only temporarily closed down the bosses' recruiting center, but realistically the "economic daft" (and an eventual conscription law) will force many of these youth into the military where we must win them to smash the imperialist warmakers.

Vets, Military Families Bring Anti-War Message to Multi-racial Community

TACOMA, WA., March 19 -- Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War and Military Families Speak Out led 800 spirited marchers through the Hilltop neighborhood here today, a city near Ft. Lewis and McChord Air Force Base. The march was significant because it reflected this racially integrated, working-class section of the city. Many marchers came from area churches and other faith-based organizations. Involving people who are the most affected by the war was long overdue.

Next step: move these marches a little farther south, to the neighborhoods around Ft. Lewis, to meet even more military families. Many people have grown weary of the same old pacifist rhetoric at these peace marches. Fortunately, we have CHALLENGE to draw the lessons of the struggle. We need to get it to these families and invite them to May Day.

L.A. Dinner Kicks off Planning for May Day

LOS ANGELES, March 26 -- Last night we had our annual May Day planning dinner. Earlier in the day we had all been out on the streets in the largest demonstration that many of us have ever been in. The dinner was an enjoyable and spirited cap on this interesting day.

The dinner opened with an historical slide show about May Day. The first speaker explained the contradictory aspects of yesterday's march. While representing the mass anger of immigrants against racism, it mainly was an attempt by the liberal rulers to win workers to patriotism and the military (contained in the McCain-Kennedy bill).

A short skit acted out these ideas: an immigrant escaped from a Minuteman, only to be helped by a friendly capitalist, who gave her a green card and then army fatigues!

Some comrades reviewed their experiences in past May Days. We all signed up for various committees to ensure that this year's May Day will be even better. The final speaker connected inter-imperialist competition to the realities of current and future wars, budget cuts and the McCain-Kennedy bill.

He concluded by noting that political economy and dialectics explain how capitalism creates its own gravediggers: to fight their wars the ruling class gives guns and tanks to the most oppressed and exploited group of workers. They arm their own class enemies! We must arm them with communist politics.

The spirited night closed with the singing of the CHALLENGE song and Pass the Hat" from the old PLP record (now in a CD) and then the traditional Bella Ciao and the Internationale. The dinner was a powerful event that bodes well for the future of PLP here.

LETTERS

Guard Bars Katrina Evacuee From Home

Recently we visited a New Orleans evacuee who now lives here in a Mid-West city with her husband and four young children. This is her story.

The city didn't order mandatory evacuation until the day before Katrina hit, and didn't give people like us without cars any way to leave. So we sat it out. The hurricane itself wasn't that bad. There was some water, but mostly it was windy. The water got pumped out. Then the flood came. But we stayed, and eventually the water went down.

Seven days later, we were on the front porch, raking up -- it was completely dry then -- and I saw army trucks approaching. "I hope they're not coming to mess with us," I said. Sure enough, the Guard came over and asked if we were leaving. I said no. They didn't come to help us a week ago, what did they want with us now? They said we had to leave because the place was contaminated. But we knew what happened at the Superdome and the Convention Center, so we figured wherever they'd take us would be contaminated, too. We said we'd just stay and deal with it, but they kept ordering us to leave.

Finally, my 87-year old uncle told them to stop bothering us. They told him to shut up; it "wasn't his business." He said, "Yes, it is my business. This is my family." One of them punched him in the face. Then they grabbed my husband who wasn't even saying anything. I was doing all the talking. They threw him up against the wall, grabbed his arms and handcuffed him, saying they were arresting him for "child abuse," because the place was contaminated. So finally we agreed to leave.

They only allowed us to take a few clothes. We have four babies and a three-bedroom house. We said we just can't leave all our property here, but they kept saying it would be safe; that we had to get in the truck. They followed us from room to room, with guns in their hands, big guns. The children were scared and crying. I asked them to please put the guns away, the children were screaming. They refused. I asked them where they were taking us. They kept saying, "Somewhere safe."

They dropped us near the Convention Center where we boarded buses going to the airport. Many people were there. They said we could get on a bus or an airplane, but didn't know to where. What kind of choice is that?

So we chose an airplane. They took our names and searched our bags, but still wouldn't tell us where we were going. Finally, after we were in the air, they announced we were coming here.

When we arrived it was so different. People met us with open arms. We ended up at a shelter, and they had everything ready. The rooms were pretty good, but they had cots in them. I said, "Cots? We've got babies here; we need beds." Pretty soon we had beds.

The agencies that are supposed to help us haven't given us anything. Everything we have came from the residents; all the furniture, clothes, everything. But we don't know what we're going to do. The government isn't helping us. Everything you see in this temporary housing, the volunteers got for us. But how will we pay our utility bills? We can't find jobs. The volunteers are helping us now, but that will end. We got evicted from our house in New Orleans because we couldn't get back down there to take care of anything. One of my relatives went by the house, and found it all cleared out. All of our belongings are gone. We have nothing, and we don't know what we're going to do.

This story is one among tens of thousands. The government doesn't want poor black workers returning to New Orleans. First they left them to die in the hurricane, then took the survivors and flung them all over the country. They did everything except send them to concentration camps and gas chambers. This is fascism.

Like this woman, most Katrina survivors know the government is our enemy. Capitalism has nothing to offer us! The only way to defeat fascism and racism is by workers taking over and running the world ourselves. When we can share everything according to everyone's needs, we'll be like the people sharing what they have with the evacuees. That's a communist idea.

We need to do more for our brothers' and sisters' right to return home, to help them fight wherever they are, however we can. Let's discuss what we can do in our unions, churches, schools, neighborhood associations and other mass organizations, and those of us who can should go to New Orleans this summer to fight racism and help the survivors re-organize their lives.

A comrade

Red Carpenter Goes To New Orleans

Fourteen people from Philadelphia churches, including mine, spent last week in New Orleans cleaning out flooded houses. The scene is grim: mile after mile of homes, schools and businesses with no people in them, everything destroyed inside by floods. Here and there people who've returned are living in small mobile homes brought in by FEMA after much delay. Signs everywhere advertise "Muck Out Cheap," or "Sheetrock $1.50/sq ft" as people try to recover a little somehow. City services are slim to none. Some neighborhoods still have only part-time electricity.

We were housed at a church facility in an area that hadn't been severely damaged. At our first meeting the team leader asked us to introduce ourselves and tell a little-known fact and a recent experience. When my turn came, figuring this was the right time and the right place, I said I'm a communist and that a week earlier a group from my Party including myself helped disrupt a recruiting meeting of the racist Minutemen at Valley Forge, PA. It sparked a lot of discussion that wouldn't have occurred otherwise.

At the final get-together one man said he was especially interested in my politics and frankness. He and I spent most of the return trip discussing communism and religion. He had lots of reasons why communism "can't work," but it's clear he hates the way he's treated on his job and thinks it stinks, echoing what others said that week.

One home we cleared out, in a black neighborhood near Lake Ponchartrain, had been flooded up to the roof. The interior was covered with mold, and furnishings were still soaked. The owner, 84, is retired after working many years as a steward on a cruise ship line. He had escaped death by leaving well ahead of Katrina, and now lives in a trailer in his front yard. He was furious at the city and U.S. governments for neglecting his home and the people but said it didn't surprise him one bit. His insurance company has denied his claim, so he's suing them. His next door neighbor, who'd tried to ride out the storm, was found drowned in his house.

We arrived at another home at 4 PM after working on other houses all day. It was too late to start but the team leader still wanted to put in an hour. I disagreed, saying we were exhausted and might get hurt. He flew into a rage. But I proposed that everyone should give their opinions. Nearly everyone said we should go home, and so we did. The team leader apologized. Later, when we discussed all this, I said I thought it was ironic that people think communism is a "Do-as-you're-told" society, yet that's really capitalism!

We ended the week with dancing to zydeco music and having a few drinks. Trips like this are terrific for bringing people close together and helping to get to know and trust each other.

Red Carpenter

Clean School in 9th Ward Despite Legal Ban

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to see so many kids sitting on the concrete around me in New Orleans. Though the air was chilled and there were no streetlights to cut through the dark, I should have remembered that what brought us to New Orleans to clean up ruined homes (instead of soaking up sun for our Spring break) was a combination of forces that wouldn't be weakened by the cold, the dark or the concrete.

A Common Ground Collective leader and experienced activist, Lisa, had our full attention as she explained the details of why this particular group of volunteers had gathered away from the others. The next day's optional gutting and clean-up would not be at a residence in our usual stomping grounds of the lower 9th ward, but at a school that the state of Louisiana had taken over; a school where the certified teachers, like at many other schools, had been fired; a school that according to local parents, turned out wonderfully prepared students; a school, also like other schools in the hard-hit area of the 9th ward, that remained closed six months after Hurricane Katrina devastated the area.

The 9th ward residents grew anxious for their children to continue their education. After six months of asking the state when the schools would re-open, community groups and their leaders asked Common Ground Collective -- an all-volunteer group that works gutting and cleaning homes, providing needed supplies and offering a range of support to hurricane victims -- to stand with them in re-opening schools. Martin Luther King, Jr. school would be an opportunity not just to clean up, but to restore an important piece of infrastructure to the 9th ward and give residents a sign that conditions could improve.

Lisa's instructions were not about how to stay safe when dealing with the toxic debris we would find there; we were long since aware of that. Her comments were all about preparing to encounter the New Orleans Police Department. The NOPD is notorious for its racist treatment of black residents and we were advised to choose our TYVEK clean-up suits carefully. White suits would indicate the individual's readiness to be arrested for cleaning up the school without state permission, an act of civil disobedience. Blue suits meant we would hang back and lend support to our comrades in white.

The notion of being arrested in an unfamiliar town and detained by a police department known for its brutality and ill-treatment of black residents hung heavy for many of the volunteers. This was especially true for black volunteers from historically black colleges and universities and majority universities showing support for the mostly black residents. Despite the potential dangers involved, when the volunteers met the next morning to head to the school, there was a great sea of white suits as well as many blue ones, each accepting a different responsibility but both so important to, dependent upon, and respecting of one another.

We were "greeted" at the school by the NOPD, the fire department and of all entities, Homeland Security. We were also met by residents who came to thank us and speak with the press, as well as by countless motorists driving by and "honking for justice!" The police never approached us and only watched as we cleaned the school, bringing wheel barrel after wheel barrel of damaged and destroyed books to the curb from the school's once magnificent library. The outside of the school was still stately. Many awards and banners were recovered and brought out into the sun.

Who knows if the school will re-open or if the neighborhoods of the 9th ward will be rebuilt, but I'm proud to be a part of an effort to show my brothers and sisters that I care. All poor, disenfranchised, displaced and besieged people deserve a chance to live peacefully and are my brothers and sisters. I'll be honored to work with them again this summer and next spring and next summer until we can see progress.

Alternate Spring Break Volunteer

Bring PLP's Ideas to Chicago March

On March 10, I marched with more than hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers in Chicago against the racist Sensenbrenner bill (HR 4437). It's very important to understand and fight against the message spread before and during the march, as well as to spread our own message of communist revolution to these thousands and thousands of workers.

The march leaders (read Democratic Party) pushed U.S. nationalism very forcefully. This differed from the customary nationalism, of "my country" or "my flag." This nationalism, imposed through oppression and psychological terror on immigrant workers, helped the ruling class win some of the most oppressed, exploited and terrorized workers to chant, "USA, USA" several times during the march.

All nationalism is reactionary, hurts the working class and undermines the fight for communism. While chanting "USA" is no worse than chanting "Mexico" or "La Raza," still the nationalism of "my country" is based on a sense of belonging. The nationalism of "USA" is imposed through fear and terror, on workers facing poverty-wages and the constant threat of deportations, especially with Homeland Security terrorizing all immigrants. And unlike the attacks on immigrants in the 1919 Palmer Raids, when a Soviet Union existed and an international communist movement was being forged, there is none of that today to give confidence and leadership to the workers, except for PLP, in the infancy of building such a movement.

That doesn't mean that our struggle is psychological; it's an ideological one that needs to be understood in order to be won. A young woman marcher said, "They're trying to destroy the little class consciousness immigrant workers have." The U.S. ruling class, aided by the immigrant media, is trying to replace class consciousness with a more dangerous nationalism than the one we've known up to now. Ideas accepted under psychological terror are more difficult to fight against.

PLP's participation in this march was so important. Most people around us joined our chants like, "Las Luchas Obreras No Tienen Fronteras" ("Workers' Struggles Have No Borders); or "The Workers, United, Will Never Be Defeated." People were asking us to lead chants even though we had no bullhorn. The march leaders tried to drown us out with the generic chant of, "Si Se Puede" "Yes, we can do it").

PLP brought hope to the march. Without our presence, workers wouldn't have heard or joined our chants. This is why it's so important for us to participate in -- and bring our ideas of a communist revolution to -- the mass movement.

Chicago comrade

Answer Anti-Immigrant Laws: `Destroy Border'

The recent immigration march in Chicago was one of the largest in the city's history. Workers marched as hard-working people who deserve a decent life. The huge numbers reflect an opportunity for the Party to grow. Our members who have been active in immigrant rights groups, on the job, and at school can point out the communist lessons among these masses.

The bosses used nationalism, reformism and religion to build for the march. We must understand what about those ideas appeal to our friends and co-workers and how they respond to the rulers' message.

The rulers really don't want to deport the 12 million undocumented workers; they want a guest worker program that "welcomes" immigrants to the bottom rung of the labor force and the front lines of their endless oil wars.

On my job I interviewed some of my co-workers who marched for the first time. I asked them, "What motivated you to march?" "Did you go with a group, or family and friends?" "What do you think about immigrants serving in the military for 'legalization?'" "If you had the power, how would you fix the problem?"

One of my last questions stems from comments made by Congressman Luis Gutierrez, one of the march's main organizers. When asked about his plan for immigrants he said, "We should fingerprint them, bring them out of the underground economy so they can pay taxes and enrich our national treasury." I asked my co-workers if they marched for fingerprinting and taxes.

Two workers said we should just destroy the border. Another said she marched for equality. None supported young immigrants fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan for a chance to become citizens. In fact, one cited an example of a young worker losing his life doing just that. None had any support for fingerprinting

However, workers did show support for some of the Democratic politicians who gave lip service to amnesty. Most mentioned it as the solution to the challenges immigrant workers face. Workers can grasp our ideas if we engage them in the context of struggle. On the other hand, they also can be won to the bosses' ideas. This is the constant struggle.

Rojo de Chicago

McCain Moderate? Or Pro-War, Anti-Immigrant Racist?

The bosses' media has painted Senator John McCain as a "maverick," a "moderate" and "anti-Bush." His co-sponsorship of the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill -- the liberal "answer" to the right-wing Sensenbrenner bill -- may make him appear as a "friend" of immigrant workers, putting him in bed with the liberal rulers and their darlings like Kennedy. But aside from the fact that McCain's bill would really use immigrants as a source of low-paid exploited labor and cannon fodder for oil wars (see articles and letters on pages 1, 3, 5 and 7), what worker could trust a ruling-class henchman who:

* "During the 2000 campaign...anticipat[ed] the `Bush Doctrine' of pre-emptive war," calling for "overthrow...[of] regimes" that "posed no...threat to the U.S."; "still thinks the war was a good idea"; "rejects any attempt" to withdraw; calls for "an increase in American troop levels in 2006." (All quotes from NY Times, 3/13)

* "Voted to extend tax cuts on dividends and capital gains...benefiting people with very high incomes."

* "Would have signed South Dakota's...new anti-abortion law" which would ban abortions for women victims of incest and rape.

* Favors "policy positions and Senate votes [that]...place him in the right-wing of the Republican Party"; "at the recent...Republican Leadership Conference...effusively praised...Bush"; and is ranked "as the Senate's third most conservative member."

How could such a pro-boss warmonger help immigrant workers, or any workers?

REDEYE

For imperialist schemes, US gov't lies

Behind closed doors, the president....made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq...even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting....

Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a United States surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire, or assassinating Mr. Hussein....

Two senior British officials confirmed the authenticity of the memo, but declined to talk further about it....

At their meeting, Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair candidly expressed their doubts that chemical, biological or nuclear weapons would be found....

(NYT, 3/27)

`Most murderous' junta backed by US

The posters and billboards vowing "Never Again" were put up days ago....Then on Friday, Argentina came to a halt to mark the 30th anniversary of the military coup that ushered in the dictatorship that may have been the most murderous in modern South American history....

When a deputy warned Secretary of State Henry Kissinger two days after the coup to "expect a fair amount of repression, probably a good deal of blood," Mr. Kissinger was unfazed and ordered American support for the new military junta.

"I do want to encourage them," Mr. Kissinger said, according to the documents. "I don't want to give the sense that they're harassed by the United States." (NYT, 3/25)

Led by Reds, they fought MetLife racism

In the winter of 1952...my grandparents were among those white tenants who stood at the forefront of the battle to integrate the housing complex where they lived....

MetLife refused to consider the applications of three black veterans who sought apartments. When these veterans sued the company, a group of Stuyvesant Town residents, including my grandparents, united to support their cause....

Although MetLife eventually offered to admit a few token black families, the company refused to change its tenant selection policy. The company also informed 35 families who belonged to the tenants committee, my grandparents among them, that their leases would not be renewed....

Nineteen of the families decided to fight to keep their apartments....

The city marshal ordered the targeted tenants to be out of their apartments by 9 o'clock on the morning of January 17, 1952, and hired a moving company to drag their furniture onto the street. In response, the families barricaded their doors. They sent their children to stay with relatives and passed baskets of food from window to window with ropes....

As word of the evictions spread, civic groups and labor unions called for a demonstration of support for the tenants. Hundreds of New Yorkers picketed....Protesters held a round-the-clock vigil that lasted three days.

Fifteen hours before the city marshal's deadline, MetLife...agreed to negotiate...and on Jan. 20, MetLife agreed to drop the eviction proceedings....

[Recently] MetLife declined to provide statistics on the number of black tenants currently holding leases....

Many members of the tenants committee were, in fact, Communists, and Councilman Davis, a sponsor of the [ensuing] anti-discrimination bill, was the Council's Communist Party representative. (NYT, 3/26)

More training = good pay? Not in US today

The presumption -- promoted by economists, educators, business executives and nearly all of the nation's political leaders, Democrats and Republicans alike -- holds that in America's vibrant and flexible economy there is work, at good pay, for the educated and skilled. The unemployed need only to get themselves educated and skilled and the work will materialize....If the transition failed to function as advertised, well, the accepted wisdom suggested that it was the fault of the workers themselves. Their failure to land good jobs was due to personality defects or a resistance to acquiring new skills or a reluctance to move where the good jobs were.

That was the myth. It evaporated in practice....You cannot earn an engineer's or an accountant's pay if companies are not hiring engineers and accountants, or are hiring relatively few and can control the wage, chipping away at it. (NYT)

Movie Review

V for Venerating Anarchism

V for Vendetta, a movie based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Loyd, is Hollywood's biggest embrace of anarchism -- disrupting a society run by the state until it is free of the state and run by the masses. It's a reactionary movie that erases class struggle with individual acts of adventurism (terrorism). The movie is supposed to be a wake-up call for workers and youth who complacently accept the status quo and fascist dictatorship in the name of fear and safety.

This is not to say that V for Vendetta isn't entertaining. It has an intriguing plot and flashy special effects as well as some attractive political statements that could win over many left-leaning youth, making this movie very dangerous. It was produced by the Wachowski brothers (who also did The Matrix movies) and directed by their protégé, Jim McTeigue. The movie also makes very real the terror and paranoia of the fascist world it represents.

Vendetta is set in England in the future. A fascist regime has ruled for some years after winning the national elections based on the fears of a chemical attack supposedly set off by terrorists that kills almost 100,000 people. Curfews, henchmen, surveillance cameras, propagandists and police are used to quell any dissent. A mysterious masked superhero named "V," armed with swords, bombs and historical references, is out to topple the government and to inspire the British working class to rebel against it. "People should not fear the government. The government should fear its people," is V's rallying call.

In the process, V saves a young woman named Evey who he tries to convince that his actions are correct, and why the rest of society should do the same. Evey has been orphaned by the government's repressive tactics because her parents helped expose the government's poisoning of its own people, later blamed on terrorists. V, himself is a victim of a government concentration camp that performed experiments in cahoots with pharmaceutical companies. His vendetta against the government is personal and political.

The original story of V for Vendetta was written in the early 1980's, satirizing British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her regime's ride to power. The movie version is more about Bush and Blair. As in the book, the movie omits any kind of political or economic reasons leading to this fascist regime's seizure of power and how imperialism impels a ruling class to choose between the carrot ("democracy") and the stick (fascism).

The book essentially blames the masses for "choosing" the fascists in the first place. The book even attacks Stalin (of course!): V makes his speech in front of pictures of Hitler, Mussolini and Uncle Joe himself.

Workers and youth must reject this movie as anti-working class. The original book basically labeled the masses stupid for believing in these government leaders. Fascist regimes like Hitler's Third Reich or U.S. Liberal/Republican "Democracy" are imposed either to discipline the sections of the ruling class who don't toe the line set by the big bosses, to prepare for war against competing imperialist rivals and to oppress and super-exploit workers, especially black and immigrant workers. (Suspiciously, none of this is mentioned in the movie, while currently racism is running rampant in Europe, signified by the rebellion of Arab and African workers in France). The repression in the movie is mostly against homosexuals, Arab workers and political activists.

Spontaneous actions of a few individuals will not produce working-class revolution nor send capitalism into chaos. This strategy has never worked; if anything, it has attacked the real work of revolutionaries. For the anarchists, with no organization, no planning and no base-building, somehow a brighter future will exist.

Workers and youth need a Party comprised of themselves and millions of others, to organize a revolution. It won't happen out of thin air after Parliament buildings are blown up, as V for Vendetta leads you to believe.

Chimps and Us: Does Human Nature Exist?

As one who's written more than once on how selfishness is not "human nature," I've great sympathy with the letter in the March 29 issue headlined: "Chimps and Humans: Cooperation is the Link." But it has some errors that undermine the generally correct message and, no doubt unwittingly, agrees with certain aspects of the pseudo-science of Sociobiology and its more recent incarnation, Evolutionary Psychology.

The letter refers to a NY Times article (3/3) on a study of chimpanzees in Germany. Based on it, the letter states that cooperation is natural and selfishness and greed are unnatural.

It's correct that people are not naturally selfish, but it is incorrect that they are naturally cooperative. People are not naturally either one. Rather it's the social circumstances and the organization of society, and classes within the society, that promote either selfishness or cooperation. "Human nature," in terms of particular complex behaviors, is a longstanding myth, and we should not be misled into battling with liberals or right-wingers over what that "nature" may be.

The letter agrees with the Times' article that chimps and humans may have inherited the trait of cooperation from a common ancestor millions of years ago. But there is absolutely no evidence that complex social behaviors like cooperation can be inherited at all. These are learned behaviors, even in chimps. There's not even been a mechanism proposed for how genes could possibly produce complex behaviors, other than through providing sufficiently complex and flexible brains that permit learning.

There are more discoveries every day that behaviors thought to have been instinctive, and therefore inherited, are in fact learned. For example, Frans de Waal, a leading primatologist (a scientist who studies non-human primates), has shown that certain monkeys and apes change their behaviors when put into social circumstances to which they are not accustomed. It has been found that whales learn new songs from outsider whales that join their schools, and so on.

The letter says uncritically, "Psychological tests have shown that humans tend to cooperate with people who have cooperated with them in the past, and avoid offering help to those who have not helped." This idea contains its own contradiction, since if that were true cooperation could never get started. Besides, each of us knows of countless instances in which we've offered cooperation without such prior experience with a person, and countless others have done the same for us. Most psychological writings are based more on the prejudices of the investigators and are not warranted by their observations.

Like humans, chimps also cooperate only under certain circumstances and not universally. After all, they also kill other chimps under other circumstances, belying, incidentally, liberal claims that "only humans kill other members of their own species."

The letter's main point, however, is correct -- workers armed with communist theory will, as they have before, fight to overcome the capitalists and organize a communist world. Not only is communism possible, but it is necessary to provide the social organization that will universally foster cooperation and selflessness, and discourage competition, greed and selfishness. Since selfishness and greed are not "human nature," the seeds of that cooperation already exist within the working class under capitalism.

However, only under communist leadership can it be strengthened enough to lead to revolutionary change for communism. That is PLP's goal.

Cactus Red

Under communism

How Will We Achieve and Maintain Economic Equality?

(Part 2: Why Redistributing Wealth Cannot Work (second of three parts)

Part 1 (CHALLENGE 3/29) showed how capitalism got its start through centuries of massive theft and murder. Inequality continues to intensify, resulting in worldwide poverty, starvation, sickness and misery. But it wasn't always so. There is overwhelming anthropological and archaeological evidence that for tens of thousands of years humanity survived through sharing and cooperation and through everyone's contributing to the well being of all. Prior to the development of class societies, inequality was unknown.

On the surface, it would seem that if initially theft created inequality of wealth, redistribution of wealth should be the solution. But recent history has shown this doesn't work. Why is this so and how then will the working class be able to re-establish equality?

Firstly, there are two completely different types of wealth: (1) productive wealth -- items that can be used to create more items, such as tools, machinery, factories, mines and land; and (2) consumable wealth - items that are used to satisfy personal needs or pleasures, such as food, clothing, houses, cars, yachts and bank accounts. Some items, such as land, can be used in either way, but the important thing is how it is used.

Under capitalism, virtually all productive wealth is privately owned by capitalists and is used not only to create other items, but also to exploit the labor of the working class and to make profit at our expense. Under communism, factories, mines and farms would be owned collectively by the entire working class worldwide and made as safe as possible for manufacture, ore production and agriculture. The work-day would be rescheduled to include time for study. Production would be centrally planned based on people's needs, not on the profit needs of the rich capitalist owners.

However, the communist parties in the Soviet Union and China had no prior experience to draw on and didn't believe that peasants would accept collective ownership of land. Peasants comprised the vast majority of these societies and had less experience working collectively than factory workers and miners. Therefore, following the revolutions, large packets of land were seized back from rich landlords and redistributed in small parcels to landless and poor peasants, to own and to farm. But redistribution was unstable, and inequality quickly returned.

The reasons for this instability? Diseased livestock or poor crops forced some families to borrow from luckier families and go into debt. One family's indebtedness to another is a major form of inequality. Inequality led to more inequality, since the borrowing family then had to earn not only enough to survive, but make even more to repay the debt. So the borrowers became poorer and poorer and the lenders richer and richer -- from interest on the loan, from lending to more and more luckless families, and from taking over the borrowing families' land as payment for the loan.

The central principle of communist equality -- from each according to her/his commitment, to each according to her/his need -- can only be achieved when productive wealth is owned by the working class as a whole. So land redistribution was reversed and reassembled into large parcels, under collective ownership. The land was then more easily cultivated; poor crops one year in one area could be compensated for by transporting produce from one area to another.

But even collective ownership of productive wealth proved insufficient to stabilize the working class in power, as the reversion to capitalism in the Soviet Union and China shows. (Part 3 will discuss the need to abolish wages and money.)

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, March 29, 2006

Information: 29 March 2006 746 hits

115,000 Protest Anti-Immigrant Protest

Workers of the World, Unite!

Rulers Dump Harvard Prez When His Pro-War Agenda Flops

Demonstrations of 800,000 Rocking French Government

3-Day Student Strike Hits Baltimore School Closings

Link Iraq (Iran?) War, Katrina, McCain-Kennedy to Racism

Anti-Muslim Racism Preparation For Expanding War

PL Teacher Wins School Anti-Racism Award

Venezuela’s Chavez plays the China card

Workers Must Give New Boeing CEO A Lesson in Class Values

Sikorsky Using Scabs to Break War-plant Strike

Book Review The ‘New Imperialism’: Is it Failing?

UNDER COMMUNISM: The Origins of Capitalist Wealth (Part 1 of 3)

LETTERS

Liberals’ Tactic: Carrot-and-the-Stick

Adjuncts’ Struggle Part of A Bigger Fight

Are We ‘Selling Communism’ to People?

CHALLENGE comment

Colombian Army Tortures Own Soldiers

Good Riddance to Milosevic

REDEYE

Elections help bosses fight off unions
Evil acts are spurred by God-quoters
Ablest workers doing fine? Fed chief lies

Beware Of McCain-Kennedy Pro-War Patriotism

115,000 Protest Anti-Immigrant Protest

CHICAGO, IL, March 11 — Yesterday more than 100,000 immigrant workers marched against the racist "Sensenbrenner bill," HR 4437, which makes aiding undocumented workers a crime. They demonstrated their strength and willingness to fight back and their potential to become a mass base for communist revolution. They gave PLP a warm embrace, buying over 1,000 CHALLEGES and taking about 3,000 May Day leaflets. Any doubts about the need to immerse ourselves in the mass movement in order to fight for communist revolution were erased.

The Democratic Party showed its influence among immigrant workers who had to listen to speeches by the Governor of Illinois, the Mayor of Chicago, a U.S. Senator, numerous Congressmen and many more Democratic Party politicians. These racists are hoping to herd immigrant workers and youth to the polls in November for a future of long wars, low wages and fascist terror. They’re building support for the McCain-Kennedy bill which would hold out the "promise" of some undocumented workers getting citizenship while deporting those unemployed for 45 consecutive days and using immigrant youth as cannon fodder in the bosses’ imperialist oil wars.

They pushed U.S. nationalism with a vengeance, leading chants of "USA, USA," among workers and youth who face extreme oppression, terror and exploitation from these same bosses. A young woman said, "They’re trying to destroy the little class consciousness that immigrant workers have." She was right. The rally was organized by the politicians and the media aimed at immigrant workers, and backed by the bosses. Over 100 factories gave workers the day off (most without pay) to attend the rally and thousands of students walked out of school.

On the other hand, PLP gave workers and youth the chance to express their desire for so much more. The leadership led the chant, "Somos Todos America (We Are All America)." PLP led the chant, "Las luchas obreras, no tienen fronteras (The workers’ struggle has no borders)." They tried to drown our chants with "Si Se Puede (Yes We Can)." We chanted, "The Workers, United, Will Never Be Defeated!" They chanted, "We Want Papers." We chanted, "We Want Power!"

Every time PLP members made speeches attacking capitalism and imperialism, the crowd around us grew and many workers bought CHALLENGE. One young man came to us and took a bundle of papers to sell them in the crowd. Others helped us translate our speeches and chants.

While the battle of ideas was sharp, it was far from equal. The ruling class is leading this movement with their own imperialist aims. PLP must bring much more of a mass base to the struggle to have a more significant impact. For example, had we brought a few hundred Ford, postal and Cook County health care workers under our leadership, along with a few hundred more City College, Chicago State and high school students, and even more from community groups and churches, we could have had a more profound impact on the rally, and on those we brought to it. "Workers of the World, Unite" could have echoed through downtown Chicago. That’s our goal. We must fight harder to build the Party where we are, and bring that force to bear on mass actions like this.

As it was, our actions did have a good effect on those we reached and on our members who reached them. Tonight about 50 high school and college students and teachers held a dinner to build the circulation of CHALLENGE and plan for May Day. One highlight was a report from a student from Chicago State University about her experiences at the rally. It was the first time she had ever sold CHALLENGE in a mass way, and she was impressed at how willing the workers were to buy and read it. She said at first she was scared, "but soon, it came natural." We raised about $500 and everyone left with May Day tickets to organize for May Day.

Workers of the World, Unite!

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 7 — Over 15,000 workers, mostly Latino, marched against the racist anti-immigrant bill HR4437, which would criminalize all those who help undocumented workers — doctors and social service professionals — as well as employers. PLP and Metro workers from Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 joined this militant throng, distributing 200 CHALLENGE-DESAFIOS and 200 Spanish-language flyers that called for international working-class revolution and the need to fight all forms of racism.

The workers’ response was terrific — we underestimated how much literature we could hand out. We spoke as communists who believe borders are a capitalist creation dividing us as workers. They agreed enthusiastically. We also distributed PLP buttons: one had the universal "stop" symbol over "Minuteklan" and the other had a fist with "Obreros contra el racismo" ("Workers against racism"). Our signs read "Workers of the world, unite!"; "Local 689 supports ALL workers!"; and "Obreros, unidos, jamas seran vencidos." (trans. workers united will never be defeated!)

A group of middle schoolers visiting from Michigan were marveling at the sight of the protest. Their teacher asked us to explain the event, so we enlisted a Mexican sister, who spoke passionately: "We all want to work and take care of our families. We work just as hard as anyone else; just because we came across the border . . . [without papers —ed.]doesn’t make us terrorists!"

A comrade added, "We’re all immigrants — this bill is a bosses’ racist divide-and-rule trap!" The new sister turned to that comrade and said, "I never thought of it like that before. That’s great!" This sparked a long conversation with this woman and her friends and family.

This was a real working-class protest, rather than the middle class, mainly white students and professionals one sees at anti-war demonstrations. We swam in the sea of the workers!

But while the protest expressed the working class’s anger against racist attacks, it also showed the dangers of the liberal Democrats and their allies in the mass movement. They’re trying to channel this anger into mass support for U.S. pro-war patriotism, especially through the McCain-Kennedy bill (see letter page 6 and CHALLENGE front page, 3/15).

As an example of this, the march misleaders’ tone was conciliatory, liberal and reformist. First came prayers for the politicians "to listen to our calls for justice." Then liberal politicians James Moran and Kweise Mfume (who is cynically trying to grab the Latino vote in his Maryland senate race) spoke. They mirrored the line of the area’s largest Spanish-speaking radio station which called on all listeners to "bring U.S. flags, and leave your country’s flags at home; today we’re all Americans." One misleader even urged workers to extend a peaceful, conciliatory open hand — instead of a clenched fist of resistance. This patriotic message is aimed at preparing Latino youth and workers to fight and die in the U.S. bosses’ wars.

With this liberal nonsense, it’s no wonder that march participants eagerly took our literature faster than we could hand it out. The workers loved our messages of "La Clase Obrera no tiene Frontera!" and, "The workers, united, will never be defeated."

Workers admired our militant stance against the racist "Minuteklan." They ID’ed these fascists as the CazaMigrantes (migrant hunters) who have harassed and shot undocumented immigrant workers to stop them from putting food on their tables. The workers listened attentively to our history of fighting the Klan, the Nazis and the Minutemen in places such as Valley Forge and New Jersey. The next step is building a stronger base locally to fight against the anti-immigrant fascists, from Herndon to Hyattsville, to continue exposing the liberals, and to recruit these bold immigrant workers to PLP.

Rulers Dump Harvard Prez When His Pro-War Agenda Flops

U.S. rulers had high hopes for Larry Summers as president of Harvard University. He would make it a leader in advancing U.S. imperialism’s ever-expanding war agenda. Summers indeed fostered reams of war-related research at Harvard’s graduate schools but failed to accomplish job number one: winning support for the military among undergrads and their professors. Summers was abrasive and lacked certain social skills. But what really thwarted him was the decades-old, but still powerful, ideological monster that the rulers had created to stifle campus protest against their Vietnam War.

At that time, thousands of students, led partly by the Progressive Labor Party, were attacking universities’ ties to imperialist genocide. PLP spearheaded the take-over of Harvard’s administration building. We won many students there and elsewhere to a revolutionary communist outlook. Terrified by the specter of Marxism, Harvard’s leaders — soon copied by other institutions — began to push dead-end identity politics.

They launched a Department of African and African-American Studies. Students could major in Ethnic Studies or Women, Gender, and Sexuality. Harvard’s goal was to have students view the world as anything but a conflict between workers and capitalists that leads inevitably to revolution.

But the rulers paid a high price for campus peace. They sacrificed patriotism. Students at Harvard and other liberal arts colleges no longer joined the military in significant numbers. Class-conscious students kicked officer training programs (ROTC) off campus in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Today, it’s a pro-capitalist, liberal faculty that hinders ROTC. Harvard’s official catalogue reads, "The current federal policy of excluding known lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals from admission to ROTC ...is inconsistent with Harvard's values." It warns students away from "the military services," which "may impose limitations on the freedom of speech."

With the U.S. in a period of intensifying war, the imperialists on Harvard’s governing Corporation brought in Summers, known for his toughness and loyalty to their cause, to rectify the situation. As former President Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, he had helped dismantle Welfare in order to fund the bombing of Serbia and Iraq. One of Summers’ biggest backers was Corporation member James Houghton, a director of both Exxon Mobil and J.P. Morgan Chase, top beneficiaries of the Pentagon’s adventures.

Summers immediately antagonized several black studies teachers into quitting. He then turned his sights on feminists, proclaiming that women are innately less able than men at math and science. After Sept. 11th, Summers urged students to enlist. Last year, he presided over the first ROTC commissioning ceremony at Harvard since the 1960’s. But the faculty continued to vote against Summers’ proposals to re-constitute a full-scale ROTC program.

Summers did what he could. Under him, the Kennedy School became an important factory for U.S. Middle East policy. The Government department churned out dissertations like "Preparing for War: The Dynamics of Peacetime Military Reform." But the rulers need much more. They yearn for the days when Princeton provided the army with 400 officers a year, Columbia graduated more ensigns than Annapolis, and Harvard Yard was a sea of uniforms. That goal remains distant. Just recently, the Pentagon had to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court to force colleges to admit recruiters.

Liberals may gloat over Summers’ fall. But it’s not necessarily a victory for the working class. His replacement, Derek Bok, is no peacenik. Bok won his imperialist epaulets in the Vietnam era, when, as dean of Harvard Law, he steered the school away from anti-war protests. The rulers’ difficulty in militarizing the colleges benefits us only if we use it to rebuild a mass campus movement with a communist political line.

(ROTC is only one part of the story. Coming articles will examine Harvard’s other contributions to the rulers police-state-and-war agenda.)

Demonstrations of 800,000 Rocking French Government

PARIS, March 15 — The confrontation between the anti-CPE movement and the government is sharpening. [The CPE (Contract for First Employment law) would bring a drastic increase in job insecurity and unemployment, especially for youth.] French President Jacques Chirac and the president of the MEDEF (the bosses’ association) yesterday backed the CPE, shoring up support for Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin. Yesterday’s anti-CPE demonstrations saw large numbers of high school students entering the conflict at the side of university students and another violent protest at the Sorbonne University.

On March 7, at least 800,000 demonstrators — twice as many as on Feb. 7 — marched in cities nationwide. The successful worker-student mobilization enlarged the movement enormously. Within two days, the number of struck universities jumped from 22 to 38. (Of 84 universities, 46 are on strike today.)

On March 9, students occupied the Sorbonne for the first time in 20 years and the second time since May 1968. In the wee hours of March 11, club-swinging riot police using tear gas brutally expelled them. Education minister Gilles de Robien justified the attack with a bald-faced lie, claiming that students at the Sorbonne had viciously assaulted a handicapped person. (A handicapped person was injured at a different university when a crowd panicked.) In reality, Robien and the government are concerned because an occupied Sorbonne symbolizes the May 1968 student demonstrations that sparked a historic general strike which shut down the country.

Although student and trade union leaders say their goal is to force the government to abandon the CPE the way the Edouard Balladur government was forced to abandon the "SMIC Jeune" (youth minimum wage) in 1994, journalists and the "experts" they interview are drawing comparisons with 1968. The French Establishment is beginning to feel the heat.

On March 10, three university presidents asked the Prime Minister to abandon the CPE. For days, some members of the MEDEF, had been hinting that the CPE is "not really necessary." But Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has staked his presidential ambitions — indeed, his political career — on ramming it through.

To try to regain control of the situation, Villepin went on television on March 13, blowing hot and cold. For the bosses and his right-wing supporters, he talked tough, saying Parliament had enacted the CPE and he was going to enforce it. For young people and workers, he came on all conciliatory, offering cosmetic changes and saying that labor and management could "cooperate" to make the CPE work. And, like the bosses’ agents worldwide, he played the nationalist card, claiming the CPE is necessary to preserve French-style capitalism, which supposedly is "gentler" than the U.S. style!

The trade unions say there’s nothing to negotiate — the CPE has got to go. High school and university students were scheduling bigger demonstrations on the 16th, and a second joint worker-student demonstration is looming on the 18th, called by a dozen trade unions and student unions.

As increasing numbers of students and workers join the anti-CPE struggle, it is becoming more radical. It’s a movement that can be something more than merely a stepping stone in the career of sellout labor leaders and politicians. (Remember, the current front-runner among Socialist Party presidential hopefuls, Ségolène Royale, said last November that the young anti-racist rebels in the housing projects needed to do a stint in the army "to teach them some discipline"!)

The anti-CPE movement needs to become a place where workers and youth learn that capitalism is not the solution to our problems — capitalism is the problem.

Union Hacks’ Scabbing, Racism, Unity with Bosses Sinking Northwest’s Workers

The fruits of scabbing, racism and uniting with bosses instead of other workers are coming home to roost for 32,000 Northwest Airline workers. The company told a bankruptcy court that it needed $1.4 billion in concessions from its unions to be able "to compete" in the industry. This came after a whole series of pay cuts, mass layoffs and under-funding pensions by $3.8 billon, beginning ten years ago.

To avoid a bankruptcy court judge’s nullification of their contracts, the leaders of the pilots’ and flight attendants’ unions agreed to tentative settlements slashing jobs and benefits for 5,600 pilots and 8,500 attendants. Northwest announced it would be laying off 4,000 flight attendants by hiring low-wage replacements from China and India on international flights. Rather than uniting to organize these non-union workers, the union immediately denounced "use of foreign nationals," making the latter the enemy, not Northwest bosses who use one set of workers against another. Angry rank-and-file pilots have voted 92% in favor of a strike.

All these company attacks follow a strike of 4,400 Northwest mechanics and cleaners last August against a 50% cut in jobs and 26% in wages. The company smashed the walkout by hiring thousands of scabs while the unions of flight attendants, pilots and machinists crossed the mechanics’ picket lines to keep Northwest operating, breaking the strike. The machinists actually took some of the strikers’ jobs.

Of course, the independent mechanics-cleaners’ union (AMFA) didn’t exactly help themselves by trying to build public support by attacking undocumented workers, instead of uniting with them. Its flyer said union mechanics are U.S. citizens who "can pass FBI background checks," citing FBI arrests of "27 ‘illegal aliens’ working for TIMCO, one of the biggest outsourced shops…using false papers." This flagrant racism implying that undocumented workers are a terrorist threat played right into the bosses’ hands. The same fascist Homeland Security police they embrace are prepared to break any strike the bosses say "threatens the national interest."

Meanwhile, the pilot union president called the give-back settlements a "painful but necessary part of a successful restructuring" in order to facilitate "our emergence from bankruptcy as a proud and profitable airline." This rank class collaboration will do nothing for the thousands of Northwest workers either dumped on the street or victims of wholesale wage and benefit cuts.

These attacks on Northwest’s workers are a product of capitalism’ innate need for maximum profits, cutting competitors’ throats vs. going under, combined with the union leaders’ defense of the system by foisting such concessions on the backs of the workers. And if the workers don’t go along, the bosses’ courts just use their bankruptcy laws to void the union contracts altogether.

These attacks are occurring within a U.S. imperialist war drive to protect its control of much of the world’s oil. In doing so it is responsible for the mass murder of millions of workers. It is in workers’ interests here to unite against these imperialists and defend their brothers and sisters worldwide.

Capitalism is constructed to enforce exploitation of the working class. And if workers become suckers for the bosses’ ideas — scabbing and blaming "foreign nationals" — they will be defenseless against the bosses’ attacks. Working-class unity — both within the company, within the industry, and worldwide — organizing strikes of ALL airline workers would put the bosses on notice that the workers refuse to take the attacks lying down.

But in the final analysis, the real victory workers can gain from these struggles is building a communist leadership to destroy capitalism and fight for a society without bosses and profits. Then workers — who produce all value — can make the decisions collectively on sharing that value they produce, according to workers’ needs. This is our Party’s goal. Joining PLP is the best answer to capitalism’s assault on the international working class.

3-Day Student Strike Hits Baltimore School Closings

BALTIMORE, March 7 — U.S. rulers are cutting costs everywhere so they can compete economically in the world. This "race to the economic bottom" is behind cutbacks in schools nationwide. Here the bosses plan to close 15% of the public schools to "save money"! The outraged Baltimore PLP club joined hundreds of fighting students in a bold three-day strike, led by the Algebra Project (AP), a mathematics tutoring organization that advocates anti-racist direct action.

The Baltimore Sun reported that "chaos erupted at the school Wednesday [the strike’s first day] as students tried to leave for a protest . . . and found doors blocked by staff" but "about 100 students got together and ran out the front door" in what one student described as a "bum’s rush." The strike was on!

Over 400 Baltimore City high school students demonstrated at the State Education building across from the local arena, demanding that Superintendent Nancy Grasmick hear their demands. She refused, and the strike intensified.

On Thursday, Mayor Martin O'Malley and his cronies, fearful of the strike’s impact on his prospective run for Governor, called in AP representatives to make a deal that would head off a City Hall rally the next day. But the AP turned this meeting around, demanding O'Malley sign a list of pledges to improve the schools. He refused. AP leaders condemned his position, and then shifted the rally to City Hall on Friday. They promised more actions if their demands were not met.

The students’ bravery in carrying out a three-day strike bodes well for the future. But we should have no illusions that mere pressure from the masses will lead to good schools. Capitalism requires that we be mis-educated, trained to be cogs in their profit-making machine, rather than creative human beings.

Capitalist schools will never provide real education for us. Even if O’Malley makes a few improvements, education will remain racist and oppressive. We must never lose sight of the burning need of our class for communist political power so that we can educate ourselves properly in egalitarian, collective, internationalist, anti-racist and creative values.

Link Iraq (Iran?) War, Katrina, McCain-Kennedy to Racism

Recently, about 40 students attended a forum on racism at a Southern California college campus. Presenters discussed the racism linked to the Iraq (and potentially Iran) war, the Katrina disaster and anti-immigrant groups like the Minutemen.

The first speaker reviewed racism in today’s Iraq war, highlighting the parallels between the media’s build-up of fear and the bloody U.S. invasion of Iraq. He explained that anti-Arab racism grew as war grew closer, the same that’s happening with Iran today.

The next speaker discussed how the Katrina disaster affected the poor working-class black residents of New Orleans. She exposed the government’s failure to fix the levees in the first place, and the absolute disregard for those too poor and unable to leave their homes. However, she noted that true cooperative efforts saved many refugees, showing how working-class collectivity is the only way to fight such conditions. She also linked what happened to the victims of Katrina to the war budget, saying, "We think they’re separate, but they’re not."

The final speaker discussed anti-immigrant groups and legislation, including the Minutemen and the conservative Republicans (represented by the border-militarizing Sensenbrenner Bill), as well as the bosses’ liberal policies — the Dream Act and the McCain-Kennedy bill. He said that while McCain-Kennedy might appear benevolent to some, in fact it’s just as much an attack on the working class. It creates a "process" toward legalization for some workers, while simultaneously limiting their ability to legally organize since — among other things — it allows deportation if one is unemployed for 45 consecutive days. He then said we should fight racism by opposing the Minutemen, and exposing the true nature of bills such as McCain-Kennedy.

A PLP member linked fighting racism to the idea of revolution, which sparked a heated discussion. Some in the audience held a nationalist view of change; others called for small reforms or electoral politics; but others saw the urgent need to build a revolutionary movement. While one audience member said racism only affects black and brown workers, another explained the ways racism attacks the whole working class.

The event was a huge success. CHALLENGES were sold, contradictions were sharpened and money was raised for the anti-racists arrested in Garden Grove for opposing the Minutemen. Some left with a new understanding about the possibility of smashing racism and the oppression of the working class by fighting for communist revolution. Many became interested in getting more involved in campus struggles, and were impressed with the multi-racial unity of the student club sponsoring the event.

The campus is an important area where we can support anti-racists and fight racism. It’s important that we participate in such forums and rallies that support anti-racism while at the same time explaining how both the Sensenbrenner and McCain-Kennedy bills are attacks on the working class. Though such events might seem like small steps, participating in them is an integral part of the process of building PLP to fight for communist revolution.

Anti-Muslim Racism Preparation For Expanding War

In early March, a group of PLP’ers drove some distance to a southwestern school to participate in a protest against racism, fascism and imperialism. The racist "College Republicans" campus group was unveiling the racist cartoons published in a neo-Nazi Danish newspaper which depicted Muslims and the prophet Mohammed as terrorists. The College Republicans were encouraged by the United American Committee (UAC), a nation-wide, right-wing racist group dedicated to building support for the "war on terror" and combating "Islamo-fascism."

We carried CHALLENGES and signs reading, "Cartoons in Denmark, slums in France, Detentions and Bombings made in the USA — ALL imperialists are racist!" Two others: "Racism against Muslims is used to justify mass murder for oil profits!" and, "Racism against Muslims is an attack on all workers and students worldwide!"

We joined about 500 demonstrators, organized by the campus Muslim Student Union, with much support from Muslim community groups. Most signs praised Mohammed, but many others attacked racism and raised questions about "free speech" and responsibility. There were chants against racist hate and also chants praising Mohammed. Men and women were separated in the crowd.

Many people stopped to read and comment on our signs. Some thanked us for coming and bought CHALLENGE. One woman looked at the sign about mass murder for oil profits and said, "That’s the bottom line, isn’t it?"

At one point, march security told us to stop distributing CHALLENGE. We refused but did it more cautiously, approaching people who clearly liked our signs.

Most speeches were religious, praising Islam and expressing anger at attacks on it. Some said free speech came with responsibility. One speaker said the racist assault on Europe’s Jews began with racist cartoons.

Two members of Mecha (a Latino campus student group) spoke, saying they were there in solidarity; that Latinos in the area were targeted by anti-immigrant racists; that Muslims were also the targets of racism; and that it was important to stand together to oppose all racism. They received a great response.

Then a speaker from a campus anti-war group attacked the cartoons’ racism, saying racism against Muslims and Arabs was encouraged to try to win youth to fight in the Mid-East for U.S. imperialism. He said that this racism led to the tortures at Abu Ghraib. He called for a united international fight against imperialism and the anti-Arab, anti-Muslim racism used to justify it, and an end to the war in Iraq. The crowd cheered him very enthusiastically.

Then a speaker from a Muslim community group said the previous three speakers were "just as guilty of hatred" as the College Republicans! But the response of the crowd’s vast majority indicated they didn’t agree.

Our modest PLP contingent continued distributing CHALLENGES — about 75 in all. We were the only group linking the fight against racism and imperialism to the need to destroy their source, capitalism, with communist revolution, rather than seeking to replace one set of oil profiteers with another.

Inside the auditorium several students attacked the racism of the "exhibit," calling for unity against anti-Muslim racism and the war. When they were kicked out, the crowd outside cheered them.

Although the 500 students and their supporters did not close down the College Republicans’ racist display, still it was important for many people to receive the message that a united fight against racism and imperialism must go hand in hand.

PL Teacher Wins School Anti-Racism Award

Since 1985, I’ve been active in my local union’s Bilingual Education Committee, in which I was part of a group that produced 2,000 large signs saying, "We’re teachers, not immigration agents. No cutbacks!" They were displayed in 90% of the classrooms at my school as well as in schools and at marches city-wide. Due to PLP’s work in the union, and at international conventions — in which our friends in the Committee defended the Party and have fought together against racist attacks on black, Latino and Asian students — I was given the committee’s Friend of Bilingual Education award at its annual conference.

In my few words of appreciation, I used as context the current fight over immigration policy. The union has passed a motion supporting college students who were arrested in a demonstration in Garden Grove against the racist Minutemen. The local’s budget committee has recommended a union donation of $1,000 to their defense fund.

I said that I had moved that motion in the union’s House of Representatives, but that it was also important not to run from the open racists into the arms of the liberal politicians, such as those proposing the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill. This bill, which many see as a lesser evil, will establish a new bracero program for industrial workers and will be part of pushing our young people into what is increasingly a "green card army."

I said that instead of trusting politicians of either party, we must build a movement of workers, students and soldiers who will fight for a world in which there are no borders that stop workers trying to feed their families, where everyone will be multi-lingual, because it will be all one world.

Since many of my friends are so worried about the Minutemen and the current Sensenbrenner bill (H.R. 4437) in Congress that they’re willing to support the McCain-Kennedy bill [see article above — Ed.], I wasn’t sure how they would respond to my remarks. I shouldn’t have worried. In fact, people approached me to say they agreed with what I said and appreciated my remarks. Many are friends who have been reading CHALLENGE, and with whom we have been working for many years.

All this shows that when we’ve been working with people, distributing the paper and fighting side by side, we can confidently expose both the open and the liberal racists and imperialists. Rather than being isolated, we can receive enthusiastic support for the alternative of a united fight for a world without borders.

PLP Teacher

Venezuela’s Chavez plays the China card

(This concludes the series on Venezuela, written by a Party member who recently spent time in Venezuela and Brazil. Part II reviewed how Peron, a similar "populist" to Chavez, paved the way for fascism in Argentina, and how Chavez makes deals with U.S. Big Business even as he "challenges" U.S. imperialism, touts nationalism as against internationalism, and has now begun to play up to China’s bosses.)

The struggle over resources will bring the world’s working class bloodshed and devastation. Wars will be fought to benefit a few at the cost and terror of working people. The rules of warfare haven’t changed. Position papers from the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution, two most influential think-tanks among a small shark tank of powerful policymakers, clearly show that China’s strength, economically and militarily, has been a top priority for assessment and speculation. In addition, consider the following:

• The U.S. trade deficit with China is $162 billion and rising, creating anxieties among U.S. bosses who fear China’s ability to flood the U.S. market with cheap consumer goods, cutting their profits, as well their worry over China’s ownership of hundreds of billions in U.S. treasury bonds with the potential to sell them or call them in.

• China leads the regional defensive group Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) — with Russia a member and India an observer — to cooperate and address security concerns in Central Asia. Last June, Rumsfeld openly questioned the reasons behind China’s arms build-up and modernization despite "no clear enemies." Since the Soviet Union’s collapse, the U.S. military has extended into previously inaccessible and resource-rich Central Asia, building tensions with Russia and China. In the past two years the SCO has successfully pressured the U.S. to pull its troops out of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, a significant victory for the Chinese and Russian bosses. Militarily and internationally, Russia and China have been strengthening ties; and especially now they’re allied in blocking the U.S./Europe’s aim to punish Iran for nuclear research.

• China has aggressively and persistently pursued firm alliances and trade agreements with Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America, has established the China-Arab Cooperation Forum and warmed up considerably to Iran. Despite China’s overwhelming reliance on coal (66%), China’s booming steel, aluminum, and cement industries, driving its export economy and construction explosion, demand reliable oil supplies. With its total support for African nationalist movements in the late 1960’s and 1970’s, China has built solid alliances in Africa, where, fittingly, all of China’s allies are oil-producing nations. However, these nations are small potatoes, compared to the immensely larger reserves in the Persian Gulf and Mid-East, under the current hegemony of the U.S. military. China will tap these fields to fuel its economy to its full potential, since no other region can match its future demand.

Now enter Latin America. Brazil has unmatched technical expertise in oil and natural gas exploration. Chavez has promised to open the Orinoco Belt — containing the world’s largest estimated reserves of heavy crude oil. His state-owned oil company, PDVSA, is developing the technology to extract even greater reserves of super-heavy crude, which lie frozen underground. Chavez and Colombia are jointly building an enormous pipeline to provide the Chinese exclusively with oil.

Evo Morales, Chavez’ good pal and president-elect of Bolivia, is sitting on vast mineral resources and the second-largest proven reserves of natural gas, after Venezuela, in the region. Morales has publicly stated his desire to trade with China, denouncing the U.S. as a purveyor of terrorism and announcing his support of Chavez’ "anti-imperialist crusade." How much longer will China’s incursions into the U.S. ruling class’s "backyard" be tolerated until there is open confrontation between the U.S. and China?

The working classes and their allies worldwide should view these "left" presidencies in Latin America in general, and Venezuela in particular, as nothing but a new class of astute bosses who can see the writing on the wall and will prostitute their nation’s resources and workers to the highest bidder.

Workers in both Venezuela and the U.S. must forge solidarity with each other and with the super-exploited workers throughout the former colonies and the world in a demonstration of workers’ power. This solidarity knows no borders; there is only one working class and one world. The increasingly violent attacks on workers everywhere require the construction of one party.

PLP’s unswerving adherence to internationalism is a crucial component of the Party’s efforts which now are producing seemingly small quantitative results but will yield huge qualitative consequences when conditions are ripe. The communists, the only progressive force in society fighting for a world where humankind is allowed to flourish beyond its predatory phase, must focus and consolidate every victory made. Now, everything matters.

(For the latest economic indicators issued by the Venezuelan Central Bank: http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1857)

Workers Must Give New Boeing CEO A Lesson in Class Values

ORLANDO, FL., March 15 — General Counsel Douglas Bain, introduced by the new Boeing CEO James McNerney Jr., lowered the boom at the company’s annual executive retreat. "Bain rattled off the federal prison numbers of two former [executives]. ‘These are not Zip Codes,’ Bain snapped. With McNerney looking on in clear support, Bain warned the audience that many prosecutors ‘believe that Boeing is rotten to the core.’" (Business Week, 3/13)

McNerney followed up by circulating a video to all employees asserting that "there is no contradiction between values and performance." In essence, McNerney has been given the green light to super-exploit us workers (performance) as long as the company doesn’t soak the government for the expensive killing machine the bosses need to defend their empire in more and bigger wars (values).

Values, like every other moral judgment, carry with it class content. The bosses value imperialist domination and efficient exploitation. We value international solidarity of the working class so we can understand our potential for revolutionary power. Never the two shall meet!

The bosses’ business press criticized former CEO Condit as "too aloof." His successor, Stonecipher, was too concentrated on the bottom line. Just to make sure McNerney understands his job, William M. Daley — brother of Chicago’s mayor and, most importantly, chairman of the Midwest region for JPMorgan Chase — was appointed to the Boeing board of directors.

The rest of the board is also "under the gun." As of May 1, every director will stand for "election" yearly. Long hailed a great reform by "progressive" elements in the Machinist union; these annual elections only ensure that the biggest investors — like the big bosses at Chase — can guarantee that their imperialist priorities get top billing.

Performance a la the New 787 Dreamliner Jet

On February 23, we got a taste of the performance part of the equation. The company announced that a non-union outfit from North Carolina, New Breed, will be in charge of all parts logistics for the new 787 Dreamliner — work formerly done by higher-paid union members.

This announcement sent the union president, Mark Blondin, into apoplexy. His whole strategy vis-à-vis the 787 was to shower the company with $3.2 billion in workers’ money for the privilege of keeping the 787 assembly line in Everett. WA. "We’re not going to get any jobs out of this," he admitted at a recent union meeting. "It’s not partnering… and I’m mad."

"What! He didn’t know he was partnering with crooks?" was the reaction in the shop when union members heard that Blondin wante+d to know if we were "with him."

Communist Values, Not Government Regulation

The week before, Boeing and other workers gathered to see the documentary, The Corporation. The liberal producers of this movie advocated more government regulation of corporations, which they contended were "psychopathically" centered on "the bottom line." According to that logic, McNerney would be their hero!

Only communist values can answer the bosses’ plans for increased exploitation of our class to finance their imperialist wars. Communists put the interest of the working class above all else. We never partner with our bosses, only with other workers. We aim to end this bloody cycle of war, exploitation and more war the only way possible — with communist revolution. Let McNerney and his ilk choke on those values.

Sikorsky Using Scabs to Break War-plant Strike

STRATFORD, CONN, March 13 — On Feb. 20, 3,600 teamsters struck Sikorsky Aircraft’s main plant here, joined by workers at three other Connecticut locations and another in West Palm Beach, Florida. The main issue is cuts in healthcare benefits. "This isn’t only about us," striker Bruce Peters told the NY Times (3/3), "This is a nationwide problem."

Sikorsky has begun a strike-breaking effort, bringing in scabs. The company produces helicopters and critical military parts used in Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite all the patriotic garbage pushed on these workers, in this era of endless wars, even reform struggles like strikes by relatively high-paid workers over health benefits objectively clash with the rulers’ war effort and their drive for maximum profits.

The contradictions involving such workers was revealed in striker Peters’ statement that, "It’s not our fault we’re out here." The workers are finding out that patriotism leads to scabbing and strike-breaking. Meanwhile, Sikorsky president Steve Finger is not exactly "sacrificing for the war effort" — between salary, bonuses and stock options, he has $220 million rolling in.

Given the crucial role that such industrial workers play in capitalist war-making, our Party considers it vital to win such workers to revolutionary communist politics.

Book Review

The ‘New Imperialism’: Is it Failing?

Imperialism can be a difficult process to understand. "The New Imperialism" (Oxford University Press, 2003) by City University of New York anthropology professor David Harvey is useful in helping to explain how different aspects of imperialism work, but has little insight into how to end it, a task for revolutionaries in PLP.

The book opens by discussing Iraq, but it was written before the second U.S. ground invasion began. So he deals with questions like: What political/economic forces pushed the U.S. to go to war? Is invading Iraq a sign of weakness or strength? This leads to the book's larger issues: How does the contradiction between individual capitalists and the state play out in practice? Why has capitalism been able to survive the crisis of overproduction? Was primitive accumulation a process that just jump-started capitalism and now largely ended, or is it still essential as an ongoing process?

Much of the material assumes a reader's familiarity with basic ideas and concepts of Marxism-Leninism. Harvey uses typical academic language - which may be unfamiliar to many workers - and needlessly long sentences with many clauses and parentheses. Yet, more than ever, workers need to understand the system we live in and why we need to destroy it. Sections of this book could be useful in study groups to readers at all levels of understanding. The effort is worthwhile because the concepts and arguments concern concrete and practical matters.

One of the best chapters is called "How America's Power Grew." It describes how U.S. capital rose compared to rival capitalist powers since the 1870's, and explains many current changes in the U.S. and global economies.

Harvey's analysis shows why so many U.S. industrial jobs moved overseas in the last 40 years. Beginning in the 1960's, competition from Russian, German and Japanese capitalists led the U.S. to dramatically outsource its manufacturing base and focus instead on finance capital.

Harvey sketches the imperialist logic behind privatizing and deregulating "public" institutions since the mid-1970's. Energy deregulation, bank mergers, companies with fake profits, the dot.com expansion and collapse, ending welfare, gutting services to workers, and even the current housing expansion and coming collapse all make sense in the context of global capitalist competition.

Harvey even shows that U.S. consumerism is more than just a distraction for workers alienated from labor. It's been essential to absorbing much of global capital's product glut for decades. The credit and lending industry allows U.S. workers, who have relatively little, to buy more than workers in other countries. The industry is also a source of profitable reinvestment in itself. Other chapters describe the various ways capitalists try to save themselves from utter economic collapse.

On Iraq, the author concludes that the U.S. attacked it out of weakness, in order to maintain dominance during the global crisis of overproduction. The overseas U.S. manufacturing base is vulnerable to takeover, its financial power is unsure, and the amount of consumption may be insufficient to prevent a long-term global depression. But U.S. military power overwhelms most of the world's conventional armed forces and U.S. rivals are more dependant than the U.S. on Mid-East oil. U.S. rulers' strategy in Iraq, Afghanistan and much of South Asia aims at controlling the oil spigot in order to dominate the economies and armies of U.S. rivals.

Little is new here. PLP has been advancing much of this for years. But Harvey covers a lot of important theory and history in very succinct broad strokes, helpful in understanding the gist of current events. He also outlines the main trends affecting U.S. capital for the century; how U.S. capitalists have managed to avoid the economic crashes rolling through much of the world; and why the U.S. may be unable to manage this in the future.

Besides being difficult to read, a major drawback is the author's outlook toward workers. Harvey is what U.S. academics call a "Marxian" - meaning his point is to describe the world, not change it. (To academics, trying to end capitalism, and class society in general, is "Marxist.") To Harvey, the dictatorship of the proletariat, one of the workers' greatest tools in suppressing the bosses and eventually ending class oppression, seems "less and less relevant."

In his history and theory, Harvey under-emphasizes workers' struggles in shaping world events. He has little, if any understanding of the potential power that the working class possesses. Harvey says China is setting the trend for capitalist development today but doesn't even discuss the reversal of workers' power there. How can you comprehend how "communists" have emerged 7as a leading capitalist power without understanding workers loss of power in the Cultural Revolution?

The book is significantly flawed, but recognizing these weaknesses can be helpful. Further criticism of Harvey's analysis can help workers understand how we can smash imperialism, not just think about how it works.

Chimps and Humans: Cooperation is the Link

How often has someone told you "communism sounds great but it can never work because selfishness is part of human nature"? Recently the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Leipzig, Germany published a study of chimpanzees (NY Times, 3/3) demonstrating that cooperation — one of the hallmarks of being human — has existed for millions of years, even before the human and ape lineages divided.

The scientists’ series of experiments with chimpanzees clearly showed their predisposition to cooperate. Chimps are the closest living relative to humans, sharing a common ancestor who lived about six million years ago. Both the chimpanzees and humans may have inherited this trait from this common ancestor, but humans have developed more sophisticated cooperation. Scientists believe this may have occurred in order to avoid being exploited. Psychological tests have shown that humans tend to cooperate with people who have cooperated with them in the past, and avoid offering help to those who have not helped. "Chimpanzees," says the study, "are willing to help even when they are not getting a direct reward."

The fact that the Times publicized this study may be related to the "cooperation" the U.S. capitalist class is pushing — "let’s all work together to make ‘our’ country great." That is, to control the Middle East, run the world and keep profits rolling in.

This science reinforces our own views as communists, learned through the study of history, that workers armed with the tool of dialectics and the knowledge of what is right for their class will fight for their class, overcoming the capitalists — whose selfishness and greed are UNnatural qualities. Workers unite in order to fight exploitation by the ruling class. That’s what’s natural, not the opposite.

The belief that people are inherently selfish and greedy feeds cynicism, keeps people from fighting back, reinforces red-baiting ("communists are only in it for themselves"; "they just want the power") and is simply untrue.

Try this out in a conversation the next time someone says "it’s human nature to be selfish"!

A Reader

UNDER COMMUNISM: The Origins of Capitalist Wealth

(Part 1 of a 3-part series)

The dominant myth claims that capitalists become rich through "hard work, cleverness and dedication," and therefore they "deserve" their wealth. While textbooks portray the "Robber Barons" of the late 1800’s as a "dishonest" group of capitalists, they’re labeled "exceptions." And the capitalist media daily report "dishonest" capitalists or politicians, like Ken Lay of Enron, or Texas Congressman Tom DeLay. But again, they’re portrayed as "exceptions."

The schools and media say most capitalists are "honest." By reporting "exceptions" they pretend to give an accurate view of reality. And by punishing a few, the capitalists hope to boost our confidence in their "justice" system.

The reality is that massive theft and genocidal murder were the main sources of what Karl Marx called "primitive accumulation" of capital. The original accumulation into a few hands enabled these thieves and murderers to organize large-scale factories, mines, farms and banks. This form of accumulation still occurs. For example, the U.S. military seizes the oil fields of Iraq, while murdering hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children and their parents, as well as thousands of U.S. and British working-class youth.

When textbooks do give examples of primitive accumulation, they conceal the fact that these events formed the necessary starting point for today’s capitalist exploitation. This includes the genocide and/or enslavement in the 1500’s of natives of the Caribbean, Mexico and Central and South America by the Spanish and Portuguese conquerors as well as the French in Haiti. Other European nations and Japan murdered and enslaved millions and stole their raw materials, mainly through the organization of colonies in Africa, India, the Middle East and other parts of Asia. Since the 1600’s, what was to become U.S. capitalism depended on: (1) genocide against Native (North) Americans to steal land; and (2) theft/kidnapping of millions of African women and men for use as slaves on U.S. plantations.

By the late 1800’s, the entire world had been colonized by European, Japanese and U.S. capitalists. Since then, they’ve been fighting wars under many guises to rob each other of these colonies. This ushered in World Wars I and II, and continued with Korea, Central America, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Massacres of millions over resources, such as in the Congo and Rwanda — fought with weapons supplied by the U.S. and France — are disguised as "tribal conflicts." The wars in the former Yugoslavia , Afghanistan and Iraq actually represent endless occupations, with more yet to come, leading inevitably to WW III.

Modern wars are portrayed in histories and films as wars for "freedom" and "democracy," against terrorism or communism. Following WW II, the War Department was renamed the "Defense" Department.

Whether war or peace, "honest" capitalists make profits every day by stealing a portion of the value our labor adds to raw materials. Marx discovered this hidden source of profit and explained it in his monumental three-volume work, "Capital." Schoolbooks ridicule Marx’s ground-breaking theory of wage, price and profit to hide it from the working class. The profit-makers hope to prevent us from understanding that the drive for profit is the motivation for global theft and genocidal wars. The result of this devastation is not just widespread death and destruction but worldwide poverty, starvation, sickness and misery. Inequality is the hallmark of capitalism, and it continues to intensify day by day, year by year.

(Part 2 will discuss the history of redistribution of wealth: why it cannot achieve equality and why collective ownership is necessary. Part 3 will show how abolition of money and wages will be the beginning of a long process to build a workers’ society and destroy the power of capitalism.)

LETTERS

Liberals’ Tactic: Carrot-and-the-Stick

One can’t read the daily paper without noticing articles debating the handling of immigration. Sectors of the ruling class disagree on how to deal with the overwhelming integration of immigrant labor in important areas such as construction, agriculture, manufacturing and health care.

There’s a side that applauds anti-immigrant groups such as the Minutemen for terrorizing undocumented workers and for trying to win over other workers with patriotic propaganda. Rep. Sensenbrenner’s HR 4437 criminalizes anyone who supports undocumented workers in any way. The other side, the liberals, acknowledge the vast, super-exploitable pool of labor undocumented immigrants represent, and then tease workers with "immigrant-friendly" legislation, such as the McCain-Kennedy bill and the DREAM Act.

As an undocumented student-worker in the U.S, I’m very familiar with the carrot-and-stick tactics of liberal politicians as well as the overtly racist attacks condoned by many conservatives. I grew up disillusioned with one side and scapegoated by the other. The idea of democracy rang false and hollow to me.

With time, I realized that workers who were "citizens" were just as anonymous — and essential to the economy — as myself. I’ve seen military recruiters lure my friends with false promises only to have them fight in imperialist wars. I’ve seen people my age juggle several shifts in order to attend college. I know workers who silently nurse toothaches and suspicious-looking lumps because they can’t afford to go to a clinic. This is what "citizenship" and "democracy" look like from up close.

Given all this, it’s absurd to be enchanted with the promises advanced by liberal legislators. If one scrutinizes the McCain-Kennedy bill, it’s obvious that workers are being told not to organize for fear of being deported. The DREAM Act steers most undocumented youth — who lack the resources to go to college — to the battlefield in order for the bosses to secure corporate profits in the midst of inter-imperialist rivalry.

By exposing capitalism’s exploitative nature, it’s possible for workers to understand that anti-immigrant raids in the southwest and state-sanctioned strike-breaking in New York are essentially the same. They’re both examples of the bosses’ attempts to impose their will on workers in order to maximize their profits. The racist and nationalist rhetoric and practices that prop up capitalism drive a wedge between "immigrants" and "native" workers, but this shouldn’t stop us communists from building a movement.

In our discussions with all workers regarding immigration and other issues, we should not only use our experiences and CHALLENGE to expose the ruling class’s ulterior motives, but we should also make strong connections indicating the shared condition of the entire working class. Only with a high level of class consciousness can we engage in a shared struggle toward creating a communist society.

A Comrade

Adjuncts’ Struggle Part of A Bigger Fight

At my community college, the union is fighting for a small reform — eliminating the hated policy that subjects adjunct faculty to piece work (getting paid per student if they are teaching low-enrolled courses). We’re now debating whether to broaden the campaign by relating it to the war budget and cut-backs nation-wide or to keep it narrowly focused on our college. The activists, mostly adjunct faculty, have had very interesting discussions.

Everyone agrees this little struggle IS part of a bigger fight, that the oppression of adjunct faculty emanates from the militarizing of society and the crisis of U.S. capitalism. Some feel, however, that we’ll lose support if we make this link, that it will seem like we don’t really care about winning full pay for adjuncts. This argument needs to be seen for what it is — anti-communist, and wrong — based on the assumption that communists and others who want to transform society are dishonest.

It is precisely by broadening the struggle that more people will be motivated to become involved. Most faculty and students agree that class inequality is increasing dramatically in the U.S. and that the war in Iraq is wrong; however, they don’t see in their own lives an effective way to fight back.

If this "local" fight is seen as a way to fight the war budget, the attacks on working-class students, and the grinding down of the working class, they’d be more motivated to get involved, not less. A narrow approach keeps people swirling around in the soup of immediacy. Students may absorb the narrow struggle as, "Sure these adjunct faculty should get their full salary. This college is so screwed up. I’m going to leave for another college." Full-time faculty may think, "These poor bastards. I’m glad it’s not me."

The bosses love it when we take one struggle at a time, without looking at the big picture, because they can keep us divided. This is the classic way that trade union hacks have served management — keep workers focused on their narrow bread-and-butter demands rather than what’s happening to the whole working class. Communists, on the other hand, build communist class consciousness as the best way to win — not merely the little reforms, which the ruling class can reverse as long as they hold power, but the big transformation of society — communism.

A Red Fighter

Are We ‘Selling Communism’ to People?

There are fundamental differences about what people think is communism and communist agitation. Amazingly, there’s so little discussion about these differences in CHALLENGE. Comrades, let’s clarify what is communism!

In the March 1 CHALLENGE, something stood out that has continually bothered me: so much of the approach to the workers and our allies seems to be based on narrow self-interest. There’s so much concern about contractual takeaways, two tiers, retirement cuts, job security. The "political" issues, like the war and the crisis of capitalism, are mostly framed in terms of how they affect these issues. The Boeing article, on page 4, ends, lamenting the war because "it squanders our youth and our retirements." The long transit letter (that correctly criticizes CHALLENGE for not clearly spelling things out about the connection of capitalism to the workers’ economic problems), has that same outlook: winning transit workers to oppose the imperialist war by appealing to self-interest and clever arguments and analysis about how the bosses are using us to pay for the war.

I don’t agree with any of this strategy or politics of "selling" people on communism and resistance. Communism is not about offering the workers a better deal than the capitalists. It is about sacrifice and commitment on behalf of others. Our youth and our workers are important, of course, but it sends the wrong message in practice when we’re not clear that they are no more important than others around the world. Down with nationalism and unionism of this kind! I think we should be starting with the interests of everyone, especially the Iraqi or Sudanese people that are getting killed in the goddamed wars, (for which our society has a certain collective responsibility, due to all the indulgence and gluttony that we passively accept and participate in) or of the people that don’t even have jobs, or the homeless. That’s communism to me, concern for others dammit, not some extension of the union and their historically protecting only stupid, poisonous seniority and the lucky few that have something . . . the ones, by the way, who should be thinking about how they can share some of their privileges rather than pathetically hoarding the crumbs they receive from the capitalists.

It’s almost like we are so immersed in capitalism that we do things in a capitalist way. We gear our programs to the interests of those who have rather than those who don’t, those who don’t have any credibility or respect or names.

Maybe the problem is that too many of the veteran communists and former radicals, me included, have too many of the benefits and retirements that are still left. We’re not supposed to be retirement planners; we’re supposed to be revolution planners, fighters on behalf of all of our suffering brothers and sisters, just like those 200 communist cadre that were sent into the Warsaw Ghetto by the central committee of the CP of the USSR, knowing they were likely to die, so that a stand could be made and a message sent to the Jews and the rest of the world on behalf of loyalty and regard for one another. How do we begin to emulate the courage of John Brown and the multi-racial fighters at Harpers Ferry who knew that their seemingly desperate resistance to slavery could help to ignite a war for equality which we are starting to understand hasn’t really been finished to this day? Who is going to set an example of concern for others and prepare us for the coming battle if we continue to give in to the selfish, me-first stuff that we have all been brainwashed with?

I believe there’s a vast, irrepressible power — one of communist concern for others — waiting to be unleashed within the working class. It’s as yet hiding beneath the surface, like all great social movements do prior to their eruption, and its leaders may be unknown to us and even to themselves. But they are waiting for the emergence of communism on a higher, less materialist plane.

Red Rider

CHALLENGE comment: We thank the writer for raising these issues so sharply. We don’t think that becoming immersed in workers’ struggles in order to be in a position to win them to see that their problems are ordained by capitalism — and the ruling class that enforces it — is "selling communism" by "offering a better deal than capitalism." Ruling class attacks are daily creating more "have-nots" out of the "haves." (A recent NY Times editorial noted that U.S. workers are a lot worse off than the statistics make them out to be.) Should we not fight plant closings or health-care rip-offs?

Our goal is fighting for the political leadership of the workers, moving them out of the treadmill of reform onto the road to communist revolution. We concentrate on industrial workers at the point of production and on those in the military, both of whom are crucial to winning that leadership. Industrial workers, many of whom are now "the have nots" — low-paid, super-exploited immigrants — produce all the surplus value upon which the system depends.

No, we should not "promise" workers that such a revolution will solve all their problems right away. In fact, we maintain that revolution will probably occur out of world war, which will wreak havoc and so much destruction that most who "have" will suddenly "not have" — we will more likely have to share scarcity before we share any abundance. That process leading to world war is already taking place with every capitalist attack on workers worldwide, including in the U.S., growing out of capitalism’s inter-imperialist rivalry.

Of course, workers in Iraq, the Congo and elsewhere throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia are a lot worse off — on average — than workers here (although there are millions here way below the "average": Katrina victims, undocumented immigrants, millions of unemployed, those murdered by racist police brutality, to name a few). But we attempt to show how all these attacks are related internationally, and they’re all caused by a system based on profits. Communist concern for workers everywhere is expressed in CHALLENGE through our consistent reports of attacks on workers and their fight-backs throughout the world, not just in the U.S. Which is why we’re trying to build one Party in as many regions of the world as we can.

Our concerns are not limited to so-called economic problems. Our constant hammering away at racism and its effects on tens of millions of victims, our support for and participation in rebellions, our leadership in attacking the Nazis and the Klan, is all evidence of that. But we also show how racism drags down the lives of ALL workers, even as it worsens the lives of its immediate victims the most.

We have been exposing imperialism’s onslaught on workers worldwide throughout PLP’s existence, from Vietnam to Iraq. And we organize among soldiers and sailors, attempting to win them away from being used as instruments of imperialist profit-makers, against not only their own class interests but in the service of killing millions of their brother and sister victims of these wars.

Red Rider raises many other points which we could respond to: like the liberal argument that most U.S. workers benefit from imperialist wars instead of the big bosses and the tiny aristocracy of labor union hacks, that somehow workers and youth will "emerge as communists" out of thin air instead of communist organizers bringing these ideas to them, and so on. We welcome more readers’ letters on this important subject.

Colombian Army Tortures Own Soldiers

Since Plan Colombia began under President Clinton, the U.S. has given billions in military aid to Colombia’s army, increasing it after 9/11, as part of the "war on terror." President Alvaro Uribe has become Bush’s best ally in Latin America. His "hard line" was supposed to smash the country’s large guerrilla movements, but it hasn’t worked.

Last month, the Colombian army, known for its corruption and cruelty, was involved in a scandal which exposed its true nature even more. Army chief Gen. Reynald Castellanos, along with two other generals and several high-ranking officers, was forced to resign. Because of defeats by guerrillas? No, because of the torture of 21 soldiers by their own military instructors.

The beatings, tortures, burning with hot rods and sexual abuses in this "exercise" occurred in late January in the Tolima Department’s VI Army Brigade Instruction Center. The victims ended up in the hospital. Radio Caracol obtained and broadcast the official medical report. However, the soldiers’ relatives took the initiative to expose this cruelty. These are poor, working-class families who send their sons to the army as a way to get "military cards," key to getting jobs here, even low-paid ones.

Many aren’t surprised that the army tortures, but not its own soldiers. People say if they do it to "their own," imagine what’s done to guerrillas, workers and students who oppose the government. Others compare the military’s torture methods here to those of the CIA and Pentagon in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, etc. After all, there are over 1,000 U.S. military instructors here (under Plan Colombia or "Patriot Plan" as it’s now being called).

Since Uribe took power, 14 generals have been ousted — some because under their commands they’ve lost big battles with the guerrillas; others because of corruption (at least those who were caught). Gen. Gabriel Ramón Diaz. head of the II Brigade, was dumped after "one ton of cocaine was lost in the Atlantic," according to El Tempo, the leading bourgeois paper here.

General Castellans, known as a "strategist," is being replaced as army chief by Gen. Mario Montoya Uribe, known for relying mainly on brute force. In 2002, he led the Anti-Narcotics Batallion of the Three Corner military base, central to Plan Colombia’s "fight against drugs." Basically, the Pentagon built this base. Along with the one in Manta in neighboring Ecuador, it’s crucial to U.S. military intervention in the region.

But the U.S. and Colombian government strategy has a problem: terror and brute force haven’t worked. Militarily, it’s been unable to defeat the main guerrilla force, the nationalist FARC. Most of FARC’s soldiers are much more committed than Colombia’s which generally don’t want to serve. For a while, Uribe claimed success, but last year the army suffered one defeat after another.

For workers, the Uribe government has meant more misery, paramilitary terror and union-busting (see letter on Bavaria workers, CHALLENGE, 3/15). This May Day we in PLP will bring to the workers and students here the only solution to this capitalist hell: fight for communism.

A Comrade

Good Riddance to Milosevic

It's an on-going tragedy that fascists like Milosevic die either from natural causes or at the hands of other bosses (there are rumors he was poisoned), not at the hands of the working class — Mussolini’s fate, machine-gunned and hung by his heels by communist-led Italian partisans. Milosevic’s a prime example that "the enemy of our enemy is NOT our friend." During the endless Yugoslav civil wars, Milosevic and the other nationalist butchers in the Balkans provided a convenient moral scratching post for the hypocrites in the U.S., UN and NATO ruling classes. But they deserved their reputations in helping the imperialists to split up the former Yugoslavia and to initiate ethnic cleansing, bitter partisan warfare, foment racism and perpetrate mass rapes.

As revisionist as Yugoslavia’s "communist" originator, Joseph Bronz Tito, was, his regime did keep the lid on ethnic rivalries and managed to diminish them. Tito established his base of support during a multi-national fight against the Nazis. But he was the first one to join the Western imperialists in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. His "self-management" scheme for workers in factories built capitalist relationships instead of communism. After Tito died and the Soviet Union collapsed,, neo-fascists like Milosevic, Radovan Karadzic, and Ratko Mladic stepped into the nationalist void with a bloodthirstiness and greed that was possibly only exceeded on the local scale by the pseudo-rebels in the Congo, Rwanda and in Indonesia in 1965.

Of course, all these conflicts are at least partially fueled by larger imperialists like the U.S. and European Union, who cause more damage and death far more often and on a global scale. But that should never blind us to the incredible carnage caused by the local fascists of Yugoslavia and other smaller countries, whether those fascists are nationalist, religious or both. It’s really sick when some will actually call for defending, or on occasion supporting, the local fascists that oppose U.S. rulers or NATO, as Milosevic did.

Even with the decline of his regime, though, the working class in the Balkans still must deal with a shaky bourgeois "democracy" and the lingering after-effects of racist war, with the imperialists pulling the strings. They need a real multi-racial, cross-cultural communist movement, as do we all.

A Reader

REDEYE

Elections help bosses fight off unions

…The business backed group…was trying to discredit the most successful strategy that unions have used to try to reverse a decades-long slide in membership.

That strategy is known as card checks, a process in which companies grant union recognition once a majority of workers sign cards saying they favor a union....Unions say companies often prevent fair elections by firing and intimidating union supporters….

"Under the National Labor Relations Act, the election process in the United States has turned into a meat grinder for workers….Each year 20,000 workers are fired or retaliated against for supporting a union."…

A study last year by professors at the University of Illinois at Chicago found that during unionization elections, 30 percent of employers fire pro-union workers and 49 percent threaten to close work sites if workers unionize.

The National Labor Relations Act….gives employers the right to insist on elections….

"A worker can join a church or synagogue or the Republican Party by signing a card," Mr. Raynor said. "That’s how people join organizations in the United States. The idea that workers can’t join a union by signing their name is ludicrous." (NYT, 3/11)

Evil acts are spurred by God-quoters

For centuries, we have been told that without religion we are no more than egotistic animals fighting for our share, our only morality that of a pack of wolves; only religion, it is said, can elevate us to a higher spiritual level….

This argument couldn’t have been more wrong: the lesson of today’s terrorism is that if God exists, then everything, including blowing up thousands of innocent bystanders, is permitted — at least to those who claim to act directly on behalf of God….

Fundamentalists do what they perceive as good deeds in order to fulfill God’s will and to earn salvation; atheists do them simply because it is the right thing to do.

(NYT, 3/12)

US doesn’t want to collect $ from Big Oil

The...administration has cut spending over the last five years for what it calls "compliance and asset management" — the job of verifying royalty obligations — even as it has sharply expanded oil and gas leasing….Auditors typically recover three times as much money from underpayments as they spend on auditing. (NYT, 3/1)

Ablest workers doing fine? Fed chief lies

…about income equality,[Ben Bernanke]…declared that "the most important factor" in rising inequality "is the rising skill premium the increased return to education….[higher salaries]"

I think of Mr. Bernanke’s position which one hears all the time, as the 80-20 fallacy. It’s the notion that the winners in our increasingly unequal society are a fairly large group — …the 20 percent or so of American workers who have the skills to take advantage of new technology….

The 2006 Economic Report of the President tells us that the real earnings of college graduates ctually fell more than 5 percent between 2000 and 2004….

So who are the winners from rising inequality? It’s not the top 20 percent, or even the top 10 percent. The big gains have gone to a much smaller, much richer group than that….

Between 1972 and 2001….income at the 99th percentile rose 87 percent; income at the 99.9th percentile rose 181 percent; and income at the 99.99th percentile rose 497 percent. No, that’s not a misprint.

…The notion that it’s all about returns to education suggests that nobody is to blame for rising inequality.…

The idea that we have a rising oligarchy is much more disturbing. It suggests that the growth of inequality may have as much to do with power relations as it does with market forces. Unfortunately, that’s the real story. (Paul Krugman,NYT, 2/23)

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, March 15 2006

Information: 15 March 2006 720 hits

Big bosses want to sucker workers into support for war: Liberal Rulers' `Immigrant Reform' Means More Exploitation for all Workers
Using port flap to build anti-arab racism
Are U.S. Rulers `Losing Latin America'?
Dialectics School Teaches:
Workers Can Change History
PLP'ers Lead Disruption of Racist Minutemen Meeting
Protesters Defy Racist Gary Cops After Murder of Black Teenager
UAW Sabotages Flint Delphi Protest
Expose AFL-CIA:
D.C. Transit Workers Lead Solidarity Rally
Racism, War Budget Closing 26 San Fran Schools
Youth Revolt Growing Against French Rulers' Attack on Jobs
Chavez's State Capitalism No Road to Workers' Power
`New Century' = Old Deception
LA HOTEL WORKERS MUST REJECT CLASS COLLABORATION
Mexico: Red Ideas Embolden Workers' Battle with Boss
Profit Drive Kills Sixty-Five Miners In Mexico
PLP Proud of Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
50 Years Ago Krushchev Slandered Communism
Road to Katrina:
1927 Flood Restored Slavery in Mississippi
UNDER COMMUNISM:
How Will Children Be Raised?
LETTERS
REDEYE ON THE NEWS

Big bosses want to sucker workers into support for war: Liberal Rulers' `Immigrant Reform' Means More Exploitation for all Workers

The U.S. ruling class is preparing for expanding imperialist wars. The top rulers need an immigration policy fitting those plans. These murderers are desperate for more low-paid immigrant workers for war production as well as for their children to fill more boots on the ground in the Mid-East. (One in five U.S. children is born to immigrants.) They need an immigration policy guaranteeing Mexico's social stability and keeping it from moving toward a Brazilian-led anti-U.S. bloc.

While the Minutemen attack immigrants at the border and across the U.S., the top liberal imperialists want to put many of the country's 11 million undocumented workers on the road to legalization and allow more to enter as "guest workers." This dispute pits the interests of an increasingly challenged U.S. imperialism against those of the Republican Party's right-wing. No wonder the New York Times -- mouthpiece of the biggest, most viciously racist bosses -- cries crocodile tears over the plight of immigrant day-laborers and editorializes for legislative reform! (2/25)

The Minutemen swine champion mass deportations, which divide and weaken the working class. They support the Sensenbrenner House of Representatives bill to build a 700-mile wall along the U.S.-Mexican border and criminalize of anyone helping undocumented immigrants in any way.

Meanwhile, Senators Kennedy and McCain are sponsoring a bi-partisan bill that might "legalize" many undocumented workers while deporting those unemployed for over 45 consecutive days. It would control immigrants and enforce stronger border control.

For years, the labor union leadership has supported every anti-immigrant measure, along with protectionism, racism, and nationalism. Suddenly they "support" the immigrants' rights to organize. Part is opportunism since immigrant workers play an increasingly key role in all sectors of industry. Also, they need more dues-paying members as their ranks shrink to ever lower levels. At Caterpillar, for example, the union is welcoming into its ranks workers making less than half the wages of senior workers. (NY Times, 2/26)

The AFL-CIO and SEIU follow the dictates of the top imperialists. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) explains (see box page 2) that reforming U.S. immigration policy to allow legalization of undocumented immigrants and a guest worker program is crucial to improving relations with Mexico and other Latin American countries.

With the U.S. native population aging, and sharpening competition from their rivals, U.S. rulers need a loyal, low-paid workforce in key industries -- controlled by immigration reform -- while they slash higher-paying jobs. And the nation's growers want more workers -- braceros -- to pick their crops. The liberals want selective deportations -- not to deport everyone but to create terror. They're focusing mainly on Latino youth to join the military, to vastly enlarge the Army for an expanding fight for U.S. dominance of Mid-East oil beyond Iraq.

The liberal imperialist bosses are organizing a movement to "defend" immigrants against the Minutemen and the Sensenbrenner bill. PLP has boldly exposed and fought the racist Minutemen. We're stepping this up, bringing more co-workers and students to marches against the Minutemen and Sensenbrenner's bill. We must fight in the liberal-led movements, to expose their leaders seeking to "welcome" immigrants into exploitation and war. The liberals push elections, not class struggle from the shops to the streets.

Communists and anti-racists continue to fight like hell against all forms of anti-immigrant racism, from the Minutemen and Colorado Congressman Tancredo to McCain, Kennedy and SEIU's Stern. There can be no communist revolution without massive, sharp anti-racist fight-back. Racism is the mortal enemy of all workers.

Now more than ever, immigrant workers are in key positions and have tremendous potential power, a fact the liberal racists seek to hide. The bosses have been forced to open key weapons-producing industries and the military to immigrants because of increasing global competition and declining recruitment to the armed forces. By organizing in industry and the military against the racist imperialist bosses, immigrants can unite with black workers -- also concentrated in basic industry and the military -- as well as with white workers to build a powerful force for revolution. This will happen as communists work with their co-workers and in the mass movement exposing the liberal wolves in sheep's clothing.

The deadly message of Stern and Durazo (Hotel Workers' union head)? Accept slave labor wages, capitalism and imperialist war and just vote for liberals to "save us" from the Minutemen and Sensenbrenner. PLP's message is immigrant workers taking the lead in fighting for power for our class through communist revolution against the open and liberal racists. This will ring true to masses of workers, when coupled with CHALLENGE networks, anti-racist and anti-imperialist actions, close friendships, and day-to-day struggle against the racist exploiters.

Using port flap to build anti-arab racism

The liberals' criticism of Dubai's impending U.S. port takeover runs deeper than opportunistic election-year Bush-bashing or a rulers' dispute about anti-terror tactics. It's all that and something graver, part of an effort to position the U.S. for future global conflicts. The ports flap reflects similar battles between potential U.S. allies and enemies worldwide. Among imperialists, financial competition over strategic industries inevitably leads to war. Lenin noted this in 1917, in "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism," amid the carnage of World War I. He examined decades of British, German, French and U.S. moves to acquire key production capacity and infrastructure that preceded the shooting. He specifically focused on rivalries in shipping, steel and energy, sectors that remain crucial today.

By opposing the ports deal, Democrats like Charles Schumer, Hillary Clinton, and Jon Corzine advance U.S. militarism in several ways. Now every big business transaction involving foreigners will come under a national-security microscope. By labeling the Dubai bosses as less trustworthy than their British predecessors, the liberals give a big boost to the anti-Arab racism the rulers need to motivate troops and the home front. They're also working to keep important military supply lines in friendly hands. P & O, the firm Dubai wants to buy, runs piers not only in Newark, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Miami, and New Orleans, but in Corpus Christi and Beaumont, Texas as well. These Texas harbors ship more than half the heavy arms (tanks, etc.) bound for Iraq.

Hoping to enlist working-class support, Clinton & Co. have turned to the utterly corrupt, Mafia-ridden, pro-imperialist leadership of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA). In conjunction with Democratic politicians, these hacks are holding flag-waving "Goodbye Dubai" rallies that recall ILA boss Teddy Gleason's role in advising the Pentagon on port efficiency in Vietnam during the genocidal U.S. war there.

Immediate concerns, especially the war in Iraq, roped Bush into blessing Dubai's purchase in spite of U.S. imperialism's long-term requirements. Dubai is part of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is providing the U.S. military with bases for the Iraq occupation. At any given time there are tens of thousands of U.S. troops in the UAE. Furthermore, the UAE is currently taking delivery of $6.4 billion worth of U.S. military equipment, mostly state-of-the-art fighter aircraft. For the moment, Bush can't afford to offend Dubai's ruler.

Geopolitics underlies a host of global takeover squabbles. France is vigorously protesting Mittal Steel's buyout of Europe's Arcelor, which would make Mittal the world's biggest steel producer. Mittal is run from London by a newly-rich Anglo-Indian family and the U.S. establishment. Along with those family members, U.S. investors Wilbur Ross and Lewis Kaden sit on Mittal's board. French bosses worry about Mittal's allegiances.

Ross ensured the existence of the U.S. steel industry, essential in future wars, by buying up bankrupt companies like Bethlehem, while lowering costs by eliminating workers' pensions. [Ross did the same with coal, gobbling up failing mines that might be needed in case arms demand spiked. He owns the Sago pit that murdered 12 miners in January.] Ross then "sold" his International Steel Group to Mittal.

Kaden is an old Bethlehem exec, who belongs to the Council on Foreign Relations, U.S. imperialism's top think-tank. While Europe's bosses rage at Mittal, they raise only token opposition to German Eon's bid to become the world's largest gas supplier, and thus a European champion, by acquiring Spain's Endesa. And, closing ranks on another front, the U.S. Congress, alarmed at Beijing's growing military threat, helped Chevron thwart a Chinese attempt to take over Unocal.

Lenin got it right. When capitalists hash out international business deals, they are often sharpening their swords for war. In the U.S. today it's the liberals who lead the death march. The working class can answer these attacks by building an international communist movement. Here, a step on that road is winning workers and youth to participating in PLP's May Day marches on April 29 in New York City and Los Angeles. That process can lead them to joining the Party to lead the struggle for workers' power.

Are U.S. Rulers `Losing Latin America'?

U.S. rulers are bogged down in Iraq and face increasing challenges from China's bosses. Their nightmare scenario is Iran and Shia-controlled Iraq outside U.S. imperialist control. The European Union is the main investor in South America, with China a growing factor. U.S. bosses have huge investments and trade with Mexico and cannot afford to lose them to Mercosur (the Brazilian-led Free Trade group). A huge NAFTA transportation corridor is being built from Mexico to Kansas City to receive shipments from Asia and transport them throughout the U.S. (Monthly Review, Feb. 2006) One quarter of Mexico's active workforce lives and works in the U.S. In 2005, they sent $22 billion back to Mexico, representing 22% of Mexico's national budget. One of every five families in Mexico depends on money sent from the U.S. A racist Georgia law taxes this desperately-needed money.

In a widely-publicized article in Foreign Affairs Magazine (published by the CFR, the top U.S. imperialists), entitled "Is Washington Losing Latin America?," Peter Hakim, President of the Inter-American Dialogue, stresses the importance of U.S. immigration policy: "Latin Americans see immigration as a solution both to their own high unemployment and low wages and to the huge demand for workers in the U.S. They argue that the U.S. should accept larger numbers of immigrants. Instead, Washington has stiffened enforcement measures at its borders, an action that has not reduced illegal immigration but has raised the costs and risks of entering the United States and kept many immigrants in the underground economy where exploitation is common. Worse, state and local governments in the United States are increasingly implementing harsh anti-immigrant initiatives, and armed civilian volunteers occasionally take it upon themselves to patrol the U.S.-Mexican border to keep immigrants out."

"For many Latin American countries, especially Mexico, U.S. immigration policy has become the most important issue in their bilateral relations with the United States....U.S. and Latin American policymakers largely agree on the basic principles that should guide a new U.S. approach to the issue -- including a substantial increase in the number of temporary workers granted lawful entry to the U.S., the development of some procedures for some undocumented immigrants to earn legal status, and the effective enforcement of any new legislation." The roadblock to this lies within the Republican Party, whose right-wing favors deportations and the Minutemen.

Dialectics School Teaches:
Workers Can Change History

BROOKLYN, NY, Feb. 18 - A one-day conference was organized by PLP high school and college students to further understand the revolutionary communist philosophy - dialectical materialism. About 50 people participated, including a transit worker and a survivor from the Katrina capitalist disaster.

The introduction described why we study dialectical materialism, noting that everyone subscribed to a philosophy even if they don't realize it. The presentation featured four points of view, ranging from the religious to scientific, and mixtures of both. Participants were asked to choose which one most closely represented their view and why. As people responded, a comrade asked how one would assess a situation and gain the truth, stemming from their point of view. The discussion centered on a young woman who had been arrested at a college fair (see CHALLENGE, 12/01/04).

The first workshops focused on philosophy and science, and materialism vs. idealism. The first discussion examined the question of where do ideas and inventions come from, such as the creation of the automobile and the idea of someone or something being "cute." One high school student said ideas come from the need for a solution to a problem and daily interactions among people. The groups then considered the scientific method and why we should study philosophy. A method is needed in order to analyze/prove the correctness of an idea. Then we focused on how to determine the truth. That discussion was livelier because it involved opposing philosophies: belief in a god vs. a dialectical materialist outlook. Many defended religious beliefs quite sharply, even though they saw the correctness of a scientific approach to understanding and solving problems.

We were then asked if one can be a communist and still believe in god since these were two contradictory ideas. Some were very critical of the church and believed that a personal or individual relationship with god was the way to go, while others still believed in church teachings. It was a healthy debate on how to determine which ideas are correct, which ideas oppress the working class.

In these debates, we reached an understanding of idealism and materialism in the philosophical sense. This segment ended with the questions, "can humans change history and under what circumstances?" Most people agreed that humans can change history but we must agree on the correct philosophy and then take action on it.

The evening session dealt with the first law of dialectics, contradiction, explored during a discussion of sexism. Some of our friends realized it wasn't a personal "man-vs.-women" issue but one of one class dominating another; that men didn't benefit from it. A false contradiction was created between sections of the working class, preventing them from uniting against the real enemy - the capitalist leeches. The primary contradiction related to sexism is not man vs. women but workers vs. bosses. Similarly, racism was also discussed in these terms: not white vs. black but class vs. class; white workers don't benefit from racism but, in fact, racism hurts them also.

Finally, one comrade said we must study theory to analyze what went wrong in the Soviet Union and China, where working-class state power reverted back to capitalism. (For further analysis, see page 8.)

We in PLP intend to learn from their mistakes and pick up the torch to carry out the violent overthrow of capitalism with revolutionary communist theory to guide our class to defeat our class enemy.

PLP'ers Lead Disruption of Racist Minutemen Meeting

VALLEY FORGE, PA., Feb. 25 -- A group of PLPer's, along with other anti-racist groups, demonstrated against the racist anti-immigrant Minutemen here today. After phone calls flooded the town convention center demanding they be denied a room, they rented one at a nearby hotel and attempted to spew their anti-worker propaganda.

A group of 30 counter-demonstrators picketed outside to alert the public about the racist event inside. We held signs and shouted pro-worker chants. Young comrades led this protest, maintaining the spirited picketing and were greeted by approving honks from passers-by.

Another group went inside to interrupt their gathering, chanting "Smash racist deportations, working people have no nation!"

While the racists pushed us back out of the hallway, the cops -- protecting the fascist Minutemen -- arrested four protestors. The approximately 50 people attending the meeting were now aware of the racist nature of the group they were checking out. They heard us, and our disruption may have caused some second-guessing among those inside the room, putting the Minutemen leaders on notice that their views are being opposed. Without any interruptions or protests, they might have felt they're being accepted.

It's important that we fight the racists in every way possible when these scum try to openly recruit to their anti-working class filth, letting them know militant anti-racist workers and youth will unceasingly oppose them. We learn from each experience. Next time we'll be even better prepared.

Protesters Defy Racist Gary Cops After Murder of Black Teenager

GARY, IN -- On February 4, the streets echoed with chants of "No Justice -- No Peace, No Trigger-Happy Police!" With a megaphone, posters and under police surveillance, more than 60 activists rallied against the racist police murder of 16-year-old Vincent Smith Jr., arousing the city from its submission to racist bosses and officials.

Three weeks earlier, Vincent became another victim in the war between cops and workers when he was shot in the back of the head by Officer Levi Randolph. Randolph, seven years on the force, claimed Vincent reached for a gun while fleeing a burglary at his cousin's house.

Vincent, however, was unarmed and shot in the back of the head while running away, as reported in the corporate media. But they failed to mention that Randolph reportedly shot someone in a similar manner several years before enlisting to protect the bosses. The Gary police force has a number of cops who were apparently convicted of felonies and then were "pardoned" so they could become the kind of cops the bosses like.

Not an uncommon story in Gary or many other cities. But this time a rally was organized by a local campus group and joined by students from Chicago State University, members of the community, including from Vincent's family, and some PLP members from Chicago, showing there are people willing to fight against the racist, anti-working-class oppression ravaging the city.

Some residents were afraid. "These people are scared," said one. "They know if they stop and join [this rally], the police will recognize them and make them pay later." But undaunted, others did join the chants that were heard four blocks away, shouting in front of the police station, "Capitalism Means -- We Got To Fight Back!" The protest was a success and many local workers bought CHALLENGE and agreed with PLP's revolutionary outlook.

The following Saturday, some local anti-racist students circulated petitions in the community calling for the indictment and jailing of cop Randolph. Dozens of people are now circulating petitions throughout the area.

However, racism and capitalist corruption are not limited to this cop! It's time for action in one of the country's most notoriously racist cities. Gary's workers are ready to step up, but unless we fight to win workers, students and youth to PLP's revolutionary communist politics, local activism will just lead to liberal reforms that maintain the system of oppression which has made Gary a racist wasteland of closed factories, unemployment, failing schools and police terror. Building a struggle against this racist terror can be an important step in building this revolutionary movement.

UAW Sabotages Flint Delphi Protest

FLINT, MI, Feb. 16 -- Today about 75 active and retired auto workers from Flint, Detroit and Saginaw demonstrated outside the Flint East Delphi plant to protest the closing of the Spark Plug & Oil Filter production here and the concessions GM and Delphi are forcing on workers.

The UAW Local 651 leadership tried to use a snowstorm to call off the protest, spending all day in the factory telling workers it was cancelled, even though schools were open and the sidewalks around the plant were shoveled and clear.

The real reason behind the sabotage was a call to the Local leadership from UAW Headquarters asking them, "Are you with us or with them," referring to the Soldiers of Solidarity (SOS) reform movement. This didn't sit well with the picketing workers or the Local 651 members who organized the protest.

GM, Delphi and their UAW partners are working hard on a concession contract while they play out their bankruptcy court drama. They're hoping that a series of postponements and delays will give them time to settle things while wearing us down. The delays also give the bosses time to build up inventory and give GM time to line up other suppliers should a strike shut Delphi.

As in previous protests, American flags were in abundance. This attempt to make the workers' struggle "patriotic," and the bosses "unpatriotic," reflects a serious political weakness in the SOS movement. It's a far cry from the militant, anti-racist, pro-revolutionary movements that rocked the auto bosses in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Groups like DRUM (Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement), the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, the PLP-led Workers Action Movement (WAM) and others led mass violent actions, wildcats and sit-down strikes, fighting the bosses, cops and union sellouts. Then, carrying an American flag meant you were on the other side. It wasn't our flag then, and it's not our flag now.

As the Delphi struggle unfolds and May Day is on the horizon, "Save American Jobs" must give way to "Workers of the World, Unite" for GM and Delphi workers to have a fighting chance.

Expose AFL-CIA:
D.C. Transit Workers Lead Solidarity Rally

Washington, DC, Feb. 15--Seventy-five unionists rallied in solidarity with the Tehran bus drivers at the Iranian Interests Section here today. A PLP-led group of D.C. Metro transit workers turned an AFL-CIO "photo op" into a rally for workers' internationalism. The Metro workers electrified the rally, linking the attacks on workers here to those on workers abroad. Their signs read, "From Tehran to NYC to D.C., Workers of the World Unite!" Two Metro workers were new to such an action and were impressed that the union, under red leadership, would make such a move.

The president of ATU Local 689, the transit worker's union, is a member of PLP. He addressed the rally, saying, "The bosses here are the same as the bosses in Tehran. In Tehran, they jailed workers for going on strike. In New York, they imposed millions of dollars of fines on the workers, and showing their true racist nature, called the strikers `thugs.'"

Throughout this speech, listeners cheered our message of solidarity and anti-racism. Afterwards, the Metro workers led the rally in chanting, "Same enemy, same fight, Workers of the world must unite!" We distributed about 30 CHALLENGES.

Conversations afterwards centered on the importance of communist leadership. Metro workers know that without a communist president, the union wouldn't have been there. They see the stark difference between communist leadership and the opportunists who seek union office for personal gain. Workers saw the difference between the AFL-CIO leadership's speeches and chants and those of PLP. The rally re-energized communist work at Metro.

The need for international solidarity was evident to all the Metro workers at the rally and many more who couldn't attend. The fact that actions occurred worldwide was also inspiring to all of us. However, without communist leadership, rallies and actions will be only as powerful as the AFL-CIO's bullhorn: barely a whisper.

The AFL-CIO hypocrites say they support transit strikers in Iran, but Transport Workers Union international president Mike O'Brian, a member of the AFL-CIO Executive Council, ordered striking NYC transit workers to return to work and scab on their own strike!

The AFL-CIO called this rally to back U.S. imperialism in Iran and the rest of the Middle-East, not to support striking bus drivers. They're adding their voice to the growing ruling-class chorus attacking Iran's growing influence in the region. The New York Times (2/16) reported, "the Bush administration, frustrated by Iranian defiance over its nuclear program, proposed...to spend $85 million to promote political change inside Iran by subsidizing dissident groups...to destabilize the...current Iranian government."

The labor-fakers didn't lift a finger to support transit strikers in NYC, Sweden or Nicaragua. Known as the AFL-CIA throughout Latin America, it has a long, bloody history of serving U.S. imperialism and smashing pro-working class, anti-U.S. rulers' movements.

The AFL-CIO always sides with U.S. rulers' war plans. PLP fights for international workers' solidarity and to overthrow the war-makers, from Washington to Tehran.

Racism, War Budget Closing 26 San Fran Schools

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 26 -- "The greatest lesson our kids can learn is how to fight the system," said a mother who had just moved here from back east. It was the third time a school attended by her first-grader was threatened with closure.

Both she and her son later took part in the January 30th one-day strike in which 200 of 225 students were held out at John Swett Elementary. Officials say "declining enrollment" is the "reason" for the closings. After years of racist cutbacks, we must move beyond appeals for mercy or such officials' rationales. The trend in schools here closely matches Oakland's and other districts nation-wide. As teachers in the Bay Area's two largest cities prepare to strike, the lack of a teacher-parent-student alliance as active as at John Swett is becoming painfully obvious.

"Financial concerns and educational policy sometimes are at odds," the S.F. School Commissioner Sarah Lipson told an angry crowd of parents protesting the District plan to close 26 schools. They're all in poorer and mostly African-American neighborhoods. Her neutral language hides the real issues driving both the cuts and the opposition to them.

The immediate factor underlying the attack is the war economy. The Federal government's latest spending plan continues military expansion that drains money from two-thirds of Federal Agencies. The Federal deficit will far eclipse the previous record, reaching $423 billion. Military spending (not counting the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan) will top $439 billion -- a 45% increase over five years.

The immediate effect underlying these attacks is intensified racism. With 60% of white students in private schools, S.F. already has the highest percentage of children in private schools nationally. Yet a public school like John Swett is being closed despite its location where the school age population will continue to rise. Meanwhile, the capitalists blithely talk about raising over $100 million to finance a new football stadium.

As bad as this is, these attacks will intensify as the U.S. capitalist class mounts more wars to cope with a deepening economic crisis and fiercer competition overseas. More imperialist war is not in workers' interest anywhere.

These contradictions enhance the opportunity to discuss the possibilities of communism. Slowly parents and teachers are in motion, resisting the effects of capitalism, its wars and sharpening racism. Reaching out with the ideas in CHALLENGE today can lead more and more teachers, parents and students to understand the need to organize for workers' power -- communism. Tomorrow, that militant parent quoted above will be telling us: "The greatest lesson our kids can learn is how to fight the system and replace it with a better, classless one!"

Youth Revolt Growing Against French Rulers' Attack on Jobs

(Part I -- CHALLENGE, 3/1 -- described the developing movement in France of up to a half million workers and students in nearly 200 cities -- mass demonstrations and strikes closing two universities -- opposing a new law, the "CPE" or contract for first employment, which would give the bosses a freer hand in laying off workers, and in hiring temporary and part-time workers, all leading to tremendous job insecurity and denial or loss of benefits.)

PARIS, Feb. 28 -- The anti-CPE movement continues to grow. A dozen universities are now on strike. Demonstrations are taking place here and in the country's major cities today, responding to a call from the university and high school unions.

On February 16 demonstrators in Rennes attempted to enter the prefecture, breaking windows, but were dispersed with tear gas. They continued demonstrating in the city center until 1 a.m. That day in Brest 400 students occupied a McDonald's restaurant, a symbol of job insecurity.

On February 23 there were widespread protests: 5,000 people demonstrated in Paris, chanting "C comme chômage" (as in unemployment), "P comme précaire" (insecurity)] and "E comme exploité" ( exploited); 2000 people protested in Rennes; in Toulouse, students blocked entry to two universities, welding the doors shut to some buildings; and 1,000 students took to the streets there, attacked by police using tear gas and riot sticks; 1,000 demonstrated in Bordeaux and 400 in Brest; 250 protesters stopped traffic on the main highway near Lorient and spoke to motorists before letting them drive on.

These young people want a steady job enabling them to live independently of their parents and start their own families. Capitalism requires a workforce disciplined by job insecurity. It cannot satisfy the needs of young people here, or anywhere.

An official study found that youth 15 to 24 constitute 9% of France's working population, but in 2002 accounted for 14% of the unemployed -- 25% of those who were laid off that year -- and 27% of the job-seekers. (The unemployed are those who have lost a job; "job-seekers" include those who've never had a job.) "For people under 25, alternating short periods of unemployment and temporary work has practically become the rule."

Job insecurity hits young blue-collar workers harder (see chart page 6) and is even worse for minority youth in the housing projects, whose unemployment rate ranges from 25% to 37%.

Passage of the CPE law will worsen this insecurity. Unfortunately, the political machines of the Socialist and Communist Parties largely control the anti-CPE movement. Their goal is not to destroy the capitalist system that creates job insecurity. They are limiting the movement to a single-issue approach that allows them to pose as a left-wing alternative to the government in the run-up to the 2007 presidential and legislative elections.

Most of the leaders of the main university student union, UNEF, align themselves with one of three Socialist Party (SP) factions, while high school student leaders belong to one of two SP factions.

Recent French history shows that following these Socialist misleaders is a dead-end for workers, young and old. In 2002 the Socialist government adopted measures forcing workers to work longer for smaller pensions (a move which lost them the presidential and legislative elections that year). In 2005 one SP mayor called on the right-wing government to use the Army to crush the rebellion in the housing projects. Lately they have been praising the U.K.'s Tony Blair and "New Labour."

Now the Socialists and their Communist Party allies are ferociously attacking the CPE. Laurent Fabius, who jumped on the anti-European constitution bandwagon (see CHALLENGE, 5/25/05), advocates creating a special temporary work contract for young people -- a watered-down CPE.

Jean-Louis Borloo, Minister for Employment, has portrayed the CPE as an answer to minority unemployment. He's able to pose -- hypocritically -- as a friend of minority youth by telling the truth: the fake leftists have no plan to counter racist unemployment in the housing projects.

In reality, the CPE will not create new jobs for minority youth or for anyone else. Two French academics, Pierre Cahuc and Stéphane Carcillo, have just published a study which predicts the CPE would create 70,000 jobs and reduce unemployment rolls by 95,000 over the next two years. This in a country where over 2.3 million people are unemployed! The report says "this [CPE] reform is going to cause an increase in hiring in the short term, but at the same time we will see an increase in lay-offs." Cahuc was named to the Council of Economic Analysis by Prime Minister Villepin.

Having passed the French National Assembly, debate on the CPE bill began in the French senate on February 23. The government intends to pass it before March 3 in order to undercut the March 7th demonstrations. The Socialist and Communist Parties are trying to delay the vote, notably by introducing 600 amendments.

Since Chirac's government party, the UMP, doesn't have a majority in the Senate, it needs the support of the centrist UDF (Union for French Democracy) to enact the CPE bill. The UDF has tabled amendments to reduce the 24-month trial period, and has said its support will depend on acceptance of these amendments.

Thinking workers can easily see that the positions of all these parties only differ on how far and how fast to go in increasing job insecurity here. Polls show public satisfaction with Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has fallen to 43%, the lowest level since he took office.

The CGT trade union confederation has called for "powerful demonstrations" on March 7 opposing the CPE. However, it left strike decisions to its member federations. The CGT's public services federation -- France's main public sector union -- has called for a strike on March 7. The Force Ouvrière trade union confederation has called on all its member federations to strike on March 7.

But all the efforts of students and workers in the anti-CPE movement will be to no avail if they do not reject the sellout leaders of three sets of organizations: the fake left political parties and their allies in the student and trade unions.

Situation of young people aged 15 to 29 on the job market in 2003

                             holders of a vocational      holders of a university      
                             training certificate or      degree                       
                             technical school                                          
                             certificate                                               
worked at temporary jobs     19.2%                        8.8%                         
all year                                                                               
combined work and            20.8%                        14%                          
unemployment                                                                           
were unemployed all year     8.7%                         6%                           
total suffering from         45.7%                        28.8%                        
insecurity

(Statistics from the INSEE, a French government agency)

Chavez's State Capitalism No Road to Workers' Power

(The following is part 2 of a series begun last issue written by a new young comrade who recently returned from Brazil and Venezuela.)

Everything the government has done pours from Chavez's mouth during his epic speeches; ideology is directed from the top, to a profoundly fragmented mess of loosely-coordinated social/community/labor groups below, uniting only on the streets and only to protest some new threat Bush makes to Chavez. There's no coherence, class consciousness, or unifying cause to the "Bolivarian" movement, except a vague but fierce "opposition to U.S. imperialism." There's not a single group that can be considered even a socialist (let alone communist!) vanguard force for the workers and majority poor (80%) that has roots in the working class.

As reported in CHALLENGE, Chavez follows a tradition of populist regimes (a la Argentina's Peron) that virulently opposed the ruling feudal oligarchy through "siding" with the working classes and campesinos. For the feudal landowners, both forces are dangerous threats to be resisted. To the new bourgeois class (Peron, Chavez), while the oligarchs are a force to be overthrown, the workers and campesinos are forces to be disciplined and brought under control. Peron once said that his reforms doled out to the working class were the best defense against communism. For the workers and campesinos, it all spells FASCISM.

Peron, overthrown in 1955, was returned to power in 1973 by the ruling class to placate a wave of workers' mass uprisings. It had begun with the 1969 El Cordobazo, a rebellion in the industrial city of Cordoba, led by autoworkers. Peron and his wife Isabel, who succeeded him in 1974 after he died, launched a reign of terror through the AAA death squads (Argentina Anti-Communist Alliance), killing many militant workers and youth who believed in his populism. This paved the way for the fascist military dictatorship which ruled from 1976 until 1983, and which launched a dirty war that killed 30,000.

In the case of Venezuela, let's consider:

The Venezuelan economy has seen the ninth consecutive quarter of sustained growth. At 9.4% growth in the past year alone -- largely in construction, commerce and communications -- Venezuela's GDP is expected to double in less than ten years. On July 4, 2004, Chavez inaugurated a roundtable with U.S. businesses, signing deals totaling $624.5 million in less than 48 hours. He paraphrased JFK, calling for an "Alliance for Survival," a partnership between the U.S. and Venezuela based ideologically on Kennedy's Alliance for Progress, a horrifying blank check for renewing and entrenching U.S. imperialism in Latin America.

Chavez touts nationalism since if he internationalized the struggle and put class warfare into materialist terms, he would awaken the working classes and nail the door to his own casket. Nationalism will guarantee the workers' militant, yet loyal subservience to his administration. He uses the UNT -- his pro-Chavez union federation -- as the outspoken advocate of state intervention and monopoly in the nation's basic industries, as the state extends its reach merging with industry. Historically, fascist rule legitimizes private entities into arms of state power. Nationalism will guarantee the growth of the "corporate state" (fascism) in Venezuela.

In the international context, the changing social relations Chavez represents is interwoven with China's strength as a growing imperialist player. Since the Iraq invasion effectively nullified China's 1997 oil agreements with Saddam Hussein, China's need for oil and the need to control the sources of oil will reach cataclysmic proportions. What makes Chavez such a threat to U.S. imperialism is not his flirtation with Fidel Castro but his cleverness in playing off two major imperialist rivals. Should Chavez bail on the U.S. and deal exclusively with China, the U.S. economy would be heavily affected. That's why, as CHALLENGE has indicated, the U.S. must keep China purchasing oil from U.S. companies in the short term, while facing inevitable war with it in the long term.

(To be concluded next issue)

`New Century' = Old Deception
LA HOTEL WORKERS MUST REJECT CLASS COLLABORATION

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 9 -- Five hundred hotel workers and their supporters poured onto Century Boulevard, near LAX airport, shouting "The Workers, United, Will Never Be Defeated!" This kicked off a union drive for workers in four large airport hotels. Or was it?

Rank-and-file hotel workers -- black, Latin, Asian and white -- have poured a huge amount of energy into unionizing their co-workers into UNITE-HERE, Local 11. Some have union experience on other jobs and in other countries. Others are new at union struggles. Their main concerns are wages, hours, health benefits, workload and harassment from supervisors.

But union leaders, together with the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, tried to turn the march into its opposite. Their signs, leaflets, chants and speeches were almost all about their "Coalition for a New Century." Its goal is to turn the area surrounding the airport into a convention center and tourist attraction. Leading the rally was LA City Councilperson Janice Hahn. UNITE-HERE organizing director Kurt Peterson explained, "We want to partner with the city and industry."

So while rank-and-filers are angry and want to fight the hotel bosses, their so-called "leaders" want to "partner" with them. "UNITE-HERE leaders have participated in ground-breaking labor-management partnerships," trumpets the union website.

R. Palme Dutt explained this strategy, known as "social fascism," 70 years ago in "Fascism and Social Revolution." Europe's Social-Democrats advocated class collaboration of the working-class organizations with the capitalist State in the 1920's and 1930's. They "prepared the way ideologically" for fascism and "assist[ed] fascism to power."

The same treachery continues today within the immigrant-rights movement. United Farm Workers leader Dolores Huerta and UNITE-HERE leader Maria Elena Durazo (a leading candidate to head the LA County Federation of Labor) urged immigrant workers to join with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in backing the Kennedy-McCain immigration reform bill. (See article, front page ) Interestingly, the Growers Association also supports the same bill. When workers unite with the bosses, they'll be defeated every time.

Attendees at a recent pro-immigrant rights event were sharply divided over Huerta's call to support Kennedy-McCain. "They tell us it's about family reunification and a path to citizenship," one activist commented, "but that's only one quarter of it. The other three-quarters is more border control and law enforcement."

PLP will continue to bring the message to angry hotel LA hotel workers that workers must unite with our class brothers and sisters here and internationally to fight the bosses and their class-collaborationist allies. Ultimately we'll triumph through communist revolution.

Mexico: Red Ideas Embolden Workers' Battle with Boss

MEXICO CITY -- "We know how to lubricate the machines, and even familiarize ourselves with the dies. In the same way we can lubricate our minds with communist ideas since they get drowsy and contaminated by capitalist illusions."

This idea is heard almost every day during lunch throughout our transportation company. We build consciousness in our co-workers by showing them we can perform whatever job necessary, belying the bosses' contention that we're only good for the most laborious jobs. Meanwhile, we're subjected to the most intense speed-up. And, if that isn't enough, video cameras film us through special glass windows that blur the threatening silhouette of the boss as he watches to make sure you're working hard.

While not tied with chains and shackles, we must recognize that the chains of ignorance hide our unparalleled potential power as the only source of value.

The supervisors threaten us to work harder and faster, not miss work and obey all their orders because in this crisis, "you won't get another job like this." We suffer such harassment daily and haven't had a wage increase in five years.

But a worker is like a sleeping lion -- you only have to wake him up with PLP's communist ideas. This occurred when the workers demanded a wage increase.

Even though the boss had been warned and his abuses denounced, it wasn't until then that he began trembling like a wet rat. The boss listened to all the workers listing their most pressing needs. Then he said the company had many problems; that we should be grateful to have a job; and that the company hadn't made a profit in years, but still continued investing so we could keep our jobs.

This confused many workers, who became fearful and lowered their guard. This strengthened the boss's position. Then a comrade spoke and with a simple but significant example, told the workers:

"Let's suppose that Pedrito collects 5 bottles and Juan washes them and Luis paints them and another worker goes door to door selling them for 2 pesos each. After collecting 10 pesos, another person who did nothing, who didn't leave his family, who didn't get sick inhaling paint fumes, who didn't get tired going door to door selling bottles then tells us, "Give me 8 pesos and the rest is for all of you." Fellow workers, who did the work? Who generated the wealth?" The workers then flexed their muscles and forced the boss to give them a wage increase.

With this explanation of surplus value, it became clear that communist ideas and PLP's leadership can organize the workers to ultimately destroy the capitalist system.

Despite some comrades being fired, the seed of communism continues to grow.

"Comrade, keep sowing your seeds. One day we'll reap the harvest."

Profit Drive Kills Sixty-Five Miners In Mexico

COAHUILA, MEXICO, Feb. 28 --"Everyone talks about how much wealth we have here, but what do miners get from it? Nothing. I have always dreamed that injustices like this will one day end, and that all will change. I'm sure I will die just dreaming," said Maria Alvarez, sister of one of the 65 miners murdered at the coal mine Pasta de Conchos here. (Quoted by La Jornada, Mexico City daily, 2/26)

Capitalism has destroyed the dreams of millions of workers like Maria Alvarez and her brother. According to the International Labor Organization, 15,000 miners die each year in coal mines worldwide due to the rotten working conditions stemming from the owners' drive for maximum profits.

This May Day we in PLP will honor all these miners and all workers murdered by capitalism from Coahuila to Baghdad to West Virginia (where 14 miners were murdered recently under similar conditions) by redoubling our efforts to end this vicious system.

PLP Proud of Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
50 Years Ago Krushchev Slandered Communism

On February 25, one of the darkest days in international working-class history marked its 50th anniversary. That date in 1956 Soviet Union premier Nikita Khrushchev gave a "secret speech" at the 20th Communist Party Congress to denounce Joseph Stalin, portraying him as a bloodthirsty monster.

U.S. and European bosses reveled at the spectacle. Here was Khrushchev, Stalin's successor and the head of U.S. imperialism's mortal enemy, condemning the supposed "crimes" of the leader who had done more than anyone in the second half of the 20th century to champion workers everywhere in their fight to overthrow capitalism.

The bosses' media, in both Europe and the U.S., have highly publicized this anniversary of Khrushchev's notorious diatribe. From our class's point of view as well, the event remains important, because it contains valuable lessons for future revolutionary struggle.

The rulers indeed hated Stalin but not for the reasons announced in Khrushchev's speech or in volumes of CIA-sponsored lies about Stalin as a mass murderer. They hated him because he represented the specter of communism and the violent end of the profit system, and he symbolized the Soviet Union as the international center of the communist movement. It was those "crimes" that led the big bosses of every imperialist power to label Stalin as "worse than Hitler."

The PLP has written extensively about Stalin's achievements and errors. The history of the old communist movement is far too rich and complex for us to attempt a summary in one article. Nonetheless, this occasion calls for a general summary.

Young workers and PLP comrades can learn much from studying Stalin's successes and failures. On the positive side, he led the Soviet Union in its transformation from backward nation to modern industrial giant. He built socialism, which saw the greatest pro-working class economic and political reforms in human history. He championed anti-racism and the emancipation of women. Under his leadership, the Soviet Union proved beyond a shadow of doubt that workers could rule society in their own interests and in service of their own needs.

When U.S. and European imperialists rearmed Germany and pushed Hitler to destroy both the USSR and socialism, Stalin bought enough time to prepare for the eventual onslaught, stood steadfast through the havoc of Hitler's invasion, and despite tens of millions of casualties, led Soviet society and the Red Army until the Nazi beasts had been ground to dust.

Even Stalin's principal enemies recognized that he had no peer as a statesman and political leader. Winston Churchill, for example, admired him for taking "... a backward country with an illiterate population and turn[ing] it into a global powerhouse with a nuclear bomb" (New Telegraph, Feb. 25, 2006).

But Stalin also committed grave errors. They were not his alone. He followed the line of Marx and Engels, the giants who founded the communist movement, and of the great Lenin, who led the Bolshevik revolution. The PLP has extensively analyzed these errors elsewhere, and once again, we urge all workers and Party comrades to study them. Stalin and his predecessors believed in "two-stage revolution." They didn't think that workers could be won at the outset to the politics of communism, and so they advocated socialism, which had a foot in both camps.

On the one hand, it unleashed torrents of working-class energy and creativity, producing the achievements sketched above. On the other hand, it maintained the wage system, material rather than political incentives and, inevitably, social inequalities. Infected with these poisons, the Soviet Communist Party inevitably turned into its opposite.

Although he spoke on both sides of his mouth about nationalism, Stalin basically promoted it. Nationalism is a disguise for all-class unity and therefore fatal to the principle of working-class internationalism. Stalin mobilized Soviet society to fight World War II for "Mother Russia," rather than for the international working class. The deadly results became evident shortly after Hitler had gone to his grave.

Closely related to nationalism was the fatal flaw of uniting with "lesser evil" bosses and imperialists, justifying the alliance with the illusion that the "enemy of my enemy is my friend." Communists from post-World War II Europe to Indonesia paid for this error with rivers of blood, as the so-called "lesser evil" bosses pounced on them the moment an opening presented itself.

Khrushchev's infamous speech did not cause the death of the old international communist movement. The errors committed by the movement's champions and heroes, including Stalin, had made this death inevitable. Khrushchev's disgraceful performance was merely the sign that the Soviet Union had become an imperialist country in its own right.

The rulers are celebrating Khrushchev's speech because the spirit of communism continues to haunt them and because, despite Stalin's faults, he remains the greatest leader the old communist movement produced in the 20th century. The bosses can never do enough to lie about him and discredit him. We in PLP should strive to emulate his class hatred, his tactical brilliance, his resoluteness in the face of overwhelming odds and his courage. We have a long way to go before we reach hailing distance. We stand on the shoulders of giants like Marx, Lenin, Stalin and the millions who fought for a world without capitalism. But we also recognize Stalin's mistakes and continue struggling to avoid them. It isn't easy. Opportunism -- the temptation of capitalist ideas -- is the prevailing ethic in a world ruled by the values of the profit system.

But we can eventually win. Despite the obstacles we face today in the absence of a communist center with state power, dark night must have its end. Stalin, the Soviet working class, and the Red Army crushed Hitler. Inspired by that example, we can continue to build a new communist movement, which will sooner or later obliterate the profit system and replace it with a worker's dictatorship and a decent society.

Road to Katrina:
1927 Flood Restored Slavery in Mississippi

"Rising Tide; The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 And How it Changed America," by John M. Barry

The flood had been expected for days, and whites had fled town. But the black and poor had no escape route. As the waters rose, desperate families hacked through their ceilings and clung to rooftops. The National Guard herded blacks at gunpoint into squalid refugee camps, where they were imprisoned without food or fresh water. The Red Cross became storm troopers. An indifferent President refused to visit the flooded regions, while local and state authorities bickered...

Sound familiar? The year was 1927, the president Calvin Coolidge, and the town was Greenville, Mississippi. To know the road that led to Katrina, you must read this book. Although written in 1997, it foreshadows Katrina with eerie accuracy.

The Mississippi River was human-engineered for disaster. For decades it had been reshaped for profits, by scouring a deep-water shipping channel to the Gulf. Effective flood prevention would provide natural outlets; instead banks were protected only by levees. These misguided policies made the river unstoppable in floods. Over time, loss of sediments caused New Orleans to sink into a fragile bowl surrounded by water.

In 1927, New Orleans was a national center of finance capital, and the Mississippi Delta was ruled by cotton and timber kings. Their plantations were worked by black sharecroppers, in debt slavery. So dependent were Delta planters on black labor that they resisted the Klan out of self-interest, because it might induce blacks to migrate north.

After a year of monster storms, the river burst its levees and flooded seven states. Thousands were drowned, and one million (1% of the U.S. population!) became homeless. Greenville was the worst. Refugees lined the levees for eight miles. Government boats arrived to evacuate them, but Greenville's planters feared the permanent loss of their workers. At bayonet point, the National Guard forced refugees back and sent the steamers away. One ship, built to hold thousands, left with 33 whites.

Greenville's entire black population was forced into Red Cross camps on the levee. Such prisons, literally called concentration camps, were set up across Mississippi. Black men wore ID tags indicating work status and plantation of origin. They were forced to work as slaves, sandbagging levees and loading barges; if they resisted, they were whipped and their families denied food. White overseers with guns patrolled the camps. No one was free to leave.

According to a memo, "Plantation Owners desiring their labor to be returned from Refugee Camps will make application to the nearest Red Cross representative" who "will issue passes to refugees." Blacks approached the brink of armed rebellion after a cop murdered a black man who refused to return to the levee after working all night.

Ironically, New Orleans was never in real danger, because broken levees upstream spent the river's force. However, city bosses didn't understand this and feared financial panic among investors. For those who doubt the existence of a ruling class, what happened next is revealing. City bankers met in a smoke-filled room and conspired to dynamite a levee, flooding neighboring St Bernard's parish, home of working-class descendants of immigrants. To cover their butts, they called in favors, from Washington to Chase Manhattan. Herbert Hoover, disaster czar, approved the plan. (Hoover, who manipulated and betrayed black supporters, vaulted to the presidency on his "success" in flood relief, while Huey Long rode a wave of populist reaction to become Louisiana's "Kingfish.")

Despite its exposé, the book is flawed by paternalistic racism. The author dwells in dramatic detail on the ruling Percy family of Greenville planters. Will Percy, the boss's son, is portrayed sympathetically as a poetry-writing liberal; his father is praised for resisting the Klan. The reader is blindsided in Chapter 25, when Will emerges as a despicable racist thug, the boss who restores slavery. Barry does not give comparable weight to African American sources, though these are plentiful: the events happened within living memory. Although black leaders from the NAACP to the black-owned Chicago Defender denounced the outrages, blacks remain relatively voiceless throughout this book.

From the Chicago Defender, May 7, 1927: "The ugly specter of Race hate has reared its head above the angry waters in the flood area... Men, women, and children of our group, who were conscripted, forced to leave their homes to top levees and prevent, if possible, a flood in their respective cities, are now refugees in `Jim Crow' relief camps. This vast army of destitute persons, nearly 100,000, the majority of them farmers and laborers from 75 villages and towns of seven flood-torn states of the South, are experiencing worse treatment than our forefathers did before the signing of the emancipation proclamation."

UNDER COMMUNISM:
How Will Children Be Raised?

Most children are part of the working class, the class that will control society under communism. To the capitalists, working-class children are just the future means to their (the capitalists') profits. Working-class parents, on the other hand, care about what's good for their children. But there is little discussion or writing about how to raise children for their own good. Parents are not taught how to nurture their children, and are even persuaded to feel that it's nobody's business how they raise them. But a collective approach is always the method most likely to achieve the outcome we want.

Under communism, children probably will spend most of the day in a collective situation, under the supervision of many caring adults. They'll learn cooperation from an early age, and competition will be discouraged. (As a past example, Soviet children were given blocks that were too large for one child to move around, requiring others to help.) Students will not be ranked, and there will be no such thing as failure in any school subject. This will encourage classmates to help each other to learn, rather than trying to outdo each other.

Some classic theories, even under capitalism, resemble communist principles. For example, Stephen Glenn in his book "Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent World" says that children need to develop (1) perceptions of their capabilities, (2) the feelings of contributing meaningfully, (3) the ability to work well with others, (4) the knowledge of limits and consequences, and (5) the use of strong judgment skills. Glenn emphasizes awareness of children's own power or influence over life. He apparently doesn't realize that only under communism will working-class children have the ability to influence society.

Alfred Adler (the 19th-20th century Austrian psychiatrist) taught that (1) children are social beings and behave as they see themselves in relation to others, (2) behavior is goal-oriented, toward belonging and feeling significant, (3) maladjusted behavior stems from discouragement, (4) children and adults need to contribute to society, based on concern for others, and (5) children and adults both require dignity and respect. But youth have a vague understanding that a profit-based system is interested only in sorting them for different forms of exploitation, through forcing them to compete with each other and then ranking them.

To prepare them, capitalist schools train children to take tests rather than to think creatively. As a result, many drop out or rebel. Then dealing with rebellion becomes a primary task of teachers and parents.

Under communism, the basis of education will be vastly different. Whereas children's books today emphasize fantasy, under communism they will teach real working-class history and how to run society for the benefit of the class. Whereas today books are racist and sexist, under communism they will teach why the capitalists needed these divisive horrors and how the working class overcame them once it seized political power.

Under capitalism, even young children feel the stress of inability to achieve a fulfilling life through competition. Under communism, fulfillment will come from contributing to everyone's welfare. Is it any wonder our children exhibit anger, self-destructive behavior and depression? And then they're drugged for invented psychiatric disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which mainly results from the contradictions between what they learn in school and what they learn from their own, and their parents' real lives.

In a communist society we will experience some of the same joys and problems we face today in raising our youth. But families will not be left to fend for themselves. While children may develop various abilities, these will enable them to contribute in various ways. Working-class children worldwide will become more than capable of running the future communist society. (This column welcomes thoughts on this and other subjects from all our readers, including youth, parents and teachers.)

LETTERS

What is Fascism?

After receiving several issues of CHALLENGE, I must say I'm very pleased with the paper. However, I highly recommend you change one thing.

The use of "fascist" in this newspaper is so rampant it's almost to deduct the power of the word, and ignore political science. It's highly imperative we appeal to intellectuals, and anyone with fairly simple political knowledge will flag the absurd use of "fascist" immediately. Fascism is a specific government system in which one nationalist, totalitarian ruler with militarist tendencies makes all decisions. He almost always incorporates highly religious and mystical viewpoints on world matters. Fascism also directly supports capitalism with the belief that there is an elitist, grandiose corporation that makes the country's goods. The products of capitalism favor the fascist leader and his corporate beneficiaries greatly, as it was easy to see in Nazi Germany's extensive use of IBM, Volkswagen and Audi in their war effort.

Yes, the fascists are the communists' greatest ideological enemy in many ways. But by simply calling fascist anything that is racist, nationalist, or capitalist, we're undermining our audience, political science, and jeopardizing CHALLENGE'S reputation. It's crucial we remain politically intelligent and credible to appeal to one of the most important groups to persuade: the teachers and other highly-intellectual and integral relayers of Marxist ideology.

CHALLENGE responds:

Thanks for your comments. While sometimes we might overuse the term fascist, in general we use it correctly. Your explanation of fascism is incomplete. It's not just something related to capitalism; it is capitalism in its most brutal form. Hitler didn't come to power as a sole ruler, (although he was a dictator); he came to power with the full support of the German ruling class and international capitalism (i.e., Henry Ford). They saw the Nazis as the road to strengthening German capitalism with the goal of destroying the new Soviet Union. (See "Who Financed Hitler: The Secret Funding of Hitler's Rise to Power, 1919-1933, by James Pool). Fascism in the U.S. is not born from a mystical person like Bush, but rather from a decision of the U.S. ruling class (principally the liberal Eastern establishment).

Many elements of fascism already exist in the U.S., even before 9/11, including Clinton's increase of 100,000 cops, welfare repeal and immigration "reform," and have been accelerated since -- the wholesale round-up of Middle Eastern and South Asian workers; the readiness to allow thousands of casualties related to Katrina; the institution of torture as a principle of the U.S. military; the attacks by racist cops in the big cities; the smashing of trade unions; the virtual illegalization of strikes; the concerted attempt to drive masses of workers into poverty; and so on.

On the other point: it is important to win teachers and others like them to Marxist ideology, but it is even more important to win workers, soldiers and students to it. The working class is the key force in fighting fascism and imperialist war and in the struggle for a society without any bosses: communism.

The Contradiction of Religion and Materialism

I recently participated in a day-long PLP dialectical materialism workshop in Brooklyn. My breakout group included high school students, teachers, transit workers, scientists and nurses. We discussed how childhood development and learning illustrated the relationship between actual experiences, emotional responses, and idea formation. Such ideas can help us solve a problem or improve an existing object or function. One participant reasoned that an idea could also be developed out of need.

We discussed the scientific method and application. The high school students explained the application of scientific method/process using experiences from their classes. We figured out that this method was not isolated within science. One HS'er exclaimed, "You use it every day!"

The longest discussion involved philosophy and religion. Interestingly, religion emerged as a key part of the development of personal philosophies. Religion dictates how one should believe and behave; such rules can conflict with one's own personal view. Members discussed how they disagreed with the church's condemnation of people who are gay and with gay marriage, saying that sexual orientation was irrelevant to being a good person, providing a healthy family life, or being a good communist. Though one can be religious and a Party member, it's important to analyze the contradictions between the two!

Religion teaches people to be passive participants in the world by accepting their lot in life, not fighting against oppression, because God has a "plan" for every individual life; to go against God means not entering Heaven after death. PLP reasons that the life we're living now is worth fighting for, against the exploitation, or "our lot in life." Understanding that the ruling class historically and currently uses religion as an "opiate of the masses," all workers must unite and fight against the bosses, against ideas that remove power from workers' hands -- as if we don't know exactly what we need.

I gained insight from this experience and a better understanding of materialism. Not only will I apply the principles better but I'll be able to discuss and explain them with friends. I look forward to future workshops.

D.C. Militant

Bavaria Workers Screwed by Hacks, SabMiller Bosses

For workers in Bavaria, the Colombian brewery now owned by the multi-national SabMiller Corp., conditions have gone from bad to worse. Bavaria's bosses have imposed their own Plan Colombia (the U.S.-Colombian rulers' local war plan) against the workers. This accelerated after the union hacks signed a totally sellout contract. Now, basically there is no union at the plant. After the militant strike of a few years ago, the union hacks sold out, allowing the bosses to cut workers' rights even more, rights won through many past struggles. Now, there's no resistance to the bosses' onslaught.

The company has devised new schemes to lower wages, tricking workers into believing they're now "strategic partners" in Bavaria. This has led workers to push a labor "co-op" plan (instead of a real union), using temporary inexperienced labor to handle the machinery. This is increasing industrial accidents in the plant.

The remaining workers are being terrorized -- punished for any simple mistake, suffering arbitrary firings and speed-up. One worker lost a finger because of being sped up. Another worker may lose his legs after being run over by a forklift. Stress is causing heart problems among many workers. This also affects those laid off after many years in the plant, and given miserable severance pay. Now they can't find jobs in this high-unemployment country and live in poverty.

We in PLP must step up our efforts to rebuild our forces among these and many other workers here. We must show them they're not alone, that there is a solution. DESAFIO must be brought to these workers.

A Red Worker, Colombia

Developing Writers For CHALLENGE

"We've carried out very important activities," said a farm worker comrade here in El Salvador. "It's necessary to publish them in the paper. For example, after the last meeting our club met and discussed the guide about how to write for the paper."

A university student added, "Then workers from other countries can realize the struggle for communism is international. It would also help to organize more people."

The work to build the fight for communism is ceaseless. Recently we had a very important meeting with a good group of farm workers, city workers and students to continue studying how to write for CHALLENGE.

We discussed the world and national situations, along with reading and criticizing an article in the paper that reviewed our last cadre school. One youth said, "It's the first time I really feel good about coming. I want to write, but first I'd like to do a draft of the article and then bring it to a club meeting to improve it."

"I like to read the paper, but I can't write," said another. "You have to change the `I can't' to `yes I can,'" commented another comrade. "You learn to write by writing."

Bourgeois education gives us a mechanical understanding. It stops us from thinking. CHALLENGE helps us to think fully, especially to strengthen our critical understanding of capitalism. We agreed to begin writing articles to use for May Day in our local edition of CHALLENGE.

After the meeting we toured the area to enable the groups of youth from different areas to socialize. This helps consolidate the communist camaraderie between rural and city youth.

Writing and collectivizing the planning of CHALLENGE articles is an important job of the leadership here, along with developing youth leaders so they can take the fight for communist revolution into their hands.

Comrades in El Salvador

On the `Under Communism' Column

In the March 1 issue of CHALLENGE a letter proposed changing the name of the column, "Under Communism" because readers might misinterpret "under" to mean that "communism is 'over' the people" and that "communism is a plan made by experts separated from the people." An alternative title was proposed, such as "Communist Life," or "something like that."

We sympathize with the reader's attempt to guard against such misinterpretations, but disagree that the possibility of misinterpretation necessitates a title change. The column's editors, along with the editors of CHALLENGE, take great pains to see that all articles clearly demonstrate that any separation of "experts" from the people has no place in a communist society.

There is, however, a sense in which communism is indeed "over the people." The term "people" in this context can mean one of two things - either a group of individuals or a class, in this case the working class. The latter has a collective existence that is more than just the sum of the individual workers. Shared exploitation and oppression, and general cooperation among members of the class, often produce collective resistance that unites those involved into a single entity and not just a loose group of individuals.

In an organizational sense, the class is "above" the individuals. Therefore, the communist society will be run collectively by the working class "above" the individual workers and their families, but in their class interest. Communism will not be "above" the class as a whole but will be the Party enmeshed IN the working class. Collectively, the Party, and workers not yet in the Party, will make decisions on the organization of society in which they live. They will dictate the manner of housing, food, education, medical care and the laws by which they rule - "over" the remaining members and supporters of the old ruling class. They will forcibly prohibit attempts to return to capitalism.

As such, for the foreseeable future both classes will live according to and "under" communist principles. It remains for us communists today to show workers that this in no way resembles the way the capitalist bosses and their government are now above the workers.

Editors of "Under Communism" Column

REDEYE ON THE NEWS

US in Arabia: 50 years of oil-run moves

Keeping oil flowing out of the Persian Gulf and through the Strait of Hormuz has been bedrock American foreign policy for more than a half-century.

Fifty-three years ago, British and American intelligence officers conspired to help bring about the overthrow of Iran's prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh...and his plans to nationalize the Iranian oil industry....Power was then effectively concentrated in the hands of Shah Mohammed Reza Pehlavi....

By January 1980, after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had driven the shah from the Peacock Throne, President Carter made absolutely clear in his final State of the Union address that one aspect of our foreign policy remained unchanged:

"An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."

The Reagan administration announced its intention to continue defending the free flow of Middle East oil, by whatever means necessary...

Subsequently, the United States began establishing military bases in Saudi Arabia...The defense secretary at the time, Dick Cheney, laid out Washington's concerns:

"We're there because the fact of the matter is that part of the world controls the world supply of oil...

What Mr. Cheney said was correct then and remains correct now. (Ted Koppel, NYT, 2/24)

Super-snoops can't avoid hitting millions

...Widespread wiretapping programs produce so much information....

Even if the probability that the purported terrorist profile is accurate were an astonishing 99 percent...most of the hits would be false positives.

...Let's...assume that one out of a million American residents has terrorist ties -- that's approximately 300 people -- and the profile will pick out 99 percent, or 297 of them. Great. But what of the approximately 300 million innocent Americans? The profile will...pick out 1 percent of them, "only" three million. (NYT, 2/12)

Buy your own kit, US tells troops in Iraq

It's been widely reported that the administration has failed miserably to provide the life-saving armor that all of our vulnerable soldiers need. But less well known is that even basic items are not provided -- such as ballistic glasses that are less likely to fog up in Iraq's 120-degree heat, shirts and socks that wick sweat away from the body, helmet sweatbands, and water pouches. These are products that can make a life-or-death difference....

The Pentagon, however, says that such items are too costly, so soldiers wanting them must get them on their own...

Paychecks for soldiers are as low as $14,000 a year -- why should their safety be a matter of personal affordability? (Jim Hightower)

Top Lawyer says money makes the rules

At various times in his career, Hayes has advised or represented Si Newhouse, Anna Wintour, Puff Daddy, Daniel Libeskind and Lizzie Grubman, as well as lots of guys with names like Pistol Pete and Little Georgie. At the moment, he is handling the case of Stephen Caracappa, the retired cop accused of being a Mafia hit man. Hayes charges a lot -- in part to pay for his collection of flashy handmade suits -- but he knows his way around....

The two main things he learned in the Bronx, Hayes says, are that "most of the time, law is about power," and is less concerned with justice than with money, and that "everything works the same way as the crime business" -- meaning that there is always a way around the rules. (NYT, 2/15)

Kids need quarter million to dream of Olympics

...It seems no one ever talks about how much those moms and dads spent to help their children reach the Olympics...

If you want your child to compete in skiing in the 2022 Winter Games, plan on spending $295,449. That includes $149,100 for private lessons, $114,000 for travel-related expenses -- "by the time he's 14, he'll be jetting to Switzerland for summer competitions" -- and $21,153 for clothing....

Training a figure skater for the Olympics will cost you a bit less. The total for private lessons, travel, skates and clothes, including "a seamstress to sew thousands of sequins into several costumes" : $232,178. (NYT, 2/18)

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, March 1, 2006

Information: 01 March 2006 674 hits

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RED EYE ON THE NEWS

US aim: Make Iraq safe for oil contracts
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Army shifting to Latino cannon-fodder
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a name="It’s Not Just Bush!">">"t’s Not Just Bush!

Liberal Hawks Want Our Youth to Die in Imperialist Oil Wars

As U.S. imperialism faces a future of widening and intensifying warfare, Democratic politicians and other liberals are leading the effort to militarize society. Military challenges from China loom over the horizon, while Iraq’s insurgency, Iran’s nuclear threat and Hamas’s victory show that U.S. rulers have yet to conquer the Middle East. They now realize securing the oil-rich region will take several more invasions entailing far more troops and casualties than before.

Former Senator Gary Hart writes of "American lives lost in Gulf Wars I and II, and probably III, IV and V." (New York Times, 2/5/06) Hart knows a thing or two about U.S. imperialism’s goals for the 21st Century. He helped formulate them. Democrat Hart co-chaired Clinton’s Hart-Rudman Commission. As early as 1999, it envisioned a U.S. "galvanized" by terrorist attacks, voluntarily sacrificing "blood and treasure" in wars against Mid-East and superpower rivals. For these adventures, the Pentagon will have to recruit or force millions into service.

Bush, however, squandered Sept. 11th’s enlistment-boosting potential, and liberals have lambasted him for it ever since. The latest Bush-bashing call to arms comes from the National Security Advisory Group (NSAG), a Democratic Party-sponsored collection of war criminals that includes Clinton’s secretary of state Madeleine Albright, defense boss William Perry, and generals Wesley Clark and John Shalikashvili. Drenched in the blood of Serbian and Iraqi children, these liberals whine in their January 2006 report, "Bush...has failed to mobilize the American people....There has been no John F. Kennedy-like "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" speech — no call to national service." It may be necessary, the NSAG concludes, to restore the draft: "The strains on the nation’s ground forces are serious and growing, and the viability of the All Volunteer Force is at risk."

To meet coming requirements, the liberals demand that the army add 30,000 soldiers immediately, "make it easier for ‘middle-aged’ Americans (30- and 40-somethings) to join," and mend fences with universities that ban ROTC (officer training programs). Most of all, say the Clinton loyalists, "This country needs a Commander-in-Chief who can...inspire a nation of young people to serve."

Although a change in the White House is two years off (provided the rulers refrain from dire measures), Democrats are injecting a big dose of militarism into the November congressional elections. Calling themselves the "Fighting Dems" and "Band of Brothers," more than 40 Democratic candidates, all military veterans, vow to retake the House of Representatives, combat partisan obstacles to warmaking and "turn the map of America from Red and Blue to Red, White and Blue. (The blossoming love-match, noted in the press, between the Bush and Clinton families reflects the same battle-hungry bi-partisanship.) In Washington on February 8th, Wesley Clark and John Kerry led a speech-fest for the aspiring warrior-lawmakers that hammered a common imperialist theme: more youth in uniform killing and dying for the rulers’ profits.

Liberals’ approaches to the ruling class’s troop-raising imperative range from blatant to subtle. The New York Times (2/10/06) wonders in loud indignation how "Rumsfeld's Defense Department can produce a $439 billion spending plan and still skimp on the one thing the American military desperately needs: expanded ground forces so the weakened and cannibalized Army can meet the requirements of Iraq without hurting its ability to respond to other threats."

With only minor misgivings, the Times (2/9/06) gloated over one racist success the Pentagon has had in assembling cannon fodder, "recruiting Latinos has become one of the Army’s top priorities. From 2001 to 2005, the number of Latino enlistments in the Army rose 26 percent, and in the military as a whole, the increase was 18 percent." Harvard University, on the other hand, in addition to quietly restarting ROTC, runs a low-profile Rockefeller-funded project on "civic engagement" that steers Ivy League grads into government jobs, especially military ones.

Bush’s pro-tax-cut State of the Union Address and business-as-usual budget show that the main U.S. rulers are some distance away from winning the nation’s whole capitalist class to the agenda of war and sacrifice they so sorely seek. But we shouldn’t let the bosses’ temporary disarray cloud the reality that ever deadlier imperialist wars are the order of the day. No matter what stage of mobilization our class enemy is at, we should be fully on a war footing in building the Progressive Labor Party.

a name="Beware AFL-CIO ‘Solidarity’: Iran, D.C, NYC"></">Be"are AFL-CIO ‘Solidarity’: Iran, D.C, NYC

Transit Workers, Unite!

On February 15, demonstrations were scheduled be held in several countries, supporting the Tehran Yahed Bus Company workers’ strike in Iran (see photo above) and protesting the Islamic government’s repression. (See CHALLENGE, 2/15) Ironically, the AFL-CIO, which is sponsoring one such demonstration in Washington, D.C., has not backed any workers’ struggles lately here in this country.

As a matter of fact, the Amalgamated Transit Union’s (ATU) international leadership opposed the most militant recent strike in the U.S.: New York’s three-day transit walkout, an anti-racist struggle which objectively spit in the face of the bosses’ war budget and broke the strike-breaking Taylor Law. The ATU hacks sided with Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Pataki and the city’s entire ruling class in attacking these mostly black and Latin transit workers.

The militant Tehran bus workers deserve real international solidarity, not the phony one pushed by the AFL-CIO pro-boss hacks. So why is the AFL-CIO now supporting transit workers in Iran?

The answer to this question lies in the international situation. Currently, the holy rollers ruling Iran are in the gun sights of the U.S. military. Ironically, Iran’s rulers helped the U.S.-UK occupation of Iraq because it toppled their hated enemy Saddam Hussein — they fought a bloody eight-year war 20 years ago — and has brought pro-Iranian Shiite politicians to power there. But they have their own plans to control the Persian Gulf’s oil wealth. They don’t want to share it with U.S. bosses. Other imperialists — Russia, China and even India — have developed good relationships with Iran’s rulers. The latter two U.S. rivals want to get their oil independent of the chokehold of Exxon-Mobil, Chevron-Texaco and Shell.

So the "solidarity" protest called by the AFL-CIO to support the Iranian bus workers against the ayatollahs is an action to aid U.S. bosses’ military aims in the region and therefore is really a pro-war action.

Cartoons, Racism And War

Meanwhile, the Iranian and Syrian bosses (also in the Pentagon’s gun sights) are using the cartoons buffooning the Prophet Mohammed to launch massive protests advancing their own interests. The racist cartoons published in the Danish fascist newspaper Jyllands-Posten (with heavy pro-Nazi and Italian fascist tendencies) have prompted violent reactions in the Muslim world. On one hand, these cartoons reflect the growing anti-Muslim racism in Western Europe. Denmark — a country of 5.4 million — has over 200,000 Muslims in Denmark. Just a few years ago it had none. Copenhagen, the capital, has denied permits to build mosques. There is no Muslem cemetery there, so the "Muslims who die [in Denmark] have to be flown back to their countries of origin for proper burial." (NY Times, 2/11)

The fundamentalists and rulers of Muslim countries are taking advantage of this racism to win the masses to their own fascistic causes. The Iranian rulers want to divert workers and youth from fighting for their own class interests (like the bus workers), but to blame others for their oppression. Egypt’s Mubarak prefers that the masses worry about causes other than their oppression and misery, like the recent sinking of a ferry boat whose bosses’ negligence murdered almost 1,000 Egyptian workers.

Workers worldwide must oppose anti-Muslim, anti-Arab racism while simultaneously opposing the imperialists’ war drive for oil. The Tehran bus strikers and workers across the Mid-East deserve real solidarity and leadership, like the kind provided by the Washington ATU Local 689, under communist leadership. Its members are organizing a component of the AFL-CIO rally calling for working-class unity and solidarity to crush all fascist terrorist governments, both in the U.S. and Iran. Workers don’t need the phony "support" of U.S. and British union hacks or reactionary Mid-East fundamentalists. Workers need to rebuild the international communist movement — which at one time had mass support in Iraq, Iran and the entire region — and wrest the leadership of the masses from the reactionary jihadists and religious zealots of all stripes.

a name="Chavez’s ‘Socialism’ Won’t End Workers’ Exploitation"></a>Chav"z’s ‘Socialism’ Won’t End Workers’ Exploitation

The following was written by a new young comrade who just returned from Venezuela and Brazil.

Part 1

Occasionally we fall victim to believing in miracles — miracles that abandon every scientific principle used to analyze social conditions. Some of us may fall for electoral miracles, as we read the latest news coming out of Venezuela, Brazil and now Bolivia and Chile. While very new to the Progressive Labor Party, I was driven to PLP through its scrupulous analyses in CHALLENGE-DESAFIO. I have just returned from Latin America, spending one month in particular in Venezuela to study Chavez and the "Bolivarian Revolution."

I believed in "el proceso"; it is very fashionable, especially for Trostskyists, anarchists and others on the "left" to elevate Venezuela as the international standard-bearer of "socialism for the 21st century." In a world ruled by the seemingly invincible power of monopoly capital and the ruins of the once-revolutionary socialist states now run by bastions of private capital and social misery, Hugo Chavez stands out. He shines with his charisma, lively, intelligent, and often humorous speeches, and his well-documented social missions funded by Venezuela’s immense oil wealth.

This series seeks only to show that, (a) Chavez is merely a liberal capitalist representing a new constellation of power in Venezuela, and (b) understanding Chavez’ regime is impossible without considering its international context, in particular its relation to China.

Firstly, the U.S. propaganda machine is so virulently anti-Chavez, it is tempting for those already discontented and seeking alternative theories to be drawn not just to Chavez’ charisma, but also to some results of his government’s first few years: Venezuela will be free of illiteracy (97% functional literacy rate); the Federal District of Caracas has either annihilated illiteracy or will do so soon.

The once theoretically state-owned oil company PDVSA has been seized from the previous regime’s oligarchy, which had used the profits to fund fabulous big toys and buildings. PDVSA — which in the U.S. alone owns five oil refineries and licenses over 14,000 gas stations under its U.S. subsidiary CITGO — has financed social programs and public works projects. Venezuela has set up a Caribbean oil initiative called Petrocaribe, which has provided discounted oil at long-term interest rates favorable to the poor island nations struggling to cope with rising oil costs. It has even offered this deal to Colombia’s President Uribe who, despite being a Bush ally, recently called Chavez a "brother." The two nations are now jointly building a pipeline through Colombia to the Pacific to service China, under the pretense of diversifying Venezuela’s oil clientele.

Venezuela provides 16% of U.S. daily oil needs. In the face of environmentalist demonstrations, it has just signed a new deal with Chevron for joint oil exploration with PDVSA from which Chevron will reap tremendous profits and devastate Venezuela’s environmentally fragile Orinoco region. Currently, Ecuador is pressing charges against Chevron-Texaco for dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic waste and millions of gallons of crude oil into the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Here in the U.S., PDVSA has launched a discounted oil program that began last Thanksgiving in the South Bronx and then in Boston through a partnership of CITGO and Bobby Kennedy, Jr.’s Citizen’s Energy Corp., which will deliver 1.2 million gallons of oil to "poor" families in that area. Kennedy’s company will determine who will receive the oil. Chavez has launched a $100 billion project to build a national infrastructure linking the least-developed parts of the countryside to the industrial and commercial centers.

A new national campaign (under the names of "Mission" Robinson or "Mission" Ribas dealing with tackling specific social programs) called "Mission Science" will aim at "democratizing the sciences" and making scientific innovations and developments available to "the people." This is, of course, in addition to the well-publicized introduction of 20,000 Cuban doctors into Venezuela’s poorest regions.

The state is now guaranteeing food at highly subsidized prices and will overhaul the nation’s healthcare system entirely, modeled on Cuba’s centralized system of hospitals/clinics/polyclinics. Chavez and Castro plan to staff these hospitals with a future generation of doctors training at the new Latin American Schools of Medicine in Havana and Caracas.

Finally, and the most important ideologically, Chavez has declared the construction of "socialism for the 21st century," stating "socialism" as a "thesis to be reclaimed" and re-forged. He has advocated worker occupations of factories (ALCASA, a huge aluminum plant and Invepal, a paper processing plant are the first "models" of "revolutionary worker co-management.")

A new pro-Chavez union federation, the UNT, has been formed to oppose the blatantly corrupt older CTV. The UNT has enjoyed skyrocketing membership as a federation with radical-sounding rhetoric and organizing in unorganized sectors, demanding worker-state co-ownership. A typical "co-managed" factory means the workers hold a 49% stake in the company while the state holds 51%.

The UNT has vehemently denied similarities made to German "worker co-management" introduced by social democracy. Some in the "opposition" decried this as more radical than the German approach. Yet the idea, essentially, is a product of Germany’s big labor misleaders’ great sellouts to the bosses. Workers are being armed through popular defense organizations; Venezuela has openly defied the FTAA (Free Trade of the Americas) and is nearing full membership in MERCOSUR (Common Market of Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay).

Everywhere in Caracas (literally), graffiti reads "FATHERLAND OR DEATH," if not "VIVA CHAVEZ." Chavez relentlessly calls Venezuela’s anti-imperialist struggle a national one, a struggle of national life or death. This message is transmitted through an appeal to the country’s "true patriots," the true "Bolivarians," who will take up 19th-century bourgeois independence leader Simon Bolivar’s sword against enemies of the state.

A materialist perspective hardly needs a light tug at the loose string of yarn before things start to unravel, and the truth in all of its sadistic and barbaric aspects reveals itself.

Chávez has in fact done nothing in his presidency to really tackle the root of poverty in Venezuela and around the world: private property, meaning the factories, big multi-national banks, multi-national corporations, foreign oil companies and foreign investors are raking in record profits. Private management or "co-management" means workers still produce socially but their labor produces commodities to be exchanged on the market, for profits. This is opposed to a rationally planned communist economy devoted to the socially necessary and socially useful production of use-values with no market exchange value.

Wage differentials haven’t been touched; inflation, while relatively slower in the past year, is still the highest in Latin America (although the Venezuelan government argues the availability and quality of social programs has dramatically reduced the cost of living; who’s fooling who here?). Private property has not been touched in Venezuela. Save for a few unused plots of land taken here and there, and some highly-publicized land deeds to local Indian tribes, land distribution in Venezuela remains as frightful as the rest of Latin America. But all the rhetoric about the "Bolivarian Revolution" might seduce us into thinking economic relations have really been subverted in favor of the workers and campesinos. (To be continued.)

Debating Communism on the Road to New Orleans

In mid-December, several PLP members rode with a busload of mostly college and high school students to a conference and march in Mississippi and New Orleans organized by the Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund (PHRF). One bus captain, a young black man, encouraged everyone to introduce themselves. We did so with CHALLENGE and communist ideas on racism.

Initially it was difficult to engage students in conversation. However, when we offered CHALLENGE to the young bus captain, he asked lots of questions. He and a young woman in a math tutoring program that brought all the high school students asked questions about revolution, religion and communism. It was productive.

The next day we arrived in Jackson, Mississippi for the "Survivor’s Conference." We distributed PLP literature inside the conference and in individual discussions, struggled against nationalism in general and black nationalism in particular in a principled manner, declaring that communists fight for internationalism. This really set us apart from all the revisionists (phony leftists) who all supported some form of nationalism. The whole conference was infested with sprinklings of nationalism from the liberal to the most overt.

The following day we boarded the bus for the march in New Orleans. With new riders joining our original group, the 2½-hour bus ride was filled with conversations about communism, human nature and how the Chinese dealt with drug use and dealers after the revolution. There was loud discussion with lots of disagreement.

One man from a revisionist group supported the Chinese Communist Party’s contributions. I asked him if he’d heard of PLP. He replied that he had, that during the 1960’s PLP was known as "ultra-leftist" because we criticized the National Liberation Front and Vietnamese communist leader Ho Chi Minh. He said these criticisms outraged the "left." I asked him, based on events in Vietnam today, were we wrong? He replied, "No."

Meeting workers from New Orleans and listening to their stories was a life-changing experience for all of us from Chicago. The young bus captain addressed the whole bus, especially the high school students, and referred to the earlier passionate discussion. Surprisingly he said, "Many of you heard a discussion we had on the bus and you thought that disagreement is a bad thing. Well, what you heard was a good thing, because in the process of discussing ideas, that’s how you come to understand truth. So never be afraid of discussion and disagreement. That’s how we learn."

I later received an e-mail from the guy in the revisionist group, saying he hadn’t experienced such honest and open discussion in a while and thanked us for it. This trip gave me increased confidence in the Party and its line of principled struggle. We’re working in the PHRF and will continue the fight.

A Comrade

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WASHINGTON, D.C., Feb. 8 — Today, hundreds of Hurricane Katrina survivors, mostly from New Orleans, converged on this city. About 200 marched in front of the White House to scream at the system that betrayed them. Between the demonstration and the post-rally reception, hundreds of PLP’s "Capitalism Kills" leaflets were distributed.

At the demonstration, pickets saw the leaflet’s title and demanded copies. Whenever we yelled, "It’s not just Bush, it’s the whole system and these rich bastards that control it; they don’t deserve our respect," there were cheers of "right on!" and "that’s right!"

At the candlelight vigil and brief speak-out held after the rally, some talked about God and religion, but most participants mainly wanted to relate their own experiences. They were upset at the ACORN groups’ coordinator for severely limiting the number of survivor-speakers.

However, those who did speak were inspiring. A young survivor referred to Katrina in the first person, calling "her" "the best thing that ever happened to me," because "she" shook things up with the reality of class and race. Knowing the horrendous stress Katrina victims have been under all this time, the poet also asked, rhetorically "…and they [the rich] wonder why things are so ‘bad’ with us [survivors] in Houston right now?"

Our leaflet pointed out that trusting the rulers to listen is an illusion. They know what’s happened and don’t care. Deep down, the survivor-demonstrators clearly know this. Whenever a speaker claimed that "dialogue" with the rulers can succeed, one woman bellowed, "They don’t care!"

Judging by their reactions, some survivors do not see the need for revolution. Rather, capitalism teaches working people that honest, raw anger is "inappropriate." Instead, it must be "tempered" and "dignified." That leads to workers being satisfied more with small reforms rather than with changing the system.

When the rally ended, about one thousand survivors swarmed across the street to the AFL-CIO headquarters for the post-rally reception. The lobby of this "House of Labor" gleamed in marble. Using an expensive, eardrum-splitting sound system, union officials pleaded — over the dismissive din of crowd conversation — that "the labor movement will be there for you. We will march with you. We will come where you want us to. We are with you!" Few believed this. Then, when a top hack asked how many in the room were "union brothers and sisters," only a few people raised their hands. As if any of the victims of this racist catastrophe owe these pro-capitalist bureaucrats anything. The only time the crowd paid attention was when an actual survivor took the mic, and shouted for the rest of the room to listen because "what I’ve got to say, we’re gonna take it to the streets."

Meanwhile, PL’ers continued to distribute leaflets. At least eight solid political contacts were made, mostly New Orleanians living in Houston. A young woman living there as part of ACORN’s rebuilding effort was told of PL’s tentative plan to go to New Orleans in March and help with reconstruction. She really liked that idea, and also PL’s politics. She said she’d get in touch with the Party down there. Similarly, a young working-class mother of two also wants to talk immediately with the Party where she is relocated.

Perhaps the best feature of this rally was to see how resilient everyone was, despite the horrors visited on them. The New Orleans dancing and music at the reception event proved strongly the old adage that you can take the people out of the place, but not the place out of the people. As people returned to their buses, we left the scene elated. By reaching out to, and eventually recruiting, the survivors of Katrina and the millions of other victims of capitalism, we can lay much more solid groundwork for a communist future.

H.S. Students, Teachers Defend Anti-Racist Protestors

Students and teachers here have started a fund-raising campaign to defend the college students arrested in an anti-Minutemen protest. Students are wearing buttons on campus saying "Defend Anti-Racist Protestors" and "Stop Racist Attacks on Immigrants." The teachers’ union local passed a resolution calling on teachers to support these students with fund-raising events and with a guest editorial in the union newspaper.

We invited one defendant to speak to a student club meeting about the case, about racism against immigrants in general and about the racist Minutemen in particular. Some of us shared our experiences about our participation in an anti-Minutemen protest. We also held an outdoor noon-time rally where students hang out. Several of us spoke in English and in Spanish, and raised $60 for the defendants.

We’ve reported how the Minutemen strictly enforce immigration on the Mexican-U.S. border, but not on the Canadian-U.S. border. This is a blatant racist attack on Mexican immigrants. It’s linked to pushing immigrant workers to join the U.S. Army which will put them on the front lines to be "awarded" citizenship in a country to which they may make it back alive.

Link Minutemen to Army Recruiters

Many of our friends differ about this. They hate the Minutemen; they don’t trust the military recruiters who are flooding our campus; but they don’t really think these things are connected. We’ve pointed out that the bosses are using the Minutemen to scare immigrant workers into relying on politicians to gain a limited amnesty or guest worker permit, while desperately trying to find enough Latino soldiers to fight their wars. The bosses are using the Minutemen to prod us into joining the Army as a way to get our citizenship papers.

We’re planning more fund-raising events, including at least one more noon-time rally at another part of the campus. We’re also distributing leaflets and CHALLENGES while discussing PLP’s ideas exposing borders between countries as something the bosses establish to serve their purposes. In a revolutionary situation, we would destroy these capitalist-created borders in order to unite workers and help us defend the revolution from the bosses’ attacks.

West Coast High School Club

Teenager Nixes Pledge, Iraq War

NAZARETH, Feb. 3 — A teenage student at Nazareth Area H.S. won his case in refusing to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Fourteen-year-old Sam Smith said he wouldn’t participate because he opposes the Iraq war and because he’s an atheist, saying the Pledge "bugs him."

"You should be pledging your allegiance to all mankind," Smith told the local paper, adding, "I don’t believe in nationalism at all."

The school district maintained that any student refusing to stand and recite the Pledge needed a signed letter from their parents. That form contained a veiled threat of harassment by other students to pressure those who wouldn’t conform to the school’s views. The form letter said, "We worry about [students refusing the pledge] being singled out by other students when they elect to do an act that is not being done by many of the other[s]."

Smith thought that was ridiculous. "That’s like saying if everyone in the class is smoking, then you could be singled out for not smoking," he said. "It’s just telling you not to think."

Smith argued the rule violated his right to free speech. Other students seemed to agree. One sophomore said Smith, "Shouldn’t get grilled or discriminated against for not wanting to do it."

The school dropped its requirement for a parental note when Smith said he would be calling a lawyer to represent his case.

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Huntington Beach, CA Feb. 1 — Fifteen hundred Boeing rocket workers, members of the International Association of Machinists (IAM), voted 60% to 40% to end an 87-day strike here and at plants in Alabama and Florida. The main company demand, elimination of retiree medical coverage for new hires, remains intact. With the defeat of this relatively long strike, Boeing will reinvigorate its campaign to make us pay for the bosses’ high-priced imperialist dreams. Aerospace workers need to answer with international unity and industry-wide strikes, particularly targeting racist super-exploitation among subcontractors. Such intensified class struggle will be driven by the expansion of our revolutionary communist base, demonstrating the potential power of the working class.

An unholy alliance of union misleaders and the company wore down these strikers. Company spokesman claimed a 38% scab rate. The union hacks dished out gobbledygook about a "substantive" if not "substantial" new offer. This "new substantive" offer is identical to the original sellout except for minor details in medical coverage.

Boeing’s profit, meanwhile, is really both substantive and substantial — increasing a whopping 258% on record commercial orders of over 1,000 planes. After eliminating retiree medical coverage for new hires in its latest engineers’ contract, the company is now going after 1,200 UAW members in its Pennsylvania plant, without a contract since Sept. 1. Boeing is clearly on a rampage to eliminate retiree benefits spurred on more by the general political climate than the company’s immediate financial situation.

Expensive Imperialist Wars Define Political Climate

The day after the contract vote The Seattle Times ran a banner headline: "Iraq War is costing $100,000 per minute." Upon seeing this, a friend at Boeing in the Seattle area — the last place left with retiree medical benefits for new hires — saw the handwriting on the wall. "You guys are right," he admitted to a CHALLENGE seller, "there’s not going to be any money left for pensions after all these wars."

The Pentagon is screaming for cost containment for all their fancy killing machines, given the projected trillion-dollar price tag for the Iraq war. (Who knows how much blood and money we’ll have to sacrifice if the bosses succeed in their long-range plans to send upwards of five million troops to secure Mid-East oil? See CHALLENGE, 1/18.) In fact, 15 Boeing V.P.’s are presently under investigation for one form or another of price gouging. But this is capitalism and it’s the workers — in this case, at Boeing — who ultimately will pay for the bosses’ imperialist wars.

The defeat of this strike is reversing the momentum created when the Lockheed workers overrode their union misleaders to strike for future workers. Our Party and friends helped bring this fight to the Seattle-area locals. The momentum built with the Seattle-area strike and the NYC transit strike, where black workers took the lead. For a while, no IAM leader would dare accept the elimination of retiree medical benefits for new hires. With this rocket contract vote, the misleaders have the green light to pave the way for long-planned concessions.

Union Misleaders’ Patriotism Undermines Workers

Rather than build the kind of industry-wide strikes which could "up the ante" in the battle against these war cuts, the IAM leaders held pitifully small rallies wrapped in patriotic bunting. In essence, they told the strikers, "You’re weak and small in number. It’s better to show your allegiance to the bosses and their imperialist war plans than look for power from the masses of workers, which could provoke a real confrontation."

"They’re picking us off, one small group at a time," complained a Boeing machinist.

We also must look beyond our shores for allies, as well as to other U.S. plants. Millions of our working-class brothers and sisters are employed building arms, or are in industries that can quickly be converted to weapons production, as the inter-imperialist rivalry sharpens.

The U.S. ruling class, in particular, is desperate to maintain its military and political hegemony while facing a relatively declining manufacturing base. The union misleaders tell us our future lies with these bloodsuckers. It’s a fools’ game! If this strike taught us anything it’s that lining up behind our nation’s bosses insures a future of wars and war-inspired cuts for workers.

The bosses will launch their wars and war cuts; there’s no way to reform this system to meet our class’s needs. Nevertheless, upping the ante with industry-wide strikes, both union and non-union, could help us understand both our potential revolutionary power and give us more real-life experiences fighting the obstacles to achieving that power. Such broad strikes could target subcontractors, home to the majority of aerospace workers and the site of vicious racist exploitation. We’ll learn who are our friends and who are our enemies; the need to build working-class international unity; and the need to fight all the bosses, regardless of which flag they fly.

The possibility of increasing our revolutionary forces comes with increased class struggle if we focus on expanding our CHALLENGE networks and recruitment. That’s the second lesson of this strike — and the most important: building for communist revolution is the only viable answer to the attacks by this system hell bent on an imperialist bloodbath that squanders both our young people and our retirement.

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PARIS, FRANCE, Feb. 13 — Between Feb. 2 and 7, up to half a million workers and students demonstrated in nearly 200 cities nationwide to protest new government measures that would result in a massive increase in job insecurity and insecurity in working conditions. A student strike has shut two large universities. French bosses, in their drive to maximize profits, have been pressing for more widespread use of temporary workers and complete freedom in laying off workers, especially youth, during a "trial period" which lasts 24 months! They’ve been demanding that France fall in line with the rest of Europe which — in the U.K., Spain, even Germany — has more "flexible" labor laws.

Until now, France has strictly limited temporary work contracts, to be used only to meet sudden increased company needs, or to replace temporarily absent permanent workers, and then only for 18 months.

Despite this legal "protection," the number of permanently temporary workers has ballooned in France, as it has worldwide. In Europe, France is the second-biggest market for temporary work. In 2001, two million people — 2.3% of the working population — had a temporary work contract.

Years ago, small companies were granted looser labor laws and lower employee contributions to social security, "to allow these poor little companies to compete in the market."

Last summer the government imposed the CNE (contract for new employment) which allows companies with fewer than 20 workers a 24-month trial period before a job becomes permanent. This involves 95% of French companies, employing four million workers — 29% of the country’s workforce.

After quelling last fall’s rebellion in the housing projects, on January 15 the Chirac-Villepin-Sarkozy government decided to extend these measures through the CPE (contract for first employment). This will allow the same "flexibility" to companies with over 20 workers when they hire people under 26.

Employers can easily lay off workers during the trial period. The CPE will allow the bosses to blackmail young workers into accepting unbelievably bad working conditions. Even if workers comply with all the boss’s demands, there’s no guarantee they’ll be kept after the trial period ends.

In addition, employer contributions to social security are being cut. The government justifies this because unemployment figures are slightly better. But it has been aggressively striking unemployed workers from the rolls and baby boomers have been retiring. Reducing social security contributions will force workers to pay more — and directly — for unemployment benefits.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin — meeting the bosses’ demands — is enabling workers over 57 to top off their inadequate retirement pensions by returning to work, subject to discussion between the bosses and union leaders.

Finally — following another bosses’ demand — Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy is rewriting the immigration laws to allow only skilled or university-educated workers to immigrate into France.

All this is leading to the government’s complete re-write of the law on temporary work contracts by this summer. It is all these measures that will produce massive insecurity. This is a huge attack on young people, the trade union movement, temporary workers, the unemployed, and the anti-globalization movement. Not surprisingly, resistance has erupted.

A joint trade union demonstration of up to 100,000 emerged on February 2 to defend public services and demand higher wages. Many demonstrators were high school students and their teachers. Condemnation of the CPE was a main theme.

On February 7, up to 400,000 people participated in 187 protests around France, responding to a joint call by the trade unions and the university and high school student unions. A Humanité-CSA poll showed 58% of the population opposing the CPE.

The center of student protests has been at the University of Rennes II. Prior to February 7, 1,500 students held a mass meeting. On that day, 12,000 people demonstrated in the streets of Rennes. The following day saw a mass meeting of 2,500 students held outdoors because there was no indoor amphitheater big enough for the crowd. Students voted to shut down the university. They’ve occupied the buildings and organized picket lines. The striking students are working to educate non-strikers, who generally oppose the CPE but complain that the strike limits their movements on campus.

The university hospital workers joined picketing students. One explained that the number of temporary workers at the hospital has tripled over the past several years.

The university administration is trying to use the student movement to pursue its own agenda of obtaining more government credits. Thus the board of regents approved a motion favoring the student demands. Of course, these are the same regents who extended temporary work at the university hospital!

Now students at the University of Toulouse occupied campus buildings today to protest the same CPE.

On February 13 students at Rennes II were to vote on whether to continue their strike. A new demonstration was scheduled for February 14. (Next issue: The machinations of the government and the political parties.)

Community College Faculty Fights Piece Work

BOSTON, Feb. 3 — More than two dozen part-time faculty at Roxbury Community College (RCC) have pledged to refuse to teach for reduced pay this semester, challenging an unjust policy that exists across the Massachusetts Community College system. The policy requires that adjuncts who teach courses with low student enrollment be further underpaid, basing their salaries on the number of students in the class (a form of piece work). (Full-timers have not faced such a pay-cut, yet.) In addition to the pledges, hundreds of faculty and students signed a petition to the college President calling for the elimination of this exploitative policy.

Throughout higher education, each year more and more adjunct faculty are hired to replace retiring full-timers. This two-tier system saves these publicly-funded colleges millions of tax dollars, which can then be diverted to fund the U.S. war machine. It divides faculty into the have-less and have-nots. The have-nots (adjuncts) are subjected to intolerable wages and working conditions. Even though adjunct faculty are covered by a union contract, they receive no health or retirement benefits and have almost no seniority rights. They work semester to semester, with a high level of fear and demoralization.

At RCC, the super-exploitation of adjuncts also has a racist character since many more adjuncts than full-timers are black and immigrant. Also, the downgrading of faculty degrades the education of the black and immigrant student population.

Adjuncts are also second-class citizens within the faculty union which has not fought to eliminate the two tiers. This has alienated the adjuncts from the union, which they see as an elitist organization that defends only the full-time faculty. (But given the existence of two tiers, the union has failed to protect full-timers as well - their pay, workload and seniority rights have slid backwards since the 1970's, following the expansion of the use of part-timers.)

With this campaign against "piece work" at RCC, the union has won enough unity to challenge one of the hated anti-adjunct policies. However, the most important victory is strengthening the unity between faculty, staff and students. That's the only way we'll be able to defend our jobs and fight the massive attack on public higher education, part of the general class war being waged against the working class. Strengthening this unity means struggling against elitism, individualism and fear within the faculty.

We cannot accept the increased use of adjuncts with second-class status simply as "the way it is." Nor can we accept the way management frames the issue, as a problem "for adjuncts only." We need to win all faculty away from the notion of "serving the college." This blurs the class realities and leads us to ally with the administration that is hired to carry out the policies of the corporate-controlled Board of Higher Education.

We must make the main contradiction not between full-timers and adjuncts, but between the fight for equality versus the acceptance of inequality. As we struggle to unite the faculty, we have an opportunity to build class consciousness. Spreading the readership of CHALLENGE will be an indispensable part of making this happen.

Fighting for Revolutionary Class Consciousness at CUNY

During the NYC transit workers’ three-day strike last December, nearly 100 City University of New York (CUNY) workers — all members of the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) union — joined the picket lines and marched in solidarity with the strikers. These academic workers were motivated by class consciousness — the idea that those who work for a living, whether blue, white or pink collar, belong to the working class, whose interests are opposed to the interests of the capitalist class, represented in this strike by billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg and MTA Chairman/real estate tycoon Peter Kalikow.

The Progressive Labor Party’s CUNY club helped organize faculty support for the strike, taking people from our schools to the lines, and encouraging other teachers to do likewise. Our pro-working-class colleagues were thrilled to see public workers militantly resisting the rulers’ plans to make us pay for our pensions and health care. CUNY professors and staff have worked for three years without a contract because management refuses to give us more than token salary increases, or to improve our pitiful dental and drug plans. Even for this, management is insisting on "productivity" concessions.

Elitist notions of "professionalism" are eroding as professors and staff realize that their own wages are not much different from those who run the trains and buses. The median salary for a full-time CUNY professor is $57,000 annually, while adjunct faculty — part-timers who teach the majority of CUNY classes — average $22,000.

The capitalist class’s huge ideological apparatus — TV, newspapers, the schools — denies concepts of class or class interests. Their ideology ridicules the powerful and correct Marxist understanding that classes exist and that the capitalists and their politician servants constitute a ruling class whose interests dictate governmental policy — from pension "reform" to oil wars in the Middle East.

The rulers’ ideology promotes division within the working class. For example, those with college educations, especially advanced degree holders, are encouraged to think they’re "smarter" and deserve higher salaries and greater benefits. People performing mental labor are led to feel superior to those performing manual labor. The professors and staff who picketed on those frigid December days did so because they long for a working-class unity enabling us to stand up to those who want to erode our salaries and working conditions, while sending our youth off to die in imperialist wars.

One thing differentiating us from some of our leftist colleagues and friends — our co-workers who we join in various activities — is our belief that revolutionary politics need to be brought into the reform movement. We believe it’s impossible to reform capitalism to meet the needs of working people. The demise of the old communist movement and the rise of the right-wing, including red-baiters and gutter racists like David Horowitz, have persuaded many anti-capitalists inside universities that revolutionary politics must be shelved. However, we in PLP think attacks on labor and civil liberties (moving toward fascism), and imperialist wars to control dwindling oil and gas reserves, all cry out for Marxist class analysis and the vision of a society run by and for workers.

The PSC, led by progressive activists, has fought hard and long for a decent contract, while opposing tuition increases for CUNY’s working-class students (the majority black and Latin, mostly from low-income families). Our friends have devoted considerable time and energy to these vital campaigns, and PLP’ers have joined this effort. Yet tuition continues to rise (more than 200% in 14 years) and is slated to rise again this year.

Recently, Governor Pataki, who is trying to burnish his "tough-on-labor" credentials in order to attract corporate donations for his Presidential campaign, rejected the tentative PSC contract as "too generous." The capitalists and their bought politicians don’t intend to give workers, including professors or students, what they need — either decent health care plans or affordable education.

Despite calls by conservative professors to stick to "bread and butter" issues, the PSC has firmly opposed the U.S. war in Iraq, and pushed for anti-war resolutions at the American Federation of Teachers convention. Hundreds of PSC members have marched in Washington, D.C. and NYC against the war. PLP members also have been active in building anti-war committees and clubs at our schools. Yet the Iraqi occupation continues, supported by Democratic Party standard-bearers like Hillary Clinton. Bi-partisan plans are being made for attacking Iran. Those who hate imperialism and its death and destruction, must fight its capitalist roots.

As CUNY teachers and staff, the rulers’ special role for us is producing future generations of politically docile workers, convincing them that capitalism is the best game in town; that it is "natural," with no alternative; and that if people are dissatisfied with their jobs or lives, they should seek individual, not collective solutions. Along with our friends, we in PLP are trying to create a red opposition, from elementary to graduate school, which tells students the truth about capitalism and imperialism and presents an alternative.

In the past, some European leftists advocated turning universities into "red base areas." But the ruling class will never allow their educational system to be controlled by its enemies. Instead, the "red base area" is the revolutionary party, the center of anti-capitalist education operating within the capitalist educational system, drawing in new faculty, students and parents. We energetically participate in political battles to win reforms, but out of which we must build the revolutionary PLP to win the ultimate prize, a new society, a communist world.

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The recent West Virginia mine disasters raise the question of the fight for the unionization of coal miners. Some people out here in the Western Pennsylvania coal fields say the real solution to miners’ on-the-job safety would be to organize a local of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) at every mine.

If I were a coal miner, I’d definitely rather work in a union mine than in a non-union one. In reality, most miners understand the difference. This is a positive thing.

In fact, union safety committees have the right to "red tag" unsafe mines and shut them down. Also, a union miner can report unsafe conditions without fear of being fired. That’s not true for a non-union miner.

The murderous coal bosses do everything in their power to bust the union. The union represents a degree of mine workers’ power that the bosses can’t live with.

But the union leadership or bureaucracy, which supports the capitalist profit system and relies on the bosses’ government agencies, will not wage the kind of battle needed to organize the non-union mines.

Historically speaking, the UMWA was built through class struggle by rank-and-file miners. It’s interesting that when those trapped miners died in the Sago mine, some miners and other workers said they were going to arm themselves and get justice on their own. Throughout U.S. history, miners waged armed battles against company gun thugs to win justice.

Many coal miners have been willing to put their lives on the line to organize a union. However, the UMWA leadership will attempt to channel the miners’ militancy into support for so-called liberal Democratic Party "friends" of labor.

While I support the unionization of miners, I know that capitalism can’t be reformed to meet the needs of miners and other workers. In reality, a miners’ class-struggle fight for unionization must become a school for communism and workers’ power. Ultimately, the only real solution to the problems facing miners, such as safety on the job, is communist revolution and workers’ power.

Giving Strikers A Communist Slant

Trying to inch along that road, I went with a friend of mine to Altoona, Pa., where some electronics workers were striking for a new contract. The company had hired scabs. The strikers told the bosses they’d work under the old contract until a settlement was reached, but the company locked them out, telling them they "were no longer needed." The workers are continuing to picket, realizing this is a union-busting scheme. I decided to visit these workers and give them copies of CHALLENGE.

Altoona can be a very right-wing area. Recently some local skinheads held a Nazi rock show and beer bash at a nearby hall. The local press said 125 white racists attended.

I told a friend, an electrician, about the strike. He offered to drive me there. So I donned my Pittsburgh Steelers coat and off we went.

When we arrived, about 12 workers were picketing. I told my friend that if we got our asses kicked, it would be for a good cause. We approached the strikers and said we were from Cambria County and came to show our support for their strike. We chatted a while about the Super Bowl and the strike. Then I said I had a paper which always takes the side of the workers and handed them a couple of CHALLENGES.

They looked them over and then asked me, "A communist paper, huh?" Another asked if I was a communist. I replied that I wanted to see a society controlled by workers instead of by super-rich bosses and their servants in the Republican and Democratic parties. Then they asked if my friend was a communist and he said he agreed with me.

The workers kept the papers, we didn’t get our asses kicked and after a while we left. So now some more workers have been introduced to our revolutionary communist paper. Not a bad experience at all.

Red Coal

NEW YORK CITY, Feb. 9 — Today, PL’ers held a rally at the hotel residence here of Wilbur Ross, condemning the owner of the mines in which 14 workers were killed because his only concern is profits at the expense of workers’ safety. (See CHALLENGE, 2/4 and 2/18) We held up large "Wanted For Murder" posters with his photo pasted on them, distributing leaflets with the same headline.

The limo and private car drivers standing outside the hotel saw our posters and told us they knew Ross and often drove him around. One friendly driver spoke with us for quite a while.

People entering the hotel were shocked to hear their neighbor called a murderer. They took leaflets, some even shouting that he wasn’t a murderer.

But our revolutionary communist pro-worker, anti-boss politics exposed Ross for what he is, a killer of his workers.µ

a name="Indian Airport Workers’ Strikes Stop Cops, Scabs">">"ndian Airport Workers’ Strikes Stop Cops, Scabs

In the second week in February, 23,000 workers struck India’s airports for four days, defying the courts, the law, the local police, the Rapid Action Force (SWAT plus) and the Indian Air Force. Airport bosses admitted their hands were tied; they dared not hire scabs for fear the strikers would attack them. The strikers blocked roads leading to the main airports as well as terminal entrances. Headlines screamed about "Chaos at the Airports" and the "adverse affect on India’s international image." The "Indian miracle" promoted at the last Davos Big Business confab is a hell for workers.

Stopping privatization was the workers’ main demand. The private companies scheduled to acquire the airports plan to fire 40% of the workforce. The so-called "communist" parties won't risk their position in the coalition government and are calling on it to lead the drive towards "modernization." Whether private or public, the workers will bear the brunt of the costs of streamlining the airports. Only communist revolution can halt these attacks. Building a real communist party, the Progressive Labor Party, is the only road to that goal.

Workshop Responds to CHALLENGE

BROOKLYN, NY, Jan. 28 — Today activists in unions, faith-based organizations, schools and anti-war groups met to discuss CHALLENGE-DESAFIO’s role in bringing communist ideas to our friends in these areas. Our goal was to increase circulation and encourage more people to write for the paper.

Beforehand, we all were to introduce the paper to someone who’d never seen it. We also each discussed with at least one person what they thought about articles in CHALLENGE. With those who have already read it, we asked if they could circulate it to one or more friends.

After an initial session about the paper’s role in combating the problems facing the working class, in discussing our efforts in expanding circulation, many reported an increase. We agreed that each of us should make an ongoing plan to build circulation.

Next we had an exercise in writing articles. We divided into small groups to write an on-the-job article, a health-related series and a movie review. Questions before us included: What goes into writing a good article? How long should it be? Who are our readers? How do we present revolutionary ideas?

For quite a few, this was the first time they’d ever experienced such a discussion and exercise. Everyone agreed this was a well-spent afternoon which should be repeated soon.

Revolutionary History:

Secret Police No Match for Bolshevik Base Built Through Iskra Networks

The Czar’s secret police, the Okhrana, is thought by many to have been one of the most efficient political police forces ever. Nonetheless, it was never able to smash the revolutionary socialist movement organized along scientific principals by leaders like Lenin. Lenin credits the Bolshevik newspaper, Iskra, and the networks of mass distribution the Party built around it with preserving and nurturing the revolution.

Okhrana agents spied on suspicious persons hourly, day and night, without any interruptions. Its special brigades shadowed its prey throughout all Russia, even across Europe, from city to city, from country to country, hoping to uncover the Party’s organizational make-up.

Okhrana’s greatest successes came from its internal spying. One example was Julia Oréstovna Serova who worked as an Okhrana agent until 1910, when she was uncovered by the Bolsheviks. Occupying relatively leading Party positions, she supplied the Okhrana with important information about the Bolshevik organization in St. Petersburg and the provinces. Her betrayals led to many arrests of Bolsheviks, including the entire Petersburg Bolshevik committee on March 1, 1905.

Even though the Bolsheviks were masters at clandestine work, they could not completely prevent the Okhrana’s infiltrations. The Czar’s minister Stolpyn built gallows all across Russia. From 1905 to 1912 thousands of Bolsheviks and revolutionary workers were executed. Thousands more were exiled or imprisoned. Yet the Bolsheviks were able not only to survive these vicious attacks but to grow during this fascist period. Five years later they led the Russian working class to power! How? The answer lies in their newspaper Iskra and the Party’s networks of mass distribution.

Iskra, the all-Russian newspaper for which Lenin fought so hard, played two very important roles in this period — (1) to enable the Party to survive, to function under all circumstances and to grow; and (2) to train new leaders and the working class in general. From these networks they organized Party clubs and study groups and through them influenced the class struggle, which in turn led to bigger Iskra networks.

How did the Bolsheviks deal with the Petersburg arrests? If, for instance, their organization consisted of 70 members and each one had a readership and a political base of 10 others, this put 700 people under Iskra’s influence. Shortly after the arrests, the Party leadership would send a couple of members to reorganize the cells from that base of 700. The Bolshevik cells would be active again in a matter of a week or two, to the dismay of the Okhrana and the ruling class.

The leaders of these new Party organizations come from the workers, students and soldiers who had been reading Iskra for years. The all-Russian newspaper had given them an overview of the need for revolution and an understanding of the class struggle and the need for ideological struggle — in the fields, factories, schools and army; in the villages, towns, cities and the provinces; nationally and internationally; outside and inside the Party.

The weight Lenin gave to the Iskra networks can best be shown by his reaction to an infiltrator, who was responsible for smuggling Iskra into Russia. As a member of the Central Committee, the spy sat at Lenin’s side. "That way we have their whole propaganda apparatus," read the Okhrana’s archive. Lenin differed, saying, "He sent dozens of the best revolutionaries to death but he was forced to help create tens of thousands." If he had stopped introducing Iskra into Russia, it would have blown his cover and he would have been useless to the Okhrana, like the spy Julia who ended up committing suicide.

The Okhrana was helpless in stopping Iskra, much less in destroying its all-important networks that won and trained masses of workers to fight for revolution, and maintained the Party under all circumstances. It behooves us in PLP to learn from the Bolsheviks’ rich experience to be able to face the challenges that lie before us on the road to communist revolution.

a name="UNDER COMMUNISM…">">"NDER COMMUNISM…

Will You Have Your Own Toothbrush?

Communism means sharing and an end to "private property." But what do communists mean by "private property"? For example, does the end of "private property" mean that one will not even own a toothbrush, or your own clothes?

These questions are not as silly as they might appear. After all, anti-communists — particularly the capitalists, who stand to lose the most from a communist revolution — attempt to discredit communism in many ways. One way is to claim the communists say you must surrender all your personal possessions.

However, the "private property" that will cease to exist is profit-making private property, such as factories, mines and banks. These will all be owned in common by the entire working class — wherever communism exists. Common ownership of such sectors of society removes the basis for capitalists to exploit workers and steal the value of our labor which produces their private profit. (For a full explanation of profit, see the PLP pamphlet "Political Economy: a Communist Critique of the Wage System." @www.plp.org)

Working-class take-over of all public enterprises and functions will address the collective needs of our class, rather than the profit needs of the tiny capitalist class.

For example, communism will provide free mass transit, and much more of it, with people mainly traveling together instead of mostly alone in their cars. Schools will encourage students to think, work and solve problems together. Housing will be transformed so people interact more freely, often eat together, and even shovel snow or otherwise care for our residential surroundings collectively. Under capitalism, people shovel out their own driveways, sidewalks and parking spots, or mow their own lawns — though there are many examples in U.S. rural history of people working together on projects, such as barn raisings, corn huskings and quilting bees.

However, under extreme circumstances, such as world war preceding a communist revolution, people would likely be motivated to share all available housing, food and resources.

But what about that toothbrush? Don’t you want to have your own personal, private brush for mucking around in your own mouth? Do you really want to share your toothbrush with friends and neighbors? Or your underclothes?

Even as the Party and working class make gigantic strides toward redesigning institutions to be more collective, people still have individual bodies. Those bodies have needs, and the working class, led by their mass communist party (PLP), will take a reasonable and scientific approach toward meeting those needs.

Our mouths are full of bacteria. We may want to share many things, but not oral germs or toothbrushes. And it’s neither necessary nor practical for people not to own their own clothes.

However, there may be a collective aspect even to toothbrushes. Dentists now recommend electronic toothbrushes. The heads rotate or vibrate rapidly, much faster than one can do manually. They do a better job removing plaque, thereby helping to prevent tooth and gum disease. Under capitalism, these devices are expensive. Under communism they would be available to everyone. These base units could be made available to several people in a family; each one could use their "personal" toothbrush head.

So the idea that under communism you would be forced into unhygienic behavior or lose even the shirt off your back is just anti-communist nonsense. There would be plenty of personal space.

The working class will constantly need to coordinate individual physical and psychological needs while building a world based on sharing.

LETTERS

a name="Religion’s Mass Murderers Are No Joke">">"eligion’s Mass Murderers Are No Joke

The Danish newspaper that printed the cartoon of Mohammed with a bomb as a turban is a neo-Nazi outfit linked to German and Italian fascism. It printed the cartoon mainly to spread more racism against Muslim immigrants in Europe.

Those Muslims are so "uncivilized" about their religion; they have no sense of humor, unlike some Christians. Let’s see:

Maybe it was the lack of sense of humor of the Christian rulers of Europe which brought us the Dark Ages (setting Europe back to pre-Roman Empire times), the Crusades, the Inquisition, colonialism, the slave trade, the Salem witchhunts, endless wars, the holocaust, and on and on.

Just a couple of months ago, millions of born-again Christians didn’t appreciate the sense of The "Book of David," a liberal TV show about a disjointed Episcopalian priest’s family — one son was gay, the other an adopted Chinese and the daughter a pot smoker — was cancelled after three episodes because of pressure from born-again Christian fascists.

It’s O.K. in the U.S. to slander science like evolution and invent crap like "Intelligent" Design and creationism, but raise doubts here about the Bible or Christianity and in some places your life will be in danger.

When a Spanish priest told Inca king Atahualpa to accept the Bible as the word of God and the road to salvation, Atahualpa shook the Bible, put it by his ear and, hearing no "words," threw it on the floor. Spain’s conquistador Pizarro took care of this kind of sense of humor by murdering Atahualpa and tens of thousands of Incas.

When another priest told Cuban Indian leader Hatuey to accept Christianity and he’d go to heaven, Hatuey asked if his Christian torturers would also go to heaven. When the priest replied "yes," Hatuey said he’d rather go to hell. Hatuey was burned alive by these good Christians.

For decades, hundreds of thousands of workers and peasants (many of them Indians) were murdered in Central America by the followers of Washington’s holy rollers, like Guatemalan dictator Gen. Efrain Montt, a born-again evangelist, whose daughter is engaged to a right-wing U.S. Republican congressman.

As Karl Marx said, religion is the opiate of the masses.

A. Teo

Explanations Missing From Transit Articles

The coverage of the NYC transit strike was informative. However, we need to improve an aspect of our CHALLENGE articles. They always present a contract\strike in the context of a "war economy" and of the current stage of capitalism — "inter-imperialist rivalry." These are part of our communist assertions that underlie the transit strike articles.

These assertions state facts concluded from a communist analysis and appear to be written for people who already agree with them. The steps that help other workers arrive at these conclusions are missing. CHALLENGE could be more helpful with articles that comprehensively show how we reached our conclusions.

What workers think is important to investigate. Our experience is that many, many working-class people see "guns vs. butter" as the direction of the U.S. economy — given trillions in spending, debt financing and tax cuts for the rich; — one effect of the war is less money in transportation budgets. Do they therefore feel, as CHALLENGE might conclude, that they can do something on the job about this?

In another city’s transit agency where PLP has exposed how the Transit Authority represents big capital and how they benefited from transit, a transit worker told us she talked up support for the NYC strike. She told co-workers that the $450 million New York City lost each day shows how much transit workers produce and how little we get back. But she didn’t want to discourage people about strike action if the settlement was bad, because that was the level they were at. She said the war was connected to City deficits but felt she couldn’t develop that connection with many co-workers. Still, a year ago she supported a PLP-sponsored union resolution that bus drivers should not collaborate with the police to transport arrested anti-war protesters, even though she had done it once. How she can influence co-workers is an on-going discussion.

The NYC strike demands reflected the basic idea of class unity. Strikers agreed to fight the trend of contracts settled on the backs of new workers. They struck against the MTA demand that new workers pay more for pensions and retire later. However, the demands didn’t oppose the Iraq war or U.S. imperialism.

While on paper TWU Local 100 is against the Iraq war (a resolution), there isn’t a lot of action from the members on this issue. There are Local 100 members in a Transportation Unit of the National Guard. Also, the predominantly black and Latin workforce probably has many families with relatives in the military. This situation can pull both ways in positions about the war. Probably most members are against it individually — polls show a high percentage of black and Latin workers oppose the war.

CHALLENGE says, "The strike showed that workers are not willing to pay for hundreds of billions the bosses need for their endless imperialist wars."

Does that mean that the transit workers consciously view a strike as a weapon of collective action to carry out their individual position against the war or to stop it?

After seeing transit workers bring NYC to a standstill, do our friends then conclude that strikes are a weapon in the hands of the working class to interfere with the war? Could this happen? Do our friends want to join us in developing this transformation?

Will transit workers look mainly at the economic outcome of the settlement and conclude that strikes are not worth it, as our transit friend worried above?

In our attempt to follow up with some NY transit workers, we found that many of our communist assertions rang true but required lots of explaining as to why. For example, we discussed the PLP pamphlet "Unfair at Any Fare" which exposes how Finance Capital (Wall Street banks and investment houses), ran the NYC transit system into the ground when they owned it. They then made billions by financing bonds for the City to buy it. We updated this robbery by indicating today’s differences when U.S. capital has problems competing worldwide and will attack transit workers even harder to lower labor costs while still collecting on the debt.

We asked each other what changes were needed in transit and other workers’ thinking to impel them to spread the illegal strike further, instead of returning to work without a contract. We asked them to evaluate what Local 100 members thought about the strike and the war. We’re continuing this dialogue about the war, the need for communist organizers in the union, revolution, communism, the need for a party, etc. We think this will help develop agreement with CHALLENGE’S communist assertion that, "The strike was a mass political and anti-racist struggle."

Long-time CHALLENGE sellers

CHALLENGE comments: We welcome the letter-writers’ critique of the paper’s reports on the transit strike. Yes, it is important to give explanations that enable workers to understand what’s behind our communist conclusions. If we didn’t do that enough in the many articles we wrote and letters received, we will try to do better in the future, and need your help.

On the point about whether this was a strike against the war or war economy: In the main article (CHALLENGE, 1/18) datelined Jan. 2, second paragraph, after saying that, "The strike showed that workers are not willing to pay for…the bosses…endless imperialist wars," there followed an explanation of the link between these wars and the need to attack workers’ conditions. It stated: "Even if the workers didn’t view this as a strike against the war economy, the bosses certainly do."

We continued in this article and others to explain that the reason for the bosses’ (and their media’s) vicious, massive attack on the strike stemmed from the fact that it would hurt their ability to pay for, and wage, war if other workers — who have been surrendering to the cuts in wages, pensions and health care benefits — were to follow the example of a strike that broke the bosses’ laws.

No doubt the workers didn’t make their demands because they opposed the war — which that first quote above may have implied (although, as you state, probably a majority are opposed individually). But we were indicating that this was the objective result of a strike involving the very things the bosses were trying to cut in order to pay for the war, and a strike against the bosses’ law, at that./

The similar understanding of some strikers were revealed in the string of quotes we printed that our members heard on the picket lines, such as, "I fought in Nam and the Gulf War. This is how they repay us, by attacking workers…. These wars are all about making money for the rich."

And another one, from a worker who shouted to a cheering crowd of strikers, "This is a fascist society! The bosses are no different from Hitler!"

The level of the workers’ understanding of the links between these issues — even if the demands weren’t directly linked to the war — was mirrored in a letter in the last issue which reported that workers plastered the front page of CHALLENGE ("The Revolutionary Communist Newspaper") on the front of a token booth for the whole world to see.

We also did explain how the bankers profit from the workers’ labors in the first three paragraphs of the article entitled, "Banks Are the Big Winners" in the January 18 issue.

On transit workers viewing a "bad economic outcome" as making strikes "not worth it": yes, the bosses spread this false idea to induce workers never to strike. But particularly NYC transit workers have a militant history of "no contract, no work" which they attempt to follow in the teeth of strike-breaking laws. The reason they struck is precisely because they knew they'd get a lousy contract without a walkout, which has happened in the past. If they do get a "bad economic outcome," many, if not most, will attribute it to an incompetent, sellout leadership, not because "strikes are not worth it." Many realized that without threatening a strike, and/or striking, they'd never have achieved whatever advances they've made. Of course the bosses always try to reverse whatever gains workers make.

On the point about the "communist assertion" that "The strike was a mass political and anti-racist struggle": The ruling class itself made this a major issue, from the mayor’s racist accusation of this predominantly black and Latin workforce as "selfish thugs" and "thieves"; to the NY Times worrying about the "clash of race, culture and class"; to the slew of TV, newspaper and radio talk show references to the fact that these workers saw themselves as victims of racism, which helped to drive the strike. They were equated with the 9/11 terrorists!

We tried to indicate through the many articles as well as letters from PLP members reporting on picket line events and reactions to CHALLENGE and PLP leaflets, that a strike that breaks the law, which provokes the ruling-class assault that ensued, including blatant racist attacks, really was "a mass political and anti-racist struggle."

Since you, our readers — and CHALLENGE sellers — are part of the "staff" that produces the paper, we would hope that you all see yourselves as helping to write the explanations that are necessary to prove our communist politics, as your letter is attempting to do.

Fighting Racism in Turkey

I have been following your website from Istanbul. Good work, brothers and sisters.

I was born here, am 25 and work in a bank. We are proudly fighting racism with our art movement in Turkey. Islamic fanaticism is growing here and we youths are trying to combat these fundamentalist ideas.

Good luck to your movement in the fight against racism.

Anti-racist fighter in Istanbul

Another Name for Communist Column?

The new column, "Under Communism" is a great addition to the paper. It helps develop the understanding that communism is a way of life, not just about taking money from the rich, etc.

However, I believe the title should be changed, maybe to "Communist Life" or something like that. The current title could be interpreted to mean that somehow communism is "over" the people. It doesn’t need to have that meaning, but it can feed into the anti-communist idea many have that communism is a plan made by experts who are separated from the people.

A title like "Communist Life" has a more positive, strong sound to it. It would also enable us to tell stories about "communist life" that existed even though communist political-economic systems have not yet been established, such as writing about the Subbotniks in the young USSR.

Please consider changing the name of the column to "Communist Life," or something like that.

A Regular Reader

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

US aim: Make Iraq safe for oil contracts

Bush will not withdraw our forces until U.S. oil companies have secure access to Iraq’s resources….

Prior to the 2003 invasion, foreign companies had been limited to no access to the Iraqi market. Only Iraqis or citizens of Arab nations could own a business in Iraq. The oil sector was fully nationalized....

Following the invasion, the Bush administration implemented orders that have the effect of law allowing for the privatization of Iraq’s state-owned enterprises, 100 percent foreign ownership of Iraqi business....These orders were enshrined in the October 15 Iraq constitution.

The Iraqi Oil Ministry aims "to begin signing long-term contracts with foreign oil companies during the first nine months of 2006," according to [one] report.

Signing the contracts is just the beginning, U.S. companies also need a safe place to work. This is where the U.S. military comes in and it is why Bush refuses to bring the troops home. (Antonia Juhas, author of "The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time," Regan Books, to be published in April 2006 www.ipsdc.org) (MinutemanMedia.org, 1/18)

Majority Rule? We don’t get it by voting!

The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush’s tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.

The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax….

There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times…. (Molly Ivins: Creators Syndicate, 1/20)

US nudges Bolivia army toward a coup

Less than a month after an assertively anti-American president took office in Bolivia, the Bush administration is planning to cut military aid to the country by 96 percent….

The cut holds the potential to anger Bolivia’s powerful military establishment, which has been responsible for a long history of coups. (NYT, 2/9)

Army shifting to Latino cannon-fodder

From 2001-2005, the number of Latino enlistments in the Army rose 26 percent….

The enlistment of African-Americans, a group particularly disillusioned with the war in Iraq, has dropped off sharply, to 14.5 percent from 22.3 percent over the past four years….

Latinos often wind up as cannon fodder on the casualty-prone front lines. African- Americans saw the same thing happen during the 1970’s and 1980’s…

Hispanics make up only 4.7 percent of the military’s officer corps.

"The fear is that the military is going to try to replace, consciously or unconsciously, African-Americans with Hispanics…" (NYT, 2/9)

Replacing Bush won’t stop capitalist wars

…In Munich this weekend, Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican, staking out a position that is more hawkish than anything the Bush administration has said in public, put the predicament this way:

"There is only one thing worse than military action," he said, "and that is a nuclear-armed Iran." (NYT)

Comics tie Cheney hawkishness to gunshot

What do you do when the vice president shoots someone?....

Even Mr. Cheney’s most loyal friends could only brace themselves for the one-liners to come….

"Something I just found out today about the incident," Jay Leno said Monday on the "Tonight Show" on NBC. "Do you know that Dick Cheney tortured the guy for a half-hour before he shot him?"….

… "The Daily Show"…correspondent Rob Corddry, introduced as a "vice-presidential firearms mishap analyst," said that "according to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush," and "everyone believed there were quail in the brush," and "while the quail turned out to be a 78-year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he would still have shot Mr. Whittington…" (NYT, 2/14)

Page 789 of 824

CHALLENGE, April 26, 2006

Marching Behind Liberal Rulers Is Death Trap for Workers

Bosses’ Goal for Immigrants: Slave-Labor Jobs, Cannon Fodder

Why Liberal Warmakers Nailed ‘the Hammer’

Hundreds March vs. War Profiteer and Democrat Ally

CUNY Students Indict Karpinski As War Criminal

PLP Politics Needed To Win Immigrants Away From Liberal Fascists

ALL Workers Must Unite to Fight ALL Bosses

FBI Terror Trial

Teachers Challenge Pro-War California Democrats

Fight Racist Anti-Immigrant Occupancy Law

Worker-Student Unity Forces French Rulers to Back Down; Struggle Continues

Anti-Racists Hit Anti-Black, Anti-Latin Minutemen

Cold War 2:

Russia, China vs. U.S.

LETTERS

CHALLENGE Articles Internationalize Class Struggle

Fantasy Stories Aid Children’s Imagination

Aim Agitation at Communist Consciousness

Pink’s New Song A ‘Breath of fresh air’

On the March 25th Immigrant March in Los Angeles

‘North Country’ Exposes Oppression of Women, But Not Its Source

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

Hard Struggle And Shedding Illusions The Road To Communism

UNDER COMMUNISM

How Will We Achieve and Maintain Economic Equality?

CHALLENGE, April 12, 2006

Can't Fight Racism Relying on Liberal RulersMILLIONS PROTEST RULERS' RACIST ANTI-IMMIGRANT BILLS

LA STUDENTS IN MASS WALKOUT

Liberals' `Legalization'= More Exploitation

Anti-War Vets' March Backs Katrina Victims

Pentagon/Harvard `Humanitarianism' Kills, Maims, Terrorizes

Putin Flexes Old Muscle in Imperialist Dogfight

Detroit Teachers' Pay-Cut Racist Attack on Black Youth

GM `Restructuring' Follows Führer's Footsteps

2.5 Million March As Protests, Strikes Sweep France

Women Workers Face Great Job Insecurity in France

CONVERSATION WITH A WORKER OF THE WORLD

Immigration Struggle Sharpens Political Debate Among Workers

PLP Grows Out of March at Bronx Recruiting Center

Vets, Military Families Bring Anti-War Message to Multi-racial Community

L.A. Dinner Kicks off Planning for May Day

LETTERS

Guard Bars Katrina Evacuee From Home

Red Carpenter Goes To New Orleans

Clean School in 9th Ward Despite Legal Ban

Bring PLP's Ideas to Chicago March

Answer Anti-Immigrant Laws: `Destroy Border'

McCain Moderate? Or Pro-War, Anti-Immigrant Racist?

REDEYE

For imperialist schemes, US gov't lies

`Most murderous' junta backed by US

Led by Reds, they fought MetLife racism

More training = good pay? Not in US today

Movie Review

V for Venerating Anarchism

Chimps and Us: Does Human Nature Exist?

Under communism

How Will We Achieve and Maintain Economic Equality?

CHALLENGE, March 29, 2006

Beware Of McCain-Kennedy Pro-War Patriotism

115,000 Protest Anti-Immigrant Protest

Workers of the World, Unite!

Rulers Dump Harvard Prez When His Pro-War Agenda Flops

Demonstrations of 800,000 Rocking French Government

Union Hacks’ Scabbing, Racism, Unity with Bosses Sinking Northwest’s Workers

3-Day Student Strike Hits Baltimore School Closings

Link Iraq (Iran?) War, Katrina, McCain-Kennedy to Racism

Anti-Muslim Racism Preparation For Expanding War

PL Teacher Wins School Anti-Racism Award

Venezuela’s Chavez plays the China card

Workers Must Give New Boeing CEO A Lesson in Class Values

Performance a la the New 787 Dreamliner Jet

Communist Values, Not Government Regulation

Sikorsky Using Scabs to Break War-plant Strike

Book Review

The ‘New Imperialism’: Is it Failing?

Chimps and Humans: Cooperation is the Link

UNDER COMMUNISM: The Origins of Capitalist Wealth

LETTERS

On the March 25^th Immigrant March in Los Angeles

Can't Fight Racism Relying on Liberal Rulers
MILLIONS PROTEST RULERS' RACIST ANTI-IMMIGRANT BILLS

Dialectics School Teaches:
Workers Can Change History

Expose AFL-CIA:
D.C. Transit Workers Lead Solidarity Rally

`New Century' = Old Deception
LA HOTEL WORKERS MUST REJECT CLASS COLLABORATION

PLP Proud of Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
50 Years Ago Krushchev Slandered Communism

Road to Katrina:
1927 Flood Restored Slavery in Mississippi

UNDER COMMUNISM:
How Will Children Be Raised?