New York, November 27 — Red Cross reps are surrounded by protesters as they try to answer the complaints of families from Far Rockaway displaced by the storm and placed in three mid-town Holiday Inns. These families have been displaced with prejudice, with no regard for mental, medical or any of their needs. Kids are going without diapers, the ill without medication, people without food.

By the end of the day, the displaced families were being interviewed by scores of social workers, getting health care referrals and more. Red Cross officials promised to meet with all 106 displaced families at the three hotels.

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, coverage in the bosses’ media emphasizes the helplessness of humanity in the face of nature’s destructiveness. Under capitalism, we are also constantly bombarded with the idea that people look out for themselves, and can never really work together for a common purpose without a money incentive. 

But workers’ own experiences show that these stories told by mouthpieces for the capitalists are lies. PLP members and friends have volunteered in local relief efforts in the New York/New Jersey area. We have heard about and witnessed both stories of life-saving heroism during the storm and the efforts of thousands of volunteers providing basic necessities to their class brothers and sisters.

 History also shows that workers and peasants in communist-led societies have shown the human desire to work for the collective without material reward in return. The communist-led revolution in China in 1949 brought workers and peasants to power. Production and work was organized based upon national five-year plans.

 These plans were discussed all over the country and decided in advance. In Northern China, near Peking, the capital of China, one area had experienced yearly rains that flooded the farmland because the local mountains were quite dry and had no trees or other vegetation to prevent the water from rushing downhill. To stop this yearly damage to the farmland, the region was scheduled for a “check dam” and reservoir during the Third Five Year Plan in 1963-1967.

The peasants in the local area decided for themselves that there was no need to wait. They put out a call to the communist party and other organizations in Peking in 1957. One hundred and twenty thousand volunteer workers responded. Everyone worked for free. Each factory or office sent no more than 10% of their workers to contribute to the collective labor. The 90% who stayed behind worked a little harder to make up for the labor loss, while the 10% who went continued to have their basic needs met. 

Here are the words of a North American resident who was part of the project:

Of all the factors going in to making the project a success, unquestionably the most vital was the enthusiasm of the volunteers. I did a stint with some people from my office and it was an astonishing experience. Men and women who ordinarily did nothing more vigorous than tickling a typewriter or taking half a turn in a swivel chair were suddenly shoveling earth and toting gravel in baskets slung from shoulder poles, day and night, rain and shine.

Our cuisine consisted of gruel, bits of pickled vegetable, and a coarse corn muffin, but we wolfed them down as if they were epicurean delights. We slept eight in a tent, with only pallets of pine branches between us and the ground, but our slumber was deep and dreamless. I heard many a white collar worker say he never realized manual labor was so difficult and so satisfactory.

In less than five months, the dam was finished. Fifty thousand acres of land, which before were constantly hit by floods, now came under controlled irrigation.

Soldiers also volunteered to help, for no extra compensation. In order to support the workers involved in the project, “Peking’s top-flight opera singers and actors and actresses went out to the site to perform for the workers. The boldness of the plan to build ahead of schedule kindled public imagination” (Peking Review, 1958, Issue 1).

As climate change increasingly affects our fellow workers around the world, it will become more and more important for PLP and its supporters to take inspiration from these historical events. The capitalists have no plan to protect workers from the ravages of their profit-induced destruction of the environment. Our job is to participate in the inevitable expressions of human solidarity, to fight the bosses to meet the needs of those affected, and to convince many of the volunteers as well as the victims of “natural” disasters how only communist revolution can end these scourges. The seeds for this struggle to build a profit-less world that will reestablish harmony with nature are contained in the courageous and selfless actions of workers who today are responding to the destruction of Hurricane Sandy.

In my neighborhood, I had an opportunity to speak with workers from Verizon and Con Ed, as well as folks who applied to help out with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) due to the effect of Hurricane Sandy. They told me how, in this capitalist system, those helping in the clean-up were treated as poorly as those they were sent to help.

Verizon had laid off so many workers that the remaining ones were left to carry the load of the overtime from Sandy. Somehow, the overtime money didn’t compensate for the absence of the workers who did the job so well at our side.

Con Ed workers were promised overtime. Then they got an e-mail saying those who worked in Staten Island did so “voluntarily.” These workers said thousands more homes had been devastated than the media reported, mostly in impoverished areas.

One friend who was trained to be a FEMA employee said, “The qualifications required were a clean criminal background and citizenship. I was to report to a training site in Philadelphia. I had to take classes for two days, paid $125 for each day and 50 cents for traveling expenses. My friends and I went together.

“There were at least 1,000 people wanting to be employed. On the third day, a Parr agent (working on behalf of FEMA) told us many were being denied. I received a letter a week later stating, ‘ The Chief Security Officer has found you unfit for employment as a contractor employee with FEMA. This decision is based on adverse information contained in your credit bureau report.’

Never before in my life had I been told I was found unfit to help individuals. Every week, I run a soup kitchen and clothing donations from my church. I have never had a complaint. If the government hadn’t closed its eyes in 2007 and allowed Wall Street to ravage the hard-working community, maybe I would be found fit to be a contractor for FEMA. Is FEMA fit to work for me or anyone struggling with disaster?”

In the communist-led Soviet Union and China, unemployment was zero; rebuilding flooded areas, constructing dams and wiping out diseases like syphilis and schistosomiasis were priorities, making useful jobs for millions.

Red Worker

ONE STATE, TWO STATES or A COMMUNIST STATE?

Once again the Israeli Zionist rulers are launching a full-scale murderous military attack against the Palestinian civilians - men, women and children -  in Gaza, just as they did with the brutal Cast Lead massacre in 2008-2009. They claim that this is in retaliation for and to stop the rockets fired from Gaza into Israel. This is a big lie! The current murders are simply the latest step in the constant fascist attempts to “ethnically cleanse all of Palestine.

*There is no doubt that the 2^nd attack on Gaza is a war crime and that the military occupation of Palestine by Israel is wrong and unsustainable. At 44 years, it is one of the longest occupations in history and violates every precept of international law. Not only are Palestinians reduced to living on 22% of their former land, but they have been deprived of much of their water, farmland, employment, and freedom of movement. Continuous warfare afflicts not only the region but fuels world conflict. No one demonstrating here today disagrees with any of this.

*The much more difficult question is what should we be fighting for? Is it enough to demand that siege of Gaza and the occupation end, the settlements be dismantled, or a “Palestinian state” be established? This issue cannot be addressed without considering the role of racism and nationalism in the history of Israel and the current struggle between Israel and Palestine.

The influx of Jews into Palestine was a response to their racist persecution in Europe and the nationalist impulses of the late 19^th century. The massive increase in immigration after the Holocaust also largely reflected the refusal of Western nations to accept Jewish refugees.  In addition, the US and Britain were glad to have an enclave of people with Western capitalist values and ties in the Middle East, which was rapidly gaining importance as the major source of oil.

Instead of going to “a land without people for a people without land”, the Jews arrived in a densely populated area. In 1948, the UN gave 55% of the land to the Jews, when they comprised only one third of the population and owned only 6% of the land. 750, 000 Palestinians, 6/7 of the population, were brutally expelled from their homes. In the 1967 war, Israel began the occupation of Palestinian land and took total control over 46% of the West Bank. Now the Wall, the checkpoints, the ban against Palestinians working in Israel and other indignities have reduced Palestinians to a state of desperation.

*None of this would have been possible if the Zionists were not themselves guilty of racism. Instead of learning from centuries of anti-Semitism that racism is the father of genocide and divides poor peoples against one another, they used the same ideology to suppress other people. Meanwhile, now as throughout history, the wealthy and the rulers use these ethnic divides to their own advantage. The US arms Israel to the teeth, not out of love for Judaism, but to maintain bully-power over the oil rich nations and their potential allies in the area. Ordinary Israelis suffer the costs of occupation in lives lost, morality destroyed, and social services cut to finance the military, all tolerated only because of anti-Arab racism.

Despite the fortitude displayed by Palestinians in surviving the occupation, many are now focused on the strife which continues between the corrupt Fatah movement, and fundamentalist, nationalist Hamas, neither of which promises social equality for Palestinians, or leads to an effective resistance. Palestine, like Israel, is a class society, and needs a mass anti-racist movement of workers for a society in their own interests.  Jewish and Arab workers. from the river to the sea. must unite to fight the capitalist rulers.

*So we come to the question, what do we ask for now? It is not good enough to ask for equal civil rights and look to South Africa for inspiration, as do many activists. For although apartheid is gone, the condition of the majority poor black population in SA remains abysmal. As long as the same capitalist system, the same corporations are running the country, poor workers are no better off – maybe worse, having lost the activism of the anti-apartheid movement. From India to El Salvador, throwing off colonialism but not capitalism, has not improved the lot of workers.

 That is why, while we march against the attack on Gaza and the evil of occupation, we should also march for an egalitarian, anti-racist, anti-sexist struggle and a communist society in Israel–Palestine, History provides many examples of struggles uniting Arabs, Jews and others in the region against common exploiters. Without a fight for communism in the Middle East and the US, global inter-imperialist wars, fought by workers taught to hate and fear one another, will destroy us all.