In a Venezuelan election fiasco driven by the world’s biggest imperialists, the U.S.-backed challenger to the country’s fake-leftist leadership has fled the country for political asylum in Spain (Aljazeera, 9/8). After President Nicholas Maduro declared himself the winner, the right-wing camp behind candidate Edmundo Gonzalez claimed the election had been rigged. Gonzales went into hiding to escape arrest. The U.S. government, hell-bent on regime change in Venezuela, called out the alleged fraud, slapped sanctions on Maduro’s allies, and organized 28 countries to refuse to recognize the results.

Gonzalez is just a stand-in for the pro-U.S. Maria Machado, who was banned from holding office. Their “Unitary Coalition” calls for harsh attacks against the working class: privatization of industry, massive cutbacks in social services. The Machado camp has gone so far as to advocate for tougher U.S. sanctions against their country, hoping that even more poverty in Venezuela will hurt Maduro and open the door to U.S. control (El Pais, 10/1/23). 

Maduro is using fascist terror to crack down on protestors, union officials, and any organization that steps out of line. Twenty-four people have been killed and more than 2,400 arrested (Human Rights Watch, 9/4). But don’t be fooled by the howls of outrage by the likes of Joe Biden. The U.S. bosses have no problem collaborating with less-than-democratic rulers, from Saudi Arabia to Haiti, as long as they serve U.S. imperialism and its profits. The Central Intelligence Agency has been used to subvert and overthrow elected leaders in Indonesia, Chile, Guatemala, and the Congo, while orchestrating the slaughter of communists and reformists alike. 

Workers have no stake in the rulers’ electoral farces. Under capitalism, elections are used to conceal the capitalists’ dictatorship under the veil of liberal democracy. In reality, all elections are rigged for the bosses, whether or not they count all the votes—including the contest between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump (see back page). The meltdown in Venezuela is another flashpoint in the rivalry between the U.S. and arch-rivals China and Russia as they head toward World War Three. As the international crisis of capitalism intensifies, inter-imperialist rivalry is driving instability worldwide. We can’t predict the winner of this dogfight, but one thing is sure in Venezuela. Regardless of which set of bosses prevail, workers will lose. 

False promises and poverty

Despite his grand promises, Venezuela’s previous president, Hugo Chavez, never brought the working class to power with his “Bolivarian Revolution.” Instead, the new government and its capitalist backers seized control of the country’s vast oil reserves and bought off workers with a handful of anti-poverty social programs. Despite bitter complaints by U.S. capitalists, Chavez also kept investments flowing from outside capital, including the U.S., and continued selling oil to U.S. firms (Washington Post, 1/29/19). 

Instead of building communism, a dictatorship of the working class, Chavez consolidated a petrostate that relied on the global oil exchange, which accounted for nearly two thirds of state revenue (Reuters, 12/5/22). Not long after Maduro succeeded Chavez in 2013, global oil prices plummeted. This triggered a long and severe recession that U.S. sanctions made worse. It soon became obvious that Venezuela produced almost nothing of its own. Even today, Venezuela imports 60 percent of its food supply, much of it from the U.S. (USDA, 10/3/22).

With loyal backing from Russia and China, Maduro has presided over a catastrophic collapse of the Venezuelan economy. Between 2014 and 2021, the country’s GDP fell by 75 percent while inflation has risen as high as 130,000 percent (Council of Foreign Relations, 7/31). The result is unspeakable misery for the working class. More than 90 percent of the population live in poverty. There are deadly shortages of essentials, and millions suffer from malnutrition. Children die of starvation while their families scavenge in dumpsters for food (Bread for the World, 2/8/19).

Soaring prices have forced workers to the black market to survive. Three days of work buys just two pounds of rice, for which workers must stand in line all day. Hospitals have less than 5 percent of the medications they need (Reuters, 10/10/22).

As a result, 7.7 million people, or one quarter of Venezuela’s population, have made the heartbreaking decision to flee their country and migrate to Peru or Chile or Colombia, where they are greeted by racist discrimination (aljazeera.com, 8/14/19). More than half a million have risked their lives to make their way to the U.S. (BBC, 8/5), where they are welcomed by violent border guards and slandered by gutter racists like Trump.

Imperialists vie for control

Instead of relying on the might and ingenuity of workers to build a decent society, Chavez and then Maduro turned to Russia and China, who were eager to penetrate the U.S. strategic “backyard.”  Russia’s military alliances with Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela involve training and weapon sales (Institute for National Strategic Studies, 12/2022). China has sunk $60 billion in the Venezuelan economy and is the largest importer of Venezuelan oil. These profit-seeking deals have done nothing to alleviate the suffering of the impoverished masses. But they have won Maduro Chinese backing for his dubious election victory (VOA, 8/3).

The betrayal of workers by the fake left in Venezuela stands in sharp contrast to the historic advance made by revolutionary communists in the Soviet Union in the early 20th century. They built an economy of and for the working class that could stand on its own feet and meet workers’ needs. Soviet leaders were so successful that the USSR proved immune to the plague of the Great Depression, which devastated capitalist countries in the 1930s. (See PLP.org for how the Soviet revolution was reversed).

Don’t vote, revolt!

There are no shortcuts to an egalitarian world. The Bolivarian “Revolution” was doomed from the start because it failed to organize workers to smash capitalism and to build communism. Like the rest of the “Pink Tide” across Latin America, it won only limited and short-term reforms while replacing the old group of bosses with a new one. 

With the collapse of the old liberal world order, as China and Russia exploit the decline of U.S. imperialism, the international working class is caught in the middle. If we line up behind one candidate or another, or one imperialist superpower or the other, we’ll be signing our own death warrants. We must reject capitalist misleaders like Nicolas Maduro, Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum, Brazil’s Lula da Silva, or Top Cop Kamala Harris in the U.S. They will lead our class into the hell of nationalism, racism, and imperialist war. They have no choice in the matter; their profit system has decayed to the point where it can’t survive without war and fascism.

Progressive Labor Party is building the only force that can solve the crisis of capitalism: an international communist movement. We must begin this work by banding together, building solidarity with migrants, and organizing multiracial fightback wherever we are. We must attack rotten capitalist ideas on campus, on the job, in the military. These day-to-day reform struggles will build workers’ confidence in our class’s ability to create a world with enough housing, jobs, healthcare, and education for all. But we can’t get there by voting. The bosses won’t let us vote away their money and power. We must destroy capitalism, root and branch—with communist revolution. Join us!

New York City, Sept 2–Thousands of protesters swarmed Union Square in NYC to protest the continuing genocide and slaughter of Palestinian families in Gaza, now spreading to the West Bank. With anger at the bosses’ continued bloodbath in Palestine, Progressive Labor Party (PLP) comrades quickly distributed all 250 CHALLENGES we had. Protesters made fists as one comrade introduced a copy of CHALLENGE:

“Revolutionary communist paper, smash imperialism everywhere, fight for communism!” That’s the only way to put a permanent end to this racist genocide and build a world for workers!

Workers open to communist politics

A young man from New Jersey said he wanted to contact us. He added that Hamas were heroes, fighting for Palestinians. Our comrade responded, “No. Hamas is a group allied with Iran, a country allied with China and Russia, locked into imperialist rivalry with the U.S. What we need is a unified, international working class that fights to destroy all imperialists!” A young Korean-American woman, member of the New York Writers Guild, told us about her communist grandparents who were killed in Korea. She supports an organization that fights U.S. imperialism and military bases in South Korea. “I’m an internationalist, like you,” she said.      

Several comrades met friends in organizations they belong to and marched with them. As we circulated, we said hello to a group of Palestinian women who raised their fists as we gave them CHALLENGES. A PLP’er said, “Well, I can’t use a bad word.” “Go ahead,” they responded, “We use it all the time.” “OK. This f…ing system’s gotta go!” 

Genocidal public health crisis      

Later that day there was a fundraiser to send medics and medical supplies to Gaza. Protesters are enraged at the total destruction of hospitals and healthcare in Gaza. The health of Gazans continues to be at severe risk. In addition to the near 41,000 traumatic deaths to date, many of the nearly 94,000 wounded will succumb to wound infections and other complications for lack of medical care. Lack of food and clean water has led to a profusion of infectious diseases, such as hepatitis A and chicken pox, as well as widespread malnutrition and thirst. 

Most recently, polio virus has been found in sewage and one baby has been paralyzed. The Israelis are terrified it could spread beyond Gaza and so are allowing very limited half day ceasefires to vaccinate children. This effort is bound to be incomplete, although Israel is making sure its soldiers get the vaccine. Cholera is very likely to emerge. Medical facilities continue to be attacked and at least 500 health care workers have been killed and over 300 arrested and tortured.

Leading the way to smashing capitalism

There are huge opportunities to sharpen communist consciousness at these large protests, on college campuses and elsewhere. PLP must be present! A gated university like Columbia is closed to anyone who doesn’t have a Columbia ID. Students face a list of restrictions this semester: no encampments, no protests on campus, no information to be circulated except about “educational” matters. The fight will continue! No war except class war! Fight for communism!

     Violence has no place in America.
—Kamala Harris, after the latest attempt to assassinate Donald Trump.

“I believe in…ensuring we have the most lethal fighting force in the world.”
—Kamala Harris five days earlier, in her debate with Trump.

A funny thing happened on September 10, when tens of millions of workers watched a spectacle of shameless evasions, racist fabrications, and baldfaced lies. At the TV debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, the “lesser evil” never showed up.

On one side, the gutter racist Trump promised mass deportations and gibbered his despicable blood libel about workers from Haiti eating household pets in Ohio. On the other, Harris mourned a failed bill that would have unleashed an additional 1,500 Gestapo agents at the U.S. border with Mexico—“to help those folks who are working there right now…to do their job.” And she repeated her pledge that she “will always give Israel the ability to defend itself, in particular as it relates to Iran and any threat that Iran and its proxies pose to Israel.”

In short, Harris doubled down on U.S. policies to criminalize desperate migrating workers and to underwrite the Israeli rulers’ genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. As Israel’s President Benjamin Netanyahu keeps carpet-bombing schools and defenseless tent camps, the debate was a reminder that Harris follows in the footsteps of Genocide Joe Biden, Deporter-in-Chief Barack Obama, and mass incarcerator Bill KKKlinton. And that regardless of which side wins in November, it will not stem the rise of fascism in the U.S. or the growing momentum toward World War III. The billionaire bosses who back Harris will ultimately need the discipline of fascism as much as those who back Trump, and Harris has assured them that she’s ready and willing to do whatever it takes. She is the safer choice for finance capital—the Big Fascists, the main wing of U.S. imperialism—in part because she’ll keep funding two bloodbaths in their interests: the Ukraine bosses’ brutal clash with Russian imperialism, and the Zionist rulers’ savage onslaught against workers and children in Palestine.

As rival Chinese and Russian bosses flex their muscles from the South China Sea to Europe, the election is exposing the weakness of the U.S. ruling class—and the hard fact that workers are under attack from both sides. The crisis of capitalism is straining the limits of the bosses’ liberal democracy and the capacity of elections to sort out their differences with a “peaceful” transfer of power. Less than four years after inciting an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Trump has made it clear that he won’t accept a loss this time around —and that he’ll jail any donors, “operatives,” “illegal voters,” lawyers, or election officials who try to “cheat” (Washington Post, 9/8). While the Democrats and their finance capital masters are more tied to liberal democracy, a valuable tool to mislead and pacify the working class, they’re planting their own seeds for a possible election challenge. They’re using their big media bullhorns for tales of Russian interference (New York Times, 9/4), of Trump loyalist “infiltration” of swing state election boards (Rollingstone.com, 8/14), and of Republican efforts to throw hundreds of thousands of potential Democratic voters off the rolls (NYT, 9/15).

In Israel, meanwhile, liberal democracy is struggling to sustain the apartheid oppression of workers in Palestine. Although Netanyahu and his Likud cronies narrowly lost their move to strip Israel’s judges of much of their power, they may not be done trying. The Israeli bosses urgently need more centralized, fascist control to keep their racist “Jewish state” afloat.

With the world’s capitalists both deeply divided and more dangerous than ever, workers must take the class struggle into our own hands. In our reform work, we must make election issues out of the struggle against atrocities in Gaza and the fight against police murders. We must declare our solidarity with migrating workers everywhere. Most of all, we must use these struggles to build Progressive Labor Party and a mass movement to fight for communist revolution—the only lasting solution.

U.S. bosses can’t afford liberal democracy

Liberal democracy has always been a cover for the rulers’ dictatorship. When the ruling class is relatively united, as it was in the U.S. for more than a century after the Civil War, elections gave workers the illusion of choice. Meanwhile, the big bosses backed both sides—heads they won, tails we lost. But over the last thirty years, U.S. imperialism has steadily lost ground to China, now the world’s leading industrial power. With global war on the horizon and their empire at risk, the U.S. bosses’ splits have grown much sharper. 

Today we have two vicious factions of racist murderers competing for power in the U.S. The Small Fascists, fronted by Trump, are focused on their profits in the U.S. and have no appetite for more taxes. The Big Fascists, who control the Democratic Party, are backed by the multinational banks and oil companies; they need a massive military to help them dominate world markets and call the shots on trade. Both sides are viciously anti-working class. Both use racism to divide us. And both will stop at nothing—including nuclear war--to keep their side on top.

In this fast-deteriorating situation, liberal democracy is a luxury the bosses—including the finance capital bosses—may soon be unable to afford. They can’t allow the working class to decide which faction will consolidate control, or where and when the U.S. is going to war. The stakes are too high. The electoral system simply does not work for the bosses when they’re in a crisis of this magnitude.

Don’t vote—revolt!

The working class is facing a critical choice, but it’s not between Democrats and Republicans. It’s between the bosses’ blueprint for war and fascism and our fight for liberation through communist revolution. The working class can’t be liberated by elections because our power lies outside the electoral system. We give up that power when we fall into the trap of choosing one rising fascist or another. In this case, we know them by what they’ve already done. We’ve witnessed Trump’s embrace of open nazis. We’ve seen Top Cop Harris eagerly help fill the jails with Black workers while protecting crooked prosecutors. We should have no illusions that she’d be any better as president than Biden or Trump.

When do workers win? When we march in the streets. When we fight back against racism. When we unite against whichever mass murderer winds up in the White House. It’s in the class struggle where we are strongest and the bosses are weakest.

So far, the most significant moments of this election campaign have come when small groups of protestors bravely stood up to Harris in Detroit and Las Vegas to demand that she end her complicity with genocide. The victory is in the fight. When the working class fights back, it gains the confidence to smash the bosses and their nightmare system. When the working class fights back, it opens the door to building a movement to ditch the rotten profit system once and for all--with communist revolution.

CHICAGO, September 11—In yet another example of the anti-working-class nature of the bosses’ state, the Chicago Park District Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to approve the permit today for the massive rock concert Riot Fest to return to Douglass Park this month. Riot Fest is a for-profit event that has raked in handsome profits for years by exploiting public parks that supposedly exist for working-class recreation. 

Given Douglass Park’s location in between Black and Latin neighborhoods, cutting off access to much-needed green spaces and sports programs is a despicable racist attack. Local residents and organizers have long suffered and documented the damage done to the park as tens of thousands of concert goers trample through during the three-day fest. Two nearby hospitals serving lower-income workers are confronted with loud music and snarled traffic despite being designated as official “quiet zones.”

During the public comment period of the board meeting, several workers spoke out against Riot Fest, including a member of the communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP). It’s inspiring to see grassroots organizing efforts continue to oppose racist Riot Fest. However, we can never expect the government bodies under capitalism to fundamentally serve our interests. They will always exist to enforce the will of the bosses and their profit system, from the U.S. presidency all the way down to local park district boards.

To experience a government and society that is truly reflective of the needs of the international working class, we need a society that is RUN by the international working class. We need to reject all these gross opportunistic politicians in favor of mass working-class power, won by international communist revolution and PLP!

Liberal bosses lay out the welcome mat for exploiters

For those of us living near Douglass Park who have been involved in the efforts to get Riot Fest out, we were beyond excited to hear in June that the concert organizers had decided to relocate the fest to a stadium in the southwest suburbs. The owner of Riot Fest went on record painting themselves as the victim, calling out the park district board and saying they were left with “no choice” but to leave (Block Club Chicago, 6/12).

Unsurprisingly however, Riot Fest still had some friends in high places who were willing to mend the fence, not least so-called progressive Mayor Brandon Johnson who held meetings with the concert founder (CBS News, 8/14). So hardly two months after celebrating what we thought was a decent reform win for workers in the area, we learned that Riot Fest was again coming to Douglass Park, “back by popular demand.”

We tried to bounce back even with short notice to mobilize speakers and a press conference for today’s park board meeting, but the approval already appeared to be a done deal. Opportunistic Alderwoman  Monique Scott organized her own crew of vocal pro-Riot Fest supporters, who all praised the alleged economic growth and shamelessly kept referring to the concert organizers as “family.” Although she claims that she’s standing up for the Black workers and youth in her neighborhood, by fully embracing profit-hungry developers she’s leading the efforts to push through racist gentrification and displacement on the west side of the city.

Even though the approval for Riot Fest was essentially a done deal, the PLP member spoke in their statement about the workers near Douglass Park not giving up: 

I believe in working-class power over those who would exploit public space and other people for their own gain, and again, I believe that we will win. The demands for transparency from Mayor Johnson and this board are clear from hundreds of supporters who want Riot Fest out, and who are ready to fight for a more equitable city. We await your reply. And we’re not going anywhere.

Keep fighting Riot Fest and racist capitalism

Facing another year of Riot Fest, the workers near Douglass Park are not giving up. We’re going to continue our efforts of documenting the damage done to the park, registering complaints, and building relationships with our neighbors and co-workers. As PLP members connected to this fight, we need to expose the contradictions of the system and the pitfalls of relying on any bosses to solve the problems that our class faces.

Although a worker-run society may seem far off, the seeds of a world beyond capitalism are already taking root. Through collective action we are reminded that it’s the masses that make history, and not relying on politicians and voting which just pulls the wool over our eyes. To fight against Riot Fest is to fight against racist capitalism!