The apparent assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist critic of the most powerful capitalist boss in Saudi Arabia, highlights the declining imperialist power of the United States and its dependence on a corrupt and brutal Saudi ruling class. The Khashoggi affair also reveals Turkey’s ambitions to be the top Middle East power, in competition with the Saudi bosses—and the growing influence of Russia in the region. Driving all of these developments is the inevitability of inter-imperialist war.
Throughout the world today, capitalism is in a state of sharpening economic and political crisis. From Asia to Europe to the U.S. and Latin America, the bosses need more and more fascism to discipline their own class and to control and intimidate workers as they mobilize for the next global war. Only communist revolution can smash fascism for good and abolish the material basis for imperialist war, the competition for maximum profits.
On October 2, Khashoggi was seen on camera entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where he needed documents for his upcoming marriage. With known ties both to members of the Saudi royal family and the Muslim Brotherhood, Khashoggi was no small-time dissident. He had allied himself with a section of the Saudi ruling class targeted by a 2017 purge by the thuggish Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). After his falling out with MBS, Khashoggi lived in exile in the U.S. while attacking the Saudi regime as a columnist for the Washington Post. He accused MBS of creating “a climate of fear and intimidation” (Washington Post, 9/18/17).
Turkey’s counter-attack, engineered by its own thug, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was to accuse the MBS regime of planning the murder. Since the journalist’s disappearance and reported dismemberment, Turkish police and intelligence sources have leaked a series of appalling details to the Turkish press. Media reports have implicated key members of the Saudi military and intelligence apparatus as Khashoggi’s killers. Set on using the incident to undermine MBS, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is now demanding that Turkey, not Saudi Arabia, investigate and try the accused (NYT, 10/23).
Though Erdogan’s fascist regime in Turkey has been called “the world leader in jailing journalists” (2018 World Report, Human Rights Watch), it is feigning outrage at Khashoggi’s murder as a pretext to undermine Saudi Arabia. Though the two regional powers have significant economic ties, they also took opposing sides during the Arab Spring, with Turkey supporting Islamist political uprisings throughout the region and Saudi Arabia doing its best to squelch them (WP, 3/8). MBS has called Turkey one point of the “triangle of evil,” along with Iran and ISIS.
Russia courts Turkey to nix NATO
Meanwhile, Russia has mounted an effort since 2015 to bring Turkey’s rulers closer (Wall Street Journal video, 6/25). President Vladimir Putin’s strategy is to split off Turkey, the easternmost anchor of the NATO alliance, from the U.S.-led coalition. Turkey commands a chokepoint connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. It also provides Russia with an alternative route for energy shipments to Europe, sidestepping a hostile Ukraine.
In December 2017, Turkey agreed to purchase the S-400 air defense system from Russia; four months later, it bought a Russian-made nuclear power plant (Bloomberg 7/11). Russia will build the land section of its Turkstream gas pipeline on Turkish soil, securing its access to European markets. In return, Turkey will get a $1 billion rebate on gas surcharges (Reuters, 5/26).
By contrast, the U.S. announced increased tariffs on Turkish imports last summer; a week later, Turkey replied in kind. The U.S. escalated the trade conflict by sanctioning high-ranking Turkish officials. But neither country appears ready to cut ties just yet. On October 21, Erdoğan released a statement reaffirming his “determination for the normalization and development of Turkey-U.S. cooperation in every area.” There is no honor among capitalist thieves, and traditional alliances will undoubtedly continue to shift as war gets closer.
U.S. rulers split on Mideast strategy
U.S. rulers seem deeply divided in their response to the Khashoggi debacle. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham called for sanctions against Saudi Arabia and referred to MBS as “toxic.” Various front-line capitalists, including JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, pulled out of an annual Saudi-hosted economic conference, forcing Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to do the same (CNN, 10/18).
But with encouragement from his son-in-law and MBS cheerleader, Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump is desperately trying to salvage the Saudi ruler’s reputation (NY Times 10/19). Even as increasingly damning details of Saudi involvement emerge, Trump continues to defend MBS and a huge U.S. arms deal with Saudi Arabia. One thing is clear: The U.S. bosses will place their capitalist class interests above any fake commitment to “human rights.”
The conflicting response to the Khashoggi incident reflects broader disagreements over U.S. strategy in the Middle East. The rulers are split over how best to control the region: whether to give traditional allies Saudi Arabia and Israel free rein to butcher whomever they please, or to hedge their bets by playing both sides, as they did in the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s (under Ronald Reagan) or by reaching a nuclear deal with Iran (under Barack Obama). Trump’s administration is pivoting back to the first of these options.
With U.S. power in the region on the wane after losing two wars and recently getting outflanked by Russia and Iran in Syria, the finance capital main wing of the U.S. ruling class cannot afford a divided front. And while Trump is a wild card whose private company “has been paid tens of millions by Saudi investors and its government” in business deals over the years (businessinsider.com, 10/16), the main wing has its own reasons to tread lightly in penalizing the MBS regime—namely, its need to keep Russia at bay. As he received “special attention” from the Saudi media at the conference in the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh, a Russian fund manager close to Putin declared, “Saudia Arabia is a great partner for us” (NYT, 10/24).
For all the capitalist media’s dramatic appeals for “freedom of the press” and outrage over an extra-judicial killing, the Khashoggi story is really about the fight between U.S. and Russia for control over the region with the world’s largest cheap energy reserves. Workers must not be fooled into supporting one or another imperialist or local proxy in this fight. Our class interest is to expose the rulers’ intrigues. Our job is to lead the fight to take state power from their bloody hands through revolution for an egalitarian communist world.
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Saudi Arabia key to U.S. control in middle east
In the long run, despite any current tension, the U.S. has no real choice but to maintain its relationship with Saudi Arabia. U.S. bosses have planted their flag in Saudi Arabia since 1938, when Standard Oil of California (now Chevron) discovered oil there (CFR Website 5/12/17). In 1979, Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser, proclaimed the “Carter Doctrine”: “An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region … will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.” Even as the New York Times editorial board hypocritically criticized Trump’s attempt to prop up MBS, it admitted that the kingdom is “an important ally in a volatile part of the world, a major purchaser of American weapons and a powerhouse in global oil politics” (NYT, 10/19).
The U.S. needs Saudi Arabia as part of it strategy to isolate their common foe, Iran. On November 4, the U.S. is set to implement a second set of sanctions to penalize any countries doing business with Iran (Congressional Research Service, 9/26). With a steep decline in Iranian oil on the world market looming, the U.S. will be relying on the Saudi rulers to increase production and keep oil prices price down; to serve as a staging point for U.S. military actions; and to grant it legitimacy in the region.
Saudi Arabia has the largest military budget in the Middle East—more than $76 billion in 2017 (Center for Strategic and International Studies 3/13). With U.S. support, it cemented its regional leadership by assembling a coalition of Middle Eastern and African countries to wage brutal war in Yemen against Iran-backed rebels there. The war in Yemen resulted in mass deaths, displacement, and the worst cholera epidemic in history.
Beyond undercutting Iran and slaughtering thousands of civilians, the move helped Saudi Arabia to secure its southern border (Aljazeera 3/26/15). Next step: A Saudi plan to develop oil ports in Yemen’s southeast (Aljazeera 8/20).
CHICAGO, October 24—The Chicago ruling class escaped a potential working-class rebellion by convicting racist killer cop Jason Van Dyke of second-degree murder and aggravated battery on October 5. But even though Van Dyke pulled the trigger, firing the 16 shots that murdered 17-year-old Black teenager LaQuan McDonald, the entire racist capitalist system bears the chief blame for murdering working-class people all over the world every day.
This will remain the brutal reality until the international working class led by the communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) rises up in armed mass revolution to crush the capitalist bosses, their state, and their killer cops. True justice for LaQuan and all victims of capitalist state violence means communist revolution!
The whole capitalist state is guilty as hell
The verdict handed down by the jury was not even a slap on the hand of the Chicago Police Department (CPD) whose history of racist terror, torture and murder of Black and Latin workers can be traced back for decades, and the CPD are by no means the only culprits. When we in PLP say that “capitalism killed LaQuan,” we mean that this racist system began failing him at a very young age and Van Dyke was the final blow.
LaQuan was a ward of the State. He was assigned to the unfortunate care of the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), a system so guilty it should be convicted of murder itself. LaQuan was in and out of residential treatment centers, where youth are vulnerable to assault, rape, and prostitution and where there are no counselors, or other professionals that will provide services to this neediest population (Chicago Tribune, 12/3/14). The education system also is guilty of violence against working-class youth. LaQuan had diagnosed learning and mental health disabilities. However, Chicago Public Schools has schemed to make huge cuts in special education resources to students just like him for years (The Gate, 5/8/). Consequently, LaQuan’s school years were riddled with truancy, expulsions, and, suspensions. He was arrested 26 times since his 13th birthday and in and out of juvenile detention centers for the last three years of his life.
All “justice” fleeting under capitalism
While some might regard this conviction as a victory, it is not! The jury did not give Van Dyke first-degree murder, which is a life sentence without parole. This racist kkkop was acquitted of his charge of “official misconduct,” effectively saying that it is completely appropriate for cops on the job to empty an entire clip into a Black teen.Think what would have happened if LaQuan had shot a cop 16 times!
The racist Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), the same cop union that gave Van Dyke a janitorial job after he was fired from CPD, has backed him tooth and nail. To this end, they have vowed to appeal the verdict (WTTW, 10/5). Sentencing will not happen until October 31 and the capitalist press is already talking about Van Dyke receiving the minimum sentence for each count and running the sentences for all counts concurrently, so that he could potentially walk free in as little as six years.
PLP calls on workers to join the Red Army
PLP members and friends held a rally at a train station on the south side of Chicago a few hours after the verdict was read. Many workers were still pissed about the murder of LaQuan, the verdict and the racism that persists in this part of the city. One young man told us about his brother who was unarmed and murdered by CPD two years after LaQuan was murdered, and that there was “never any justice when the police keep killing us.”
We called on workers to join the Red Army that PLP is building so that we can overthrow this murderous system once and for all. Over 300 workers took our newspaper CHALLENGE and hundreds more took leaflets calling for communist revolution. Workers in their cars honked in support of our signs and speeches. The misleaders of the city have been calling for “peace” ever since the tape of Van Dyke murdering LaQuan was released in 2015. PLP calls on all workers to fight back when the system attacks our class. That message of fight back and rebellion was met with enthusiasm on the south side.
Rebellions are training grounds for our class to prepare to take state power away from the capitalist bosses. Rebellions also force the capitalist class to grant reformist concessions that they normally wouldn’t want to surrender to the working class such as the “right” to vote, and social security and unemployment benefits. After the 1967 Detroit rebellion, Black workers were granted access to thousands of auto industry jobs that had been closed to the Black working class. If workers in Russia had not rebelled in 1917 and eventually taken state power from the ruling class, the Nazis probably would have won World War II.
As we made speeches connecting the murder of LaQuan to mass racist unemployment, to the racist closing of 52 schools in mainly Black and Latin communities, and to the violent gentrification happening in Chicago an older Black woman said, “They (racist capitalists) only understand one thing, that’s an ass-whoopin.” It is the role of PLP to harness and organize working class anger into a fighting force that can deliver that final “ass-whoopin” to the capitalist class all over the world.
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272nd protest for Tyrone: End gag order, distribute CHALLENGE
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- 28 October 2018 73 hits
Baltimore, OCTOBER 10—Baltimore’s workers will never forget the savage murder of our working class brother Tyrone West at the hands of more than a dozen KKops five years ago. Since then workers joined by members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) have been faithfully rallying every Wednesday to remind the city’s capitalist administration, of their crimes against black workers.
Today marks the 272 rally, and communist politics were at the forefront, and have become an expected and respected part of West Wednesday. These rallies demand accountability – for the police murder of Tyrone West, and for all victims of police terror. Despite this workers attending these rallies understand that racist police terror is an indivisible part of capitalism, and cannot be reformed.This week had a special focus, demanding an end to the gag orders that accompany almost every settlement, when victims of police terror in Baltimore are awarded a financial payment from the city
Bosses can’t gag the fightback
In this way, with gag orders, victims and their family members – probably hundreds of people – have been prevented from speaking out about what happened. It’s an effort – by capitalist politicians and top city lawyers, including City Solicitor, Andre Davis – to hold back the potential power of the movement against racist police violence. Furthermore, because talking about what happened is an important part of dealing with severe emotional trauma, the gag orders also make healing virtually impossible, after being brutalized or, worse yet after losing a loved one to street executions by police.
The slogan for this new campaign against gag orders is, “Forced Silence Condones Police Violence.” Two local organizations, also concerned with this issue, stepped in to help build support for this week’s West Wednesday activities. The local branch of the American Civil Liberties Union and Not Without Black Women participated in the rally outside City Hall, in the march to central police headquarters and, right afterward, in a special panel discussion about fighting the gag orders, at which Challenge newspaper was distributed to just about everyone in attendance.Even more important – in terms of strengthening our understanding about the strategy we need for victory against racism and capitalism – a monthly Challenge readers’ group is scheduled to start soon. So far, seven of the West Wednesday activists have said yes, they will probably participate.
Distributing Challenge is a important tool to raise workers understanding, that the only solution to eradicating police brutality is communism. To win this bright future we so badly need, our understanding of communism has to grow, and Progressive Labor Party must grow too! Dare to struggle! Dare to win, for a communist future!
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Bolshevik Revolution 101: WORKERS TOOK POWER; WE CAN DO IT AGAIN!
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- 28 October 2018 72 hits
One hundred and one years ago, 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.
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 Russian 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; 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; freed the masses, especially women, from the yoke of capitalist, feudal and religious oppression; and then in 1945 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 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.
The masses showed great courage and determination in defending and building their revolution, under the leadership of their revolutionary party. They proved that the revolutionary violence on the part of the working class and peasantry were vital to the seizure of state power.
Achievements of the Revolution
The Bolshevik Revolution brought Russia 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 and hunger. They created some measure of a decent life for workers in an incredibly short time, transforming a 90% illiteracy rate into one in which nearly everyone was literate.
Around 1938, without any official declaration, the USSR 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 — at least to that extent. 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 pro-communist Paul Robeson said about his trips to the Soviet Union, he said :
“I 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 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. Soviet defenders burned everything to the ground that they could not take with them and 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 to be learned
Unfortunately, the Bolsheviks suffered from many political weaknesses which led to the return of capitalism to the USSR. 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 wage system and its division of labor and fight directly for communism.
Today no country is led by revolutionary communists, but this is a temporary historical setback. While this era of widening imperialist wars, fascist attacks on the working class, mass unemployment, diseases like AIDS killing millions in Africa and other areas, is upon us, every dark night has its end.
PLP is a product of both the old International Communist Movement and the struggle against its revisionism. Pseudo-leftist groups have not learned history’s lessons and continue to fight for nationalist “sharing of power” with capitalists, a la Venezuela’s 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.
CHICAGO, October 20—Tonight we celebrated the victory and legacy of the communist October Revolution with comrades and close members of our base. About 60 of us gathered at a local hall to talk about the history of the how the Bolsheviks and theRussian working class won state power over 100 years ago, and how we in Progressive Labor Party are carrying on the tradition of international fight back, particularly with an emphasis on Black workers and youth being the key to revolution.
Table talks challenge bosses’reforms & racist cops
We kicked off the event with an open mic and table talks in order to make the event more engaging for those in attendance. We led discussions around issues of conditions in working-class schools for students and teachers, the confirmation of the newest U.S. Supreme Court arch-sexist, Brett Kavanaugh, efforts of the working class organizing fight back efforts in the area, and the difference between reform and revolution.
A major part of our table conversations was the recent conviction of racist cop Jason Van Dyke for the murder of Black teenager Laquan McDonald. However, the conversation wasn’t a celebratory tone. It was a realistic tone in terms of the illusions that the ruling class feed members of the working class. Their version of justice never substantially works for members of the working class, particularly for Black, Latin, and women workers.
Even the “conviction” of Van Dyke shows that the state terror against working-class people by these killer kkkops isn’t regarded as a crime at all. This is shown by the fact that although Van Dyke was convicted of second-degree murder and 16 charges of aggravated battery with a firearm, he was found not guilty of “professional misconduct.” Meaning, viciously murdering a Black youth who was walking away from him wasn’t contrary to his duties, and it speaks volumes about the murderously racist character of the police under capitalism.
Revolutionary speeches, strengthening youth base
After the table talks, a comrade gave a passionate speech about rebuilding the mass international movement and the need to take state power once again through armed revolution. She blasted the capitalist bosses’ efforts to pacify us through their bogus “democracy” and elections, and reminded all of us that true political power “comes through the barrel of a gun.” She provoked all of us to imagine what could be if the caravan of migrant workers making their way through Central America was met at the U.S.-Mexico border with arms and communist leadership.
Following the comrade, a family member of Steven Rosenthal, a 15-year-old Black youth recently murdered by the Chicago Police Department (CPD), made a heartfelt speech about the realities of police repression in our neighborhoods. He talked about the life and personality of Steven and his relationships with his friends, and the type of lies that CPD have told about him since his murder. The teens in attendance noticeably gave him their attention, and the effect it had on them was visible.
These teenagers were present as a result of our growing work in local schools, and the conversations they had after the event were inspiring. It is vital that we continue to work with youth because they bear the brunt of the abuses of capitalism. A few of these young people voiced an understanding of how racism affects them, and of what awaits them if we don’t fight back and smash it.
The reality is that it could be any of them or any of us if we’re not successful in building a wide base among the working class as well as a massive Red Army to fight back with revolutionary violence against the fascism that’s heaped on us constantly.
Onward to state power
We ended the celebration with music and dancing, the way that working-class revolutions should be commemorated. It was yet another step forward in building our communist culture among the working class, a culture that is egalitarian, multi-racial, multi-gender, and multi-generational.
Over a century ago, the Bolsheviks and the Russian workers, peasants, soldiers, and sailors gave us one of history’s best lessons on what can be accomplished when our class is armed and organized with communist politics. It is on their shoulders that we stand as we continue to build our Party for that inevitable day when the working class wins power once again.
