MADRID, SPAIN, July 12 — A seven-week general strike of 8,000 miners in the northern coalfields of Austurias, Aragon and Léon protesting the Socialist government’s austerity attacks has turned into a mass uprising reaching all the way to this capital. After having seen 40,000 jobs destroyed in the past 20 years and facing the potential extinction of another 40,000, the miners said “Enough!” They have fought daily battles with the hated Civil Guard.

Scores of miners have locked themselves into the pits. Strikers have erected burning barricades, blockaded 16 main highways, shut rail lines and used improvised rocket launchers in their response to the rioting cops’ use of tear gas, clubs and rubber bullets. When special anti-riot squads of the military police tried to remove the barricades, the miners answered with dynamite. A Civil Guard terrorist invasion of a mining village using anti-riot gear against women, children and the elderly was routed by furious strikers and their families (see box). Their militant fight has inspired walkouts of transportation workers, teachers and shipbuilders.

The strikers have gone beyond the local Occupy movement’s protesters (the “indignados”) by shouting, “No estamos indignados, estamos hasta los cojones!” — “We are not indignant, we are pissed off to our balls!”

The uprising has drawn mass support from the working class which is suffering 25 percent unemployment — 52 percent among youth — a four percent sales tax on bread and medicine, and facing an increase to 21 percent on clothing and telephone charges. The strike was provoked by a government edict of a 63 percent cut in subsidies for the mining region, sales tax hikes, and an increase in the retirement age to 67, costing the working class 65 billion euros ($81 billion U.S. dollars) over the next 30 months — this all to bail out the bankers’ toxic assets and loans resulting in the collapse of the real estate market.

On June 24, thousands of miners took their protest on an 18-day march for 250 miles straight to this capital city where they were hailed as heroes by a half million workers and their families. Escorted by the city’s firefighters into the main square when they arrived at 2:00 AM, the crowds greeted the miners with raised fists, red flags, revolutionary chants of “Long live working-class struggle!” and the singing of the Internationale.

Support for their struggle has reached the British working class where the Spanish Miners Solidarity Committee was formed on June 11 in Sheffield, England by former veteran miners of the 1984-85 strike. They have organized a national campaign to send funds to the strikers’ families in the northern and eastern coalfields.

The world’s capitalist media — dwelling on Spain’s need to bail out the bankers — has tried to keep this struggle out of the headlines as they did with the months-long strike of 300,000 students in Quebec. But the march to Madrid broke through this blackout.

The bosses’ have smeared the miners with accusations of “terrorists” and lies about their wages and “early retirement.” However, workers have not fallen for this garbage. When Spain’s national soccer team won the Euro Cup recently, the ruling class created a mood of flag-waving national unity. But the thousands in Madrid’s Puerto del Sol main square chanted to the miners, “Esta es mi selección” (“This is my national team!”)

Spain’s main unions have played their usual pro-capitalist role. After having called a short general walkout in March, they never followed up with a long-range mass strike. They are allied with the Socialist Party which has sponsored this anti-working-class austerity. But they cannot control the anger of the rank and file.

The miners are part of a long tradition of struggle against the ruling class, which has been an occupying force in the Asturias coal fields. The first general strike against the fascist Franco, in 1962, was initiated by the Asturias miners, who organized guerrilla actions against the regime. Solidarity among the miners is a part of their way of life and work as brothers and sisters dependent on one another in the mines.

To turn this class struggle into a revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist system — the source of these attacks on the working class — requires the leadership of a communist party, which unfortunately is lacking in Spain. But the building of such an organization through the Progressive Labor Party is occurring in many countries worldwide and inevitably will reach the workers of Spain.

Meanwhile, workers everywhere should applaud their struggle and follow the example of the miners in England by sending solidarity greetings and money to the miners in Spain, as well as picket the Spanish embassies to send a message that the workers of the world are one international class. We will unite against the capitalists wherever they attack us, and eventually drive them into the dustbin of history.

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Workers’ Power Wins the Day

On June 5, the Spanish Civil Guard arrived in force in the Asturias region to clear a roadblock erected by the striking miners on Highway N-630. But then the miners responded. They took up their shields and, supported by the whole population of the nearby village, they launched an assault on the Guard, driving them from the town center. In a veritable manhunt, they chased them through the residential areas and the surrounding countryside, driving them from the motorway to the edges of town, forcing them to abandon their attack.

Their flight was celebrated with long applause from the local population, expressing their solidarity with the miners’ struggle.

WASHINGTON DC, July 5 — Teachers and students from the East Coast attended the largest teachers union convention in the U.S., the National Education Association (NEA). We had two demonstrations inside the convention hall and with help from delegates inside the different committee/caucus meetings presented resolutions calling on teachers to stand with their students against the re-segregation of the public schools and the racist budget cuts that primarily hurt students.

We received a warm reception from many with comments like, “Keep up your good job! Excellent work! I’m so glad you guys are here!” 

Over 1,700 CHALLENGEs were distributed along with thousands of daily leaflets examining issues from the role of the Democrats in ushering in fascism to analyzing the phony “school reforms.” 

One of our demonstrations took place after one of our resolutions supporting the student strike in  Canada against tuition increases was raised to the union delegate assembly. 

In the English Language Learners (ELL) Caucus we led a struggle to get the union to take a stand against the racist cutbacks for ELL/bilingual programs. The state of Nevada has cut all funding for ELL students and done away with bilingual education. The caucus called on the NEA to reaffirm its commitment to funding for ELL students.

During discussions in the caucus we began the struggle with other teachers to view this fight as part of a racist attack on all students. Although we were unable to win the battle to include this language, we were able to make contacts and get to know some of the members better.

One thing was clear: many teachers and education workers are hungry for an answer to the crumbling school system and are open to our communist ideas.

School systems across the globe serve two related purposes: an economic goal of churning out the next generation of workers to exploit, and the political purpose of building loyalty to the capitalist system. The teacher unions worldwide accept this two-fold mission and the attacks on students it requires. These unions are part of the problem, not the solution!

Capitalist school systems are giant sorting mechanisms that absorb, train, rank and spit out millions of young people each year. From the supposedly great school systems of Finland or Shanghai to the pits of racist neglect in Detroit, this relentless labeling and ranking of our youth — each one of whom is brimming with potential — maintains a “tight” labor market at every skill level, from fast food to PhDs. As a result of this forced competition, fear becomes the rule on the job. Fight-back all but vanishes.

Under communism, the masses will be liberated from the terrorizing prospect of unemployment and the drudgery of wage slavery, and also from capitalism’s dream scenario, the “career.” Communist work develops a diverse set of capacities within each individual in its aim to meet society’s needs, with a mix of mental and manual labor for all. It is work motivated by social, not material, incentives.

Communist education means a lifetime of socially meaningful learning, both in and out of the classroom. We have seen glimpses of this kind of work and education when workers held power in Russia and China. It is just the opposite of what now prevails throughout the world.

Education Reform: Why Now?

The bosses’ assault against students and teachers in the United States has reached epic proportions. The capitalists are using standardized curricula and tests for more direct control over what is taught. They attack wages and conditions for school workers even as they blame teachers and their students for the system’s decay. In large and overcrowded urban districts, where students are predominantly black and Latino, dress codes, rigid discipline, and metal detectors are the norm. Students are treated like criminals, with no time off for good behavior.

In this climate, terrorized teachers help the bosses lay an ideological foundation for intensified fascism.  It’s now the norm to intimidate and militarize youth for the inevitable broader wars against the bosses’ surging imperialist rivals like China. The U.S. rulers use the schools to protect their profits and shore up their dominant but declining position in an increasingly competitive world economy. 

Both the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, which contain 30 percent of all U.S. union members, have willingly collaborated with the bosses in the new evaluation systems.

The leaders of these organizations are loyal to the capitalists, not to the workers. Writing for the Council of Foreign Relations, finance capital’s most influential think tank, Joel Klein and Condoleezza Rice worried that more than 75 percent of U.S. students are unqualified to enter the military.  (Klein is the former chancellor of the New York City public schools; Rice was George W. Bush’s national security adviser.)

As competition heats up with China, Japan, Russia and the European powers, the U.S. needs to be able to field a competent mass army.  The billionaires’ true concern is not quality education, but preparation for imperialist war.  It’s no coincidence that Obama’s education reforms include the reestablishment of Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) programs at a number of colleges.

Trillions for War, Zero for Schools

The bosses’ economic crisis and the trillions sunk into Afghanistan and Iraq have led to a wave of racist budget cuts and layoffs in public schools throughout the U.S. The results have been devastating. 

• In New York City, the graduation rate hovers around 60 percent. Most graduates require remedial work before they can take college-level courses.

• In Philadelphia, under state stewardship for nearly a decade, district officials estimate it would take until 2123 to get all students up to grade level in reading and math. 

• In Detroit, fire marshals have responded to complaints of kindergarten classes of 53 children. In the upper grades, district rules allow for as many as 61 students per class.

In recent memory, nobody has attacked education workers worse than Barack Obama and Arne Duncan, Obama’s Secretary of Education. Supported by billionaires like Bill Gates and Eli Broad, Obama and Duncan are now pushing for an all-out emphasis on “teacher quality.”

In fact, teacher evaluations are based mostly on student performance in standardized testing, where the margin of error is so high, they are statistically useless. But as the bosses’ political tool, the evaluations are invaluable. They give the rulers easy scapegoats for the failure of their schools: “bad teachers” and the unions that “protect” them.

Strikes: Schools for Communism

Short of revolution, nothing demonstrates the power of the workers like a strike. A strike opens up the potential for teachers’ union members to feel their power and build multi-racial unity of the parents, students, and school workers against the capitalists who control society.  A strike of education workers can be a great opportunity for a militant, united, anti-racist fight against the children’s exploiters who run the school system. Class struggle has erupted in the form of school sit-ins and disrupted policy meetings in New York, Oakland, Kansas City and more over the past year.  

Chicago teachers are leading the way in opposing anti-student education reform with a bold strike authorization vote. A pro-student strike in Chicago would be an important advance in the class struggle. Push the AFT to support a strike in Chicago!  Push a strike in Chicago to unite with students and parents to break the bosses’ laws! Shut the schools and shut them tight!

But in every struggle against racist education reform, teachers must aim for more than a return to schools that perpetuate illiteracy and peddle lies.  Only a communist revolution led by Progressive Labor Party can smash capitalism and organize society for the workers. Only communism can allow students to flourish in schools designed to meet their needs.

Over 30,000 people from around the world have gathered in Washington, DC, for the 19th International AIDS Conference, “Turning the Tide Together.” 

To really turn the tide, PLP’ers in the AIDS movement declare that an anti-racist, communist workers’ revolution is required that includes and unites all parts of the global working class. The capitalist system continually reinforces and reproduces the conditions that cause AIDS and must be destroyed to secure a final victory against AIDS.

HIV And Racism

HIV disproportionately affects poor working class people around the globe, hitting hardest those oppressed by racism, sexism, poverty, and stigma because of sexual orientation and gender identities. In Washington, DC, 12 percent of African-American women live with HIV, and nearly half of young black gay men have HIV.

Many rank-and-file people, scientists and organizations have mobilized against HIV. PLP’ers have fought side by side with masses of people for prevention programs, affordable housing, needle exchanges, testing and treatment for all, and an end to discrimination against, and prosecutions of, drug users and women forced to sell their bodies. Yet the epidemic grows.

We invite you to join the PLP in smashing capitalism and its state and help create a new society without AIDS based on co-operation, equality and collective ownership and sharing of the world’s resources.

Communism Can End the AIDS Epidemic

Capitalists only value workers for the profit to be extracted from them in production and consumption. They make profits by paying as little as possible and employing as few as possible to get the job done.

Millions of workers in the world economy, especially youth, have no jobs — from 52 percent youth unemployment in Spain to 24 percent in Egypt to almost 50 percent of young African-Americans living in Washington, DC’s East-of-the-River neighborhoods. Immigrant workers similarly face intense exploitation worldwide, with low wages and high risks of deportation.

To maintain power, the capitalists and their politicians weaken our unity and militancy by using racism to stereotype and demean black, Latino, Asian and Arab workers in order to divide the entire working class. These stereotypes portray such workers as lazy and criminal. Politicians then use these lies to explain high rates of unemployment and imprisonment of African Americans in the U.S. and justify policies to cut services and benefits.  

The bosses also brand people as immoral, dangerous, abnormal, or inferior to create further divisions. Such stigma pushes shame onto those who are, for example, poor, women, gay or transgender, imprisoned, mentally ill or HIV positive.

At the same time, the bosses’ propaganda encourages the public to view them as not worthy of support. Stigma leads to high rates of HIV and AIDS as workers who are attacked for their conditions or identities are less likely to take care of themselves and their partners. Stigma, prejudice and discrimination are all about power — the power of the ruling class of bankers and corporations to keep people weak and divided. 

Racist and sexist differences must be overcome. When the workers arm themselves with communist politics, there is enough strength to challenge, and overthrow, the bosses!

Capitalism often forces people into situations at high risk for HIV, violence and bad health in general. Some women and undocumented immigrants find no choice but to sell their bodies to support their families or to secure housing. Desperate, depressed workers sometimes self-medicate with illegal drugs, increasing risk as well.

We must unify all our brothers and sisters in the struggle against capitalism, racism and sexism. But the bosses teach us to use other people and only look out for number one. If we fall for this lie, we look at people in a “transactional” way — using friends and others to get what we need for our families and ourselves. Maybe someone sucks up to a boss for a promotion while ignoring the needs of co-workers. Others could trade sex or freedom for a place to stay, food to eat and protection for one’s children.

Communism will drastically change people’s relationships. Communism provides for everyone’s needs and values everyone’s contributions to the building of a new society based on shared ownership of the world’s resources. There is no wage system to create a hierarchy of class differences. Without profit, the working class can plan what to produce based on human needs and solve such problems as housing for all and global warming.

How Can We Win A Communist World?

We need to become part of an anti-racist, revolutionary organization that promotes multiracial unity and militant action — the Progressive Labor Party. We must fight the fascist systems that the rulers impose to solve their crises, and not settle for another capitalist politician.

Resolutions, human rights treaties, NGO activity and voting do not change the class that holds power. Building unity among workers worldwide helps prepare us to take power. Revolutions against ruling classes brought the working class to power for decades in the Soviet Union and China.

While these countries have re-established capitalism and a new exploitative boss class, those earlier revolutions and decades of workers’ power showed our potential to create a new, egalitarian healthy world.

Elections provide no change, only an illusion of power. Liberal politicians like Obama, just like McCain or Romney, serve the bosses, as he demonstrated with bank bailouts, a slap in the face to laid-off, foreclosed workers, annual deportations of 400,000 immigrants, expanded wars, and drone murders. Obama still manages to mislead and pacify people who believe his rhetoric and ignore his policies.

The Progressive Labor Party fights racism and sexism. We build for the overthrow of capitalism and seek to create a communist world. We can only succeed with the dedication and commitment to equality and communist principles by millions of people worldwide.

The struggle against the HIV epidemic already reflects many of these communist principles. Activists have never given up the fight to extend prevention and care to the millions living in the U.S. and other countries. They have embraced people who the capitalists ignore and marginalize.

Such impulses must lead to a commitment to the world’s working class to establish a new system — communism. Join the Progressive Labor Party and help organize a world without AIDS.