This article, “Bolshevik 101: Workers Took Power; We Can Do It Again!”, originally appeared in CHALLENGE in November 2018, one year after the centennial of the Bolshevik Revolution, and is reprinted here.

November 7, 1917, marked the beginning of the single most important event of the 20th century, the Bolshevik Revolution, which directly inspired the Chinese Revolution and anti-imperialist struggles around the world from Vietnam to Africa to Latin America.

The working class seized power under the leadership of the Bolsheviks

Russia’s working class, headed by the revolutionary communists of the Bolshevik Party and its leader, Vladimir Lenin, freed one-sixth of the world’s surface from capitalism. They proved once and for all that it was possible to strive for a world without exploitation, where those who produce all value, the working class, can enjoy the fruits of their labor and not have it stolen by a few parasitical bosses and their lackeys.

The Bolshevik Revolution was the first serious attempt by workers and peasants to seize, hold and consolidate state power. Even though capitalism has returned to the former Soviet Union, workers will not forget that the Soviet working class defeated capitalism in 1917. They smashed the imperialist armies of 17 countries (including Japan, the U.S., Britain, France, among others) which invaded Russia in 1918 to try to crush the revolution. They freed the masses, especially women, from the yoke of capitalist, feudal and religious oppression. And then in 1945 the Soviet Red Army defeated the mightiest and most barbaric army the capitalists had ever organized: the Nazi Wehrmacht.

The revolution frightened the world’s bosses, who immediately sent armies from 17 countries to try—in Winston Churchill’s words—to “strangle it in the cradle.” From 1918 to 1923, millions of workers led by the Red Army defeated the imperialists’ counter-revolution. Nearly five million died in that battle, many of whom were the most committed workers the revolution had produced. Lenin himself died because of injuries inflicted by a hired killer.

The masses showed great courage and determination to defend and build their revolution, under the leadership of their revolutionary party. They proved that revolutionary violence on the part of the working class and peasantry was vital to the seizure of state power.

Achievements of the Bolshevik Revolution

The Bolshevik Revolution brought the Soviet Union to heights of productive development that capitalism, given a similar time period and circumstances, could never have dreamed of. Bringing the working class to power, the Revolution coordinated their social-economic efforts for the production and exchange of the necessities, the comforts and even some luxuries of life, making them available to all. The Soviet system of production was for use, not for profit. This can only be accomplished by abolishing capitalist profits and the private ownership of property, with its exploitation, poverty, unemployment, racism, fascism and imperialist wars.

In the 1930s, when the entire capitalist world sank into depression, and tens of millions worldwide were left jobless and starving (much like today), the Soviet Union was forging ahead building a new society without unemployment. They created some measure of a decent life for workers in an incredibly short time, transforming a 90 percent illiteracy rate into one in which nearly everyone was literate.

Around 1938, without any official declaration, the Soviet Union had achieved the era of free bread. One could enter a cafeteria, order little or nothing, and receive all the bread one wanted. You needed, you received. Even during a drive for heavy industry, living standards rose strikingly when the rest of the world was mired in the Great Depression.

The Soviet Union not only freed workers but also fought against racism and sexism. The battle against racism was particularly significant. As communist Paul Robeson said about his trips to the Soviet Union, he “felt like a human being for the first time since I grew up. Here I am not a Negro but a human being. Before I came I could hardly believe that such a thing could be…. Here, for the first time in my life, I walk in full human dignity.”

Heroic fight against the Nazis

In 1941, the bosses again tried to destroy the revolution. Hitler, using all of Europe’s resources and the largest military machine ever assembled, invaded the Soviet Union with four million troops. They discovered the Soviets were no pushover as had occurred in Western Europe. Hitler’s prediction — endorsed by western military “experts” — of capturing Moscow in six weeks went up in smoke.

Nazi troops found total destruction and desolation in every captured city or town — the “scorched earth” policy. As Soviet defenders retreated, they destroyed everything that the Nazi’s might use. The communists then organized armed resistance behind enemy lines: the Partisans.

Over 6,000 factories were dismantled and moved east of the Ural Mountains, re-assembled to produce weapons again, a feat requiring total unity and support of Soviet workers, unmatched by any country, before or since. Soviet soldiers and workers fought for Stalingrad block-by-block, house-by-house and room-by-room to halt the “unbeatable” Nazi invaders. Workers in arms factories produced weapons 24 hours a day for the Red Army, working 12-hour shifts. When Nazi troops captured factories, heroic Soviet workers and soldiers would re-take them.

The entire German Sixth Army and 24 of Hitler’s generals were surrounded and killed or captured in the battle of Stalingrad. Never again would the Nazis mount a successful offensive against the Red Army. Stalingrad was truly the turning point of the Second World War. Not until the Nazis were on the run following their defeats at Stalingrad and in the Battle of the Kursk — the biggest armored battle in world history, involving millions of soldiers and 6,000 tanks — did the U.S.-U.K. forces invade Western Europe.

It was the communist-led Soviet Union that smashed the Nazis, the largest and most powerful army ever mounted by a capitalist power.
All this was accomplished under the leadership of Josef Stalin. No wonder he is reviled to this day by world capitalism.

Lessons learned

Unfortunately, the Bolsheviks suffered from many political weaknesses, which led to the return of capitalism to the Soviet Union. From the beginning they believed that to achieve communism, first socialism had to be established, a belief Karl Marx had advanced. We have learned from that experience that socialism retained capitalism’s wage system and therefore failed to wipe out many aspects of the profit system.
Socialism put forward material incentives to the working class rather than political ones as the way to win workers to communism. We must win masses of workers to abolish capitalism’s entire wage system and fight directly for communism.

Today, no country is led by communists, but this is a temporary historical setback. While this long and volatile era of widening imperialist wars and fascist attacks on the working class is upon us, every dark night has its end.

The Progressive Labor Party is a product of both the old international communist movement and the struggle against its weaknesses. Pseudo-leftist groups have not learned history’s lessons and continue to fight for nationalist “sharing of power” with capitalists, a la Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, not for the working-class seizure of power and the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Our movement is daily fighting to learn from the Soviet Union’s great battles and achievements as well as its deadly errors that led to its collapse, mainly that reformism, racism, nationalism and all forms of concessions to capitalism only lead workers to defeat. Give the ruling class an inch and they’ll grab a mile.

We honor the bold fight by the workers of the Bolshevik Revolution against capitalism and for a working-class communist world. Today, we must organize workers, students and soldiers to build a mass worldwide working class party that will turn this era of imperialist wars into a new, international communist revolution.

The shot we saw coming

Small pockets of Bronx residents have been trying to warn the community for months about the impending ICE terror encroaching in our neighborhoods. On October 8, 2026, ICE attempted to murder Oscar Belgal and his five-year-old son while Oscar was driving their family vehicle in the Marble Hill section of the Bronx, NYC. It was midafternoon as children were coming out of school. ICE is generally more active during rush hour.

Minutes after Oscar was shot in the neck by ICE Nazis, the word of his attempted murder spread quickly. Not knowing what they would walk into, a couple of Progressive Labor Party members arrived with the few CHALLENGEs they could grab and began to engage with onlookers. The neighborhood was in a state of shock, and they were scared and unsure of how to react. The crowd was mostly silent as they watched ICE agents and NYPD mingle and meander back and forth. It is a fact that fascism thrives when the working class experiences these emotions. Then we started chanting, asking the crowd, “How do you spell RACIST?” “NYPD!”, “How do you spell FASCIST?” “ICE!”. People began chanting along! It was clear at that point that the people were looking for leadership, and the PLP was ready to step in. As the chanting continued, the suppressed anger that onlookers were feeling was given an outlet. The crowd became stronger and more empowered. Their feelings of fear were transferred to the ICE thugs and they began to flee to their vehicles to escape the wrath of the working class. 

As the sun set, the DSA arrived. There was a palatable disconnect as they overwhelmed the scene. They did not come to the scene and engage with the neighborhood. They simply set up their speakers, handed out their DSA signs and began talking AT the crowd. Elected officials set up a makeshift podium and offered their useless thoughts and prayers and lectured on the “importance of voting”, effectively de-escalating the crowd’s righteous anger and taking away their power. Democratic leadership, including Mayor Mamdani and Bronx Borough President Vanessa L. Gibson, boldly acknowledged that they were aware of the ongoing ICE activity at the 225th street Target located a block away from the shooting. However, with this acknowledgment they were also admitting that they have not done all they should or could be doing to keep our communities safe from ICE terror. The truth, no matter what the politicians say, is that they are incapable and uninterested in protecting anything outside of their own interests.
*****

From France: we’re backed into a corner

When youth, students and workers demand accountability, the bourgeois state, French employers, and the bosses’ media fly into a rage.
The French working class and its youth are backed into a corner.

For nearly a month, students and teachers have been blocking their educational institutions, demanding not only the refurbishment of their schools and better working conditions for staff, but also the abolition of the 

‘Parcoursup ‘ (a convoluted system for university admissions that penalizes working class students from accessing  “better” higher education).
French state authorities have remained silent in the face of these demands, leading up to the events of October 17, when anger erupted throughout France (and has since spread beyond). The General Confederation of Labour (CGT) was forced to call for demonstrations against the high cost of living and to demand wage increases.

Meanwhile, the state’s inaction regarding the students’ demands, compounded by the violence inflicted upon them during the blockades, allowed the situation to fester. Their anger and class hatred ultimately erupted into unimaginable scenes of violence, mainly by the police/government response. The bosses’ media calls it looting. We call retrieval of goods stolen from workers’ labor by the bosses themselves. This climate further fuels the rise of fascism and the far right.

The announcement by the CGT of another demonstration, set for November 5, has sparked panic, not only within the capitalist system but also among a significant portion of the general population. Employers are pressuring the French state, which has become so panicked that it is now considering banning the demonstration in certain parts of the country.

The French state has done, and continues to do, absolutely nothing to address the issues underlying the demands of students and workers. Rather, it chooses to play the victim, displaying significant contempt for the lives and livelihoods of students and workers, and refuses to confront the real problems that have driven people to take to the streets. The bosses, their media, their bourgeois state and their far-right racist cohorts—all the class enemies—cynically choose to portray the justified anger of the demonstrators as merely criminal behavior as it works overtime to influence public opinion against this struggle.

This gang-up of the class enemy tries desperately to create diversions by using immigrants as scapegoats, rather than addressing the problems faced by various social groups. Yet, they never denounce the institutional violence imposed upon the workers in France for the benefit of employers.

Workers and students in France, and beyond, need to regroup under the banners of revolutionary communism to be able to crush the bosses’ onslaught. We need to build one communist party—the Progressive Labor Party—and rid ourselves of this corrupt, racist anti-working class system once and for all. Our class creates all wealth, and we need to decide how to use it in our own interests.

Workers of all countries: join forces to fight against a common enemy, until the final victory is achieved. Fight for communism!  All power to the working class!
*****

Rehired after flyering on the factory floor

I recently moved back to Chicago, and I had a hard time finding work. I spent a lot of time volunteering  to patrol with the ICE rapid response team of Pilsen and Little Village. I was there on several occasions right after ICE arrived. ICE has a violent smash and grab mentality. You can feel the escalating social crisis and fascism expressed by their increasing violence. In one instance ICE deliberately crashed into a car they were chasing on the I-55 highway. On another they raided the McCook Assemblers Inc. factory just outside of Chicago off of the same I-55 highway. According to anonymous Univision interviews, the managers of the factory accidentally opened the door for ICE but intended to demand a warrant. ICE entered the factory with pistols drawn, and arrested six workers, including one they dragged out of the bathroom. The video was morally shocking and appalling. When I arrived with other rapid responders, the recruiters from the temp agency were on the scene, supposedly to help. I decided that it was an opportunity to ask for a job. The goal was to develop the Party’s industrial work, to learn about what conditions are like for immigrant workers in the area, and of course to make money that I need to survive. 

I was hired for a different company than the one ICE raided, but I feel that building a base in the industrial working class here will help strengthen the fight against ICE. I was hired with three other temps, and the supervisors implied they expected us to compete for one permanent job. The industrial work environment is stressful, and there are many hazards to health. If you lose focus you can hurt yourself or others. The last thing you want to worry about is ICE bursting in and shooting you for failing to correctly show submission to their aggression. I made great efforts to talk to as many workers as possible and to try to get along with the other workers I was supposed to be competing with. After two weeks I was told that Friday is my last day. Thursday I called the human resources manager and they confirmed. I decided to write a flyer explaining that I wanted to work there, how I had come to work there through my work with the ICE rapid response teams, how we shouldn’t be forced to compete for one job, and supporting internationalism. I distributed the flyer on the factory floor. This was very much inspired by past Progressive Labor Party (PLP) fightbacks I had read about. It has been three weeks, and I am still working there and so is one other temp hired with me. So never think the boss’s word is the last word. If you build a base in the working class you can protect yourself from retribution. The following is an excerpt from the flyer.

The workers say it is a good company to work for because there is job security, there are Christmas and New Years bonuses, there are raises, and there is health insurance. Yet the workers still suffer hardships. Some workers say they work with cats because they have scratches all up and down their arms from working. Other workers have a long and difficult commute. Compared to the workers who produce the steel and iron pipes in India, China, and Vietnam we have a high wage, but our cost of living is high as well. Most workers believe other workers make more money. Almost everyone is earning 18-23 dollars per hour at most. I would be surprised if the supervisors make more than that. The company owners made a calculation of how much profit they make from each worker. The company can hire us both! They want us to compete because they fear working class unity.

We also have a physically demanding job. Many workers say it is necessary to lift weights, exercise, and stretch after work to keep their bodies healthy. Illinois Border Patrol officer Luis Uribe received paid time off to go exercise, and he used it to kidnap women to extort and rape. Why do rapist ICE thugs get paid to exercise, but the real workers must stretch and exercise to stay physically fit on their own time? This is just one way the workers could come together to improve their lives. If the workers unite, they know what issues affect them. Workers should shape their work environment. 
*****

Editorial response: Germany’s crisis fuels fascism

I wanted to add two points to your analysis of the AfD’s rise. First, Germany’s export-led economy is under mounting pressure, and workers are being made to pay for the crisis. Second, as the far-right gains ground across Europe, German rearmament strengthens a state whose history shows how readily ruling classes use state power to defend their interests.

Germany’s rulers built their position on exports, cheap energy, and wage restraint. That model now faces Chinese competition, high energy costs, and years of weak domestic investment. Inflation reached 3.3 percent in September, further eroding workers’ purchasing power. The bosses call wage restraint “competitiveness.” Workers experience it as another way to make them absorb the costs of capital’s crisis (NLR Sidecar, 2026; Financial Times, 2026).

Germany’s ruling class is responding to their domestic crisis with a military buildup, justified as defense against Russia. But rearmament also strengthens the state and arms industry amid intensifying competition between capitalist powers. The European Union has benefited Germany since its inception. Should conditions change, we should not be surprised if the Germans renegotiate with force. The danger is already visible: the AfD’s leader in Saxony-Anhalt said arms production could support the party’s mass deportation drive (Reuters, September 2026).

These trends towards fascism run deep. West Germany’s history makes this danger clear. Cold War priorities weakened denazification. 

Thousands of perpetrators escaped justice, and the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial did not even begin until 1963. Former Nazi Party member Kurt Georg Kiesinger became chancellor, while former Wehrmacht officer Adolf Heusinger later chaired NATO’s Military Committee. Anti-communism helped bring former Nazis into West German institutions.

German unification also shows how workers bore the costs of capitalist restructuring. In 1990, the GDR acceded to the Federal Republic. The rapid privatization of East German firms contributed to mass job losses and lasting inequality. Workers lost control while private owners gained assets. Those inequalities help explain the AfD’s strength in the East, though they are not the only cause.

This crisis reaches beyond Germany. The AfD leads national polls, with its support strongest in the East. In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally leads first-round polling and is projected to reach the 2027 runoff. These parties redirect anger toward migrants instead of capital, austerity, and competition among ruling classes (Reuters, October 2026).

We need mass communist organization to resist the pull of rising fascism: fight deportations and austerity, organize across racial and national lines, and confront capital through an international party. The AfD feeds on the instability generated by a system in decline. Only a working-class movement can reach across borders to root out the deep rot of fascism in Europe.
*****

Salvadoran president Bukele sends troops to Haiti

France24, 10/23– El Salvador has deployed special forces to Haiti after four of its soldiers serving in a UN-backed force in the Caribbean nation went missing following a gang ambush…A contingent from El Salvador arrived on Thursday “to support ongoing search and security operations” … outside the capital Port-au-Prince. About 200 Salvadoran soldiers arrived in Port-au-Prince on Thursday and Friday to assist in the search there, a security source told AFP on condition of anonymity. The four Salvadoran troops went missing after their armored vehicle was ambushed by gangs on Sunday as they were returning to base from a market outside Port-au-Prince. 

Maggie Thatcher would be proud as UK bosses find oil in Falklands  

AP News, 9/28–Argentine President Javier Milei said Monday that his government would seek international arbitration against the United Kingdom over an oil project off the disputed, British-controlled Falkland Islands, escalating a clash over resources that could transform the economy of the sparsely populated South Atlantic archipelago. Milei’s office said it had given the U.K. two weeks to halt work on Sea Lion, an offshore oilfield being developed by Israel’s Navitas Petroleum and England’s Rockhopper Exploration. 

Families of workers killed in boat sinking in Guyana demand action

News Source Guyana, 9/29–More families of the missing MV Barima victims joined the protest action this week as they renew their calls for the sunken vessel to be salvaged…Relatives and friends of MV Barima victims…Thirty-three-year-old Rawle Frank, a father of one, was among the crew members on the vessel on that ill-fated day. His remains are still missing along with the bodies of more than 30 others. His father, Royston Frank, told reporters that the family needs closure.  “It has been over 10 weeks now since this tragedy took place. We are going into three months…This is showing you clearly that the Government doesn’t have any love for the lower-class people and we are seeing it because all of the people that went on that boat are poor people. Is nah no rich family…”

Rubio seeks to finish the job Kennedy couldn’t

Reuters, 10/23–U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called on those seeking change in Cuba to partner with ‌the CIA as President Donald Trump said Washington would “take care of Cuba” after dealing with Iran and send in the top U..S diplomat to finish the deal. Rubio urged those disappointed by Cuba’s government to “seize this opportunity to create the change you desire through a discrete partnership with the CIA,” without elaborating further. The Trump administration has previously stated its goal is to change Cuba’s communist government. 

Jamaica bosses agree to accept workers kidnapped by U.S. bosses

FoxNews 10/14–Jamaica began receiving third-country deportations from the U.S. this week, with the first flight of migrants arriving on Tuesday. President Donald Trump’s administration has used the third-country policy to deport migrants who claim that their home countries are too dangerous to return to. Tuesday’s flight saw 22 migrants land at Kingston’s Norman Manley International Airport in Jamaica. Jamaican authorities signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. in June to allow transfers to begin. The agreement caps the number of migrants arriving to 25 “per fortnight.” 

Hispaniola shows a common outcome of nationalism

The Latino Newsletter, 9/29–...a lawmaker in the Dominican Republic introduced a bill that would require all public schools in the Caribbean nation to offer courses in Haitian Creole. It was met with a swift and fierce public backlash… as it stands, the level of political and social opposition means the proposal has little chance of progressing…Haitian immigration to the Dominican Republic is often characterized as an ongoing peaceful invasion — a nationalistic narrative that has been perpetuated by Dominican politicians for over 50 years…the Creole language is an indelible part of the Dominican Republic, and has been maintained in the country by migrants for hundreds of years. However, Creole has been systematically excluded from public spaces where you might expect it, like on signage or in public spaces, such as hospitals, where migrants might need an interpreter.

As the crisis of capitalism deepens and the world’s bosses lurch toward world war, fascism is on the march from the U.S. to France and Germany to India and China—and, once again, in Brazil. On October 4, Flávio Bolsonaro, a Trump ally and son of the openly fascist, arch-racist ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, edged fake-left incumbent Lula da Silva. The two misleaders will settle the contest in an October 25 runoff.

If Bolsonaro wins, Brazil will join a growing axis of Trump-aligned regimes to militarize the U.S. backyard. As global capitalism decays and U.S. imperialism loses ground to China, the scramble to control South America’s oil and minerals is heating up. Fake leftists like Lula and Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum can never fix the root problems of capitalism; their job is to deceive and pacify workers. Liberal democracy and fascism are two sides of the same rotten capitalist coin, and the billionaire capitalist bosses switch between them as needed. The rise of fascist politicians reflects the rulers’ need for more discipline in their own ranks and more brutal control over the international working class.

Brazil in Crisis: A Prize for the Bosses

Brazil is projected to be the world's 10th-ranked economy, home to the planet’s largest rainforest and vast mineral wealth (datamarnews, 6/1). That makes it a prize for U.S. and Chinese bosses alike. But with crushing debt, weak profits, and a shrinking industrial base (courthousenews, 9/27).

Workers are paying the price. The official unemployment rate of 5.3 percent hides 39 million workers in the informal economy. Black workers, especially Afro-Brazilian women in domestic and care work, bear the heaviest burden. Poverty and police brutality are rampant (Valor International, 10/6). Fed up with corruption and Lula’s broken promises, many of these workers, along with a battered middle class, have turned to Bolsonaro. 

The candidate’s father, Jair Bolsonaro, is an ex-army officer who rode to power on the back of the “Beef, Bible, and Bullets” caucus. He sold off the Amazon rainforest to agribusiness and mining and launched a genocidal assault on Indigenous peoples. The younger Bolsonaro is equally skilled at playing the crime card, using trafficking gangs like the Comando Vermelho to continue terrorizing  Brazil’s most super-exploited workers: Black workers in the inner-city favelas (BBC, 05/7/21; The Guardian, 10/4).

Lula lies, workers lose

Lula’s Workers’ Party (PT) has governed on and off for 17 years. In his first two terms, Lula called a truce with the Brazilian ruling class, making huge concessions to finance capital and tossing the poorest crumbs like Bolsa Família, a cash transfer program (America’s Quarterly, 12/19/25). Corruption scandals, from the Mensalão to Operation Car Wash, landed Lula in jail and paved the way for Jair Bolsonaro’s election in 2019 (AFP, 9/23/23; BBC 11/9/19).

Lula’s 2023 return to power rested on a coalition stretching from the poorest workers to finance capital. He handed ministries to the Bolsonaro-aligned Progressive Party, an old dictatorship stronghold. In line with Lula’s pledge to eliminate the country’s deficit, the country’s central bank raised interest rates to 15 percent, a gift to bondholders and a misery for indebted workers.

While Lula poses as an “environmental defender,” he broke his promises to return land to Indigenous workers (Mongabay, 12/22/24). Under his administration, Petrobras, the mostly state-owned oil and gas company, has earmarked $3 billion and 15 wells for the offshore Equatorial Margin, including the basin off the mouth of the Amazon River (Mongabay, 6/29).

Lula’s record on police violence is just as damning. In October 2025, three days after Rio state police carried out a raid that killed more than 121 people (BBC, 10/29/25), he signed a bill raising prison sentences for gang members to up to 30 years (CNN Brasil, 10/31/25). In his first two terms, Brazil’s prison population almost doubled (The Guardian, 06/29/15), and in 2025 police killed 6,602 people nationwide, the most on record, 82 percent of them Black (Brazilian Public Security Forum, 7/23/26).

U.S.-China rivalry sharpens

A Flavio Bolsonaro victory would hand Trump another enthusiastic ally for his “Donroe Doctrine.” Eighteen Latin American nations have joined the U.S.-led Shield of the Americas, a coalition that claims to attack drug cartels, organized crime, and “illegal” migration. At least four of those countries--Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, and Ecuador—have signed up for joint military operations with the Pentagon. As the racist bosses pour billions into war to defend their shrinking pools of profit, they know that scapegoating Black and migrant workers for the profit system’s crises is the oldest trick in their book.

For the imperialists, the real prize is Brazil’s wealth of critical minerals, the second-largest reserve of rare earths after China’s, and the U.S. is pressing the region to restrict Chinese access (Statista, 4/6). Yet whoever wins on October 25 will likely keep close ties with China, Brazil’s largest trading partner, just as Flávio’s anti-communist father did (South China Morning Post, 10/9).

Workers must fight back

With the collapse of the old communist movement and the reversal of the great Russian and Chinese revolutions, workers are offered a rigged menu: open fascists like Bolsonaro and Trump, or liberal counterweights like Lula and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Yet Brazil’s workers have always fought back, with Black workers in the lead. In the late 19th century, enslaved Africans and Indigenous people rose up, escaped, and built free communities called quilombos, helping to force the abolition of slavery in 1888. In 1935, communists led an armed uprising that was crushed by the Vargas regime. After the military regime killed, disappeared, and tortured tens of thousands of workers between 1964 and 1985 (humanconflicts.org), mass strikes eventually forced the generals to retreat. But with the communist movement weak and divided, the bosses’ liberal democracy filled the gap with the likes of Lula, a metalworker who’d helped lead the historic Paulista strikes.

Still, the workers kept rebelling. In 2017, in a general strike against austerity, 40 million workers shut the country down. In 2025, after the cops’ Rio massacre, Black workers led mass protests.  But without a class-conscious compass and a mass communist party like PLP, workers’ anger continued to be diverted into the dead end of “lesser evil” voting.

Fight for communism!

Elections are the bosses’ tool for allowing rival capitalist factions to take turns running the same horrific system. A case in point is 1930s Germany, where Nazi Hitler rose through elections and was handed power by a decaying ruling class. The bosses use the ballot when it serves them and smash it when it doesn’t.

Today’s reform struggles must go further. Masses of workers are in the streets in France (see page 8), Chile, Spain, India, Belgium, Germany, and the U.S. They need to be organized under the banner of one international communist party: Progressive Labor Party. In World War II, communists led by the Soviet Union and China dealt deadly blows to the Nazis and Japanese fascists. To smash today’s fascist imperialists, we must build a communist-led working-class movement. We must cast off the illusions of reformism. We must remain confident in the international working class that built the quilombos and rose up against slavery, dictatorship, and police terror.

Each person who joins this fight is another nail in the bosses’ coffin. Read and distribute CHALLENGE, build ties with your co-workers and neighbors, and fight racism where you live and work. Be that next nail. Join PLP!