Brazil’s ongoing fight to impeach President Dilma Rousseff under charges of corruption is being touted as an effort to restore “democracy” from the political and economic turmoil that the country finds itself in. But make no mistake: Brazil’s current political and economic dilemma represents the inherent failure that is capitalist democracy. So why is congress really trying to impeach Rousseff? Like in capitalist democracies everywhere, Brazil’s ruling classes are fighting neck-and-neck to shift the country’s alliance along pro-U.S and pro-China imperialist lines. But no matter which capitalist calls the shots, Brazil’s working class is always the target. Neither Dilma Rousseff’s phony left party or its opposition serve working-class interests.
In fact, workers in every part of the world should be wary of the political parties and politicians that brand themselves as the savior of “democracy.” Democracies can never benefit the working class because they exist entirely to full the pockets of capitalist bosses, whether the bosses be pro-U.S. or pro-China. From U.S.’s Bernie Sanders to France’s Marine Le Pen, politicians have one goal in mind: to maintain the profit system of capitalism that benefits a few and exploits the masses. Their tactics are different but the goal remains the same. The Progressive Labor Party is the only party that represents the true interest of the working class. Our goal is to smash capitalism and rid the world of fail systems such as democracies, which pay lip services to the international working class. We champion a communist world where racism, nationalism, sexism, poverty and wars are no longer the seeds that workers reap.        
Dilma Rousseff along with members of her left-leaning Workers Party (PT) is facing accusation of corruption that might possibly hand the reins of political power to the equally corrupt right-wing conservative parties. The accusations stem from her alleged role with the now financially strap energy company, Petrobras. Rousseff, once chair of Petrobras, is believed to have accepted bribes from the energy company to finance her presidential campaign (NYT 12/03/15).
Mass streets protests along with judicial hearings make the call for impeachment seem like a call for justice. However, the demand to impeach Rousseff is a racist call by Brazil’s upper class, which is majority white, to turn economic tides in their favor. Their racist sentiment mirrors that of U.S. presidential candidate, Donald Trump and his supporters to “Make America Great Again.”  Above all, calls for Rousseff impeachment represent the struggle between pro U.S. and pro-China forces for control of Brazil and Latin America’s rich resources.
U.S. Tries to Counter China’s Pivot to Latin America
Brazil’s conservative parties along with its’ U.S imperialist backers are envious of China’s political and economic influence under Rousseff’s administration. In the subsequent years after the PT first took power championing economic and political influence for the masses of Brazil, Brazil’s trade with China soared while its share with the U.S. plunged. Shunning U.S claim to the Latin America, Brazil and China continued to develop deep ties, manipulating workers’ anti-U.S. imperialism into supporting a capitalist “multi-polar world” with China as its’ imperialist master. China’s influence remains intact to this day: in 2015, China and Brazil signed a series of investment and trade deals that totaled billions of dollars (The Guardian, 05/19/2015).
U.S. capitalist bosses’ imperialist quandaries extend beyond Brazil to include Latin America as a whole. They are on because China is engulfing Latin America into its’ imperialist sphere of influence. China’s investment in Latin America, for example, increased more than 20-fold, from $12 billion in 2000 to $285 billion in 2014 (NYT 10/3/2015). As a result, the U.S. ruling class is reconsidering its’ imperialist ambitions to focus entirely on countering China’s influence in the Eastern Pacific. In a recent report titled: “Expanding the Rebalance: Confronting China in Latin America,” Daniel Morgan, a senior military officer argue:
The growing cooperation between the governments in both regions and China presents political, economic, and military challenges that call for the incorporation of the Western Hemisphere into an Asian-Pacific Strategy… without a trans-Pacific strategy a U.S. regional approach will only create strategic risks and enable China to draw on its influence in the Western Hemisphere to support its interest elsewhere.
It is no wonder that U.S. capitalist bosses and their lackeys in Brazil are up in arms to out China and its’ servant, Rousseff.
Brazil: Infested with Racism, Sexism
Rousseff and her allies do not have the answers to stop U.S. imperialism, so workers should not heed their screams of injustice. While advocating economic reforms for the Brazil’s working class, the PT has partnered with big businesses. For instance, it has wasted tremendous money and resources to hold the money laundering 2018 World Cup, while many workers continue to live in abject poverty. Black workers in particular continue to suffer under the PT’s reign. Black workers, for example, represent 70 percent of those living in poverty. Like their U.S. counterparts, they are more likely to be murdered by killer cops. They are also shut out from leadership positions. A glaring example is President Rousseff’s cabinet: all except one minister is white (03/23/15).
Women and indigenous workers have also felt the brunt of the PT’s imperialist policies. Instead of focusing on these workers, the PT has been concentrating on Brazil’s imperialist rise rather than environmental and social objectives which disproportionally affect these workers. The PT is just a phony-leftist party playing the imperialist game. Brazil’s working class along with the entire working class of Latin America will be the pawns in this game for world domination.
March on May Day!
Like the political parties in Brazil, political parties and their puppet politicians in the U.S. and elsewhere are ploys to channel workers’ anger into support for different capitalist bosses. Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Dilma Rousseff and others want to maintain the chaos that is capitalism. Voting for politicians thus remains futile because no real change can come from a system that is not meant for us.
That is why the Progressive Labor Party say: Don’t Vote, Organize! A communist system built for and by the international working class is the only system that will truly represent our interest. Join PLP has we marched on April 27th to demand a better world for workers: a communist world.  On this day, May Day, we affirm our connections with workers around the world in the struggle for a communist world free of sexism, racism and imperialist war. Join PLP in making this world a reality.

HARLEM, April 2—Some powerful images of the rally following the Progressive Labor Party’s College Conference are worth sharing for readers of CHALLENGE. Picture militant chants and speeches from a multiracial, multigenerational picket line. Black workers leaving stores to come out and watch and at turns solemnly and enthusiastically raising their fists—and six of them joining the rally.
On the outskirts of the picket, CHALLENGE sellers struggling to keep up the demand for the newspaper, while engaged in excited debates about smashing Trump and communist revolution, and balancing pens to take down contact information from interested workers.
The rally energized the more than 35 members and friends of PLP, including some who travelled from the nearby states and had never sold CHALLENGE before. How was this militant advance for communist ideas possible? After a day of learning rich theory, history and discussion at the PLP College Conference!
Communist Internationalism Opens Conference
“What are we learning in school today?” This was the question posed in a tone-setting opening speech to the conference, as we dedicated our precious day off as students and professors in the bosses’ universities to the international working class (see speech, page 6). Even our attendance was a glimpse at what education might be like in a communist society. In a “classroom” that was multiracial and multi-generational, immigrant and native born, we heard an opening speech that described how the bosses’ attacks on students and workers span the globe and unite us. We learned that the fight between U.S. and rival imperialists like Russia and China is sapping money from education and will eagerly sap the lives from workers who will be sent to fight their wars. And we learned that even as the bosses mount their racist and sexist attacks on education, students fight back. From Haiti and South Africa to Mexico and Missouri, students are battling the onslaught of cutbacks. Most importantly, we discussed how PLP can transform these battles into revolutionary war for communism.
Workshops Combine History, Theory, Practice
After the opening speech we met in small groups to continue the discussion. We first learned a bit of history about racism in the United States. In the early to mid 1600s, plantation owners observed that Africans who had been brought over were forming deep ties with the poor whites who had come to the U.S. as indentured servants. These ties were formed on the basis of common exploitation by the plantation owners and led to instances of multiracial fightback, culminating in Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676, where an integrated group of workers rose up against the government of Virginia. This scared the owners who began formulating a system of racial divisions and instituted laws specifically designed to segregate the workers. (The material for this discussion was taken from Lerone Bennet Jr.’s book, “The Shaping of Black America,” specifically the chapter “The Road Not Taken.”)
The second workshop made it clear that, just as colonial Virginia bosses were able to enforce their racist system, the Bolsheviks were able to bring racism and other aspects of capitalism crumbling down when they took power in the Soviet Union. We learned about the incredibly difficult task of organizing a revolution in Tsarist Russia – building friendships and trust among the workers, organizing study groups, training hundreds of thousands of leaders, etc. The fruit of this hard work was visible as we read inspiring words from Langston Hughes as he traveled throughout the Soviet Union. We learn about Langston Hughes in the bosses’ schools, but we never learn he was a strong supporter of the Soviet Union.
Conference Rallies Against Racist Gentrification
Unlike the bosses’ schools, where we learn to accept the world basically as it is, today we learned that when the working class overcomes the racist, nationalist and sexist divisions that the bosses jam down our throats, revolutionary change is possible. The primary lesson we get from the bosses day-to-day is to be passive and try to do the best we can for ourselves or our families. The militant rally in Harlem was the antidote for passivity. Here and across New York City, developers have seen fit to close a relatively affordable grocery store where the poor residents were able to shop and are opening a much more expensive grocery store, which is completely unaffordable for most workers in Harlem. This racist attack was one of the many highlighted in chants and speeches by the group.
Dare To Learn, Fight
So what did we learn today? We learned that, as the opening speech made clear, the bosses’ racism, sexism, nationalism and oppression have an expiration date. We learned that workers can unite across these boundaries that the bosses invented to keep us separate. To get there, every one of the conference participants battled their own individualism and desire to enjoy their day off. Every one of the participants fought to learn, so they can return to their campuses, organize and learn how to fight like communists in the class struggle.
The conference raised the bar for every one present and intensifies our struggle for May Day. Our most intense discussions were over how to put the struggle for revolution primary in our lives, while being immersed with our fellow students and campus workers in our struggles and mass organizations. Organizing for May Day on April 30, and winning our friends and coworkers to recognize it as our international class’ holiday is part of that struggle. Winning our friends and coworkers means organizing and coordinating campus actions in advance of May Day.
Above all, the conference—run primarily by new, young comrades, eager to provide leadership to the working class—taught us that all learning isn’t done in the classroom, but from class struggle among the working class. Our growing fighters for communist revolution will open the door to a whole new way of learning and doing. Dare to struggle, dare to win!

BROOKLYN, NY, March 21—More than two and a half years have passed since Kyam Livingston was killed in Brooklyn Central Booking. The police killed Kyam, in a filthy holding cell, by ignoring her pleas for medical care. She had been arrested on a minor charge and never even came before a judge. Each month members of the Progressive Labor Party, along with relatives, friends, neighbors, members of churches and unions, and the Justice for Kyam Committee rally for justice for this racist, sexist police murder.
In the beginning of these monthly rallies, we used to chant, “We want the names! We want the tapes!” In the course of the struggle, the tapes that “didn’t exist” were found and showed the final heart wrenching hours of Kyam’s life as she pleaded with her jailers. Recently, through the court case, we obtained the names of the cops who were Kyam’s jailers in the central booking jail, and the names of all the cops who arrested her and transported her until she was in that cell.
Today, Kyam’s mom read the KKKop’s names to the crowd.
From Brooklyn Central Booking, they are: Shanika Howard, Charles Arthur, Alberta Dennison, Vanessa DeDanzine, Sergeant Linda Deena-Hornick, and Lieutenant Kareema Nevels.
From the 70th Precinct, they are: Michael Defede, Sergeant Matthew Fried, and Lieutenant Kurvin Manwaring.
From the 62nd Precinct: Hiram Riffas.
Kyam’s mother then said that she wanted to see their faces, and ask them why they let her daughter die.
An earlier speaker had spoken about the many other Black and Latin men and women who have been murdered by the police from NYC to Cleveland to Chicago, from South Carolina to Texas to California. We chanted, “white cop, black cop all the same racist terror is the name of their game!” Here in Flatbush, the racist killers of Kimani Gray, Shantel Davis as well as that of Kyam have gone unpunished. Now, Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson, whose office won a conviction of ex-cop Peter Liang in the killing Akai Gurley, is recommending no jail time for Liang.  Once again, the racist capitalist system—the courts, DAs, Mayors, Governors, and Presidents—protect and encourage killer kkkops.
After the officers’ names were read, the frustration built in the crowd and in Kyam’s family. A new chant arose, “If we don’t get it? Shut it down! For Kyam! Shut it down! Shut this racist system down!” With that, the multiracial crowd marched into the intersection and blocked traffic. Kyam’s mom led the crowd in the release of balloons of remembrance for the loss of this daughter of the working class. The bosses’ system may protect killer cops, but this working class neighborhood strongly supports our monthly demonstrations. Over 200 copies of CHALLENGE were distributed at the rally, and nods of agreement were evident from the various corners as we stopped traffic.
After the demonstration, several of the leaders and family friends got together to plan future events including PLP’s May Day March. Each month we call for justice, but must ask, is there justice for the working class under capitalism? Black workers, especially Black women workers, are hit the hardest under the profit system—and face constant demonization by the bosses’ press.
When the bosses’ kkkops murder one of our youth, the bosses’ media drag their name through the mud. 16 year-old Kimani Gray was murdered by the NYPD in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, on March 10, 2013. The bosses’ top newspaper, The New York Times, immediately ran an article entitled “Police Kill 16 Year-Old They Say Pointed a Handgun.” Not one eyewitness supported the police’s claim, despite the police claiming to have recovered Kimani’s gun.
More than three years later, the bosses’ media admitted that the NYPD had not found Kimani’s fingerprints on his alleged weapon. As witnesses submit testimony against the police during the wrongful-death lawsuit by Kimani’s mother, the evidence that the police framed Kimani continues to build.
These are just some of the examples of why workers must challenge whenever the bosses’ media slanders our youth, especially when the bosses’ kkkops are involved. How many more years will do we wait to for the bosses to admit they were wrong about so many other murders? The bosses’ justice system will never do justice for the working class. Joining in PLP’s fight for communist revolution is the best way to get justice for Kyam, and all of capitalism’s victims.

BALTIMORE, March 30— Our weekly West Wednesday rally was really powerful this evening! PL members and other antiracist fighters are calling for Tyrone West’s killers and the racist capitalist system they defend to be indicted.
Just yesterday, two of Tyrone’s murderers along with about a dozen other cops were found guilty of brutally beating Abdul Salaam in July 2013, just a couple weeks before they murdered Tyrone. This is the nature of capitalism: killer kkkops who beat a member of the working class are set free to murder another worker.
No Justice Under Capitalism
Yes, the verdict against killer kkkops Chapman and Ruiz was a good thing. But, let’s not get it twisted—the capitalist court system will never put an end to the horrible abuses of the racist criminal injustice system! If kkkops are even convicted, they are often let go with few consequences.
Take Peter Liang, the killer of Akai Gurley, a Black youth in Brooklyn. Liang was convicted of manslaughter but was never sent to prison because he was “not a threat”—mercy that the working class never gets. The only way to get real justice and ensure the working class’ safety is to replace this violent capitalist system with communism.
Bosses Dazzle to Distract
At tonight’s rally, Abdul Salaam spoke and strongly encouraged everyone to keep up the fight. The rally was held at the Inner Harbor, where the Light City festival was going on. This display is an effort by the local ruling class to try to keep us satisfied, though oppressed, with little more than just the bare basics. They try to dazzle us with spectacular events so that we forget that we live in a city where 65 percent of the jobs are unskilled and very low wage, and where poverty is high.
Nevertheless, some wonderful activist artists managed to get into the festival, and they did a beautiful light projection, largely about the anti-racist struggle against police brutality. It was right there, invited by those artists, that we held a powerful and inspiring West Wednesday rally!
Every Wednesday, we rally to fight for Tyrone West and to build class consciousness. PL’ers are entrenched in this battle and we consistently give out CHALLENGE to others in the fight. We are hoping that these fighters will come to May Day. We stress that to create a world without police brutality, we need much more struggle, the defeat of capitalism, and a whole new way of life! We can do it! Dare to struggle! Dare to win! March on May Day on Saturday, April 30.