Felt ‘urgency and emotional rawness’
I was impressed by the seriousness of the comrades at the recent cadre school. The school was proof the Party is developing young, working-class, Black and Latin, women leadership to lead the working class to power.

The discussions were advanced, focused, and honest. People shared their questions and disagreements, and we struggled for everyone to be heard. People came from different walks of life, but we were united in our commitment to study the world and fight for a communist future.

We contemplated some of the most complicated issues we face in the class struggle, like the need to confront nationalism and fight for internationalism, the need to fight directly for communism, the necessity of armed struggle and revolutionary violence to defeat the capitalist class once and for all.

You could feel the urgency and emotional rawness in the voices of the comrades in the room: the fate of the international working class is on our shoulders! I came away feeling fortified to apply myself more resolutely to struggling in my neighborhood to win my friends and neighbors to the Progressive Labor Party.

Dearest comrades and friends in the Los Angeles area,

The CHALLENGE board would like to take the time to salute the amazing work that you all have done in 2023 to build the struggle for communist revolution. We failed to include an appreciation of the work in the backpage article, “2024 Resolution: Fight The Bosses, Rise Up With The Working Class” (1/17).  

In L.A., PL’ers marched side by side with and shared our confidence in striking hotel workers, TV/Film industry workers, fought the racist courts and kkkops against the murder of 23-year-old Latin man Cesar Rodriguez, connected antiracist fighting families together in celebration of our courage in the face of state repression, and encouraged the communist leadership of the Alex Flores family, a family that lost their loved one to racist police violence and students specifically. You all are teaching us how to fight and build the Party, thoroughly and consistently!

Fists up to you and the necessary fightback against capitalist terror, for better working conditions, and a world where workers run the world!J

The elections in Argentina in October and November 2023 resulted in the return of the far right to power, with Javier Milei at its helm. For the working class, this election only made things, already bad, worse as Argentina was already going through a period of economic crisis and experiencing social difficulties linked to inflation which had risen to more than 160% in 2022. With a so-called socialist government at the helm, the standard of living of workers was diminished by corruption scandals and structural problems during the past few decades. The rightwing trend mirrors what is happening elsewhere in the world, with xenophobic, nationalist and anti-working class speeches by the newly elected president, especially the anti-migrant ones, which blame migrant workers for the crises brought on by capitalism.

Argentina stands between the current inter-imperialist struggles. At the last BRICS summit in August 2023, Argentina was among the countries proposed to become a member of this grouping. BRICS is an intergovernmental organization comprising the capitalist bosses of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It was at the same time that the IMF granted a loan of several hundred millions of dollars in the country. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a U.S.-controlled body that furthers capitalist expansion, always to the detriment of the working class of its member countries. These two events show how Argentina is being tossed between the influences of the two protagonist camps of the moment, the Western imperialists on one side and their rival imperialists on the other. Both sides are vying for economic and political control of the world’s resources and wealth.

Argentine misleaders attack workers, line the ruler’s pockets
Since the election of Milei, Argentina’s bosses have faced a series of popular protest demonstrations (which are becoming increasingly illegal) against their “anti-democratic” measures. During the first mobilizations the police began to use excessive force against demonstrators and union members. Ten days after taking office, Milei published a “DNU” (decree of necessity and emergency), which aims to modify or repeal more than 300 standards, in particular removing rent controls, State intervention to protect the prices of essential products, weakening worker protections, enabling privatizations. For older workers, their pensions are being cut via an “economically viable” automatic calculation method—once again stealing from the poor to fill the coffers of the already-rich. While Milei talks about austerity measures for the working class, he has not renounced class privileges for himself and his bourgeoisie.

Liberals and Libertarians, fascists-in-arms
Milei’s preparedness shows that the return of the extreme right was a well-planned project that was already underway. Milei’s election was hailed by other hard rightliners such as Bolsonaro (former president of Brazil) and Trump (former president of the U.S.). Milei, like his fascist counterparts, calls himself an “ultra-liberal,” trying to fool the masses into thinking he is really on their side, like the Nazis were called National Socialists and Mussolini started out as a so-called socialist—liberal or far-right fascist, they’re all on the bosses’ side.
The struggle in Argentina is a struggle that promises to be long and difficult for the Argentine workers and students who have a long tradition of fighting back in various forms of class struggle. What the current situation shows us is that our class in Argentina—and everywhere—cannot rely on reformers (liberal or fascist) destroy the capitalist system and replace it with communism—an egalitarian system that the working class controls to serve its own needs. We urge our comrades in Argentina to join with us in the Progressive Labor Party and fight for communist revolution. That is the only way that we will be able to liberate our class.

COLOMBIA​​, January 17—In Colombia, after the surge of the conflict in Gaza in October, the government of Gustavo Petro has taken a different position than the majority of governments, refusing to condemn the Hamas attacks, questioning the incursion of the Israeli army, and talking about the role of the Zionist mercenaries in the shaping of paramilitarism in Colombia and the subsequent wave of violence that has plagued the countryside and the cities for decades.

Petro has clearly stated that he favors a peace accord that recognizes the two states. He also said, he rejects what “the extreme right wings of both countries that will take both societies to a conflict where all will be defeated” that the Colombian government supports the National Palestinian Authority that is against Hamas.

Petro masquerades as “pro-Palestine”, but quietly supports genocide
Petro has been criticized for his position by the Zionists and the more conservative sectors of the Colombian bourgeoise, traditional ally of Israel. Gilinki, a Jewish banker and oligarch exploiter of the working class of Colombia, has declared his consternation over the declarations of the president, who recently compared Israel’s military intervention with the Holocaust, making this a choice between supporting the Israeli bosses or the Palestinian bosses.  Critical point that has created a wedge inside the national bourgeoise.
Recently this ideological dispute between Petro and the defenders of Israel in Colombia has deepened, especially after the president condemned the Israeli’s army attacks on journalists, as of this writing 109 journalist have been killed and his approval of the suit against Israel by South Africa in the International Court of Justice in the Hague, for violating the provisions if the 1948 Convention against genocide.  

However, these liberal positions that the Colombian government has taken regarding one of the bloodiest conflicts of our time, where 24,000 people have been killed, most of them workers, has not translated into real measures of support for the Palestinian resistance, reducing them to sending humanitarian aid, or calling to consult the Colombian ambassador to Israel, or the support of Argelia’s denouncement of Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes in the International Criminal Court and the demand presented by South Africa.

As we can see, Petro’s support is towards the Palestinian government, not the resistance of the workers in Palestine. We also need to point out that the Colombian government has kept all the commercial relations and especially the military connections with Israel, the “anger” of the president has been reduced to mere words.
Petro defends and shares the imperialist policies of two states, and to serve this purpose he presents his political strategy of a Peace Conference for Palestine.  His refusal to condemn Hamas and support the genocide by Israel, demands breaking relations with Israel and to assume an effective support of Palestine, but he has shown the weakness and limits of his foreign policies when maintaining his opposition to Israel only tangentially, defending only the recognition of a Palestinian state, led by murderous bourgeoise who use nationalism as a form of control of the masses.

Even though the protests in Colombia against Zionism in the last three months have not been as massive as those in the USA, UK, France, New Zealand, Turkey and others, a solidarity committee has been created for the Palestinian cause formed araba activists, independent political organizations, defenders of human rights, student collectives, amongst others.  They have called for massive demonstrations in support of Palestine and spreading the real situation in Gaza, which has not been properly presented by the media, national or international, who serve the Zionist bourgeoise.

Internationalism is essential for workers
Although we understand that these actions are revisionists, because they are limited to the defense of the constitution of the Palestinian state for a free Palestine, they are the first step towards the international solidarity mobilization of the workers against the bosses’ wars.  We have to be clear that marching does not a revolution make, and that only communism can eradicate the state violence against the working class. We have to promote communist education to be able to canalize the potential of the masses in movement.  

In PLP we have been meeting, marching and rallying, we have shared our political line and sold . We have CHALLENGE put up front the necessity of international solidarity, fought against nationalist ideas and fought for unity of the working class. Worker’s oppression will not be eliminated creating new bourgeoise states, only communism and its red flag can break our chains and end all wars.  

We have been very critical of the government’s position and Petro and his bland opposition on this conflict.  We have shown that his support is not with the Palestinian working class, victims of the war policies, but with the Palestinian ruling class; nationalist and oppressive.

No doubt, the expansion of the conflict has made the bosses of the world take a side that benefits their interests, we have to create awareness of the dangers of nationalism, liberal fascism and defending bourgeoise wars amongst the working class.  

For a free Palestine, fight for communist internationalism!