- Information
Cuentos de la Revolución Cultural No Policias, No Crimen
- Information
- 14 August 2014 177 hits
Occidente caracteriza a China como un estado policial. Y es verdad, hubo un gran aumento en el número de policías después de las reformas económicas de Deng Xiaoping al principio de los 80, y mucho más aun después de 1989, cuando el gobierno capitalista de estado aplastó brutalmente al movimiento de masas “pro democracia” en la Plaza Tiananmen. De hecho, se podría decir que la presencia policial en China ha crecido en proporción al desarrollo del país como gran potencia capitalista.
Pero hubo un tiempo en que la presencia de la policía China era casi inexistente, específicamente durante la Gran Revolución Cultural Proletaria. Curiosamente, con menos policías, había menos crímenes. Cuando no había policías, no había crímenes. Con una comunidad fuerte y organizada, no hay necesidad ni lugar para la policía en la sociedad.
Durante la Revolución Cultural, había cerca de un millón de personas en mi condado, pero sólo alrededor de treinta oficiales de la policía. Nuestra Comuna de Chengguan incluía cincuenta villas, muchas fábricas, y negocios en las más grandes ciudades del condado. Pero la central de la comuna tenía sólo cinco oficiales de la policía.
Durante este tiempo había cerca de 1,000 personas en mi villa. En la escuela intermedia, mis compañeros venían de siete villas aledañas. En la secundaria estaban representadas todas las cincuenta villas de la comunidad y muchas de las empresas estatales. Durante los diez años de la Revolución Cultural, nunca supe de ninguna actividad criminal en mi villa o en ninguna de las villas aledañas.
Ciertamente, hubo “crímenes”, pero el gobierno de la villa se negó a tratarlos como tales. Los líderes de la villa nunca llamaron a la policía para las investigaciones; nunca castigaron a las personas involucradas como criminales. A través de la mediación, las críticas públicas y la compensación económica, las villas se ocuparon de estos casos sin enviar a nadie a la cárcel. Me acuerdo de cuatro casos que ilustran como nuestras comunidades rurales se ocupaban del crimen. Era superior a cualquier otro modelo que he visto desde entonces.
La Comunidad Trabaja por la Paz
Un caso concierne a mi mejor amigo y su familia. Su hermano mayor jugaba con su honda después de clases, como todos los muchachos de mi villa. Su tío criaba palomas como animales domésticos, y sus vuelos sobre la villa se convirtieron en algo digno de ver. Un día, su tío acusó al hermano de mi amigo de usar de blanco para su honda a sus palomas y lo abofeteó. Cuando el hermano de mi amigo le contó el incidente a su padre, este fue a confrontar al tío, y pronto se agarraron a los golpes. El padre de mi amigo perdió la primera vuelta; era mayor y el tío más joven había estudiado artes marciales. A la mañana siguiente, mi amigo y su hermano fueron con su padre, pero perdieron otra vez. Como no hubo lesiones graves, la comunidad no intervino en el incidente.
El segundo caso concierne uno de mis compañeros de clases. Su familia emigró al noreste debido a la escasez de granos causada por una inundación durante el Gran Salto Adelante. Después que la vida en nuestra villa se estabilizó, su familia regresó. Pero como habían vendido todo, necesitaron muebles y utensilios domésticos, y los vecinos y familiares los ayudaron. La tía de mi compañero de clases fue la que más los ayudó, en parte porque su esposo había trabajado en el granero del gobierno y ella estaba relativamente bien. (En 1960, murió por causa de un rayo mientras trataba de proteger el grano de la tormenta. Se le reconoció como a un mártir del estado, que se ocupó de cuidar de su familia. Todos sus hijos ya crecidos encontraron buenos trabajos en las empresas estatales o se integraron al ejército).
Pero el padre de mi compañero de clases discutió con la tía que tanto los había ayudado. En un momento de enojo, la tía se llevó una olla de cocinar que le había dado a la familia. En nuestra región, uno nunca amenaza con llevarse la olla de cocinar de alguien, ya que esto atenta contra la supervivencia de la familia. El padre de mi compañero de clases perdió los estribos y empezó a zarandear a la tía. Ella fue a su casa y regresó con sus dos hijos adolescentes para tratar de llevarse todos los regalos que le dio a la familia el año anterior. En ese momento, el padre de mi compañero de clases ordenó que sus tres hijos golpearan a palos a sus primos. Los golpearon duramente, hasta que los líderes de la villa llegaron y les ordenaron que pararan.
El hermano mayor de los golpeados primos estaba haciendo su posta en el ejército. Después de recibir un telegrama de su madre, regresó a casa con un oficial de su unidad para asegurarse que la familia estaba protegida y que se la trataba con justicia. Los líderes de la comunidad les explicaron que el problema había sido una disputa familiar que se les fue de las manos. Al final, los líderes de la comunidad convencieron al padre de mi compañero de clases que le pidiera disculpas a la tía, quien aceptó y se hicieron las paces. La disputa se solucionó sin necesidad de recurrir a la policía.
Mediación de la Comunidad
El tercer caso se dio entre las familias Huang y Yuan en el primer equipo productivo de la villa. La familia Yuan tenía dos hijas y la familia Huang tenía tres, todas casi de la misma edad. A menudo trabajaban juntas en las granjas colectivas. Un día, Yuan Wenyin y Huang Jiashan discutieron y se agarraron a golpes. Todas las hermanas de ambas familias entraron en el pleito. Yuan Wenyin golpeó a Huang Meiyun en la cabeza con una pala. Pronto, los vecinos detuvieron la pelea, pero el padre de Huang Meiyun reclamó que su hija, una de las pocas graduadas de la secundaria, sufrió una lesión cerebral por el golpe. El comité revolucionario de la villa medió en el caso y le pidió a la familia Yuan que pagaran los gastos del cuidado médico de la joven y la compensaran por los puntos perdidos en el trabajo. La familia Yuan aceptó la mediación, otro caso resuelto sin la intervención de la policía.
La Redención de una Tentativa de Homicidio
El último ejemplo fue un atentado de asesinato cometido por Fu Chengzhen, el hijo único de una campesina acomodada en la villa. Cuando su madre murió, los líderes del tercer equipo de producción lo trataron de ayudar asignándolo a una operación que requería trabajar muy temprano para estar listo para el mercado de las mañanas. Allí se enamoro de su compañera de trabajo, Zhou Dihua, de una familia campesina pobre. Su familia no estaba de acuerdo con la relación e insistió en que debería dejar de verlo. Sin embargo, Fu Chengzhen vendió su casa y el oro de su madre, y la pareja se escapó. Vivieron dos años alejados de la villa, dando a luz un hijo. Cuando el niño tuvo un año, decidieron regresar, pensando que la familia de Zhou Dihua ahora los aceptaría. Pero a su retorno, el padre de Zhou le ordenó quedarse en casa y en secreto maniobró para que una familia que vivía lejos adoptara al niño. Mientras tanto, Fu Chengzhen había quedado indigente y sin casa. Los líderes de la villa lo asignaron a trabajar en un equipo forestal, donde tendría acceso a una casa, cocina, y mucho grano y leña.
El Festival de la Luna es un feriado de reunión familiar en China, en el que todos celebran con su familia bajo la luna llena. La villa le da a cada miembro dos libras de carne, pescado, y una botella de licor. Pero Fu Chengzhen no tenía una familia con la que celebrar, y mientras más pensaba en eso mas enojado se ponía. Decidió entonces matarse y matar a Zhou Dihua.
Tomó veneno y después fue a la casa de Zhou, dirigiéndose directamente al cuarto de Zhou con un cuchillo. En la medida que el veneno tomaba efecto, la visión de Fu se le nublaba y las manos le temblaban. Confundió a la madre por su novia, que estaba sentada en la cama – y la acuchilló. Ella gritó y sus dos hijos entraron y lo amarraron con una soga. Los hermanos estaban a punto de acuchillarlo con su propia arma cuando llegaron los líderes de la comunidad. Estos ordenaron que los hermanos llevaran a Fu Chengzhen y a su víctima al hospital. Por suerte, los doctores pudieron salvarlos a los dos, lo que permitió que los líderes de la villa pudieran ocuparse de la situación sin recurrir a la policía.
Cuando los dos salieron del hospital, los líderes de la villa informaron en una reunión general que la comunidad no había ayudado a Fu Chengzhen lo suficiente. Decidieron darle un lote para que construyera una casa. Un par de años más tarde, inclusive lo ayudaron a encontrar una novia. En 1998, regresé a mi villa y vi a Fu trabajando en la compañía constructora de la villa. Me dijo que estaba muy agradecido a la comunidad, y que hubiese pasado mucho tiempo en la cárcel si lo hubiesen reportado a la policía. Desde ese tiempo ha estado trabajando con ahínco para devolverle todo lo que le dio la comunidad.
Vi todos estos casos con mis propios ojos mientras crecía en la villa. Lo estoy escribiendo para decirle al mundo que la Revolución Cultural les dio autoridad a las comunidades para que estas se gobiernen sin intervención policial. Estas trataron de encontrar soluciones positivas, inclusive bajo circunstancias difíciles. Muchas personas que pudieron haber sido tratados como criminales fueron capaces de mantenerse como miembros productivos de la sociedad. La comunidad se beneficio de su productividad al mismo tiempo que evitaban el costo de mantener a alguien en prisión. Esto fue ventajoso para todos.
Click here to download
How does one explain the glee of the Israeli leaders in murdering over 1200 Gazans and the reported 87% popular support for the slaughter of innocents and children?
The necessary and underlying reason for popular support is the virulent racism with which Israelis are injected from the cradle. Arabs are portrayed as inherently violent and anti-Semitic, with no higher goal than to annihilate Jews. Anti-Jewish racism is seen to be different from all other forms of racism, one that cannot be eradicated, and that can only be responded to by killing as many non-Jews as possible. Although 7-800.000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes in 1948 and 5.5 million have been imprisoned in the occupied territories for 47 years, any resistance is seen by Israelis and their allies as terrorist and unwarranted.
From the rulers’ perspective, the reasoning is much more sinister. Israel has been supported by Western Imperialists from the outset, first Britain and then the US. Since the Middle East became the major source of oil, the West has needed Israel as its bully to keep neighboring states in line. The US gives Israel $3.15 billion in aid a year, more than to any other country. Now, however, a new alliance has formed. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Israel are secretly meeting to plan and finance the current attack on Gaza, with a goal of the total annihilation of Hamas at whatever cost. Then they will cooperate with the Palestinian Authority to set up a new government in Gaza. (See www.middleeastmonitor.com, 7/25/14) As in the West Bank, this new government will cooperate with Israel, making deals to share the huge gas reserves under Gaza and keep the population in line. After the destruction of Hamas, Israel and its new allies may well move on to an attack on Iran and ISIS.
Gazans are screwed no matter what the outcome of this conflict. Hamas is widely disliked, with the support of only 15% of Palestinians in the strip before the attack began. Hamas leaders suppress any dissent, dispense unequal justice and employment, and live well while ordinary people suffer terrible deprivation. Although conditions are not quite so bad, the same inequality exists in the West Bank under Fatah. In Israel, workers suffer high unemployment and poor services as monies are diverted to the huge military machine.
Calling for a Hamas victory or a Palestinian state is only a call for local opportunist bosses to continue the policies of capitalist exploitation, in league with Israeli bosses. The vast majority of Palestinian workers and farmers will continue to be impoverished and subject to discrimination. Palestinian and Jewish workers must unite for an egalitarian, anti-racist state, a communist state.
From the Middle East to Eastern Europe and South Asia, wars will continue to expand as capitalists fight over control of oil, gas and other resources. Only the international struggle for workers’ power, communism, can end wars and oppression. There will be no borders and all bosses will be sent packing or killed so that the worlds’ resources can be shared among us all.
As capitalist bosses move toward a hotter and broader global war, they are slaughtering thousands of workers in Gaza and Ukraine. Energy supplies are the short-term prize. But ultimately, control of the Middle East and all of Europe hangs in the balance.
Over the 400-year history of capitalism, war has been a constant. It is also a future inevitability. It’s the one way the bosses can settle their competition to dominate the world’s resources and to exploit the world’s workers, who create the rulers’ profits.
Imperialist war will end only when the international working class destroys capitalism with a communist revolution. We must create a society run by and for our class, without bosses and profits. We must eliminate the unemployment, racism, sexism, and mass poverty generated by the profit system. That is the goal of the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party.
Racist Israeli Rulers Scheme with Arab Bosses
Israel’s sadistic atrocities in Gaza are attacks on all workers. They stem in part from the nation’s perverse history, in particular the legacy of the Judenrat during World War II. These self-appointed Jewish “leaders” collaborated with the Nazi executioners, drawing up lists of Jews to be gassed in the concentration camps in order to save the Jewish elite. As Hannah Arendt wrote in Eichmann in Jerusalem, “this role of the Jewish leaders in the destruction of their own people is undoubtedly the darkest chapter of the whole dark story.” The Judenrat subsequently became some of Israel’s leading founders. (For more details read Perfidy, an exposé by Ben Hecht.)
Before and after the founding of Israel in 1948, the Israeli ruling class created a violently racist “master race” ideology directed at Arab workers among Jewish victims of the Nazi genocide. More than sixty years later, even as Israeli rulers stir anti-Arab racism among the masses, they are working hand-in-glove with the Arab bosses, especially in Egypt and oil-glutted Saudi Arabia (see box, page 2):
Former Israeli defense minister Shaul Mofaz surprised the presenter on Channel 10 [Israeli TV] by saying … that Saudi and Emirati funds should be used to rebuild Gaza after Hamas had been defanged (Huffington Post, 7/20/14).
According to Amos Gilad, director of the Israeli defense ministry’s political-military relations department, “Everything is underground, nothing is public. But our security cooperation with Egypt and the Gulf states is unique. This is the best period of security and diplomatic relations with the Arab.” The Huffington Post went on to note that Israeli and Saudi intelligence officials meet regularly:
Why do Saudi Arabia and Israel make such comfortable bedfellows?.... They have enemies or rivals in common — Iran, Turkey, Qatar, Hamas in Gaza, and the Muslim Brotherhood. And they have common allies, too — the US and British military industrial establishments (7/20/14).
Under capitalism, the rulers use the working class to fight their wars. At the same time, when it suits them, the capitalists will cooperate to guarantee long-range interests, much as German and U.S. bankers met in Switzerland during World War II to plot their post-war attacks on the Soviet Union.
Hamas, the Other Murderous Bosses
Israeli war crimes are spurred by the imperialists’ rivalry over the Middle East’s hydrocarbon riches. So is the cynical stance of Hamas, which throws Arab workers into the jaws of the murderous Israeli military. All along, the group’s corrupt leaders have brutalized and exploited the workers of Gaza.
After the fall of Morsi in Egypt, Hamas healed its 10-year rift with Iran, whose oil-rich ayatollahs are courted by Russia and China. While Israel continues to rake in the $3.15 billion annual U.S. military aid, its new alliance with Saudi Arabia and Egypt may well have Iran (and ISIS) as its next target. This would conflict with the U.S. policy of negotiating with Iran.
So the Gaza fight isn’t really over a blockaded, impoverished strip of land that Israel has turned into an open-air Arab prison, apartheid-style. It revolves around imperialism’s grand prize, the billions of barrels of oil lying beneath the Saudi peninsula. The U.S. bosses control that oil today. The China-Russia-Iran axis wants to control it tomorrow. It is also estimated that there is over $4 billion of natural gas under Gaza, enough to supply Israel for 40 years ( The Guardian, 7/9).
The liberal imperialist Brookings Institution think tank recently termed the Middle East conflict “a cold war in which Iran and Saudi Arabia play the leading roles.” Though Brookings skirted mention of the imperialist super-powers, the reference to the historic U.S.-Soviet rivalry was unmistakable. Gaza is a hot side to this cold war.
Ukraine, Another Imperialist Flashpoint
When Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down on July 17 over eastern Ukraine, killing 298 innocent civilians, the imperialist tug-of-war entered a more dangerous phase. (Regardless of who was responsible, this incident closely resembles the 1988 atrocity when a U.S. aircraft carrier destroyed an Iranian civilian flight with 290 aboard.)
Kremlin-supplied separatists in eastern Ukraine are showing a deadly ruthlessness worthy of the U.S. or Israeli war machines. Both the fascist Ukrainians and separatists are riding roughshod over hundreds of thousands of workers. Increasingly lethal tactics in Ukraine reflect the conflict’s rising geostrategic stakes.
A look at London-based Burisma Holdings, a little-known but highly well-connected gas company, helps explain U.S. and allied interest in Ukraine. On its website, Burisma notes that Ukraine currently gets “substantially all of its natural gas from Russia’s Gazprom.” The company aims to break this stranglehold: “All of Burisma’s production is sold to industrial customers in Ukraine.”
Burisma’s oil fields are in the Dnieper-Donets region of eastern Ukraine and the Carpathian and Crimean basins, from which it hopes to double its daily 10,000 barrels of production in two years. Doing so would require U.S.-backed Ukrainian military action to oust Russia from Crimea and stop its protégés firing their missiles from Donets.
Burisma has but three directors: Aleksander Kwasniewski, Devon Archer and Hunter Biden, the son of U.S. vice president Joe Biden. Kwasniewski served as president of Poland from 1995 to 2005, when he strongly supported NATO expansion and the various anti-Russian “color revolutions” funded by liberal U.S. ruling-class figure George Soros in Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus. Much like former German Chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder, recently the director of Gazprom (Russia’s government-controlled natural gas giant), Kwasniewski moved from commander-in-chief to gas baron.
Biden’s Son Knee-Deep in NATO Plots
One great fear for U.S. imperialists is that empire re-builder Putin might target other pro-U.S. NATO states bordering Russia. Hunter Biden also directs or advises two finance-capital-bankrolled, war-planning think tanks, the Center for National Policy and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). On July 24, CSIS released “Responding to Putin’s Plan Post-Crimea,” which voiced concern that the end of the Cold War led NATO to fail to maintain conventional forces “or force deployments adequate to counter a Russian invasion.”
It’s in this context, according to CSIS, that Washington must strive to “send a powerful message that underscores the U.S. security commitment to NATO allies, most specifically, its commitment to extended nuclear deterrence.” So far, however, Putin’s conventional forces seem to be prevailing. The U.S. will need to mobilize domestically — and win a U.S. working class weary of war and opposed to a military draft — to match Russia’s boots on Europe’s soil. Otherwise, the U.S. bosses will be impelled to use nuclear arms to keep Russia and China at bay.
As trustee of the Heinz Family Office, Burisma’s Devon Archer protects the multi-millions of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who married into the H.J. Heinz Company family. With the company’s fortune strategically placed in Ukrainian gas fields, it is no wonder Kerry became so emotional in blaming the Malaysian jet shoot-down on Putin. Archer was senior adviser to Kerry’s 2004 White House campaign, which included a call for national service — a backdoor move toward reinstituting a draft.
Energy spoils, territorial conquest, and the sharpening imperialist struggle are all intertwined in Ukraine. General Martin Dempsey, the top U.S. military officer, used the New York Times (7/2/14) to make a not-so-veiled reference to the move toward World War III:
You’ve got a Russian government that has made a conscious decision to use its military force inside another sovereign nation to achieve its objectives. They clearly are on a path to assert themselves differently not just in Eastern Europe, but Europe in the main, and towards the United States.
Internationalism Will Trump Nationalism
Workers in Gaza, Palestine, Israel, Russia, U.S., and Ukraine have no stake in the bosses’ dogfight for oil and world domination. No matter which rulers win, they offer us only death and exploitation. Even today, without the foundation of a communist-led mass movement, there are pockets of resistance to the capitalist rulers. Thousands of Israelis have demonstrated against the Israeli invasion of Gaza and tens of thousands protested in other countries (see page 4). Over 50 Israeli soldiers have protested the war and have refused to fight.
This resistance is why the capitalist rulers need nationalism. It’s their primary weapon to divide and weaken our class and undermine our fightback. Nationalism incites workers to back different sets of bosses. It is a reactionary and deadly ideology.
In Israel-Palestine, they erect a phony dispute: One state or two? No matter which side wins, both workers in Israel and Palestine will be exploited by capitalism. Only a communist revolution can resolve this question. Under communism there will be only one state, the workers’ state. The bosses’ nationalism will be crushed by workers’ internationalism. Workers’ only loyalty will be to our class. We will send the hellish capitalist system and its ruling class to the dustbin of history.
LOS ANGELES, July 25 — “Death, Death, Death to the Racists! Power, Power, Power to the Workers!” Progressive Labor Party took this chant to the streets of Murrieta on July 13, inspiring workers to stand up for migrant youth. The marches against racism were the acme of this year’s Summer Project here. Anti-immigrant racism became the focal point of our fightback. PLP has been strengthened in numbers and quality, particularly in the area of young leadership.
Every year, members and friends of PLP come from different parts of the world to fight collectively in one particular area by connecting struggles, developing young leadership and growing our organization. We marched, distributed CHALLENGE and leaflets, met workers, studied political theory and got to know each other. This year’s Summer Project was inspiring as we marched against racism, especially anti-immigrant racism, and for multiracial unity of the working class to make a revolution for communism.
Take to the Streets
PLP raised red flags and led an impassioned group of 60 workers and students down a main street in Murrieta to show the workers there that they needn’t be afraid to fight the racist thugs camped out in front of the immigration detention centers. This town has been a flashpoint for racist hatred against the 57,000 migrant youth fleeing capitalist-driven violence in Central America. Many workers took our literature and were emboldened by our presence (see CHALLENGE, 7/30).
After Murrieta, we took this fightback to the garment district of downtown Los Angeles. These workers are mainly immigrants, super-exploited and threatened with deportation as they make approximately eight cents per unit in these garment factories. Several chanted along with us, took our literature and read it immediately. Some joined our march! The proof of the pudding is in the eating; PLP’s idea for international solidarity is proven true again and again. As one of the participants expressed, it “was like coming home.” Contacts were made. One young worker and student came to our closing barbecue the following day.
The Summer Project also centered on the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Convention held here. Teachers inside the convention openly opposed the racist nationwide Common Core curriculum and re-segregation of the schools, as well as the liberal union leaders who attempted to win the convention to supporting U.S. imperialism in the Ukraine (see CHALLENGE, 7/30). PLP rallied inside the halls of the convention. We connected the attacks on students in the U.S. to the attacks on immigrant children. Our multilingual chants drew several teachers. We also won a contingent to march in Murrieta with us.
Every Recruit a Victory for the Working Class
Throughout the week, CHALLENGE sales were conducted at transit barns, the airport, garment centers, a county hospital and a high school. We distributed over 2,500 papers and thousands of leaflets. Multiple contacts were made through the sales that we will follow up on. At our closing barbecue, many expressed how inspired they were by our fightbacks against anti-immigrant racism and the strong leadership shown by young people throughout the Project. Six students and one parent joined the PLP. Every one of them is a victory for our class!
Looking forward, we are energized and more committed to building PLP in our schools, on the campuses, and on the job. We will focus on connecting the struggles of black youth and Latin youth as one. The attack on mainly Latin workers in the form of mass deportations and checkpoints parallels the attack on mainly black workers in the form of mass incarceration and police terror. These are attacks on all working people and we must fight them together as a united class! We also aim to get more involved in mass organizations, particularly those working with immigrant youth. We in Los Angeles thank the international Progressive Labor Party for your leadership, support, and continued struggle. We have a world to win, and this Summer Project reminded us that when we have the support of the masses, we WILL win!
- Information
Beat Back Bosses’ Attack, Need to Smash Entire System
- Information
- 31 July 2014 168 hits
PHILADELPHIA, June 30 — This afternoon about 175 retired and working Local 1199C union hospital workers gathered at the union hall to see if the Jefferson Hospital bosses would retreat on taking health benefits from retirees and part-time workers. Over 50 retirees were called to the union hall at the last minute and hoped to confront the Jefferson negotiators. The negotiators never came, and to our cheers, the announcement came that Jefferson had backed down and an agreement had been reached! As the hospital day-shifts ended in waves, the hall filled with a mixture of working and retired union members full of anger, determination, solidarity and comradeship.
While celebrating this victory, CHALLENGE readers and friends of PLP should turn to the wise words of the 1970s-era Scottish funk band AWB: “Got work to do, got so much work, yeah yeah.” Storm clouds are still gathering on the horizon, both for Jefferson Hospital retirees and workers everywhere.
The union mis-leadership and liberal Democrats often portray attacks like the ones at Jefferson as disconnected from similar attacks happening across town or in other cities, let alone happening to workers worldwide. Workers are saturated with the lies spread by these vipers, which can take their toll and spread cynicism on the most battle-hardened among the Jefferson Hospital workers. “Here we go again,” was one retiree’s observation when a group of 1199C retirees invaded a hospital administration office in May. She referred to the 40-50 years of history that her and her fellow union members created by proudly fighting first to unionize, and then to win the benefits that we’re now desperately trying to keep.
In reality, attacks like the ones on retirees here are being waged against workers in many forms all across the U.S. Such attacks are necessary for the U.S. ruling class to discipline the workers as the bosses prepare for potential wars with their Chinese and Russian capitalist rivals.
The Progressive Labor Party fights to get us off this losing “Merry-Go-Round” of fighting tooth-and-nail for reforms which the bosses can just take back later, but to end ALL wars for profit by destroying the profit system itself.
The fight at Jefferson Hospital is one hot spot in the class war between the capitalists and workers. Under capitalism, workers are exploited for profit, and every organ of the capitalist state serves the bosses to help maintain this status quo. We are limited to fighting by laws, courts and legal decisions made by these bosses. Now and again, workers succeed in organizing and winning reforms. However, as long as capitalism exists, we stand to lose the victories it took us decades to win, amidst growing racism, sexism and eventually world war.
PLP stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the workers and retirees of Jefferson Hospital. We believe that an injury to one is an injury to all! Through CHALLENGE networks and new readers gained from this struggle we are building an international, multi-racial movement, a class war to overthrow capitalism once and for all with communist revolution. The more readers of CHALLENGE who see the bigger picture, the sooner we can become a real game changer in the battles that loom ahead.
The power and spirit we could bring to a fight for this bigger picture was present all day among these union members. PLP fights to direct this energy to the battles ahead. We have two years to build for our contract fight and we can be sure the bosses and union hacks will demand more cutbacks. In the short- and medium-term, we have the tremendous task of using CHALLENGE to raise political awareness and build study groups to understand our fight in the global context of coming imperialist war. When the Jefferson bosses refuse to back down next time we can be strong enough to march four blocks from the union hall to the hospital and shut it down.
Win or lose the next contract battle with the bosses, through building workers’ power among the rank-and-file and building on the power and spirit felt in that hall today, our struggle over the next two years will show even more workers that fighting back is possible and that a communist world — a world run by the working class — can be won.
