Chinese bosses now have ability to battle U.S. bosses economically

Foreign Affairs, 12/16/25–For much of the past year, China’s response to trade tensions has continually surprised hawks in Washington…the Biden administration imposed new export restrictions on advanced chips, Beijing immediately answered by banning exports of several metallic elements to the United States…after the Trump administration threatened huge tariffs on China, Beijing dug in, imposing strict export controls on seven rare-earth minerals vital to defense and clean energy manufacturing. In May, China stopped buying U.S. soybeans…Discarding the strategic restraint that had previously characterized its approach to the United States, China has shown it is ready to weaponize its supply chain dominance.

In Portugal, general strike forces bosses to compromise, but only slightly

Reuters, 12/17/2025–Portugal’s centre-right minority government has said it will amend labour reform legislation to appease trade unions following the country’s first general strike in more than a decade. The proposed overhaul of over 100 articles of the labour code is an important part of the government’s agenda to boost productivity and economic growth...After meeting the leadership of umbrella union UGT, Labour Minister Maria do Rosario Ramalho said the government was ready to reach a compromise…

Pro-Palestinian protesters in U.K. prison facing starvation

Al Jazeera, 12/18/25–Six remand prisoners affiliated with…Palestine Action who are on hunger strike are not receiving adequate healthcare and face an immediate risk of death…more than 800 doctors, nurses, therapists and carers wrote to Justice Secretary David Lammy to warn that “without resolution, there is the real and increasingly likely potential that young British citizens will die in prison, having never even been convicted of an offence”…The group are being held across five prisons over their alleged involvement in break-ins at the UK subsidiary of the Israeli defence firm Elbit Systems in Bristol and a Royal Air Force (RAF) base in Oxfordshire…

Trump not saying whether bombs and missiles will rain down on Venezuelan workers

The Guardian, 12/19/2025–In his NBC interview, Donald Trump declined to say whether removing Maduro was his ultimate goal, telling NBC News: “He knows exactly what I want.” “He knows better than anybody,” the US President added, referring to Maduro. The report did not elaborate. Maduro has alleged that the US action is aimed at overthrowing him and gaining control of the OPEC nation’s oil resources, which are the world’s largest crude reserves. Trump elaborated on his claim there would be additional seizures of oil tankers near Venezuelan waters, adding: “If they’re foolish enough to be sailing along, they’ll be sailing along back into one of our harbours.”

European bosses work out finances to kill more Russian and Ukrainian workers

New York Times, 12/19/2025–European leaders agreed early on Friday morning to keep Ukraine funded for two years with a loan of 90 billion euros, or about $105 billion, though they failed to agree on their first-choice option of using Russian state assets frozen on the continent as backing for the loan. That ambitious frozen-asset plan was killed at the 11th hour as European heads of state and government met in Brussels — a show of division that risked making the European Union appear indecisive at a key moment. Instead, European leaders announced that they will funnel money to Ukraine with a loan backed by the E.U. budget… 

National strike in Italy shows worker anger toward bosses’ plan

Associated Press, 12/12,2025–A national strike called on Friday by Italy’s largest trade union in protest against the government’s budget plans widely disrupted transportation, health and school services across the country. The protest, which targets the 2026 budget bill proposed by the conservative government of Premier Giorgia Meloni, comes just two weeks after another general strike organized by smaller trade unions, with the same motivations. The strike mainly hit railway transportation, with cancellations and delays registered for both long-distance and regional trains. Public schools across the country canceled classes…

The December 2 “peace” talks between the U.S. and Russia over the war in Ukraine exposed the accelerating decline of U.S. imperialism on the world stage. Even though State-Terrorist-in-Chief Donald Trump’s 28-point proposal favored Russia’s demands, his envoys walked away empty-handed (CNN, 12/2). For the indefinite future, the capitalist bosses’ slaughter of workers will continue across Ukraine, while the U.S. rulers blunder on for all their rivals to see.

From the Congo to the South China Sea, from Venezuela to Ukraine, the inter-imperialist competition between the U.S., China, and Russia is moving headlong toward World War Three. The split within the U.S. ruling class continues to intensify. Fronted by Trump, the more isolationist “Fortress America,” Small Fascist faction of capitalist bosses want to withdraw U.S. imperialist support for NATO and for far-flung armed conflicts in places like Ukraine. By contrast, the finance capital internationalist wing, the Big Fascist U.S. bosses and their allies in the European Union, are trying to preserve their multilateral alliances and their global imperialist domination. Regardless of which faction wins out, the international crisis of capitalism will force the bosses to turn to war and fascism. Only international working-class solidarity and communist revolution can smash their genocidal system once and for all. 

Liberal slaughter in Ukraine

The horrific war between the U.S.- and EU-backed Ukrainian forces and Russian imperialism is just one more example of the capitalist bosses’ criminal disregard for working-class life. Since the Russian invasion in February 2022, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian workers have been killed, wounded or captured. Schools, hospitals, and apartment buildings are routinely targeted for military strikes (CFR, 11/25). On the other side, it’s estimated  that more than one million Russian workers have been killed, while their rulers’ austere war economy keeps squeezing their livelihoods at home (Economist, 12/2). 

This violent struggle traces its roots to the end of the Cold War, when the U.S. imperialists welcomed countries formerly within Russia’s orbit into NATO.  Ukraine– strategically  located on the Black Sea, brimming with gas pipelines into western Europe, rich in mineral resources–was a prize the Russian bosses wouldn’t give up without a fight.

In 2013, after a section of Russia-leaning Ukrainian bosses scuttled a deal to integrate into the EU economy, pro-West bosses, including the CIA-connected “Color Revolution” billionaire George Soros, instigated an uprising. Under President Barack Obama, U.S. imperialism funneled resources and cash into Ukraine to pull the population closer to the orbit of Western “democracy” (Black Agenda Report, 2/22/22). Then Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in its first military incursion into Europe since World War Two. The current war inevitably followed. Trying desperately to deter Russian imperialism and hold together the failing U.S.-led liberal world order, President Joe Biden delivered tens of billions in military support to Ukraine.

At this moment, with the Trump wing in power, the main wing liberals are reduced to mourning the U.S. retreat and its consequences. As a New York Times Op Ed piece noted after the Moscow meeting: “The era of Pax Americana may soon be drawing to a close. From then on it will be every region, or country, for itself, against emboldened and avaricious adversaries” (NYT, 12/2). 

Retrenchment en route to war

Trump’s pullback from NATO and his flurry of bogus peace deals in Palestine-Israel, the Congo, and Ukraine signal a fundamental shift for U.S. imperialism.  In the face of growing inroads by China in Latin America, the Small Fascist wing is focused on fortifying control of the U.S. sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere. In the past year alone, Trump has threatened to seize the Panama Canal and Greenland by force while surrounding oil-rich Venezuela with thousands of troops (NYT, 11/17). 

In Europe, the most ominous aspect of U.S. imperialism’s retreat from the global stage is that it foreshadows bigger military showdowns. U.S. unreliability has led the EU to invest more in its military and to mandate military enlistment by youth and outright conscription (NYT, 11/24).

Coupled with Russian drones and missiles flying close to EU borders, a wider conflict looms on the horizon. As in the U.S., a section of EU bosses is building openly racist movements to scapegoat immigrant workers and build nationalism for war (NYT, 12/3).

Nationalism is deadly for the working class

Through the long siege of bloodshed across Ukraine, nationalism has been crucial for the bosses on both sides to win workers to kill their fellow workers for the profits of the capitalist class. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ships workers to their death so that he and his corrupt cronies can score lucrative business deals to rebuild when the smoke clears (Scheerpost, 1/27/23). Russian soldiers are mowed down in the hundreds of thousands–supposedly for the “greater empire,” but in fact to enable Russian billionaires to control Ukrainian resources.

Workers must reject all forms of nationalism in favor of international solidarity. A mass communist PLP with deep ties with workers and in the military can advance our common struggle and turn it into a revolutionary movement. Our Party can wield the ultimate weapon–working-class consciousness–to strike at the heart of this murderous system.

No peace under capitalism – fight for communism

To paraphrase the communist poet Bertolt Brecht, when the rulers speak of peace, it’s time to prepare for war. As dialectical materialists, we know there can be no lasting peace under capitalism. The system’s hard-wired logic of accumulation, competition, and maximum profit requires racism, environmental destruction, exploitation, and war.

Our Party’s task remains constant: to expose capitalism and all of its deadly contradictions while offering our revolutionary alternative to the workers of the world. For our class, peace will come only when we crush capitalism with international revolution. Fight for communism! Join PLP!

BROOKLYN, November 23—As federal immigration raids ramp up across the country, a group of teachers at our school has been meeting regularly to figure out how to protect our students. What began as a few worried conversations has grown into a strong collective. Teachers who had never been part of this kind of organizing are now taking leading roles—calling families, creating safety plans, and refusing to let fear isolate our immigrant students.

Members of the Progressive Labor Party have been active in the collective as well, bringing their long experience fighting racism and ICE terror in the neighborhood and in the schools. Their presence has helped ground the group politically—the necessity for parent, student, staff unity, not depending on politicians, not excusing liberal politicians’ fascism, but what’s been especially heartening is how many other teachers have stepped forward with real determination to defend our students. Both of these groups will help lead us to running class society for ourselves and ourselves only one day!

Mobilizing to crush ICE

The work has taken on a new urgency as we discussed what unfolded in North Carolina in November. ICE launched “Operation Charlotte’s Web,” sweeping up dozens of people and terrorizing immigrant neighborhoods.

The response from young people was immediate. More than 30,000 students in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg district stayed home or walked out in protest.

At schools in the Raleigh-Durham area, students also organized walkouts. A junior from Rolesville High, Logan DeLaurentis, said, “What people don’t tend to see a lot is that was the one moment … where everybody was together and there was just a warmth” (ABC11, 11/20). That sense of unity carried across multiple campuses as students defended their classmates and their community.

While no news outlet has confirmed that these walkouts forced ICE to stop the operation altogether, the actions created a political crisis for the authorities and showed what it looks like when students refuse to be intimidated.

Making plans at home

Those events hit close to home. We want our own student government to begin to sketch out plans to get students moving in defense of migrant families here. We want to build that same spirit on our campus—before an ICE operation hits our neighborhood.

The conversations among teachers have become more serious too. People are talking about how to make sure families know their rights, how to protect students if ICE shows up near the school, and how to build the kind of unity that makes it impossible for the authorities to pick people off quietly. The collective is growing every week, with teachers and school staff coming in not just to talk, but to prepare.

What happened in North Carolina showed that there is real power in students and workers taking action together. It also reminded us that immigrant families are not alone, and that they don’t have to face these raids in silence.

People here are ready to stand with them. We’re not waiting for the next headline. We’re getting organized now, and we’re building the kind of unity that makes a real difference, not just against ICE, but against the whole system that uses raids, racism, and fear to keep us divided.

A growing number of students and workers realize that capitalism cannot provide what the international working class needs to live decent lives. It is the challenge of those of us in Progressive Labor Party to win these same people to the understanding that communism, a system led by workers for workers, not for the profit of a few billionaires, is possible. We are linking the fight against capitalism to the fight for communism so that one day we can melt ICE and the capitalist system that breeds it once and for all!

Friedrich Engels introduced the concept of “social murder” in The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1845. Engels argued that the ruling class knowingly forces workers into conditions where they cannot live full or healthy lives, conditions that steadily “hurry them to the grave before their time.” This murder is not the act of an individual. It is the routine violence of capitalism that puts profit above human life.

Social murder: business as usual

Social murder remains as deadly in the twenty-first century as it was in the nineteenth. The fires at Grenfell Tower in London in 2017 (The Guardian, 9/4/24), the Twin Parks North West fire in the Bronx in 2022 (New York Times, 1/9/22), and the Wang Fuk Court inferno in Hong Kong in 2025 (The Guardian, 11/27) expose, with painful clarity, the continuing disposability of workers—especially migrant families forced into the most precarious housing by class domination and borders. A World Health Organization (WHO) report illustrates the devastating magnitude of unhealthy living conditions for workers. In 2012, an estimated 12.6 million people died as a result of living or working in an unhealthy environment—nearly one in four deaths globally. Environmental risk factors such as air, water, and soil pollution; chemical exposures; climate change; and ultraviolet radiation contribute to more than 100 diseases and injuries. The highest share of these deaths—some 2.2 million—occurred in Africa, further underscoring the racist and murderous nature of life for workers under capitalism (WHO, 3/15/2016).

Only communism can prevent future Grenfells, Bronx fires, or Wang Fuk Courts. Safe housing cannot exist under markets or profit-driven development. It requires abolishing housing as a commodity, ending the wage system, and building a society organized around human need. But that future will not appear on its own. It demands an organized, international communist movement. That is why joining the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) is essential. Join PLP to fight for a world without borders, without bosses, and without the profit system that incinerates workers.

Inferno: a dossier of class crimes

Engels insisted that capitalists are responsible when they maintain conditions they know will kill workers. Racism sharpens this process. It pushes migrant and racialized workers into the most dangerous buildings and jobs, feeding them into a blaze that never stops consuming the working class. Under capitalism, racism is not ignorance or prejudice. It is a weapon to divide, weaken, and disarm workers.

This reality was unmistakable at Grenfell Tower, where seventy-two people were burned alive after flames shot up the building’s exterior (The Guardian, 9/4/24). Grenfell stood in one of Britain’s wealthiest boroughs, yet housed low-income workers, many of them migrants or refugees. For years, residents warned about broken alarms, faulty wiring, and hazardous renovations. Their concerns were dismissed (The Guardian, 6/14/18). 

The capitalist bosses installed cheap, highly flammable cladding because it was cost-efficient and hid the “ugly” tower from nearby wealth. 

The Bronx fire of 2022 repeated the same script. Seventeen residents—mostly West African migrant workers—perished when a faulty space heater ignited in an apartment left freezing by landlords who refused to provide adequate heat (New York Times, 1/9/22). The self-closing doors that should have stopped the smoke had been broken for years despite constant complaints (Pulitzer Center, 12/9/22). For the ruling class, these workers were disposable: bodies to extract rent from and nothing more. In a city of billionaires, workers died choking in toxic smoke because business as usual demanded it.

The Wang Fuk Court fire in Hong Kong in November 2025 was yet another chapter in this global dossier of class crimes. Flammable bamboo scaffolding, phased out by the government because it’s a fire hazard, sealed windows, and dead alarms transformed the complex into a dripping fuse (The Guardian, 11/27/25). When it ignited, flames tore through seven towers, killing more than one hundred residents, including elderly tenants and migrant domestic workers from Indonesia and the Philippines (Reuters, 11/27/25). These workers keep the city alive, yet their lives are exposed to a hell of capitalism’s making. Their confinement in cramped, unsafe housing reveals capitalism’s worldwide sorting of the working class into two categories: those temporarily protected and those already marked for sacrifice.

Across Grenfell, the Bronx, and Wang Fuk Court, every hazard was known long before the flames erupted. Tenants warned. Workers begged for repairs. Authorities documented failures. The ruling class ignored it all because protecting working-class life is never on capitalism’s agenda. Engels would recognize these infernos instantly: they are social murder.

Communism will end the hellfire

A communist horizon envisions cities where no worker is disposable, where no migrant is forced into unsafe rooms, where no family is wrapped in flammable cladding to beautify a neighborhood for the wealthy, and where housing is built as a shared social necessity rather than a financial asset. Only communism can abolish social murder entirely rather than manage it.

Capitalism must be actively overturned through organizing, collective struggle, and disciplined revolutionary action. To fight social murder, workers need organization rooted in workplaces, schools, and neighborhoods, a direct challenge to racism, nationalism, and every division within our class, and a long-term strategy to destroy the capitalist system entirely. This requires a revolutionary communist party capable of giving direction, clarity, and unity to that struggle.

This is why building the Progressive Labor Party is essential. The Party fights for a world without borders, without bosses, and without the profit system that burns workers alive. It organizes across countries to turn outrage into revolutionary power. The fires in Grenfell, the Bronx, and Wang Fuk Court show the stakes with brutal precision. Joining PLP means taking up the fight to end social murder at its source.