BROOKLYN, October 30—At today’s Progressive Labor Party study a group of Kingsborough Community College students and faculty, dozens of sharp questions were raised in this multiracial gathering of women and men, trying understand the world from a communist perspective and to making plans and change it. Our topic today was ‘Imperialism and fascism,’ part of a regular series on different topics, as well as evaluating our progress and giving leadership to the ongoing anti racist struggles at KCC.
      Mapping imperialist rivalry
The aspect of the study group that generated the most discussion involved a large map of the world, and mapping out the current U.S., Chinese, Russian and regional imperialist rivalries.
For example, the students from Yemen noted that while the U.S. is involved in bombing both Syria and Yemen, the U.S. media only talks about Syria when it makes the U.S. look good and Russia look bad. Yemen—with thirteen million workers (five million of them children) at imminent risk of death by starvation—is one of the biggest capitalist disasters today.
Even from the partial truths the capitalist media cherry picks for us to see, it can all seems very confusing. One of the struggles we had in this study group was clearly connecting the big imperialist states like the U.S. and Russia with their rival “junior partners,” Saudi Arabia and Iran. Unlike the early capitalist colonial empires of Britain, Belgium, Spain, France and others, the U.S., Russian and Chinese imperialists do not plant their flags over entire continents and say “this is ours! Everyone here is a colonial subject!”
Instead, the capitalist class of today finds local bosses in these countries to support, or, if necessary, fund “proxy wars” and fund local capitalist-led armies to fight on their behalf. One famous example discussed was the U.S.’ creation and funding of the mujahideen terrorists like Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in the 1980s. These were their proxies for fighting Russia, who eventually turned on their U.S. masters.
   Global politics are local...
Kingsborough students, staff and faculty have learned an enormous amount about how the college and capitalism actually function by organizing to fight, and the fightback has raised increasing questions about the capitalist system. We’re told we live in a “democracy” with “rights.” But when students and faculty mobilize against racist administrators like Michael Goldstein, why are the racists protected, and two dozen faculty threatened with legal action?
The latest anti-racist struggle on campus is a petition to the MTA to improve the utterly atrocious public transportation service to our campus. This petition campaign was developed and launched by students active in several clubs and supported by KCC’s student government. It’s already reached almost one  1,000 students, and will reach thousands more by the end of the semester. Why is public transportation so poor that hundreds of students are forced, every day, to stuff themselves into unsafe buses?
Here we talked about the relationship between sharpening imperialist rivalry and growing fascism. Fascism is when the capitalists of a country are weakened and unstable, they resort primarily to rule by force.Democratic illusions weaken, the working class gets fewer crumbs, more violence like racist police terror and worsening living conditions. And as the capitalist class disciplines its own inner factions, so will they attempt to further, and “discipline” us with more racist terror and nationalist politics, in order to prepare us for war.
...and local politics can go global
What the bosses fear most is an organized working class with antiracist and communist politics. Some of the young women who led and were involved in the fight against racist Michael Goldstein put it best: “Everyone knew about this racism, but no one wanted to talk about it or do anything about it because they were scared. We decided we had to.”
Another said, “That fight needed to happen. We’re a school of international and immigrant students. The struggle gave us unity and we wouldn’t have that unity if we didn’t start fighting. Now people are talking. The real enemy isn’t Trump or Goldstein, and they need to go, but it’s really the billionaires behind the closed doors whose names you don’t know and never read about who allow it.”
Everyone agreed to meet again in two weeks for our next discussion. We also agreed to hear more reports on the situation of students, faculty and workers, and discuss how we can coordinate and give sharper leadership.
We may seem a long way from revolution at the moment,but more and more workers and youth are reading CHALLENGE, thinking about communism and learning how to organize and fight. One young PL student, while being new to the Party, is already learning how to build communist leadership among other students. And all of us are learning to stick together, stick it out, and to figure out how to fight back no matter what. With a slowly but surely growing movement like this, we can’t lose.

BROOKLYN, November 7—“When our public school friends walked out to demonstrate against school gun violence the organizers of the rally we went to did not want to let us speak. We took the mike and spoke anyway.”  This was said by one of the two public high school students who took part in a nation-wide school walkout last spring. They came to take part in a panel at a church forum about gun violence, particularly in schools and affecting youth. Quite by coincidence the date of the forum was the Saturday of the synagogue murders in Pittsburgh. The forum began with a moment of silence for this horror caused by racism and anti-Semitism as well as the shooting of two Black residents of Kentucky earlier in the week.
Fighting back against gun violence with multiracial unity
One young adult from the church was on the panel and spoke about the need to organize and educate together to solve the problems of gun control. Other panelists were a speaker from Sandy Hook Promise – a reform group that is working to end gun violence in schools, and an African American woman who was a prosecutor working on crimes against youth. She is now special counsel to a prominent political office holder in our city. The Sandy Hook Promise woman promoted normal reform solutions such as voting, while the former prosecutor believed grass roots organizing was a viable solution as well.
There was a teacher who took their lead from the students in supporting their walkout and encouraging multiracial unity and fightback as the way to effect the most change today. A question from the audience regarding the systemic nature of gun violence brought the opportunity for revolutionary politics to be injected. There was struggle on the panel after the students pushed back on voting as the only viable solution and encouraged multiracial unity and fight back as other ways to make their voices heard.
While the forum only had sixteen participants, there was some good discussion on different aspects of the issue. The opening statement recounted a story related to the church by minister of Brown Memorial Baptist. His father’s generation were contacted by the National Rifle Association so that southern Blacks could arm themselves against the Klan and other racist groups in the late 1940s and 1950s. As time went on hedge funds started supporting the NRA turned them to maximize profits and advocate for repealing gun control laws and stoking fears to sell guns.
    When asked about the systemic nature of gun violence, one of the speakers stated that capitalism’s drive for profit is the basis for the sale of all guns. A student connected the racist fears magnified by U.S. capitalism to keeping people divided and working class victories weak. A person from the audience spoke passionately about the how the flintlock rifles and pistols that were available when the second amendment was created cannot compare to the high-powered weapons of war sold today.
Revolutionary violence vs capitalist terror
We collected contact information and promoted upcoming programs, as well as information on the Sandy Hook Promise group. Our original vision was to create a plan of action during the last part of this forum. The moderator asked for suggestions, but instead people in the audience spoke, and spoke well. One man described ongoing struggles against police killings of mentally ill people, and another about a multi faith coalition being formed to motivate congregations into mobilizing on issues of social justice. A plan of action to protest the NRA and organize a rally with other groups who attended the forum was discussed. Our social justice group at the church will pursue that.
The Progressive Labor Party is part of these actions. With our friends in this struggle, we work to a) connect the root of gun violence to alienation and the profit-drive under capitalism, and b) fight for the outlook that we can use working-class revolutionary violence as a means for an international communist revolution.

October 28, 2018 is the 80th anniversary of one of the greatest examples of working class internationalism in history—the departure of the International Brigades from the Spanish Civil War. The Spanish Civil War lasted from 1936 to 1939. The War was, along with fascist Japan’s invasion of China in 1931, the true beginning of World War II.
 Prelude to world war
Many working class students of history may know about the Paris Commune, and the 1905 and 1917 revolutions in Russia. The history of workers’ fightback in Spain, since at least 1875, is somehting else to behold. It’s a proud history, and also a tragic one
The Spanish Civil War was a fight to the death of Spain’s capitalist Second Republic, 1931-39. In the first quarter of the twentieth century, Spain’s ruling class had changed little in thinking and in custom since the fifteenth century, when the monarchy of Ferdinand and Isabella began pillaging the Western hemisphere. The workers and peasants had had enough!
From “Spain’s October” to Popular Front
In 1934,  Communist and left-socialist-led miners in northern Spain revolted against the fascist party’s election into the Republic. This heroic, short-lived “Soviet Republic” was crushed by the army, under the leadership of a fascist general named Francisco Franco.
The Communist Party (PCE), the largest and strongest party in Spain, then entered into an electoral “Popular Front” coalition with the Socialist Party. (For PLP’s analysis and critique of this period, read “Lessons of People’s War in Spain.”)
In 1936, the Popular Front was narrowly elected into power. Months later, the Republic was attacked by a revolt of its own army, led by General Franco, and now supported by Hitlerite Germany and Fascist Italy.
Long live the international brigades
Despite the political weaknesses of the old communist movement, especially abandoning revolution and allying with so-called “lesser evil” capitalists, a testament to the old movement’s strength and commitment to our class is how they organized millions of workers to aid the Spanish Republic under fascist invasion. In a message to José Diaz, leader of the PCE, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin called the Spanish Civil War “not solely the cause of the Spaniards, but the cause of all progressive and advanced humanity.” This was a testament to the old movements strength and commitment to our class.The major “democratic” capitalist powers, especially the U.S. under FDR, declared “neutrality” while openly selling weapons, trucks and fuel on credit to fascist Franco, Germany, and Italy.
The international working class, however, answered the workers of Spain’s call. 32,000 workers, most of them Communists, came to Spain from 37 countries to fight fascism in special divisions of the new worker-led Spanish army: the International Brigades. The worker-led Soviet Union sent as many shiploads of military aid as they could, despite a Nazi submarine blockade of the Spanish coast.
Despite being gravely outnumbered and outgunned, and having no professional training as soldiers, the Brigades were thrust into action immediately and helped achieve the seemingly impossible- the successful defense of Madrid, from November 1-21, 1936.
The Brigades played a decisive role in every major battle of the war until the capitalist Republican government ordered the Brigades to leave in October, 1938, in a desperate attempt to placate the capitalist powers. The Republic fell to the fascists in March, 1939.
Many were put into concentration camps. The war killed one million workers, of which 400,000 were captured and executed, and 500,000 fled Spain. Thousands of Brigaders fought the fascists again in World War II; thousands others became antifascist partisans led by communists in France, Yugoslavia and elsewhere. Some made it to the Soviet Union and joined the Red Army, where their experiences helped give leadership to the Eastern Front- especially in helping break the Nazi siege of Leningrad in 1944.
Dolores Ibárruri, known as “La Pasionaria,” a leading Spanish communist, addressed the departing Internationals after their parade down “Las Ramblas” boulevard in Barcelona. It was 80 years ago, today.
Excerpts from La Pasionaria’s farewell address
         Barcelona, October 28, 1938
It is very difficult to say a few words in farewell to the heroes of the International Brigades, because of what they are and what they represent. A feeling of sorrow, sorrow for those who are going away, exiles from their countries, persecuted by the tyrants of all peoples - and grief for those who will stay here forever mingled with the Spanish soil.
From all peoples, from all races, you came to us. And in the hardest days of the war, when the capital of the Spanish Republic was threatened, it was you, gallant comrades of the International Brigades, who helped save the city with your fighting enthusiasm, your heroism and your spirit of sacrifice. And Jarama and Guadalajara, Brunete and Belchite, Levante and the Ebro, in immortal verses sing of the courage, the sacrifice, the daring, the discipline of the International Brigades.
They gave us everything - their youth or their maturity; their science or their experience; their blood and their lives; their hopes and aspirations - and they asked us for nothing. But yes, it must be said, they did want a post in battle, they aspired to the honor of dying for us. Banners of Spain! Salute these heroes! Be lowered to honor these martyrs!Speak to your children. Tell them of the International Brigade Recount for them how, coming over seas and mountains, crossing frontiers bristling with bayonets, sought by raving dogs thirsting to tear their flesh, they reached our country as crusaders for freedom, to fight and die for Spain’s liberty and independence threatened by German and Italian fascism. They gave up everything - their loves, their countries, homes, fathers, mothers, wives, brothers, sisters and children - and they came and said to us: “We are here. Your cause, Spain’s cause, is ours.”
Today many are departing. Thousands remain, shrouded in Spanish earth. Comrades of the International Brigades: political reasons, reasons of state, the welfare of that very cause for which you offered your blood with boundless generosity, are sending you back, some to your own countries, and others to forced exile. You can go proudly. You are history. You are legend.
We shall not forget you. And when the olive tree of peace is in flower, entwined with the victory laurels of the Republic of Spain - return!
Return to our side, for here you will find a homeland. Those who have no country or friends, who must live deprived of friendship - all, all will have the affection and gratitude of the Spanish people who today and tomorrow will shout with enthusiasm: LONG LIVE THE HEROES OF THE INTERNATIONAL BRIGADES!

click image for Election Flyer in doc formThe Republicans and Democrats serve the same class of billionaires. They are fighting over who will steer this sinking ship of US imperialism. They are fighting over how to secure Wall St. profits, US dominance and ultimately, who will lead us to war against Russia and the China.

One of the main lessons of the 2018 election circus is, this system doesn’t work. With an openly racist white Nationalist in the White House, the dogs are off the leash. From Charlottesville to the fascist Proud Boys attacking anti-racists after headlining at the East Side Republican Club in NY, from the crazed MAGA Bomber to random racist terror shootings of black people in Tennessee, Texas and Florida, a mass fascist movement has been energized by the Trump White House. It is another wave on top of the state terror of racist police brutality and immigration round-ups and deportations.

Economically, Wall Street profits are soaring and the gap in wages and wealth between rich and poor, black and white, citizen and immigrant, women and men, continues to grow. How can the rich get richer when more people are working? Because the union leaders and the Democratic politicians they are setting us up to follow, are no match for the bosses. With 40 years of attacks on unions, by Republicans and Democrats alike, wages are down and more than 90% of the workforce is non-union.  The harder and more jobs we work, the poorer we get.

Around the world, neither party has been able to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead, war has killed and displaced millions in Syria, Libya and Yemen, where the Saudi Royal Family and the US military are starving and bombing millions.

Hunger and terror have created more refuges around the world than even World War II, and there is no end in sight. Millions have fled Africa for Europe and millions have fled South America for the North. A caravan of thousands of refugees that began in Honduras is headed for the US. Trump has called out the Border Patrol, ICE and the National Guard to round up immigrants, and separate kids from their families at the border. While Obama “quietly” deported more than 400,000 immigrants, more than all previous Presidents combined, Trump enjoys the spectacle, as it helps build a mass fascist army.  

Whether you are voting or not, and most workers and youth will not, we need to defend, protect and welcome the Refugee Caravan. We can organize discussions in our unions and churches, on our campuses and high schools, and inside the army and National Guard. If Trump attacks the refugees that were in large part created by US imperialism in Latin America, workers and students should walk out, soldiers should refuse their orders.

In the end, it’s not about what Party is in power, but which class. Both Parties work for the billionaires. It was Obama who bailed out Wall St. bankers and the auto companies while tens of millions of black families lost their jobs, their homes and their futures. And the racist billionaires will never give up power to a vote. Workers and youth must take power with communist revolution. This Election Day, vote with your feet. Join PLP!