The basic issue in philosophy is the struggle between materialism and idealism. In philosophy, materialism means that material reality - the stars and planets, the atoms and molecules, heat and light - existed before thought. Idealism is the opposite.
Idealists believe that thought—in the form of God, order, spirit, destiny, fate, karma, or human consciousness—came first. Materialists believe that thought reflects matter. Idealists believe that matter reflects thought. Communists are materialists.
As pushers of idealism, the capitalists are similar to earlier ruling classes. The enslavers of ancient times and the feudal lords of the Middle Ages used religious ideas to keep the enslaved and serfs from rebelling. For example, they said the pharaoh, emperor, or king was God, or at least a direct representative of God on earth, and therefore had to be obeyed. Lesser ruling-class figures were indirect representatives of this divine power.
Serfs were told that life on earth might be hell, but disobedience to these God-chosen rulers was a sin that would lead not only to immediate punishment, but to eternal hell. Passive obedience, on the other hand, would be rewarded after death by an eternal afterlife in heaven.
Idealism can't stop rebellion
Religious forms of idealism still influence many people, because they offer security and care, even if imaginary, to those who suffer from the real insecurity and harshness of capitalism. And they offer rationalizations to those who fear fighting back.
However, in an age before the development of science, when superstition was virtually universal because it appeared to be the only way to explain nature, religious idealism was an even more powerful weapon against the masses. Despite this indoctrination, people fought back, at times even inventing other “Gods” to justify their actions.
During antiquity and the Middle Ages there were thousands of rebellions by slaves and serfs, such as the revolt led by Spartacus in ancient Rome, and the Peasant Wars in Germany during the 16th Century. These revolts were put down by the organized violence of the state, often only after prolonged armed struggle, and often followed by mass executions of the rebels and anyone suspected of supporting them.
The crime? Astronomy. The penalty? Death
Even people not directly involved in class struggle were attacked. The Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno was imprisoned for seven years, before being excommunicated and burned at the stake by the Catholic church.
What crimes required Bruno's execution? He ridiculed the “mysteries and miracles” described in the Bible, claiming they were impossible. He put forward the astronomy developed by Copernicus, who said the earth and the other visible planets revolved around the sun, and that the stars could be other suns, with other planets revolving around them.
Galileo, who also put forward and further developed Copernican astronomy, publicly retracted his views in 1633, under the threat of torture by the Church. But Galileo knew that the Church and the rulers were wrong. As he was led from the court that convicted him, he is rumored to have said: “Well, it [the earth] moves, anyhow.”
In the beginning are the facts
To the feudal lords and the Church, what was most frightening about Copernicus, Bruno, and Galileo was their materialist approach. These early scientists all believed in God-they even dedicated their work to God. But they based their conclusions about nature on investigating material reality. Their “final authority” was nature.
But the feudal lords and the Church based their authority on the words in the Bible and in the writings of Aristotle. If Aristotle and, especially, the Bible could be proven wrong about nature by investigating facts, who knew where this could lead? Would they go on to deny the existence of heaven and hell, and of the soul. Then what would keep people from rebelling?
The capitalists also fight against materialism. But where there is likeness there is also difference. The capitalist class had to use some materialist ideas to overthrow the authority of feudalism. For example, they had to oppose ''the divine right of kings.”
They also had to take a materialist approach to develop the science necessary for capitalist production. Aristotle and the Bible did not provide guidance for inventing steam engines or dynamite. Because capitalism is competitive, there is constant pressure to take a materialist approach in order to come up with techniques that will revolutionize production and produce more profits. Failure to do so often means defeat by other capitalists.
Capitalists want science AND superstition
Once materialism was stalking the land in the form of physics, chemistry, geology, biology and engineering, what was to prevent the working class from using the same scientific approach to analyze and change human society? Science is a more powerful tool than superstition.
The capitalists panicked. They denied that the scientific method could be applied to history or society. The theories of Marx, Engels, and other advocates of dialectical materialism were attacked in articles and books by bought-and-paid-for professors all over Europe and America.
Marx and Engels were expelled from Germany, France, and Belgium. They lived in exile in England. Many of their comrades were jailed or killed.
In 1871, the working class of Paris dared to put some of the ideas of communism into practice. They established the first dictatorship of the proletariat- the Paris Commune.
The workers of Paris were furious with the Catholic priests for their service to the old regime, the bourgeois dictatorship headed by the “Emperor” Louis Napoleon, nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte. They removed the religious symbols from the churches, which they converted to meeting places for clubs of revolutionary workers. They took education out of the hands of the Church, where it had been placed by the old government, and put it in the hands of the Commune. Materialism, not idealism, was to be the basis of education. Ideas were to be questioned, not taken on faith.
Bosses build a monument to their own fear
The Commune lasted only seven weeks. The revolution had taken place during the Franco-Prussian War. It was destroyed by a temporary alliance between the invading Prussian (German) army and the defeated army of the French bourgeoisie. The German rulers were afraid that revolutionary ideas would spread to Germany! So they rearmed their defeated enemies so that they could crush the revolutionary workers of Paris.
When the French capitalists recaptured Montmartre, one of the centers of communist strength, their troops rounded up and shot up to 50,000 men, women, and children. Their blood flowed down the sewers to the river Seine, which ran pink for days. Then, on the same hill where the Communards had kept their artillery, the Catholic Church built a white stone chapel called “the sepulcher of the expiation of the sins of the Paris Commune.” Known as Sacre-Coeur, it still stands today, a monument to the fear and hatred of the bosses toward workers who dared to overthrow the idealist lies of religion and apply science to society.
The battle between idealism and materialism is not an academic affair, but a vital part of the class struggle between workers and bosses for control of the world.
- Information
The war that settled the original split in the U.S. ruling class
- Information
- 09 October 2020 92 hits
Following up with the excellent article in the 9/23 CHALLENGE on John Brown’s raid, there are lessons still to be learned from this courageous action. His plan was to seize the weapons there and start arming the enslaved workers who would then lead a large-scale rebellion against slavery. With the recent increased violence in the United States by racist cops and vigilante racists, and (on a much smaller scale) antiracists, it is worth exploring the decade that led to the U.S. Civil War. By the end of the 1850s the use of violence to settle political disputes had become something of a norm.
Like all forms of class society, slavery itself relied on ruling class violence, both organized and spontaneous. Nat Turner’s 1831 armed rebellion catapulted the anti-slavery movement into a new phase, where immediate abolition became an increasingly popular program. Abolitionists like Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, John Brown, Sojourner Truth, William Lloyd Garrison and many others, joined this fight. The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act extended the reach of the enslavers into the North to capture accused runaways, but abolitionists often attacked these kidnappers, sometimes freeing the runaways. Frederick Douglass said, “The only way to make the Fugitive Slave Law a dead letter is to make a dozen or more dead kidnappers.”
Northern capitalists defeat southern enslavers
At the same time northern finance and industrial capitalists were expanding, even looking at profiteering opportunities all over the world. To the backward, southern slave owning class, King Cotton depended on enslaving Black workers indefinitely even if it meant seceding and forming their own country. Even worse, this southern ruling class had a stranglehold on federal power, controlling the Supreme Court and the presidency into the 1850s. The logic of the infamous Dred Scott Supreme Court case of 1857 gave a green light to expand slavery.
The rising northern capitalists needed a united country and unimpeded command of federal power to build an empire that would eventually encompass the world. Lincoln’s promise that slavery would not expand to new territories fit the needs of northern capital. Lincoln’s seizure of the White House in 1860 was intolerable to the slaveocracy who then quit the Union. To discipline and control these secessionists, Lincoln waged war to bring them back. Immediate emancipation, the long-time abolitionist goal, but never one of Lincoln’s, was a wartime necessity forced on to the ruler’s agenda by thousands of brave, enslaved Black workers. In the chaos of war they made countless desperate bids for freedom by running away to Northern lines. With the southern enslavers defeated, the federal government “would end slavery under conditions controlled by whites, and only when required by the political and economic needs of the business elite of the North. It was Abraham Lincoln who combined perfectly the needs of business, the political ambition of the new Republican Party, and the rhetoric of humanitarianism…” (Howard Zinn, The People’s History of the United States)
U.S. imperialists face Chinese imperialists and racist domestic isolationists
Today there is again a split within the U.S. ruling class, but the world situation is much different. After almost a century of vicious Jim Crow racism, an industrial revolution built on the sweat and blood of millions of workers, two world wars, Korea, Vietnam and countless other wars, the U.S. imperialists briefly ruled a worldwide empire. They controlled both the Republican and Democratic political parties. But now rising Chinese imperialism, resurgent Russian imperialism and even many regional wannabe imperialists are challenging them as their global power fades. These rulers presided over a breathtaking assault on workers’ standard of living since the 1970s that has accelerated with the 2008 crisis and it’s billionaire-friendly ‘recovery.’ And now, there is a domestically oriented group of capitalists that have taken over the Republican Party led by Donald Trump. Violence has been increasing, with cops and neo-Nazis on the offensive and some antiracist, armed resistance. As the November election approaches more violence is expected. There is even talk of civil war.
Today the Big Fascist, imperialist section of the U.S. ruling class has no Lincoln. They have feeble, 77 year old Joe Biden. And the domestically oriented, Small Fascist capitalists have unhinged, egomaniac Donald Trump. The Big Fascists are building fascism under the guise of saving a democracy that never existed. They are trying to build a multiracial patriotism to prepare for war with China and or Russia. They are even trying to pose as antiracists to save their worldwide empire. The Small Fascists want an isolationist Fortress America based on racism.
Unite to fight racism and organize for communism
If violence escalates before or after the November election, masses of workers and students should get into the streets attacking racism. Let’s organize our unions, tenant organizations, student groups, and churches to make racists afraid again. If politicians are calling for the vote, or a recount, or such, we organize direct action against racism and sexism. If there is chaos in the streets, we should organize and focus actions against racist targets and call for antiracist demands. Above all we should make clear that this capitalist system has to go. The working class can and should run the world. That’s communism. Join the Progressive Labor Party in the fight for worker’s power and communist revolution.
On September 9, a fire destroyed the squalid Moria refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece, the largest migrant worker concentration camp in Europe. Moria crammed 13,000 women, men, and children into space built for 3,000. While it’s still unclear who set the blaze, we know that workers boldly organized against their deplorable living conditions and were targeted by fascist crackdowns. These displaced members of the international working class are fleeing famine and war. While their plight is extreme, they represent hundreds of millions of workers whose lives have been upended by intensifying inter-imperialist rivalry and a worldwide crisis of capitalism.
As the U.S.-led liberal world order crumbles amid the chaos of a global pandemic, an ascendant China and resurgent Russia are making inroads with regional capitalist bosses in countries like Greece and Turkey. Migrant workers—the most vulnerable members of our class—have long been pawns in this brutal profit system game. But they are also learning to struggle and fight back! Progressive Labor Party (PLP) stands in solidarity with the refugees who are leading the fight against the rulers’ vicious racism and rising fascism. United, workers cannot be defeated!
We are not animals, we are workers
Even before the recent fire, life at the Moria camp was unbearable. Acute overcrowding, a disgraceful lack of health care, and an absence of clean water or sanitation made the site a ticking time bomb for Covid-19 (Human Rights Watch, 2020). A single poorly supplied emergency medical provider was assigned to care for a camp population that swelled to more than 20,000 earlier this year. As the Guardian painted the appalling scene last winter: “Thousands of vulnerable workers sleep in makeshift tents elevated on wooden pallets to try to prevent the cold from the freezing ground seeping into their bodies. The unlucky ones, with no pallets, include a four-day-old baby. The refugees, 40 percent of them children, confront violent stabbings, outbreaks of meningitis, giving birth without proper care, extreme panic attacks, PTSD hallucinations and flashbacks, sleep disturbances, and sexual violence” (2/9).
A mental health care worker for Doctors Without Borders told of the appalling toll these conditions took on children at Moria: “They stop playing. Sometimes they stop communicating and they look at the ground. They refuse to talk” (Atlantic, 11/2019). Some became so traumatized that they began cutting themselves.
Leading up to the fire, the many demonstrations were met by racist suppression by Greek police and violent right-wing forces. Earlier this year, racist vigilantes attempted to burn down a coronavirus facility used to treat workers at the camp (Doctors Without Borders, 2020). Though the anti-immigrant racists would be logical suspects in the September 9 fire, the kkkops have charged four refugees with arson.
After being moved to a hastily constructed campsite, more than 200 migrant workers in Lesbos have tested positive for the coronavirus, a number expected to balloon in coming weeks (infomigrants.net, 9/22). Zekria Farzad, a 40-year-old worker from Afghanistan, said, “We are living like animals….Actually, we are struggling to be alive” (Washington Post, 2/23).
Migration crisis driven by imploding liberal world order
Refugees are created by capitalism. Most of the concentration camp inmates in Moria came from Afghanistan, Syria, or Somalia, countries in the crosshairs of the imperialists’ struggle for control over oil in Central Asia, the Middle East, and East Africa. Energy is a critical source of profits for the big capitalist bosses. Even more important, oil will be needed for the inevitable war between the U.S. and its challengers for global supremacy.
Afghanistan has been gripped by decades of inter-imperialist conflict between the United States, the Soviet Union (now Russia), and China, with regional powers like Pakistan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia also adding to the instability. According to the Brown University Costs of War project, 2.4 million workers fled Afghanistan between 2012 and 2019, “the largest refugee population in the world.” Large numbers were admitted by Iran, but the coronavirus pandemic and a U.S. maximum pressure campaign shut that door. After a deal between the European Union and Turkey broke down, thousands of desperate migrant workers were forced to seek refuge in Greece.
In Syria, meanwhile, Russia has kept in power its war criminal proxy, President Bashar al-Assad, while regaining a strategic naval base in Tartus. After eight years of civil war that followed the CIA-backed Arab Spring revolts, “more than half of Syria’s pre-war population has been displaced, totaling some 13.3 million people” (Brown University). Cross-border refugees surged with the rise of U.S.-funded militias that have murdered and mutilated their way across Kurdish-controlled areas (The Intercept, October, 2019). Many of these refugees found their way to Moria.
Somalia sits near the strategic Strait of Bab el-Mandeb, where four million barrels of oil pass each day. Under Bomber in Chief Barack Obama, the U.S. rained carnage on the country, murdering and displacing masses of workers. Under mass murderer Donald Trump, these bombing campaigns have continued to slaughter and terrorize civilians. By the end of 2019, “approximately 4.2 million Somalis had been displaced within the country (3.4 million) or beyond its borders as refugees or asylum seekers (800,000)” (Brown University). With China establishing its first overseas military base in neighboring Djibouti, the U.S. bosses have ample incentive to continue to sow death and destruction.
Workers of the world, unite!
As the imperialist powers sharpen their knives to prepare for global war, more and more workers will be killed or displaced. There are no good bosses! Choosing between the U.S., China, Russia, or their puppets is a lose-lose proposition. The international working class must stand in solidarity, like the workers in Mexico who provided food and shelter for Central American migrants. Or like the workers in Germany who took to the streets to declare, “We have space!”, in opposition to government and fascist forces claiming otherwise (Ruptly.tv/en, 9/20). Our Party’s mission is to fight alongside these advanced workers and to inject the communist politics that will liberate our entire class from the deadly stranglehold of imperialism.
Communist revolution will smash all borders, the arbitrary lines that divide workers and set off the bosses’ wars. The international working class knows no borders! Fight for communism! Join PLP!
- Information
Justice for Darius: BUILD AN ANTIRACIST WORLD WITH COMMUNISM
- Information
- 25 September 2020 79 hits
CHICAGO HEIGHTS, September 16—Workers around the world are continuing to show their power to fight back against the terrors of capitalism using anti-racist class unity. The murder-by-cop of George Floyd made racism an undeniable deadly reality for some. The complete lack of justice for Breonna Taylor’s death by the Louisville police and authorities shows how broken the justice system is. Many more, particularly Black workers, saw this as an ongoing pattern of torture by kkkops and their bosses.
The international communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) has helped build the fight around the murder-by-cop of Darius Washington, a Black worker in Chicago Heights, IL (See CHALLENGE, 8/7). Shot over 14 times, Darius’ friends and family took to the streets to expose the murder. Workers in the area banded together and demanded the attention of local authorities. PLP stood with our class from that first night of protest and continue in that fight now.
Tonight, we organized with workers in the community to continue that struggle. We demanded an end to ruling class terror, answers about our brother Darius’ murder, and PL’ers called for workers to join our Party in the fight to build a communist society -- the only solution for finally ending these ruling class murders!
Killer kkkapitalists, you can’t hide!
As local bosses have shut out the community with no answers about his murder, workers in the city, those close to Darius and PLP members, planned to take the fight to the local city council meeting.
PL’ers shared our line about how these ruling class mouthpieces have no intention of giving answers or holding back their goons. We all agreed that no one was under the delusion that these kkkops or politrickcians were truthful. We also agreed that our class had to unite in action, in addition to words, to hold these fascists accountable.
The Black worker-led, multiracial team planning this action proved that ruling class abuses have nothing on working class unity. Despite the lies of racism and sexism used to divide us, we knew that more banded us together as workers. PLP members talked about how capitalist borders do not protect anyone from abuses by cops or capitalists. From schools designed to fail to the for-profit neglect of neighborhoods, these were more reasons why we must fight our class enemies together.
United in the fight for justice
The action started across the street from the Chicago Heights police station. Workers gathered for a reading of a statement of demands for justice; a call for the transparency and restructuring of cops and accountability to the family and community of Darius Washington.
We in PLP believe workers should demand justice, but not because we are under any delusion that they will be met. The demands show the dividing line between the interests of workers and the power-hungry ruling class. They represent what we know our class deserves: lives free from deadly inequalities and abuses that have and will always exist under capitalism.
Workers from the area spoke about long-standing abuses by cops. One person detailed her experiences starting in high school. Intimidation and assault by cops in schools with mostly Black, Latin and working class students that have continued to the present day. Others from neighboring cities spoke about the need to stand in solidarity in this fight.
We continued that sharing while we marched and chanted through the streets, “We demand justice, we demand answers!” and “The cops, the courts, the ku klux klan -- all are a part of the bosses plan!” rang out and drew attention and support from people driving and walking past.
After arriving at city hall, we found that the cowardly city administrators cancelled the council meeting rather than face those they claim to represent. Our group was met by kkkops who were combative, issued verbal threats, and attempted to waste our time. The justifiably irritated crowd drowned them out with chants of “Who shot Darius?!” After occupying the area and holding these capitalist watch-dogs accountable for their abuses, the crowd called their bluff. We marched to a busy highway and shut it down.
When workers arrived back at the cop station, some banged on the windows of the building, fearlessly demanding accountability for the oppression of their communities. This prompted a standoff between workers and the cops that ended with them making more empty promises about details of Darius’ murder. They may think they were getting themselves off the hook, but our group of multiracial fighters have no plan to ease off the pressure.
Front line lessons of class struggle
This action showed that members of the working class in Chicago Heights and surrounding areas absolutely have power. Life under capitalism purposefully drives workers to many destructive vices and methods of survival. Despite this reality, when our class unites in fightback, all that can be overcome. For PLP, continuing to build lasting relationships with other workers and pushing the limits of our political education and action is what it means to do this work.
A PL member at the action said that our class can never trust the system to correct itself. A less racist, sexist, murderous version of capitalism does not exist; nothing short of a worker-led communist revolution will free us. This is our Party’s message to workers and students and what we build toward. Nothing short of smashing capitalism and fighting for communism will win freedom for our class. We need all workers and students to join us!
In hospitals and clinics across the city of Chicago, health care workers are fighting back against the capitalist bosses’ racist and sexist attacks on our lives. They are boldly challenging capitalism’s persistent need to prioritize profit over the needs of the working class.
The Covid-19 pandemic has claimed at least 3,000 lives in Chicago. Because of racist inequalities rooted in capitalism, it has been especially devastating to Black and Latin workers, who have made up at least 75 percent of the reported deaths (chicago.gov). Many of these Black and Latin working-class families are also disproportionately affected by gun violence and youth suicides, both of which have seen a drastic uptick this year (Chicago Sun Times, 7/25).
But instead of expanding access and the quality of care, the racist bosses take the opposite approach. They have accepted millions of dollars in handouts from the CARES Act while they threaten to close hospitals, cut back on services for workers who are unemployed or low-income, and impose wage freezes while denying protective gear for those on the front lines.
This deadly assault will continue to be the reality as long as we allow capitalism to exist. Relying on liberal politicians and union misleaders to lead our fightback will only prolong our misery, as these hacks only serve the system’s needs.
More than ever, workers everywhere need to build the struggle to violently overthrow this racist profit system and replace it with a communist society that eliminates money, wages, and social classes. Under communism, we will collectively organize hospitals, clinics and public health based on workers’ needs. To fight for our collective health, we need to join and build the international Progressive Labor Party (PLP).
Workers of the world, unite
Throughout the majority of 2020, there have been a number of battles that have flared up at local health care facilities, which have mobilized thousands of workers. Some of the notable struggles include:
· Workers at Mount Sinai Hospital on the city’s west side protesting the bosses’ refusal to extend pandemic hazard pay to all employees, as well as a failure to make necessary infrastructure improvements to update failing equipment
Nurses, doctors and supporters fighting to prevent the closing of the Provident Hospital emergency room for an entire month during the Covid-19 surge
Health care workers across the city uniting to march through the Medical District in the wake of the racist kkkop murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, demanding a response from the bosses regarding chronic racist health inequalities
·Hundreds of nurses at Amita St Joseph’s Hospital in Joliet going on strike for over two weeks to protest against racist and sexist harassment by the bosses, who threatened to cut sick pay and freeze wages for new hires
Rallies and car caravans of hundreds to protest the proposed closure of Mercy Hospital in the Bronzeville neighborhood, the city’s oldest hospital which serves mostly Black workers
A strike of thousands of workers at the University of Illinois Hospital (UIH), including nurses, aides, clerical and maintenance workers to demand better staffing, higher pay, and improved safety measures
Members of PLP have enthusiastically supported and even provided leadership to some of these anti-racist fights. We have distributed hundreds of flyers and issues of CHALLENGE newspaper to workers hungry for revolutionary politics.
In every struggle in which we have been involved, we have stressed the racist and sexist nature of how the bosses attack and divide us. We have pushed for our co-workers and friends to see themselves as a united fight against all of capitalism’s attacks, and to organize for communist revolution as the antidote to this poisonous system.
Health care for profit is deadly
Health care systems under capitalism will always be organized as a business to maximize the bosses’ profits. The destructive nature of the pandemic has shone a spotlight on just how inadequate, unequal, and racist the bosses’ infrastructure really is.
Despite many hospitals being part of wealthy systems with assets in the billions, hospitals across the country have been closing at a rate of 30 per year (Bloomberg Business, 8/21/18). The majority of these closures occur in working-class urban and rural areas and have negatively impacted millions of Black, Latin and Asian workers, who increasingly find themselves living in “health care deserts” and are forced to travel longer distances to receive care. In Chicago, life expectancy for neighborhoods on the south and west sides can average thirty years less than wealthier downtown neighborhoods (NBC Chicago, 6/10/19)!
The loss of over half a million hospital beds in the U.S. since 1975 all but guaranteed that when a pandemic hit, capacity would be quickly overrun (Truthout, 3/31). As is the case in all industries under capitalism, from transit to education, the scramble for making short-term profits outweighed any long-term consideration of workers’ safety or development.
On a local level, liberal bosses in Chicago have used decreasing tax revenue as an excuse to cut services and jobs to the publicly-funded Cook County Health System (Chicago Tribune, 8/28). This conveniently overlooks the fact that “progressive” Mayor Lori Lightfoot was willing to fork over $1 billion in tax money to developers just a year ago to build a new luxury neighborhood (WTTW, 9/4/19).
Beware the labor fakers
Many of the struggles against the hospital bosses have been organized by the unions, including Illinois Nurses Association (INA) and SEIU. As communists, we fight to organize within mass worker organizations and understand that strikes can be effective schools for class consciousness and communist politics. However, we must always be on guard to understand and challenge the ways that these liberal capitalist reformers sell out workers and steer the struggle into dead ends.
The INA, who are helping lead the ongoing strike at the University of Illinois Hospital, undoubtedly set the nurses in Joliet up to fail in their struggle (see CHALLENGE, 8/5). Along with SEIU, they are limiting the scope of the struggle to focus on negotiating a new contract. Workers “winning” a new contract isn’t anything to be excited about; the majority of the time the bosses won’t even honor the conditions! Labor contracts only dictate the terms of our exploitation.
