U.S. President Donald Trump has restored sanctions against Iran while sending four B-52 bombers and an aircraft carrier strike force to intimidate the Iranian capitalist bosses. Iran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz to oil traffic (Reuters, 4/26) and to attack U.S. assets in Iraq or Syria. As imperialists large and small threaten military strikes in the heart of the oil-rich Middle East, an increasingly volatile situation brings global war ever closer.
Workers have no interest in these bosses’ conflicts. We must organize for a communist revolution now to be ready to turn an inevitable inter-imperialist world war into class war for workers’ power. Then we can build an anti-racist, anti-sexist world where the working class runs all aspects of society.
Iran is contending for power in the Middle East. They are a regional imperialist competing mainly with U.S.-backed Saudi Arabian and Israeli imperialists. Now Trump has eliminated the sanction waivers that allowed eight countries, including China, to continue buying Iranian oil. The goal is to shut down Iranian oil sales, increasing the suffering of the working class to the point that the ruling Iranian regime will be destabilized. The Iranian bosses have responded by beginning to pull back from the 2015 nuclear deal that limited their ability to pursue the production of nuclear weapons.
Main-wing imperialist strategy
The nuclear agreement between Iran, the U.S., and five other countries, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was a major achievement of the Barack Obama administration. It was part of the imperialist strategy of the dominant, finance capital wing of the U.S. ruling class, which is straining to sustain its declining empire.
The main-wing strategy will eventually lead to fighting a world war—but not yet! The 2015 nuclear agreement allowed these Wall Street imperialists to work with their European allies in NATO against not only Iran, but also their Chinese and Russian imperialist rivals. It gave them time to try to mobilize the U.S. working class to fight in the next world war. Last but not least, the main-wing U.S. bosses need time to discipline their own class to prepare for war.
Trump: an erratic tool of domestic capitalists
Trump has thrown a wrench into the main wing’s plans. While unstable and impetuous, he has mostly done the bidding of the subordinate faction of the U.S. ruling class, the domestically oriented U. S. capitalists. Trump’s plan is to devastate the Iranian economy and cripple the Iranian rulers. His unilateral sanctions have unsettled the United States’ longstanding European allies, who were already nervous after Trump’s repeated atttacks on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and other multinational institutions. Both National Security Advisor John Bolton and Trump “are dismissive of the international architecture of treaties and alliances, which was largely constructed by the United States following World War II” (New Yorker, 5/6). If war breaks out with Iran, European Union support for the U.S. will be lukewarm at best.
For the workers of Iran, as for workers throughout the world, the future under capitalism holds only more suffering. Join us in the Progressive Labor Party in the long battle to organize workers and students everywhere to fight against our true enemy: the blood-sucking capitalist bosses!
China and Russia
Imperialist powers eventually resolve their rivalries through war. We can see this today from Yemen and Syria to Ukraine and Afghanistan. Under current world conditions, rivalry among the world’s three main imperialist powers are the primary driving force of events. Iran, which has built significant ties with Russian and Chinese imperialists, could be the flashpoint for a much bigger war, even a world war.
In Syria, Iranian militias have been fighting side by side with Russian military forces to defend the ruthless dictator Bashar al-Assad. The Russians have gained a major regional foothold in Syria, with significant troops, military equipment, and military bases. How far will they go to protect their investment and support their Iranian ally against U.S. pressure?
Iran also has a significant presence in Iraq, where its militias are an extension of Iran’s military (New York Times, 5/8). Meanwhile, the Iraqi government is about to sign a $53 billion oil deal jointly with ExxonMobil and PetroChina (Reuters, 5/7). China, the main buyer of Iranian oil, has skirted U.S. sanctions by making its purchases outside the U.S. dollar-dominated financial system. It may be no coincidence that negotiations between the U. S. and China over tariffs and trade policy have broken down.
Both China and Russia have attacked the increased U. S. sanctions. On May 8, Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, met in Moscow with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who said: “The U.S. is to blame for the situation and it makes it difficult for both Iran to fulfill its obligations and ... for the general state of the nuclear non-proliferation regime.” Speaking for the Chinese foreign ministry, Geng Shuang said that China “resolutely opposes” the U. S. sanctions (Aljazeera, 5/8).
European Union must choose sides
The intensified U.S. sanctions to contain Iran puts added pressure on the European Union (EU), the junior partners in the U.S.-controlled, post-World War II liberal world order. U.S. dominance was already declining before Trump’s election, and now the EU is a shaky ally at best. They are trying to set their imperial ambitions independently of the U.S., which is not to the liking of the U.S. finance capitalists.
How long can the U.S. keep the EU in line as the U.S. declines as a world power? What will the EU do to prevent being bullied by the likes of Trump? The EU “cannot accept that the U.S. decided the regions with which the European companies can or cannot do business,” declared Belgian Prime Minster Charles Michel (Foreign Affairs, 10/10/2018).
The U.S. still runs the show today because the U.S. dollar is the world’s reserve currency for global trade. But the EU has plans to establish a so-called Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), a financial institution that is “technically not a bank” but will process payments between Iran and its international trading partners, thereby sidestepping the U.S. financial system.
In the calculations of any and all of these imperialists, the lives of working class people count for very little. When the bosses talk about protecting their “interests,” they mean protecting their profits, not workers’ lives. The working class has no stake in these bosses’ conflicts. Join PLP and fight for communism!
Hundreds of lively, determined, and celebratory workers gathered in Brooklyn to celebrate May Day this year. (see letters on page 6). With our red flags, red stars, and red ponchos we were prepared and ready to share—leaflets for the chants and water bottles for when the scorching sun eventually came out. We continued with what was planned and kept each other’s morale high. To start, one comrade gave a speech in Spanish about the migrant caravan and two new Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members presented speeches on why they joined, speaking to how capitalism affects disabled people, pushes people to escapism and how the extension of racism leaves workers isolated in this deplorable system.
By the time the third speech was finished, the sun came out and so did onlookers from restaurants, salons and bodegas.
Wave those red flags, wave them high. The COMMUNISTS are marching by!
A great number of us marched behind a large truck, decked out in communist banners in English, Spanish and Creole, walking tough and determined as we waved our red flags in the air. There were many new workers and students joining the march for the first time. They were introduced to our politics through our bold chants. On both sides of the street, there were several comrades on each block distributing papers. Collectively we disributed hundreds of Challenge papers, connecting with people peeking out of their shops and cars while some workers even ran up to comrades and requested copies before we could ask. And even when some people didn’t take our papers or humorously danced to the reggae and hip-hop instrumentals, it was evident that most knew our lines were strong and serious. Many others shared expressions of affirmation and joy in response to our militant messages. All throughout the Avenue, Brooklynites rapped along with the chants, cheering us on as we encouraged them to fight back and join our march.
We got to fight back!
As we reached our destination, and gathered to hear the main speech in Spanish and English we were met by 14 police vehicles and 30 individual cops standing on the edge of our demonstration signaling their bosses’ fear of workers’ growing desire to seize power through communist revolution. May Day is a celebration of the revolutionary potential of the working class. It is a celebration of our long march towards a world without racism, sexism, and exploitation. And, we need YOU to join the fight!
Who are we? PLP
For the first time in years, a high school student gave the main speech, speaking out about how racism affects students, from racist policies to ICE terror. We also honored a family that has been actively marching with PLP for 4 generations, starting with a man who is now 90 years old. His son came in his honor, sharing that his father had instilled communist values and the importance of fightback since he was a 16-year-old. This year he was able to bring his son and grandson along with him. While we did face some opposition once we reached the end of the rally at Prospect Park, we still won over many workers. One man on his bike, hoarse from cursing communism, ranted about how it doesn’t work and we should give up and fight for capitalism. Instead of meeting the man with his aggressive energy, we continued on and chanted QUE VIVA! QUE VIVA! QUE VIVA EL COMUNISMO! Another worker that wasn’t with PLP loudly challenged the antagonist to look up what capitalism actually means, further stating that “capitalism means only a few benefit from the exploitation of many and does not work for the greater good of us all.” It was moving to witness what happens when one person stands against the Party’s line and we not only stand strong together but have more workers join our side. We encourage friends of the party to join PLP and comrades that are already a part to remain firm in what we fight for. Communism will win! Que viva el comunismo!
NEW JERSEY —“Our working conditions are your learning conditions!” Under this unifying idea, graduate students and faculty have been organizing and moving towards a strike over the past few months here at Rutgers University, building mass student support and solidarity along the way. The causes of the strike include:
- Bloated salaries of administrators (many making more than $250,000 a year)
- Low salaries for faculty; sexist, unequal pay for women and men professors.
- Administrative neglect of promises to racially diversify the faculty.
- Different salaries among the three campuses of Rutgers, with lower salaries for faculty working at the Newark and Camden campuses where there are many more Black, Latin and immigrant students
- Near-starvation wages of graduate students.
- Job insecurity for non-tenure track full-time lecturers, who have twice the teaching load of their tenure-track counterparts, and earn one quarter to one third as much income.
- Student - teacher unity has been prominently on display during the fightback, as this growing movement is organizing to ensure gains are made by every sector of the students and faculty, and not just the tenured faculty.
An injury to one is an injury to all
While the leadership of the union (AAUP) bargained “hard.”It was mainly for the tenure-track faculty, as they saw the biggest gains. Graduate students—many of whom are paid so poorly that they have to visit the campus food bank—did not win a badly needed retroactive pay increase for this year. After four years, they will be earning a mere $30,000, an unlivable wage in the state of New Jersey. Some non-tenure track, full-time lecturers will gain longer contracts, but still not guaranteed tenure. This means that they face continuing job insecurity in the academic “gig” economy.
The real elephant in the room, though, has been the situation of Part-Time Lecturers (PTLs), most of whom make a minimal $5,100 per semester course, have no health benefits, are hired from semester to semester with little prior notice, and can be fired without cause. PTLs are, moreover, excluded from the AAUP bargaining unity, representing tenure-track faculty and graduate workers. The increasing use of PTLs rather than full-time faculty at Rutgers is the scandal of higher education throughout the U.S., where “adjunctification” has become a weapon by the U.S. capitalist class for dismantling tenure, which decades ago was a hard-fought reform victory.
The meaning of “victory”
The AAUP leadership misleads this growing movement of student-teacher unity in proclaiming the outcome of recent contract negotiations to be a “historic” victory. This union misleadership has given a stamp of approval to the structured inequality destroying living and learning standards across Rutgers University and increasingly prevailing in higher education throughout the U.S. Moreover, the kinds of gains won for tenure-track faculty will be wiped away if they do not unite in a single union with faculty who are lower in the teaching hierarchy.
Our real victory consists in the movement of solidarity that has developed over the course of the academic year. Members of the Board of Governors routinely encountered large and militant picket lines chanting “Shame! Shame!” Students—burdened by debt and headed into the “gig” economy themselves–joined the picket lines and formed groups to support faculty and grads in the event of a strike. Members of the campus janitors’ union did not remove posters plastered around the campus. Construction workers in a nearby building ceased using their loud equipment when rallies were taking place. Other unions marched in support. Members of one Steelworkers Union traveled from as far as Pittsburgh to express solidarity. Faculty from colleges in New York and New Jersey spoke at Newark campus rallies in support of a strike at Rutgers.
Strikes can be schools for communist revolution
Lenin, a communist revolutionary who helped lead the working class to build the world’s first workers’ state, the Soviet Union, once wrote that strikes are “schools for communism.”
Lenin did not mean that the economic gains won are gradual stepping-stones toward communist revolution. He meant that participation in class-conscious reform struggles can open workers to the revolutionary idea that the international working class needs to run the whole of society. Members and friends of PLP, intimately involved in the strike movement at various levels, have continually brought CHALLENGE and the words “capitalism,” “communism,” “revolution,” and “class struggle” into the conversation—and received big cheers. We have learned valuable lessons about how to put forward a revolutionary perspective in the midst of a reform struggle. Our ranks are expanding. Beneath the cynicism and passivity seemingly prevailing on college campuses these days, there exists a tremendous potential for building a revolutionary communist movement.
Los Angeles, April 27- We celebrated another year of the fight for communism with a lively May Day dinner. Over 60 students, teachers, health care workers, church members, friends, and family came together to share a potluck meal, speeches, collective art, discussion, struggle, and music.
Once again,our emcees were a Latina student and a Black teacher from our base. They kept everyone engaged and excited throughout the night. Our main speech talked about the Los Angeles teachers’ strike as a school for communism. Even though the union sold out the teachers, the more important aspect was the teachers, students, and other workers coming together to fight. There were two UTLA teachers in attendance who received a strong round of applause, from the audience for their brave fight back.
Table talk
In small groups we had lively discussions about the current 2020 presidential election candidates and whether we thought they could keep their reform promises under capitalism. Some people said they didn’t know much about who was running so far.
Others had heated discussions about how far reforms could go under capitalism. One example given was a small business owner who tries to give their employees a living wage and benefits but found out that even by doing unpaid labor themselves, they could still not break even.
Other comrades argued that even if something like reparations for slavery were instituted, the ruling class could easily take them away when they needed. These discussions will continue when we return to our schools and workplaces
Racism at the border and beyond
Throughout the dinner there was a slideshow presentation of scenes from the Tijuana, Mexico/United States border and examples of health care advances made in China after the revolution. Progressive Labor Party(PLP) has made numerous trips to the border and brought workers with them to join the fight against borders and the treatment of migrant workers. A Latin medical student and a health care worker spoke about their experiences traveling to the border to give medical aid to migrant workers there, making comparisons to Mao’s “Serve the People” campaigns in China. The comrade and student spoke about their motivations for making the trip: solidarity and not charity and in a small way dismantling the bosses’ borders by building internationalism.
Another Black student, a future healthcare worker, talked about his participation in the fight against racist police murder. He had joined comrades and friends at the annual public health conference, so his speech highlighted this trip and how he aims to stay involved in a local fight against new jail construction in the city. These two speeches were a step forward for us as this was our first time in a long while that we had close friends of the party giving speeches at our May Day dinner.
Working class art
One of the highlights of the night was the collective art piece. Fourteen Black and Latin high school students enthusiastically contributed to the painting of a mural depicting the working class joining together to make one fist to dismantle the system. The painting was labeled May Day 2019 and will start a collection of future May Day art pieces.
As always, we closed with a call to action before singing The Internationale: join PLP, march with us on May Day, come to the summer project, read and distribute Challenge. All of these are steps towards building the mass, communist party we need to destroy this oppressive, capitalist system and replace it with a communist workers’ state.
CHICAGO, May 1—Today we celebrated May Day, the true workers’ holiday celebrated by the working class internationally. Over 80 of us gathered at a local hall on Chicago’s west side to talk about the history of how workers at Haymarket Square in Chicago fought back against capitalist exploitation by holding a 300,000-strong general strike on May 1, 1886 that sent shockwaves around the world. The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) is carrying on the tradition of workers at Haymarket through international communist struggle to destroy capitalism, with an emphasis on Black workers and youth being the key to revolution.
What Day? May Day!
The event kicked off with a scavenger hunt that accompanied a gallery walk of photos and facts about communist struggles through the years and May Day history in particular. There were many teenagers who attended, and they quickly moved around the hall, answering questions to try to win the scavenger hunt. These youth were present as a result of our continued growing work in local schools. This group activity was followed by an inspiring speech by a comrade who is helping lead political work in the community and on his job at a west side hospital, where they are trying to get a union to counter the bosses’ sexist and racist attacks.
It was encouraging to see a handful of these workers become motivated during the program to come to the microphone and speak about the capitalist horrors of their jobs and express interest in getting involved again. One works as a counselor in the jails, and mentioned how the system of capitalism has destroyed the lives of many of the incarcerated people where she works. Another announced that the charter school where she works is planning to go on strike on May 1st, the third wave of charter school strikes in Chicago in five months. Two new members gave speeches on why they joined the Party. The first of which was a younger comrade, who spoke to the Party’s strength in exposing the liberals as the primary threat to working-class people. She talked of continuing to build a base among youth, who regularly get funneled into the misleading hands of the Democratic Party but really are in need of the revolutionary PLP to change the world in our interests.
The second new comrade to speak was a working mother, who was won recently to the Party through our work in an anti-deportation reform group. Her speech, which was delivered in Spanish, spoke to how she had always been a fighter and learned to organize workers at a very young age, but it wasn’t until she met the Party that she really felt at home in the U.S. She ended her speech with the words, “The bosses are afraid of the working people who have no fear.”
We sang our May Day standards “Bella Ciao” and “The International” in both Spanish and English. Although a late spring snowstorm had forced us to cancel our rally and march, we held a rally indoors at the hall in which we shouted the Party’s anti-racist and anti-sexist revolutionary chants, with practically the entire hall on their feet and engaged.
Chicago’s west side: a story of police terror, and poor healthcare
The reason we celebrated May Day on the city’s west side is because of our history, past and present, of fighting racism in the area. In North Lawndale, there have been many murders committed by the hands of the racist Chicago Police Department. Michael Elam, Rekia Boyd, and Steven Rosenthal have all been murdered by the fascist kkkops in the neighborhood in recent years. We as a Party were active in many of the actions organized to protest their racist murders. Continuing to build a base among other anti-racist fighters in the neighborhood remains exceptionally important as the racist city bosses move ahead with their plans to build a $95 million dollar new police academy nearby (See CHALLENGE, 4/3).
Racist health outcomes are also a harsh reality to workers here. In mostly-Black West Garfield Park, average life expectancy is around 69 years, compared to around 85 years in the wealthier downtown Loop (westsideunited.org). In west side hospitals such as Mount Sinai, mostly Black, Latin, and Asian women workers are short-staffed on the units and thus unable to provide safe and adequate care to their mostly Black and immigrant patients. Many comrades and friends have taken a leading role in organizing against sexist and racist attacks like these on our jobs in west side hospitals and university campuses and will take the inspiration from our May Day event to strengthen our efforts.
We have a world to win
The comrade who gave the main speech during the dinner challenged those present to see their own struggles as part of a larger, international battle against the world’s bosses. As pro-capitalist sellouts such as Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez seek to dupe the masses and lead them into more fascism and imperialism, our Party and communist revolution remain the only real path out of a daily nightmare for billions.
On this May Day and every day, remember: We have a world to win, and nothing to lose but our chains!
