Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka MBS, has been praised by pro-Trump and anti-Trump forces for implementing sweeping liberal reforms. Both sides believe the prince’s reforms can advance the interests of U.S. imperialism. And the main wing of the U.S. ruling class surely wishes it could follow the Saudis’ lead and bring factions of their own class to heel.
MBS designed his reforms to whip up support among the working class in Saudi Arabia for war against Iran and Iran-backed groups such as Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. But rather than drink the billionaire prince’s nationalist poison, workers need to unite throughout the Middle East and the world and fight for communism.
Both Arsonists and Firefighters
In the oil-rich Middle East, Saudi Arabia has been the main U.S. ally since World War II, when U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt vowed to protect the kingdom in exchange for U.S. access to its petroleum reserves. Internally, the Saudi ruling class shored up its power and profits by cutting a deal with the Wahhabi mullahs. For decades, the Wahhabis have imposed an ultra-sexist religious order at home while exporting their fundamentalist Islam throughout the region. In the 1980s, they trained the mujahideen in Afghanistan in their war against the Soviet Union, a struggle that led to the creation of Al Qaeda. Throughout the region they supply free textbooks that spout their murderous rhetoric.
In the realm of extremist Islam, the Saudis are ‘both the arsonists and the firefighters,’ said William McCants, a Brookings Institution scholar. ‘They promote a very toxic form of Islam that draws sharp lines between a small number of true believers and everyone else, Muslim and non-Muslim,’ he said, providing ideological fodder for violent jihadists (New York Times, 8/26/16).
But now the Saudi rulers need their religious leaders to publicly denounce ISIS and fall in line with the new liberal agenda. MBS is disciplining Saudi capitalists with his so-called anti-corruption drive. He has imprisoned two hundred top officials and businessmen in the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton until they agree to pay back to the government some of the loot they’ve skimmed over the years. He is sending a clear message: The Saudi ruling class must put aside short-term, individual greed for the long-term interests of their class, which includes a buildup to war with Iran. As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote in an over-the-top love letter to MBS:, “Unlike the other Arab Springs — all of which emerged bottom up and failed miserably, except in Tunisia — this one is led from the top down... and, if it succeeds, it will not only change the character of Saudi Arabia but the tone and tenor of Islam across the globe. Only a fool would predict its success — but only a fool would not root for it” (NYT 11/23).
Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch has denounced the Saudis’ new counterterrorism bill, which targets anyone who speaks out against the government. Insulting MBS or his father, King Salman, is punishable by 10 years in jail. Other acts of “terrorism” carry the death penalty, including “‘disturbing public order’, ‘shaking the security of the community’, and…’suspending the basic laws of governance’, all of which are vague and have been used by Saudi authorities to punish peaceful dissidents and activists” (Al Jazeera, 11/23).
These crackdowns against dissident government officials and capitalists are a hallmark of rising fascism in a period of capitalist crisis and sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry. The purpose is to consolidate the rulers’ power by disciplining their own ranks. Then the Saudi bosses will be better positioned to attack the working class and move toward war.
U.S. Jealous of Saudi Crackdown
To date, the main wing of the U.S. ruling class—represented by the big banks and multinational oil companies like ExxonMobil—has been less successful in its own efforts to prepare war and fascism. For the rulers, the Trump administration is proving to be a disaster. Despite a Republican Party majority in both houses of Congress, all Trump has to show for a year in office is a make-the-rich-richer tax bill. His fomenting of white nationalism has further divided the working class when the ruling class needs workers united around patriotism. The Saudis’ initiatives to get their house in order foreshadows the type of fascism the working class can expect in the U.S., sooner than later.
Iran and Saudi Arabia, Two Sides of Imperialism
Saudi Arabia and Iran have been rivals in the Middle East for decades, vying for ultimate control over oil and gas exports in the region. Where the Saudi rulers have allied with U.S. imperialists, Iran has tied its future to Russian and Chinese imperialists.
In 1979, both the Saudi and Iranians rulers turned to fundamentalist Islam as their answer for disciplining their ruling classes and their workers. Now Saudi Arabia is taking a different approach. According to Thomas Friedman, “This reform push is giving the youth here a new pride in their country, almost a new identity, which many of them clearly relish” (NYT 11/23). What MBS hasn’t yet figured out is how to counter without funding destabilizing political movements like ISIS.
As the Saudi rulers move to relax the religious stranglehold on their society, Iran is pushing its own brand of nationalism by uniting its workers against the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. “In short, it appears that Mr. Trump and the Saudis have helped the [Iranian] government achieve what years of repression could never accomplish: widespread public support for the hardline view that the United States and Riyadh cannot be trusted and that Iran is now a strong and capable state capable of staring down its enemies (NYT 11/26).”
As the Saudi ruling class uses secular liberalism to build discipline among their ranks, workers must see it for what it is—a drive to be prepared for war. No matter what reform crumbs capitalists throw us, we must look at their underlying motive: to mislead a working class into fighting and dying for the bosses’ profits. We must organize ourselves to smash all imperialists in a revolutionary war for communism and workers’ power.

*****

War on Workers in Yemen

The war against the working class in Yemen has been raging for two and a half years, killing more than 10,000 and destroying hospitals and sewage treatment plants. The resulting outbreak of cholera, one of the largest in half a century, has infected than a million workers. Blockades have prevented aid from reaching Yemeni workers, creating famine conditions. The U.S. has placed Yemen on its anti-Muslim travel ban list, effectively sentencing workers to death.
The United Nations Human Rights Council is sending observers to Yemen to investigate war crimes allegations. What the UN will never admit is that all imperialist wars are crimes against the international working class.
Backed by Iran, Houthi rebels have been battling a Saudi- and U.S.-backed coalition for control over the country.  Yemen has untapped oil and natural gas reserves and is located on an important oil shipping waterway. It sits directly across the narrow Mandeb Strait from Djibouti, where the U.S. has established a new military base overlooking oil routes from West Africa to the Middle East and beyond.

BROOKLYN, November 27—Wayne Isaacs, a Black kkkop, was found not guilty on October 23 for murdering 37-year-old Delrawn Small in a 4 of July road rage dispute. This was an instant reminder that this racist murderous system of capitalism will continue to defend the kkkops who help maintain it.  Instantly, thoughts turned to a student, Delrawn’s family member, who attends a Brooklyn high school where a few communist teachers in the Progressive Labor Party have a base.  
We knew we had to organize a school-wide response to support our student and to get students and staff in motion over this racist attack.
Murdered on July 4
Seconds after Small approached cop Isaac’s car, the off duty cop shot him three times while Small’s family, including his 14-year-old daughter, watched. In court, the lawyer said, “The defendant [cop Isaac] came out of the car, not to render aid, but to coldly walk by Small’s body, get on the phone and call 911 to allege he was attacked, punched, as Delrawn Small laid on the concrete in his own blood…It happened so fast, in one second, he ended his life in front of his family, stumbled a few feet and fell” (NY Daily News, 10/23).
On the day the capitalist courts ruled this murder as legal, Victor Dempsey, Small’s brother, said the outcome “goes to show the system is not for black people. I don’t care how we look at it.” (New York Times, 11/7).
Following the murder, some PL teachers participated in a rally organized by his family. We introduced ourselves as communist teachers to her family. One PL teacher who at the time was teaching summer school organized her classes to write letters of support to the family. This had a significant impact on both our student and her family who felt the school was supportive.
Organizing After the Verdict
One teacher reached out to the student’s mother to offer condolences and express our outrage at the verdict. The mom was not surprised by the outcome. We suggested organizing a rally in front of the school at the end of the week to condemn racist police murder and to show school-wide support to the family. Both student and parent agreed. We then organized an emergency staff meeting and an emergency student meeting. Staff was supportive of the rally. At the student meeting, our courageous student attended, along with a handful of others and plans were made for how to get the word out to the student body.
They made flyers calling on all to attend. Student leaders posted them around the school.
Fighting in Hard Times
We were happy with the plan and enthusiasm in the school to denounce racist police murder and support our student. We knew we were pushing the limits in this time period of increased cynicism by calling for a mass action directly in front of the school.
Unfortunately, we did not take into account the great fear, individualism and willingness to go along with the status quo that exists amongst the administration. Our lack of full objectivity allowed us to underestimate the enemy and we did not make a plan to counter it. As soon as students began putting up flyers, the administration took them down. One bold student, who hates this racist system to its core, confronted an administrator she saw taking down the flyers. The student quickly went back to tell the others, and they made plans to distribute the flyers more clandestinely.
Unfortunately the rally was canceled. It may be that the administration heightened Delrawn’s family member’s fear that the rally would bring too much attention to her. Or it may be that they convinced her to call off the rally. Either way, the next day our student thanked us for our support but asked that we call off the rally. We called another emergency meeting to let students know. Many were disappointed and angry because they felt that the administration had won.
But we all realized we had to respect our student’s wishes and instead decided to organize a moment of silence at our next school assembly and a dedicated wall where students and staff could write messages of support to the family.
Marx wrote to Engels about the ebb and flow of class struggle, where there are “developments of such magnitude 20 years are no more than a day…though these may be again succeeded by days into which 20 years are embodied.” We are in a time when days are as slow as years in terms of struggle. It is important in this difficult period of low class struggle and class-consciousness to continue to get the people around us in motion against this racist, murderous system. We may not always be able to make our plans of action a reality, but we must push the limits and create a culture of fightback. These small steps forward represent progress as we continue on the road to the destruction of capitalism and all the misery it unleashes worldwide.

CHICAGO, November 24—For the third straight year, Progressive Labor Party brought a multi-racial, multi-generational spirited contingent to the Black Friday protests, organized in opposition to the racist Chicago Police Department. Beyond just fighting for another reform or targeting capitalist profits for one day, our collective struggled with workers present over international communist revolution as the only permanent solution to the racist and sexist capitalist system.
Capitalist Bosses Need Killer Kops and Fascism
The first mass Black Friday protest here in Chicago took place in November 2015, just days after the release of dashboard video showing racist killer cop Jason Van Dykkke pumping 16 rounds into the lifeless body of Black teenager Laquan McDonald. The video had been kept under wraps for over a year by the city government, including racist Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who knew perfectly well that the racist murder would undoubtedly destroy his campaign for re-election that previous April.
The protest in 2015 involved hundreds of angry workers and students blocking the entrances of high-end retail stores and shutting down traffic on the elite Magnificent Mile downtown. With each following year, the protests have decreased in size, as the city’s bosses have slickly thrown some crumbs towards the workers and given the illusion of progress and reform of their criminal injustice system.
Earlier this month, 17 people wrongly convicted by the racist courts were exonerated as preliminary charges and discipline were brought against notorious kkkop Sergeant Ronald Watts and several other goons under his command. The capitalist bosses are hoping that this news will distract workers in the city away from the fact that the City Council voted almost unanimously to build a massive new Police Academy and hire at least a thousand more kkkops to terrorize, extort, and kill more and more of our working-class sisters and brothers.
The bosses need increasing fascism and police terror to oppress the working class, who will justifiably rebel and organize against the intolerable economic and political conditions that capitalism inevitably creates. If the international working class is ever to live in a world free of fascist police terror, deportations, and imperialist war, the struggle needs to take the form of a mass international revolutionary movement led by the communist PLP to crush the bosses and capitalism once and for all!
Communist Speech Sets the Tone
Armed with communist banners, fliers, CHALLENGE, and a bullhorn, our Party contingent connected with the protest at Water Tower Plaza for the kick-off rally. Various leaders of reform struggles, community organizations, and victims of racist police terror gave their testimonies to call out the racist and sexist nature of the kkkops and the capitalist system. For the second year in a row, a PL comrade gave an impassioned speech that pushed the need for a more revolutionary scope to the struggle.
The comrade stressed the importance of international working class solidarity and revolutionary fightback in an era of increasing imperialist rivalry, deportations, and war. He highlighted the mass worker fightback in regions like Kishana, Congo and Oaxaca, Mexico that took place during the past year. He called on workers in Chicago and everywhere to be uncompromising in the struggle to destroy capitalism and build workers’ power through communism worldwide. The comrade’s speech was met with loud applause and provided more of an opening for our collective to share our literature with the workers and students present.
Sharpening Chants
After the speeches, the protest once again took to the streets in order to begin blocking the entrances to billion-dollar capitalist businesses on one of the busiest shopping days of the year. Our contingent was fired up after the rally, picketing the storefronts in rhythm with our fellow anti-racist fighters and using our bullhorn to lead several chants.
When we found the chants to be too soft on the bosses, we took the opportunity to inject some more revolutionary and class-conscious messages. For example, when the chant went “The people united, will never be defeated!” we were quick to change it to “The workers united, will never be defeated!”
This caused some friction with some of the main organizers of the demonstration, who wanted us to stick to the approved chant sheet, but still won the support of a number of anti-racists nearby who were more open to our line of working class power.
Fight to Win
Although as communists we don’t believe that capitalism can be reformed in any significant or lasting way to serve the needs of our class, it is still essential and inspirational to take place in these mass demonstrations and grassroots struggles. These smaller fights help build the class consciousness and the relationships necessary to understand that the international working class can truly move mountains when we unite in our common interests against capitalism. PLP will continue to build the fight to win workers to communist revolution as the path to a better world.

This is the  part of an extensive series about the Bolshevik Revolution and the triumphs, as well as the defeats, of the world communist movement of the 20th century. We welcome your comments and criticisms, and encourage all readers to discuss this period of history with their friends, classmates, co-workers, family, and comrades.

 In 1921, the workers in the former Russian Empire were faced with building the first workers’ state on a territory with the area of one-sixth of the earth’s surface. Much of the brand-new Soviet Union’s best farmlands and economy were shattered by the imperialist devastation of World War I; widespread peasant revolts rocked the countryside while urban populations were declining; and on top of this there was a famine affecting millions of workers and farmers. The leaders of the Communist Party (nicknamed Bolsheviks in Russian) included Vladimir Lenin, who had no blueprints or previous experiences to learn from.
Lenin proposed that the Bolsheviks temporarily adopt aspects of capitalism in order to create jobs and develop industry first, and build socialism later. After considerable debate, the Bolsheviks responded with the New Economic Policy (NEP) which lasted until 1928. The NEP allowed a limited  restoration of capitalism that was meant to be under the control of the Soviet Union. Lenin and others felt while this was a retreat from socialism, it was necessary for survival of the revolution to rebuild after the devastating civil war that followed the 1917 Revolution.
How Was the NEP Set Up?
Workers went along with changes because they saw this as a temporary sacrifice to build socialism. They formed trade unions for the first time, and were managed by a single “red manager” who was skilled in new technology. Some were even previously factory owners. These managers became Party members making ten to twenty times what a worker was paid along with “perks” such as vacations and cars. Their skills included management of large scale operations that could take advantage of technology and generate profit. Technicians, engineers and other specialists played a large role, and were favored with higher wages as well.
Expansion of industry required foreign investment and trade from the very same capitalist nations who had previously invaded the Soviet Union after 1917 in order to crush it. Imports of machinery were essential to modernize. Unfortunately, this also meant that the peasants had to supply more grain to pay for these imports, and the Party could not pay them for this surplus.
During the NEP, poor peasants were left out of the progress. The party relied on the rich and middle peasants to guarantee enough food for the cities, as well as the surplus for trade with capitalists. Some rich peasants who controlled the flow of credit joined the Party, and did not share with the poor peasants. Meanwhile the industrial sector did not make simple and cheap tools for the poor farmers since they were not so profitable. Many poor peasants were driven off the land, and the Party’s efforts to be more responsive to them were not successful.
What Was the Outcome of the NEP?
Modernization of Soviet society moved quickly under the NEP. Banking and taxation systems were created, and a stable currency was achieved. By 1925-6 industry and agriculture had recovered. The government developed a budget process and first efforts were made at planning economic development.
Social programs, especially education and literacy, expanded. The Bolsheviks launched what was at the time the largest mass literacy campaign in human history, eclipsed by the communists in China years later. By 1928, school enrollment had jumped 50% above pre-war levels, and public libraries skyrocketed to 80 million, from the 9 million across the whole Russian Empire before World War I. Training of medical doctors led to the tripling of the number of doctors to 63,000, despite most older doctors fleeing the country during the war.
On the other hand, these advances came with a political price. The experience convinced many Party members that the NEP should continue despite the absence of socialist production in either the factories or the farms. Many new Party members who joined during this period and were less committed to communist principles, and this also influenced some of the older Bolsheviks. Thus, when agricultural production could not keep up with the rapid industrialization and the Party turned to collectivization of agriculture in 1929, there were serious disagreements that led to factions and conspiracies within the Party and the government.
The End of the NEP Era
All of this occurred in the infancy of the working class’ attempts to organize a proletarian communist revolution.  Following the NEP, the Bolsheviks launched the First Five Year Plan, a drive for rapid farm collectivization and industrialization. A great deal of struggle and sacrifice was demanded, as catapulting a country into the front ranks of the most developed nations in the world within five years had never been attempted in human history. It was wildly successful, and this effectively put an end to the NEP.
The NEP did get production going again after the tremendous devastation of war, famine, and epidemic disease. In this sense, it was successful for a few crucial years.
However, the main problem was political. The NEP embraced the ideology of the same capitalist system the revolution was against – production for a market, inequality, wealth and poverty. Millions of workers were won to capitalist politics, not the communist politics the Bolsheviks had organized for years. Many rich peasants and some factory owners joined the Party because they benefitted under NEP. This harmed poor peasants and many workers, who for a time were alienated from the revolution.
Perhaps most serious, many Party leaders supported NEP and were afraid to abandon it. During the difficult years of the First Five Year Plan, from 1929-1933, some Party leaders were won to cynicism and defeatism, sure that these policies would fail. They were so sure than they formed secret factional, conspiratorial groups. Some of them plotted to kill the Bolshevik leader at the time, Stalin, and turn the Party’s policies back to NEP-style—capitalist—policies.
Ultimately, despite incredible advancements and the defeat of the Nazis in World War II, workers’ power in the Soviet Union was defeated by 1953. It was precisely because even the concessions to capitalism within full-fledged socialism - like the wage system, inequalities, and nationalism - were over the long term a one-way ticket back to full-fledged capitalism. These concessions opened the door to misleaders and traitors to communism like Nikita Khrushchev in the 1950s, who attacked Stalin under the guise of “returning to Lenin’s NEP” because he had decisively turned against capitalist-type policies.
With the benefit of a century of history, it’s tempting to say that the reversals of socialism were inevitable. Communist philosophy views history as a science, however, and it’s through learning from the past - not from random guesses, or rigidly following past formulas just because some great leaders said them - that the Progressive Labor Party, formed in the early 1960s, scientifically broke with socialism in the 1980s. Studying and learning from history is not the job of a few within the Party, it’s the job of everyone. Our fight for communism will depend on millions of workers understanding and applying the lessons of experiments like the NEP.