Challenge Newspaper - Progressive Labor Party

Throughout the rulers’ debate about immigration, the U.S. ruling class has bee fearing the unity of black and Latin workers, the two most exploited and potentially revolutionary groups of workers. Both are targeted for military service in expanding Middle East wars. This is why the rulers are feeding them lies that immigrant, mostly Latino workers are "stealing black workers’ jobs." These rulers fear the militant leadership that both groups united can give to the whole working class, including tens of millions of exploited white workers.

Workfare, mass imprisonment, racist layoffs and hiring practices have meant a soaring rate of unemployment for black youth, all because of capitalism’s inherent drive for maximum profits. Immigrants are victims of imperialism which exports the same racist conditions — working in the lowest-paying jobs in factories, the fields and service industries and creating unemployment, which forces them to emigrate to the U.S. where they also receive the lowest wages and are victims of mass unemployment.

The rulers use racist segregation in hiring to try to pit the two most exploited groups of workers against each other. They use the BIG LIE technique, trying to blame black unemployment on immigrant workers, rather than on the racist bosses and the capitalist system. The latter impoverishes the whole working class by creating a "reserve army of the unemployed," which the bosses use as a club over the heads of all workers, including white workers.

Congress’ proposals on immigration are racist and fascist to the core. The McCain-Kennedy version attacks all workers. It calls for a biometric ID card to be used as a "tamper proof" national ID for the entire population, not just for immigrants. This fits in with the Hart-Rudman plan for fascist Homeland security to control citizen and immigrant workers alike (see CIA editorial, page 2).

In a TV interview, Ted Kennedy bragged that his plan would require military service for immigrants. The liberals plan to beef up the border and build patriotism while painting themselves as the "saviors" of immigrants. They want immigrants to answer the racist Minutemen by showing they can be "good Americans" by joining the military. Both parties agree to install 370 miles of fencing along the Mexico/U.S. Border and cap off the guest worker programs at 200, 000 a year (Wall Street Journal, 5/23). The New York Times attacked the Minutemen in order to hide the liberals' fascist agenda. The liberal rulers are the main danger in the fight against racism and the system that spawns it because they build illusions that capitalism can be fixed.

Communists in PLP state that all workers have the same class interests in opposing racism, which weakens us as a class. Fighting racism against immigrants and against black workers strengthens our whole class in the fight to destroy capitalism with communist revolution.

Multi-racial Protesters Blast Fascist Minutemen

LOS ANGELES, May 21 — Chanting, "Asian, Latin, black and white, Workers of the world unite!" over 300 anti-racist demonstrators confronted a racist group of Minutemen, SOS ("Save Our State") and Ted Hayes, a supposed "homeless advocate." The racists were constantly protected by hundreds of cops in riot gear.

PLP’ers, especially youth, gave militant leadership to a multi-racial group trying to stop the racist march. The police repeatedly threatened to arrest those leading chants and giving speeches attacking the racists and the capitalist system. Every time they tried to shut down our bullhorn, others continued our chants, indicating we had lots of support. The racists were pelted with eggs as demonstrators tried to elude the cops to reach the racists.

As the racists marched, protected on both sides by a police line, the anti-racists also marched. The approximately 70-90 Minutemen carried the flag of U.S. imperialism along with racist signs. The anti-racist marchers had only red flags, the flag of the international working class, as well as signs and banners calling for unity of workers worldwide against all racists. PLP’s signs called for smashing all borders and fighting for communism.

At one point on Broadway, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of angry workers joined in the chants. Later a Minuteman e-mail said he could see from the hatred on the workers’ faces that only the cops' presence stopped workers from beating them up. Many young workers and students who came to denounce the racists witnessed mass support for our militant anti-racist stance.

The protesters discovered the racists were planning to march late Monday. During the week, there were discussions at factories and schools about the importance of standing up to racism and fascism. These discussions led black, Latin and white youth and workers to confront the racists. The bosses used the fact that Ted Hayes (who is black) was calling the march to try to pit Latino and black workers against each other. PLP took this racist attack head-on, explaining that black and Latin workers and youth are all part of the same working class, and all victims of capitalism’s racist unemployment, which drags down wages and conditions for white workers as well. (See adjoining editorial.)

Other groups also supported the anti-racist march. Two area meetings of the UTLA (teachers’ union) passed resolutions condemning the racist march and calling on teachers to march against it. The resolutions noted that the rulers are trying to divide black and Latino workers.

During the week preceding the march, leaders of some immigrant rights groups were challenged to build for the protest. While some rank-and-file members of these groups — hearing about the racist march for the first time — participated, some leaders said the Minutemen’s march should be ignored. The "Immigration Solidarity Network" e-mailed people to NOT build for the protest because confronting the racists would "hurt the fight over Congressional legislation. These social fascist "leaders" stress passage of the McCain- Kennedy Bill. Along with the liberal rulers, they use the Minutemen as a foil, to make themselves look "less racist" and to scare workers into looking to the liberal rulers, nationalist leaders, and Democratic Party politicians as the workers’ saviors.

Before the racist Minutemen march, the TV and radio ignored it, because they don’t want masses of people who hate them to hit the streets and oppose them. These are the same hypocrites who say the Minutemen and their Congressional supporters like Sensenbrenner are the "main enemy." But they refuse to confront them.

Some thought that protesting the Minutemen march would only "give them more publicity." But they get plenty of publicity AFTER they engage in their racist practices — like patrolling the border — publicity which is used to try to make immigrants more fearful and rely on the politicians, not their untied strength. However, when confronted by a militant, multi-racial march with red flags and angry youth and workers, the racists got little publicity.

The rulers don’t want workers to realize their potential power to not only smash the gutter racists but the whole capitalist system, the source of racism. They don’t want workers to understand that the liberal leaders are part of the problem, not the solution!

Liberal Rulers Gain Upper Hand with New CIA Boss

(Numbered footnotes identify reports, groups and individuals.)

Conflicting strategies for preserving U.S. imperialism’s dominance over its rivals underlie the recent CIA flap. Amid great turmoil, a career military officer has shoved out a Bush crony for the agency’s top spot.

On one hand, U.S. rulers, centered in the Eastern Establishment1, dream of a militaristic police state mobilized for world war. The Hart-Rudman (H-R) commission reports2 outline drastic plans for realizing this deadly vision. On the other side, the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld camp thinks the U.S. war machine, at present strength, can master any future crisis. These "cheap hawks" demand little monetary sacrifice from U.S. capitalists and are reluctant to restore the draft. But Bush & Co.’s failure in Iraq now gives the Establishment the upper hand. So, at CIA, Bushite chief Porter Goss is out, his No. 3 operative faces criminal investigation and General Michael Hayden is in.

Under Goss, the CIA’s main role was to cook up phony intelligence, like the lies about Iraq’s weapons and its ties to al Qaeda, that justified Bush-Rumsfeld’s undermanned invasion. Goss spent much of his CIA tenure weeding out anti-Bush whistle blowers. Hayden, however, marches to Hart-Rudman’s tune. His boss and mentor in the Air Force was Gen. Charles Boyd3 who oversaw the H-R project from beginning to end. Boyd’s article in the Wall Street Journal (5/10), "A Symphony for Hayden," sang the nominee’s praises.

Bush’s CIA never managed to infiltrate al Qaeda and failed to translate 9/11 tip-offs in time. Hayden vows to deploy a worldwide network of multilingual spies preparing far-flung future battlefields. Hayden’s plans mesh with Gary Hart’s, the co-chairman of H-R. Speaking in March before the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)4, Hart proposed a "fifth service" of covert Special Forces backed by a new Human Intelligence Corps operating wherever U.S. imperialism may require.

So what’s to be made of the liberal, Establishment New York Times’ May 19 editorial opposing Hayden’s appointment? It offers a lesson on the relation of form and content. The Times objects only to Hayden’s image. It prefers a pin-striped Ivy League law school grad — untainted by the legally questionable eavesdropping Hayden conducted at the National Security Agency (NSA) — to head the CIA. The Times frets about how Hayden tarnishes liberal illusions like "the rule of law" and civilian control of the state but says he’s mainly on the right track, "General Hayden...was...properly critical of the way Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld created his own intelligence agency before the war in Iraq."

Meanwhile, other liberal advocates of the war and police-state agenda back Hayden without reservation. Richard Falkenrath5, an architect of U.S. fascism sporting a Harvard pedigree, says, "Hayden is...exactly the sort of man that we should have at the helm of the Central Intelligence Agency while we are at war." (Washington Post, 5/13/06) Michael O’Hanlon, Brookings top military expert, called Hayden "capable of facing down [Rumsfeld’s] Pentagon." (National Public Radio, 5/7/06)

As for Hayden’s spying on private communications, most liberals advise us to accept this police-state tactic despite the Times’ quibbles. CFR fellow Max Boot, commenting on a 1970’s anti-wiretapping statute said, "This archaic law should be euthanized." (Los Angeles Times, 5/17/06) Falkenrath sees no such need for legislative change. He wrote in the Washington Post (5/13), "The Right Call on Phone Records," that "the NSA's alleged receipt and retention of such information is perfectly legal." And while pundits debate legalistic niceties, rulers having state power blithely ignore them. The May 20 Wall Street Journal reveals, "Time-Warner’s America Online employs more than a dozen people, including several former prosecutors, handling almost 12,000 requests [for e-mail contents] from federal, state, and local agencies. The unit works 24 hours a day."

Hayden and the liberals behind him seek to expand the CIA’s spying, kidnapping, torture and murder as U.S. rulers seek to militarize and mobilize society for sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry. In 1999, Hart-Rudman foreknowingly called this a period of intensifying "casualties, carnage, and death."

Footnotes

1. Eastern Establishment — Shorthand for the dominant wing of U.S. financiers and industrialists having the greatest need to control the world’s resources, markets and labor through imperialism. Includes companies like major East Coast banks, Exxon Mobil, GE and many others. Ideology outlets are Ivy League colleges, network TV, Time Warner, the New York Times, etc. Rockefeller family plays a leading role.

2. Hart-Rudman — Clinton’s 1999-2001 presidential commission that laid out plans for protecting U.S. world dominance through 2025. It proposed reorganizing government into a centralized police state capable of mobilizing for war with China, Russia or both. A 1999 H-R report said a major terrorist attack on U.S. should be followed by a campaign to "galvanize" the public into willingly sacrificing "blood and treasure" for U.S. imperialism.

3. Gen. Charles Boyd — Executive Director of the Hart-Rudman commission. Former Senior Vice President of CFR. Married to Jessica Tuchman Mathews, a Rockefeller Foundation trustee.

4. Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) — Rockefeller-led think-tank. Eastern Establishment billionaires have used it to steer U.S. policy since World War II.

5. Richard Falkenrath — Fellow at the liberal, CFR-allied, Brookings Institution. Deputy Homeland Security Advisor on 9/11. As a Harvard professor, he wrote in 2000 that, in case of terrorist attack, government should be ready to:

• Impose a state of emergency, including curfew;

• Compel people to remain in one location or move to another;

• Use the military for domestic law enforcement;

• Seize community or private property;

• Censor and control the media.

Transit Workers Protest D.C. Metro’s Negligent Homicide

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 18 — Capitalism kills. That was the message brought today to over 50 transit workers, members of Local 689, Amalgamated Transit Union, as they picketed Metro bosses’ offices protesting management’s negligent homicide of two track workers over the past seven months. Chanting "Metro opens doors, they shouldn’t open caskets!," the workers, led by their communist president, condemned the bosses for their failure to take seriously last October’s death of track worker Michael Waldron, killed by a high-speed train while working on the track. In a reprise of this grisly event, Jong Won Lee was killed as he was caught between two 40-mile-per-hour trains roaring past each other inside a subway tunnel.

Trains have killed several track workers over past decades. After each incident, Metro would post a flagman and run trains on manual in work areas. Then, after a few months, Metro would return to unsafe practices until another track worker was killed. Today, there are no flagmen and trains are allowed to run on automatic at high speeds through "minor" work areas as "efficiency" measures. The result? Two deaths in the past 7 months!

The union has protested this unsafe policy. Close calls abound; track workers have had buttons torn off their shirts when they leaped up against walls with insufficient clearance as trains unexpectedly tore through tunnel work areas.

Metro’s callous disregard for workers’ lives (just how many workers’ deaths is "customer satisfaction" worth?) is typical of the capitalist need to maximize profits and minimize costs. Just as the lives of the 30 coal miners who’ve been killed in mine explosions this year mean nothing to the coal bosses (especially as the price of coal skyrockets!), so, too, Metro workers can die in the name of "improved efficiency."

Now Metro bosses have agreed to a "high-level" safety committee to recommend new policies. Don’t hold your breath waiting for meaningful reforms. A revolutionary communist movement that fights for power is the only force that will end the rule of these bosses and change society’s priorities from "efficiency" and "maximum profit" to the sovereignty and well-being of workers. That’s why the fact that 20 workers at this rally took copies of CHALLENGE bodes well for the future.

The demonstration revealed important divisions within the union leadership. Less than half of the executive board members joined the rally, and fewer built for it. Some of the others, disdaining the rank-and-file, attended a "Labor 2006" meeting to plan "strategy" for the fall Congressional elections. These traitors to the working class rely on the bosses’ politicians, not the workers, whom they arrogantly believe to be incapable of organizing change.

But this rally, occurring just four days after the death of Jong Lee, was organized precisely by the rank-and-file workers who have supported a militant, anti-racist direction for the union. Twenty workers came from one garage, and others responded to organizing efforts of workers who are just learning about revolutionary politics from the Local’s communist president.

May Day Organizing 'Liberates' Workers, Now Meeting with PLP

BRONX, NY, May 22 — Back in March, members and friends of Progressive Labor Party held a successful fundraiser event for three PLP members arrested at a demonstration in Farmingville, Long Island last July, protesting affiliates of the fascist Minutemen. Approximately 35 students, parents and teachers attended the event, contributing almost $800. Our main speaker connected the attack on immigrant workers with the continuing rise in war and fascism.

Everybody left energized after one of the defendants and a City College PLP student asked everyone to join with PLP to celebrate May Day "as we raise the red flag within the anti-war march and call for an end to all imperialist wars and attacks on immigrant workers with a communist revolution".

After that fundraiser, we viewed every participant as a potential organizer for May Day. If somebody said they were interested in attending, we’d respond by saying, "Great, are there any friends, family or co-workers you would like to invite?" One long-time friend of PLP and his wife invited approximately 10 people to May Day. Although none actually made it to the march, their efforts reflected organizing for May Day in a serious way.

One NYC Dept. of Education employee brought two high school students and helped out with security on the march. When asked what she thought about it, she replied, "I felt liberated!"

Lastly, a NYC transit worker and strike veteran attended our May Day dinner. Inspired by its youth-led character, he agreed to invite his family and a couple of co-workers to our "2006 Summer Project Barbecue" on June 3. It’s important to note that all of our marchers attended activities leading up to May Day.

One highlight occurred when our transit worker was asked to speak at a Brooklyn dinner. During his speech he detailed the shortcomings of contract negotiations and of reliance on union hacks. When asked what he thought of our Party, he replied, "I usually play devil’s advocate, but lately I find myself agreeing more and more with the ideas of the PLP."

The best news is that these three workers have agreed to meet with a PLP club. We hope they’ll consider joining and help us "liberate" the working class from its capitalist chains!

Colombia Workers Greet PLP's Communist Politics

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA — Several May Day marches here converged into a mass trade union rally. Workers and youth demonstrated against state-sponsored terrorism, the Free Trade Agreement with the U.S., against the re-election of fascist President Uribe and against all his anti-working class privatization policies. Some marched in support of Chavez’s "Bolivarian revolution."

PLP denounced the electoral farce and called for the fight for communist revolution internationally. Our contingent included a strong group of workers and students and differentiated itself with revolutionary chants like: "The history of the working class is not a carnival-like parade!"; "Workers’ struggles are not won through ballots!"; "The best education is to fight for communist revolution!"; "Down with the nationalism of the bosses, long live workers’ internationalism!"; "Smash imperialist war with communist revolution!" Some fake leftists even repeated our chants, but substituted the word "socialism" for communism.

Our main job was explaining PLP’s politics through distribution of DESAFIOS and communist leaflets. Many agreed with our analysis, and photographed our signs. They expressed their approval by chanting "Long live communism!"

When we passed a group protesting the cops’ murder of a youth last May Day, they saluted us with raised fists of solidarity. When we passed a group listening to the favorite Presidential candidate of the fake left, Carlos Gaviria, who claims he’s fighting for "true democracy," we denounced bourgeois democracy and elections as essentially anti-working class.

We joined many others singing The Internationale until we reached Plaza Bolivar where the union hacks had the crowd listen to a bunch of politicians and union sellouts.

Overall, it was a great experience for new younger and older comrades.

Boston Students Rally vs. Anti-Immigrant Racism

BOSTON — On May 1, for the first time in over five years, students at Roxbury Community College (RCC) rallied in the cafeteria denouncing anti-immigrant racism and calling for working-class unity. The budding student leaders came out of a student club, Pizza and Politics, which holds regular discussions about world and local events. The mostly women students leading the rally were pleasantly surprised at the students’ receptivity.

A PLP member at RCC warned against the McCain/Kennedy bill as more dangerous than the openly racist Sensenbrenner bill because McCain/Kennedy forces immigrant workers into low-wage labor under threat of deportation. Most importantly, he explained how the liberal rulers need immigrant youth to join the U.S. military and fight in their imperialist oil wars.

Everyone had a positive evaluation of the event. They learned that their fellow students do care about what’s happening in the world, despite on the surface seeming shallow and individualistic. They also learned about leadership: if you make a plan and carry it out, you can make things happen.

The next day, the counter-attack began. Some faculty and administrators — whose political agenda is to encourage the growth of the next generation of the black elite — demanded an apology from the club. They criticized the flier’s class analysis of anti-immigrant racism, which compared the division within the working class — U.S.-born vs. immigrants — to divisions among slaves. Unfortunately, their criticism overshadowed the positive nature of the May 1st rally. But in a heated meeting of the club, it was clear that nationalist and anti-communist politics were being used to attack the working-class unity and growing class consciousness of members of Pizza and Politics.

PLP is working hard to develop this consciousness and student leadership at the college. PLP members in Pizza and Politics advocate anti-imperialist and anti-fascist ideas and argue for the need to destroy capitalism with communist revolution as the only way to forever eliminate war, fascism, racism and exploitation. By developing closer ties we can win some students into PLP’s base. This will help us develop into an organization that can lead the working class in the period ahead.

Profit System Murders Five More Miners

Once again the profit drive of capitalism has murdered the workers who mine the coal that keeps the bosses’ economy going. Once again a mine-owner has flaunted safety rules that could have saved the lives of five Kentucky miners. The Kentucky Darby LLC company has been guilty of 41 citations in the last five years for not cleaning up coal dust — three times in just the last month — that was responsible for the explosion that sent these miners to an early grave.

The mine bosses have refused to supply the miners with properly working air equipment that is supposed to provide clean air for at least an hour but in this case lasted only five minutes. Priscilla Petra, the wife of George Petra, 49, said, "There would probably be three men still alive if their air equipment had worked the way they should." (NY Times, 5/23)

These were the same air packs that didn’t work for the 12 Sago, West Virginia miners who died in the same manner in January. The other two Kentucky miners were killed by the explosion set off by the mixture of coal dust and methane gas present in the mine, coal dust that was supposed to be cleaned up by the profit-driven coal barons.

And what of the bosses’ government that permits mine-owners to get away with violation after violation, killing miner after miner? What could one expect when this same government launches war after war against workers in the Mid-East, Latin America and Asia, killing millions?

These are not "accidents." They are murders. A society based on profits first, workers last, cares not one bit for workers’ lives. The dead miners can easily be replaced by other workers needing jobs to survive life under capitalism.

In a society that abolishes bosses and their profits — communism — the safety of those workers who descend into the bowels of the earth would have the highest priority. No expense would be spared to protect their lives.

The only way to prevent such murders is to destroy the system that perpetrates these atrocities. That requires a revolutionary communist party leading a working class in a fight for workers’ power. This is the goal of PLP. Every worker and youth who joins PLP is driving another nail in the coffin of capitalism, in the long-range struggle to bury this murderous system.

Rank-and-File Solidarity Moves Beyond Pro-Boss Union Hacks

LOS ANGELES — When the LAX Hilton fired a worker known as a union activist on May 15, the bosses hoped to intimidate others and squelch the drive for union recognition. Instead, 90 workers gathered in the cafeteria the next day and 75 conducted a work stoppage in solidarity with their fired comrade.

When the bosses suspended all 75 for a week without pay, they returned every day all week — with friends, relatives, and supporters — to picket the hotel, chanting loudly and enthusiastically. Other Hilton workers came out on break or after work and joined them. "I’ve never seen anything like this!" said a young woman worker. Drivers of cars and trucks on busy Century Boulevard honked in support, and some taxi drivers refused to cross the picket line.

Chants grew more militant as the week wore on. "We are the union, the mighty mighty union" became "we are the workers, the mighty mighty workers." "Aqui estamos y no nos vamos" ( "We’re here and we’re not leaving") became "Aqui luchamos y no nos vamos." ("We’re fighting here and we’re not leaving.")

Though the level of militancy was high, the political level remains low, focused mainly on bread-and-butter issues and abstract demands like "respect." For example, one worker — asked what the organizing campaign had achieved so far — responded thoughtfully that, although they hadn’t received the usual 20¢ raise, they also hadn’t gotten the usual 30¢ hike in insurance premiums. He figured they were already ahead. But when workers are fighting like this, they should be fighting for more than pennies!

The UNITE-HERE union leadership is sabotaging the potential development of class consciousness in this struggle by promoting a "Century Corridor" campaign in which hotel workers are supposed to ally with hotel bosses and politicians to gentrify the area around the airport. Still worse, low-paid hotel workers would no longer be able to afford to live near their jobs.

Some workers involved in this campaign understand the limitations of the UNITE-HERE leadership’s approach. Suspended workers responded well when a few pickets introduced the chant, "Este puno si se ve los obreros al poder." ("See this fist, workers to power.")

The originally fired worker has won his job back, and the suspended workers are back at work, more united and even more determined. And, more than ever, they need the political perspective that CHALLENGE provides. While a limited number of these workers are receiving the paper, readers need to find ways to get it to more hotel workers and their families.

PLP Summer Project Will Bring Red Ideas to New Orleans

PLP is organizing a summer project in New Orleans, where the contradictions of U.S. capitalism have been laid bare. The events surrounding Katrina continue to be among the most intense fascist and racist attacks in recent history. It is the same ruling class that has killed over a million Iraqi working-class families in 15 years of imperialist war. Both attacks are driven by the need for capitalists to maximize their profits.

The ruling class abandoned more than 100,000 hurricane victims. If Katrina had made a direct hit on the city, all but the luckiest would have been killed. Neither FEMA, the Red Cross, the National Guard, nor anyone in government lifted a finger to evacuate the poorest workers. After complaining several years ago "that New Orleans has too many poor people . . . [and] argue[ing] that . . . African-Americans . . . might be better served by a Greyhound ticket to another town" (The Nation), the head of the Transit Authority parked the city’s 264 buses two days before the hurricane.

The government gave no warning that the levees had been breeched and the city was beginning to flood. Instead, it carried out a vicious fascist occupation of the city, followed by an equally vicious forced evacuation. Hundreds of thousands nationwide have been left to face homelessness.

Conditions in New Orleans’ working-class neighborhoods are still appalling. Huge areas still lack any utilities or city services. Toxic waste fills the streets. Dead bodies are still being found in vacant houses. No government money is being spent on rebuilding workers’ homes, helping them to return, or maintaining them in their new cities. Only the working class is keeping them alive.

The rebuilding of the business district and rich areas is being done mainly by temporary, immigrant "guest workers," with no job security, little or no safety gear, no benefits, ultra-low wages and prison-camp type housing. This is the rulers’ fascist immigration "reform."

Just as the ruling class leads both sides of the immigration movement (see page 1), the other side of the rulers’ open racist terror is voter registration and Democratic Party politics through organizations they control. through organizations they control they’re also trying to mislead thousands of concerned people, mainly youth, who went to the city to try to help. Our Summer Project will fly in the face of their plans.

We’ll be mainly organizing the surviving black workers in the city to rebuild and fight for their needs by building Survivors Councils. Some already exist; we hope to help expand them to other neighborhoods and cities.

At a recent Survivor Council meeting in the Lower Ninth Ward, 40 residents met to continue their work, which includes prioritizing the clean-up to give preference to the elderly and single-parent families, as well as reclaiming a local school targeted for destruction. We will be working with hundreds of student volunteers, taking part in both reconstruction and door-to-door canvassing activities.

We believe that workers can and must grasp communist ideas in order for communism to win. This summer project can teach us some very valuable lessons in building a mass PLP, in bringing communist ideas to these victims of capitalism, that the profit system is the source of their exploitation.

We’ve raised Katrina front and center in CHALLENGE and in virtually all of our mass organizations, and encouraged numerous friends and comrades from a few cities to go to New Orleans; but now we’ll be making a Party-wide response there. We’ll enter this Summer Project with the approach of trying to learn from those who have preceded us while we struggle to win workers to PLP’s revolutionary communist politics.

We have long believed that black workers are the key force for communist revolution. We have much to learn and many experiences in fighting racism to help build the Party among black workers and youth. This will work towards transforming PLP and qualitatively strengthen the fight for communism.

Workers’ Rebellion Defies Mexican Cops’ Attacks

MEXICO CITY, May 4 — Yesterday, a second workers’ rebellion hit the administration of Vicente Fox in San Salvador Atenco, a settlement near Mexico City. The first uprising had fought the government’s attempt to displace workers with a new international airport in the area.

When workers recently tried to sell the flowers they grow in neighboring Texcoco, the mayor — a member of the Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) of Lopez Obrador — ordered the police to stop them from erecting stalls to sell their flowers. But yesterday the workers set up their stalls, defying the mayor. When the cops arrived to throw them out, the workers repelled the attack and surrounded the area with a defensive guard.

Meanwhile, neighbors organized to support them, closing down the highway passing through the settlement. When state police tried to clear the highway, workers fought them with exceptional bravery, given that the cops had thrown a tear gas grenade killing a 14-year-old boy. That only strengthened the people’s resolve.

As happened on April 21 at Sicarsa, in Lazaro Cardenas Michoacan, the confrontation was broadcast live on television. Many victims of police brutality sympathized with the rebels, but TV hacks, being "indignant" at the workers’ action, called for the "hard hand of the government." They offered their video footage to help the police identify rebels.

This fascist response came quickly. Since the state police could not oust the workers, at 7:00 this morning the federal government sent in the Federal Preventative Police to violently recapture the settlement, arresting hundreds, including university students and others who had arrived at night to support the workers.

Thousands are protesting in various cities, demanding the charges be dropped against the hundreds arrested and that they be freed immediately. Some are calling for President Fox, to be tried for crimes against the people.

We must organize ourselves against this capitalist system that can do nothing but oppress workers. Lenin wrote that the political characteristic of imperialism is the tendency to violence and reaction (what we today call fascism). While politicians spread the illusion that the world is "advancing" towards more democracy — some using as an example "leftist" governments in Latin America — the truth is that we’re facing increasing fascism. These repressions will occur more frequently, since workers are resisting oppression more and more, and the ruling class needs stricter control of the working class as inter-imperialist rivalry and war gets sharper.

A comrade from Mexico

CHALLENGE comment: Thank you for the letter. We would just like to add that the whole murderous capitalist system should be destroyed. We must organize the Progressive Labor Party to lead a real communist revolution that ends, once and for all, this capitalist hell. One concrete step toward that goal is massive distribution of this revolutionary communist newspaper.

LETTERS

'Lives not worth risking for a war that's not their's'

A friend who is a U.S. Army public affairs soldier attached to a Special Forces unit recently sent me a long letter from Iraq. Following are excerpts highlighting the brutality of the war and the increasing difficulty U.S. imperialism is facing in fielding an army.

"My time has been mostly preoccupied by making memorial videos. I’m up to number 10 now….The platoon is currently operating at 40% of its strength due to injuries and deaths….

"Soldiers are getting maimed and killed and many will tell you that they don’t feel their lives are worth risking for a war they feel is not theirs….

"The soldiers I memorialize…died when a bomb exploded under their vehicle, exploded the extra gas canisters on the back and engulfed the vehicle in flames, and thanks to the combat locks on the doors and their inability to move because of excessive body armor, barbequed them alive. Last time I checked, Dateline didn’t have a special report on them.

"The Army is so desperate for bodies right now that they deployed soldiers…who can’t run…. They waived weight restrictions, increased the age limit, and are talking about making basic training easier. They’ve kept soldiers here with combat injuries like shrapnel and gun shot wounds, sending them to physical therapy so they can be rehabilitated and then send them back out….

"Don’t believe everything the media tells you (in fact, ignore most of it)….

"Imperialism is ugly on the ground. Let’s crush it.

"GI Jane"

Nature of Workers’ Collective Self-Interest

In the March 29 issue, a letter from Red Rider (RR) says that selflessness is the foundation of communism and that there is too much emphasis in the paper on "narrow self-interest." The letter contains misconceptions about the role of selflessness and the nature of self-interest.

Communist selflessness requires cooperation when giving, and sharing when receiving. The letter focuses one-sidedly on giving and rejects receiving altogether. It also neglects the difference between collective and individual self-interest.

By eventually abolishing classes (after perhaps centuries), communist revolution will abolish class interests and absorb all human interests into the varying needs of individuals in varying circumstances. Then selflessness and self-interest will be merged into one, with no contradiction between them.

RR says, correctly, that "Communism is not about offering the workers a better deal than the capitalists," implying that CHALLENGE is guilty of doing so. But when every issue describes the millions of ways that capitalism robs the working class, it does not imply that communism "offers" the working class a "better deal." Rather it means that by seizing control of the world from the capitalists and liquidating the system that produces — and is run by — these murderous thieves, the working class will enable workers to serve each other, based on our collective needs.

RR says communism is "about sacrifice and commitment on behalf of others." True, in part. But this formulation poses a contradiction between the needs of self and the needs of others, which is a central characteristic of capitalism, not of communism. When a tsunami or earthquake or hurricane occurs, workers internationally struggle to aid each other. In so doing, workers are not merely "sacrificing" self for the needs of others, but rather, as CHALLENGE points out, are in fact repairing the damage to a part of our own international class.

Millions of workers in the U.S. and abroad asked how they could help Katrina’s victims. Thousands helped each other with transportation during the recent NYC transit strike, without blaming the strikers. Workers always come to each others’ aid under severe circumstances, even without PLP’s local presence. But PLP is necessary to explain how to achieve a communist world, where such mutual aid will be an every-day occurrence.

CHALLENGE is filled with calls for workers in, say, the U.S. to support workers in Tehran or India or Iraq or Afghanistan or Sudan. But CHALLENGE points out that this support can best be given, under present circumstances, by attacking the imperialist bosses where they are weak. In particular, it showed how the recent NYC transit strike weakened the bosses in their effort to control the Iraqi oil fields through war.

The merging of self-interest with selflessness was implicit in Marx’s call on white workers to fight black slavery, saying that workers in white skin will never be free so long as workers in black skin are enslaved. This merging is also implicit in the slogan, "An injury to one is an injury to all."

Finally, RR contradicts himself when he says, correctly, "Down with nationalism...of this kind!" and then says, referring to the genocidal wars in Iraq and Sudan, "for which our society has a certain collective responsibility due to all the indulgence and gluttony that we passively accept and participate in." But nowhere on earth, much less in the U.S., is the society "our society." It belongs to the capitalists. By claiming it as "ours," RR unwittingly accepts the responsibility for the genocide in Iraq and Sudan on behalf of the U.S. working class. This merging of working class and capitalists is the essence of nationalism — the very nationalism that he correctly condemns in the previous sentence.

Saguaro Rojo

Evangelicals Also Oppose Iraq War

My church’s reputation is conservative, evangelical ("soul-saving"), but at least a few members aren’t politically conservative. One told me he believed many members oppose the Iraq war.

To check this out, he and I asked around and found a few more who agreed to call for immediate U.S. pullout, and no attack on Iran. We sent letters to every parishioner asking them to join us in that call. In a few days 17 had signed on, including three pastors. Not bad for a small conservative church! Eleven have read CHALLENGE, and some see it frequently.

The 17 then sent letters to 150 other churches like ours in our area, stating our position and calling on them to join us. It noted that the national church body voted to label the war "unwise, illegal and immoral." So the call wasn’t to the bosses’ government or politicians but to other church people.

Some opposition surfaced. First, a member criticized our "failure" to call directly on the government. Then a couple of pro-war members pressured one pastor to leave the group. Another member wrote a letter praising that pastor. It called me (correctly) "...a Stalinist communist who believes that the entire electoral system in a capitalist society is a sick, cynical sham..."! The political attacks and red-baiting were clearly efforts to throw cold water on our effort.

One person in the group has suggested we hold a forum in the church to discuss the war, with veterans as speakers. Others agree. We may not succeed in this immediately, but the effort has been worth it. The work goes on.

Pennsylvania Red Churchgoer

Lemon Meringue Pie and Workers' Unity

Mostly we have to initiate revolutionary discussion. These days, though, opportunities are just as likely to come to us, as us to them. Because of my current job insecurity I have missed some of the recent major events, or had to play a subdued role in them. Nonetheless, political opinion is everywhere.

I walk into my grocery store and immediately a worker I know stops stocking the shelves to engage me in a passionate discussion on immigration. A sometime CHALLENGE reader, he’s angry. As a black man he feels the sudden media attention paid to Latino immigrants "threatens" his community, which is already under a vicious and sustained assault. We argue. Whose country is it? Ours or the richest 1%? Who jails us, imports the drugs, replaces welfare with workfare? Who benefits when one section of the working class fights another over who can wave the flag of imperialism? We end by keeping our friendship and our differences.

Hell, I think, I came in here to get a Lemon Meringue pie for tonight’s party and got a debate on working-class unity instead. Later, at the party among black professionals, the issue is raised again in a quieter tone. "Is it really a Civil Rights issue?" is the question that leads us off. Again a wide-ranging debate, although half-way through I begin to wonder, is there something about Lemon Meringue pie or is it that "The times they are a’changin’?"

Driving home I realize that in neither case did I have CHALLENGE in my hip pocket, so to speak. I don’t mean that literally. I mean that in neither case was the idea that I am actively building a revolutionary party — the PLP — part of my argument. Misjudging the period we’re entering means missing out on the opportunities that will present themselves.

It was a useful reflection that perhaps helped me make a somewhat better plan for my next dilemma. After a too-long stint of unemployment, I had found a temporary job only to find myself in a pre-strike situation. Fortunately, one of the union activists is a former PLP’er who still distributes CHALLENGE. We meet and begin to probe the deeper forces behind the potential strike. It becomes apparent that imperialist rivalries — especially between the U.S. versus China and Europe — are shaping the issues surfacing in the contract negotiations. Also, because the scope and magnitude of capitalism’s direct intervention in our school system becomes clearer, the question of developing fascism also emerges. Disagreements over tactics bubble up, but despite my clumsiness the activist agrees to start meeting with the PLP club again.

Another friend of mine who’s been reading CHALLENGE for some six years recently organized a mass action involving a student walkout and parent support against the draconian consequences confronting students who fail the Exit exam. The friend has many disagreements but is clear on U. S. imperialism’s war plans and on CHALLENGE’S position that U.S. rulers aim to recruit thousands of Latino youth into their Army. So he’s now taking five CHALLENGES an issue.

Events have opened a window of opportunity. Imperialism, war, fascism and the need for a revolutionary communist party are more easily discussed. It’s no exaggeration to say that today a million people would read CHALLENGE on a regular basis, if they only had the chance. We may not have the means to meet that potential, but we do have an opportunity to expand our influence if only, as in my case, modestly. The window is open now. It won’t stay open forever. Let's seize the moment.

A Comrade

GM Article Needs More Explanation

A recent CHALLENGE article titled "GM Restructuring Follows Führer's Footsteps" (4/12) states that GM's layoffs are "similar to the 'restructuring' done by Hitler and the Nazis." This statement is incorrect, and no connection is made between GM's crisis and Nazi Germany.

When the Nazis seized power in Germany, productive forces were destroyed because under capitalism the economy cannot keep up with the development of productive techniques. Unemployment was greatly reduced. Military production sped up and became the center of economic development; commercial production was reorganized for military use.

Was the point of the article that GM's attacks on workers demonstrate a period of rising fascism? Or, more specifically, that we can draw a parallel between these current attacks and part of Nazi economic policy?

It's important that we talk about fascism, but it's more important that we explain it! Most workers don't know what the term means, and we can't throw it around without backing it up with solid historical evidence. We must clearly define and back up our terms and points in all of our writing.

Red students Impressed with PLP Role at LA March

On May 1, I went with two co-workers to the rally site of the LA Immigrant Rights March. Although we were quite early hundreds were already there. So on May Day, we waited for the march that would eventually grow to half a million.

As the crowd grew much larger, I raised a sign that said (in Spanish) "The boss and the migra are the same bastards." Not only did my co-workers like it but many marchers also commented on it, asking to photograph us with the signs. One co-worker now displays an enlarged copy in his toolbox of him holding the sign with other marchers.

The street had filled up and we were shoulder to shoulder. I knew the Party had a contingent somewhere in our area but in this huge crowd I couldn't possibly find them. Then a tall black student came through the crowd passing out flyers. I took one look at the headline, "Fight anti-immigrant racism. Power to the workers on May Day," and I quickly said, "We're with you; where's our group?" He gestured behind him.

I told my co-workers and we worked our way back to where the Party was distributing flyers and making speeches about workers' power and the failure of capitalism to provide a decent life for our class. Someone handed us a big stack of leaflets. I couldn't pass them out quickly enough — people were actually lining up to get one, and a pink sheet with our chants in Spanish and English. I think my friends from work were surprised at how willingly people took the flyers.

The party gave short one-minute speeches on racism and the racist Minutemen, the McCain/Kennedy Bill and the war in the Middle East. Each one ended with a chant reflecting the ideas in the speech. It was a very effective combination. After listening to each speech, the crowd picked up the chants in spirited fashion. We had a good, strong contingent and made ourselves heard up and down Broadway.

The two young workers who came from my job were at almost every meeting we've had over the last six months to discuss our upcoming contract and the political issues of the current period. They've gotten CHALLENGE several times. Perhaps they're less cynical or demoralized than some of the older workers who sometimes talk a good game but don't show up for one reason or another.

At any rate, it's both the Party's advanced ideas and also the organization of our contingent that impressed these workers. It's not only what we in PLP say but what we do that counts - and also, how we do it.

A Worker Comrade

REDEYE ON THE NEWS

US has long used law to exploit Mexicans

A pattern of deliberately leaving the country’s "back door" open to Mexican workers, then moving to expel them and their families years later, has been a recurrent feature of immigrant policy since the 1890’s.

…As commercial agriculture created "factories in the field," undocumented entry became the norm. Growers pointed out that no willing field hand could afford the "head tax" that went with legal entry. And employers regularly cited informal entry as a feature that made Mexicans more desirable than cheap foreign laborers like Filipinos, because they were easier to deport. As one rancher quoted in Mr. Zolberg’s book remarked to a Mexican hand: "When we want you, we’ll call you; when we don’t — git."

The full, brutal weight of that formula hit in the Depression. Roundups of Mexican families in public places, summary deportations — and well-publicized threats of more to come — sent panic through Mexican-American communities in 1931. The tactic was called "scare-heading" by its architect, Charles P. Visel, the director of the Los Angeles Citizens Committee on the Coordination of Unemployment Relief. It worked. Even many legal immigrants were panicked into selling their property cheap and leaving "voluntarily."

"I have left the best of my life and strength here, sprinkling with the sweat of my brow the fields and factories of these gringos, who only know how to make one sweat and don’t even pay attention to one when they see one is old," said one worker….

Today, the nature of the deal can no longer be disguised, said Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco, co-director of Immigration Studies at New York University. "It’s a bad-faith pact," he said. "We can’t have it both ways — an economy that’s addicted to immigrant labor, but that’s not ready to pay the cost." (NYT, 5/21)

Immigrants pay plenty of taxes

…Americans say they are concerned that immigrants "overburden government services and programs."

….In the upcoming issue of the Harvard Latino Law Review, Francine Lipman, a professor at Chapman University’s law school in Orange, Calif., writes that the widespread belief that undocumented immigrants cost us more than they give us is "demonstrably false."

…There are 7 million undocumented workers….They cannot access or easily access many public services, yet in 2003 alone the labor of undocumented workers poured $7 billion in taxes into Social Security even though they cannot legally claim those benefits.

Often ignored by anti-immigration forces is that undocumented workers pay sales taxes and real estate taxes—directly if they are homeowners, indirectly if they are renters. (NYT news service)

Tax Cuts: $20 for you, $42,000 for rich

The tax cut bill that Senate and House leaders have generally agreed upon is expected to save Americans at the center of the income distribution an average of $20….Those making more than $1 million would save, on average, almost $42,000. (NYT, 5/5)

Muslims see US push for ‘democracy’ as a lie

In the western world, the view prevails that democracy is a better form of government than any other…But…..In the light of Gunatánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Falluja, the other horrors of the Iraq war, and the continuing revelations about so-called extraordinary rendition — a fancy phrase for kidnapping — the Muslim world may not be over-impressed with protestations about the rule of law. Muslims generally regard such ideas as self-serving hypocrisy. (GW, 5/4)

Free Labor market deepens child-labor trap

…In a report last week….

The ILO said hard labour was still a reality for one in seven children around the world aged five to 17….

A vast majority — 69% — of working children are found in agriculture, an area that the report’s authors said tended to be overlooked by campaigners. Trade unions in this sector are traditionally weak and…child labor on family farms was seen as "family solidarity".

The ILO stressed, however, that child labour paradoxically deepened the poverty trap in poor countries, with investment in education and health offering a better route to prosperity. Sending children to work was often essential to the survival of poor families but the resulting increase in the supply of workers tended to drive down wages, further convincing families that their children should work rather than study. (GW, 5/18)

Pfizer used African kids as guinea pigs

A panel of Nigerian medical experts has concluded the pharmaceuticals firm Pfizer violated international law during a 1996 epidemic by testing an unapproved drug on children with brain infections at a field hospital.

That finding is detailed in a lengthy Nigerian government report that has remained unreleased for five years, despite inquiries from the children’s lawyers and the media. The Washington Post recently obtained a copy….

An approval letter from a Nigerian ethics committee, which Pfizer used to justify its actions, had been concocted and backdated by its lead researcher in Kano, the report said. (GW, 5/8)

NY cops send spies to live among Muslims

A young police detective testified yesterday at the Herald Square bombing plot trial that he was recruited from the Police Academy 13 months after 9/11 to work deep undercover in the [N.Y.] Muslim community….

The Police Intelligence Division’s program to post detectives overseas has been widely publicized. But this detective’s testimony yesterday in federal court in Brooklyn provided the closest look yet at how the division is using undercover investigators to penetrate mosques, bookstores and other places where Muslims gather in the city.

His testimony confirmed what many Muslims have believed since the Sept.11 attacks: that law enforcement agencies have worked to infiltrate their community during terrorism investigations. It also revealed the extraordinary steps the department took to create a fictitious identity so a Muslim investigator could live for years in an insular neighborhood where people have become highly suspicious of the authorities. (NYT, 5/19)

Review of ‘Soldiers Speak Out!’

Trying to Corral A GI Movement

The "biggest weakness" of the documentary Sir, No Sir! according to CHALLENGE'S review (5/24), "is its failure to tie … the anti-war activities of those who were supposed to fight [the Vietnam War] to the current imperialist war in Iraq." Another documentary, Soldiers Speak Out! could have remedied this weakness as it features anti-war Iraq veterans. Unfortunately, it doesn't because it's fatally flawed.

Indeed, the word imperialism is never mentioned. To its credit, the movie does include a brief statement from a veteran about how the army uses racism to "dehumanize the enemy." Racism — never presented as a class question — is a key ruling-class weapon used to divide and control the working class, be it to wage imperialist wars or to split workers domestically. Smashing racism is in every worker's interest and can only be accomplished with communist revolution, since only that system abolishes profits and bosses, the source of racism. In this regard, "Soldiers" shares this flaw with "Sir, No Sir," although it contains more examples of anti-racist struggle.

"Soldiers" aims most of its firepower at stopping recruitment. It quotes soldiers bemoaning a "loss of self," how one is trained to follow "Pavlovian bells." One Iraqi veteran even asserts that "most soldiers" can't "think about the …justifications for a war" when they're in it. They can only think of survival, which sometimes leads to civilian deaths. Only when they come home can they think about such things. The implication is clear: stay away from the army.

How then can one explain the mass rebellion of active-duty troops depicted in Sir, No Sir? Two Vietnam veterans introduce the first GI newspaper mentioned in Sir, No Sir, — the "Last Harass." The documentary fails to note that a revolutionary communist PLP member organized this underground paper. Here's his rationale:

"We needed a paper that had more faith in the ability of the G.I. to understand the true nature of the war and the system that is responsible for it. It had to discuss the issues at hand and explain how those in power — the factory owners, bankers, landlords and capitalists in general — are responsible for the war and poverty at home."

This class view of soldiers stands in stark contrast to the one that says soldiers are, and will remain, helpless (or morally compromised) fools or cannon fodder. Soldiers can — and have historically — played a key role in revolution when organized under the leadership of a communist party.

Our Party has always had the outlook of reaching out to these working-class sons and daughters, joining the army to build for revolution. U.S. counter-intelligence officer Taylor spoke to our modest success during the Vietnam War period. "Other organizations were being overshadowed by . . . PLP in the 6th Army," he warned in the early 1970's. (House Internal Securities Committee, Vol. II)

At the end of Sir, No Sir, a number of veterans talk about how their experiences fighting the Army had led them to the option of "changing the world." Changing the world requires a communist revolution. All attempts to "progressively" reform this system inevitably leads back to imperialist war, racism and exploitation.

The ruling class is well aware of the history of GI rebellions. These two documentaries can be useful and we should arrange showings. But we should harbor no illusions that these movies would advance the cause of revolution. On the contrary, each in its own way wants to corral any soldiers' movement into dead-end reformist and/or pacifist politics. We must be prepared to answer any attempt to build a soldiers' movement that would only abet liberal-led imperialism.

Fighting Racism on Deployment to Iraq

Building a base to fight racism and overthrow capitalism takes patience and diligence. But after some years in the military, the work is starting to bear fruit. Recently I invited several soldiers to watch the PBS special on the "Scottsboro Boys." Two came, one African American and one Puerto Rican.

Neither had heard of this landmark case in the fight against racism, nor did it shock them since they knew the general history of U.S. racism. But what did surprise them was the role of the communist-led International Labor Defense in vehemently fighting for the release of the nine framed victims. The image of white anti-racists being beaten by NYC police officers in rallies for the Scottsboro Boys sparked conversations on the role of whites in an anti-racist movement and the history of communism in the U.S.

Afterwards my African American friend and I continued talking about the role of workers fighting racism in the military and eventually overthrowing capitalism. I shared with him the history of the 1905 Potemkin mutiny in Russia and gave him one of our readings on this. We hope to discuss it soon.

This exchange highlighted the importance of building strong on-the-job relationships. My ties to both these soldiers were strengthened during our deployment to Iraq when an equal opportunity complaint was filed against a racist who had harassed soldiers in the shop by displaying a noose, making a mockery of lynching. This was the culmination of many unpunished racist/sexist acts.

A full investigation validated our complaints. The perpetuator was stripped of his rank and confined to the base for thirty days.

The most important consequence from our standpoint was eliminating the defiant acts of racism/sexism in the shop (at least for a time) and demonstrating to other soldiers that struggle can produce results when workers unite and fight back! Of course, this didn’t change the military’s role in protecting the racist capitalist system, but our morale in the struggle against racism has certainly improved!

Our little group and a buddy from boot camp will be viewing the movie "Sir No Sir" soon. It documents the GI movement against the Vietnam War via sit-down strikes, work stoppages and the ultimate act of "fragging" (killing officers with fragmentation grenades). Our next goal is developing a Study Action Group and, hopefully, winning new comrades.

Red Soldier

Forward to communism

Overcoming Famine and Disease in the Soviet Union

Part 2

In her book "I Change Worlds," U.S. communist writer Anna Louise Strong writes about bringing supplies to famine areas in the Soviet Union in the 1920’s. Following the 1917 revolution and the 3-year wars of intervention by 14 capitalist countries to crush workers’ power, there were severe droughts in 1920 and 1921. Like everyone, Strong was exposed to typhus from lice. She spent four bed-ridden months, so weak she couldn’t wash her face.

Strong shared a cabin on the supply train with Sonia, an interpreter, who was devoting her month’s vacation to famine relief. "I thought in the past that there were impossible things," said Sonia. "For eight months I ran a typhus hospital where a thousand men lay on wooden floors that could not be disinfected. The men had been in dirt so long that we had to cut the clothes from them; they were rotten with filth that crumbled in your hands. The lice were imbedded in their flesh; you had to scrub hard or use a razor to get them off. We had no beds, no mattresses, no sheets, no blankets, no soap. The doctors and nurses came down with typhus regularly; there was no way to protect them.

"I thought it was impossible. But always something can be done. We sent word throughout the city asking every family to bring us one suit of underwear for the men who were left naked when we cut their clothing off....Communists, of course, were not permitted to refuse. They must give, even if they have no underwear left for themselves. We communists are making the revolution; we must do whatever is demanded."

She spoke of the revolution not as a past violent upheaval but as an ongoing process. "I learned that there is nothing impossible. There is always a way. This famine is nothing compared to the wars of intervention....Now that we’ve beaten the intervention, don’t think this famine can stop us."

This Sonia of the hard-won philosophy was a woman in her twenties. She said to Strong casually, "I should like a couple of babies more than anything, but we have plenty of children in Russia, and not many women who can work like I can."

In those initial five months, Strong never tasted fresh water or milk. After two months’ convalescence and work in Warsaw and England, she returned to Moscow, where she worked for the labor press. She shared two rooms with a comrade who gave her a bed of boards with a thin straw mattress and a writing table. She would rush to her office, and on coming home at midnight would turn on her desk lamp and work till three in the morning.

Strong "learned to go to bed with the door unlatched and never knew how many people would be occupying the rooms next morning. Meetings there lasted after the street cars stopped, so visitors simply slept on the floor and went directly back to their offices. Anyone who came ate whatever there was in the flat, and when there was nothing left we went hungry till the next day. They were all absorbed in keeping the country going."

But in Moscow, not all was selfless labor. Strong noted how stores with stolen goods were opening. The city was "becoming a regular…market-place, bargaining, cheating. There’s a horrible new-rich set growing, and opera audiences have changed from workers to petty traders showing off their women. It’s rawer by far than the capitalism of America."µ

(Next: rampant profiteering.)

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, May 24, 2006

Information: 24 May 2006 118 hits

RED FLAGS Fly On May Day
A RED MAY DAY IN LA
MILITANT YOUTH LEAD PLP MAY DAY MARCH
1. On the Road to May Day
2. Revolutionary Dinner
Workers Have One Flag: It Is Red
Bosses' `Solution' For Fight Over Oil:
More Imperialist War
PLP-Led Protest Shuts Down Racist Minutemen
PLP Champions Internationalism vs. Bosses' Flag-Waving
Some Anti-War Vets Breaking With Pacifism
El Salvador: May Day Marchers Defy Anti-Riot Cops
Mexico: `All Bosses and Politicians Have Blood on Their Hands'
France: Reformist Union Agenda Won't Cut It
Bringing Communist Thought to the Class Struggle
PLP's Politics Expose Rulers' Attack On Immigrants
Red May Day Spirit at Immigrant March
Auto Workers Must Refuse to Go Down With Sinking UAW
RACIST CARNAGE OF CAR WARS
1. NATIONALISM VS. INTERNATIONALISM
2. Red-led Autoworkers Broke U.S. Bosses' Laws
`It's Not Just Cell Phones, It's Fascism!'
Movie Review: `Sir! No Sir!'
MASS GI REBELLION IN VIETNAM WAR
Youth Struggle Against Smoking Pot
FORWARD TO COMMUNISM
Early Experiences of the Soviet Revolution
LETTERS
1. Medical Students, Hospital Workers Back Immigrants
2. Black-Latin Solidarity on May Day Bus
3. Honors Bolshevik Revolution
4. Vet Indicts U.S. Mass Murderers
5. `All the News That Fits, We Print'
6. Airport Workers Hold May Day Forum
RED EYE ON THE NEWS
1. Fear and anguish grow for the `near poor'
2. Thousands sleep on streets in Paris
3. Democracy + hi-tech jobs don't feed India
4. German general: Red ideas steeled Russians
5. Big money wants non-black New Orleans
6. Immigrants pay plenty of taxes

RED FLAGS Fly On May Day

NEW YORK CITY, April 29 -- Militantly marching through the streets of New York City, friends, family and members of the Progressive Labor Party brought a communist edge to the mass anti-war demonstration today. Revolutionary politics reached thousands through the sale of CHALLENGE, T-shirts and buttons proclaiming, "We have a world to win, and nothing to lose but our chains"; and, "Workers have no borders." PL's participation spread the message that on the eve of May Day, international worker's day, we must emphasize that the only solution to racism, sexism, fascism and imperialist war is an international revolutionary communist movement.

Around 500 workers, students and soldiers gathered in Brooklyn following the demonstration. It was to be the best annual May Day celebration yet! Many young comrades played leading roles in organizing, speaking and performing at this event. Though exhausted from marching, traveling from cities as far away as the Midwest and preparing food for the standing-room-only crowd, we were energized by the well-organized program. By putting communist politics into practice, the group collectively arranged tables, chairs, decorations, food and sound equipment.

The event opened with the crowd on its feet, fists in the air, singing the Internationale in English and Spanish. A single glance around the room depicted PL's dedication to building a mass communist party and promoting leadership among black and Latin youth.

A powerful "State of the World" speech by a young Latin woman laid out the main political events of the last year including the spread of imperialism in the Middle East, growing fascism in the U.S. through targeting immigrant workers, the election of reformist parties in South America and the racist neglect of victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Personal testimonies of these struggles were given by a super-exploited Latin day laborer; a young woman arrested for disrupting a Minutemen meeting; a young man's travels through Venezuela, Bolivia and Brazil, leading him to reject these nationalist, capitalist movements and instead join PLP; a Harlem church parishioner's story of organizing Katrina support; a riveting anti-racist talk by a hurricane survivor; and a community organizer calling for comrades to provide political leadership and support to the suffering workers in New Orleans.

There were new reports from communist organizers on building work in industry. Through stories of labor struggles in mass transit and auto assembly plants, two black workers brought to life the revolutionary potential of the industrial working class and why it is crucial to communist revolution. These reports marked an important qualitative advance in PL's work, after many long years of dedicated struggle in these industries.

An analysis of sexism under capitalism revealed it as another bosses' tool to divide the working class and described how PL'ers are combating it. This was followed by a moving story of a struggling working-class family who equally divide the labor in the home and on the job in order to survive. The diverse crowd was challenged to increase the fight against exploitation on the job and sexism in society in their daily lives.

A longtime unionist from Chicago related her experiences working with a reform group of "reform leaders" in her local. She explained the big picture of rejecting the accommodating reformists who are all too willing to sell out workers' struggles and the necessity of winning workers to PLP's communist understanding.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of this evening was the effort of black, Latin and white workers, young and old, men and women who worked to make our celebration a demonstration of communist unity in action.

Filled with inspirational stories of success and set-backs, the crowd was left with the powerful reminder that as members and friends of the Progressive Labor Party we have an important duty to continually fight for communist revolution, not reform. We must make communist politics primary every hour, every day, everywhere, with everyone. No doubt, struggle is hard work, yet every year on May Day we take the time to celebrate our successes and watch the Party grow. So start building for next May Day, today!

A RED MAY DAY IN LA

LOS ANGELES, April 29 -- "I've been to a lot of marches lately, but I really loved this one because it was against capitalism and for communism, and because there were so many African Americans and Asians marching with us," said a young Latina worker following the PLP May Day March downtown today.

A very militant group of youth marched against the racist bosses, their borders, their war and their terror. We proudly and boldly put forward the need for a mass communist revolution to end capitalism's racist exploitation and inevitable imperialist wars. We sold 1,000 CHALLENGES and distributed 4,000 leaflets to the many workers who lined up to support the march. Some of those watching later told friends how impressed they were by both its message and its multi-racial character.

Afterwards, we held a spirited dinner with a great skit by high school students about fighting racism against immigrants and how the bosses plan to use immigrant youth in expanded wars in the Mid-East. One speaker related the fight in his union for a resolution to make May Day a holiday celebrating international workers' day, and to support the fight against anti-immigrant racism. He warned about the danger of the liberal bosses building a patriotic pro-imperialist "reform" movement and of the opportunity for PLP to grow into a mass party of the working class.

A young woman described the great response she got when selling CHALLENGE and talking to garment workers about why PLP was marching independently as well as participating in the big Monday immigrant marches. She urged marchers to dedicate their lives to serving the working class by building PLP to spread revolutionary communist ideas and practice, to build workers' international unity and loyalty to the red flag, not the bosses' flags.

Three people at the dinner did just that, and others signed up for CHALLENGE subscriptions and to sell the paper to their friends. The speaker also invited everyone to join the Summer Project to learn from -- and bring the Party's ideas to -- industrial workers.

The following are excerpts from speeches at the May Day dinners:

An industrial worker recounted his experiences in fighting for his union to support immigrant workers and May Day. He received significant backing, especially from black workers who are regular CHALLENGE readers:

"What have I learned from all this struggle over the last three weeks, other than I better bring my own lunch to work since I haven't had time to buy it? Well, first, our job is not to be the most popular guy on the block, or in the factory. Our job is to fight like hell for the working class. That means fighting for the Party's line.

"Second, CHALLENGE networks count. They're no magic bullet, but it's from among these networks that we can build and expand our political base and the numbers in our Party.

"Third, when the chips are down the internal political struggle is primary. There are objective political limits on what we can do. But make no mistake about it; our communist politics are the only ideas that can serve the working class and we can move significant numbers of workers -- in this case key industrial workers -- inspired by that communist vision.

"We'll have to build on these small victories through many years of devastating imperialist wars, intensifying exploitation and racism. But never...forget, the political development of our class will eventually determine everything. Long live communist revolution!"

A young industrial worker explained that the U.S. imperialists face increasing competition with China and the other imperialists, that the war in Iraq has no end in sight, and that the future of the entire working class depends on winning industrial workers and soldiers to communism. He spoke of one dividing into two and the danger and opportunity present in the immigrant struggle: "Our role in these huge reform struggles is to strengthen the side of revolution and communism. This means, in the current immigration struggle, to fight against the bosses' nationalism used to divide our class. We must fight for the idea that the working class has no nation or border.

"Imagine," he said, "if black, white, Asian and Arab workers were marching in huge numbers together with Latino workers, imagine the power of the entire working class fighting for power -- not for an illusory reform that the bosses are pushing.

"There are only two sides in every struggle and our side must always be the side of revolution and communism. We have to enter the contradiction of reform struggles, unite with workers, and fight for communist ideas.... "Building a base for communist revolution isn't quick or easy. It requires patience and a long-term plan. We should aim to concentrate in every factory and barracks....The world we need for our families and our class won't arrive by itself. A communist society in which collectivity defeats individualism has to be fought for worker by worker. But this society has its roots in every one of us, and with the Progressive Labor Party it will become a reality."

This May Day clearly shows the development of young working-class communist leaders. They point the way forward to victory.

MILITANT YOUTH LEAD PLP MAY DAY MARCH

NEW YORK CITY, April 29 -- Amid a sea of red flags and communist banners, the Progressive Labor Party marched among over 300,000 anti-war protesters to celebrate the International Workers' Holiday -- May Day. Working-class youth led the militant May Day marchers, chanting down Broadway, "Soldiers turn your, guns around, shoot the profit system down"; and "The only solution is communist revolution!"

Other marchers and onlookers welcomed an openly communist "red" contingent of over 250 workers and youth under the banners "WE NEED COMMUNIST REVOLUTION NOT LIBERAL POLITICANS" and "WORKERS, STUDENTS, SOLDIERS UNITE TO SMASH IMPERIALIST WAR." We sold over 5,000 CHALLENGES and distributed over 4,000 leaflets.

Many new marchers and passers-by were ecstatic to seize the opportunity to condemn racist cops; all politicians for keeping our class on the reform treadmill; and all wars for being imperialistic and profit-driven.

While the U.S. ruling class is having a hard time meeting its military recruiting goals, the very people the bosses want to use as cannon fodder in their wars were leaders and becoming leaders in the fight to put the leeches in their grave.

On the Road to May Day

The two weeks prior to May Day coincided with spring break in city high schools and colleges, enabling us to organize daily events preparing various aspects of this year's march and dinner.

We had one study group about turning imperialist war into class warfare for communist revolution and how the road to communism is filled with destruction and triumph for our class. Another study group analyzed the anti-war movement and why joining PLP and fighting for communism is the only solution to ending wars and racism.

We're fighting for recruitment with a higher level of commitment and understanding the revolutionary process. Everyone at these meetings came to May Day and led various aspects. Some are now meeting with a Party club and organizing in their schools around the rise in fascist attacks on students (see page 7).

Revolutionary Dinner

Our dinner in Manhattan mirrored the communist future we're fighting for. It was led by two charismatic high school women comrades who kept the entire crowd involved and impressed, moving from speeches to a skit youth wrote that depicted the struggle to kick military recruiters off campus. Then we must win youth to join PLP and enter the military to organize soldiers to fight for communism.

We heard a rousing opening speech exposing U.S. capitalism and the fact that the Dream Act and the McCain-Kennedy or Sensenbrenner bills attacked ALL workers, especially immigrant workers. While attacks on the international working class grow more acute, we don't yield. Instead, we take increased pride as we honor the communist heroes who opened this era of working-class revolution while we continue to struggle against the revisionism (phony "leftists") that reversed the great victories of these past giants.

May Day 2006 contained the seeds of a new future, a communist future. We need many millions more to achieve this goal. The creativity, boldness, persistence and comradeship among working-class brothers and sisters displayed on this May Day, and in the organizing for it, made a lasting impression on many new and old friends. Our ideas resonate deep in the minds of thousands now and will in millions more we've yet to meet. Our potential remains earthshaking. Each May Day is a step in our march from the potential to the actual. We'll continue to build international working-class solidarity. Fight for communism! Power to the workers!

Workers Have One Flag: It Is Red

NEW YORK CITY, May 1 -- The anger of millions of immigrant workers against racism was misled on this May Day. The Democrats, union hacks and religious leaders are doing everything possible to ideologically disarm workers. In today's mass marches here and nationwide, many workers were carrying the imperialist flag while chanting "USA" and "Yes we can." The bosses' flag has never liberated any workers anywhere.

PLP marchers tried to counter that poison. We sold over 500 DESAFIOS/CHALLENGES and carried a bilingual banner reading, "Workers' Struggles have no Borders." Many workers loved it and read CHALLENGE on the spot. Our presence at most of the recent marches in the immigration rights movement showed that our Party is the light that shines for the working class to see through the rulers' lies.

Bosses' `Solution' For Fight Over Oil:
More Imperialist War

"Oil will become an even stronger magnet for conflict and threats of military action, than it already is....As yet, there is not a full appreciation...of the competition that is already occurring throughout the world....American foreign policy must redeploy diplomatic, military, scientific, and economic resources toward solving the energy problem." (Senator Richard Lugar at the Brookings Institution, March 13)

Skyrocketing gas prices bring a flurry of finger-pointing and proposed solutions. But liberal Republican Lugar, a top strategist for U.S. imperialism, cuts straight to the point. The intensifying rivalry among the world's imperialists over control of oil underlies the latest spike. Lugar's warning indicates the rulers will try to solve their energy crisis with wars far deadlier than the slaughter in Iraq.

U.S. policy-makers' long-term oil worries center on China. Ethanol and better fuel efficiency in the U.S. have no chance of offsetting its huge oil thirst. Last year, China alone accounted for 31% of global growth in oil demand. Lately, Chinese officials have been making oil and gas deals in dozens of countries, all at Exxon Mobil's and Chevron's expense. President Hu just spent three days chatting up royalty in Saudi Arabia, Exxon's number one source of crude. In a December 2005 speech to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Senator Joe Lieberman, an imperialist Democrat, echoes his colleague Lugar's bluntness: "China's drive to lock up energy supplies could put it on a collision course with the United States and other nations....Wars have been fought over natural resources."

The Senators' threats are not idle. The Telegraph (U.K.), commenting on Hu's Saudi trip reported: "The United States has begun a significant strengthening and revamp of its forces in case growing tensions -- fuelled by the struggle to secure oil supplies -- spill over into military confrontation. The radical, but little hyped, review of U.S. deployments in Asia is part of what Pentagon and White House officials have dubbed their `hedge' strategy towards China. The U.S. territory of Guam in the western Pacific is the hub for the new plan, where the Pentagon will spend $5 billion to upgrade facilities for attack submarines, ships and new long-range strategic bombers. U.S. Marine forces will be transferred there from Okinawa, in Japan, to put them out of immediate range of a Chinese attack.

"China has been increasing its defense spending by 10% a year for a decade, and American analysts believe its annual military budget could be at least twice the $35 billion Beijing admits to. Of particular concern to the U.S. is China's pursuit of a powerful `blue water' navy, based around a fleet of sophisticated submarines."

The theatre of potential military action stretches from the China Sea to the Persian Gulf to Central Asia, where the U.S. has already suffered a big setback. According to the CFR website, 4/5/06):

"[China and Russia] staged joint military exercises in 2005 for the first time, and are working together closely on Central Asia security issues.

"They're using the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to try to edge the United States out of Central Asia, both militarily and politically." In July, the SCO called on the U.S. to set a timeline for withdrawing from military bases in Central Asia. Soon after, Uzbekistan decided to evict the U.S. from its military base at Karshi-Khanabad.

U.S. military failure in Iraq is the biggest single cause of the current price hike. U.S. rulers had planned to make Iraq a "swing producer" of oil, one with enough surplus capacity to significantly affect oil prices. They predicted a possible output of 6 million barrels a day (mbd). But the Bush team botched the job by sending in a force too small to secure the oil infrastructure. Today Iraq pumps 1.6 mbd, less than half its pre-war peak of 3.5 mbd. This 4.4 mbd shortfall, equivalent to the combined output of Kuwait and Venezuela, drastically tightens demand. The U.S.'s troubles have emboldened Iran's ayatollahs, who now rattle the nuclear saber and threaten to block oil shipping lanes, thereby sending further tremors through oil futures markets.

Many loyal servants of the U.S. war machine, like the phalanx of retired generals who recently demanded Rumsfeld's head, urge that the U.S. regroup and build a massive international coalition, in order to invade and effectively occupy any of the Mideast's major oil producers. Gen. William Odom wrote (Foreign Policy, May-June 2006):

"Only with a rapid withdrawal from Iraq will Washington regain diplomatic and military mobility. Tied down like Gulliver in the sands of Mesopotamia, we simply cannot attract the diplomatic and military cooperation necessary to win the real battle."

Capitalists always try to make the working class pay for their problems, in this case, both at the pump and on the battlefield. But workers must not let the bosses have the last word. It is in the interests of the international working class to fight ALL the bosses, no matter what side they're on in this rulers' dogfight. Uniting the working class worldwide behind the communist ideas of Progressive Labor Party is the beginning of the long march to eradicate this hellish profit system. That's the only way the resources workers produce can be shared according to our class's overall needs. Building the PLP is the key to that goal.

PLP-Led Protest Shuts Down Racist Minutemen

CHICAGO, May 4 -- When a church in Logan Square, a neighborhood with a large Latino population, invited the Illinois Minuteman Project leader Rosanna Pulido to speak to the community, residents POURED out in force to let Pulido and church officials know that racist Minutemen are not welcome in their community. PLP-led stomping, clapping, and chants of "Hitler rose, Hitler fell! Racist Minutemen, go to hell!" lasted almost half an hour, forcing the church to cancel the forum before Pulido even made it to the mic! The resistance was so overwhelming that police had to escort everyone out of the building.

Earlier, PLP'ers had distributed thousands of flyers and CHALLENGES and made well-received speeches to crowds among the 750,000 people marching for immigrant rights downtown on May Day. Then one young comrade had spread the word that a church on the North Side had volunteered to be a soapbox for the Minutemen and that local Nazis had already promised their solidarity and vigilante security.

After the march, young PLP leaders planned how to shut down the event, to prevent Pulido from presenting her hate to local workers and students. Three days later, almost 40 PLP members and friends attended the event to end it quickly. The young comrades had planned to interrupt Pulido when she spoke. But a seasoned comrade guided them to attack the source of the entire racist event, the church that organized it.

When the preacher presented a hypocritical message, ordering the audience of almost 200 to respect the building they were in ("a house of God"), one indignant comrade yelled back, "How can you have Minutemen in here and say you're respecting God?"

Before the police had arrested our comrade, more people were on their feet to expose and denounce the Minutemen as racists, Nazis and domestic terrorists. As more joined in, the preacher's reprimands were drowned out.

Moments later, the people in the church were chanting and stomping, making so much noise that the event's organizers' calls for "respect" for racists could not be heard. This unified stance against the Minutemen made it impossible for the police to single out any more individuals for arrest or even continue the event, canceling it before Pulido could even speak!

After marching to the police station to protest the unfair arrest of our comrade, the protest leaders discussed the need for more young organizers to overcome hesitations and lead events that we've never before experienced. Young members must follow the example of the respected veteran comrades and renew our dedication to stopping racist groups granted de facto sanctions by the bosses to build fascism nation-wide. We learned that it's important to expose all aspects of racism, especially the more subtle ones, at these events. Clearly the Minutemen are racist, but we need to reveal how the bosses validate these vigilantes by giving them platforms from which to speak, while protecting their racism under the guise of "free speech."

Overall, this event taught lessons to many. Chicago workers came face to face with, and supported, the uncompromising stance PLP takes against all racism; young PLP organizers realized the importance of exposing racism inherent in the rulers providing a platform for Nazis and Minutemen; and the Minutemen learned that when they come to Chicago, their nationalist, divisive ideology won't be tolerated by PLP-led masses!

PLP Champions Internationalism vs. Bosses' Flag-Waving

LOS ANGELES, May 1 -- Today PLP members and friends participated in two gigantic marches totaling 700,000 people, led by the liberal rulers and built by their media. At these marches we distributed all of our remaining CHALLENGES (1,000) and another 5,000 PLP leaflets. Many people asked to help distribute literature, some giving us their names. Some young PL'ers and their friends led communist chants for hours.

Contingents of workers militantly chanted and rallied against the bosses and their anti-immigrant racism and imperialist wars. They exposed the U.S. rulers' flag -- which was very prevalent in the marches -- as the symbol of mass murder for the profits of the most deadly imperialists, telling a group of youth carrying it that the bosses soon wanted to put guns in their hands and send them to Iraq.

The U.S. flag was more prevalent than in the previous marches, a sign that the liberal rulers and their union and church leaders who built them pushed hard to have workers believe that carrying the bosses' flag was the way to have "better" immigration bills passed, bills which will force more immigrants into the military. On the other hand, workers literally lined up for CHALLENGE and PLP leaflets. Many workers took up chants against the war and for workers' internationalism. A multi-racial group of young PLP'ers and their friends enthusiastically shouted communist chants for several hours in the afternoon march, chants which were taken up by many workers.

Some Anti-War Vets Breaking With Pacifism

NEW YORK CITY, April 29 -- Today, Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), Gold Star Families for Peace, Military Families Speak Out and Veterans for Peace marched over 200 strong against the war in Iraq. Like most of the more than 300,000 anti-war marchers, they chanted "Peace! Now!" and most sincerely believe that citizens can convince elected officials to end that war. But some of the Iraq vets steered the politics towards the more violent side.

There's an army cadence that's part of training soldiers to kill that goes, "Down by the river, took a little walk. Ran into Alpha, had a little talk." From there Alpha -- or whoever the bosses' enemies are at the time -- get beat up and thrown into the river until they drown. Some Drill Sergeants do this cadence non-stop in basic training. One IVAW member got on the bullhorn and changed the chant from the bosses' enemy to the workers' enemy:

Down by the river
took a little walk
Ran into War Pigs
had a little talk
I kicked them, I punched them, I threw them in the river
Held them down
Bubbles all around
Laughed as they drowned
No more war pigs
Hanging around

Some of the pacifists in the march gasped and hesitated but most of the vets were really into it, so eventually they joined in too. Briefly the contingent even chanted "Democrats mean, we got to fight back!" It was a small step forward from some who pin their hopes for ending the war on the Democrats.

Months ago, some IVAW members argued that getting Congress to stop funding the war should be their main strategy. Most in the vets and family groups still believe in that strategy. But for a few Iraq vets, that's changing.

The day before the march, IVAW held a "Soldiers Speak-Out" event. Of five speakers, all mentioned profit, greed and oil as causes of the war. One said he was glad the march wasn't in Washington, D.C. because we need to take the movement to the streets, not to politicians, and added that we need to get rid of this system. Many applauded; two other speakers who shared similar views.

One older Korean War vet spoke from the audience and said to stop profit wars we must fight imperialism and capitalism. While he received loud applause, especially from the younger vets, many in the anti-war movement are far from this view. Pacifism and anybody-but-Bushism is still strong among the vets and military family groups. But PLP members are working to unite vets and military families with workers and students into an international revolutionary communist movement.

Red GI

El Salvador: May Day Marchers Defy Anti-Riot Cops

SAN SALVADOR, EL SALVADOR, May 1 -- More than 10,000 marched on May Day in this capital city, not only for their own demands but also to support immigrant workers in the U.S. Contingents of PLP'ers and friends participated at the starting points. Unionized workers, peasants, students and members of mass organizations marched, as well as representatives from other countries in solidarity with the struggle in El Salvador.

PLP youth distributed over 600 copies of DESAFIO and 5,000 PLP May Day flyers. PLP's banners read, "Long Live the International Working Class!"; "Communism is alive"; "You don't talk with the capitalists, you destroy them." Our banners displayed the international communist symbol, the hammer and sickle.

To build for our contingents we collectively visited workers, teachers, students, friends and DESAFIO readers in their homes, trying to raise their political consciousness and asking them to march with us. These efforts paid off as more people joined our contingents. Some comrades and friends had to leave their homes at 2:00 AM from distant towns and even the mountains to reach the march.

The marchers from outside the capital city had to overcome police check-points set up to try to intimidate people. But our friends and comrades, and our literature, made it to May Day and many marchers asked for extra copies to bring back to their jobs.

The Tony Saca government (the only one in Latin America which still has soldiers supporting the U.S. imperialist war in Iraq) sent anti-riot and regular cops to intimidate the marchers. They also issued threats through the mass media, but May Day prevailed.

At the march itself workers chanted with us: "Workers' Struggles Have No Borders"; "Communism is coming and nothing can stop it"; and "Workers who keep quiet will not be heard." It was indeed a great day for the fight for the dictatorship of the proletariat as the only way out of the hell the bosses' dictatorship is forcing workers to suffer worldwide.

Mexico: `All Bosses and Politicians Have Blood on Their Hands'

MEXICO CITY, May 1 -- PLP boldly brought our communist ideas to the 200,000 workers who participated in the May Day march here today. It was called by the National Front for Unity and Union Autonomy (FNUAS) and other organizations opposed to the official CTM (Mexican Labor Federation -- Confederation of Mexican Workers) and includes unions of electrical, social security (national health care system), telephone and public university workers, among others.

Our PLP group distributed 8,000 leaflets, inviting the workers to organize in our non-electoral workers' party instead of voting for any boss. We denounced the bosses' murders of steel workers and miners (see CHALLENGE, 5/10) in collaboration with all the rulers' parties. As the title of one of our leaflets proclaimed, they all have the blood of the workers on their hands.

We also distributed literature in a mobilization led by the Zapatistas at the U.S. embassy.

The Party's presence was modest but significant for the thousands of workers who received our ideas. While the capitalist politicians call on workers to elect their oppressors or "resist" capitalism without destroying it, our message was to organize in an international communist party to fight for and build a new communist society.

The demonstration itself emphasized support for the deposed corrupt leader of the Miners' Union, Napoleon Gomez Urrutia and promoted the election of Lopez Obrador, the PRD candidate for President of Mexico. These mobilizations were orchestrated by Francisco Hernandez Juarez, leader of the UNT and for 30 years of the telephone workers' union. He's been supported by fascist killers of workers like Luis Echeverria who has been directly responsible for the oppression, persecution and death of workers since the 1970's.

Last October, the leadership of the social security workers union led by Roberto Vega Galina (who switched to the PRD from the PRI) joined the bosses and corrupt leadership of the Social Security system to cut workers' pensions, opening the health care system to private investment while laying off thousands of workers.

These union leaders' supposed "fight" against the federal government, with their demand for union autonomy, is only a smokescreen to ally with the bosses -- represented by the PRD -- in the presidential election. In no way do these hacks represent workers' interests. We must not be fooled! For many years these blood-suckers have lived off the sweat and blood of the workers.

Unfortunately we underestimated the number of workers who would participate and ran out of leaflets. We also underestimated the number of youth and women workers from our base. Learning from this will help improve future actions. As one young comrade said, "Today we learned a great lesson. Dialectically we'll learn from our errors and next year we'll do much better!"

The Party continues alive and well and in struggle despite the bosses' attempts to stop us here. We've developed a more collective leadership. As one PL'er commented, the presence of these youth and women comrades assures the future of the Party.

France: Reformist Union Agenda Won't Cut It

PARIS, FRANCE, May 1st -- About 100,000 people marched in 110 May Day demonstrations across France. The turnout disappointed union leaders, who hoped to build on the momentum created by the eight-week struggle that put over 2.5 million in the streets against the anti-labor CPE law, which would have extended job insecurity among those under 26. The right-wing government was forced to abandon it.

But the lack of a revolutionary perspective meant that it was not so simple to win people to the next reform on the union agenda: opposition to the CNE decree which, since last August, has extended job insecurity among workers employed by companies with fewer than 20 employees. Some doubtless felt that the struggle is over because the CPE has been withdrawn, while others felt betrayed because union leaders didn't win the movement's other demands: abandoning the whole racist "law on equal opportunity" and the Interior Minister Sarkozy bill on limiting immigration.

If workers and students had been convinced of the need to build a movement based on fighting capitalism as the root cause of their problems, this year's May Day demonstrations might have been more successful. But don't count on the reformist union misleaders to win people to that revolutionary outlook. This year's demonstrations only equaled last year's, and were only half as big as 2004's demonstrations.

The only bright spot was the relatively large contingents marching to oppose Interior Minister Sarkozy's fascist bill on "selective immigration," which aims to have Parliament set an annual quota depending on the economy's employment requirements. It will also make it more difficult for the spouses of French citizens to obtain French citizenship, and harder for family members to join "legal" immigrants in France. Some of the repressive measures in the selective immigration bill come straight from an immigration report by Malek Boutih, the "Socialist" Party's national secretary.

On April 29, about 10,000 people marched in Paris against the anti-immigrant bill. The president of the Representative Council of Black Populations (CRAN) said, "When they talk to me about selective immigration, I can see very well who they want to choose and who they won't choose!" The vice-president of the League for the Rights of Man (the French ACLU) said the bill "presents immigrants as a dead weight, as intruders ... it is truly a xenophobic bill."

On April 21, Sarkozy said that, "If some people don't love France, they should feel free to leave," echoing the "Love it or leave it" slogan of the fascist National Front. The marchers responded with a banner saying, "I love France, give me a chance to live here!" This sort of nationalist, patriotic slogan is a dead end for all workers, both immigrant and native-born. It creates the illusion that workers and bosses have something in common -- and the bosses are only too happy to turn workers who "love their country" into cannon fodder. Similarly, the "Socialist" front-runner for the French presidential nomination, Segolene Royale, suggested during last Fall's rebellion in the housing projects that putting immigrant youth in the army would "teach them discipline"!

Bringing Communist Thought to the Class Struggle

NEW YORK CITY, April 29 -- Professors, high school students, teachers, and veterans celebrated May Day this year at a dinner in Red Hook. After spending the day distributing CHALLENGE at the anti-war march, out-of-town guests joined us for a program, food and music. The theme was "Liberating our minds and our class: bringing communist thought to the class struggle."

After a collective reading highlighting thoughts on dialectics, lessons learned through struggle and poems by Langston Hughes, participants shared anecdotes over dinner about events that politicized them and others they met in the class struggle.

These included an inspiring account of a young man who gave a transit worker CHALLENGE after the recent transit strike and then the next morning seeing it posted at his station, and then his wife seeing it that evening still posted with a different worker on duty. Another teacher said that when she was a student she was arrested at a PLP demonstration against anti-communists on her campus, freeing her of illusions about justice under the Constitution when experiencing the court system.

Over the last year there have been some small, but encouraging developments in our group. Our small club began as a group of friends having mainly theoretical discussions about communism and politics. But by virtue of our jobs and membership in different organizations, we've been directly involved in several significant struggles in the city.

Our meetings have focused on raising the Party's ideas in these struggles and bringing people we know at these places around to PLP. It's not been easy but at the anti-war march we were actively involved with several contingents and had some effect on the chants, while distributing quite a few CHALLENGES and PL leaflets.

PLP's Politics Expose Rulers' Attack On Immigrants

CALIFORNIA -- About 100 workers and students marched toward a May Day rally in the city's downtown, chanting "No Justice, No Peace, No racist police!" and, with fists in the air, "Este puño si se ve, Los obreros al poder!" (See this fist, Workers to power!) Cops on horseback and in full riot gear couldn't intimidate the worker-student contingent, who joined over 5,000 other workers and students, both immigrant and citizen, in celebrating May 1st and protesting racism and exploitation.

Earlier about 200 students, faculty and workers marched through their campus, distributing leaflets and making speeches about the history and importance of protesting on May Day. Workers and students spoke about anti-immigrant racism, about its connection to neoliberal policies in Latin America and the super-profits of U.S. imperialism, about the racist outsourcing and super-exploitation of workers on their very campus and about the need to build a multi-racial movement of workers, students and soldiers to fight capitalism and its imperialist wars.

One speaker said that while gutter racists like Lou Dobbs and the Minutemen call immigrant workers "criminals" and "illegals," the only real criminals are the bloodsucking bosses, who live off the sweat, blood and suffering of workers worldwide. Workers and students need to fight to make these criminals and their capitalist system illegal, for good!

At the downtown rally, U.S. flags and white shirts were everywhere. Union hacks passed out flags and liberal misleaders spoke against HR 4437 and about the "American dream" being the immigrant's dream. Pushing nationalism and liberal lies, they didn't mention how racist attacks on Latino and Arab immigrants hurt ALL workers, spreading the bosses' racism and dividing the working class at a time when workers from Delphi to Boeing are facing massive cutbacks in wages, benefits and jobs. The misleaders ignored the bosses' need for more cheap slave-labor in all industries in order to compete with rivals in China and Europe, nor did they utter a word about immigrant youths being used as cannon fodder for U.S. imperialism's profit wars in the Middle East. But we did!

Some students, realizing the contradiction between protesting racism and waving the U.S. flag, composed a chant on the spot: "Abajo con banderas, afuera con fronteras!" [Down with flags, out with borders!]. Some stressed the importance of not carrying the flag, how it was a symbol of U.S. imperialism and its racist super-exploitation of workers across the globe, including in Latin America.

One young woman, who was invited to speak on stage, challenged the bosses' hacks, telling protesters that patriotism and nationalism isn't the answer to racism and exploitation; instead, workers need to smash all borders and everything they represent.

Marching with workers, the group chanted, "La migra, los patrones, los mismos cabrones!" ("The immigrant service, the bosses, the same enemy") and "No mas sangre obrera, para guerras petroleras!" ("No more workers' blood for oil wars") while distributing leaflets linking racism, capitalist exploitation and U.S. imperialism's oil war in Iraq.

These actions didn't happen over night. They've developed out of a long year of sharp political struggle against outsourcing on campus. A group of the students who participated are long-time CHALLENGE readers and some get the paper to their friends. In the weeks leading up to May Day, many of these students participated in demonstrations and forums on campus, including a students-of-color conference. At these events, PLP's politics led the way in fighting the reformism and political misdirection being pushed by liberals and revisionists (fake leftists) alike.

At one conference workshop, these same students fought against the U.S. patriotism and Latino cultural nationalism being promoted within the mainstream pro-immigrant rights' movement. They advanced a consciousness of the bosses' attempts to manipulate the legitimate anger and claims of immigrant workers and youths. While most workshops were focused on HR4437 (the Sensenbrenner bill criminalizing immigrants), these students linked the growing rivalry between the U.S. and China to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to the liberals' plan (in the McCain-Kennedy bill) to implement a guest worker program and make military service the "path toward citizenship" for most immigrant youths. Most students at the conference were open to PLP's ideas.

Continuing to build networks of CHALLENGE readers is crucial to the success of future struggles on our campuses and in factories and barracks. We must continue to spread communist ideas at every opportunity. Workers and students are open to communist politics, but they won't get it anywhere else. Bringing these ideas to workers, students and soldiers is our most important job.

Red May Day Spirit at Immigrant March

SEATTLE, WA., May 1 -- Thirty thousand immigrant workers and their supporters marched here under the leadership of the Catholic Church and the "Change to Win" unions. Nonetheless, our Party's revolutionary communist message was widely received as we distributed every CHALLENGE (300) and Party leaflet (1,300) in the city before the march even started.

Having just returned from our Party's May Day events in Los Angeles, we were determined to bring that spirit to the march today. An older farm worker from east of the Mountains, who we didn't know, shouted "Desafio! Desafio!," pushing his way through the crowd when he spotted one of our sellers. The value of our politics precedes us. Both danger and opportunity abounds this May Day. (More on the effect on Boeing workers in following issues.)

Auto Workers Must Refuse to Go Down With Sinking UAW

During a recent talk to a leadership conference outside Detroit, Dick Shoemaker, the retiring UAW Vice-President for GM and Delphi said that the outlook for the union and U.S. auto bosses was "bleak at best." Due to furious international competition, he said the auto industry was "undergoing painful and wrenching change. There is a new norm. We will not return to the old norm." He added that the emergence of China and India was creating a "tsunami of competition," and "the decline of the U.S. auto industry mirrors the decline of America." He said these contradictions were "60 years in the making and can't be solved by collective bargaining."

At about the same time, UAW Vice-President for Organizing and Independent Parts Suppliers (IPS), Bob King told a conference sponsored by the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank that the union "made a conscious choice to put aside the adversarial approach. We believe adversarial relationships drive manufacturing jobs out of the country." (Detroit News, 4/20) Next month, King will become union VP for Ford and Visteon and will "put aside the adversarial approach" to lead the 2007 contract negotiations.

Shoemaker's right. The contradictions of capitalism and imperialist rivalry cannot be resolved at the bargaining table. Ultimately, they are resolved by imperialist war. The union leaders want to deliver us to the Democrats so they can lead us to bigger and deadlier wars. For the international working class, the only solution is communist revolution.

RACIST CARNAGE OF CAR WARS

This is the ideological run-up to the UAW Constitutional and Collective Bargaining Conventions to be held in mid-June. With more than a year to go on the GM and Ford contracts, the union has granted over $15 billion in wage and healthcare concessions for active and retired workers and OK'd more than two-dozen plant closings and the elimination of 60,000 jobs by 2008. Add Delphi and the other parts suppliers and the numbers spike even higher. The auto industry and the UAW are governed by the laws of capitalism and its relentless drive for maximum profits. To battle their competitors, all capitalists must try to increase profits by driving down costs. The successful ones reign; the unsuccessful ones are driven out.

More than 56,000 manufacturing jobs were lost last year, and more than three million since Bush took office. At the same time, the U.S. auto market sold almost 17 million vehicles in 2005. Despite a five-year streak of high sales, GM and Ford market share has dropped and UAW membership has sunk to one-third of its former peak. While GM and Ford close plants, Honda, Toyota and Mercedes are opening new non-union shops in the U.S. Closing plants won't increase sales, but GM and Ford need to cut their overcapacity to profit as smaller companies. In the U.S., Ford is running at 79% of capacity and Toyota is running at 111%. In 1950, the Japanese produced no cars. Today, Toyota is about to pass GM as the world's leading auto manufacturer.

Black workers and youth in cities like Detroit, Flint, Toledo and others have been devastated by the retreat of the U.S. auto bosses, leaving behind crumbling schools, few if any public services and even less hope for the future. Workers and youth in St. Louis, Atlanta, Minneapolis-St. Paul and more than a dozen other cities will join the list. More than 100,000 black workers were hired into the auto industry after the 1967 armed Detroit Rebellion against racism. But that reform has been all but wiped out by the layoffs of the past 20 years since these black workers were the "last hired" -- because of the companies' racist hiring practices -- and therefore the first to be let go. Still another example of how reforms always get reversed under capitalism when the bosses shift their crises onto workers' backs.

NATIONALISM VS. INTERNATIONALISM

At the end of his talk, Shoemaker said the union's job was "to build on the [workers'] anger and frustration and use it to serve America's needs, because as we serve America's needs, we serve our own." This is the nationalist, patriotic garbage that has led the UAW, and misled millions of workers, to where we are today. It is a clear path to war and cheap war production for the "arsenal of fascism." It is what led to the racist murder of Vincent Chin, a Chinese student in Detroit who was beaten to death outside a bar in the 1980's by two Chrysler workers who thought he was Japanese. Today, being Chinese will be reason enough for those who follow union leaders wrapped in the bosses' flag. It is the same "American Jobs for American Workers" nonsense that has made the UAW noticeably absent from the mass immigration marches. Long ago, the labor leaders hitched their wagon to the profit system and now must suffer the same fate of their billionaire masters.

But it doesn't have to be this way. PLP is fighting for the political leadership of the workers. We fight under the red flag of the international working class, under the banner, "Workers of the World, Unite!" We fight to overthrow U.S. imperialism, not serve its needs. Slowly but surely, the voice of revolutionary communism is re-emerging among auto workers. Some are reading and distributing CHALLENGE, marching with us against the Iraq war, participating on May Day, waging a political struggle in the shop and in the union, among friends and against enemies.

In the current crisis it may sound like a whisper, but should there be a Delphi strike, it will be louder. And by the 2007 contract talks at GM and Ford, we will have our say, if not our way. That emerging voice will rest on a foundation of CHALLENGE readers and distributors and layers of class struggle and personal ties. In previous crises we suffered serious setbacks. As this storm approaches we are set to grow.

Red-led Autoworkers Broke U.S. Bosses' Laws

Communists organized the UAW during the Great Depression of the 1930's in an atmosphere of class war, not a "cooperative, non-adversarial approach." They broke the bosses' laws, seized plants with sit-down strikes, held billions of dollars worth of machinery "hostage" and forced the Big Three exploiters to accept union recognition, the 8-hour day, overtime pay, and much more. From 1937 to 1941, the CIO organized 4,000,000 workers in the mass production industries.

But the bosses still held power. It took barely 10 years for the ruling class to turn things around. They launched the anti-communist Cold War at home and abroad, ousted the communists from leadership in the UAW and installed the anti-communist, pro-capitalist Reuther leadership in the UAW, and eventually in the entire CIO. The process has now reached the logical conclusion of the bosses' lieutenants in the UAW cutting the workers' throats in the name of "saving jobs."

Despite mass heroism and communist leadership, industrial workers were not won to communist revolution, to destroy the dictatorship of the bosses and establish the dictatorship of the working class. And as long as the bosses hold power, imperialist wars are inevitable and any reform is temporary. Reformism and not fighting for revolution eventually did in the old communist movement. Even red-led unions can't reform capitalism.

`It's Not Just Cell Phones, It's Fascism!'

BROOKLYN, NY, May 3 -- About 30 students from the Secondary Schools for Law, Journalism and Research marched downtown here to the Department of Education's district office to protest the harassment of scanning students and the enforcement of a city-wide cell phone ban. A few weeks earlier about 200 students had walked out of school for the same reasons.

We learned much from the earlier walkout and tried to improve or organization and role in this march. Party members and friends gave both tactical and political leadership to the march.

Several students had participated in PLP's May Day march, the May 1 immigration rallies and a few study groups. This won them to the importance of the action and to help other students make the connection between the NYPD taking away their cell phones, treating them like criminals in scanning them every morning, and linking this to anti-immigrant attacks and the war in Iraq.

The need to fight growing fascism every step of the way was in the forefront of these students' minds as they marched down Brooklyn's streets. This was evident in the change of the signs from those carried in the walkout ("We Want Our Cell Phones") to this latest march -- "It's Not Just Cell Phones, It's Fascism!"; and "We're Not Criminals, [Chancellor]Klein, [Mayor] Bloomberg and Bush Are!")

Our marchers joined with two other Brooklyn schools at a rally downtown where many onlookers cheered our chants of "Racism Means Fight Back" and "More Books Not More Cops." PL's influence in several mass organizations is steering the anger these students rightfully have about the cell phone issue to one opposing the whole capitalist system.

Movie Review: `Sir! No Sir!'
MASS GI REBELLION IN VIETNAM WAR

The new documentary "Sir! No Sir!" is a fascinating 84-minute film about the GI resistance and rebellion during the Vietnam War. The film has weaknesses, but many strengths as well. Soon it will be available on DVD; teachers can use it for discussions in their classrooms, and we can ask unions and community and anti-war groups to show it as well.

The film's best parts are the amazing interviews with the aging veterans who detail their anti-war activities, including demonstrations and rebellions inside military stockades. (They trashed the Presidio prison in San Francisco.) One vet, Dave Cline -- a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War -- describes how he was shot by a North Vietnamese soldier while simultaneously shooting back. Later he was dragged wounded from his foxhole and shown the Vietnamese soldier he had killed. He started thinking about the insanity of one working-class guy killing another, and said that his decades of anti-war work have been to honor the memory of that Vietnamese soldier.

The film contains footage on anti-war coffee houses, the 144 underground newspapers, racism and the resistance of black soldiers, the Winter Soldier hearings, participation in mass anti-war demonstrations and fragging. Each of these activities was met with fierce repression by the military brass.

Anti-war coffee houses were declared off limits to soldiers, local cops arrested and jailed organizers, and some coffee houses were shot at or trashed. Soldiers were court-martialed for distributing underground newspapers; black soldiers were targeted for arrest and beatings for organizing against the war. Yet nothing could stop the growth and increasing militancy of anti-war soldiers.

Even soldiers with desk jobs did their best to subvert the war effort -- those whose job it was to electronically eavesdrop on North Vietnamese radio conversations refused to supply information, knowing it was being used to target sites for aerial bombing.The film makes clear there were mass desertions -- the Army recorded over 503,000 -- and refusals by entire units to follow orders to fight. It also depicts fraggings -- the attempted killing of officers by throwing grenades into their quarters -- as a frequent occurrence. It reviews the famous court case of Billy Dean Smith, the black activist soldier falsely accused of fragging his commanding officer. His trial spotlighted the militant GI opposition to the war. Smith was acquitted but the pressure of the trial and his long solitary confinement took its toll; he ended up unemployed, homeless and eventually imprisoned.

Another fascinating segment shows anti-war soldiers and civilian activists organizing an "election" among sailors and marines on the USS Constellation, an aircraft carrier due to return to Vietnam, on whether or not it should stay in port. The servicemen and women and residents of the town voted 6 to 1 to keep the carrier at home. It became national news, leading a general to call a press conference to announce that the carrier would return to Vietnam regardless of the vote! [At one point 5 of 6 Navy carriers were docked in San Diego, having been sabotaged by rebellious sailors.]

GI testimony at the Winter Soldier hearings about the brutality of the U.S. military toward Vietnamese civilians is riveting. On a lighter side, the film shows the FTA ("Fuck the Army") tour headed by actors like Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland. It played to audiences of soldiers nationwide, an anti-war alternative to the pro-war USO-Bob Hope tour. The skits shown are politically pretty good. Fonda is interviewed today (in her mansion!) talking fondly about the tour. The right-wingers have never forgiven her for her anti-war activities and for going to North Vietnam and standing in solidarity with the "enemy." She deserves much correct criticism, but her anti-war efforts then were the best moments of her life. It's refreshing to hear her describing them enthusiastically and without any apology.

The film's biggest weakness is its failure to tie the Vietnam War and the anti-war activities of those who were supposed to fight it to the current imperialist war in Iraq. It refuses to analyze the roots of the Vietnam War and the wars that have followed involving either direct U.S. intervention or proxy wars (Angola, Central America), all of which have killed millions.

The film's unwillingness to name the capitalist system that causes workers in one country to kill or maim workers in other countries to boost corporate profits. This contributes to building a movement that opposes particular war policies but leaves the underlying causes of war untouched. This only guarantees more wars and more death and destruction. This narrow, liberal-inspired view is reflected in the director's use of the film to "get rid of the Bush crowd" rather than destroy imperialism which creates the wars.

At one point it shows soldiers throwing away their medals onto the steps of the Capitol building in Washington. Before heaving his own medal, one soldier announces to the crowd, "We don't want to fight a war, but if we have to fight one, it will be to take these steps!" Unfortunately the film doesn't follow up on this worthy sentiment.

Youth Struggle Against Smoking Pot

After a wonderful May Day celebration, some comrades and friends were hanging out at a comrade's house having a good time just talking when a friend pulled out a joint. He and the other non-PL'ers wanted to get high on the fire escape. We then had an intense collective struggle.

One comrade told them not to smoke pot around us because it posed a security risk. We pointed out that as revolutionaries, it's both pointless and detrimental to use drugs, that we'd rather get arrested for attacking Nazis than for smoking pot. Also, there are enough problems workers must deal with already every day because of capitalism; drugs harm our health and our ability to face other problems.

Although open to discussing these issues and agreeing that drugs are an escape mechanism, our friends were committed to smoking pot; we lost the struggle. While they were on the fire escape, we sharply criticized ourselves as a group. Despite our intense struggle with them, they still got high after our most important day of the year.

We decided that had we not been drinking, maybe the pot would never have emerged. Could we have done something to win them to not smoking that night? How do we wage a general struggle with our friends about these issues?

We debated the merits of social drinking or alcohol consumption: how is alcohol different from pot except that the latter is illegal? These are issues many PL members, young and old, must combat within ourselves and with our friends and must be taken seriously. Drugs and alcohol are weapons the ruling class uses to make the working masses docile or incapable of effectively fighting back. We have lost strong fighters to these things.

Although we did not resolve these questions, we determined that communist workers, like most workers, feel the same frustrations and anger caused primarily by capitalism; rage against this system resides in us as well as in non-communist workers.

Many workers use drugs or alcohol as a means to ignore or escape their troubles, but as communists we must rid ourselves of these ruling-class weapons and channel anger into productive struggle against capitalism. Fighting back is our outlet to release this rage and the way to actually confront our problems, not using controlled substances to ignore them. We suggest that comrades and friends discuss these questions in their clubs and study groups.

Red Students

FORWARD TO COMMUNISM
Early Experiences of the Soviet Revolution

Part 1

(There have been some criticisms of this column -- not dealing enough with the difficulties of achieving a communist society in the face of powerful violent opposition from the world's capitalists. With this issue we're changing the column's name from "Under Communism" to "Forward To Communism," to emphasize the the struggle to be made from capitalism to communism, in addition to the ultimate goals.)

In her 1935 autobiography, "I Change Worlds," the U.S. communist journalist Anna Louise Strong (photo above) described her experiences in the early USSR.

In the 1920's, many millions of Soviet workers had already been killed in World War I (1914-1918). Then, following the 1917 Bolshevik-led seizure of power by Soviet workers, 14 capitalist countries sent their armies to crush the revolution, resulting in the 1917-1920 civil war. Despite 4.5 million more deaths, the capitalists failed.

The political problems of building a socialist (not yet communist) society were compounded by two years of drought, 1920 and 1921; and the transport of food and people was ground to a halt by horrific winters.

When Strong arrived, she wrote, "there was no enthusiasm; that emotion was long since worn down into a grim war with ruin. In place of the united country of convinced socialists defying the world...I found grumbling, ill-fed folk..." But there were people here and there "who quietly, doggedly and even cheerfully disregarded their own lack...most of them, I began to see, were communists."

But many of the leading people were dead following the intense civil war and imperialist attacks. "It was not only goods of which the intervention robbed us. It robbed us of our comrades. Whenever we Bolsheviks planned the revolution we always thought that we should be there afterwards to run things. Now we know that most of us do not survive the revolution; the communists were first to be slaughtered on every front." Those remaining and the trained new forces "seemed drowned in the chaotic, disgruntled masses; but their common purpose kept them moving forward and enabled them to move those inert others forward [the "common purpose" being the vision of communism -- Ed.]. The class struggle, then, was not over under this workers' dictatorship; it was, if anything, more open and bitter."

Strong's first impressions come in the chapter, "My Utopia in Ruins." From the USSR "which I so eagerly entered, Polish peasants were fleeing, panic stricken, from pestilence and hunger. They said it was true that there were no more bosses or landlords; nobody ran things but workers. Yet the factories were broken down, the machines worn out; there was no food, no clothes, no oil, no raw materials. Their wages, they said, had been a pound of bread daily till the famine. The famine had stopped even the daily pound of bread, so they were fleeing...

"A barefoot boy collecting for famine relief came into our train at Minsk. With fewer and worse clothes than any American beggar, he held himself with dignity and presented a paper with the seal of the city showing that he was a member of the Young Communist League, entitled to collect for the Volga famine. It was clear that he did not consider himself in need; he was helping others. For the first time I knew, what the propaganda outside Soviet Russia obscured, that this hard-pressed country was collecting help from the poor to feed the starving."

(Future columns will illustrate Strong's early immersion in the struggle against the famine and disease and include her meeting with Stalin about gross mismanagement of the Moscow newspaper which she edited.)

LETTERS

Medical Students, Hospital Workers Back Immigrants

Who would think that a call, by a handful of hospital workers, for participants in the Chicago immigrant rights march would turn out dozens of medical students? Even though they've been told again and again they're a very elite group, they had their reasons for marching. Some may have had their own experiences with anti-immigrant racism. Others were angered by the Sensenbrenner Bill that would make it a crime to treat undocumented people.

For hours they chanted, "Workers Unite -- Healthcare is a human right!"; and "Papers are not needed -- Our patients will be treated!"

When we arrived at the park with those chants, in all those white coats and a big bilingual banner, the crowd cheered. On one side our banner read, "Health Workers and Students Say: Destroy All Borders!" On the other side, "Trabajadores y Estudiantes de Salud Dicen: Destruir Todas Fronteras!"

A step in the right direction for these students. Now we need to help them take the next step in their medical education -- help them understand why capitalism must be destroyed to make good health possible for the mass of humanity.

Red Doctor

Black-Latin Solidarity on May Day Bus

You wouldn't think that the bus ride -- 16 hours for the second straight night -- would be the best part of the May Day trip, but it was. After Sunday morning breakfast one bus captain asked for someone to explain the immigrants' right march scheduled in Chicago for the following day. Three young Latino marchers spoke, describing the racist bills in Congress and telling a little of their own family stories, full of hard times. The other marchers on the bus were mostly African American hospital and nursing home workers from two union locals. They listened quietly and seemed friendly enough, but I felt an underlying tension wasn't being addressed.

Then a woman sitting near me took the mic and told her story. "My mama and daddy were sharecroppers in Mississippi. When we moved to the West Side of Chicago, I was four years old. I had to share a mattress on the floor of my Auntie's apartment with my two sisters. My parents were working real hard so we could finally get our own place. Sometimes when I talk to my black friends they talk about `these people' coming up here, living like animals all cramped up in little apartments -- like we didn't go through the same damned thing! I don't get it. Aren't we really talking about the same thing? Aren't we all in this together?"

People clapped and cheered. That definitely made 32 hours on the bus worth every second. That woman needs to join our Party. We are definitely all in this together!

Chicago Comrade

Honors Bolshevik Revolution

I gave a talk on the Russian Revolution at a Socialist Party convention in Johnstown, Pa., attended by about 25 people, identifying myself as a member of the Progressive Labor Party, and explaining that it's a revolutionary communist organization.

I noted that the 1917 October Revolution was the first successful workers' revolution in history and a major historical event of the 20th century. Using information from the CHALLENGE article on the long road to communism, I described the obstacles the workers' state faced, but that despite this it was able to achieve major advances in economic development, in science, women's rights, and against racism. I pointed out that the success of the revolution gave hope to workers and oppressed people worldwide.

I made clear that the world's capitalists could not rest until the Soviet Union was destroyed and helped the Nazis try to do just that. But the Soviet workers courageously beat back the Nazi aggressors and eventually their Red Army crushed the invaders.

In the discussion period, one person asked what the Revolution meant for us today, since Russia was now capitalist. I replied that it proved the old ruling class would fight desperately to destroy a workers' state, noting that 14 countries invaded the USSR in an attempt to strangle it. This tells us today that a workers' revolution in the U.S. can never occur peacefully or through elections, which is what the Socialists believe.

This led to a discussion of Venezuela and Bolivia. Some sincerely believed that Chavez and Morales would bring change for the workers there. I responded by saying there would be no real change until the capitalists' property and factories were expropriated and their state destroyed, replaced by a real workers' state. But I stressed that internationalism had to replace nationalism in this effort, explaining that the Soviets had made a major error in embracing nationalism.

I said that Marx's slogan, "Workers of the World, Unite!" still rang true today. National boundaries, along with racism, had to be destroyed. U.S. bosses were pushing nationalism now, attempting to win the support of U.S. workers for the rulers' imperialist wars and for fascism.

Many in the audience were interested in these views. Afterwards, some approached me and asked for more information about PLP. I said the latest issue of CHALLENGE hadn't arrived yet but if they gave me their names and addresses, I'd send them copies. Four people did so. I gave them some PLP buttons I had brought with me.

The next day, at a May Day celebration, one Socialist Party member reported on its history and the rulers' attempt to hide it from U.S. workers. Another speaker described his first-hand experience at the killing of the Kent State students on May 4, 1970, protesting the U.S. invasion of Cambodia, also mentioning the murders at Jackson State in Mississippi.

After a report on the Socialists' plans to run people for various elective offices, I offered that elections in a capitalist society were a sham and that no matter how sincere an SP candidate might be about changing things for workers, there's no way the ruling class would allow fundamental change through peaceful elections that would threaten their rule. I declared that such illusions are dangerous when the capitalists' regime was moving towards fascism, while waging imperialist oil wars. I noted that while the recent struggle by workers and youth in France scared the bosses and forced them to back down somewhat, communist consciousness was needed to break workers and students away from the road of reformism and towards workers' revolution.

Red Coal

Vet Indicts U.S. Mass Murderers

On April 28, the Iraq Veterans against the War and some peace groups sponsored a soldiers' speak-out at New York's Community Church. As a Korean War vet, I asked to speak after the main presentation by the Iraq vets. They described how the horrors of war and occupation had affected their lives and changed their thinking about the war's justification. They blamed military-industrial profiteering from bullets, bombs, etc. for wars in general. They made three demands: immediate withdrawal, money for Iraqis to rebuild their country, and funding for veterans' rehabilitation.

Being the first from the audience to speak, I told of the 50,000 GI's and millions of Koreans killed in what was labeled a United Nations "peace action" at that time. I said what helped me overcome the horror I was part of was trying to make some sense of the war and how to stop it. Some years after the war I started to realize what we soldiers had risked our lives and died for. I noticed that many store products were manufactured in Korea. I declared that it was a misconception to believe that military-industrial war profiteering was the main cause of U.S.-led wars. I cited the book "Overthrow" by Kinzer (which I read about in CHALLLENGE, 5/10)). It describes 110 years of imperialist murder by the U.S., detailing how this country's rulers have forcibly overthrown many governments for profits from cheap labor and resources like oil. And all that had followed the U.S. government's genocide against Native Americans to steal their land, and the murder of millions of black people to force them into slavery.

I said their only "exit strategy" from Iraq will be to invade Iran, Korea, Venezuela and China if we allow this capitalist-imperialist murder to continue.

I praised the GI's in Vietnam who had turned their guns around rather than continue the slaughter, and the black and white sailors' rebellions which forced a number of Vietnam-bound aircraft carriers to return to U.S. ports. I concluded by stating that no matter how difficult or how long it takes we have to organize our brothers and sisters in the factories, schools and especially in the military to overthrow this murderous imperialist system.

Korea war vet

`All the News That Fits, We Print'

After returning from the huge anti-war march in NYC, I checked the New York Times website for their crowd estimates. Surprisingly, there was no mention of the march that had snarled traffic in lower Manhattan the previous day. But I had seen it! It had packed Broadway with marchers and banners for at least up to three miles with more waiting to march. I searched on "anti-war" and found the article -- under "Local News" for New York. The picture was shot from ground level, showing only the lead marchers. You could count a total of 18 people in that picture -- not the tens of thousands we saw looking down Broadway.

On May 1, I marched in the Immigrant Rights march in Chicago which was also huge. Again we were waiting for hours to feed into the main march, which stretched for up to three miles down Randolph Street, past the monument to the Haymarket martyrs, then to Grant Park. The next day's New York Times had a big photo of thousands marching through downtown Chicago on page 1, with the crowd estimate in the hundreds of thousands featured prominently.

Funny how two marches of hundreds of thousands can occur within 48 hours of each other and get reported so differently. This confirms CHALLENGE's estimate of the degree of ruling-class control of these movements. I would also conclude from the difference in spin that the rulers are still interested in building the immigrants' movement while their focus is on deflecting and co-opting the anti-war movement. Of course, if the immigrant rights movement takes on a more multi-racial and anti-capitalist tone, expect the pictures to disappear from the front page, if not altogether.

We all must learn to read between the lines in the capitalist press. Plus we must get our friends to see why they need CHALLENGE -- so they can decode the Times and NPR (National [Public] Propaganda Radio) from the workers' perspective.

Chicago Marcher

Airport Workers Hold May Day Forum

In the shadow of the fascist Homeland Security, airport workers staged a union forum an hour before work on "May Day and Immigrant Rights." It was a modest success attended by both citizen and immigrant workers from the U.S., Mexico, El Salvador and Ethiopia. CHALLENGE readers and distributors organized for the event by getting out fliers and talking to our co-workers.

The speaker gave a four-part presentation on the history of May Day, the importance of participating in this year's May 1 immigration rally, the Sensenbrenner bill that would make undocumented workers felons and those who help them criminals as well, and the short- and long-term solution to anti-immigrant racism. Some of the laws being proposed are historically similar to the fascist Nuremberg Laws of Nazi Germany which made Jewish workers "felons."

Short-term solutions include putting pressure on our union to demand an end to anti-immigrant racism. We drafted a resolution endorsing May Day and Immigrant's Rights to be presented to our local president. But mainly we waged the struggle in the union to enable us to expand the base of CHALLENGE and recruit more workers to PLP. Communist revolution is the only solution to racist terror.

The bosses tried to spy on our forum, but a young black worker saw him coming and quickly changed the subject of the conversation to protect everyone. This indicates the importance of having a base of friends who will politically support and protect the Party under all conditions.

We should have struggled harder to win more workers to the forum. We should learn a political lesson from Nazi Germany. All workers paid a heavy price for not stopping Hitler early on.

The workers who did attend understood that the new anti-immigrant laws are fascist and are an attack on the whole working class. But even more dangerous are the liberal politicians and union hacks who will be leading the May 1 demonstrations. They're hoping to mislead this movement into the voting booths, and immigrant youth into the army and low-wage factory jobs, all to provide cheap labor and cannon fodder for their growing wars.

Airport Red

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

Fear and anguish grow for the `near poor'

Americans on the lower rungs of the economic ladder have always been exposed to sudden ruin. But in recent years, with the soaring costs of housing and medical care and a decline in low-end wages and benefits, tens of millions are living on even shakier ground than before, according to studies of what some scholars call the "near poor." . . . .54 million were in households earning between the poverty line and double the poverty line.

"We don't track this group of people, and they are very vulnerable...."

...Statistics do not begin to convey their fears and anguish.

More people work in jobs without health coverage, including temporary or contract jobs that may offer no benefits or even access to unemployment insurance. Medicaid is offered to fewer adults. . . . (NYT, 5/8)

Thousands sleep on streets in Paris

Paris, May 3 -- The Arc de Triomphe, the towers of Notre Dame and, now, pup tents for the poor....

Since the frigid days of late December, Doctors of the World, a French organization that helps the homeless, has been distributing nylon tents to the growing number of people who sleep on the city's sidewalks and beneath its bridges....

There are thousands of people living on the streets of Paris, many of them newly arrived immigrants from European Union countries... (NYT, 5/4)

Democracy + hi-tech jobs don't feed India

...According to a report released by Unicef....more than one child in four in the developing world is undernourished....

In India...the share of children who are undernourished dropped by only six percentage points since 1990, leaving a staggering 47 percent of children under 5 underweight... (NYT, 5/3)

German general: Red ideas steeled Russians

"The Russian townsman," wrote the SS general Max Simon, "who is highly interested in technical matters, is just as well suited for the modern tank arm as the Russian peasant is for the infantry....It was amazing to see the primitive technical means with which the Russian crews kept their tanks ready for action and how they overcome all difficulties."

The tank men's skill was not just a matter of knowing where to put the wrench. The other quality that Max Simon observed among these sons of the factory was their determination. "An added factor," he wrote, "is that the Russian worker usually is a convinced communist, who, having enjoyed the blessings of `his' revolution for decades will fight fanatically as a class-conscious proletarian. Just as the Red infantryman is ready to die in his foxhole, the Soviet tank solider will die in his tank, firing at the enemy to the last, even if he is alone in or behind enemy lines." (Quoted From "Ivan's War," a recent anti-communist book!)

Big money wants non-black New Orleans

...The people of New Orleans, most of whom are black and many of whom are poor, want schools that will educate their children, jobs that will pay a living wage, and neighborhoods where capital investment matches the large pools of social capital created by their churches and close-knit communities.

Organised money has something else in mind: the destruction of many of those communities and permanent removal of those who lived in them, a city that follows the gentrification patterns of racial removal and class cleansing that have played out elsewhere in the US.

Only this time no one is watching....It's as though corpses have to be floating down the street before racism is once more worthy of note here....The organised people of New Orleans keep trying to move to higher ground: the organised money keeps trying to sell the land from under their feet. (GW, 5/4)

Immigrants pay plenty of taxes

...Americans say they are concerned that immigrants "overburden government services and programs."

....In the upcoming issue of the Harvard Latino Law Review, Francine Lipman, a professor at Chapman University's law school in Orange, Calif., writes that the widespread belief that undocumented immigrants cost use more than they give us is "demonstrably false."

...There are 7 million undocumented workers....They cannot access or easily access many public services, yet in 2003 alone the labor of undocumented workers poured $7 billion in taxes into Social Security even though they cannot legally claim those benefits.

Often ignored by anti-immigration forces is that undocumented workers pay sales taxes and real estate taxes--directly if they are homeowners, indirectly if they are renters. (NYT news service)

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, May 10, 2006

Information: 10 May 2006 121 hits

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Union Misleaders Split On How to Respond To May Day Resolution

Dialectics Show Garment Workers Essence of Liberals’ Attack on Immigrants

Seattle: 20K Workers and Students March Vs Anti-Immigrant Racism

Workers’ Struggles Have No Borders

Steel Strikers Seize Plant, Rout Mexico Cops Who Kill Two Workers
Bosses’ System Great for Talk -Show Traitors, Not for Immigrants
Retirees Debate Immigration Issue; Cite Class Basis for Attacks
Rutgers University Forum Exposes Homeland Security Police-State Action vs. Immigrants
California Teachers Condemn ‘Reform’ That Militarizes Immigrant Youth
Brooklyn High School Students’ Walkout Resists Racist ‘Security’ Rules
LA Health Workers Pro-Immigrant, vs. War

LETTERS

‘We’re Not Criminals, We’re Workers and We’re International!’

Students Walk Out; Racist Cops Riot; PL’s Ideas Take Hold

Red Flags Trump Nationalist Flags

Don’t Rely on Bosses’ Law to Save Workers

Need More Humor, Youth Stories in CHALLENGE

RESPONSE

Column Errs on Wages

CHALLENGE comment

Strike-Breaking Boss Takes Transit Workers for A Ride: But Not in His $260, 000 Ferrari

Red Eye On The News

High-Schoolers plan Bush war-crimes trial
Insurance profits come before health care
US pal is the real Mid-east nuclear rogue
110 years of imperialist murder by U.S.
Troops increasingly opposed Vietnam war

Movie Review: No Good Intentions Behind Imperialist War

Cooperation Comes From Our Struggles, Not Our Genes

Under communism: Will There Be Borders?

Advance the Revolutionary Communist Spirit of May Day

May 1st — May Day — was born in the heroic struggle for the 8-hour day when 350,000 Chicago workers went out on a general strike on May 1, 1886 and shut down the city. At the 1889 meeting of the Second International — a working-class organization patterned after the First International led by Karl Marx, founder of communism — the world’s workers decided to honor the Chicago strikers by mobilizing as "one army, with one flag." May Day had begun. Ever since, with communist leadership, it has symbolized workers’ demands and class interests, united in the fight against, capitalism.

But by the 1950’s, most "communist" parties had abandoned these principles. Union leaders — becoming lieutenants of the bosses — either renounced May Day or stripped it of its revolutionary character.

The Progressive Labor Party, formed in the 1960’s, picked up the red banners of May Day in 1971 in the U.S. and has organized May Day marches throughout the country every year for 35 years, to unite workers around eliminating wage-slavery, racism, sexism, nationalism, and imperialist war, and advancing internationalism, for workers’ power. PLP members and friends organize contingents in May Day marches in many other countries as well.

Capitalism is the source of racist exploitation and wars for profit. We can end this only by fighting to destroy the profit system with communist revolution. May Day represents this aim, marching with the red flag of the international working class.

This year union and "immigrant rights" mis-leaders and the Catholic Church have called for marches on May 1st for "immigration reform." They will be led by the flag of U.S. imperialism, that has slaughtered workers worldwide for 110 years (see Red Eye page 7) on behalf of the profits of U.S. bosses. These ruling-class agents seek to win immigrant workers and all workers to working, fighting, killing and dying for U.S. rulers in their widening wars for world domination against their imperialist challengers.

But we, the working class — workers, students and soldiers, immigrants and citizens the world over — have no stake in the imperialists’ genocidal wars or in their source: capitalist exploitation. We, and only we, who produce all value, have the power to change the world. Not by voting for capitalist politicians or supporting capitalist laws, union hacks’ promises or bosses’ flags, but by organizing workers in the factories and schools and soldiers in the military, by uniting Latino, black, Asian, Arab and white workers to fight for workers’ power, communism.

With communism, workers will fight and produce to meet the needs of our class, not for bosses’ profits. Unlike socialism (which maintained wages and reverted back to capitalism), communism will eliminate wages, bosses, borders and wars for profit. Our principle will be "from each according to commitment, to each according to need."

The bosses are planning wider wars to maintain world domination. We need to build a mass distribution of CHALLENGE newspaper and a mass PLP. The working class needs to organize to turn those wars into class war, to fight for communism. That is the true message for May Day, 2006.

Liberals’ Rumsfeld-Bashing Masks Their Wider War Plans

Many people who rightly hate Bush and his Iraq oil war support recent calls for the firing of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. Bush, Rumsfeld & Co. are mass murderers, who the working class would punish as war criminals if we held state power.

Uniting with ruling-class factions that want to can Rumsfeld is a serious mistake. The anti-Rumsfeld forces among the bosses and their military brass aren’t "lesser evils." Their goal isn’t peace but rather far wider, deadlier war than Bush, Rumsfeld, & Co. are capable of fighting. When the big bosses get into a tactical squabble with each other, we have nothing to gain by uniting with any of them.

The source of the current dissatisfaction with Rumsfeld and chorus of demands that he be axed come from retired Army and Marine generals like John Batiste, Gregory Newbold, Paul Eaton and Tony Zinni, each of whom has helped spill large quantities of working-class blood in various U.S. imperialist military adventures dating back to Vietnam. Their main political support comes from Eastern Establishment liberals, whose real gripes against the Bush administration concern its failures to mobilize the U.S. population and military for a home-front police state and a long-range future of widening imperialist wars.

Both the generals and the liberal media have made a big deal about the Bush-Rumsfeld team’s "incompetence" in Iraq. But this is just a cover for a much bigger, deadlier issue. Bush-Rumsfeld took office trumpeting a military strategy known as "effects-based operations," a half-baked theory according to which, "with the careful employment of military power, wars can be conducted more efficiently with fewer bombing sorties and fewer casualties." (Wall Street Journal, 4/17)

The promise of low casualties helped the Bush gang push the illusion that the human cost of the latest oil war, at least in U.S. lives, would be low. And a relatively small number of ground troops would cost less economically than the number originally planned for the second U.S. invasion of Iraq. This would allow the Bush gang both to start a war while continuing to give tax-break goodies to their pals.

But it’s not working, and that’s Bush-Rumsfeld’s main sin in the liberals’ eyes and the main reason for which their media have been demanding Rumsfeld’s head. Rumsfeld invaded Iraq with 150,000 troops after getting Bush to fire Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki — who had requested 350,000 — and Army Secretary Thomas White, who had backed Shinseki.

The U.S. occupation of Iraq is a fiasco. A stable pro-U.S. government is not in sight. Amid widening civil war, Exxon Mobil et al. can not contemplate investing billions in the Iraqi oil industry. The Council on Foreign Relations (the leading Eastern Establishment foreign policy think-tank) had predicted that it would take "many years before oil production…would come up to pre-war levels." (April 19 interview with Leslie Gelb, CFR President Emeritus) And this was based on deploying 350,000 U.S. troops. Therefore, in the liberals’ view, Bush-Rumsfeld have seriously jeopardized U.S. imperialism’s dream of using Iraqi oil to strengthen its leverage over Chinese, European and Russian competition. Finally, the Bush crew’s Iraq mess is playing directly into the hands of Iranian oil bosses.

From the standpoint of Rumsfeld’s liberal critics, Rumsfeld’s failure in Iraq is just the tip of the iceberg. At stake is "fundamental disagreement about how wars should be fought." The New York Times gave retired Major-General Eaton a forum to tongue-lash Rumsfeld for his "unrealistic confidence in technology to replace manpower." (as quoted in the WSJ, 4/17)

Workers and others, particularly those who voted for the liberal Democrats in 2004 and intend to keep voting for them in 2006, 2008 and beyond, must learn what this means. The liberals are not taking Bush and Rumsfeld to task for going to war but rather for going to war with a losing strategy. If the liberals had had their way, not only would 350,000 troops at a minimum be stationed in Iraq, but plans would also be in place for millions more to occupy the entire Persian Gulf. Ultimately, U.S. rulers will need to do this — and the bloodletting will not stop there, because the other imperialists will inevitably retaliate and a third world war will result.

This development is not imminent, but the long-range scenario can not be avoided, because imperialism always leads to war. The key issue for our class isn’t which side will win the current tactical row between Bush-Rumsfeld and the liberal bosses but rather how we can build our own forces in this protracted period of war and fascism.

On the surface, things may appear grim for us. But we have an enormous advantage, and as the situation sharpens, it will give us many opportunities. Rumsfeld’s belief in technology over manpower is fundamentally a recognition that the U.S. working class is not ready to fight for the bosses’ oil profits and world domination. The liberals think they can remedy this problem, but we are not so sure. The "Vietnam Syndrome," U.S. workers’ reluctance, bordering on militant hostility, to kill and die for the rulers, is far from dead. Restoring the draft will only aggravate their problem, but they will have to do this sooner or later. The liberals can and will murder many people, but inspiring tens of millions to fight against our class interests is another matter.

Our Party can turn the bosses’ strategic weakness on this front into a mighty political force for communist revolution. It will take time. There will be casualties and defeats, but our side will eventually triumph. Dispelling illusions about the liberals as "lesser-evil" alternatives to more obvious killers like Rumsfeld and Bush remains a key task at all stages of this process.

Union Hacks’ New Service:

Drafting Immigrant Workers and Youth

Liberal U.S. rulers, in ever-increasing need of fresh cannon fodder, are trying to steer swelling immigrant protests towards U.S. patriotism and military recruitment. That’s why liberals went ballistic when more Mexican than U.S. flags appeared during the first round of rallies. The New York Times (3/30) warned, "Latino advocates...would do well to...trade their ancestral flags for the Stars and Stripes." Organizers of subsequent events made sure that the red, white, and blue flew high.

As the mounting attacks on Rumsfeld [see front page ] indicate, U.S. rulers require hundreds of thousands more soldiers today and additional millions down the road. Current troop strength can not secure Iraq, let alone Iran, for Exxon Mobil. Pentagon long-range planners are "preparing for a possible military conflict with China," (Wall Street Journal, 4/20). Consequently, U.S. imperialists are pinning a big part of their recruitment hopes on immigrants. No wonder a Times editorial (4/12) said it "was enough to provoke tears...when the thousands on the [Washington] Mall recited the Pledge of Allegiance."

The Service Employees International Union, led by Andrew Stern, has played a leading role in organizing immigrant protests. As a trustee of the Aspen Institute think-tank, Stern helps formulate U.S. imperialist strategy alongside war criminals like Henry Kissinger, Robert McNamara and Madeleine Albright. Stern envisions unions functioning as draft boards funneling immigrants into the army. "Why not make a two-year commitment to national service one pathway to legalization?" he wrote in, "United We Serve." "Union leaders and employers together could identify eligible current and future workers for screening." This book, published in 2003 by the Brookings Institution, presented various liberals’, including Bill Clinton’s, approaches to mobilizing manpower for widening armed conflict.

Stern’s proposal meshes with the Dream Act, an immigration "reform" bill pending in Congress. It grants young immigrants legal residency in return for two years of military service. But the rulers’ troop shortage is so severe that they’re actually considering a program that makes enlistment a requirement for immigration. Speaking for the Council on Foreign Relation, U.S. imperialism’s top think-tank, Max Boot supports the Dream Act but "would go further by opening military service not only to immigrants already here but to those who would like to come here" (Los Angeles Times, 4/12). "It would make it easier for the U.S. armed forces to fill their ranks...if the recruiting pool were expanded from 295 million Americans to 6.5 billion earthlings," says Boot.

Pro-imperialist union, community and church leaders have hoodwinked immigrant and non-immigrant workers into endorsing the Dream Act and other exploitative "reforms" that go against their class interest. Many groups backing the demonstrations have, like Stern, direct links to the ruling class. The Center for Community Change and the National Immigration Law Center, for example, get funding from the Rockefeller Foundation. And the Catholic Church, which has been prominent at the rallies, now obeys U.S. imperialists more than it does the pro-European Vatican. A few years ago, bishops, like Los Angeles’ Cardinal Mahoney, serving anti-U.S. French and German capitalists, repeatedly decried the U.S. embargo, bombardment and invasion of Iraq. But now that abuse scandals have put the bulk of its wealth in the hands of U.S. courts, the church has resumed the "God and Country" patriotism it preached in World War II. Facing Supreme Court-backed judgments totaling $1 billion and the threat of criminal prosecution, Mahoney spouted the U.S. imperialist line to the National Catholic Reporter (4/14), "Carrying Mexican flags in a demonstration for immigration reform in the United States is stupid. Take out the Mexican flags and give everybody an American flag. That’s what this is about, making people citizens, for God’s sake." By "citizens," Mahoney also meant "soldiers." Read "J.P. Morgan Chase’s" for "God’s."

Risking deportation, jail and getting fired, millions of immigrants have shown great courage by demonstrating against blatant Homeland Security fascism. But the alternatives liberals offer are no better; they lead straight to the barracks, the battlefield and an early grave. Redressing the exploitation of immigrants ultimately requires a revolution, under the red flag of communism, that destroys the national borders capitalists put up to protect their profits by force.

Machinists’ May Day Resolution Builds Anti-Racist Internationalism

"This is big," warned a Machinist after hearing the shop steward report on the preceding night’s May Day debate at the union meeting. "You guys have things stirred up down here [on the shop floor], but the big boys [in the union] will side-step and keep a lid on it like they always do."

"Not after last night!" vowed the shop steward.

For the first time in anybody’s memory, issues of May Day, anti-immigrant racism, how racism hurts all workers, general strikes and the anti-worker role of the systems’ laws have taken center stage at two successive union meetings in this key aerospace local. It is been driven by an increasing widespread debate among the rank and file inside plant gates. The posting and distribution of 150 in-plant flyers and an equal number of CHALLENGES helped spread the word about an unprecedented union resolution to "support workers’ action on May Day," calling for "unity … [of] all working people." Veteran CHALLENGE sellers and readers struggled amongst themselves and with their co-workers to endorse the resolution, while some new Machinists distributed pro-worker and communist literature for their first time. The next step — in what many agree must be a long-term struggle — is for these rank-and-file leaders to become new CHALLENGE sellers, May Day marchers and Progressive Labor Party members.

Faced with this rank-and-file pressure, the union misleaders couldn’t just make this resolution — which condemned "anti-immigrant racism" and declared "an injury to one is an injury to all" — go away. After a fierce debate at the day-shift union meeting, the best they could do was get the motion tabled until the following swing-shift meeting.

That meeting was easier to control. Instead of a few hundred attendees, it only had scores, almost entirely paid union officials and appointed shop stewards. Even so, 44% endorsed the resolution. An equal number (mostly shop stewards) abstained, conflicted because they hadn’t participated in the preceding shop-floor discussions, which had occurred almost exclusively on day-shift locations where our base worked.

Internal Political Struggle Is Primary

For at least 50 years, the union leadership pushed narrow trade union, even xenophobic politics. This has saturated the minds of workers. However, for over a decade our CHALLENGE networks have answered with our communist-inspired anti-racist, international working-class politics. The huge pro-immigrant demonstrations recently, despite the "official" leadership’s rotten politics, gave us an opportunity to up the struggle for communist class consciousness, first by struggling with and then mobilizing our network sellers and readers.

Notably, black CHALLENGE readers stepped up among this mostly older white workforce, being among the first to sign on to the resolution. "We know what it’s like to be stuck in the low-wage jobs," said a couple of African-American machine operators, struggling with others to join in.

Throughout these sharp debates at the union hall and on the shop floor, new forces responded to our advanced Party line. "What I’m worried about," said a young Latino union member, who spoke at his first union meeting, "is that they’ll set up a path to legalization that legalizes exploitation."

"We are a union," he continued, in support of the resolution. "We’re about making sure people have jobs that don’t subject you to such blatant exploitation."

Revolution: The Only Way To End Exploitation, Racism, Imperialist War

The fact is that capitalism is based on exploitation — the more the better for the bosses. Trade unionism’s motto is to get a "fair share" for workers. Not very likely as the bosses are forced to pay for more — and more expensive — oil wars to defend their imperialist domination!

"After defending the empire, there’s nothing left for health care and pensions," said one machinist at lunch the next day. Usually he’d then go on to blame Bush. This time he concluded that, "You can change the president, but the system remains the same."

He is on to something: capitalism must go! Our victory in the last few weeks and the coming summer of struggle must be measured in winning workers to this revolutionary communist outlook. That is exactly what we will be fighting for at our communist May Day marches and dinners on April 29 and in our workplace contingents on May 1.

Union Misleaders Split On How to Respond To May Day Resolution

Part of the union staff, steeped in decades of xenophobic (fear of outsiders, ie. immigrants) politics, just wanted to crush our anti-racist, internationalist May Day resolution.

Others, seeing the weakness of the present-day labor movement, were embarrassed by this blatant anti-working class, racist stance. As a white woman shop steward said disgustedly after one meeting, "To tell the truth, I think it's racial. After all, we are talking of mostly Latino immigrants here." Of course, the "liberal" hacks were not embarrassed enough to stick their necks out in support of real anti-racist, international working-class solidarity.

Stung by the drastically falling percentage of unionization in basic manufacturing, these pro-boss, class-collaborationists reasoned serving the biggest imperialists — by endorsing the McCain-Kennedy path to legalization — was the way to go. They hoped to demonstrate they could deliver a more stable workforce of millions of low-wage immigrants for the weapons factories, while helping to recruit immigrants' sons and daughters as cannon folder for the bosses' imperialist wars. In this way, they hoped to insure their position as management's junior partners. Nonetheless, years of scapegoating immigrant and foreign workers undermined their ability to bring their base along.

Dialectics Show Garment Workers Essence of Liberals’ Attack on Immigrants

LOS ANGELES, April 24 — In preparation for the big pro-immigrant march here, a group of workers distributed general leaflets in the main garment district where thousands work in hundreds of sweatshops.

In my factory, I talked to many co-workers about the need to participate in the march. When I gave leaflets to my co-workers, one offered to help pass them out. He also put some in the bathrooms. The leaflets linked our exploitation to the war in Iraq.

At the break, three workers discussed the march, one giving his opinions based on the leaflet. He asked me if I had read the leaflet. "What it says is true," he continued, "this whole movement is just a trick by the politicians for their benefit."

"But we should participate," I interrupted, "not just to get legal status, but because the streets are ‘schools’ where workers can learn to fight in their own interests." As an example, I related the history of May Day.

Two days later, PLP distributed leaflets outside the factory. This communist leaflet was posted on the bathroom wall by a worker who understood its content and importance, substituting it for the workers’ committee leaflet which was also on the wall.

Thirty workers marched, leading to exchanges with various workers. With four of them, I’ve started discussing dialectical materialism — Marxist philosophy — after one had asked me if I thought a worldwide revolution was possible. I answered "yes." I described what workers in Russia and China had accomplished and asked if they had heard of dialectical materialism. One of the workers nodded, but didn’t remember what it was. I emphasized the need to study dialectics to understand how things change.

The appearance and essence of this immigrants’ rights movement is important for workers. "From far away the water looks blue, but when you get close, what’s its color?" I asked. When they replied that up close it was not blue, I said the same thing was happening with this movement — when examining it "up close," it is not in our interests. Being among these workers every day, I am having great experiences which bolster my confidence that we can make a revolution.

The day I gave them CHALLENGE, one of the four workers with whom I eat lunch started reading part of the editorial aloud, while workers at the nearby tables listened.

Discussions about the contradictions between rival imperialists are deepening. More workers are reading CHALLENGE regularly. I’m trying to win them to come to May Day.

Workers’ Struggles Have No Borders

Seattle: 20K Workers and Students March Vs Anti-Immigrant Racism

SEATTLE, WA., Apr. 10 —Angered by attacks on immigrants, 20,000 workers and students marched in downtown today. Like scores of other demonstrations nationwide, the numbers were bigger than expected. The politics were the same: welcoming immigrants to an 11-year "legalization" process and a patriotic, slave-labor cannon-fodder future for the bosses’ imperialist dreams. As if to emphasize the point, farm owners gave thousands the day off to demonstrate.

Nonetheless, many thought the "genie was let out of the bottle." Workers and students responded enthusiastically to the 900 PLP communist leaflets and more than 100 CHALLENGES sold and to our signs calling on the demonstrators to "Smash all Borders, Workers of the World Unite." and to "March on May Day."

The struggle now shifts to the worksites and classrooms where our political advances will determine whether the working class will eventually reject the dangerous leadership of the liberal bosses and their union and church allies and instead fight for multi-racial unity and workers’ power. (See above article on the struggle in a key aerospace union local.)

Steel Strikers Seize Plant, Rout Mexico Cops Who Kill Two Workers

LAZARO CARDENAS, MEXICO, April 21 — In a sight unseen in Mexico and many other countries for years, workers occupied the Sicartsa steel plant and repelled a combined attack by 800 federal and local cops attempting to break their three-week strike. The plant is owned by Villacero, the country’s biggest producer of steel bars and wire rod.

The cops killed two workers and injured and arrested many more but the steelworkers are still holding the plant. Some cops were also injured in the battle. The workers had struck and occupied the plant since April 2 to protest the federal government’s plan to impose a pro-company union leadership, using the excuse that the current leadership was corrupt.

Cops toting guns and carrying tear gas entered the rear of the plant at 7:00 AM, initially surprising the 500 workers who were expecting them at the front. But the workers regrouped and fought back, using heavy machinery against the attacking cops. They burned down the company’s administration building and destroyed 30 company vehicles. Two hours later, the workers using sticks, stones and steel rods routed the cops.

Other workers helped the strikers, including 1,000 wives and relatives who organized a march against the attack. Mittal Steel workers struck immediately and went to help their fellow workers repel the cops’ assault.

Michoacan governor Lazaro Cardenas Batel also ordered state cops to attack the workers. The governor is a member of the liberal Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) party, whose presidential candidate Lopez Obrador — touted as "a friend of the workers" and the answer to Vincente Fox, Mexico’s current right-wing president — is favored to become the country’s next President. The Sicartsa steelworkers have a long tradition of militancy. They’re trying to stop the bosses’ growing union-busting campaign. When the government privatized steel plants and coal and copper mines in the 1990s (aided by union hacks), the Sicartsa workforce sank from 8,000 to its present 4,000, while wages and working conditions plummeted — many of these workers ended up working for non-union contractors. The strikers are now demanding that all charges be dropped against the 60 facing jail for the fight against the cops. They are also demanding the resignation of Secretary of Labor Francisco Salazar, accusing him of trying to impose the new union hacks. They also blame him for the recent murder of dozens of miners at Conchos Pasta due to high methane gas levels (the miners are members of the same union).

Their fight-back is admirable, once again demonstrating that industrial workers play a key role in fighting the bosses’ attacks. But much more is needed. Workers like these and worldwide must turn their struggles into schools for communism. We must learn how to build the kind of communist leadership and movement needed to wipe out the bosses once and for all.

Bosses’ System Great for Talk -Show Traitors, Not for Immigrants

LOS ANGELES, April 24 — "Don’t hurt this great country that has given you everything," say the popular radio announcers "Cucuy" (Renan Coello) and "Piolin"(Eddie Soto) about the boycott organized for May 1. The biggest bosses are using them to impose their politics of patriotism, pacifism, and slave-labor poverty. They spread anti-communism, warning workers "not to pay attention to the communists," that they should "respect the bosses and not support the boycott."

Before the huge March 25 march against the racist law HR4437, they told workers to wear white shirts and carry U.S. flags. But these bosses’ agents are not alone. They’re joined by the union mis-leaders, "immigrants’ rights" groups and the Catholic Church hierarchy.

We workers have no reason to be grateful to the U.S. bosses and their government. Should we thank them for having tortured and murdered hundreds of thousands of workers in Central America in the last 30 years? For their support for, and training of, the death squads who forced tens of thousands to flee those countries, leaving families and friends behind? Thank them for the U.S.-supplied weapons used to slaughter those who fought the ruling classes in their countries of origin?

Thank them for imposing the policies of the IMF (International Monetary Fund) which, together with the Mexican banks, have starved to death thousands of Mexican workers and have forced millions to leave their families in search of a miserable, exploitative job?

Or how about thanking them for the thousands of immigrants who have died crossing the borders and thousands of women who’ve been abused during this journey? Or for the hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq? Not to mention the extermination of Native Americans and the enslavement of millions of black workers brought in chains from Africa, killing untold numbers on the way.

Be grateful for what? For poverty wages, police terror or the hated Migra?

The bosses have never given us anything. The few benefits some workers have gained are the fruit of the blood and struggle of millions of workers in the past. Like May Day, begun with the fight for the 8-hour day, these struggles were waged mainly by immigrant workers and communists at that time.

These announcers and the lieutenants of the liberal bosses have no shame when asking that we thank those who exploit us, and those who would use us as body bags in their plans for wider imperialist wars and more fascism. Our struggle must be to organize our class to build a communist revolution, where we will not thank the bosses, but instead we will bury them and destroy their class for all the crimes they have committed against the workers of the world.

Retirees Debate Immigration Issue; Cite Class Basis for Attacks

NEW YORK CITY, April 11 — The monthly meeting of about 30 retired city workers erupted into an emotional debate on immigrant rights. Our plan had been to discuss the State Taylor Law. However, the massive demonstration for immigrant rights changed our focus.

This group meets monthly at the offices of our old union local. The union provides an enjoyable lunch while we hear a guest speaker. Today it was the vice-president of grievances and legal services.

We’ve been discussing this fascist anti-worker law for several meetings since the December strike of NYC transit workers. Many view this law as part of the general attack on all workers. Several workers were interested in building a movement to end this oppressive law that outlaws public-worker strikes and mandates fines for both individual strikers and the union. (Currently, Roger Toussaint, transit union President, is serving ten days in jail for violating the Taylor Law. See page 7)

Prior discussions had featured workers’ actions to defeat this law, such as building strike solidarity or expanding future walkouts towards a general strike. Today’s meeting involved the law’s rules and interpretations the courts have used in applying the law. While useful, it lacked the passion of earlier discussions.

After the guest speaker left, the simple question of who attended yesterday’s rally opened the floodgates of ideological struggle. Rick said he had attended to honor his parents and grandparents who had emigrated from Eastern Europe seeking a better life. Sol countered that if his parents had not fled Europe they would have been killed by Hitler’s storm troopers, but he felt that immigration was a "complicated issue." He believed immigration laws must be obeyed. Lynn responded that immigrants are entering the U.S. because of conditions where they had lived. She said they had little choice.

Carol shot back that the U.S. must control its borders so terrorists will not attack us. Ron pointed out that the 9/11 hijackers had entered the U.S. "legally" and would not have been stopped by walls or increased immigration raids. He bitterly pointed out that his wife had been forced to leave this country and spend years waiting for documents that allowed her to resume her life with him. Maria said that immigrants must obey the rules. Manny stated that imperialism causes the conditions forcing working people to leave their home countries seeking a way to survive.

As chairperson, I spoke last, saying I thought the issue was not so complicated if viewed on a class basis. Internationally, workers are facing a race to the bottom in terms of wages, benefits and living standards. The same attacks facing U.S. workers are occurring worldwide, only worse in many places. I advocated standing with our class brothers and sisters.

I then related my vacation visit to southern Arizona. My wife and I were hiking in a mountainous region with a group of bird watchers, watching birds flying north to their summer feeding and breeding grounds. Our group encountered some empty water jugs and bags left by immigrants also heading north. Several hikers uttered anti-immigrant slurs. I responded by wondering why they were so happy seeing birds who had flown across the border while disparaging human beings who had done so for the same reason — survival. The racists among the hikers had been shamed into silence. My fellow retirees applauded my story.

Rutgers University Forum Exposes Homeland Security Police-State Action vs. Immigrants

NEWARK, NJ, April 11 — Amid nationwide mass demonstrations against racist attacks on immigrants, 250 law students, undergrads, immigrant workers and others packed a classroom at Rutgers Law School here to discuss the Sensenbrenner bill (HR 4437), the McCain-Kennedy proposed law and many other issues.

The speakers included a lawyer and a legal worker from a local immigrant advocacy center and an undergrad who suffered fascist treatment by Homeland Security agents and Middlesex County Correctional (MCC) guards. The undergrad, having lived in the U.S. since she was 6, was at an Immigration Office to adjust her status and get her green card when she was informed of an old deportation order she knew nothing about. She was immediately arrested, told she would be deported to Sierra Leone (she was born in Ghana), and taken to MCC, a county jail also being used as a facility for long-term detainees. There she was strip-searched and subjected to vicious sexual harassment. She was released after a week, but still faces further proceedings.

The speakers from the advocacy center opposed both HR 4437 and McCain-Kennedy. They agreed with one audience member who said McCain-Kennedy would set up immigrant youth for the recruit-starved military. However, the speakers advocated non-violent resistance to racism and fascism.

In contrast, one audience member described how anti-racists had disrupted a Minuteman organizing meeting in Bridgewater, N.J. last June. She passionately called for workers and students to fight back against the vile racism of the "Minute-Klan." She also urged participants to celebrate May Day by fighting for the unity of citizens and immigrants.

Workers from a local day-labor center also gave short talks, speaking eloquently in Spanish about the low wages and difficult working conditions on their jobs, and the hard times faced by many immigrants trying to enter the U.S. They said that the U.S. is "a good country," that they only want to work and support their families.

The genesis of borders is the capitalist nation-state. The big rulers, through their wars and imperialist domination, cross and sometimes redraw these artificial lines when it suits their profit purposes. While these bosses’ actions are deemed perfectly legal, workers crossing these same lines to prevent their families from starving are labeled "illegal aliens," and are viciously exploited. This, in a nutshell, is the source of capitalism’s "immigration problem."

Many at the forum did not oppose the idea of borders, nor did they see the current period as one of growing fascism. One participant did link the use of anti-immigrant terror to the super-exploitation of immigrant workers.

The upsurge in activity around these issues gives PLP increased opportunities to explain our politics to all our friends. One hour-long lunchtime discussion at work the day after the forum was a good start. We must show clearly the differences between the immigrant workers in these marches and the mis-leadership which wants to push them into the dead end of supporting liberal Democratic Party warmakers and their agents inside this movement. This will enable us to show that only a society without bosses, without borders, is good for all workers — communism.

California Teachers Condemn ‘Reform’ That Militarizes Immigrant Youth

CALIFORNIA — The California Teachers Association, the United Teachers of Los Angeles and the LA American Federation of Teachers Local 1021 have all recently passed resolutions opposing any immigration reform that hinders workers’ ability to organize or that pushes youth and workers into the military as a path to legalization and citizenship. PLP supports this fight to expose the liberal imperialists’ immigration "reform" while we simultaneously encourage soldiers to organize against imperialist war.

In an area meeting of a local teachers’ union, a resolution was put forward to support actions on May 1st and to recognize this day as the International Workers’ Day, one celebrated worldwide except in the U.S. Opposition arose with remarks like, "You people can’t bring this sort of thing to our union"; "We must stay away from the political"; and, "Even Cesar Chavez had problems with illegal scabs."

But there were also statements of support, like, "May 1st is celebrated around the world"; "The struggle against anti-immigrant racism affects our students as well as many of our parents"; and, "I support the resolution."

Someone explained that Cesar Chavez had failed to organize all workers, documented and undocumented alike. He recognized the bosses’ borders and patriotism, a losing strategy for the working class.

One person requested a secret ballot vote. The question was called and voting began first on whether it should be a secret ballot, producing only one favorable vote. Then the balloting on the resolution itself lost by only five votes, but a lot of people were glad it was raised.

This struggle gives us an opportunity to explain to teachers and students May Day’s revolutionary history and the reasons PLP revived it. It is part of the fight to build workers’ unity for revolution, to destroy the profit system and build a communist society where we share the fruits of our labor to meet the needs of the international working class.

Brooklyn High School Students’ Walkout Resists Racist ‘Security’ Rules

BROOKLYN, NY, April 22 — Chants of "What do we want? Cell Phones!" and "Racism means fight back" rang out through a neighborhood here when hundreds of high school students walked out of the Secondary School for Law, Journalism and Research last week, attacking the cell phone policy reinstated the day before. Within two days students wrote a call for a walkout, made signs, called the media and composed chants. Although there was much excitement and support for the action, some guidance counselors and teachers threatened students with revoking all their credits if they walked out. Cops arrested five students and harassed many more, attempting to scare students away, but their racist tactics failed.

Some teachers and students criticized the walkout, arguing that banning cell phones is no big deal. Others argued that students get as angry about the war, for the lack of textbooks or anti-immigrant attacks, as they were about the newly-enforced cell phone policy.

Although there’s some truth to these criticisms, actually those issues are not unrelated. Attacks on the working class in Iraq, on undocumented workers and on students are all necessary parts of living under a capitalist society. For U.S. rulers to retain their number one super-power status, they must carry out imperialist war abroad to secure oil and its trade routes and instill fear at home. They send youth to kill our working-class brothers and sisters overseas, do random searches on subways, detain Muslims in prisons for years without trial, and search students every morning before school, all in the name of security. The only security they’re worried about is that of their own profits and power.

These are the main points all parents, teachers and students need to learn in this struggle. Capitalism will always maintain repression. Any resistance to it is a great step forward. These students showed the administration and the NYPD that they will not bow down to cops’ racist terror.

We in PL will continue to expand this fight to other city high schools. We will organize and demand that the charges be dropped against the five arrested students. Most importantly we are organizing a contingent from the school to march on May Day and continue the long struggle to destroy capitalism.

LA Health Workers Pro-Immigrant, vs. War

LOS ANGELES, March 25 — Massive opposition to the Sensenbrenner Bill HR4437, united a group of health workers at L.A. County Clinic. People from different backgrounds wanted to participate in this huge march, but not everyone could, so they signed a letter of support and donated money for a banner that said, "Health Care Workers Pro-Immigrant and Against the War in Iraq." Patients, nurses, doctors and technicians marched, but whoever couldn’t go were represented by the group holding the banner.

LETTERS

‘We’re Not Criminals, We’re Workers and We’re International!’

The recent uproar over the racist proposed Congressional anti-immigrant legislation provides for the expansion of PLP’s base in the working class. On April 10 thousands of workers in our city joined those marching in protest elsewhere.

Early on, PL members helped organize the student-led university walkout and activities leading up to the city-wide march. Working closely with other campus organizations, PL’ers propelled working-class issues to the forefront. We pointed out that the "alternative" McCain-Kennedy Bill and Dream Act were just as much an attack on immigrant workers as the Sensenbrenner Bill.

These ideas filled our signs and speeches, making the walkout one of the most anti-racist events ever at the university.

While the student-led rallies were largely pro-working class, the LULAC-led rally heavily promoted the bosses’ nationalism. LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens) brought congressmen and other capitalist gangsters to rally support for the "alternative" bills and to encourage marchers to wave American flags.

Many workers, however, were not fooled by LULAC’s nationalism. One worker’s sign read, "We’re not criminals, We’re workers. And we’re international."

Despite LULAC, PL members along with other students, soldiers and workers continued to promote international working-class solidarity. While LULAC encouraged workers to chant "Si Se Puede" ("Yes we can") we helped lead more revolutionary chants — "Las luchas obreras no tienen fronteras!" ("Workers’ struggles have no borders!").

We had many good discussions with students, soldiers and workers from across the city. Some of the new folks received and helped distribute CHALLENGE. Many are now interested in doing more to fight for the working class.

The march showed both the ruling-class hopes to mobilize the working class behind a pro-war "reform" agenda, and their fear of mobilizing workers. In this case, the federal immigration court along the march route was closed, its doors bolted three hours before the march started, even though the LULAC leaders made no effort to target these centers of ruling-class oppression.

Meanwhile, workers’ and students’ response to PL’s ideas showed the possibilities for us if we advance our activities within this reform movement. PL must continue at the forefront of the fight against anti-immigrant racism, and to bring communist ideas to the heart of those struggles.

Southern Red

Students Walk Out; Racist Cops Riot; PL’s Ideas Take Hold

As CHALLENGE reported (4/26), numerous walkouts have occurred in high schools nationwide, protesting the current anti-immigration bill H.R. 4437. My school was no exception. The day the walkouts were scheduled, one of my students showed me a flier calling on the students to march through the building at 8:10 AM. I was unsure about the impact; it seemed somewhat unorganized. Was I surprised!

I announced the walkout in my first period class, explaining the two immigration bills (Sensenbrenner and McCain-Kennedy), and telling my students I would support them if they walked. Sure enough, at 8:10 the march passed my classroom and about half my students walked out. After marching through the school for about 20 minutes, they rallied outside in the "quad."

I spoke to the students who hadn’t left about anti-immigrant racism. The majority are black; many thought the struggle didn’t concern them, unfortunately a prevalent attitude. Some who had gone to the rally told me later that the black and Latino students were almost totally separated during the action and many black students didn’t really know what was happening. But in my classroom, we had a pretty good discussion about the source of racism and why people must unite to fight it. When I talked somewhat about class consciousness, a few of my students were very receptive.

That’s when things started to intensify in the "quad." My classroom windows face this area, so my class had a running commentary on events outside. As first period was ending, the principal was trying to convince students to return to class. The students refused. They wanted the administration to open the gate so they could march on the streets. (Some high schools actually marched all the way to city hall!) The principal said that would be very dangerous. She encouraged them to "write to their congressmen" instead.

Meanwhile, in the "quad" some Latino and black students were fighting. In about 10 seconds, 20 riot squad cops "miraculously" appeared, marching into the middle of the "quad" in full riot gear! Naturally, some students got scared, started running and were arrested.

Suddenly our school was labeled as having a "race riot" and was put on lock-down! This means the school is under police occupation and no one can leave their classroom for any reason. The rallying students were "escorted" back to their first periods watched by the LAPD. That day, the entire school spent more than five hours in their first period classrooms, without food, water or bathrooms. The police even refused to allow water to be distributed because the water bottles "could be used as weapons." Talk about fascism!

These attacks will happen increasingly as the ruling class moves for stronger control over the working class, in preparation for more imperialist wars and fascism. The huge marches recently are being dominated by nationalism and patriotism, but the bosses must resort to fascist measures to control these angry students. Simultaneously, this creates opportunities for PL’ers as it did for me at my school.

This event resulted in discussions about racism in all my classes. Three of my students have taken CHALLENGE and come to a study group. I’ve started a multi-racial unity club on campus with another teacher’s help. We all must take advantage of such opportunities as the class struggle intensifies. After seeing fascism’s effect on my students, I for one will work extra hard to get rid of this system — the sooner the better!

Red Teacher

Red Flags Trump Nationalist Flags

In my small city several meetings have planned for immigrants’ rights reform. Over 40 people attended the first one for the march on April 10. I received wide support saying the struggle should be multi-racial. Two others supported this and another said we shouldn’t bring Mexican flags. I said we shouldn’t bring any national flags.

The weekend before the march I invited some other PLP members to speak with my friends about current issues at a meeting at my house. I had made 25 small red flags and asked people if they’d be willing to carry one during the march and pass out extras. We discussed the liberals’ tactics of building U.S. patriotism and pushing youth into the military. We also discussed the significance of the red flag as the one representing the international working class. They all agreed to carry red flags.

The meeting was called for two hours, but one friend stayed much longer and then helped write a flier for distribution at the march. It exposed the open racists and the liberal rulers, attacked imperialist war and said our only flag should be the red flag. This friend and her husband were regular CHALLENGE readers before I lost contact for a while after switching jobs over a year ago. In the last few weeks I’ve started sending her the paper again. She eagerly came to my house for this meeting. She mentioned that at a recent gathering with her dance group everyone agreed not to bring any national flags to the march. She said they discussed the significance of national flags and all opposed the spread of nationalism and patriotism. No doubt she played an instrumental role in that decision.

At the march not one minute passed before people were approaching me to ask if I was handing out the red flags I carried. All the extras were given out. I had to send some people away empty-handed. Five others helped distribute 1,000 fliers. They went quickly in the crowd, estimated at about 10,000. I will be inviting all those who helped in this effort to PLP’s May Day.

While the liberal bosses are leading this movement, many in it can see that we workers don’t owe our allegiance to any bosses’ flag or any boss, but instead to the international working class and its fight for liberation and communism.

Young Red Mom

Don’t Rely on Bosses’ Law to Save Workers

On the March 29 CHALLENGE article about anti-Muslim racism, those racist Danish cartoons and their censorship: communists must ask themselves just who will be doing the censoring. Obviously, in this case, it’s the capitalist state, which has no intention of combating racism. I’m opposed to any capitalist censors or bans on anything, as more than likely it will be used eventually against the working class and its organizations. In reality, the only force that can battle this anti-Muslim racism is the working class.

Recently, Austria sentenced far-right British "historian" David Irving to three years in prison for claiming the Holocaust never happened. Should communists support the actions of the Austrian capitalist state? I don’t think so.

Firstly, these sorts of laws will be used against the working class and possibly anti-racists. For example, I attended a unity coalition meeting on the question of passing laws against hate groups. A list of such groups in Pennsylvania was passed around, containing the usual fascists — the Klan, the Aryan Nation, Church of Identity, etc. However, the Sharps — anti-racist skinheads — were also on the list.

The capitalist state has no interest in fighting fascism, as fascism is all about capitalism with its "democratic" mask removed. Fascism’s main target is the working class. Under a true workers’ state, I’d support laws against fascism, racism and other workers’ enemies. But it’s unwise to support the actions of the capitalist state to pass laws against and/or even censor fascist-type groups, as in the final analysis, this will all come back to haunt the working class.

Red Coal

Need More Humor, Youth Stories in CHALLENGE

(This letter was received by a comrade and is followed by his response.)

I really appreciate you keeping me up with CHALLENGE. I pass it to my friends to read also. We all feel your articles are compelling, thoroughly researched, well-documented and well-written. And we all agree with your premises. We feel, however, a little humor (Doonesbury-like or a timely political cartoon) could help lighten up the tone of the paper.

It’s time for communism to speak directly to and mobilize the young. With U.S. immigration issues affecting young Latinos and Mexicans, the French controversy over employer’s right to hire and fire the young and the young worldwide dying in global wars, youth are beginning to see the hypocrisy of power. They’re becoming aware, disenchanted and angry with the status quo and beginning to realize that leaders in ALL countries willingly sacrifice their young for short-term profit, power and political gain.

But the young must be spoken to in their own language; add a weekly column to CHALLENGE written by a young person showing youth perspectives. Discuss timely issues, the possibilities of the draft and how they affect youth.

Focus also on sexual politics, how women’s rights are being eroded, lost and/or women’s rights as victims right on down….job security, inequality in promotions, etc. A weekly column written from a woman activist’s view would be good.

State the facts; the facts are bad enough told straight. We believe without the rhetoric or the old party line they would be more powerful and appropriate today. The rhetoric leaves many with bad connotations of possible past communist transgressions. Whether the transgressions are true or not, this attitude is deeply entrenched capitalistic propaganda.

Lastly, we admire you all for your passion, compassion and untiring work for all of us. You are very admirable. I hope our suggestions and comments don’t offend or anger you. They came from our hearts. We, too, are ready for change.

Southern Friends

RESPONSE: Thanks for your very thoughtful and honest letter. It’s obvious all of you have been reading CHALLENGE closely, and that your letter represents that careful study. We definitely want to encourage this in our readership.

Although our Party is a very serious organization, and the paper’s tone reflects that seriousness, we agree with you about the value of humor. We do see humor, like all culture, as political. We try to convey humor through political cartoons, and occasionally in Red Eye on the News or in an article. However, we could always use more. We invite you and other readers to contribute to this process.

Hopefully, the last several issues of CHALLENGE, with articles on the mass demonstrations against anti-immigrant racism, and the mass uprising against the CPE labor law in France show how seriously we take issues that especially affect young people. After all, the future of our Party rests with the youth, particularly with black, Latin, Asian, immigrant and female young workers, soldiers and students. As we integrate more young people into the Party leadership, and into the production and distribution of CHALLENGE and other PLP literature, we expect to have more of the kinds of articles you mention. Meanwhile, our paper needs to address the older generations, many of whom still contribute valuable knowledge and experience to the revolutionary process, including young people’s political development.

You’re also right requesting more articles on the special oppression of women workers, and about sexist ideology and practices. However, as stated in the review of "North Country" (4/26), unlike feminists we believe male workers should unite with female workers to fight this oppression and sexism, just as white, black and Latino workers need to unite to fight racism. Therefore, we wouldn’t run a "women activist’s" column or a "black activist’s" column; rather we’d run more articles about workers, men and women, black, Latino and white, fighting for their common class interests against sexism and racism.

Lastly, there are times when our rhetoric is inappropriate to a particular article. However, the reason our Party’s line comes across so strongly in CHALLENGE is because we’re appealing to the most advanced and militant sectors of society. Some may be "turned off" (for now) because of the sharpness of our attacks on all aspects of capitalism. But we believe in the long run many more people will eventually see the truth of our views, especially as fascism and war intensify. We believe that only a mass party imbued with PLP’s politics, and steeled in class struggle against the enemy will be capable of the very difficult task of seizing power away from the bosses and beginning the revolutionary communist transformation of society. Our paper’s tone reflects the necessity for, and the urgency of, the actions that can and will lead to those changes.

Column Errs on Wages

Several points in the "Under Communism" column (4/26) on communism and wages are either wrong or at least unclear. It says that "Marx discovered one type of transaction in which value was not exchanged equally, namely wages in exchange for labor power." Marx’s claim was just the opposite of this, that the worker may well receive the value of his labor power (that is, the cost of minimally maintaining himself). But the worker won’t get the rest of the value he or she produces. The column seems to aim at the unfairness of the wage bargain. Marx’s point (in "Wages, Price and Profit," for example) is that all wages enrich the boss and oppress workers. He says the only fair wage is no wage, that is, elimination of the wage system.

A second point about what communism means is also incorrect. It says:

"[Workers’] ‘payment’ over the long term would be in the form of the labor each family contributed to the collective good, whether it is growing food, manufacturing, means of transportation, clothing, houses, etc, or providing some services such as health care, schooling, parks, etc."

This suggestion, that people must pay with their labor, is at least misleading. People who are very old or in poor health don’t have to "pay," and people who can do a lot will be expected to do it, even if they don’t need to draw very much from the common supply. Paying through labor, even if you put it in quotation marks, is a concept left over from the wage system; it isn’t real distribution according to need. It downplays the need for political struggle for greater commitment of those who are able to produce for the good of the whole working class. Under communism, the incentives to work will be mainly political, and the massive, collective struggle to get that commitment will be an important part of the struggle to win and build communism.

A Comrade

CHALLENGE comment: The reader is absolutely correct on both points. The column’s writer meant to say, "Marx discovered one type of transaction in which value was not exchanged equally, namely in exchange for labor," not labor power, as the rest of the article makes clear.

Strike-Breaking Boss Takes Transit Workers for A Ride: But Not in His $260, 000 Ferrari

NEW YORK CITY, April 24 — A judge has used the bosses’ notorious strike-breaking Taylor Law to send Roger Toussaint, president of the Transport Workers Union Local 100, to jail for ten days after the militant rank and file forced a strike, breaking that law back in December. Toussaint’s been jailed despite the fact that he betrayed the strike, helping the bosses end it with a sellout contract. Obviously this wasn’t enough for the rulers. But it hasn’t stopped his "counterpart," Peter Kalikow, Chairman of the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), from adding to his stable of dozens of Ferraris by purchasing another one — a 612 Scaglietti, 540 horsepower, with a V-12 engine for at least $260,000.

Kalikow is not quite ready to join the millions of New Yorkers riding the crowded subways and buses nor the thousands of transit workers who spend most of their working lives underground running the trains.

Kalikow is insisting that the unresolved transit contract go to arbitration to try to screw the workers even more. But meanwhile he ordered the car’s body and interior of this latest Ferrari changed to his specifications, raising the price to close to a third of a million bucks. Kalikow’s hard line against transit workers contrasts sharply with his housing dozens of Ferraris in a secret climate-controlled underground garage in a building he owns near MTA headquarters.

These bosses make Queen Marie Antoinette ("let ’em eat cake") look like a do-gooder. But Kalikow and the system he represents will eventually also get their guillotine.

Red Eye On The News

High-Schoolers plan Bush war-crimes trial

A few weeks ago, when a class of seniors at Parsippany High School in New Jersey prepared for a mock trial to assess whether Bush has committed war crimes, a media tempest ensued….In Tennessee, the Chattanooga Times Free Press thundered in an editorial: "That some American ‘educators’ would have students ‘try’ our American president for ‘war crimes’ during time of war tells us that our problems are not only with terrorists abroad."….

During the 1980s, Robert Parry covered U.S. foreign policy for the Associated Press and Newsweek…. "In a world where might did not make right," Parry wrote in a recent piece, "George W. Bush, Tony Blair and their key enablers would be in shackles before a war crimes tribunal at the Hague, rather than sitting in the White House, 10 Downing Street or some other comfortable environs in Washington and London."

Over the top? I don’t think so… (Norman Solomon, Creators Syndicate, 4/2)

Insurance profits come before health care

There is almost no chance of universal coverage happening anytime in the foreseeable future.

Health insurers made $100 billion in profits last year, and industries of that size are just not legislated out of business… (NYT, 4/2)

US pal is the real Mid-east nuclear rogue

…Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons is an alarming prospect, but very little attention is paid to the most obvious, immediate reason why: that there is already a Middle Eastern nuclear power, Israel, insistent on preserving its monopoly. So the crisis has been foreseeable for decades.…

…In nuclear terms in the Middle East, Israel is the original sinner. Non-proliferation must be universal: if, in any zone of potential conflict, one party goes nuclear, its adversaries can’t be expected not to….

Moshe Sneh, a leading Israeli strategist,…said: "I don’t want the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations to be held under the shadow of an Iranian nuclear bomb." As if Arabs haven’t had to negotiate under the shadow of an Israeli bomb these past four decades. (GW, 4/20)

110 years of imperialist murder by U.S.

"Overthrow" is the history of forcible regime changes by the United States and its local allies over the past 110 years, starting with the undermining of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893, passing through Cuba (1898), the Philippines (1898), Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954) and elsewhere, and ending with present-day Iraq.

Kinzer has written a detailed, passionate and convincing book…

In the case of Cuba, the decision in 1898 to betray the Cuban rebels against Spain and impose American hegemony on the island fueled an anti-American nationalism that continues…

…The ugliest was the overthrow of the democratic socialist government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzm�n in Guatemala in 1954 and its replacement by a military dictatorship representing the interests of the local oligarchy and the United Fruit Company. The result was…Communist insurrection and a savage American-backed military campaign of repression that cost the lives of more than 100,000 Maya Indians — something that in other circumstances would certainly have been described in the United States as genocide.

…The American establishment is…over and over again, first in the cold war and now in the "war on terror"…covering its actions with the same rhetoric of spreading "freedom" and combating "evil."

As Kinzer writes of the Iranian hostage crisis, "because most Americans did not know what the United States had done to Iran in 1953, few had any idea why Iranians were so angry at the country they called ‘the great Satan.’"

They still don’t. (NYT, 4/16)

Troops increasingly opposed Vietnam war

In "Sir! No Sir!," Mr. Zeiger remembers… [the Vietnam War] veterans whose struggles against it are too often forgotten….

The image of the spat-upon Vietnam veteran…the important fiction that opposition to the war came strictly from outside the military…. [was] later cooked up by Hollywood and other revisionists. This film shows that as antiwar sentiment gathered strength in American streets, a parallel movement seized the armed forces….

Soldiers were fed up and up in arms…

Desertions were on the rise, as were fraggings, named for the fragmentation grenades lobbed at superiors by their own men. By 1974 the Defense Department would record more than half a million incidents of desertion since the mid-60’s. (NYT, 4/19)

Movie Review:

No Good Intentions Behind Imperialist War

"Why We Fight" is a documentary on the relationship between the U.S. government, its military and the arms industry. The movie argues that the U.S. is out of control with a massive military-industrial complex and an empire stretched beyond reason.

The movie is flawed in three major ways:

First, it creates the impression that the U.S. was a democracy before it was corrupted by the military-industrial complex, and that President Eisenhower was a good leader, struggling to rein in greedy capitalists. This ignores that: (A) the main section of the current U.S. ruling class (the Eastern Establishment) was already taking control of the U.S. government in the early 1900s; and (B) the U.S. was only a "democracy" for the property-owning, capitalist class.

Secondly, the movie doesn’t explain that the U.S. ruling class invaded Iraq because it needs to monopolize the strategic power of oil — dictating its supply, transportation and pricing. It argues that the neo-conservatives were behind the war in Iraq and exposes various neo-con, pro-war think-tanks. However, it completely ignores the fact that the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution — key liberal, Eastern Establishment think-tanks — are behind the war in Iraq (and the next war in Iran?). The multi-lateralist members of the Eastern Establishment disagreed with the neo-conservative, unilateralist members over when and how to wage war in Iraq. The multi-lateralists wanted to use many more troops, bring in more allies, work more through the UN and spend more time trying to win domestic support for the war through the humanitarian lie of "helping Iraqis." While they disagree over tactics, both wings know U.S. rulers must control Mid-East oil in order to protect their superpower status and profit empire against challenges from imperialist rivals, particularly China.

Thirdly, the movie’s most serious flaw is its argument that the main reason the U.S. government spends trillions on military activity is sheer corporate greed. That is, the reason why the U.S. fights wars is because weapons companies are driven to make profits from armaments production. This is simply false. The U.S. government accounts for half the world’s military expenditures — a huge percentage of the federal budget is devoted to military activity — because U.S. imperialism has a driving need to maintain its profit empire throughout the world in the face of increasing inter-imperialist rivalry.

The film fails to report that since the 1970’s U.S. bosses have been losing market share to their rivals: Europe, Japan, Russia and China. It didn’t explain that imperialism — capitalist competition on a global scale — inevitably results in war.

This movie is not anti-war. It merely opposes misguided or "poorly-waged" war. When Senator John McCain says in the film: "[Eisenhower] was worried that priorities are set by what benefits corporations as opposed to what benefits the country," he means arms companies’ short-term profits contradict the long-term need of the U.S. ruling class to field an effective, powerful fighting force which these rulers need to defeat their rivals in future wars. McCain and the movie are only complaining about the excessive or corrupt aspects of U.S. imperialism. They think the U.S. military is bloated with overpriced military contracts with armaments companies which make ineffective weapons, jet fighters or warships.

The movie wants to discipline the bosses who get too greedy. Today, the main wing of the U.S. ruling class is disciplining all capitalists, an aspect of fascism.

The bosses are worried. They need middle-class and working-class people to support fascism here and die for U.S. imperialism abroad. They need to win them to war and fascism through fear and pseudo-humanitarian lies. This movie is part of this deception.

The movie does show that the U.S. military has killed many innocent Iraqis and that Bush lied about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction as the excuse to invade Iraq. But this is already known by millions. It’s up to us in PLP to give people the full analysis of why capitalism breeds imperialist war and fascism and why peace is impossible under this profit system.

Cooperation Comes From Our Struggles, Not Our Genes

The article (3/29), "Chimps and Humans: Cooperation is the Link," makes the important point that selfishness is not a necessary or "natural" part of human nature. However, it’s a mistake to say cooperation is "natural" and inherited.

The recent German study cited in the article demonstrated that chimpanzees cooperate. That’s an important observation about animals that are evolutionarily close to humans. Jane Goodall’s studies have reported this about gorillas in the wild. She and others have also shown that apes use tools. But they’ve also shown that gorillas and chimpanzees can be violent towards one another, carry out murder and cannibalism, protect territory and engage in dominant-submissive behavior (with "alpha-male" leaders). Does this mean, therefore, that violence, territoriality and social hierarchy are "natural"? Hardly.

The biological basis of social behavior — the real "link" between chimps and humans — is the highly-developed brain and certain other physical characteristics: having an apposing thumb and forefinger, which makes grasping and manipulating objects much easier, as well as walking upright. These biological features, especially the brain with its mental capacity known as thinking, allowed early humans to engage in increasingly complex forms of labor and ultimately create ancient societies, like Egypt, for example, which certainly did demonstrate social cooperation. Consider the cooperative labor — not to mention the thinking involving mathematics, chemistry and physics — it took to build the pyramids. But ancient Egyptian society was also filled with violence, war and sharp class differences.

There is nothing "natural" about cooperation. It has no gene. What is natural and inherited is the biological basis of social behavior — the brain, apposing thumb and so on — which creates the potential for cooperation, but also creates the potential for many other kinds of social behavior, including selfishness. It’s taken thousands of years of social activity — including labor, class struggle, and the creation of ideas (like those about communist revolution and cooperative living) — before human society attained the potential for worldwide communism. (See Frederick Engels, "The Part Played by Labor in the Transition from Ape to Man.")

The notion that cooperation is natural or inherited is attractive on the surface. But it’s really another example of biological determinism, the general set of ideas that says social behavior — cooperation, selfishness, war, racism, sexism, whatever — is in our genes. (Sociobiology is a recent example of this reactionary view.) PLP has been fighting biological determinism for many years. We should continue this struggle with our friends, on the job and at school, and in CHALLENGE.

A Comrade

Under communism: Will There Be Borders?

The short answer is "No, what for?" Borders are a device used by bosses to make it possible to exploit the labor power of workers. They will have no use to the working class after workers around the world have defeated the bosses, freed ourselves from capitalism and organized ourselves into an egalitarian, sharing communist society.

Borders are relatively new. They didn’t always exist, and they haven’t always been where they are today. For example, before Europeans arrived, hundreds of Native American Indian tribes across North America, each with their own language and customs, had no borders. They hunted and gathered or grew food, and occasionally fought over the exclusive rights to use sections of the landscape, but borders were never drawn — even when their home bases were relatively fixed. They also forged agreements to share regions.

Even Europe only developed national borders in the last few thousand years of human existence, though humans have been around for tens of thousands of years.

Fixed and drawn borders arose only when societies became more complex, developing the ability to store a surplus not needed immediately. Rather than everyone having to spend most of the day finding or producing food, a surplus allowed a differentiation of labor. Surpluses also made it possible for some people to do less work and to manipulate others through superstition, magic or religion. This led to class divisions in society that are still with us worldwide thousands of years later, even though the relationship between exploiting and exploited classes has gone through various changes of form — slavery, feudalism, capitalism.

Ruling and exploiting classes developed a need to possess land for the wealth that could be produced or stored on it. So they developed borders and forced slaves and poor peasants and workers to fight and kill each other to expand one ruling class’s borders at the expense of another.

Today the entire world is divided into nations with basically fixed borders that rarely shift. Ruling classes use borders, among other reasons, to try to confine workers to different sections of the earth (nations). This makes it easier for the bosses to exploit our labor, mainly by making us believe in and fight for "our" nation — nationalism or patriotism. Many workers, meanwhile, struggle to escape those boss-imposed borders in order to find work and survive.

The U.S. bosses and their media refer to undocumented immigrants by the curt racist term "illegals." But the determinants of what is and isn’t illegal depends on which bosses outmaneuver the others. After all, the present border between the U.S. and Mexico was established in the mid-1800’s when U.S. President Polk declared war to steal from Mexico’s bosses what is now California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

Shortly after this so-called Mexican War, in 1853, the U.S. government bought for pennies the southern part of Arizona below the Gila River for the railroads. The war, along with that "purchase," established the current border.

No politician in either the U.S. or Mexico has ever opposed the existence of borders, despite differences on the details. Whether they call for a thousand-mile fence or a welcoming "guest worker" program, they all want borders in order to facilitate exploitation of workers. When the conservative/reactionary McCain and the liberal Kennedy can cooperate to offer an immigration bill, it’s clear that liberals and conservatives agree on the maintenance of borders. They’re two sides of the same capitalist coin.

Current demonstrations by millions of workers and youth against the various border bills in Congress are dominated by a nationalist orientation, organized and fostered by the capitalists (see CHALLENGE editorial, 4/26, page 1). They reflect two factors: (1) immigrant workers and youth are angry over victimization by racist attacks, labeled "illegal" while forced to work on slave-labor jobs for poverty wages; and (2) the liberal section of the ruling class wants a new law enabling it to enforce social control over immigrant workers in order to maintain low wages— especially in factories producing war materials. They also dangle citizenship over mainly Latino youth as a lure for them to join the military to fight the bosses’ oil wars.

Recent mass protests — by immigrant workers, students and their allies — make a fatal mistake by carrying national flags of either the U.S. or of their countries of origin. Communists declare that workers and their struggles have no borders. The goal should be to destroy those divisions separating us by nationality, and to unite us as one world’s working class. On May Day, and every day, the only flag we should wave is the red one, representing the international working class. Our chants should be "Workers of the world, unite! We have nothing to lose but our chains!"

The future destruction of all borders by workers worldwide is not just a pipe dream. During World War I, soldiers from several warring countries stopped shooting and fraternized with each other, over the objections of their officers. In the build-up to World War II, workers from many countries volunteered to fight in Spain against the Nazi/Fascist-backed forces of Franco. Such international working-class united action is PLP’s goal.

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, April 26, 2006

Information: 26 April 2006 116 hits

Marching Behind Liberal Rulers Is Death Trap for Workers

California
New York

Why Liberal Warmakers Nailed ‘the Hammer’

Hundreds March vs. War Profiteer and Democrat Ally

CUNY Students Indict Karpinski As War Criminal

PLP Politics Needed To Win Immigrants Away From Liberal Fascists

ALL Workers Must Unite to Fight ALL Bosses

FBI Terror Trial

CA Teachers Challenge Pro-War California Democrats

Fight Racist Anti-Immigrant Occupancy Law

Worker-Student Unity Forces French Rulers to Back Down; Struggle Continues

Anti-Racists Hit Anti-Black, Anti-Latin Minutemen

Cold War 2: Russia, China vs. U.S.

LETTERS

CHALLENGE Articles Internationalize Class Struggle

Fantasy Stories Aid Children’s Imagination

CHALLLENGE COMMENT

Pink’s New Song A ‘Breath of fresh air’

On the March 25^th Immigrant March in Los Angeles

CHALLENGE comments

‘North Country’ Exposes Oppression of Women, But Not Its Source

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

Liberal author says layoffs terrible, but…
Sellouts didn’t work: GM jobs down 75%
US paid Latino thug to ‘fight communism’
US-Euro imperialists trap Africa in poverty
GI’s go to Canada to escape Iraq service
Liberal Mass. health plan will rob workers

Hard Struggle And Shedding Illusions The Road To Communism

UNDER COMMUNISM :How Will We Achieve and Maintain Economic Equality?

Marching Behind Liberal Rulers Is Death Trap for Workers

Bosses’ Goal for Immigrants: Slave-Labor Jobs, Cannon Fodder

Millions upon millions of workers and youth have been pouring into the streets in a series of megamarches for immigrant rights in large and small cities across the country. The working-class immigrants participating in these demonstrations honestly want to fight the racism they suffer in their daily lives in jobs that treat them like semi-slaves. But the leaders and organizers of these marches have something very different in mind.

The ruling class needs millions more troops to act as an oil-protecting army and millions of low-wage workers to produce the weapons of war in super-exploitative factories (and now Iran is on their hit list). They see these 12 million immigrant workers and youth as a huge source to fill their needs. So the liberal Democrats — Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Charlie Rangel, Al Sharpton, LA Mayor Villaraigosa— along with the Catholic Church, the corporate-supported Spanish-language media and union misleaders and even right-wing Republicans like John McCain who have spoken at and supported these marches are building this movement to spread pro-war patriotism (waving American flags, shouting "USA, USA." They want to create illusions that somehow they’re less racist than the gutter racists like Sensenbrenner and the Minutemen. The only difference between these liberals and the gutter variety is over how to best super-exploit immigrant workers and use their youth as cannon fodder in the endless imperialist wars they are planning.

These liberal rulers need pro-fascist social control of this work-force and their youth, which is why they’re backing the McCain-Kennedy bill which would put the millions of undocumented workers in a state of indentured servitude and to not "make trouble" for 11 years in order to become citizens. Deportation will be hanging over their heads for over a decade.

The liberals are more dangerous precisely because many workers and youth think they are their friends. But workers and youth must understand the hard lesson that if you rely on "lesser-evil" bosses to lead our battles, we will end up dying for them.

PLP’ers were able to bring revolutionary, anti-racist, working-class politics to these workers, distributing tens of thousands of leaflets and CHALLENGES. We must do much more to win these and all workers away from the deadly illusions of relying on their exploiters. (See reports on our different activities in various articles in this issue.)

CALIFORNIA, April 9 — On March 25, millions of workers and youth marched against the proposed HR4437 anti-immigrant bill. Two days later, tens of thousands of students walked out of school. Responding to this, the Schools Superintendent urged teachers to organize teach-ins about immigration reform and about students’ rights and responsibilities, although what he really wanted was to forestall another walkout. At many schools, teachers took this seriously and organized teach-ins. The following is a report about one of them.

As we entered, we saw a slide show with comments like, "Do you really know why you’re walking out?" "An injury to one is an injury to all." And, "How can building a wall bring us together?" interspersed with photos of past student walkouts, including those here on March 27.

The bosses’ mass media try to pit black workers against immigrants, blaming immigrants for higher unemployment in the black community. This assembly, organized by a group of mostly young teachers, black, Latino and white, placed immigration in a broader context. Pictures, movies and photos showed past student struggles, in the civil rights movement in the South, in the Chicano blowouts of 1968 and other student movements internationally.

The bosses try to limit immigration as just an "Hispanic issue." We watched a video clip showing African immigrants crossing into Spain. Someone said that as long as colonialism, imperialism, racism and capitalism exist, workers will migrate to places where they can survive. The immigrant in the video, risking his life searching for a better life, said he didn’t see himself as "illegal," but that the world is for all of us. Many students echoed his sentiments.

In two assemblies, a lawyer talked about students’ rights and how they would defend students who got tickets for walking out. Part of the assembly discussed the bills before Congress and explained about how the "lesser evil" McCain-Kennedy Bill would create a new bracero program, allowing immigrants into the U.S. temporarily, with no rights — its "long road" to legalization is more illusion than reality. They also analyzed the Dream Act which uses patriotism to push immigrant youth into the military.

The student comments were the most exciting part. Those who had walked out and marched downtown said it was their social responsibility, responding to the famous remark by Martin Niemoller, "First they came for the communist, I did nothing because I wasn’t a communist. . . .Then they came for me and there was no one left." One student said she had stuck up for a special-needs student facing attack by two other students, and linked it to the need for solidarity against all attacks.

This became one of the main themes of the debate — how does the working class improve its situation? Some students said they had to look out for themselves, that an education is the only way to get ahead. Others declared that it’s not enough to look out for yourself, that you have to fight for the working class. Students said they marched for their parents, who work their fingers to the bone.

About three-fourths of the students are Latino and one-fourth African American. Many are immigrants or the children of immigrants. A growing number are Afro-Belizeans. Some African American students repeated the bosses’ propaganda that blames immigrants for unemployment or overcrowding. But many more said it’s important that black and Latino students stick together against racism: "We all live in the same community. We all go to school together. We have to stick together to fight for a better life for all of us." Several students said it’s important for the whole working class to stick together and fight these racist attacks.

When some students attacked those who marched and demonstrated, saying their only responsibility was to get an education and get ahead, another responded by declaring she was proud to have helped leaflet with PLP in the big march downtown. Still another said, "As the youth of the working class, we have a responsibility to continue fighting and not be discouraged by the principals or the police or any consequences that would make us not want to fight in the future." She invited everyone to march on May Day.

This assembly will help all those involved to take more seriously the need to fight against racist attacks on immigrants and all workers. It will help our PLP club build for a great May Day, to help our class organize for revolution in the face of the bosses’ growing racism and plans for wider imperialist wars.

NEW YORK, April 1 — Tens of thousands of immigrant workers marched today across the Brooklyn Bridge to protest the racist Sensenbrenner Bill (HR4437), which criminalizes undocumented immigrants and those who help them. PLP’ers also marched, giving political class content to some chants, changing "The People United Will Never Be Defeated" to "Workers United;" and "Un Pueblo Callado No Será Escuchado" ("a Quiet People Will Never Be Heard") to "Quiet Workers Will Never Be Heard"). We also chanted "Las Luchas Obreras No Tienen Fronteras" ("Workers’ Struggles Have No Borders") among others. We also distributed 14,000 leaflets and 1,000 CHALLENGES.

Our multi-racial group provided a small antidote to the rotten nationalist politics of the Democratic Party hacks (Charles Rangel, Adolfo Carrión, Guillermo Linares, Nydia Velasquez, etc.) and the religious tone of some of the church leaders who organized the march (like conservative Democratic Party hack Rev. Ruben Diaz). We also called on workers to march with PLP on May Day, the international working-class day.

While the march showed the anger of millions of immigrant workers nationwide who want their dignity respected for the hard work they do (at very low pay), it mainly reflected illusions many of these workers have. The leadership pushed the politics of U.S. patriotism ("we’re all Americans"). Some banners read, "We Are Not Terrorists," insinuating anti-Arab racism. This is exactly what the McCain-Kennedy alternative Senate bill means: win immigrant workers to be docile servants of the main wing of the ruling class which needs them as cheap labor and cannon fodder in their endless imperialist wars.

The march consisted mainly of newly-arrived immigrants from Mexico and Central American countries. The lack of multi-racial unity was visible. There were small contingents of Asians and black English-speaking Caribbean immigrants, and a very small presence of Dominican and Puerto Rican workers, with South Asian taxi drivers honking support while the marchers crossed the bridge. But the 50,000 undocumented Irish workers in the NYC metropolitan area were missing, along with the many Haitian workers. The unions did nothing to mobilize their multi-racial membership. This lack of multi-racial unity played into the hands of the gutter racists like Sensenbrenner and the Minutemen, as well as the racists in the mainstream of the U.S. ruling class.

Our revolutionary communist politics must make a bigger inroad among these anti-racist marchers and among all workers, to break the hold these liberal and not-so-liberal racists have on these marches.

Why Liberal Warmakers Nailed ‘the Hammer’

By forcing Tom DeLay (Republican Congressman from Texas and former Majority Leader) to resign from Congress last week, the liberal Establishment weakened a serious hindrance to its war agenda. While the media focus on his shady deals with lobbyists and fundraisers, DeLay’s most grievous sin was obstructing U.S. imperialism.

To finance ever-widening military efforts, U.S. rulers require significant monetary sacrifice from all capitalists (in addition to the sacrifice of workers’ blood). DeLay, however, represented business interests just beginning to acquire wealth and power and thus unwilling to part with a penny of their profit for any reason. DeLay, himself the founder of an exterminating firm, championed tax cuts benefiting upstart bosses.

Dubbed "the Hammer," DeLay fought ruthlessly to slash taxes on capital gains (quick profits) and eliminate the estate tax. Whacking him hamstrings the petty capitalist voter base that helped put Bush in the White House and to which he still panders.

Following the Bush-DeLay cuts, federal tax rate trends today are well below 30%. Franklin Roosevelt hiked the top rate over 90% during World War II. Liberal imperialist JFK kept it there. With the Pentagon’s budget now soaring past a half trillion dollars, DeLay’s demise will have a big effect on future tax-policy votes.

Having failed to win a constitutional amendment against tax increases in 1998, DeLay spoke out against Clinton’s bombing of Serbia the next year. His faction saw the liberals conducting and planning increasingly costly warfare that would cut into its bottom line. When U.S. ground troops followed the bombers, DeLay became a prime mover in Clinton’s impeachment.

Three years later, insisting that the second U.S. invasion of Iraq be done as cheaply as possible, DeLay successfully led congressional forces urging early action with only 150,000 troops. The Establishment, including the Rockefeller-led Council on Foreign Relations and many top generals, had wanted a longer build-up to a more heavily-armed force of at least 300,000. DeLay is paying dearly for the Iraq fiasco.

DeLay is also atoning for peddling state power to anyone with a big enough checkbook, a practice the rulers can ill afford in wartime. They want the imperialist interests of J.P. Morgan Chase and Exxon Mobil steering the government, not the casino operators implicated along with disgraced DeLay lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Along with cracking down on lobbyists, the Establishment has tightened up campaign financing, to the DeLay faction’s disadvantage. By courting small-time bosses bearing big bucks, DeLay ran afoul of the McCain-Feingold law that strictly limits contributions by corporations and individuals. Jay Rockefeller had championed this bill in the Senate. Financing from liberal billionaire George Soros greased its passage. The law tilts the electoral balance back in favor of the Establishment, which can use the media, unions and other institutions it controls to push its candidates.

Hypocrisy hangs thick around McCain-Feingold. Rockefellers have personally purchased high offices ranging from the governorship of Arkansas to a West Virginia senate seat to the vice-presidency. U.S. Rockefeller wealth and influence has catapulted into power countless family protégés, like Kissinger, Carter and Clinton. Soros’ imperialist Open Society foundation has bankrolled pro-U.S. election candidates internationally, from Poland to the Ukraine.

The DeLay scandal forms part of a more general ruling-class housecleaning in Washington. Conservative Josh Bolten, a former executive at ultra-Establishment Goldman Sachs, has replaced Andrew Card as White House chief of staff. Treasury secretary Snow is thinking of quitting. Leading waiters-in-the-wings are bankers from — you guessed it — Goldman Sachs. Liberal Democrats, including a large contingent of militaristic veterans, are confident they can unseat DeLay-style conservatives in November’s congressional elections.

Emboldened liberals, says the Washington Post (4/5/06) "are doing the rain dance, whooping it up, high-fiving, backslapping, spiking the ball in the end zone. Tom DeLay's announced departure...is practically a national holiday." The New York Times’ April 5 editorial gloated over "The Fall of the Hammer." But DeLay’s trouble does not do the working class much good. It reflects a concerted effort by the biggest U.S. capitalists to discipline their entire class — even as they impose a police state on workers — necessary for intensifying (eventually global) military conflicts.

Like Germany’s Nazis in the 1930s, U.S. rulers need a war economy and single-minded war politics. We need to build a PLP-led communist movement that can survive this period of growing fascism and lay the groundwork for a wartime revolution.

Hundreds March vs. War Profiteer and Democrat Ally

PASADENA, CA., March 19 — "Parsons Profits, People Die — Stop the War!" chanted hundreds of area residents marching through the Old Town business district today, marking the third anniversary of the Iraq war. They targeted the Pasadena-based construction and engineering firm Parsons, whose huge contracts in Iraq include building new prisons there. Marchers also targeted the local office of Democrat Congressman Adam Schiff who has consistently voted billions for the war and who co-authored the USA-PATRIOT Act; he regularly gets large campaign contributions from Parsons.

Passers-by eagerly took leaflets and applauded as marchers chanted, "Old Town, Baghdad, New Orleans — Stop the Racist War Machine!" Leaflets distributed to the marchers by student members of "Students and Educators to Stop the War" explained that the "war machine" is imperialism; they linked it to the racist "immigration reform" proposals before Congress.

Predictably, media coverage focused on the four candidates running against Schiff who attended the rally. The tension between militant anti-imperialism and electoral politics led to some very good discussions — during and after the event — about the nature of the system and how to fight it. While many peace activists are still mired in the swamp of liberalism, it’s clear that many others hunger for the kind of analysis and direction PLP can provide.

CUNY Students Indict Karpinski As War Criminal

QUEENS, NY, March 20 — "Today I really felt like we were on the offensive," declared an anti-war CUNY student after PLP members and anti-war activists attacked Janis Karpinski, the commanding general at Abu Ghraib prison during the torture scandal.

Karpinski spoke at a panel on "Women and the Iraq War" sponsored by the Women’s Studies program at Queens College. Karpinski, one of the few women generals, took the fall for other officers higher in command and was demoted.

Although this may reflect sexism in the military, it doesn’t mean she’s innocent. Karpinski worked as a targeter for the bombardments of the Gulf War, and was the first woman to lead U.S. troops in a combat zone. She shares responsibility for the blood of 100,000 civilian Iraqi workers during the current invasion and occupation. She was also in command of 16 other Iraqi prisons. If she was anti-sexist, she’d be challenging the beheadings of unveiled Iraqi women by the "coalition forces" the U.S. military has established.

During her talk, some people stood up with signs, one reading, "There Are No Innocent Generals In Imperialist Oil War." Two young PL’ers disrupted her for several minutes, demanding she take responsibility for her actions and exposed her as a war criminal. They noted that she only publicly exposed the torture of Iraqis after she was demoted, and that most of these jailed "insurgents" are people who simply took a loaf of bread to feed their families or stayed out past curfew. Although some in the audience asked them to quiet down, many others nodded in agreement. As a result, during the question/answer period, some were able to confront her more directly. She actually ended up meagerly condemning the war as "illegal."

It’s not often we’re able to attack these people in this format, when we actually encounter the scum who’ve committed such abominable crimes. It was important not just because we exposed her to others, but also because we become stronger when we stand up against these criminals. One faculty member who held up a protest sign described it as "transgressive and exhilarating" to confront her. A student who attended the panel is now meeting with a PL study group.

Maybe next time we’ll get to give her a Fascist Of The Year award.

PLP Politics Needed To Win Immigrants Away From Liberal Fascists

Recently liberal organizers of the March 27 Los Angeles demonstration against HR4437 (Sensenbrenner anti-immigrant bill) announced plans for a follow-up boycott. This campaign to mobilize immigrant workers represents the liberal bosses’ need to win them, their children and workers in general to their imperialist and increasingly fascist agenda of war and "sacrifice for the good of the nation."

The capitalist media praises this misleading of the working class as the "rebirth of the civil rights movement." This push to win workers’ minds represents the intensifying contradictions for U.S. capitalists and an aggressive ideological offensive against the working class. While the recent nationwide demonstrations against HR4437 present the threat of workers being won to nationalism and the U.S. imperialist agenda, it’s also an important opportunity to turn the bosses’ offensive into a vehicle to spread communist ideas and build the Party now in every area.

It’s no accident that the follow-up "Great American Boycott" is set for May 1. We can expect the liberal bosses will continue to try steering immigrants away from our politics and into the military and low-wage factories. U.S. rulers want these demonstrations to emphasize the American flag and citizenship. Thus, they hope to follow Nazi Germany’s model of nationalism to mobilize for imperialist war. With the DREAM ACT, the McCain-Kennedy bill, a guest worker program (the "carrots" ) and the threat of the Minutemen and the Sensenbrenner bill (the sticks), the bosses plan to secure this source of cannon fodder and slave labor for their current and inevitable wars. But while the ruling class is keeping the focus of the recent demonstrations mostly patriotic and reformist, it’s a double edged sword.

The walkouts by 45,000 working-class high school students following the March 25 demonstration provide a good example of how the bosses’ mobilization of workers can produce unintended consequences, with opportunities to expand the reach of PLP and communist ideas. The students’ booing and heckling of the mayor’s attempt to cut their demonstration short — telling them to return to school — was not in the bosses’ plans.

Many workers and students are weary of capitalist politicians after years of broken promises, both here and their country of origin. For a large majority of these working-class students, as well as for many of their parents, these walk-outs and demonstrations represent their first conscious political acts. Their enthusiastic responses to CHALLENGE, PLP leaflets, and communist speeches in the streets indicate their revolutionary potential. They haven’t been won to a clear ideology; they’re among the most exploited members of our class, open to our leadership and winnable to our communist politics over time!

Many of these students will probably soon be in factories — one in four manufacturing workers is Latino. The 20% of all "undocumented" workers already in manufacturing are the parents of these students. This movement comprises mostly workers positioned to play a vital role in the rise and triumph of communism. It’s in their interest to smash the capitalist system that labels and treats them as "illegals." Cynics said they’d never come out of the shadows to fight, fearing deportation, but capitalism is proving once again that it creates its own grave-diggers.

But what are so many diggers without shovels? These demonstrations prove that the most exploited and oppressed workers will stand up and fight if they believe in the cause. But what will be their cause? This question defines the work PLP faces now. We must put communism onto the table. After all, they cannot fight for a cause they do not know.

How can we do it? First, we need to make CHALLENGE the mass media that gets them into the streets by building our distribution everywhere we can, with our friends and their friends, with our co-workers and their families. We also must continue to find and develop potential leaders, strong organizers who will build the Party; this means patiently finding ways to meet more and more workers, on the job, in the unions, and in some of the reform mass organizations involved in these demonstrations.

We should take advantage of the fact that millions of workers are talking about this issue. We can organize house forums and dinners to discuss immigration with co-workers and friends, exposing the capitalism behind racism and imperialist war. We can organize lunch-hour discussions and anti-racist committees in our factories, schools, churches and barracks.

Such committees could organize workers for the "Great American Boycott" on May 1, or for future demonstrations, dinners, house forums, or lunch-hour discussions mentioned above. There are many creative ways of carrying this out to expand the Party. We should seize this time of political tension and enthusiasm to bring communism to the workers, make new friends for the Party and win those who are already friends to become members.µ

A Red Industrial Worker
(son of immigrant workers)

ALL Workers Must Unite to Fight ALL Bosses

LODI, CA., April 4 — The ruling class is fighting hard for the hearts and minds of the working class here. There’s a "war-on-terror" trial, full FBI racism against the Muslim community, and falling wages and living conditions for immigrants and U.S.-born citizen workers alike. Lodi is part of California’s breadbasket. The battle over which immigration policies will best drive down wages in the fields is playing out in the Republican Congressional primary between current Rep. Richard Pombo (11th District) — who voted for the Sensenbrenner bill (HR4437) enforcing outright terror against immigrants — and ex-Congressman Pete McClosky who supports the "carrot" approach of the McCain-Kennedy proposals.

These political attacks have provided opportunities to spread class consciousness, anti-racism and internationalism. Communist ideas and practice are alive and well in Lodi.

At the planning meeting for the March against HR 4437, I described the demonstration against the Minutemen and arrests at Garden Grove, CA. A group of students from the University of the Pacific, and some unionists and a few retired union members were present. Eighteen people received the Anti-Racist Legal Defense Fund pamphlet. I discussed all the immigration bills, noting that even the McCain-Kennedy bill was aimed at bosses profiting from controlled, cheap immigrant labor ("guest workers"), with little offered to the workers.

The March 25th anti-racist march in Stockton was impressive and inspiring, uniting us as brothers and sisters. I made and carried on high signs saying, "Las Luchas Obreras no tienen fronteras" (The workers’ fight has no borders) on one side and "Obreros unidos jamás serán vencidos" ("The workers, united, will never be defeated") on the other.

The people around me were reading the signs and chanting them loudly. On a few occasions when passing restaurant and garden workers standing on the side of the march, the marchers broke into a spirited, "Las luchas obreras no tienen fronteras." The workers on the sidelines thrust their fists in the air and joined the chant. We were comrades; we were getting the message out.

The second chant produced disagreement. My friends — an Iranian, a Japanese language professor from Eastern Europe and a local activist — and I were chanting, "Obrera/os, unidos, jamás serán vencidos!" Other marchers behind us chanted, "El Pueblo unido jamás será vencido" ("The people, united, will never be defeated") or "La raza unida jamas seran vencido."

In conversations (and in a letter to the local newspaper), I was able to raise international and multi-racial workers’ unity. It’s better to invite WORKERS to join our fight, regardless of background. If you’re only inviting "La raza" (Latinos or Mexicans) to unite, you’re dividing your forces in trying to win battles against the rulers on the education or healthcare fronts. If you’re inviting "El Pueblo" (the people), this could include the exploiters (the oil bosses and the brass who make war in Iraq).

If our ranks are open to all workers (who produce all wealth), we become an invincible anti-racist force. Imagine our ranks swelling if we had had black healthcare and transit workers or Muslim farm workers from Lodi and the San Joaquin Valley, white construction workers and representatives from the oil workers in Iraq or Iran. We all join the Latin workers in OUR fight against all the racist immigration laws, whether carrot or stick, that attack all workers, each and every one of us.

Retired red

FBI Terror Trial

The FBI and local authorities put two Pakistani Lodi men on trial under the racist "Patriot Act." A local newspaper headlined, "Terror Deputy Living in Lodi? FBI informant testifies he often saw al Zawahri at local mosque." This claim was ridiculed by local Pakistani Muslims and even terrorism experts nationwide. "What would he be doing here? We’re Pakistani," said shop owner Mohammed Shoaib. "If there were an Egyptian speaking Arabic, somebody would have seen him." Most of the estimated 2,500 Muslims in Lodi speak Urdu or Pashto, two major Pakistani languages." We don't know what’s coming next. Maybe he'll say he saw Osama [bin Laden] in Lodi or Stockton."

There are fantastic tales of "training in terrorist camps": "An underground room in a different province of Pakistan where 1,000 masked men, including Americans, fired machine guns, swung curved swords and learned to pole-vault across bodies of water." The FBI’s terror campaign in the Muslim community here is using a high-paid informant ($217,000) as its main witness, and "confessions" made with coercion.

One juror, excused after a few weeks, "said outside court that the government had not proved its point and expressed skepticism about an alleged confession that a prosecutor described as the ‘meat of the case.’ Beyond a reasonable doubt — that hasn't been proven." (SF Chronicle, 3\22\06)

The FBI can’t even win "hearts and minds" in the ideologically-controlled atmosphere of the courtroom. They may succeed in railroading these two men, but seeds of doubt are everywhere, waiting for communists to harvest them.

Teachers Challenge Pro-War California Democrats

SACRAMENTO, CA., March 26 — Delegates at the annual convention of the California Federation of Teachers (CTA) got a lesson on the limits of liberal trade-unionism this year. CTA leaders organized a delegate march to the State Capital on March 24 behind State Treasurer Phil Angelides, a Democratic Party candidate for governor, for a thinly-disguised campaign rally. However, they totally ignored a march of thousands of workers for immigrant rights the very next day just a few blocks from the convention hotel. At least a dozen delegates joined this march on their own, but unfortunately no effort was made to organize a CTA contingent.

The CTA leadership typically uses up a lot of convention time promoting and endorsing Democratic Party candidates (and congratulating itself). This year a group of delegates, led by members of U.S. Labor Against the War, challenged the endorsement of incumbent Senator Diane Feinstein and several Democratic congressional representatives mainly because of their ongoing support for the Iraq war. To the leadership’s dismay, the convention voted to withhold these endorsements. However, important resolutions on "opposing exploitative immigration reform" and other anti-racist issues were tabled for "lack of time."

CTA events are very "democratic" in form, so it’s tempting to see them as a chance to "move the organization to the left" through the resolution process. However, the CTA — an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers — is fundamentally committed to working within the limits of capitalism and its bogus electoral process, which supports current moves for patriotism and wider wars. As members push these limits, the leadership will increasingly push back. For example, when a floor proposal arose to refuse endorsements to ANY candidate who supported the war, the leaders squealed, "We can’t do that!" and made sure it failed.

CHALLENGE readers who attend such conventions need to prepare more carefully to bring aspects of PLP’s analysis to other delegates, and to mobilize action around them. This opportunity exists every day at our own schools and campuses. It’s important for more people to be reading the paper; the potential for this exists.

If the union leaders’ reformism goes unchallenged, it consigns millions to a future of murderous imperialist war and racist exploitation. However, anti-war and anti-racist activists who read CHALLENGE can constitute the basis for a mass fight to destroy the war-makers with communist revolution.

Fight Racist Anti-Immigrant Occupancy Law

HYATTSVILLE, MD, April 10 — As millions march to fight national anti-immigrant laws, a fight has begun against a local version of xenophobia (fear of foreigners) in Hyattsville, an inner-suburban town outside Washington, D.C. The Hyattsville City Council, with visions of transforming the city into a yuppie-style "historic district," is trying to implement an "overcrowding" ordinance to prevent unrelated people from living together. The unspoken goal is to reduce the town’s growing Latino and African population by forcing unrelated roomers out of houses.

For six years, the multi-racial "Bridging Cultural Gaps" book club has met here and has taken up this issue. Club members have met with other residents, distributed hundreds of leaflets, and built opposition to the law at public hearings in every ward. The book club members are regular CHALLENGE readers and have discussed PLP’s ideas for years. Some will march on May Day.

Thirty years ago, Hyattsville was composed of white working-class families. It has become increasingly diverse with Africans, Latinos, black Americans and yuppies moving in, the former two groups often with large extended families and social networks. Yuppies control the City Council. They tried to pass this law under the radar screen, but word got out, and in January angry residents came to the required public hearing and denounced the bill. One worker took the floor to say that if it got passed, it would bring the Minuteman and she didn’t want that!

Now it appears that even the local newspaper is reporting that the Minutemen in Prince George's County are planning to expand into Hyattsville. One resident declared, "You warned us about this in January, and it's true!"

The book club invited CASA (Central American Solidarity and Assistance) of Maryland, which has played a big role in mobilizing the immigrant demonstrations, to help, but their organizer has done little, so the book club will continue to take the fight to the Council. The club is circulating a petition and leaflet demanding the City Council withdraw the bill. It must pass the bill a second time to become law, but people are determined to stop it by relying on Hyattsville’s multi-racial working class.

Last year, the City Council in Manassas, Virginia, passed a similar law, but was forced to withdraw it under fire from the local residents and an ACLU threat to file a lawsuit. In nearby Herndon, Virginia, there continues to be a big fight over a day-laborer center. The Herndon City Council established one despite efforts by the Minuteman chapter to stop it. But they continue to harass the day laborers. The Minutemen have recently expanded into Maryland and are harassing day laborers in Silver Spring, Maryland. They’re planning to start actions in Langley Park in Prince George’s County and will doubtless start action in Hyattsville if this bill passes.

By taking on these local racist attacks, the PLP can build a base in unions and communities to roll them back, and from this process build international, multi-racial unity. That’s the foundation to win the political leadership of these workers away from the liberals and nationalist misleaders who channel their anger into the agenda of endless Wars and Fascism.

[Photo]

Workers read CHALLENGE during march in Costa Mesa on April 1st. When union leaders led the chant "USA, USA!," others answered "Las luchas obreras no tienen fronteras" (Workers struggles have no borders) While Teamster Union leaders tried to keep them from speaking, nonetheless others (who we didn’t know) spoke attacking imperialism and the McCain-Kennedy bill as well as the Sensenbrenner bill. Many workers eagerly bought CHALLENGE.

Worker-Student Unity Forces French Rulers to Back Down; Struggle Continues

PARIS, April 10 — Workers and students in France won one of their main demands today when Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin announced that the CPE provision of the "law on equal opportunity" would be replaced with measures "to help minority youth get jobs." The CPE would have allowed bosses to fire young workers for no reason during a 24-month trial period.

This partial, temporary victory was achieved through active worker-student unity and militant direct action. It also has a distinct anti-racist character. Despite its "equal opportunity" name, the law is distinctly racist. The Movement against racism and for friendship among peoples (MRAP) said that both the CPE law and lowering the age of apprenticeship to 15 are intended to shunt minority youth into dead-end jobs. Virulently racist policies like this ooze from the capitalist system, because the bosses make super-profits both from the super-exploitation of minority workers and from the way this super-exploitation drags down wages for all workers.

The anti-CPE movement began on the mostly-white campuses, but in recent weeks increasing numbers of minority youth from the housing projects began joining the demonstrations. They were March marshals in the April 4 demonstration in Paris. This growing unity was one of the elements forcing the government to back down.

Student-worker unity was also a big factor. It put over 2.5 million protestors into the streets on April 4 only because of widespread worker support. More workers were joining the movement. The chief editor of the bosses’ newspaper France Soir observed that union leaders were prisoners of the rank and file, who wouldn’t allow them to cut a deal.

Student protest escalated, aimed at disrupting the economy. Highways and railroads were temporarily blocked in dozens of cities, as were two seaports, and Orly airport in Paris. The head of the French bosses’ association squealed that the student actions, combined with the effects of the November revolt in the housing projects, were endangering the French economy.

Students actively sought worker support, especially from the rank and file. They leafleted the Peugeot-Citroen factory in Saint Ouen. In Toulouse, 200 students demonstrated at a shopping center to protest the insecurity of part-time supermarket workers. And workers responded warmly.

Workers and students united to blockade the Airbus factory in Toulouse. On April 8 in Rennes, students blocked access to the Rennes-St. Jacques postal sorting station. When the police charged and violently dispersed the students, the postal workers walked off the job in a show of solidarity. The bosses’ media could hardly find a car driver or train passenger willing to condemn the disruptions.

The eight-week long struggle was inspiring youth and workers throughout Europe. Dozens of European trade unions sent solidarity messages to their French counterparts. French embassies were picketed as far away as Buenos Aires, Argentina.

But the bosses and their government see these events only as a temporary defeat. Capitalists here need more worker insecurity (the call it "job flexibility") to compete with their worldwide rivals.

But the only way for workers and students to win a real victory will be to break with the fake "leftists" and union hacks and turn the struggle into a school for revolutionary communism.

Both the unions and the student movement here emphasize that this reform struggle is not over. The CPE decree still allows small businesses to fire workers of all ages for no reason during the trial period. Students across France voted today to continue blockading their campuses until the government withdraws the whole law.

President Jacques Chirac looked ridiculous by simultaneously promoting the law while telling the government not to enforce it. The right-wing UMP party tried to get the student and trade unions to sell out in closed negotiations. In the face of rank-and-file multi-racial unity and worker-student unity, it failed.

Workers and young people in France learned — and showed the world — that the bosses’ attacks can be challenged. Now it’s necessary to develop communist leadership for the real victory, to destroy the bosses’ system.

Anti-Racists Hit Anti-Black, Anti-Latin Minutemen

MUNSTER, INDIANA, March 25 — About 35 black, Latino, Asian and white students and workers from Chicago and Indiana mounted a militant protest against the racist "IFIRE" organization, an Indiana affiliate of the racist, anti-immigrant Minutemen. IFIRE has been protesting a local bank’s giving loans to all qualified borrowers, which includes immigrant workers without official immigration documents. The anti-racists drew participants from a local Catholic church, students and workers from Chicago, including PLP members, and students from Indiana colleges. Our militant counter-protest completely neutralized the racists.

Most of the time we circled them with our signs, our chanting drowning out their message, distributing flyers exposing their racism while calling for working-class unity. A scuffle broke out over a racist sign one of the IFIRE group was waving. He charged into the middle of our group and assaulted an anti-racist. Big mistake! After warning him several times to stop, the scuffle ended with him on the ground and getting treated for "cuts and bruises" by an ambulance crew.

But the importance of our protest goes beyond one racist getting what he deserved. The 35 anti-racists got to see just how racist these anti-immigration groups really are. IFIRE’s website and literature claim "It’s not about race," but their language was viciously racist against Latino and black working-class people. After the event a local campus group received a threatening e-mail from one of the IFIRE members filled with racism against black people. It linked to a neo-Nazi website with a cartoon joking about a black man being shot in the head.

The anti-immigrant forces are not "about jobs" but about racism. These groups are allied with hard-core Nazis and use this issue to expand their fascist base. The biggest Nazis, the liberal super-rich capitalists, will use these groups to attack all workers as their crisis worsens.

In addition, many of our anti-racist protestors — for the first time in their lives — participated in a face-to-face militant protest against fascists. It was an important experience in training our forces for bigger battles to come on the road to communist revolution.

This process is putting theory into practice; it is one of building multi-racial unity, including between black and Latino workers. The capitalist media is working overtime to try to turn us against each other in every possible way. It is also a process of building trust, of learning to organize and of actually fighting back. The demonstration accomplished all this and strengthened the anti-racist movement and the PLP.

We’re all enthusiastic about organizing similar actions and expanding our movement by bringing a large group to our May Day celebration this month. We must and will combine long-term base-building, militant action and careful organization to forge a revolutionary communist movement to destroy forever this capitalist system of racism and war.

Cold War 2:

Russia, China vs. U.S.

In last issue’s article, we noted that Russia’s ruling class was not the first in history to commit political suicide when it allowed the former Soviet Union to implode. The old state capitalist system that ruled there was not useful for the Russian bosses. They needed to eliminate whatever gains Soviet workers had retained from the communist-led era. After Yeltsin and his mafia almost blew away the new plan, becoming a servile lackey of the U.S., Putin and his gang took power and began turning things around.

Russia still has a lot of problems — a declining population, turmoil in Chechnya and so on. But in recent years the Russian economy has significantly recovered: registering budgetary surpluses for five consecutive years, accumulating foreign-currency reserves of $180 billion, making its debt repayments ahead of schedule and beginning to integrate into the world capitalist economy.

Accompanied by an entourage of 1,000, on March 21-22 President Vladimir Putin visited China to launch "The Year of Russia In China," signing about 30 mainly economic agreements. China looks to Russia for supplies of arms along with oil and gas to fuel China’s rapidly expanding economy.

After meeting with his counterpart, Hu Jintao, Putin said a new gas pipeline system — the Altai — could be built to deliver gas from western Siberia to China. Another system would deliver gas from eastern Siberia, altogether totaling 80 billion cubic meters annually.

Russia has the world’s largest natural gas reserves and is the second largest producer of oil. It now supplies only 5% of China’s oil imports. The pipeline deal will enable China to achieve its target of doubling the proportion of gas in its total energy consumption in four years.

India is a key part of the U.S. bosses’ plan to weaken China’s growing power in Asia, so Beijing and Moscow are also trying to use their energy resources to woo India away from U.S. bosses. Last year, India was granted observer status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) of Central Asian states (dominated by China and Russia). An SCO meeting held in Kazhastan last year gave the U.S. a deadline to close its Central Asian military bases.

Last year, for the first time in many decades China and Russia held joint military exercises on China’s coast, as a warning to Taiwan’s rulers; Beijing still considers Taiwan part of China. Russia and China plan similar exercises next year on Russia’s southern border (the Caucasus).

As stated in the last issue of CHALLENGE, U.S. bosses have begun to react against Russia and China with what many are calling a New Cold War. So 16 years after the implosion of the Soviet Union, the "peace era" championed by many apologists for world capitalism has turned into endless wars, from Iraq to Afghanistan to the Congo to the Balkans to the Caucasus. The super-exploitation of workers worldwide has increased.

We in PLP must redouble our efforts to show workers and youth that as long as capitalism exists, "peace" means death and wars for workers. The only road out of this imperialist hell is to rebuild the international communist movement and fight for a world without any bosses, from Beijing to Washington to New Delhi to Moscow.

LETTERS

CHALLENGE Articles Internationalize Class Struggle

The letter on "Developing Writers for Challenge" did exactly what it talked about doing: helping workers from all countries realize that the struggle for communism is international. It also explained the importance of writing about our struggles so we all can learn from them.

I’ve been struggling with my co-worker, Chris, about reading the paper. He’s been receiving it for a while but I had a hunch that he wasn’t really reading it. So I tried something new. An article from our Salvadoran comrades seemed like the perfect thing to show him. When I asked him what he thought, he asked, "They have this over there?" I said, "Yeah, we’re in a lot of countries. In different languages, too." I’ve told Chris that before, but until he actually read it in the paper, it never really set in.

Writing for the paper is essential, just as our comrade said, not only because it helps other workers realize the struggle for communism is international but also because it helps us become better communists by writing about our activities and therefore better understanding them.

The way we write for the paper is also important. I’m glad to have seen these comrades writing more because Chris and I thought the style was very good. We hope to see more articles like this in the future.

A Red industrial worker

Fantasy Stories Aid Children’s Imagination

Concerning the column on how children will be raised under communism (CHALLENGE, 3/15), the author contends that capitalism teaches children to enjoy fantasy and that under communism children will be taught about the objective world. I don’t think reading fantasy is bad. I believe it helps children develop their imagination. My nephews are big fans of the Harry Potter books, which is not all that bad.

Some fascist Christians claim these fantasies teach magic and witchcraft. But most young people who read fantasy understand it’s just that — fantasy. I myself read fantasy novels and watch the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings films.

Actually I was the only working puppeteer in the coal fields for years and have had a lot of experience entertaining children. My show, "The Wacky Woods Puppet Theatre," played in elementary schools, church festivals, Christmas and birthday parties, women’s shelters, hospitals and a detention home. It was based on fantasy with a message and also relied on, and encouraged, the children’s participation. Most of my hand puppets were animals but I also had two witches. I wrote the story of many of my shows but also did "Hansel and Gretel" and Dickens’ "Christmas Carol."

I often thought puppeteering would be my job preference in a communist society. I would base my shows on fantasy with a good message, such as the need for cooperation, anti-racism or respect for handicapped people. I really love to entertain children; they make the best audience and are so enthusiastic about it all.

I think fairy tales will always be around. Perhaps new ones will emerge and children will enjoy them. Other than that, I thought the column made good points.

Red Coal

CHALLLENGE COMMENT The editors of the UNDER COMMUNISM column respond: We agree in general with the writer and apologize for putting down fantasy without qualification. This was partly a reaction to particular fantasies, such as the get-rich-quick of Cinderella and the underlying racism of The Lion King, etc. Fantasy and imaginative play among children has a useful role in children’s learning about the real world and about relationships. It can also have a useful role among adults, if only for relaxation and recuperation. It’s mainly when fantasy is presented as reality or contains racist, sexist or patriotic (nationalist) messages that it harms the working class — children and adults alike.

Aim Agitation at Communist Consciousness

As CHALLENGE said in response to my letter, "Selling Communism," (3/15), what’s needed most of all is for more readers writing what they think communism is. I’ve tried to promote this discussion. Frankly, I feel a little over my head and want to know what others think.

As CHALLENGE says, organizing must be focused around industrial workers and the military, and that allowing the capitalists to continue taking more and more surplus value (in the form of reduced wages, benefits and jobs) without a fight would be disastrous. I’m not for abandoning industrial concentrations or for not fighting layoffs. I am suggesting that agitation be more deliberately aimed at creating communist consciousness and a spirit of internationalism. "From each according to commitment, to each according to need" should be primary everywhere in political work. As CHALLENGE has written numerous times, revolutionary ideas won’t just grow spontaneously.

I think it was important that CHALLENGE’s response clarified how bad things are for most U.S. workers. I kind of overlooked that, though I completely agree, in the course of describing how bad things are for others worldwide. However, in no way did I try to say that U.S. workers, or any other workers, benefit from imperialist war. That’s a big leap from saying that we must do more on behalf of others, or that some of us are spoiled.

However, my generation grew up in the post-WW II era learning that we should not, as a class, stand idly by while others are attacked, wherever and whenever. This doesn’t mean that PLP is not trying to arouse us to stand up to the capitalists, which it is and always has. It just means that, in my opinion, we could encourage a different emphasis in regard to internationalism, stressing an all-for-one-one-for-all loyalty that is sorely lacking in the world.

I did not say that communists would just appear out of the blue. I agree totally that cold-blooded, careful, long-term, professional planning and assessment is the only way to recruit a mass and invincible revolutionary party, if that’s what’s being suggested.

Red Rider

Pink’s New Song A ‘Breath of fresh air’

Today, in a capitalist society so horrendously sexist and degenerate that the song "My Humps" by the Black Eyed Peas is regarded as merely the latest straw in a field of poisonous wheat, a little of cultural anti-sexism manages to squeeze through. Compared to the constant objectification of women that’s a centerpiece of most music videos, this year’s February single by Pink, entitled "Stupid Girls," is a badly-needed breath of fresh air.

"Stupid Girls" is not what its title might seem. Pink is not calling women and girls stupid; she’s calling the sexist, superficial society surrounding them stupid. The video opens with an impressionable little girl sitting in a TV recliner, while in the ether around her an angel appears by one side of her head, a devil on the other. The girl switches on the TV, and the video shows us what’s wrong with society’s treatment and portrayal of women. This is pretty daring for a mainstream music video.

At the video’s conclusion, the "devil" element, presumed to have been advocating all of the above, is vanquished by the angel. Ultimately, the little girl decides that instead of playing with dolls, she’ll play football and learn music, rejecting the other sexist elements.

The song is not much more than an indictment of superficiality. Instead of advocating the collective unity of workers to fight sexism, it follows the dominant line of individualism, only this time it’s in the form of "independence" from "stupid things" and concentration on a career, on deeper personal fulfillment and on developing intelligence. These goals don’t challenge the system. You can be an individualist and still believe them. In fact, Pink’s song is in many ways akin to the many forms of ethnic nationalism that also recognize the awful superficiality of capitalist culture, but approach the solution on an idealist "get-back-to-your roots" level.

Still, this single is a mainstream example of even a moderately anti-sexist message, and perhaps just as importantly, a pop tune that briefly made it into the Top 20 as well as produced a pretty well-done video — meaning it has been, and will be seen by a wide variety of people, including, most likely, many of the working-class people we want to recruit to PLP.

Young Red

On the March 25^th Immigrant March in Los Angeles

I invited some fellow workers to the march, Asian workers who speak Spanish. We translated some signs from Spanish into mandarin Chinese, saying, "Asian, Latin, Black and White, Workers of the World Unite." We've known these workers for several years and today was a great opportunity to develop a sharper political struggle with them.

I also won my brother's respect who's opposed my political ideas. I was greatly surprised that he was organizing his co-workers. He called to ask me for leaflets which we passed out at his shop. Several of his co-workers went with us to the march. The consistent work over several years brought good results.

Since then we've discussed the actions. I'm learning that political struggles always have some positive results. Soon we'll meet to plan to get even closer to these and other Asian workers.

PLP garment worker

I was impressed with the number of people at this march. I had never been in something like this. My group totaled 12 people. It was important that they are part of my communist political base.

Among the signs we made the most popular said, "Workers United will never be defeated." Our group led chants like "Las luchas obreras no tienen fronteras" (Workers' struggles have no borders.)

A comrade

It's three days after the march and I'm still in shock at the responsibility I took. For the first time I led a group by myself. When I arrived at our meeting place, there were about 30 people who came from a leaflet handed out by a group of garment workers. First I wanted to leave, but instead I welcomed everyone and gave a speech about why workers are forced to immigrate, distributing a few leaflets and practicing a few chants.

Then our group rode a public bus to Los Angeles. On the bus were more workers headed to the march. I gave them leaflets and talked about the march.

At the march many things happened that caused me to think revolution is possible. The workers saw each other as class brothers and sisters, helping each other with children, sharing water and food. We tried to stay and shout the same chants together. The most surprising thing was the reaction of the people.

On our return ride, we chanted "Long live the Workers of the World!" and people chanted back, "Que vivan!" With a lot of mutual confidence people were inviting others to dinner. There were fellow workers from China on the bus, with signs written in Chinese saying, "Asian, Latin, black and white, workers of the world, unite!" I invited them to May Day.

Garment worker

Today is a great day to be immigrants! Better still, to be a member of PLP!

This march in LA on March 25 has been an emotional day of personal and community growth with so many people united to demonstrate against the fascist anti-immigrant laws! Today all the immigrants of the world, with our politics, were represented here, when immigrants in the U.S. confront the world's most powerful and fascist bosses.

It was very inspiring to witness the masses' anger, going beyond the bosses' leadership. The call was for 10:00 AM but people started arriving the night before. By 8 AM 100,000 people were assembled.

At other times our club, friends and families have participated as a group, but this time every member gave leadership in his or her community. This was an important step for personal leadership development. Generally as a group, we tend to depend on decision-making by one or two people. But this time each of us put into practice what we've learned and took leadership, even if previously we doubted our ability to do so. We're leaders of PLP who know that the truth of the working class is universal. A leader who has the truth on his/her side will always find support for slogans that advance working-class struggle, like "Workers of the world, unite!"; "La Clase obrera no tiene frontera" ("The working class has no borders"); "The workers united will never be defeated." These truths unite and invite class struggle. Today we gave leadership to massive groups of immigrant workers who easily identified with other workers in their same struggle.

Today, although alone, we went as leaders and more than ever as PLP members who moved many workers to the line of class struggle we proclaimed.Congratulations to immigrant workers! To Workers of the world! To PLP!

PLP Marcher

CHALLENGE comments: The comrade's enthusiasm and actions are inspiring. A note of caution, however. While immigrants marched against racism, some of the most powerful and fascist bosses in the world are encouraging these marches for their own imperialist ends. Along with uniting with angry workers in struggle, we need to warn them of the plans of the biggest imperialists who are actually calling for more of these marches. Of course, their slogans are "si se puede" ("Yes, we can do it") — reform capitalism — and "USA! USA!" At our actions, we need to explain what these bosses and their friends in the media, including the Spanish-language media, have in mind.

‘North Country’ Exposes Oppression of Women, But Not Its Source

It’s been 30 years since the first class action sexual harassment case and the same super-exploitation of workers still exists. The bosses use racism, sexism and nationalism to divide workers and weaken their ability to fight back. "North Country," recently released on DVD, starring Charlize Theron as Josey, follows the true story of Lois Jenson, a leader in the fight against sexism in Minnesota’s coal mines. The movie traces her exodus away from an abusive husband, to her parents’ house in a mining town. Against her coal miner father’s wishes, Josey gets a job at the mine.

There she’s confronted with sexist co-workers. The hostility towards the women miners takes the form of numerous acts of harassment and even sexual assault. When Josey challenges the boss about the situation, she’s fired. She takes her case to court and pleads for support from her female co-workers. The movie ends with an emotional courtroom scene in which Josey’s family and both female and male co-workers stand up for her.

Capitalism creates the sexism that Josey and many other women face. In the movie, this manifests itself through the special oppression of women workers, abusive personal relationships and harassment at the workplace. The capitalist need for maximum profits drives the bosses to super-exploit some workers to isolate them from the rest. They do this also by driving down wages of some workers which impels other bosses to follow suit to compete.

In the movie, the women were divided from the men and paid less. This leads the men to react with, "They are taking our jobs." In 1975, the time of the Lois Jenson story, when jobs in Minnesota mines became scarce, hostility towards women worsened, blaming them for job cuts.

Josey experienced sexism all her life — raped at 16 by her high school teacher, later beaten by her husband and then harassed on the job. Abuse is used to terrorize women and prevent them from becoming powerful working-class leaders. In Josey’s case, it prevented her from connecting with her father, one of her co-workers. Josey, like the women employed in sweatshops at the border (maquiladoras), was degraded by being forced to get a pregnancy test as a job requirement. The bosses don’t want to hire pregnant women.

In "North Country," the bosses use sexism to divide the workers, just as they use racist deportations and nationalism to divide immigrant and citizen workers. Similar to the current "solution" offered immigrant workers, the movie says reliance on the capitalist government and the courts will somehow eliminate racism and sexism.

Josey’s lawyer disagreed with her desire to take the boss to court, saying, "It’s an illusion to think all your problems will be solved in the courtroom; the reality is even when you win you don’t win." Similarly, even if workers defeat the anti-immigrant bills, the bosses will still use racism and terror to weaken the working class and divide it to stop a united fight against our true enemy, capitalism.

In the final courtroom scene, Josey’s lawyer says, "What are you supposed to do when the ones with all the power [the bosses] are hurting the ones with none….You stand up and tell the truth, you stand up and help your friends; even if you’re all alone, you stand up."

The workers certainly have great potential power, but we must organize with other workers to stand up together against the bosses. CHALLENGE is our truth and we need to share it with the rest of the working class. The world’s workers are our friends; we must stand up and fight with them for communism!

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

Liberal author says layoffs terrible, but…

The layoff, Mr. Uchitelle argues, has transformed the nation. At least 30 million full-time American employees have gotten pink slips since the Labor Department belatedly started to count them in 1984. But add in the early retires, the "quits" who saw the layoffs coming, and the number is much higher….To Mr. Uchitelle, layoffs in one way are worse than the unemployment of the 1930’s. At least then, most of the jobless came back to better-paid, more secure jobs. Those laid off in our time almost never will….

The heart of Mr. Uchitelle’s book is his detailed, wide-ranging reporting. He is present, taking notes, while….One mechanic ends up running a water taxi for tourists. Another goes into maintenance. Others find jobs "throwing boxes" at Federal Express….

It nettles Mr. Uchitelle that even the center-left politicians have said so little about this trend — or have done so little to stop layoffs….Mr. Uchitelle particularly blames Mr. Clinton….

In this retelling of American history, Mr. Uchitelle is baffled by the collapse of any serious resistance to these mass layoffs….

Still, in a brief concluding chapter, it is unclear whether Mr. Uchitelle sees any good solutions now… (NYT, 3/29)

Sellouts didn’t work: GM jobs down 75%

What if you could go back in time and show union workers and leaders that since 1985, the number of hourly factory workers at G.M.’s American plants would fall to just 113,000 from 457,000?....

Giving new meaning to the term "labor-management cooperation," union leaders and General Motors executives joined forces years ago. However unwittingly, they have been working hand in glove ever since to wreck the place. Bringing G.M, to its knees is a big job, after all, and neither side could have done it alone….It’s enough to make you wonder if we might have been better off with more old-fashioned labor strife. (NYT, 4/2)

US paid Latino thug to ‘fight communism’

A…Judge in Miami found a former Honduran Army colonel responsible for killings and kidnappings in Honduras during the 1980’s and ordered him to pay $47 million to several torture victims and surviving relatives of the dead. Judge Joan A. Lenard found that the colonel, Juan López Grijalba, served as chief of an intelligence unit known as Battalion 3-16, which received money and training from the United States. The unit, organized as part of the Reagan adminstration’s effort to stop the spread of Communism in Central America, was responsible for systematic abuses against civilians suspected as subversives. (NYT)

US-Euro imperialists trap Africa in poverty

To the Editor:

The World Bank, controlled by its United States and European majority, helps trap Africa in its low-growth role as exporter of raw materials, and the worst poverty is found in refugee camps created by civil wars against thugs who were armed and aided in return for cooperation with American military, covert and mineral operations: Savimbi in Angola, Mobutu in the Congo, Doe in Liberia, Barre in Somalia and Nimeiry in the Sudan. Today’s American aid to regimes that cooperate with the "war on terrorism" plants the seeds for the civil wars, and the poverty, of the future. (Caleb Stewart Rossiter, The writer teaches in the School of International Service, American University) (NYT, 4/2)

GI’s go to Canada to escape Iraq service

Hundreds of deserters from the US armed forces have crossed into Canada and are seeking political refugee status arguing that violations of the rules of war in Iraq by the US entitle them to asylum. A decision on a test involving two US servicemen is due shortly and is being watched with interest on both sides of the border. At least 20 others have already applied for asylum and there are an estimated 400 in Canada out of more than 9,000 who have deserted since the conflict started in 2003. (GW, 4/6)

Liberal Mass. health plan will rob workers

To the Editor:

The new health insurance law in Massachusetts is in effect a new tax on what should be as free as public education. It forces individuals, by government decree, to put dollars directly into the pockets of insurance and drug companies and H.M.O.’s.

The fear of "socialism," in the form of single-payer health insurance — something most working Americans favor — is the excuse politicians use to protect the profits of their big business contributors. The so-called compromise touted by Massachusetts legislators shortchanges working people as usual.

That "government subsidies to private insurance plans will allow more of the working poor to buy insurance" is an outrage. People who by definition are poor will be force by law to spend some of their small income on what a civilized society should guarantee them as a right.

Not good enough… (NYT, 4/9)

Hard Struggle And Shedding Illusions The Road To Communism

The CHALLENGE series, "Under Communism," has produced a number of instructive, thought-provoking articles. The ones devoted to the forging of communist class consciousness in the heat of class struggle are particularly useful and inspiring.

Among the best are the pieces about the achievements and ordeals of Soviet women pilots in World War II, revolutionary upsurge in post-World War II Poland, and the elimination of syphilis, prostitution and schistosomiasis in China. These stories and the political lessons flowing from them belong to working-class history. Future generations of communists can learn invaluable lessons from them, and the series has made an important contribution by setting the record straight.

However, some of the other articles — "How will we eliminate racism?"; "How would disasters from hurricanes like Katrina be avoided?"; "What will prisons be like?"; "What will science be like?"; "Will you have your own toothbrush?"; "How will children be raised?"; "How will we achieve and maintain economic equality" — could unwittingly lead to dangerous illusions about the conditions likely to prevail for a long time while the worldwide revolutionary process unfolds.

The objection here is less to the points these articles make than to the ones they don’t make. Discussion of the above questions must account for the character of the present period and the strong likelihood that the foreseeable future holds many years of turmoil, war, class struggle and destruction. These are the conditions under which the revolutionary process will unfold and under which masses will be won to communist consciousness and to our Party.

History teaches us that communist revolution occurs in the wake of imperialist war, which produced the Paris Commune, the Bolshevik Revolution and the Chinese Revolution. Even the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution erupted during the so-called "Cold War" and U.S. imperialism’s anti-communist aggression in Southeast Asia.

We don’t yet fully grasp the implications of this history. The most instructive example for our future organizing should be the two wars the Soviet Union had to fight immediately after the October Revolution in 1917. The first, often called the "Civil War of 1918-24," had an important component of civil war: the former capitalists and Czarists within Russia tried to smash Soviet state power. More pointedly was the support these counter-revolutionaries received from 17 capitalist countries that had just finished fighting each other in World War I. All these capitalists united to invade the fledgling U.S.S.R. and, as Winston Churchill said, to "strangle the infant in its cradle." This "War of Intervention" failed miserably, but it had created enough disease, famine and violence to cause 4.5 million working-class deaths.

The "infant" survived, and the Soviet working class proceeded to build socialism, with all the triumphs and errors our Party has frequently described. The world’s imperialists didn’t give up. They allowed and helped a defeated Germany to re-arm with the specific mission of succeeding where the "War of Intervention" had failed. The bosses of Britain, France and the U.S. viewed Hitler’s main job as the destruction of Soviet socialism. But Hitler double-crossed his pals, leading to a two-front European war, which overextended the Nazis. Nonetheless, 80% of Hitler’s armies were engaged on the "Russian front." The main casualties were 27 million Soviet working-class dead and millions more wounded.

We must remember this history when discussing fighting racism, building a penal system, reacting to natural disaster, distinguishing between individual and social property, raising children, advancing science or promoting economic equality under communism. It will be a long, long time before we can remotely conceive of accomplishing any of these goals, absent periods of raging class struggle and war. This series doesn’t explicitly deny this estimate. But it barely mentions it and therefore seriously miscalculates it.

Let’s imagine a scenario for revolution in the U.S. Suppose that over the next 10-20 years, U.S. imperialism becomes further embroiled in a military occupation of the Persian Gulf. The bosses will be forced to restore a military draft. The wars will widen, and the destruction and casualties will eventually far surpass even those in Vietnam. The rulers will need a much sharper police-state crackdown domestically. Class struggle will erupt in the teeth of fascist repression. Our Party will learn to recruit and to grow under far more challenging political and physical conditions than we face currently. Simultaneously, antagonisms will drastically sharpen between the U.S. and all other imperialists. These contradictions will lead to armed struggle, eventually pitting U.S. bosses against virtually all the others, led most probably by the Chinese, Russian and European blocs. It’s difficult to see how this Third World War could avoid a nuclear confrontation.

We can’t predict the timing of this scenario. It may not be imminent, but is on a somewhat distant horizon, and the bet here says it’s inevitable. But we’re only discussing the conditions most likely to lead to revolutionary upsurge and the potential seizure of power in the country we now call the U.S.

Suppose the Party recruits millions under these circumstances, during mutiny within the military and revolutionary class struggle on the home front, establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat here. This will occur amid economic devastation and destruction. People will have to learn to share, to fight racism, to punish counter-revolutionaries, to raise children, to advance scientific knowledge, and so on, under wartime conditions that have never prevailed in this country and are likely to last for years.

This period will probably be that long because making revolution and seizing power will be just the first of many arduous challenges. The hardest part will undoubtedly follow. Suppose we succeed under these conditions. How will the bosses of other countries react to Proletarian Dictatorship in the U.S.? History teaches us to expect another, probably far more destructive version of the "War of Intervention" in Russia mentioned above. So we would have to prepare mentally, politically and practically for an era of war, revolution, counter-revolution and international armed struggle against counter-revolution.

None of the questions raised by our series "Under Communism" is irrelevant or unimportant. But we make a dangerous error if we imply that for a very long period ahead, the answers to them will come in any context different from the one sketched out here. As our Party often says, our job is not to warn about peace.

This estimate should not discourage us or make us pessimistic. Communists don’t fear the truth, and the truth is that the international class of imperialist rulers will stop at nothing to preserve its rotten, murderous profit system. The truth is also that history confirms the working class’s potential to take their best punch and turn it into its opposite. Workers will absorb and act upon the profound revolutionary lessons the CHALLENGE series correctly endorses. However, we must fight hard to shed all illusions about the conditions under which communist consciousness and power will develop. Struggle, sharp struggle, very far into the future, remains the crucible from which a new humanity and a new society will emerge.

Great opportunities await our class and Party. We have the potential to make the most of them, but only if we take full account of the challenges we will face.

UNDER COMMUNISM

How Will We Achieve and Maintain Economic Equality?

Part III of three parts: The Abolition of Money and Wages

"Money is the root of all evil" might better be said, "Money and wages are the roots of all evil."

Money developed as a means of exchange in early markets, where craftspersons or farmers sold their products and then wandered elsewhere in the market to buy food and other things they needed or wanted. This presupposed that each transaction involved equal amounts of value. Money permitted fairness in each exchange. However, simultaneously over time, money lent itself to unequal accumulation by some people at the expense of others.

But Marx discovered one type of transaction in which value was not exchanged equally, namely wages in exchange for labor power. He proved that the exchange value of labor power was different from the exchange value of the product of labor. The value of labor power was determined by the necessities of life that it took to keep the laborer alive and in shape to work every day. The value of the product of labor, on the other hand, was the value of what the laborer produced every day, which in general far exceeded the value of what it took to keep her/him alive and working each day. Marx referred to the difference between the two as "surplus value."

The swindle that Marx unveiled was that the capitalist employer pays the worker wages for her/his labor power and then seizes the product of that labor and sells it, reaping far more than the worker is paid. The difference is the capitalist’s profit, which is pocketed by the capitalist as pure theft of labor from the worker. The neutral word "profit" hides the underlying theft, and money keeps this robbery invisible.

Commonly, some of this profit is distributed to other capitalists in the form of interest to bankers for loans; to landlords for rent; and to the owners of raw materials or machinery necessary for the original capitalist’s production. Thus, many capitalists take part in this swindle of the original boss’s workers. (For a full explanation of this hidden swindle, see the PLP pamphlet "Political Economy: a Communist Critique of the Wage System," available at www.plp.org.)

If, under communism, people worked for the welfare of the working class as a whole — following the principle "from each according to commitment, to each according to need" — necessities of life could be distributed without money. Working people could go to a distribution center for food, say, and receive whatever the family needed. Their "payment" over the long term would be in the form of the labor each family contributed to the collective good, whether it be growing food, manufacturing, means of transportation, clothing, houses, etc., or providing some service such as health care, schooling, parks, etc.

Accumulation of money, acquired as wages, foils this collective attitude. PLP has identified the retention of wages in the Soviet Union and China as the chief factor that undermined the political resolve of the working class, focused workers on their own immediate income instead of on the welfare of the collective, maintained the basis for differentials among workers’ income, weakened their hold on power, and led directly to the return to capitalism. (See PLP’s "Road to Revolution IV" for a fuller explanation, available at www.plp.org.)

Today, members of PLP who write and edit CHALLENGE, sell the paper (below cost) at workplaces or in neighborhoods, organize meetings and demonstrations and carry out many other aspects of building a communist party, do so for no money. Under communism, those leading comrades who have to travel or meet frequently to sustain the overall development of society would receive no more than needed to sustain the average working person or comrade.

To summarize this series: (1) capitalism arose through massive theft and genocidal murder and continues these crimes against humanity to this day; (2) the solution to the poverty, starvation, sickness and misery produced by capitalism is collective ownership of productive wealth, not the redistribution of it in small packets; and (3) abolition of money and wages is necessary for the working class to hold on to political power once it is seized through revolution.

Of course, the economic development toward this goal is not automatic even when workers take power. In order to serve the interests of the working class, communists must fight to make these politics the property of the entire working class internationally, and even before the revolution is won.

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, April 12, 2006

Information: 12 April 2006 121 hits

Can't Fight Racism Relying on Liberal Rulers
MILLIONS PROTEST RULERS' RACIST ANTI-IMMIGRANT BILLS
LA STUDENTS IN MASS WALKOUT
Liberals' `Legalization'= More Exploitation
Anti-War Vets' March Backs Katrina Victims
Pentagon/Harvard `Humanitarianism' Kills, Maims, Terrorizes
Putin Flexes Old Muscle in Imperialist Dogfight
Detroit Teachers' Pay-Cut Racist Attack on Black Youth
GM `Restructuring' Follows Führer's Footsteps
2.5 Million March As Protests, Strikes Sweep France
Women Workers Face Great Job Insecurity in France
CONVERSATION WITH A WORKER OF THE WORLD
Immigration Struggle Sharpens Political Debate Among Workers
PLP Grows Out of March at Bronx Recruiting Center
Vets, Military Families Bring Anti-War Message to Multi-racial Community
L.A. Dinner Kicks off Planning for May Day
LETTERS
1. Guard Bars Katrina Evacuee From Home
2. Red Carpenter Goes To New Orleans
3. Clean School in 9th Ward Despite Legal Ban
4. Bring PLP's Ideas to Chicago March
5. Answer Anti-Immigrant Laws: `Destroy Border'
McCain Moderate? Or Pro-War, Anti-Immigrant Racist?
REDEYE
1. For imperialist schemes, US gov't lies
2. `Most murderous' junta backed by US
3. Led by Reds, they fought MetLife racism
4. More training = good pay? Not in US today
Movie Review
1. V for Venerating Anarchism
Chimps and Us: Does Human Nature Exist?
Under communism
1. How Will We Achieve and Maintain Economic Equality?

Can't Fight Racism Relying on Liberal Rulers
MILLIONS PROTEST RULERS' RACIST ANTI-IMMIGRANT BILLS

LOS ANGELES, March 27 -- "We workers have no country and no borders. What we have is our power to work and to fight together. That's why we chant "Este puño si se ve los obreros al poder" ("See this fist -- workers to power"). That's what one worker said as hundreds of workers took up this chant in the march of over half a million immigrant workers and their supporters here protesting anti-immigrant racism and the fascist Sensenbrenner bill (HR4437) -- which would make being undocumented a felony. Similar marches are occuring across the U.S.

The fact that marchers took up that chant while simultaneously waving U.S. imperialism's flag represents both danger and opportunity: we cannot underestimate the danger of the bosses winning workers to patriotism and imperialism, but we should not underestimate the opportunity to win them to communist revolution to destroy these evils.

Workers began assembling at 7 A.M. for the 10 o'clock march. Downtown was jammed. The march was built by the Spanish-language radio and TV stations, by the Catholic and other churches, the unions and by the English all-news radio as well. Many garment bosses encouraged workers to march, paying for buses and even marched themselves, since the Sensenbrenner bill would limit their access to immigrant labor, especially the low-wage undocumented workers, thereby reducing profits. Mayor Villaraigosa called for Congressional passage of the McCain-Kennedy bill (see "Liberals' Legalization = More Exploitation" box page 3).

A worker we'd never met took the bullhorn to explain to his fellow marchers the importance of the chant, "No sangre obrera por ganancias petroleras" ("No workers' blood for oil profits"), saying the bosses wanted us to die for their empire.

The anger of Latino workers overflowed in the streets, part of nationwide mass marches against the Sensenbrenner bill. But we should have no illusions -- the march was organized by the bosses and their agents who championed the McCain-Kennedy bill.

There was a wonderful and enthusiastic response to PLP's entire point of view. Using bullhorn rallies, we noted the importance of immigrant workers to the capitalists' economy, especially to its war machine. We said workers must reject not only the Minutemen but also the Republicans and Democrats and both HR 4437 and the McCain-Kennedy bill that would legalize slave-labor conditions. We called on workers to renounce as well the sellout union leaders who push confidence in the Democratic Party. We called on workers to fight for power through communist revolution, uniting with black and white workers and soldiers.

Their response to the truth that workers create all value and should run society in their own interests was electrifying. They eagerly grabbed over 9,000 communist leaflets and literally demanded all the CHALLENGES we had (unfortunately only about 900, including some older issues). They bought red communist T-shirts and asked to carry red PLP flags. This should give us confidence that in the factories, schools, barracks, unions and churches we can fight for the Party's communist line and that workers will respond -- more than we think.

When our PLP contingent joined the march, others helped carry our bullhorn and led chants. We continually linked the racist attacks on immigrants to the war. Young PLP'ers and their friends tirelessly led chants for four hours. When the leaders chanted "Si se puede," these youth added "destruir racismo...destruir imperialismo...destruir fronteras...destruir capitalismo." One worker we just met who helped then came to the PLP May Day Dinner that night.

Other comrades and friends marched in union and church groups and some in the general crowd took the initiative to lead chants. Some gave speeches. Other workers gladly helped lead chants, carry bullhorns and distribute literature. One worker said we were marching not just against the Sensenbrenner bill but also in honor of the thousands of workers who have died trying to cross the borders and the millions of workers worldwide fighting oppression and imperialism.

Then hundreds joined this speaker in the chant "las luchas obreras no tienen fronteras!" ("Workers' struggles have no borders!"). They also added to the leaders' chant of "Si se puede": "Contra muros y fronteras" ("Against walls and borders").... "Contra la migra y patron" ("Against the Migra and the boss").... "Contra la Guerra imperialista" ("Against imperialist war"). Workers exchanged phone numbers to stay in contact.

The liberal imperialist bosses are fighting for the hearts and minds of immigrant workers and all workers -- with U.S. flags, patriotism, demands to have supposedly less racist laws (which are equally racist -- see box right). No capitalist law will end racism because capitalism survives on racism. But it's also clear that these angry workers are open to our Party's line.

PLP has a unique opportunity now. Taking advantage of it means bringing CHALLENGE and all our ideas into the shops, schools and barracks. We should have had more leaflets and printed more CHALLENGES to reach out to angry workers hungry for answers. But to be decisive, that fight must be carried out in the workplaces.

We intend to ensure that the many workers who, in the last weeks, helped the Party fight the bosses' patriotism, racism and pro-war propaganda, regularly receive CHALLENGE. These workers and students can become the leaders who will help guarantee that our presence in future marches is more organized and bolder still. They can help build more CHALLENGE networks and a mass PLP.

LA STUDENTS IN MASS WALKOUT

LOS ANGELES, March 28 -- Today and yesterday high school students walked out of their schools all over LA and even in some suburbs to demonstrate at City Hall against the anti-immigration bills in Congress. They grabbed PLP leaflets and even old issues of CHALLENGE (we ran out of the current one). They wanted to talk about war, capitalism, and the politics of the anti-immigration drive. A similar militant high school walkout occurred in Dallas, where students stormed City Hall and were attacked by cops.

The fight against the racism suffered by immigrant workers is full of opportunities as well as dangers (since it is being led by liberals and the churches). But PLP can win many of these youth if we put forward our politics boldly, attacking racism in general and the liberals who are attempting to mislead masses of workers and youth into the rat hole of poverty wages and as cannon fodder in their oil wars.

Liberals' `Legalization'= More Exploitation

A recent LA Times editorial admitted that mass deportations -- as called for in HR 4437 -- would be "economically suicidal" because of the key role played by immigrant workers in the U.S. economy. In addition, U.S. imperialists need immigrants and their children as boots on the ground in their expanding oil wars. The McCain-Kennedy Bill, supported by Hillary Clinton, Villaraigosa and other Democrats, calls for a foolproof national ID, tighter border control, a long "road to legalization," and a "bracero" program (guest worker). Workers would have to prove their consistent work history, clean criminal record, take civics classes and pay large fines, facing deportation if they are unemployed for 60 days. It amounts to legalizing slave-labor conditions while pushing U.S. patriotism. Another bill the Dream Act calls on undocumented youth to enter the military or complete an Associate degree to get a green card.

Anti-War Vets' March Backs Katrina Victims

From March 14 to 19, veterans, military families, and hurricane survivors marched from Mobile, Alabama to New Orleans under the banner, "Every bomb dropped on Iraq Explodes Along the Gulf Coast." They found immigrant construction workers laboring under slave-like conditions in a newly-created company town. PLP members need to link the rulers' victimization of these workers, New Orleans residents and the Iraq war to their source -- the racist, exploitative capitalist system.

More than one combat veteran said the Gulf Coast's devastation reminds them or Iraq. Months after the storm; houses are flattened and crushed in the lower 9th ward neighborhood.

In many poor areas, especially black, Latin, and immigrant communities, working-class people and church volunteers were reopening schools, clinics and small businesses against police orders and with no help from the government or corporations. Some veterans visited sub-contracted relief workers -- immigrants mainly from Mexico and other Latin American countries -- forced to live in the company compound surrounded by armed guards. They pay $150 a month for a tent on a plot of dirt. The company pays workers in coupons which are only good at the company store. They're supposedly paid $10 an hour but receive $100 a day even if they work 14 hours. The company calls the immigration bloodhounds on those who challenge inhuman housing conditions or confront bosses about their pay. "It's slavery," said one Latino vet.

In one housing project, the mostly black residents returned to find the doors and windows on the lower floors locked behind steel. FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told people they erected steel doors to "protect the apartments from looters." But residents said the housing authorities have been trying to move them for years, and these doors might discourage them from returning. Still, most have returned and are planning to stay. FEMA handed over the keys but hasn't removed the barriers.

The first neighborhood marchers visited was a Vietnamese immigrant community. The streets are filled with trash. FEMA said they would collect the garbage but six months later, it's still there. Thirty years ago these Vietnamese immigrants came here searching for "the American dream." Now they're finding out that capitalism exploits workers the world over.

Wealthier communities affected by Katrina have largely returned to normal. In the French Quarter signs read, "Luxury Condominiums for Sale. Only 10 left."

On the last day protestors rallied in front of a high school taken back by community activists. Marchers, led by Iraq Veterans Against the War, chanted, "Make levees, Not bombs!" while pumping clenched fists in the air. At one point a military family member tried to get a few young Iraq vets to chant, "Stop Bush! Stop Bush!" They didn't. Instead they talked about how it was bigger than Bush, how it's about a whole system that only cares about money. One of those vets received his first CHALLENGE on the march.

Many displayed militancy but most participants flashed peace signs and anti-Bush slogans. Most of the organizations involved want to stop the war and rebuild the Gulf Coast by pressuring Congress to stop funding the war. One military family and a peace group urged their Congressman to back a bill calling for withdrawal in writing. The politician's statement supported the bill but made it clear that the military would be in the Mid-East indefinitely to protect U.S. rulers' interests. Still the group felt they could change his mind. PLP'ers and CHALLENGE pointed out that there is a capitalist ruling class and that this war is a neccesary part of this system, ideas otherwise largely absent from the event.

While many tied the war in Iraq to the situation in New Orleans on various levels, many veterans and survivors had racist and confusing attitudes towards Iraq's working class. One vehicle had a sign that read, "Abandon Iraq, Help the Gulf Coast." A college student summed up her feelings, "Iraq for Iraqis, America for Americans." A resident from the lower 9th ward said, "The Iraqis don't want our help. Fine. But we need help here." Two young survivors and college students disagreed. "Why can't we do both? Oh, but wait. That would mean we care about all people, not just Americans," one sarcastically remarked.

The fact is U.S. rulers are not in Iraq to "help Iraqi workers" but to seize the oil and murder tens of thousands of Iraqis who get in their way. The same Exxon Mobil and Halliburton bosses exploiting workers in the Middle East are the very ones profiting from the victimization of New Orleans workers.

One powerful event was a series of short talks by U.S. vets from WWII, the Korean War, Vietnam, the clandestine cold wars in Latin America, the Persian Gulf War, and the latest wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many still clung to the idea that Bush is exceptionally bad but many also clearly saw that wars for money preceded Bush. One vet was ten years old when the Korean War started and said the U.S. has been at war somewhere all his life.

Pentagon/Harvard `Humanitarianism' Kills, Maims, Terrorizes

U.S. imperialism kills, maims and terrorizes millions in its relentless, profit-driven wars. So when liberal spokesmen for the imperialists start charging the top brass with "human rights abuses," look for an ulterior motive. A NY Times editorial (3/23) about a soldier convicted of torturing an Iraqi prisoner decried that such abuse "was organized and systematic, and flowed from policies written by top officials in [the Bush] administration.... Virtually all high-ranking soldiers have escaped unscathed," the Times complained, "and not a single policy maker has been called to account."

On one level, the liberals are trying to use their hypocritical anti-terror crusade as a smokescreen for a purge. They seek to rid the Pentagon and White House of Rumsfeld-school "cheap hawks," who think U.S. imperialism can continue to function without a general militarization of society.

On a deeper level, liberal humanitarian hype reflects a broad effort, led on the academic side by Harvard, to make the U.S. war machine ever more lethal. In 1999, with the Clinton gang preparing the shift from air raids to ground warfare in Iraq, Harvard founded the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. Its mission statement reads in part, "the means of military intervention have dramatic implications for the security of civilians in the target country, the security of intervening forces, and the effectiveness of the intervention itself....The project aims to affect the way nations intervene militarily, making the use of military power more consistent with humanitarian principles."

Though completely committed to mass murder and inflicting unspeakable pain, Harvard's warmakers understand that highly-publicized atrocities like Abu Ghraib can sidetrack U.S. imperialism. Liberal strategists have said that securing the Middle East and its oil could require five million troops, perhaps soon. (See CHALLENGE, 2/1/06). But revelations of torture have damaged U.S. rulers' ability to undertake such an effort by boosting anti-U.S. sentiment in the Arab world, alienating potential allies, and, most importantly, weakening public support for the military at home.

Headed by Sarah Sewall, a deputy secretary in Clinton's Defense Department, Harvard's Carr Center works closely with the Pentagon to portray war criminals as missionaries. Last November, the Carr Center and the Army's War College co-sponsored a "human rights" conference in Washington that involved dozens of high-ranking killers from all four service branches. To help ensure that future atrocities will wear a humanitarian fig leaf in the media, Harvard invited representatives from the Times and the Wall Street Journal.

But despite its name, "human rights" is only a temporary concern of the Carr Center. Its ultimate, purpose, vows Sewall, is "to make U.S. use of force more effective." As a longer-term goal, Harvard, just as the Nazis did in Germany, is trying to win the public to value imperialist bloodshed over humanitarianism. The Carr Center and the War College have jointly revised the Pentagon's counter-insurgency doctrine in a document that awaits official approval. Anthony Cordesman spoke at Carr's November meeting about the home-front aspect of the new outlook: "It is critical that we honestly prepare the American people, the Congress...for the real nature of the war to be fought and prepare them to sustain the expense and sacrifice through truth, not spin."

The profit system itself, with its constant exploitation and endless wars, constitutes the greatest human rights abuse in history. As the atrocities unfold, we must not side with the liberals, who would manipulate our revulsion to serve the capitalists' war needs. We call on all workers and youth to repel the warmakers, from Harvard to the Pentagon, by marching with PLP on May Day to build the revolutionary communist movement that will destroy this nightmarish capitalist system.

Putin Flexes Old Muscle in Imperialist Dogfight

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev allowed the West German capitalists to swallow East Germany, refusing to employ the powerful Soviet army there to stop it. In 1990, Gorbachev told President Bush, Sr. that he wouldn't oppose a U.S. invasion of Iraq (then armed with Soviet weapons). In August 1991, Yeltsin completed the implosion of the Soviet Union, crushing an attempt to stop its dissolution.

The U.S. and European bosses claimed victory in the Cold War. It was "the end of history" according to State Department scribbler Francis Fukuyama-- U.S. capitalism would rule the world unopposed. Some said it was the first time in modern history where a ruling class surrendered power peacefully.

We in PLP disagreed. We saw it as a result of a section of the Soviet state-capitalist class deciding to go capitalist openly, ending whatever gains Soviet workers retained from the old socialist era. Long before 1991, the Soviet Union had become state capitalist (see PL Magazine, ROAD TO REVOLUTION 3 AND 4, 1971, 1982), given the concessions to capitalism like wage differentials, privileges for the elite, etc. (See CHALLENGE, 3/15, article on the 50th anniversary of Khrushchev's slanderous anti-Stalin speech).

The standard of living of Soviet workers plummeted. Civil wars erupted in many former Soviet republics. Soviet state capitalists stole the huge enterprises built by Soviet workers, and a mafia-style capitalism emerged. An alcohol-ridden Yeltsin tried to please the whims of NATO and Washington. He abandoned Russia's allies in Afghanistan, and the Russian army was humiliated in Chechnya.

The U.S. and NATO responded by surrounding Russia with military bases in the former Soviet republics. The final embarrassment came in the former Yugoslavia when NATO-U.S. forces declared war on Serbia, angering Russia, whose tanks seized the Pristina airport in Kosovo when the war was ending, beating NATO there. Putin was now in power and things were changing.

China's rise as a major capitalist power and India's growing energy needs, plus the U.S. quagmire in Iraq combined to escalate energy prices and turn around Russia's oil-and-gas-based economy. Increasingly Russian rulers, led by Putin, began flexing their muscles. They jailed Russian bosses who wanted to sell the country's energy giants to ExxonMobil. Now it's revealed that "Russia provided intelligence to Iraq's government on U.S. military movements in the opening days of the U.S.-led invasion in 2003." (Reuters, 3/24)

Although not necessarily on a par with the U.S., the Russian military remains the only force capable of matching U.S. military technology, with a system able to neutralize U.S. rulers' dream of a so-called Star Wars program. Russia's emerging power, its alliances with China, Iran and others, has driven U.S. bosses (the torturers of Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, etc.) to use the "human rights" weapon, a Cold War tool.

On March 5, the influential Council on Foreign Relations released a 94-page report entitled, "Russia's Wrong Direction: What the United States Can and Should Do." It concluded that Russia's foreign and domestic policies were harming U.S. global interests; that a U.S.-Russian partnership was no longer feasible; and that the U.S. should lead a coordinated Western policy of "selective cooperation" with Russia, a variant of the policy of detente during the Cold War years.

A week later, the U.S. State Department's annual "human-rights" report roundly criticized Putin for authoritarianism by "virtually stripping parliament of power...; continuing media restrictions and self-censorship...; continuing corruption and selectivity in enforcement of law, political pressure on the judiciary, and harassment of some non-governmental organizations," all of which has eroded "the accountability of government leaders to the people."

The next week a White House blueprint -- the National Security Strategy -- distinctly hardened its tone toward Moscow not only calling on Russia to respect freedom at home, but specifically warned that the Kremlin's "efforts to prevent democratic development at home and abroad will hamper the development of Russia's relations with the U.S., Europe and its neighbors."

The same day, March 16, while visiting Australia, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, told a town-hall audience in Sydney she saw "a very difficult and shaky path" right now for Russian democracy, and expressed the hope that the Russian people "will find their voice to demand accountable, transparent institutions and to demand the ability to organize themselves to petition their government and, if necessary, to change their government." (Next issue: Russia flexes its energy muscles, sharpening the imperialist rivalry and exposing a too costly aspect of the U.S. Cold War victory.)

Detroit Teachers' Pay-Cut Racist Attack on Black Youth

DETROIT, MI, March 23 -- Today, 54 schools closed when about a quarter of this city's public schools' 6,500 teachers called in sick. They were protesting the first of five reduced paychecks. They'll be short one day's pay every two weeks through mid-May as part of a cost-cutting measure. Meanwhile, principals and assistant principals are receiving raises.

More than 38,000 students were sent home. One parent said, "If it's a choice between giving money to the principals or the teachers, I say give it to the teachers." Teachers have not received a cost-of-living increase in more than three years and their contract expires June 30.

That's about the same time the City finance department expects Detroit to run out of cash. About $74 million is owed to the city's pension fund. On April 12, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick will announce a restructuring of city government with even deeper attacks on workers and youth to pay for a $300-million deficit. The key is getting major concessions from city workers, as is occurring in the auto industry. Some in the Mayor's office are pushing to cut whole departments, like recreation and health.

During last fall's mayoral election, Kilpatrick blabbered about Detroit's "rebirth" and "renewal." Happy days were here again. Just last month, Detroit hosted a two-week long Super Bowl party for the rich, that had Kilpatrick and the media squealing like pigs about over $300 million being added to "our" economy. Kilpatrick, the City Council and the auto bosses that own them turned downtown Detroit into a millionaire's playground while the homeless were swept off the streets for a few days. Now the party's over.

This city of almost 900,000 mostly black workers and youth has been ravaged by the retreat of GM, Ford and Chrysler on the car-wars battlefield. And things are about to get a lot worse as GM and Ford close 30 factories and abolish 60,000 jobs (half of the GM workforce is in Michigan). On top of that, Delphi bosses continue to try to cut jobs and wages by two-thirds at the country's largest parts supplier. All this is added to the rulers' trillion-dollar failing occupation of Iraq, which has cost Detroit's workers and youth a racist surcharge in blood and budget cuts, and 100,000 Iraqi lives.

Detroit, like GM -- whose world headquarters towers above downtown -- is in critical condition. The "official" unemployment rate is 15%, more than 2_ times the national level. One-third of the population lives in poverty, the highest rate in the U.S. Of the 150,000 public school students, about 80% are black and 70% of those black students live in poverty. Hundreds of city workers have been laid off, fire houses closed, transit and sanitation services slashed and nine recreation centers boarded up.

One teacher in an alternative high school said that the dropout rate on the city's southwest side is 87%. She said, "I live on the East Side, which probably has one of the highest poverty rates in the country, and I teach high school dropouts on the Southwest Side. My students have horrific problems, many of which stem from these economic and social conditions. It's disgusting."

Detroit's workers and youth need revolutionary communist leadership. Organizing a group to march on May Day is a way to begin to provide it.

GM `Restructuring' Follows Führer's Footsteps

DETROIT, MI, March 22 - "When we look back at this particular period, what we are going to realize is that we were right in the middle of the most dramatic restructuring period in the history of the automobile industry." That's how David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan, described the agreement reached between General Motors, the bankrupt auto supplier Delphi and the United Auto Workers union.

GM, which lost $10.6 billion last year, will offer buyouts and early-retirement packages ranging from $35,000 to $140,000 to all 113,000 unionized U.S. workers. GM will also pay 13,000 UAW members $35,000 to leave Delphi, which was spun off from GM in 1999 and became the country's largest parts supplier. Another 5,000 Delphi workers who are former GM workers will be allowed to return to GM through the end of September 2007, and be offered a retirement package. That means that Delphi could eliminate as many as 18,000 of its 24,000 union workers, with GM footing the entire bill and with the UAW's blessings. Delphi has another 9,000 non-union hourly U.S. workers.

GM has about 36,000 workers who are eligible to retire with full pension and benefits. Another 27,000 nearing the 30 years needed to retire will be offered up to $2,900 a month, on top of their regular pay, if they agree to retire when they reach the 30-year level.

About half of all U.S. GM and Delphi workers live and work in Michigan. The elimination of tens of thousands of factory jobs, and its ripple effects, will only add to the racist tsunami that has devastated cities like Detroit and Flint.

The GM and Delphi buyouts, along with $15 billion in health care concessions last year, were accomplished without the union leadership formally reopening the contract which -- for what its worth -- expires in 2007. Whatever hasn't already been given back by then will certainly be on the table.

This is a major part of GM's plan to cut 30,000 U.S. jobs by 2008 and Delphi's emergence from bankruptcy. Delphi was still demanding 60% cuts in wages and benefits by the end of March. Otherwise, it's threatening to have a bankruptcy judge void the contract and impose the lower wages. This scenario is less likely, given this agreement.

With more than 60,000 GM and Delphi workers either at or near retirement, and most workers not trusting the union as far as you can spit, the bosses and their union leaders are likely to get away with throwing money at their problems, for now. But they are not making any friends, and not winning the loyalty of the workers. This "most dramatic restructuring" is similar to the "restructuring" done by Hitler and the Nazis. Our job is to build an international PLP, led by industrial workers, to make sure that GM's restructuring ends up like the Führer's.

2.5 Million March As Protests, Strikes Sweep France

Paris, March 28 --Today, over 2.5 million workers and students marched in 250 demonstrations across France, including 700,000 in Paris alone, while strikes blanketed the country. The protests against the CPE law continue to grow in size and extent. The law attacks workers' job security, especially youth under 26, giving bosses a free hand in firing young workers without a reason in the first two years of employment. Polls show two-thirds of the population oppose the CPE.

Most threatening for the government is the many workers in the private sector who walked off the job, especially the industrial workers. There were 740 strikes in the iron and steel industry, and six Total oil refineries were hit, as were the telecommunications and banking sectors.

One-third of public sector workers struck. The schools were hardest hit, while one-fourth of the rail workers and one in eight electricity and gas workers also went out, as did postal workers and social workers.

During previous protests, the newspaper "Libération" reported, Paris riot police stood quietly by while thugs beat up high school demonstrators. They were rescued by union security marshals. Interior Minister Sarkozy used the incidents as a pretext to order the police to crack down.

But now the workers and students are answering. The main danger is a deal between the union leaders and the government. Suspicions were fueled by memories of the 1968 Grenelle agreements, when the unions and the fake left parties (mainly the Socialists and "Communists") sold out that general strike. That betrayal fed cynicism among workers and youth about the possibility of revolution. But they must overcome this and realize that without a fight for workers' power, with the goal of destroying the system that spawns all this exploitation, the bosses will continue to attack them, even if the anti-CPE forces win this battle.

The liberals are wringing their hands and worrying that an entire generation of young people is losing confidence in bourgeois democracy. They are calling on President Jacques Chirac to intervene - in other words, to fire his Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin.

Meanwhile, Villepin continues to fiddle, declaring today in the National Assembly that he will not withdraw the CPE and sending a letter to the trade union confederations inviting them to meet on March 29 to discuss "adapting" the CPE. Under rank-and-file pressure, this transparent attempt to split the trade union united front was turned down flat. The university and high school student unions didn't even deign to answer him.

Right-wing support for Villepin is becoming shaky. His arch-rival on the right, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, said that as a result of today's strikes and demonstrations "the government is going to have to budge."

But Villepin hopes to cling to power for two weeks, when Easter holidays will begin on many campuses, and in particular in the Paris area. He hopes that will defuse the crisis.

Workers and students need to continue and intensify their struggle. Student leaders have already called on the trade unions to launch a general strike on April 4. Broad sections of the population are learning that the bourgeois political system is stacked against them, and they are striking and demonstrating to get what they need and want outside that system. As communists point out, bourgeois democracy can only be done away with by doing away with the capitalist system that it serves.

Women Workers Face Great Job Insecurity in France

PARIS, March 20 -- The anti-CPE struggle (Contract for First Employment) has put job insecurity in the spotlight here in France. Workers and people generally have gained a new awareness of the difficulties young people face in making a start in life, due to job insecurity (see CHALLENGE, 3/15). But another, often forgotten group also suffers from insecurity: women workers.

Today, holding a job is more important than ever for women. Changing attitudes to marriage and new marital contracts have made separation and divorce more common. A jobless woman -- especially a mother -- can be plunged into poverty from one day to the next. In 2003, 80% of French women either had a job or were looking for one.

Under capitalism, however, "women's work" is not steady. Most often, women's jobs are temporary, part-time, unskilled or semi-skilled, with crazy working hours. The hard working conditions and low pay result in jobs with high turnover. Women enter and leave the job market more frequently than men -- not simply when they have children, but also because of intolerable working conditions.

Their insecure jobs include cleaning ladies, home helpers, checkout clerks and temporary sales staff. Government employment involves school canteen workers or being behind a post office counter. Women on these jobs do a few hours at a stretch and have work schedules that change all the time.

Eleven percent of women have a temporary work contract, almost twice the rate for men (6%). In 2003, of four million part-time workers, 82% were women, and 890,000 wanted full-time work. Of five million semi-skilled workers, 61% were women. Of two million unskilled workers, 78% were women. These women face an additional hardship in their work schedules -- only 15% of unskilled factory workers (mostly men) work on Sundays, compared to 30% of unskilled pink collar workers (mostly women).

In addition, 80% of the workers in the low-wage category are women. Male factory workers make 44% more than their female counterparts. This combination of low wages and part-time work not only means women's take-home pay is inadequate but leads to an inadequate pension upon retirement.

Large numbers of French women are stuck in this unsatisfactory situation because there is a "glass ceiling." Their part-time jobs don't lead to full-time ones; temporary work doesn't lead to a permanent job; and unskilled jobs don't lead to skilled ones. Often, the only choice for women is "take it or leave it"-- that is, withdraw from the job market altogether -- and doing that only increases their insecurity.

The precarious labor market for women robs them of their dignity and independence, and may force them to stay in bad relationships (10% of French women suffer from wife-beating). This scandalous situation only benefits the capitalists who profit from the low wages they pay women -- low wages that drive down men's wages as well. The CPE law would bring still more insecurity to women workers. It's no surprise that women of all ages have participated massively in the anti-CPE demonstrations. But the only way to eliminate job insecurity -- for women workers and for everyone -- is to destroy the capitalist system that produces insecurity.

CONVERSATION WITH A WORKER OF THE WORLD

B.R. is a tall man with a rugged face. His twinkling eyes belie his almost 60 years. He is full of tales about his old home in Ethiopia. He's worked in many lands in many kinds of jobs, from merchant marine to cab. driver.

"My mother told me how the brutal Italian army crushed whatever little independence Ethiopia had and how that S.O.B., Hailie Selassie, ran off to his masters in Britain while the working class and others fought the fascists."

His mother had been a teenage servant on a farm in 1936 when Mussolini's modern army came from Italian Eritrea in the west with 20th century weapons and airplanes against people with 19th century rifles, and annexed Ethiopia. She, like many others, slipped into the forest to become part of the somewhat disorganized resistance against the fascists. Later, during the Second World War, while the Italian army retreated, the British army put Selassie back on his throne.

B.R. described the repressive nature of Selassie's regime when he was the Emperor of Ethiopia. Most people viewed Selassie as being above the common man, and so did B.R. But one day when he was at work, he saw Selassie in the post office, surrounded by his armed guards. Now he could plainly see that Selassie was just a man like everyone else, and a very frightened one, at that.

During the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union had many client states. In the mid-1970's, a military council staged a coup de'etat and placed Mengistu (a Soviet client) as head of state. It was later reported that they poisoned Selassie and created an even more repressive dictatorship in Ethiopia. A number of groups opposed it, and often the army would drag young people out into the middle of the street in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital, and kill them. One day, Mengistu's soldiers banged on B.R.'s front door. He exited from the back and, through many twists and turns, arrived in the U.S.

One might think that all these events would make him cynical. But he believed in the working class; he believed in the struggle against the ruling classes. However, there seemed to be nothing but sellouts. He came upon CHALLENGE and was changed, both by his own experience and the understanding that he gained. He became a CHALLENGE seller and one day bumped into two working-class Rastafarians, who view Selassie as a god. Hearing that B.R. was Ethiopian, they asked him about the glory and magic of Selassie. He gave them a few home-grown truths, about how coward Selassie ran to England while the young stood and fought. The two, though not convinced, walked off with the paper.

His final remark in our conversation was, "Those sons of bitches, the ruling classes. We must smash them. They have us all enslaved."u

A Brooklyn comrade

Immigration Struggle Sharpens Political Debate Among Workers

The night before the LA immigration march I visited a garment worker who was making a sign condemning the Sensenbrenner bill as fascist. He wanted my help in drawing a swastika. While working on his sign he was chatting with his sister, his mechanic brother-in-law and three construction workers. Except for his sister, they were all undocumented. He and his brother-in-law had been here for over a decade. The others were more recent immigrants.

When I arrived, an hour-long political discussion began. My friend was an avid CHALLENGE-DESAFIO reader but hadn't seen it for over a year. He had moved and we had lost contact. His brother-in-law knew me as a communist but we had never discussed politics because my friend had told me his brother-in-law was an anti-communist and had been a soldier in his native country. My friend was frantically trying to finish his sign so was too busy to participate in the conversation.

We started talking about the upcoming march and how these bills, Sensenbrenner and the McCain-Kennedy, were racist, but that the latter was more dangerous because while appearing "humanitarian," it sought to win immigrant workers and their children to fight and die for U.S. imperialism and to slave in their industries for low wages and no benefits.

I explained that the power of the working class lies in strikes and class struggle, not in electoral policies, and with communist leadership we could learn how to organize a revolution,. The sister said immigrant workers work hard and are exploited but white workers aren't. I noted that everyone who received less in wages than what he or she produced was exploited. Later when someone repeated that white workers were not exploited, the mechanic pointed out that it had already been explained that "exploitation was receiving less in wages from the capitalist than what one produces."

On war and the draft, the mechanic said that most countries have the draft, that it's a soldier's duty to defend the motherland. This led to defining "motherland" as a capitalist concept that chains the working class to its national bosses -- explaining that workers have no nation and that our goal should and will be the abolition of borders. All bosses are enemies of the working class.

Then we said that the bosses' plans for immigrant workers in their war industries and in the army should be seen as an opportunity to lead the whole U.S. working class in a fight against racist working conditions and imperialist war, that these struggles could be turned into one for workers' power.

This touched off a discussion on capitalism, socialism and communism. The workers said that communism was not an option because it had failed. I explained that what failed was socialism, and why. The mechanic said that exploitation had always existed and no matter who took state power they will become exploiters. This led to a discussion of primitive communism and the material basis that gave rise to exploitation. We then ended the evening on a friendly note and agreed to continue the discussion another time. They all took CHALLENGE and the Party leaflet about the march.

In a short time we covered a lot. This ruling class racist immigration debate has politicized Latin workers. As the above experience shows, this issue is so political that it provides a framework to put forward many aspects of PLP's ideas.

PLP Grows Out of March at Bronx Recruiting Center

BRONX, NY, March 18 -- A multi-racial group of high school and college students, workers, college professors and school teachers marched on a local Army recruitment center here today, marking the 3rd anniversary of the U.S. oil war in Iraq. Thousands of leaflets and hundreds of CHALLENGES were distributed in an hour and a half. This action led directly to three new people joining PLP.

In trying to attract youth, this center had a black Humvee akin to the ones used in hip hop videos and was blasting reggaeton music. The black and Latin recruiters were wearing their Army fatigues and black berets while handing out flyers to passers-by.

When we appeared, they quickly vacated the premises and locked up the center. The militant youth chanted, "Workers of the world are under attack; cops out of the 'hood, troops out of Iraq!" The police used a flatbed truck with a large sign to try to hide our picket line. But comrades holding banners were chanting directly across the street so the cops eventually moved their sign.

The working-class youth from the inner city at this rally expressed lots of rage at the police and the recruiters. They see Army recruiters on their campuses trying to convince them to die for this wage-slave plantation called the USA. They're quickly learning they need only one loyalty -- to their class -- and that they must organize to fight for communism. Such youth possessing communist consciousness are a real threat to U.S. rulers.

After the rally, the PL'ers led a march to another location to watch an anti-war movie. Several comrades directly linked the war to the U.S. ruling class's need to increase profits and its threat to wage war with Iran. Some at the march advocated a "moral argument" against war. But the bosses in power will never feel guilt about those they exploit. Confidence in the working class and rage at injustice -- class hatred -- not guilt, will fuel the drive to communist revolution.

Today's action only temporarily closed down the bosses' recruiting center, but realistically the "economic daft" (and an eventual conscription law) will force many of these youth into the military where we must win them to smash the imperialist warmakers.

Vets, Military Families Bring Anti-War Message to Multi-racial Community

TACOMA, WA., March 19 -- Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War and Military Families Speak Out led 800 spirited marchers through the Hilltop neighborhood here today, a city near Ft. Lewis and McChord Air Force Base. The march was significant because it reflected this racially integrated, working-class section of the city. Many marchers came from area churches and other faith-based organizations. Involving people who are the most affected by the war was long overdue.

Next step: move these marches a little farther south, to the neighborhoods around Ft. Lewis, to meet even more military families. Many people have grown weary of the same old pacifist rhetoric at these peace marches. Fortunately, we have CHALLENGE to draw the lessons of the struggle. We need to get it to these families and invite them to May Day.

L.A. Dinner Kicks off Planning for May Day

LOS ANGELES, March 26 -- Last night we had our annual May Day planning dinner. Earlier in the day we had all been out on the streets in the largest demonstration that many of us have ever been in. The dinner was an enjoyable and spirited cap on this interesting day.

The dinner opened with an historical slide show about May Day. The first speaker explained the contradictory aspects of yesterday's march. While representing the mass anger of immigrants against racism, it mainly was an attempt by the liberal rulers to win workers to patriotism and the military (contained in the McCain-Kennedy bill).

A short skit acted out these ideas: an immigrant escaped from a Minuteman, only to be helped by a friendly capitalist, who gave her a green card and then army fatigues!

Some comrades reviewed their experiences in past May Days. We all signed up for various committees to ensure that this year's May Day will be even better. The final speaker connected inter-imperialist competition to the realities of current and future wars, budget cuts and the McCain-Kennedy bill.

He concluded by noting that political economy and dialectics explain how capitalism creates its own gravediggers: to fight their wars the ruling class gives guns and tanks to the most oppressed and exploited group of workers. They arm their own class enemies! We must arm them with communist politics.

The spirited night closed with the singing of the CHALLENGE song and Pass the Hat" from the old PLP record (now in a CD) and then the traditional Bella Ciao and the Internationale. The dinner was a powerful event that bodes well for the future of PLP here.

LETTERS

Guard Bars Katrina Evacuee From Home

Recently we visited a New Orleans evacuee who now lives here in a Mid-West city with her husband and four young children. This is her story.

The city didn't order mandatory evacuation until the day before Katrina hit, and didn't give people like us without cars any way to leave. So we sat it out. The hurricane itself wasn't that bad. There was some water, but mostly it was windy. The water got pumped out. Then the flood came. But we stayed, and eventually the water went down.

Seven days later, we were on the front porch, raking up -- it was completely dry then -- and I saw army trucks approaching. "I hope they're not coming to mess with us," I said. Sure enough, the Guard came over and asked if we were leaving. I said no. They didn't come to help us a week ago, what did they want with us now? They said we had to leave because the place was contaminated. But we knew what happened at the Superdome and the Convention Center, so we figured wherever they'd take us would be contaminated, too. We said we'd just stay and deal with it, but they kept ordering us to leave.

Finally, my 87-year old uncle told them to stop bothering us. They told him to shut up; it "wasn't his business." He said, "Yes, it is my business. This is my family." One of them punched him in the face. Then they grabbed my husband who wasn't even saying anything. I was doing all the talking. They threw him up against the wall, grabbed his arms and handcuffed him, saying they were arresting him for "child abuse," because the place was contaminated. So finally we agreed to leave.

They only allowed us to take a few clothes. We have four babies and a three-bedroom house. We said we just can't leave all our property here, but they kept saying it would be safe; that we had to get in the truck. They followed us from room to room, with guns in their hands, big guns. The children were scared and crying. I asked them to please put the guns away, the children were screaming. They refused. I asked them where they were taking us. They kept saying, "Somewhere safe."

They dropped us near the Convention Center where we boarded buses going to the airport. Many people were there. They said we could get on a bus or an airplane, but didn't know to where. What kind of choice is that?

So we chose an airplane. They took our names and searched our bags, but still wouldn't tell us where we were going. Finally, after we were in the air, they announced we were coming here.

When we arrived it was so different. People met us with open arms. We ended up at a shelter, and they had everything ready. The rooms were pretty good, but they had cots in them. I said, "Cots? We've got babies here; we need beds." Pretty soon we had beds.

The agencies that are supposed to help us haven't given us anything. Everything we have came from the residents; all the furniture, clothes, everything. But we don't know what we're going to do. The government isn't helping us. Everything you see in this temporary housing, the volunteers got for us. But how will we pay our utility bills? We can't find jobs. The volunteers are helping us now, but that will end. We got evicted from our house in New Orleans because we couldn't get back down there to take care of anything. One of my relatives went by the house, and found it all cleared out. All of our belongings are gone. We have nothing, and we don't know what we're going to do.

This story is one among tens of thousands. The government doesn't want poor black workers returning to New Orleans. First they left them to die in the hurricane, then took the survivors and flung them all over the country. They did everything except send them to concentration camps and gas chambers. This is fascism.

Like this woman, most Katrina survivors know the government is our enemy. Capitalism has nothing to offer us! The only way to defeat fascism and racism is by workers taking over and running the world ourselves. When we can share everything according to everyone's needs, we'll be like the people sharing what they have with the evacuees. That's a communist idea.

We need to do more for our brothers' and sisters' right to return home, to help them fight wherever they are, however we can. Let's discuss what we can do in our unions, churches, schools, neighborhood associations and other mass organizations, and those of us who can should go to New Orleans this summer to fight racism and help the survivors re-organize their lives.

A comrade

Red Carpenter Goes To New Orleans

Fourteen people from Philadelphia churches, including mine, spent last week in New Orleans cleaning out flooded houses. The scene is grim: mile after mile of homes, schools and businesses with no people in them, everything destroyed inside by floods. Here and there people who've returned are living in small mobile homes brought in by FEMA after much delay. Signs everywhere advertise "Muck Out Cheap," or "Sheetrock $1.50/sq ft" as people try to recover a little somehow. City services are slim to none. Some neighborhoods still have only part-time electricity.

We were housed at a church facility in an area that hadn't been severely damaged. At our first meeting the team leader asked us to introduce ourselves and tell a little-known fact and a recent experience. When my turn came, figuring this was the right time and the right place, I said I'm a communist and that a week earlier a group from my Party including myself helped disrupt a recruiting meeting of the racist Minutemen at Valley Forge, PA. It sparked a lot of discussion that wouldn't have occurred otherwise.

At the final get-together one man said he was especially interested in my politics and frankness. He and I spent most of the return trip discussing communism and religion. He had lots of reasons why communism "can't work," but it's clear he hates the way he's treated on his job and thinks it stinks, echoing what others said that week.

One home we cleared out, in a black neighborhood near Lake Ponchartrain, had been flooded up to the roof. The interior was covered with mold, and furnishings were still soaked. The owner, 84, is retired after working many years as a steward on a cruise ship line. He had escaped death by leaving well ahead of Katrina, and now lives in a trailer in his front yard. He was furious at the city and U.S. governments for neglecting his home and the people but said it didn't surprise him one bit. His insurance company has denied his claim, so he's suing them. His next door neighbor, who'd tried to ride out the storm, was found drowned in his house.

We arrived at another home at 4 PM after working on other houses all day. It was too late to start but the team leader still wanted to put in an hour. I disagreed, saying we were exhausted and might get hurt. He flew into a rage. But I proposed that everyone should give their opinions. Nearly everyone said we should go home, and so we did. The team leader apologized. Later, when we discussed all this, I said I thought it was ironic that people think communism is a "Do-as-you're-told" society, yet that's really capitalism!

We ended the week with dancing to zydeco music and having a few drinks. Trips like this are terrific for bringing people close together and helping to get to know and trust each other.

Red Carpenter

Clean School in 9th Ward Despite Legal Ban

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to see so many kids sitting on the concrete around me in New Orleans. Though the air was chilled and there were no streetlights to cut through the dark, I should have remembered that what brought us to New Orleans to clean up ruined homes (instead of soaking up sun for our Spring break) was a combination of forces that wouldn't be weakened by the cold, the dark or the concrete.

A Common Ground Collective leader and experienced activist, Lisa, had our full attention as she explained the details of why this particular group of volunteers had gathered away from the others. The next day's optional gutting and clean-up would not be at a residence in our usual stomping grounds of the lower 9th ward, but at a school that the state of Louisiana had taken over; a school where the certified teachers, like at many other schools, had been fired; a school that according to local parents, turned out wonderfully prepared students; a school, also like other schools in the hard-hit area of the 9th ward, that remained closed six months after Hurricane Katrina devastated the area.

The 9th ward residents grew anxious for their children to continue their education. After six months of asking the state when the schools would re-open, community groups and their leaders asked Common Ground Collective -- an all-volunteer group that works gutting and cleaning homes, providing needed supplies and offering a range of support to hurricane victims -- to stand with them in re-opening schools. Martin Luther King, Jr. school would be an opportunity not just to clean up, but to restore an important piece of infrastructure to the 9th ward and give residents a sign that conditions could improve.

Lisa's instructions were not about how to stay safe when dealing with the toxic debris we would find there; we were long since aware of that. Her comments were all about preparing to encounter the New Orleans Police Department. The NOPD is notorious for its racist treatment of black residents and we were advised to choose our TYVEK clean-up suits carefully. White suits would indicate the individual's readiness to be arrested for cleaning up the school without state permission, an act of civil disobedience. Blue suits meant we would hang back and lend support to our comrades in white.

The notion of being arrested in an unfamiliar town and detained by a police department known for its brutality and ill-treatment of black residents hung heavy for many of the volunteers. This was especially true for black volunteers from historically black colleges and universities and majority universities showing support for the mostly black residents. Despite the potential dangers involved, when the volunteers met the next morning to head to the school, there was a great sea of white suits as well as many blue ones, each accepting a different responsibility but both so important to, dependent upon, and respecting of one another.

We were "greeted" at the school by the NOPD, the fire department and of all entities, Homeland Security. We were also met by residents who came to thank us and speak with the press, as well as by countless motorists driving by and "honking for justice!" The police never approached us and only watched as we cleaned the school, bringing wheel barrel after wheel barrel of damaged and destroyed books to the curb from the school's once magnificent library. The outside of the school was still stately. Many awards and banners were recovered and brought out into the sun.

Who knows if the school will re-open or if the neighborhoods of the 9th ward will be rebuilt, but I'm proud to be a part of an effort to show my brothers and sisters that I care. All poor, disenfranchised, displaced and besieged people deserve a chance to live peacefully and are my brothers and sisters. I'll be honored to work with them again this summer and next spring and next summer until we can see progress.

Alternate Spring Break Volunteer

Bring PLP's Ideas to Chicago March

On March 10, I marched with more than hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers in Chicago against the racist Sensenbrenner bill (HR 4437). It's very important to understand and fight against the message spread before and during the march, as well as to spread our own message of communist revolution to these thousands and thousands of workers.

The march leaders (read Democratic Party) pushed U.S. nationalism very forcefully. This differed from the customary nationalism, of "my country" or "my flag." This nationalism, imposed through oppression and psychological terror on immigrant workers, helped the ruling class win some of the most oppressed, exploited and terrorized workers to chant, "USA, USA" several times during the march.

All nationalism is reactionary, hurts the working class and undermines the fight for communism. While chanting "USA" is no worse than chanting "Mexico" or "La Raza," still the nationalism of "my country" is based on a sense of belonging. The nationalism of "USA" is imposed through fear and terror, on workers facing poverty-wages and the constant threat of deportations, especially with Homeland Security terrorizing all immigrants. And unlike the attacks on immigrants in the 1919 Palmer Raids, when a Soviet Union existed and an international communist movement was being forged, there is none of that today to give confidence and leadership to the workers, except for PLP, in the infancy of building such a movement.

That doesn't mean that our struggle is psychological; it's an ideological one that needs to be understood in order to be won. A young woman marcher said, "They're trying to destroy the little class consciousness immigrant workers have." The U.S. ruling class, aided by the immigrant media, is trying to replace class consciousness with a more dangerous nationalism than the one we've known up to now. Ideas accepted under psychological terror are more difficult to fight against.

PLP's participation in this march was so important. Most people around us joined our chants like, "Las Luchas Obreras No Tienen Fronteras" ("Workers' Struggles Have No Borders); or "The Workers, United, Will Never Be Defeated." People were asking us to lead chants even though we had no bullhorn. The march leaders tried to drown us out with the generic chant of, "Si Se Puede" "Yes, we can do it").

PLP brought hope to the march. Without our presence, workers wouldn't have heard or joined our chants. This is why it's so important for us to participate in -- and bring our ideas of a communist revolution to -- the mass movement.

Chicago comrade

Answer Anti-Immigrant Laws: `Destroy Border'

The recent immigration march in Chicago was one of the largest in the city's history. Workers marched as hard-working people who deserve a decent life. The huge numbers reflect an opportunity for the Party to grow. Our members who have been active in immigrant rights groups, on the job, and at school can point out the communist lessons among these masses.

The bosses used nationalism, reformism and religion to build for the march. We must understand what about those ideas appeal to our friends and co-workers and how they respond to the rulers' message.

The rulers really don't want to deport the 12 million undocumented workers; they want a guest worker program that "welcomes" immigrants to the bottom rung of the labor force and the front lines of their endless oil wars.

On my job I interviewed some of my co-workers who marched for the first time. I asked them, "What motivated you to march?" "Did you go with a group, or family and friends?" "What do you think about immigrants serving in the military for 'legalization?'" "If you had the power, how would you fix the problem?"

One of my last questions stems from comments made by Congressman Luis Gutierrez, one of the march's main organizers. When asked about his plan for immigrants he said, "We should fingerprint them, bring them out of the underground economy so they can pay taxes and enrich our national treasury." I asked my co-workers if they marched for fingerprinting and taxes.

Two workers said we should just destroy the border. Another said she marched for equality. None supported young immigrants fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan for a chance to become citizens. In fact, one cited an example of a young worker losing his life doing just that. None had any support for fingerprinting

However, workers did show support for some of the Democratic politicians who gave lip service to amnesty. Most mentioned it as the solution to the challenges immigrant workers face. Workers can grasp our ideas if we engage them in the context of struggle. On the other hand, they also can be won to the bosses' ideas. This is the constant struggle.

Rojo de Chicago

McCain Moderate? Or Pro-War, Anti-Immigrant Racist?

The bosses' media has painted Senator John McCain as a "maverick," a "moderate" and "anti-Bush." His co-sponsorship of the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill -- the liberal "answer" to the right-wing Sensenbrenner bill -- may make him appear as a "friend" of immigrant workers, putting him in bed with the liberal rulers and their darlings like Kennedy. But aside from the fact that McCain's bill would really use immigrants as a source of low-paid exploited labor and cannon fodder for oil wars (see articles and letters on pages 1, 3, 5 and 7), what worker could trust a ruling-class henchman who:

* "During the 2000 campaign...anticipat[ed] the `Bush Doctrine' of pre-emptive war," calling for "overthrow...[of] regimes" that "posed no...threat to the U.S."; "still thinks the war was a good idea"; "rejects any attempt" to withdraw; calls for "an increase in American troop levels in 2006." (All quotes from NY Times, 3/13)

* "Voted to extend tax cuts on dividends and capital gains...benefiting people with very high incomes."

* "Would have signed South Dakota's...new anti-abortion law" which would ban abortions for women victims of incest and rape.

* Favors "policy positions and Senate votes [that]...place him in the right-wing of the Republican Party"; "at the recent...Republican Leadership Conference...effusively praised...Bush"; and is ranked "as the Senate's third most conservative member."

How could such a pro-boss warmonger help immigrant workers, or any workers?

REDEYE

For imperialist schemes, US gov't lies

Behind closed doors, the president....made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq...even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting....

Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a United States surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire, or assassinating Mr. Hussein....

Two senior British officials confirmed the authenticity of the memo, but declined to talk further about it....

At their meeting, Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair candidly expressed their doubts that chemical, biological or nuclear weapons would be found....

(NYT, 3/27)

`Most murderous' junta backed by US

The posters and billboards vowing "Never Again" were put up days ago....Then on Friday, Argentina came to a halt to mark the 30th anniversary of the military coup that ushered in the dictatorship that may have been the most murderous in modern South American history....

When a deputy warned Secretary of State Henry Kissinger two days after the coup to "expect a fair amount of repression, probably a good deal of blood," Mr. Kissinger was unfazed and ordered American support for the new military junta.

"I do want to encourage them," Mr. Kissinger said, according to the documents. "I don't want to give the sense that they're harassed by the United States." (NYT, 3/25)

Led by Reds, they fought MetLife racism

In the winter of 1952...my grandparents were among those white tenants who stood at the forefront of the battle to integrate the housing complex where they lived....

MetLife refused to consider the applications of three black veterans who sought apartments. When these veterans sued the company, a group of Stuyvesant Town residents, including my grandparents, united to support their cause....

Although MetLife eventually offered to admit a few token black families, the company refused to change its tenant selection policy. The company also informed 35 families who belonged to the tenants committee, my grandparents among them, that their leases would not be renewed....

Nineteen of the families decided to fight to keep their apartments....

The city marshal ordered the targeted tenants to be out of their apartments by 9 o'clock on the morning of January 17, 1952, and hired a moving company to drag their furniture onto the street. In response, the families barricaded their doors. They sent their children to stay with relatives and passed baskets of food from window to window with ropes....

As word of the evictions spread, civic groups and labor unions called for a demonstration of support for the tenants. Hundreds of New Yorkers picketed....Protesters held a round-the-clock vigil that lasted three days.

Fifteen hours before the city marshal's deadline, MetLife...agreed to negotiate...and on Jan. 20, MetLife agreed to drop the eviction proceedings....

[Recently] MetLife declined to provide statistics on the number of black tenants currently holding leases....

Many members of the tenants committee were, in fact, Communists, and Councilman Davis, a sponsor of the [ensuing] anti-discrimination bill, was the Council's Communist Party representative. (NYT, 3/26)

More training = good pay? Not in US today

The presumption -- promoted by economists, educators, business executives and nearly all of the nation's political leaders, Democrats and Republicans alike -- holds that in America's vibrant and flexible economy there is work, at good pay, for the educated and skilled. The unemployed need only to get themselves educated and skilled and the work will materialize....If the transition failed to function as advertised, well, the accepted wisdom suggested that it was the fault of the workers themselves. Their failure to land good jobs was due to personality defects or a resistance to acquiring new skills or a reluctance to move where the good jobs were.

That was the myth. It evaporated in practice....You cannot earn an engineer's or an accountant's pay if companies are not hiring engineers and accountants, or are hiring relatively few and can control the wage, chipping away at it. (NYT)

Movie Review

V for Venerating Anarchism

V for Vendetta, a movie based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Loyd, is Hollywood's biggest embrace of anarchism -- disrupting a society run by the state until it is free of the state and run by the masses. It's a reactionary movie that erases class struggle with individual acts of adventurism (terrorism). The movie is supposed to be a wake-up call for workers and youth who complacently accept the status quo and fascist dictatorship in the name of fear and safety.

This is not to say that V for Vendetta isn't entertaining. It has an intriguing plot and flashy special effects as well as some attractive political statements that could win over many left-leaning youth, making this movie very dangerous. It was produced by the Wachowski brothers (who also did The Matrix movies) and directed by their protégé, Jim McTeigue. The movie also makes very real the terror and paranoia of the fascist world it represents.

Vendetta is set in England in the future. A fascist regime has ruled for some years after winning the national elections based on the fears of a chemical attack supposedly set off by terrorists that kills almost 100,000 people. Curfews, henchmen, surveillance cameras, propagandists and police are used to quell any dissent. A mysterious masked superhero named "V," armed with swords, bombs and historical references, is out to topple the government and to inspire the British working class to rebel against it. "People should not fear the government. The government should fear its people," is V's rallying call.

In the process, V saves a young woman named Evey who he tries to convince that his actions are correct, and why the rest of society should do the same. Evey has been orphaned by the government's repressive tactics because her parents helped expose the government's poisoning of its own people, later blamed on terrorists. V, himself is a victim of a government concentration camp that performed experiments in cahoots with pharmaceutical companies. His vendetta against the government is personal and political.

The original story of V for Vendetta was written in the early 1980's, satirizing British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her regime's ride to power. The movie version is more about Bush and Blair. As in the book, the movie omits any kind of political or economic reasons leading to this fascist regime's seizure of power and how imperialism impels a ruling class to choose between the carrot ("democracy") and the stick (fascism).

The book essentially blames the masses for "choosing" the fascists in the first place. The book even attacks Stalin (of course!): V makes his speech in front of pictures of Hitler, Mussolini and Uncle Joe himself.

Workers and youth must reject this movie as anti-working class. The original book basically labeled the masses stupid for believing in these government leaders. Fascist regimes like Hitler's Third Reich or U.S. Liberal/Republican "Democracy" are imposed either to discipline the sections of the ruling class who don't toe the line set by the big bosses, to prepare for war against competing imperialist rivals and to oppress and super-exploit workers, especially black and immigrant workers. (Suspiciously, none of this is mentioned in the movie, while currently racism is running rampant in Europe, signified by the rebellion of Arab and African workers in France). The repression in the movie is mostly against homosexuals, Arab workers and political activists.

Spontaneous actions of a few individuals will not produce working-class revolution nor send capitalism into chaos. This strategy has never worked; if anything, it has attacked the real work of revolutionaries. For the anarchists, with no organization, no planning and no base-building, somehow a brighter future will exist.

Workers and youth need a Party comprised of themselves and millions of others, to organize a revolution. It won't happen out of thin air after Parliament buildings are blown up, as V for Vendetta leads you to believe.

Chimps and Us: Does Human Nature Exist?

As one who's written more than once on how selfishness is not "human nature," I've great sympathy with the letter in the March 29 issue headlined: "Chimps and Humans: Cooperation is the Link." But it has some errors that undermine the generally correct message and, no doubt unwittingly, agrees with certain aspects of the pseudo-science of Sociobiology and its more recent incarnation, Evolutionary Psychology.

The letter refers to a NY Times article (3/3) on a study of chimpanzees in Germany. Based on it, the letter states that cooperation is natural and selfishness and greed are unnatural.

It's correct that people are not naturally selfish, but it is incorrect that they are naturally cooperative. People are not naturally either one. Rather it's the social circumstances and the organization of society, and classes within the society, that promote either selfishness or cooperation. "Human nature," in terms of particular complex behaviors, is a longstanding myth, and we should not be misled into battling with liberals or right-wingers over what that "nature" may be.

The letter agrees with the Times' article that chimps and humans may have inherited the trait of cooperation from a common ancestor millions of years ago. But there is absolutely no evidence that complex social behaviors like cooperation can be inherited at all. These are learned behaviors, even in chimps. There's not even been a mechanism proposed for how genes could possibly produce complex behaviors, other than through providing sufficiently complex and flexible brains that permit learning.

There are more discoveries every day that behaviors thought to have been instinctive, and therefore inherited, are in fact learned. For example, Frans de Waal, a leading primatologist (a scientist who studies non-human primates), has shown that certain monkeys and apes change their behaviors when put into social circumstances to which they are not accustomed. It has been found that whales learn new songs from outsider whales that join their schools, and so on.

The letter says uncritically, "Psychological tests have shown that humans tend to cooperate with people who have cooperated with them in the past, and avoid offering help to those who have not helped." This idea contains its own contradiction, since if that were true cooperation could never get started. Besides, each of us knows of countless instances in which we've offered cooperation without such prior experience with a person, and countless others have done the same for us. Most psychological writings are based more on the prejudices of the investigators and are not warranted by their observations.

Like humans, chimps also cooperate only under certain circumstances and not universally. After all, they also kill other chimps under other circumstances, belying, incidentally, liberal claims that "only humans kill other members of their own species."

The letter's main point, however, is correct -- workers armed with communist theory will, as they have before, fight to overcome the capitalists and organize a communist world. Not only is communism possible, but it is necessary to provide the social organization that will universally foster cooperation and selflessness, and discourage competition, greed and selfishness. Since selfishness and greed are not "human nature," the seeds of that cooperation already exist within the working class under capitalism.

However, only under communist leadership can it be strengthened enough to lead to revolutionary change for communism. That is PLP's goal.

Cactus Red

Under communism

How Will We Achieve and Maintain Economic Equality?

(Part 2: Why Redistributing Wealth Cannot Work (second of three parts)

Part 1 (CHALLENGE 3/29) showed how capitalism got its start through centuries of massive theft and murder. Inequality continues to intensify, resulting in worldwide poverty, starvation, sickness and misery. But it wasn't always so. There is overwhelming anthropological and archaeological evidence that for tens of thousands of years humanity survived through sharing and cooperation and through everyone's contributing to the well being of all. Prior to the development of class societies, inequality was unknown.

On the surface, it would seem that if initially theft created inequality of wealth, redistribution of wealth should be the solution. But recent history has shown this doesn't work. Why is this so and how then will the working class be able to re-establish equality?

Firstly, there are two completely different types of wealth: (1) productive wealth -- items that can be used to create more items, such as tools, machinery, factories, mines and land; and (2) consumable wealth - items that are used to satisfy personal needs or pleasures, such as food, clothing, houses, cars, yachts and bank accounts. Some items, such as land, can be used in either way, but the important thing is how it is used.

Under capitalism, virtually all productive wealth is privately owned by capitalists and is used not only to create other items, but also to exploit the labor of the working class and to make profit at our expense. Under communism, factories, mines and farms would be owned collectively by the entire working class worldwide and made as safe as possible for manufacture, ore production and agriculture. The work-day would be rescheduled to include time for study. Production would be centrally planned based on people's needs, not on the profit needs of the rich capitalist owners.

However, the communist parties in the Soviet Union and China had no prior experience to draw on and didn't believe that peasants would accept collective ownership of land. Peasants comprised the vast majority of these societies and had less experience working collectively than factory workers and miners. Therefore, following the revolutions, large packets of land were seized back from rich landlords and redistributed in small parcels to landless and poor peasants, to own and to farm. But redistribution was unstable, and inequality quickly returned.

The reasons for this instability? Diseased livestock or poor crops forced some families to borrow from luckier families and go into debt. One family's indebtedness to another is a major form of inequality. Inequality led to more inequality, since the borrowing family then had to earn not only enough to survive, but make even more to repay the debt. So the borrowers became poorer and poorer and the lenders richer and richer -- from interest on the loan, from lending to more and more luckless families, and from taking over the borrowing families' land as payment for the loan.

The central principle of communist equality -- from each according to her/his commitment, to each according to her/his need -- can only be achieved when productive wealth is owned by the working class as a whole. So land redistribution was reversed and reassembled into large parcels, under collective ownership. The land was then more easily cultivated; poor crops one year in one area could be compensated for by transporting produce from one area to another.

But even collective ownership of productive wealth proved insufficient to stabilize the working class in power, as the reversion to capitalism in the Soviet Union and China shows. (Part 3 will discuss the need to abolish wages and money.)

Page 737 of 772

CHALLENGE June 7, 2006

Working Class Must:Unite Against Rulers' Anti-Immigrant Racism

Multi-racial Protesters Blast Fascist Minutemen

Liberal Rulers Gain Upper Hand with New CIA Boss

Transit Workers Protest D.C. Metro’s Negligent Homicide

May Day Organizing 'Liberates' Workers, Now Meeting with PLP

Colombia Workers Greet PLP's Communist Politics

Boston Students Rally vs. Anti-Immigrant Racism

Profit System Murders Five More Miners

Rank-and-File Solidarity Moves Beyond Pro-Boss Union Hacks

PLP Summer Project Will Bring Red Ideas to New Orleans

Workers’ Rebellion Defies Mexican Cops’ Attacks

LETTERS

Nature of Workers’ Collective Self-Interest

Evangelicals Also Oppose Iraq War

Lemon Meringue Pie and Workers' Unity

GM Article Needs More Explanation

Red students Impressed with PLP Role at LA March

REDEYE ON THE NEWS

Review of ‘Soldiers Speak Out!’

Trying to Corral A GI Movement

Fighting Racism on Deployment to Iraq

Forward to communism

Overcoming Famine and Disease in the Soviet Union

CHALLENGE, May 24, 2006

RED FLAGS Fly On May Day

A RED MAY DAY IN LA

MILITANT YOUTH LEAD PLP MAY DAY MARCH

On the Road to May Day

Revolutionary Dinner

Workers Have One Flag: It Is Red

Bosses' `Solution' For Fight Over Oil: More Imperialist War

PLP-Led Protest Shuts Down Racist Minutemen

PLP Champions Internationalism vs. Bosses' Flag-Waving

Some Anti-War Vets Breaking With Pacifism

El Salvador: May Day Marchers Defy Anti-Riot Cops

Mexico: `All Bosses and Politicians Have Blood on Their Hands'

France: Reformist Union Agenda Won't Cut It

Bringing Communist Thought to the Class Struggle

PLP's Politics Expose Rulers' Attack On Immigrants

Red May Day Spirit at Immigrant March

Auto Workers Must Refuse to Go Down With Sinking UAW

RACIST CARNAGE OF CAR WARS

NATIONALISM VS. INTERNATIONALISM

Red-led Autoworkers Broke U.S. Bosses' Laws

`It's Not Just Cell Phones, It's Fascism!'

Movie Review: `Sir! No Sir!'MASS GI REBELLION IN VIETNAM WAR

Youth Struggle Against Smoking Pot

FORWARD TO COMMUNISMEarly Experiences of the Soviet Revolution

LETTERS

Medical Students, Hospital Workers Back Immigrants

Black-Latin Solidarity on May Day Bus

Honors Bolshevik Revolution

Vet Indicts U.S. Mass Murderers

`All the News That Fits, We Print'

Airport Workers Hold May Day Forum

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

Fear and anguish grow for the `near poor'

Thousands sleep on streets in Paris

Democracy + hi-tech jobs don't feed India

German general: Red ideas steeled Russians

Big money wants non-black New Orleans

Immigrants pay plenty of taxes

CHALLENGE, May 10, 2006

Advance the Revolutionary Communist Spirit of May Day

Liberals’ Rumsfeld-Bashing Masks Their Wider War Plans

Union Hacks’ New Service:

Drafting Immigrant Workers and Youth

Machinists’ May Day Resolution Builds Anti-Racist Internationalism

Internal Political Struggle Is Primary

Revolution: The Only Way To End Exploitation, Racism, Imperialist War

Union Misleaders Split On How to Respond To May Day Resolution

Dialectics Show Garment Workers Essence of Liberals’ Attack on Immigrants

Workers’ Struggles Have No Borders

Seattle: 20K Workers and Students March Vs Anti-Immigrant Racism

Steel Strikers Seize Plant, Rout Mexico Cops Who Kill Two Workers

Bosses’ System Great for Talk -Show Traitors, Not for Immigrants

Retirees Debate Immigration Issue; Cite Class Basis for Attacks

Rutgers University Forum Exposes Homeland Security Police-State Action vs. Immigrants

California Teachers Condemn ‘Reform’ That Militarizes Immigrant Youth

Bosses' `Solution' For Fight Over Oil:
More Imperialist War

Movie Review: `Sir! No Sir!'
MASS GI REBELLION IN VIETNAM WAR

FORWARD TO COMMUNISM
Early Experiences of the Soviet Revolution

On the March 25^th Immigrant March in Los Angeles

Can't Fight Racism Relying on Liberal Rulers
MILLIONS PROTEST RULERS' RACIST ANTI-IMMIGRANT BILLS