Frontal engagements of large formations of forces at the strategic and operational level are gradually becoming a thing of the past. Long-distance, contactless actions against the enemy are becoming the main means of achieving combat and operational goals...
—Valerie Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff of the Russian Federation (2013)

Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism.
—Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin (1917)

As the capitalist bosses of the U.S., Russia and China intensify their fight over global resources, from Eastern Europe and the Middle East to Africa and Latin America, their lethal competition is taking on a more complex form. Known as “hybrid war” or “non-linear war” or “new generation warfare,” these inter-imperialist conflicts are mostly indirect and undeclared—and far less expensive than a conventional ground war. They use a broad mix of elements, from special operations assassins and private-sector mercenaries to cyberattacks and social media propaganda.
In the South China Sea, Beijing is building artificial islands and making territorial claims to fend off both regional rivals and President Barack Obama’s “pivot” to Asia. The U.S., while still relying on the threat of NATO’s brute force in Europe, used a computer virus to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program; it funded “color revolutions” to undermine pro-Russian regimes in Eastern Europe.
Meanwhile, the “Gerasimov Doctrine,” named after Russia’s top strategic military planner, combines “low-end, hidden state involvement with high-end, direct, even braggadocio superpower involvement”—most significantly in Ukraine and Syria (Association of the U.S. Army, 5/20). Dealing from a position of economic and military weakness versus the U.S. and—increasingly—China, clobbered by falling oil prices, President Vladimir Putin is using “a number of equalizers,” wrote Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank.
These will range from increased reliance on nuclear deterrence to the creation of local balances in Moscow’s favor; from swift decision-making and bold action, including the use of force, to ambiguity and hybrid operations (3/18).
Russian Bosses Go on Offensive
In its backyard in Ukraine, Russia responded to the U.S.-backed coup in February 2014 by engineering a secession referendum that paved the way for Crimea’s annexation by Russia. Putin has covertly funneled fighters and tanks to aid separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, and a recent troop buildup along the border threatens a fragile ceasefire (Financial Times, 7/19).
Putin has out-maneuvered Obama in Syria, where Russia enlisted the U.S. bosses in an alliance against the upstart imperialist Islamic State (ISIS)—and blunted the U.S. campaign against pro-Russia President Bashar al-Assad. While massacring hundreds of civilians a month with airstrikes, the Russian rulers have secured their Mediterranean naval base at Tartus and their airbase in Latakia. They’ve become major players without big investments of money and troops.
But make no mistake: Any cooperation between imperialists is tactical and temporary. Hybrid war ploys may gain one set of bosses a short-term advantage, but can they consolidate control over the oil-rich Middle East? A rising China and a resurgent Russia—as well as shaky regional powers like Turkey, Brazil, and India, where bosses will sell their allegiance to the highest bidder—make the world situation increasingly unstable.
For the international working class, sharpening ruling-class rivalries will inevitably lead to mass slaughter and devastation—to World War Three. At the same time, they will present an opportunity to smash the capitalists’ rotten, racist, sexist system for good. As Lenin said, it is the job of communists in all countries to turn imperialist war into class war and lead the working class to seize state power. Regardless of the rulers’ shifting strategies and tactics, that revolutionary task remains before Progressive Labor Party today.
End of an American Era?
In 1991, after decades of decay into state capitalism and all the inequalities and abuses of the profit system, the Soviet Union self-destructed. That event ended the Cold War, the post-World War II contest for world supremacy between U.S. and Russian imperialism, and marked, and the dawned the so-called American Era. As the world’s single superpower, the U.S. essentially cornered the market on global military intervention, from the two wars in the Persian Gulf to the invasions of Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Libya. NATO, the military alliance that projects U.S. power in Europe, absorbed a dozen former Soviet Republics; the U.S. expanded its sphere of influence eastward to the Russian border.
Then along came Putin. After taking power in 2000, he coerced Russia’s ravaging gangster capitalists to accept more centralized control. He’s used anti-worker ideas—nationalism and patriotism—to divert workers’ attention from worsening living conditions and Russia’s ongoing domestic oil price crisis. In 2014, his power base secured, Putin openly challenged U.S. dominance in Ukraine and Crimea. As Trenin noted:
This move effectively ended a quarter century of cooperative relations among great powers and ushered in an era of intense competition between them. Two years on, Moscow continues to be in defiance. The conflict with the West has deepened….Since February 2014, the Kremlin has been de facto operating in a war mode, and…Putin has been acting as a wartime leader.
U.S. rulers are clearly worried. From Philip Breedlove, who retired in May as Commander of the U. S. European Command: “…the United States should… recognize Russia as the enduring global threat it really represents” (Foreign Affairs, July/August). A quick-hitting hybrid invasion of a NATO member, Breedlove warned, would be “brutally expensive and difficult for the United States and its allies to reverse.”
In May, the U.S. installed a missile defense shield in Romania; in a Cold War echo, Russia charged that the move could enable a U.S. “first strike”—a nuclear knockout (Reuters, 5/11). In June, NATO announced plans to deploy four battalions to Poland and the Baltic nations (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) “to deter Russian aggression” (The National Interest, 7/21). The Baltic deployments are especially provocative, since these three states were formerly part of the Soviet Union.
Working People Have No Nation
Just as the imperialist powers are preparing for the next global conflagration, so must the international working class. During World War I, millions of workers died in a fight among capitalist rulers. In Russia, the Bolsheviks turned that imperialist war into a communist revolution for workers’ power, driving out the bosses and establishing a workers’ state. In the wake of World War II, the Chinese communists did the same.
As the next big war approaches, workers throughout the world must take lessons from our history. We have no stake in any capitalist conflicts, no obligation to the parasitic rulers who exploit and use us for cannon fodder. Our objective loyalty is only to the working class, the class that creates everything of value. That’s why PLP says, “Working people have no nations.” With international, multiracial, working-class unity, we can beat the bloodthirsty bosses—by turning the guns around and building a communist revolution. Join us!

A sign placed above Olympic Park in Brazil reads, “The Olympics Bring So Much More Than Just the Olympics.” For the international working class, that slogan carries a lethal meaning. The media hype for the Olympics hides the Games’ vicious anti-worker reality. Behind the surface appearance of internationalism, beyond the flags and costumes and music, lies a relentless promotion of nationalism—the capitalists’ essential tool to keep workers loyal to “their” nation and “their” bosses.
Rulers worldwide, and especially rival bosses in the U.S., Russia and China, need intensified nationalism to prepare the working class for wider war. The real winner of the 2016 Olympics is imperialism; these Games are another step toward devastation for the working class. Workers in Brazil have already experienced this terror firsthand—and are fighting back.
Sport and Racism
Every four years, workers in host cities are sold the lie that the Olympics will develop the local economy and create jobs. The reality is something else: more racist police murders, more forced evictions, ever-worsening conditions for Rio’s working class.
According to a report by the World Cup and Olympics Popular Committee of Rio de Janeiro, racist killings by police and mass incarcerations in Rio have increased sharply in years with large sporting events: the 2007 Pan American Games, the 2014 World Cup, the run-up to the 2016 Olympics. Over the 12 months ending this May, killings by police in Rio were up 135 percent. Black workers make up 52 percent of Rio’s population, but represent 77 percent of those killed by police (Human Rights Watch, 7/7). In total, Rio police have killed more than 8,000 people in the past decade.
Under the guise of fighting drug trafficking, there is now a permanent military police presence in many favelas, (Rio’s working-class neighborhoods.) More than 85,000 security forces patrol the streets.
Like the police murders of Black youth in the U.S., the mass murder of Black workers in Rio is the most open expression of Olympic terror. For the most part it occurred under the so-called “Workers’” Party government of the recently deposed, China-leaning Dilma Rousseff (see CHALLENGE, 4/20). With the installation of the pro-U.S. faction of Brazilian capitalists, open racism figures only to get worse. According to the Huffington Post (8/3), “the Olympics opening ceremony may have already won a gold medal for bad taste”—that is, racism. Only mounting pressure forced the organizers to cut a skit “in which Brazilian model Gisele Bundchen appears to be robbed by a black boy.”
Sponsors of Imperialist War
Top U.S. capitalist institutions are invested to make these Games go smoothly and reflect well upon their friends in the Brazilian ruling class. Among the biggest sponsors of the Rio Olympics is Dow Chemical, one the world’s leading merchants of war. During World War I, Dow produced the tear gas still used by cops today. After World War II, the company perfected Napalm, a sticky, flammable jelly; between 1963 and 1973, U.S. imperialism dropped 388,000 tons of it on workers and peasants in Vietnam. Dow Chemical’s board of directors includes the president and CEO of U.S. Bank, a main-wing, finance capital institution that maintains racist neighborhood segregation in cities like Minneapolis, Minnesota, where Philando Castile was murdered by racist police in July. PL’ers, education workers, and youth marched on the U.S. Bank for its role in financing and profiting from segregation and racist police terror (see CHALLENGE, 8/10).
Another key sponsor is aerospace company Boeing, a U.S. military source of fighter jets, drones and nuclear missiles. These warmakers are invested in helping the U.S. bosses enlist the regional imperialist bosses of Brazil against Russian and Chinese imperialism (see page 2). In 2013, Rousseff had snubbed Boeing from winning a $4.5 billion contract for new fighter jets, blaming the company’s unwillingness to share technology with Brazil’s military (Bloomberg, 12/19/13). Boeing’s concerns likely stemmed from a Rousseff visit to Russia where she and President Vladimir Putin signed “breakthrough” agreements on sharing “research, development and production” of military technology (Pravda, 5/2/13).
Eviction and Fightback
While Brazil will spend nearly $20 billion on the Olympics, the country is currently in the midst of its worst recession since the 1930s. Of Rio’s 6.3 million residents, 1.4 million live in poverty-ridden favelas. Gentrification in some “pacified” favelas has driven up real estate values and priced residents out. Mass evictions and forced relocations have displaced more than 77,000 people, bringing Rio’s homeless population to over 800,000.
But workers have fought back, often with women taking the lead. For years, residents of the Vila Autodromo community have resisted evictions and home demolitions related to nearby Olympic Park construction. In 2014, thousands of Olympic Village construction workers clashed with security forces over benefits and working conditions. Public prosecutors found that workers were living in conditions so squalid—with rats, cockroaches, and open sewage—that they were comparable to slavery (Reuters, 8/15/15).
Last year, residents fought off police-led evictions by pelting the cops with rocks. This year, workers repeatedly charged lines of police around the Olympic torch-bearers, attempting to extinguish the flame in protest. Days before the Games were set to begin, customs officials and dockworkers began a work slowdown. Workers were protesting wage increases promised by the misleader Rousseff but never delivered.
The bosses’ media mostly ignores the workers and youth of Brazil fighting in the streets, focusing instead on the Games. They have hyped the Russian scandal around performance-enhancing drugs, conveniently overlooking the long and sordid history of U.S. doping at the Olympics (New York Times, 8/4). Workers have no stake in siding with any nation’s Olympic team, just as they have no side in the inter-imperialist rivalries mirrored by the Games.
Communist Sports: Solidarity First, Competition Second
Under capitalism, cheating and drugs reflect a drive to “win at all costs.” But this reactionary outlook is a win for the bosses and a disaster for our class. Before every major imperialist world war, the capitalists set the stage by intensifying nationalism, racism, and sexism—anti-worker ideologies promoted by the Olympic Games. So when the U.S. bosses’ media cheer that this Olympics is “resurrecting a Cold War rivalry” (CNN, 8/8) between the U.S. and Russia, it’s the task of communists in Progressive Labor Party to learn from militant workers in Brazil and fight that much harder for internationalism.
PLP is organizing in more than two dozen countries for communism, drawing inspiration from the first workers’ states like the Soviet Union. Soviet workers fought the “win at all costs” mentality by building free gymnasiums while cultivating a physical culture of health and wellness. During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, leftist workers and students encouraged mass participation in sports under the slogan, “Friendship first, competition second.” They emphasized the fundamental unity of the working class over the temporary rivalry of competition. Communists fight for a world where all workers can reach their full potential.
Workers have no nation. We have one class, the international working class. We have one flag—the red flag. The capitalist bosses hope that every worker waving a national flag is a potential soldier for imperialist war. PL’ers and friends must respond to this nationalist hysteria by selling CHALLENGE and using it to organize for multiracial unity, internationalism and communist revolution. That’s the spirit of communism, where “winning” for the working class means seizing state power and building a communist world!

NEW YORK CITY, August 10—While the ruling class laments the departure of  their darling “top cop” William Bratton, the working class knows better! Under his first watch (1994-1996)  many Black and Latin workers and youth were murdered in cold bood by the NYPD, including  Anthony Baez, Hilton Vega, Anthony Rosario, Nicholas Hayward Jr.—and under his second watch ( 2013-2016) Shantel Davis, Kimani Gray, Ramarley Graham, Akai Gurley, Eric Garner, Kyam Livingston —and countless others. According to a report by Amnesty International, for instance, there was a 34 percent increase in people fatally shot by NYPD in Bratton’s first year as Police Commissioner alone.
Under Bratton’s Watch
Bratton helped to make the NYPD even more of an occupying force with his policies of  “Stop and Frisk,” “Broken Windows,” racist quotas, the “quality of life initiative,” and “zero tolerance.” Under his watch, the NYPD became equipped with more firepower, semi-automatic weapons, drones, a new anti-protest unit and more surveillance units. Bratton’s legacy leaves policies that strip Black and Latin workers of civil rights under the guise of promoting public safety. One of his stated goals was to rid the subway of homeless people. Under the “Broken Windows” policy, racist cops killed Eric Garner for the “crime” of selling loose cigarettes. This modern day lynching was caught on videotape and was met with militant and multi-racial demonstrations all over the country. Bratton ‘s reign in Los Angeles saw the mass displacement of  homeless and the mentally ill. As LAPD Chief (Los Angeles Police Department) numerous trips were organized to Israel to observe and train with their security forces.
Bratton holds up Israel as a model for law enforcement worldwide (Intifada, 5/29/14). He has cultivated close ties to Israel, giving the keynote address at Israel’s National Conference on Personal Security in Jerusalem.. Its no wonder that the violent and brutal repression practiced by Israeli forces has become a staple of U.S. law enforcement. In Bratton’s words, his visits to Israel were “so we can learn from eachother” (Intifada). So, Bratton will continue to have blood on his hands as an international enemy of the working class.
De Blasio and Bratton, Birds of a Feather
“If he is bringing back Bratton, he can’t be any good”. This was the sentiment of parents whose family members were killed by the NYPD in the 1990’s. Iris Baez, mother of Anthony Baez who was killed in a choke-hold in front of his house) explains in the film Every Mothers Son how Bratton targeted her family after her son’s murder to intimidate and stop the growing movement. Despite the liberal talk of Mayor De Blasio in his bid for election, his challenging of “Stop and Frisk” and talk about fighting racism, it became clear that De Blasio had no intention of real change when he appointed Bratton in 2013. After two officers were killed in Brooklyn in December of 2014, De Blasio called for suspending all protests. In defiance, the Progressive Labor Party and other groups called demonstrations and took to the streets.
Crime and Capitalism
While Bratton blames the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement for the rise in crime (Intifada) he also credits himself and former Mayor Guiliani for the decrease in crime in the 1990’s. Christian Parenti, author of Lockdown America, details how the NYPD went after young Black and Latin workers with a vengeance from everything to playing loud music to truancy during those years, incarcerating masses of these youth, while police brutality complaints jumped by 50%. While there is no empirical proof that Broken Windows was responsible for the drop in crime (Intifada)-similar reductions in crime occurred in major U.S. cities at the same time, the drop in crime coincides with the end of the deadly crack epidemic in New York (New York Times, 10/27/97), which left working class communities ravaged with the influx of drugs.
Bratton Goes to the Clintons, Names Replacement
Bratton has accepted a job with Teneo Holdings, a consulting group linked closely to the Clinton political machine, as well as the Israeli bosses. Teneo was founded by Douglas Band, a close advisor to former President Clinton.
Bratton and De Blasio’s hand picked successor, James O’Neill, will continue the policies that the rulers need. A student of Bratton’s Broken Windows philosophy for 30 years, O’Neill has been “instrumental to developing community policing” (NYT 8/3/16). In 2015, Bratton himself said there was no difference between community policing and Broken Windows. The argument that any new form of policing will be any better is itself an illusion. The role of police ever since their origins as a colonial occupation force in Great Britain and fugitive slave patrols in the U.S. is to protect capitalist property, and divide and control the working class through racist terror.
The Fight Back Goes  On!
  Workers and families of those murdered by the cops have stood up against the NYPD with courage since Day 1. Probably most notable is Iris Baez, whose son Anthony was murdered outside her home in the Bronx. Mrs Baez and other parents led huge rallies and marches and became personal targets of Bratton. They united with other families in the Bronx and staged huge events that were multi-racial and militant. City wide protests have erupted in the past few months and involved actions such as closing down bridges, streets and highways. Thousands have protested in the street with groups such as Black Lives Matter and various coalitions. Progressive Labor Party has been involved and where possible, given leadership to this fight in Brooklyn, Staten Island, and Manhattan. As we stand shoulder to shoulder with the families of Shantel Davis, Kimani Gray, Eric Garner, Ramarley Graham, Sean Bell, Akai Gurley and  Kyam Livingston, we have fought hard for our line that only multiracial unity can defeat racist police terror, and only a mass PLP  fighting for communist revolution can end the capitalist system that relies on it.

Washington, DC, July 30—Union misleaders of the Metro transit system are working around the clock to derail the fight back efforts of over 500 transit workers who rallied today against racist attacks on wages, pensions, inadequate safety provisions and management abuse. Yet, transit workers and PLP members are eager to take militant actions to end these racist attacks.
Transit workers came to the rally hoping that union leaders would lay out a plan for launching a serious fight that would smash the racist attacks. Instead, they found themselves being the receivers of empty words by union leaders, local politicians and management officials.
The union president Jackie L. Jeter, the first Black woman to lead this local, pushed workers to support management’s call of cutbacks that would generate funding for construction and maintenance needs of the transit system. Not surprisingly, she did not permit any speakers proposing an alternative plan like making a union strike ready rather than relying on the politicians and/or partnering with management. She did invite Paul Wiedefeld, the General Manager and Chief Executive Office of Metro, to “hear” the workers and speak to them and he agreed, but then demonstrated his contempt for the workers by conveniently cancelling his appearance.
In addition, Jeter invited Jack Evans, the chairman of the Metro Board and servant to local bosses and developers as a member of the D.C. City Council since 1991, to speak. Evans has publicly called for cutting workers’ pensions, privatizing jobs, and cutting other benefits, a plainly racist attack on the 90 percent Black labor force.
Metro Bosses Derail Workers
Evans promised to get $300 million to cover the current budget deficit from the federal government, similar to the appropriations received from other area jurisdictions. This was a lie! President Bill Clinton’s 1995 budget prohibited the federal government from giving Metro money for operating costs, a ban still which is still in effect.  Evans then promised to get $18 billion to cover long-term construction and maintenance needs of the transit system. He proposed a sales tax on working people to help raise the money, as if the working class isn’t already burdened by taxes!
Confronted with a skeptical crowd and some boos, Evans spoke as a “friend of labor.” He did receive applause from some misled workers. But in reality, Evans threatens the livelihood of workers, one of whom declared at the rally that he gave his youth, skills and commitment to Metro because he thought that the company would take care of him in retirement. Evans and management, with the collaboration of the union leadership, are threatening that possibility.
These capitalist lackeys are also threatening the possibility of turning workers anger and frustration against these racist attacks into a militant fight back against the system of capitalism itself. That is their job—to offer temporary and reformist solutions that allow the bosses to continue reaping their billions of profits.
No Safety on the Job
Little attention was paid to workers who spoke at the rally about the work they do, the safety hazards they face and the skills they have. Many expressed concerns about safety on the transit system, where nearly two dozen workers and passengers have been killed in the past decade with little remorse from the union leaders and the invited politicians. They told stories about not being given bathroom breaks, and not having the parts and support they need to fix equipment properly. Workers have had to resort to picking parts in order to “make it work,” the slogan of the day. The mass slogan should have been to fight back and make a union workers strike-ready!
PL’er Call out Evan’s Attack
PLP wasted no time in calling out union leaders and politicians on the lies they spew. A PL’er confronted racist Evans on his proposed regressive tax on the working class in the region. The PL’er insisted the money should come from the businesses and developers in the region who are making huge profits as a result of the access the transit system provides for their customers. Evans brushed aside this suggestion as “unrealistic,” unsurprisingly, since those bosses and developers contribute regularly to his re-election campaigns and would prefer to soak the workers rather than give up one dollar of their profits.
PL’er were and will continue to help make the latter slogan of fightback a reality, and to let the transit workers know that there is another alternative: communism. The transit workers don’t need much convincing: after the rally over 100 of them enthusiastically took copies of CHALLENGE and spoke with PLP members of the need to be more aggressive in making the union strike ready. The task that lies ahead is to become bolder in disrupting union collaboration with management as we prepare the workers for the intense struggle that lays ahead for a communist world. Our ultimate goal is to put the working class in the driver’s seat of society.