This is a 3-week issue of CHALLENGE. We will return to our biweekly schedule on the first week of January 2008. We wish our readers a new year of many struggles against capitalism, its racism, sexism, wars and oppression. Fight for communism!

---

Liberal Rulers On Iran War: Right Now, No Later Yes

Hi-Tech Weapons of Mass Control

Fighting Fascism And Building A Base Still Key

a href="#Mortgage Scam Fuels Bosses’ Crisis, Puts Workers in Hock">"ortgage Scam Fuels Bosses’ Crisis, Puts Workers in Hock

How Bosses Profit Off Our Labor

a href="#CHALLENGE Networks Unite Workers vs. Bosses’/Hacks’ Attacks">CH"LLENGE Networks Unite Workers vs. Bosses’/Hacks’ Attacks

Students Unite Against Anti-Muslim Racist

Harlem March Fights Columbia U. Expansion, Demands Clinic Re-opening

a href="#Rulers’ Rivalries A Killer for Workers">"ulers’ Rivalries A Killer for Workers

Navistar: Warmaker/Strike-breaker

$10/hr = 800 Vehicles X $40,000

Bosses Keep Their Profits Safe, Not Workers

a href="#S. Africa Miners’ Strike Exposes Nationalist/Capitalist Rulers">". Africa Miners’ Strike Exposes Nationalist/Capitalist Rulers

Italy Strike Shows Workers Can Shut Down Any Capitalist Country

a href="#Revolutionary Struggle, Not Chavez’s ‘Business Socialism,’ Will Win Workers’ Power">Revolu"ionary Struggle, Not Chavez’s ‘Business Socialism,’ Will Win Workers’ Power

a href="#Spitzer’s Licensing ‘Gift’ Really Nazi ‘Yellow Star’">Spitzer’" Licensing ‘Gift’ Really Nazi ‘Yellow Star’

a href="#PL History: Red-baiting, ROAR’s Rampage Can’t Stop Boston’s Anti-Racists">PL H"story: Red-baiting, ROAR’s Rampage Can’t Stop Boston’s Anti-Racists

a href="#USSR, The First Workers’ State — How It Was Won, and Lost">US"R, The First Workers’ State — How It Was Won, and Lost

• Stalin and the cult

LETTERS

Capitalism Is Not Organized For Workers

a href="#Johnstown Workers Expose Fascist ‘ID’">Jo"nstown Workers Expose Fascist ‘ID’

• CHALLENGE comment

Industrial Workers Key to Revolution

REDEYE ON THE NEWS

• Why free pass on Israel nukes?
• L.A. forced to cancel Muslim map
• Pope sees why oppressed turn red
• Gov’t anti-foreclosure plan is a big lie
• US will back Pakistani military

• ---

Liberal Rulers On Iran War: Right Now, No Later Yes

The recent revelation that Iran has suspended its nuclear weapons program for the last four years marks a step towards, not away from, wider war in the Middle East. Policy-makers representing the liberal, imperialist wing of U.S. rulers dropped the Iran bombshell in order to hamstring the remaining neocons in the lame-duck Bush administration. The liberals want to prevent Cheney & Co., whom they view as inept war makers, from launching an undermanned, unilateral military strike on Iran in their administration’s last year.

With the U.S. war machine bogged down in Iraq, the liberal rulers are buying time. They hope a Democratic president can mobilize the vast forces — both U.S. troops and allies — needed for inevitable clashes not just with Iran but with rivals China and Russia. Toning down the U.S.’s image as a racist torturer (while in no way eliminating actual torture) is crucial to this process. That’s why a "new and improved" liberal-led CIA revealed that the corrupt, incompetent old neocon CIA had, back in 2005, destroyed videotapes of torture at Guantanamo.

Liberals Try To Remake Discredited CIA For War Effort

The "December Surprise" on Iran comes not from the White House but from a spy apparatus, once discredited for its Iraq weapons-of-mass-destruction fiasco but newly rehabilitated by imperialist liberals. Ray Takeyh, an Iran expert at the Rockefeller-led imperialists’ Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), boasted, "The intelligence community surprised everyone, including the Bush administration" (CFR website, 12/04/07). The liberal NY Times joined the chorus of praise: "The new national intelligence directorate is analyzing information more rigorously" (12/09/07).

Key to this pro-imperialist transformation has been Gen. Michael Hayden, CIA chief since 2006. Hayden serves the liberal wing. Bill Clinton chose him to direct the National Security Agency in 1999. His mentor in the Air Force was Gen. Charles Boyd, formerly executive director of the Hart-Rudman commission, which outlined U.S. capitalism’s plans for world domination for the next 25 years.

Boyd penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece, "A Symphony for Hayden" at the time of his protégé’s CIA appointment last year. It was Hayden who blabbed about the Guantanamo torture tapes to pin the blame on Bush die-hards and cast his own crew as "reforming" white knights. Liberal Sen. Jay Rockefeller, while condoning torture, backs Hayden’s whistle-blowing because waterboarding "however well-intentioned, plays into the hands of our enemies" (NYT, 12/08/07). However, the Democrats were briefed about waterboarding back in 2002 and said nothing.

Liberals Want To Buy Time For Iran War...

Mobilizing the U.S. militarily and building popular support for its wars are the chief tasks the liberal rulers lay upon the next President. CFR chairman Richard Haass told National Public Radio (12/08/07), "The new president will inherit a tremendously complex world and a U.S. less well-positioned to deal with it because our military is stretched and worn down and because of anti-Americanism."

The liberals understand that Iran won’t be a quick "hit-and-run" job. Robert Blackwill, counselor at the CFR writes, "If diplomacy fails and the U.S. attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities, the result would likely be a long war, as Tehran isn’t likely to surrender. Such use of force would also further destabilize the Middle East, inflame the Islamic world, strengthen terrorist forces everywhere and would probably produce attacks on the American homeland" (Wall Street Journal 12/6/07). So, to give the rulers time to militarize the U.S., the new intelligence estimate sets the timetable for action beyond the Bush gang’s term, declaring, "Iran will achieve nuclear weapons capabilities somewhere between 2009 and 2015."

...But May Strike Soon

Robert Gates, the liberals’ replacement for Rumsfeld (Gates has worked for the Baker-Hamilton commission and the CFR), said there was no telling when the pretext for a U.S. invasion would arise. "Iran could restart those efforts at any time." At a recent conference in Bahrain, Gates urged U.S. Mid-East allies to "develop regional air and missile defense systems" and maritime security to prepare for war against Iran. He promised that the U.S. was hell-bent on expanding its war for control of the region’s oil. "The United States remains committed to defending its vital interests and those of its allies in Iraq and in the wider Middle East" (NY Times, 12/09/07). "Vital interests" has been code for Mid-East oil ever since Jimmy Carter used the term in his Carter Doctrine and began the military build-up to secure it after the 1979 Iranian ayatollahs’ ouster of the Shah, a U.S. puppet.

All the Democratic candidates seek to meet their capitalist masters’ needs in ways that will shed even more workers’ blood. Supporting any of them would be a grave error. The course for our class must be to join and build the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party, which has the long-term outlook of destroying the profit system and its ever-deadlier wars.

Hi-Tech Weapons of Mass Control

Every holiday season the bosses push their new line of technology commodities onto the working class. iPhones, Blackberries, Wii and X-Box bring in big bucks. At the same time social networking programs like MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and blogs have been praised as the "democratization" of the Web, giving voice to anyone with access to a computer, the bosses use this ability to more tightly control workers as they face increasing rivalry from growing imperialist powers and engage in wars for oil.

New Technologies And Fascism

The Bush Administration used the 9/11 attacks to institute fascism under the guise of the PATRIOT Act and Homeland Security. The government controls the Internet in the U.S. with measures that can trace what information people are seeking and who they are speaking to. Programs have been created to track certain words and phrases so that they can be filed for future use. In airports, records retrieved by privacy advocates and reported in WIRED magazine (09/20/07) reveal that Homeland Security tracks information and stores it in databases about people, from their "race" to their reading material.

Locally in the schools, we saw police brought in as security guards; and metal detectors and now cameras are becoming the norm in every school. The City of New York now wants to install a closed-circuit camera system similar to London, so they can do facial scans for particular people. New York City hopes to install 3000 cameras by 2010 (Christian Science Monitor, 07/11/07).

Fighting Fascism And Building A Base Still Key

Last month New York City cab drivers struck, in part because they did not want Global Positioning System (GPS) mechanisms placed in the car. They knew that the bosses would use this technology to track the cab drivers and push to exploit them more.

More workers need to follow this example and stand up to the bosses’ tactics. In Nazi Germany, workers did not wake up one morning to full-blown fascism, but they had not fought the gradual addition of more racist laws until too late. U.S. bosses are counting on keeping us passive as they add more and more oppressive technologies and laws.

The ruling class needs to continue to win workers to their fascism. They are using rhetoric (their campaign "See Something, Say Something" for instance) about terrorism, immigrants "stealing jobs," and crime prevention to convince workers that all these cameras, metal detectors and phone tapping is for our own good. They want us to accept that workers in other countries or of other "races" are our enemy.

The working class wants technology to make our lives easier. The bosses use technology to make profits, control markets for imperialism and oppress the workers. New technology can speed up production for increased profits and create layoffs, it can improve the bosses’ ability to wage war abroad and it can make life hell for workers. The bosses can use technology to track our every move and they want us to know this, to be afraid and to accept it as a normal part of our lives. Technology is one of the ideological tools they use to win workers into racist movements at home and into the military to wage imperialist wars.

New technologies can be used to the working class’ advantage to distribute information about class struggle, communist politics and Marxist-Leninist ideology more broadly around the world through the Internet. We must not have any romantic liberal notions about it either. It will be shut down when the bosses feel it necessary. The bosses do not want information that can harm them to get out. A perfect example of this was in the current struggle in Myanmar when the rebelling monks were relaying information to journalists and the world at large through the Internet, the generals in the end shut it down (NYTimes, 10/04/07).

For communism and working-class revolution we still need "boots on the ground," to use the military term. A revolutionary movement can’t exist in a "virtual" environment because we need to organize workers at our jobs, in our schools and in the streets. We need active communists sharpening the class struggle, distributing CHALLENGE through many networks and recruiting new members. Only by fighting racism and fascism can we show the working class that the Progressive Labor Party can lead a revolution and a communist society. Then and only then can we use and make technology for the good of all workers and not just to make a profit.

a name="Mortgage Scam Fuels Bosses’ Crisis, Puts Workers in Hock">">"ortgage Scam Fuels Bosses’ Crisis, Puts Workers in Hock

"Sub-prime mortgage" defaults. A "credit crunch." Wild stock market swings. Swiftly changing economic forecasts. CEOs falling faster than U.S. bridges. All this occurring amid U.S. bosses’ imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (see editorial on front page) costing trillions of dollars — alongside intensifying competition with imperialist rivals — putting even greater pressure on their developing economic crisis and driving them to squeeze workers’ living standards even more.

What’s behind it all? What does it mean for the working class, students and soldiers? And how does it affect the outlook for communist revolution?

The capitalist economic system requires the extraction of surplus value from the working class (see box), particularly in basic industries — steel, auto, oil refining, aerospace, chemicals, machine tools, etc. U.S. bosses have stolen literally trillions of dollars from the labor power of the working class over the last 150 years, especially through the use of racism and sexism to extract super-profits by even further lowering wages and working conditions for black, Latino and Asian workers.

But capitalism has limitations and laws. Competition forces more and more capitalists to invest greater amounts of their capital in machinery and technology, needing fewer workers, the very source of their surplus value.

As profits shrink, bosses cut costs, through laying off workers and moving operations from higher-wage areas (the U.S., Europe, Japan) to successively lower-wage areas (first Mexico, then China, then Vietnam). But no matter where they move, two obstacles confront them – working-class struggle for better conditions, and continued competition from other bosses. The former puts upward pressure on wages; the latter forces more consolidation, automation and layoffs.

Consequently, the capitalist class, including rich investors (who front money for company stock and bonds) and the banks (which make huge loans to businesses), has no productive place to invest. Because capitalists are always competing against similar groups of thieves, they’re never satisfied with less than the maximum return on investment. Cut-throat competition is the only way to remain in the game. As Karl Marx said, "One capitalist kills many."

So these rich thugs turn to unproductive, speculative, increasingly bizarre investments. The latest is "collateralized debt obligations" (CDOs). These are groups of mortgages, sold as a package by a mortgage broker or company, usually first to a commercial bank, and from there to pension funds, hedge funds, or insurance companies.

The Federal Reserve was part of this game. To get out of the 1999-2000 recession, borrowing rates were cut to historic lows. Former Fed. Chief Alan Greenspan encouraged the development of new and "unconventional" ways of financing home purchases. So the market was flooded with low-rate, "sub-prime" mortgages, with wildly adjustable rates and other gimmicks. Unsuspecting home buyers were caught in a trap: "High-interest loans [were] foisted on borrowers who qualified for lower rates…. The Wall Street Journal found 55% of subprimes ‘went to people with credit scores high enough to often qualify for conventional loans with far better terms.’" (NY Times, 12/10)

CDO advocates used mathematical models to "prove" they were "risk-free." Then security-rating firms gave them high ratings ("safe investments"). They were further guaranteed by credit guarantee insurance companies. A buyer stampede led to huge numbers of CDOs.

For banks this scheme did not tie up their capital. Instead of waiting 30 years to reap full profits from a long-term mortgage, bankers got immediate returns from selling packages of mortgages to CDO buyers. They then re-lent the money to reap even more interest/profit (including back to these same CDO buyers!). As CDOs became touted as great investments, real estate prices skyrocketed. This, in turn, led to further loans, made by the banks based on the inflated property values. At the height of the CDO mania, a single dollar of "real" capital was supporting $20 to $30 of loans (see http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/SuperModels?AreWeHeadedForAnEpicBearMarket).

Now the capitalist media is "protesting" — "What were they smoking?" asks Fortune Magazine. Speculative investment is an attempt to escape the fundamental laws of capitalism. But such con games only increase the economic instability inherent in the profit system.

We have no crystal ball. But several things are clear. The bosses are now desperately trying to fix things on the backs of the working class. Currently, 2.5 million mortgages are delinquent; 800,000 of those are in foreclosure. This has hit black and Latino home-buyers especially hard as the racist bankers enticed them into loans with even more exorbitant interest rates.

The rulers’ legislative scheme to "help" distressed home buyers is still one more scam: "Only a small fraction of subprime borrowers will qualify for relief and many…will eventually face foreclosure anyway. [Treasury Secretary] Paulson’s plan entirely focuses on reducing investor losses….It does nothing for the victims of predatory lending." (NY Times, 12/10)

The Fed. Chairman and Paulson are now admitting the economy isn’t quite so rosy. In reality, none of the bosses’ pundits know fully the extent of the corporate losses — how long it will take for the effects of this reckoning to ripple through the economy, and how big the waves will be.

Capitalists will attack workers as long as we let them. That’s why revolutionaries must expose these swindlers and mobilize workers to fight these capitalist attacks. As the rulers move toward wider wars, we can better show the connection between imperialism and this war on workers at home.

We must destroy a system that’s always looking for some new way to screw us for their profits. A capitalist future requires ever more workers thrown on the street; war-weary soldiers returning home to more insecurity and cuts in veterans’ benefits; and students seeing education costs soar.

In a communist world wage slavery will be abolished, workers will be free of these periodic capitalist crises. Cooperation, not competition, will be a hallmark of our culture. We will socially "invest" our productive labor into meeting the collective needs of the international working class. Our "rate of return" will be measured only by how much better we are doing at satisfying those needs.

How Bosses Profit Off Our Labor

In the article on the current issue where an industrial worker reports, "We get paid under $10 an hour and each day we produce 800 vehicles that sell for $40,000 each." Therein lies the secret of capitalist exploitation, discovered by Karl Marx.

For example, during an 8-hour shift, a worker produces a certain amount of value, but out of that value comes the bosses’ profits, the cost of buying the machinery, the interest paid to the banks for the bosses’ loans, the bosses’ other costs for utilities, transportation, as well as the worker’s wages.

So, while the worker might produce $80 value in an hour, he or she is paid $10 an hour, or one-eighth of the value that worker produces. The difference between the value that wage represents and the total value produced is what Marx called the "surplus value," out of which comes the bosses’ profits.

The less the boss can spend on the cost of labor, the greater the bosses’ profits. And the bosses use racism to cut wages still further, reaping super-profits. The workers noted above, paid less than $10 an hour, are producing $32 million worth of vehicles per day!

Only when workers produce solely for the collective needs of our class — not for the bosses’ or bankers’ profits — will workers reap the full value of what we create. That’s communism.

a name="CHALLENGE Networks Unite Workers vs. Bosses’/Hacks’ Attacks"></">CH"LLENGE Networks Unite Workers vs. Bosses’/Hacks’ Attacks

Recently PLP organizers in our city were able to bring together rank-and-file workers from two of the city’s major hospitals to discuss building a movement to fight the bosses and their labor lieutenants in Local 1199-SEIU. This meeting was an important step forward in the Party’s work here. We discussed the recent attacks on the pension fund, firings for refusal to work mandatory overtime and unfair hiring practices.

The hospital workers’ pension fund is in trouble because of the crisis of capitalism. The strategy of the union leaders at this point is to convince the hospital bosses to allow some of the funds allocated to the benefit fund to go to the pension fund. Of course we shouldn’t be surprised if the union leaders again bring up getting the members to agree to giving up one percent of their scheduled pay raise to help bail out the pension fund.

These misleaders are always asking the workers to give something up rather than leading them to fight for more. This is because their true role is not to fight against capitalism but to control the workers for the capitalists. We communists hope to win rank-and-file workers to fighting for a strong pension fund while we also struggle with them to realize that in fact there is no real security for workers under the capitalist system.

We discussed the union leadership’s refusal to fight effectively against firings. Several women at one of the two hospitals have been suspended and fired for refusing to accept mandatory overtime when they needed to get home to their children. Union delegates have repeatedly filed grievances against these firings but the union leaders have blocked these grievances in their arbitration committee. In a recent PLP newsletter we condemned this as an attack on women workers.

Some workers raised that the bosses have been unfairly hiring immigrant workers from Eastern Europe and bypassing black workers who had applied for jobs. We saw that there was resentment of these immigrant workers because of this. This gave us an opportunity to struggle around the Party’s line that the working class has no borders. We must fight against the unfair hiring but never attack immigrant workers since this would lead us into a bosses’ trap of dividing workers — particularly blacks and immigrants — who are victims of the bosses’ racism.

The basis for bringing together these two groups of workers is our CHALLENGE distribution and networks at both hospitals. All the workers involved read the paper and some have networks of their own. We plan to involve these workers in future writing for CHALLENGE.

While this is a significant step forward for us, we do understand that the ideological struggles with our friends must intensify. Many questions face our growing base and us: How do communists and our friends work within the union? How do we communists keep PLP’s politics primary while we are in the midst of reform fights — sometimes several at the same time? Should we rely upon the capitalist legal system? How do we work with workers and union delegates who have differences with us? How do we handle the struggle with friends who want us to focus on reform battles and "leave that communist agenda alone?"

One thing that moved these workers toward us is their anger at the union leaders’ refusal to organize fights against the bosses’ attacks. We have been involved in organizing and leading many of these reform fights and we will continue to do so. But we can never lose sight that the main victory in all this activity is the development of more communists in PLP.

Students Unite Against Anti-Muslim Racist

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, Nov. 28 — Right-wing groups invited the infamous racist and anti-Muslim demagogue Daniel Pipes to our campus. Pipes and these conservative and Zionist student groups are promoting a fascist agenda and distorting Middle East history, painting it as a "backward," "fanatical" and terrorist-producing region because it doesn’t support U.S. imperialism’s plans there.

Pipes is a mouthpiece for U.S. and Israeli imperialism. Funded by conservative sections of the ruling class, Pipes tries to convince workers and students that "radical Muslims" are inherently violent, irrational "enemies of freedom." For Pipes, the Middle East needs U.S. leadership to "modernize," meaning intensive bombing campaigns, racist occupation, massive slaughter, mass detentions and torture in the interests of "U.S. national security." Pipes wants U.S. workers to join the military and defend the U.S. empire by killing their Middle-Eastern and Muslim working-class brothers and sisters.

A united multi-racial coalition of Muslim, black, Latina/o, white and Arab students protested Pipes, his racist ideas and support for U.S. and Israeli fascism. The students interrupted Pipes’ talk, staging a silent walkout of about 60 protestors. They held signs reading, "Israeli and Palestinian Workers Unite!" and "From Gaza to Jena: Fight Racism with Multi-racial Solidarity." Afterwards, students held a teach-in outside about class solidarity, anti-racism and imperialist war.

One speaker described Jewish and Arab working-class solidarity and the many labor strikes (1917-1948) against their common enemies, the local capitalists and British colonialism to fight the racist bosses and misleaders who sought to divide them. They would chant slogans like, "Long Live Unity Between Jewish and Arab Workers!" The Israel-Palestine conflict was discussed in class terms, one over resources, land, cheap labor and profits. Workers have struck in Basra, Iraq and Tel Aviv, Israel against the effects of U.S. imperialism. The student speaker declared that all workers share common interests as members of the working class and must unite to smash racism, exploitation and imperialist profit wars.

Students’ flyers exposed Pipes’ racism and ties to the Middle East Forum, a conservative, pro-imperialist think-tank. The flyers also revealed the liberal politicians’ support for U.S. imperialism and our university’s connection to the war machine through military funding, research and hosting of racist speakers. Liberals like Obama and Clinton are more dangerous than the Pipes’ conservatives, covering up their imperialist goals by deceiving workers into believing that the equally racist DREAM Act and Comprehensive Immigration Reform are "solutions" to capitalism’s racism.

Communists must expose the racism and nationalism of all these bosses, explaining how the ruling class uses both to divide workers and prevent the international working class from recognizing our common interests in overthrowing capitalism, exploitation and racism. Later students discussed the day’s events. Many said the actions
were a success and thought that multiracial unity is a powerful weapon against racism. Others agreed but also said that being "silent" in the face of racism is not the best strategy. They argued that our solidarity showed the potential power we have on campus as students and workers, saying that more could have been done against Pipes and that more should be done when racist speakers are invited to campus.

Many of the students read CHALLENGE and are in a study group on communism and revolution. Although there was disagreement about how to deal with racist speakers, the discussion and struggle exposed the role of academics and the university in promoting racism, fascism and imperialism, while creating a strong foundation to build antiracism and communist politics among our friends next semester.

Harlem March Fights Columbia U. Expansion, Demands Clinic Re-opening

NEW YORK CITY, Dec. 1 — Today, about 30 people held a militant march in Harlem demanding that the Manhattanville Clinic, once a NYC Dept of Health Child Health Clinic, be re-opened. The city closed it in 1999, supposedly for renovations, and then spent $5 million redoing the façade while leaving the inside untouched. Meanwhile, the health and access to health care of the black and Latino residents of Harlem remain dismal.

The demonstration was an important breakthrough. It was initiated by parishioners at a nearby church, who began the effort under CHALLENGE readers’ leadership, and was led by Sunday School youth carrying a banner linking the issue to expanding war and racism. It was co-sponsored by the Coalition to Preserve Community (CPC), the group which has been fighting Columbia University’s expansion into Harlem.

Also present were Columbia students, who had just completed a 9-day hunger strike against racism in the curriculum and the expansion, and other students from the City University of New York. These combined forces, involving workers and students of all ages, ethnic backgrounds and occupations, have great potential to build a militant anti-racist movement in Harlem.

The demonstration’s size was limited because the same groups had been busy all week protesting at City Planning Board hearings, where the Columbia plan was being voted on. Although the hearing room had only about 75 seats, mostly filled by Columbia, dozens of opponents were standing around the edges.

As soon as the cops tried to evict the standees, they began chanting and making continuous speeches. One pointed out the conflict of interest on the Board, with one member being an ex-Columbia dean and another having University construction contracts. Many of the others, especially the chairwoman, are the super-rich, which one protester illustrated by displaying a picture of her in a gown in her gilded apartment. The cops gave up trying to evict the protesters.

Of course, the Board voted almost unanimously to support Columbia, as the whole plan was agreed to long ago by the mayor and City Council President. In this age of endless imperialist wars and huge racist cutbacks, only a massive militant student and community opposition could really have a chance of blocking the expansion and begin to fight for the jobs, health care and housing needed in Harlem.

But this movement cannot rely on any politicians and must understand the nature of the present period. While we in PLP fight for larger-scale actions involving rank-and-file workers and students in Harlem, this is why we also build CHALLENGE networks that fight for our communist politics.

Already we have expanded CHALLENGE circulation in the community around the church, but we must involve this base in more actions like this demonstration. In the anti-Columbia expansion movement, we will continue to build ties with members of all groups while we discuss the need to dump this whole rotten society and build a communist world.

a name="Rulers’ Rivalries A Killer for Workers">">"ulers’ Rivalries A Killer for Workers

While working for a building subcontractor operating on site for a major aerospace company, we were again reminded that workers are expendable in the name of speed-up and profit. Last week, a young laborer was seriously shocked while removing a water heater from a bathroom wall, requiring hospital treatment.

The foreman told the young laborer to remove the box rather than follow the proper safety procedure and wait for an electrician. In order to reap maximum profits the bosses cut corners.

The laborer had only worked in construction three weeks. When he asked how to remove the box, the foreman simply said "Take the screws out and pull it off the wall." He didn’t mention the possible electrical hazard a twenty-year old water heater posed. The 220-volt circuit that fed the water heater had been stripped bare over time. The stripped wiring made contact with the metal casing when the laborer pulled on the box. Since the laborer had both hands on the casing, his body made a circuit. The current held him onto the casing for five seconds before kicking him off.

When the laborer told the foreman what happened and that he didn’t feel good, the foreman laughed. "So you are telling me that you’re a dumbass and that you shocked yourself," he said. He refused to let the laborer seek medical treatment. Finally, an hour later, a carpenter demanded the laborer be sent to the factory medical center. Factory medical sent him to the local hospital. The project superintendent ran down to the hospital, assuring the injured worker that it was a "freak accident" and "nobody’s fault."

After the incident, we were forced to attend mandatory safety meetings. The general contractor and representatives from the aerospace company assured us they were going to get to the bottom of this. At first they acted as if people were going to be fired. As it became clear that the foreman was at fault, they decided to be lenient this time and not fire anyone. It came out later that the foreman had suggested a meeting involving only management and that the laborer should be fired for "incompetence." In the end, the contractor and the aerospace company set up a safety liaison. The person chosen to fill that position was none other than the foreman who had almost gotten the laborer killed.

This was not the first problem we have had with this foreman. He was involved in the racist firing of a black worker just one month prior.

I’ve had a lot of great conversations with my fellow workers about the nature of management and how workplace safety is a joke. When a product can be potentially damaged safety is important, but when a lowly worker is at risk safety is ignored.

Aerospace is important if the bosses want to get serious about competing with the Chinese and Russian war machines. As the push for the "re-industrialization" of America grows stronger, increased fascism at work and in working-class neighborhoods once again reminds us that the bosses need us a lot more than we need them. Hopefully, this incident will help me turn my present-day CHALLENGE sales into a bigger network.

Navistar: Warmaker/Strike-breaker

CHICAGO, IL, December 11 — As we go to press, 4,000 Navistar workers are in the 7th week of their strike. Formerly International Harvester, Navistar is the world’s fourth largest truck builder, and the biggest supplier to the Pentagon of the MaxxPro engines for the blast-resistant trucks used in Iraq. In past years, it has closed unionized plants and moved to non-union plants in the South and Mexico. Navistar also entered a joint venture with India’s Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. to build medium- and heavy-duty diesel engines, further driving down wages for all workers.

Not only has the UAW leadership failed to defend its members, it’s also failed to make organizing these non-union plants a strike demand. As is now true in auto, aerospace, steel and coal mining, most of Navistar’s plants are non-union.

The 500 workers at the Melrose Park engine plant, just outside Chicago, build MaxxPro engines. The MaxxPro chassis is built in Garland, Texas, and the trucks are assembled in West Point, Mississippi, both non-union plants. The union and the company are guaranteeing that Melrose Park continues to operate with scabbing supervisors and engineers, ensuring that the racist rulers can continue their imperialist bloodbath in Iraq. A big solidarity rally planned for December 5 was hastily cancelled the night before, partly because the UAW leadership feared it would make it possible for PLP and others to expose Navistar as a war-maker and strike-breaker, and show that U.S. and Iraqi workers face the same enemy and the same fight.

PLP is slowly but surely organizing support for the strike and attempting to build ties with some Navistar workers. Over the past week, groups of workers and students have walked the picket lines, talked to the strikers and distributed dozens of CHALLENGES. While it’s not a strike against the war, it’s still significant that workers have struck a war profiteer amidst a war. (Last March, 7,000 shipbuilders in Pascagula, MS struck Northrop Grumman for one month.) Workers have given us a very warm welcome. We’ve learned a lot from them, but are just scratching the surface. We’ll do better at raising the strike at our workplaces, schools, unions and churches, not just to build support for striking workers, but to show how the working class has the power to end this war, and all wars, by uniting across all borders and fighting for communist revolution.J

(Send statements of solidarity to: UAW Local 6, 3520 W. North Ave., Stone Park, IL 60165-1042)

$10/hr = 800 Vehicles X $40,000

I am an industrial worker in a sub-contracting company. We get paid under $10 per hour, and each day we produce 800 vehicles that sell for $40,000 each. In my factory and in all other industrial factories there is a huge contradiction between the safety of workers and the drive for profits.

For example a friend reported a safety issue to the company’s "safety officer." The problem concerned a large bolt sticking out of the shop floor. The bolt gets in the way of workers doing repetitious sub-assembly work. My friend pointed out, "A worker is probably going to trip over the bolt and hit their face on one of the surrounding metal racks." The "safety officer" replied, "If you don’t like the conditions here then you can go find another job."

Two days later that same friend tripped over the bolt he had complained about. He hit his face on a metal rack, splitting his lip open and knocking out his four front teeth. His lip needed ten stitches and he will also need four tooth implants. The company is paying for all of his medical bills, which have cost thousands so far.

The bosses will attempt to care for workers only when it benefits their profits — in this case it’s cheaper to pay for these bills than to reconfigure the shop or slow down production. This compensation will not bring back knocked out teeth, lost appendages or family members that have died all in the name of profit.

As a result my friends and I have written a flyer, which we plan to circulate at an upcoming barbeque. This injury is a terrible thing, but it’s helping us expose the contradictions between the bosses and the workers in our factory. Great conversations have arisen from this incident. Many workers that I have spoken to hate the way they are treated but feel there is nothing that they can do. I told them, "As workers we have the power to change the world because we create and run everything in society. But we must be organized."

The only way to resolve the contradiction between worker’s needs and the bosses drive for profits is to eliminate profits and wages –– capitalism. As workers we must unite and organize for our class interests, for a communist society, where production is based on the needs of workers not profits.

Bosses Keep Their Profits Safe, Not Workers

"Hey did you see Gustavo’s finger?" a worker asked me.

"Yeah that thing looked sick; the health and safety rules are a joke around here." I replied.

"I know, I think they (the Environmental Health and Safety people) are just here so they can keep OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) off the bosses’ backs."

We were talking about our co-worker who almost lost his finger because the safety guards on our machines had been disabled and the machine turned causing two hydraulic jaws to close on his hand while he was trying to clear a jam. Of course, the bosses tried to blame our co-worker for having his hand in the machine but as machinists we have to do that sometimes. The bosses knew in advance that the guards had been disabled but did nothing to prevent this injury.

The correct solution would have been to turn the machine off and call maintenance to fix the problem but because the competition in the aerospace industry is so fierce, the bosses are cutting costs everywhere while pushing for more production. The result is workers working long hours and not getting adequate rest. This combined with the bosses not keeping an adequate maintenance department creates dangerous conditions for us as workers; conditions that we must confront together.

The bottom line is that the bosses don’t care how many people get hurt or sick because of their long hours and dangerous machines. Their main objective is to out-produce their rivals at the cheapest cost possible. Almost anyone I talk to on the floor understands this but they don’t see that there is a way to change this rotten profit system. The key will be to win these workers to communist politics and help them understand that the U.S. bosses are competing with other imperialists around the world to maintain their system. The Iraq war is further putting U.S. capitalism in crisis and more wars are on the horizon. The imperialists know this and are pushing more racism and nationalism so workers will pay for these wars with their labor and lives.

CHALLENGE will play an essential role in developing workers’ understanding of capitalism and inter-imperialist rivalry. Within a relatively short period of time I have been able to start a network of CHALLENGE readers who are interested in learning more about how they and the Party can build a movement to end capitalism and build a world based on workers’ interests. One of these friends said that at first he was a bit nervous because he had never seen a group like PLP with so many different "races" having a discussion but that after he saw how we are all equal regardless of color he felt much more comfortable and encouraged to come again.

We understand that it is a long road ahead of us but with the help of students, teachers soldiers and workers inside the factories working towards the same goal, these small networks can grow to be large networks and study-action groups. They can lead struggles against the bosses and recruit more workers committed to ending capitalism, and establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat led by our Party.

Worker from the Southwest United States

a name="S. Africa Miners’ Strike Exposes Nationalist/Capitalist Rulers">">". Africa Miners’ Strike Exposes Nationalist/Capitalist Rulers

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA, Dec. 4 — Over 40,000 striking South African miners marched here today against hazardous working conditions, adding to pressures on the industry in a country where a miner dies nearly every day. The world’s leading producers of gold and platinum are among mines hit by the one-day walkout called by the 270,000-member National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). The workers marched on the Chamber of Mines, the industry employers’ organization that includes the leading companies — AngloGold Ashanti, Gold Fields, Harmony Gold, Anglo Platinum, Impala Platinum and Lonmin.

In October, around 3,000 miners at Elandsrand were trapped almost a mile underground for more than 24 hours when the lift cage’s power cable was damaged. They were eventually rescued unharmed. Agence France-Presse quoted Thembisile Marrent, a miner at the Kloof goldmine in Mpumalnga province, saying, "We’re dying in mines but get nothing. We want change, we want to work safe. When you get accidents the boss [says] it was ‘bad luck.’ If the mistake is yours, they charge you [with disciplinary offenses] even though you’re in the hospital." The miners carried placards with slogans including, "Mine safety is a human right," and "Blood-dripped profit is the bosses’ luxury."

South Africa’s mines are among the world’s deepest and most labor-intensive. But since the end of the apartheid regime working conditions still haven’t improved too much under African National Congress (ANC) rule. Mining produces 7% of the country’s gross domestic product and is the highest foreign exchange source here. The high price of precious metals has seen mine company profits soar through the roof, but the workers see little of it. As a matter of fact, the mine bosses are demanding even more productivity from the miners.

Unfortunately, the NUM leadership won’t challenge the ANC government. In fact, the NUM is a leading union in the COSATU union federation, which is part of the ANC coalition government currently led by President Mbeki. The South African "Communist" Party is also a key member of the government and a leading force in the trade union movement. But these sellouts have joined the side of the class enemy. Instead of breaking with all these capitalists, the "C"P and union hacks helped millionaire boss Jacob Zumia — then the country’s deputy president — survive a 2005 corruption scandal. Zumia is now in a dogfight with President Mbeki for control of the ANC and of the government.

In the 1990’s, when the imperialists and big capitalists (like the Anglo-American Mining Corp.) felt they needed to derail the growing revolutionary anti-apartheid anger of workers and youth, they decided to dump the old apartheid racist rulers and allow Nelson Mandela and the ANC to take power while continuing the oppression of capitalism and maintaining their profits.

South Africa’s militant working class, the continent’s most powerful proletariat, needs new leadership, one based on revolutionary communist politics and no alliance with any capitalist or nationalist politician. That’s the only real road to liberation from the yoke of capitalism and racism.

Italy Strike Shows Workers Can Shut Down Any Capitalist Country

ROME, ITALY — The massive transportation strike that shut down most of this country on Nov. 30 again shows the power of the working class. It was the first strike in 25 years uniting all transportation workers. Ninety percent of public transport was closed in Rome, Turin, Bologna and other cities. Flights were cancelled in the main airports. No trains were running anywhere. Even funeral hearses were halted. Sea transport between Sicily, Sardinia and the rest of Italy was blocked. These actions occurred amid mass strikes by railroad machinists in Germany and rail workers throughout France, including Paris bus and Metro workers. Unfortunately, the nationalism and reformism of the union leaderships in all three countries prevented a united internationalist strike.

Conservative rulers like Sarkozy (France), Merkel (Germany) and "center-left" Prodi in Italy are enacting massive cutbacks in workers’ wages and pension benefits and privatizing the transport systems.

In Italy itself, the law bars transport strikes during rush hours and limits these walkouts to eight hours, and they can’t strike for weeks after any previous 8-hour strike.

But the hacks of the leading transport unions are too tied to capitalism to break that ban. These mis-leaders fear workers might wildcat, as rank-and-filers did in the winter of 2003-04. The union hacks in all industries here are trying to divert the anger of the workers with these limited walkouts, while simultaneously signing on to the government’s social reform and budget law instituting major cutbacks in services and jobs.

Workers must break with the union leadership and link their struggles to other actions, like the massive Dec. 15 protest scheduled for Vicencia. It will oppose the plan to enlarge the U.S. military base there, used for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Workers must also join the fight against racism suffered by immigrant workers through the Security Law, which is being used to deport 5,000 immigrants for "crimes" like begging and washing car windows. The 150,000-strong Nov. 24 march in Rome saying no to violence against women rejected this racist law. It is being justified by the recent murder of an Italian woman by a Rumanian immigrant, but as the marchers pointed out, Italian men influenced by capitalist ideas perpetrate most of the violence against women.

The massive transport strikes throughout Europe belie the post-modernist dream that "there is no more working class." Workers are demonstrating that they still have the power to shut down any capitalist country. They now need to turn those struggles into schools for communism, to forge a red leadership that can unite all workers against their common enemy: capitalism.

a name="Revolutionary Struggle, Not Chavez’s ‘Business Socialism,’ Will Win Workers’ Power"></a>Re"olutionary Struggle, Not Chavez’s ‘Business Socialism,’ Will Win Workers’ Power

"Without a revolutionary Party, there can be no revolution." - V.I. Lenin

The narrow December 2 loss for the Constitutional Reform referendum in Venezuela is a clear example of the above idea. The Chávez government’s plan to impose its "21st Century Bolivarian Socialism" in a bureaucratic top-to-bottom manner suffered a major political setback even though it lost by only 50.3% to 49.7%. The right-wing anti-Chávez forces only gained some 200,000 votes over the 2006 presidential election total. In 2006, 7.3 million voted to re-elect Chávez; this time approximately 4.3 million voted for his constitutional reform.

The Empire Strikes Back

There are many reasons for this decreased support for Chávez’s program. The right-wing waged a very aggressive campaign, financed by big money from both local anti-Chávez bosses as well as from the U.S. The Washington Post (12/3) reported that the anti-Reform movement was funded in no small part by the U.S. government. The Post cited U.S. documents obtained by National Security Archive researcher Jeremy Bigwood that revealed at least $216,000 was funneled through the Office of Transition Initiatives, a secret branch of the U.S. Agency for International Development, erected in Caracas in the wake of the failed April 2002 anti-Chávez coup.

As CHALLENGE has stated many times, Chávez represents a nationalist populist trend in Latin America which, under the guise of anti-imperialism, seeks a better deal from U.S. imperialism’s rivals, like China, Russia and even India. The U.S. bosses and their local allies have been fighting for their interests, using blatant anti-communism (they claim the constitutional reform would turn Chávez into a "red dictator" who would take babies away from their parents, and other lies). Coincidentally, Chávez proved to be a better "bourgeois democrat" than the right-wing opposition in accepting the December 2 loss. If the right-wing had lost, they would have raised hell. Of course, U.S. apologists never mention the many U.S.-backed overthrows of elected leaders in Chile, Guatemala and elsewhere.

But the biggest cause of the loss was the Chavista movement’s internal weaknesses. Firstly, it isn’t really a revolutionary movement. The Chávez government attacked workers who actually fought their bosses like at Maracay (bathroom appliances) who tried to stop the closing of their plant. Chávez’s "land reform" has been limited to some unused land, without really touching big landowners. In the last few years, some 200 farmworkers have been killed fighting these landlords.

Chávez’s "anti-imperialism" has exploited Venezuela’s new oil supplies via "mixed enterprises" incorporating big foreign oil companies. While talking about "revolution" and "socialism," his government limited itself to a few small reforms for poor workers, including medical services using some 20,000 Cuban doctors. But meanwhile poverty overall has risen. Chavista bureaucrats and bosses have enriched themselves and big companies have increased prices, squeezing any wage hikes for workers. The government did little to counter the lack of milk and other basic staples caused by hoarding bosses.

Former guerrilla leader Douglas Bravo, a left-wing critic of Chávez, exclaimed: "How can you pretend to build a 21st century socialism enriching a bourgeoisie that came about with this government through oil income…or not taking into consideration workers, poor people in the countryside, indigenous people and giving power to agro-business and rich Chavistas?" (El Mundo, Caracas, 12/3)

That’s why so many workers and their allies abstained from voting December 2. Meanwhile, the pro-U.S. right-wing forces will try to take advantage of their victory in continuing to try to topple the Chávez government through a military coup. (General Baduel, who until recently was Chávez’s Minister of Defense, and who joined the anti-Chávez forces just before the referendum, is their man for this.)

But the right-wing is not united. It represents many different bourgeois forces, included disenchanted former Chavistas. The Chávez camp will also try to regroup, building its bureaucratic Unified Socialist Party to push for its "businessmen’s socialism," using workers and their allies as cannon fodder.

The real missing ingredient here is a revolutionary communist (not "businessmen’s socialist") leadership to fight for the real liberation of workers from capitalism and imperialism. This liberation won’t come through electoral referendum, but through revolutionary class struggle. This is a crucial task since the dogfight between the pro-Chávez and pro-U.S. forces will sharpen and workers will wind up losing unless they break with all forms of capitalism, whether the Chavista type or the pro-U.S. type.

a name="Spitzer’s Licensing ‘Gift’ Really Nazi ‘Yellow Star’"></a>Spit"er’s Licensing ‘Gift’ Really Nazi ‘Yellow Star’

In October, New York’s liberal democratic governor, Eliot Spitzer, proposed allowing undocumented immigrants to get drivers’ licenses. The "immigrant rights" movement pushed the idea that Spitzer was taking a bold, pro-immigrant stance.

Spitzer’s plan was developed not out of concern that undocumented workers need to be able to drive to and from work legally, and to get car insurance, but rather "as a way of bringing a hidden population into the open." This fits with "homeland security" concerns consistently pushed by the Democrats. Some right-wing flunkies of the ruling class favor licensing undocumented workers. Colonel Margaret Stock, an immigration attorney and West Point professor, figures this plan would address the problem of "hundreds of thousands of people run[ning] around the country without any oversight when there’s a war going on." (NYT, 10/9/07)

But even that sham was too much for the openly anti-immigrant racists. Many upstate New York county clerks indicated that if the plan was enacted, they would simply disobey it. Within weeks, Spitzer held a meeting and then a joint press conference with Michael Chertoff, the head of the fascist Office of Homeland Security, and announced that New York would agree to a three-tiered driver’s license program. That plan would have given undocumented immigrants a license which could not be used to travel across borders or to fly, and would have left them open targets, easily identifiable by cops and immigration agents.

Spitzer’s apartheid licensing system would have led undocumented workers into the eagerly waiting arms of immigration agents (ICE) just as surely as the yellow stars on their clothes led Jews to the waiting arms of the Nazis. However, Lou Dobbs, CNN’s ranting racist, and his fellow media apologists for the ruling class, continued their vitriolic campaign, viewing even this plan as a "gift" to these workers. Within days, Spitzer announced that he was withdrawing the entire proposal.

Unfortunately, many workers still believe that liberal Democrats will look after their interests and protect them from the ravages of the gutter racists. Each of Spitzer’s proposals, however, shows the error of that belief. The liberals simply have a different way of building fascism. They know that the wider wars of the future require winning immigrants to patriotism, while maintaining a level of terror to keep workers in line. That is why they keep Dobbs & the Minuteman racists around, and allow them to build their movement.

Liberal Democrats are no more the friends of the working class than are the gutter racists. Today, we fight against all forms of racism and fascism, and for the international unity of the working class. Once our struggle is won, members of the working class will not have to carry an identification card to prove our entitlement to the fruits of our labor.

a name="PL History: Red-baiting, ROAR’s Rampage Can’t Stop Boston’s Anti-Racists"></a>"L History: Red-baiting, ROAR’s Rampage Can’t Stop Boston’s Anti-Racists

(Last issue’s article about the anti-racist struggle in Boston during the summer of 1975 recounted the battle of Carson Beach. PLP and the International Committee Against Racism (INCAR) once again successfully battled the segregationist thugs in ROAR and defeated a trap set by Boston’s cops, liberal politicians, the NAACP and an unholy alliance of nationalists and Trotskyists.)

The day after Carson Beach, rebellions erupted in several sections of Boston. Black workers and working-class youth, who had had their fill of racism and police terror, fought the cops with every weapon at their disposal. The cops responded by running amok in ghetto projects, breaking indiscriminately into homes and unleashing trained killer dogs on elderly people and children.

The rebellions were somewhat tainted with nationalism. A few black youths stoned cars carrying white passengers or otherwise attacked white people. Given the racist atrocities that had occurred every day in Boston for years, the absence until recently of a mass campaign against them and the rulers’ encouragement of nationalism, this mistake was not surprising. The bosses’ media portrayed the rebellion as "black mobs out to kill whitey."

Meanwhile, ROAR escalated its fascist violence, conducting ferocious gang assaults against black workers several nights in a row. As usual, no ROAR members were arrested.

Some of the most serious physical and political attacks against BOSTON 75 took place during the week after the Carson Beach fight. The day after the beach incident, a small group of INCAR members were leaving a television studio interview, when about 40 ROAR thugs attacked with clubs and other weapons, including a machete. The thugs were led by Warren Zaniboni, a "South Boston Marshal," whom Ted Kennedy would later dignify with an invitation to discuss busing. The anti-racists fought back valiantly. They made good their escape onto a city bus with the help of the white driver, who slammed the door in the fascists’ face and drove away. The INCAR members went to Boston City Hospital for treatment. While they were in the emergency room, the cops showed up with the ROAR goons and arrested the anti-racists for "assault with a dangerous weapon."

Seeing that the combination of ROAR’s terror tactics and their own state power had still not succeeded in crushing the anti-racists, Boston’s rulers launched a political red-baiting campaign. Suffolk County District Attorney Byrne claimed that the violence at Carson Beach had been caused by "outside agitators," who had come to Boston to start "racial disorders." He named INCAR and PLP and said that 18 "special prosecutors" would work 24 hours a day to produce indictments in the case. Deputy Police Supt. John Doyle told the newspapers that INCAR members had thrown the first rocks at Carson Beach. The lies went on and on.

However, the red-baiting proved a complete fiasco. The task force of "special prosecutors" vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, without producing a single prosecution. Boston’s workers didn’t fall for the red-baiting. The organized fascist forces failed to grow during the weeks after Carson Beach. Meanwhile, thousands of people throughout greater Boston continued to sign the INCAR petition.

BOSTON 75’s last major action was a demonstration planned for August 18th, when the volunteers intended to present INCAR’s petition, signed by 35,000 people, to a regularly-scheduled City Council meeting. CHALLENGE readers will remember that several Boston City Councilors proudly flaunted their ROAR membership.

Weeks earlier, INCAR had obtained a permit to march to City Hall. However, Mayor White and the cops had one more trick up their sleeves. Late on Friday afternoon, August 15th, three cops came to the INCAR office with a letter from the Traffic Commissioner revoking the permit for the Monday march. He offered no reason. The rulers obviously thought that this timing would prevent INCAR from organizing against the ban. The press announced that the march would not take place.

As usual, the bosses and their media mouthpieces had underestimated the resourcefulness and commitment of INCAR and PLP.

(Next: The August 18 march; INCAR and PLP prepare to demonstrate in South Boston on the first day of school.)

a name="USSR, The First Workers’ State — How It Was Won, and Lost"></">US"R, The First Workers’ State — How It Was Won, and Lost

When the Russian Revolution, and the Civil War that followed it, ended in 1921, the new workers’ state was in a state of exhaustion: largely destroyed, several million of its citizens killed, with a raging famine. Millions of homeless people wandered the land, and starvation was rampant. The worldwide typhus epidemic of 1919 had killed tens of thousands.

Seven years of war and invasion by Imperial Germany, then Poland, and all the Allied countries, including the U,S., Britain, France, and Japan, had created a culture of violence. Crime — robbery, murder, gangs — was everywhere. Armed bands from Poland raided border areas, robbed, raped, and killed, then fled back across the border. Industry and agriculture were almost at a standstill.

The Bolsheviks’ task was to build socialism/communism with the traumatized people in this devastated country. They had no blueprint, for it had never been done. No communist theorist — neither Marx and Engels, nor Lenin, nor any other — had ever thought the first workers’ state would look anything like this.

In the 192s, the Bolsheviks debated the best course of action to build the new society. All socialists/communists believed that communism could only come in as an industrialized country. The party leadership knew that the advanced capitalist countries would attack the USSR as soon as possible. Their position — that the USSR could and must quickly industrialize by itself — won over the vast majority of rank-and-file Bolsheviks.¹

Led by Stalin the mainly working-class Bolshevik Party took the country on to a great "leap into the unknown." By the mid-30s, collectivization was almost complete, and the USSR was becoming a major industrial power. Nothing like this had ever been accomplished before in world history!

During the 1930s Oppositionist leaders conspired to overthrow Stalin and the Party leadership. Some also conspired with German and Japanese fascists. The leadership found out about these plots and tried and executed the guilty. But two successive heads of the political police were involved in these plots too. The second, Nikolai Ezhov, had his men arrest, torture, and murder hundreds of thousands of innocent Soviet citizens and Party members to cover up his own plot, and to sow dissatisfaction. This too was eventually uncovered, but not until huge damage had been done.²

Workers’ power was thought guaranteed as long as the communist party was in charge. In fact, capitalist ideas and practices turned the Bolshevik Party into its opposite. At Stalin’s death in March 1953 the communist movement appeared stronger than ever. Yet within three years the new head of the USSR, Nikita Khrushchev, had pushed the country towards capitalism, while attacking Stalin as a monstrous murderer and egomaniac. How could this happen?

All other socialists and communists along with the Soviet leadership believed there had to be an intermediate stage called "socialism" between capitalism and real communism. It would preserve many capitalist features: wage inequalities, inequalities between countryside and city; between workers and managers, the uneducated and the educated, nationalisms of various kinds, and so on. In industry, science, technology, art and literature, it meant preserving many capitalist ways of doing things, though with pro-worker reforms.

No human undertaking can ever be free of error, and the Bolsheviks made lots of mistakes. The basic reason is: They were the first! Never before had a communist movement seized and held power, then tried to build socialism/communism in any country, much less one that was unindustrialized to begin with and, moreover, hugely destroyed by World War, a Civil War, foreign invasion, epidemic and famine.

The Bolsheviks then led the Soviet Union to victory in World War II. After losing over 20 million lives and the destruction of the country’s infrastructure in the war, the USSR rebuilt in record time. The socialist USSR built nuclear weapons through the political commitment of its scientists.

The history of the USSR is an invaluable "textbook" for all workers! We must study the Soviet experience (and that of the other great 20th century communist revolution, the Chinese) to learn essential lessons about what Lenin, Stalin and the Bolsheviks did right, and what they did wrong, so we can do it right next time and win a communist world!

Footnotes:

1 The plan was:

• Collectivize agriculture, so the collective farms could give up all their surplus to fund the industrialization drive;

• Build whole cities of industry over night, making the huge investments of industrializing a gigantic country within a few years instead of the decades it had taken the capitalist countries;

• Mechanize the new collective farms with tractors and farm equipment, making them even more productive;

• Build a large modern army with advanced weapons, able to defeat the armies of the capitalist countries that he knew would attack, probably soon;

• delay the attack as long as possible through diplomacy, trying to play off the capitalist countries against one another.

2 For one version of these events see Grover Furr, "Stalin and the Struggle for Democratic Reform (two parts) at http://clogic.eserver.org/2005/2005.html

Stalin and the cult

A related error was the "cult of the great man," usually called "cult of personality." As the 1930s progressed both supporters and secret opponents of the Soviet government took every chance to praise Stalin to the skies as basically infallible. Supporters did this because of the undeniable and immense successes of collectivization and industrialization. Opponents did it to cloak their own conspiracies.

Privately as well as publicly Stalin always disapproved of this "cult." But he did not succeed in stopping it. The "cult" made it possible for those who had been won over to the essentially capitalist line evolving within Soviet "socialism" to hide their real disagreements with the goal of communism -— a goal Stalin himself never stopped aiming for.

The "cult" also created an atmosphere of blind obedience within devoted communists and working people. If the "great man" has all the answers, why think for yourself? PLP has firmly rejected any "cults" of leaders or anybody else.

LETTERS

Capitalism Is Not Organized For Workers

At a November UFT meeting for Teachers in Reserve, teachers spoke about their long years of service and oppression by the administration. A Teacher in Reserve (ATR) is usually someone whose school or department has been closed. If they cannot secure a job during the summer, they are sent to their district headquarters which is supposed to operate like a hiring hall. Sometimes they are assigned to a school basically as a substitute teacher. About 400 people came to this meeting to find out what the United Federation of Teachers plans to do about their status.

I said that the system is in such a terrible state because capitalism is not organized for workers. The meeting leader, a Vice President of the union, told me "Don’t discuss capitalism." Since I still had the floor and the microphone, I replied that I had the patience and fortitude to listen to the chair’s remarks, so he could now listen to me. The chair became flustered, but apologized and I continued to blame capitalism for the educational crisis and pointed out the U.S. had plenty of money for the war while the children are getting less and less.

I pointed out how many teachers are removed from classrooms simply for being older or fighting back. ATRs are often considered "troublemakers" who know too much and explain to new teachers how the system works.

I went on to ask why this union did not pursue the leaders of the Dept. of Education to their homes. Why should Bloomberg and Klein have a good night’s sleep while our union members cannot? There had been applause for many points, but this point got the most applause. I suggested that the union get the rank-and-file involved in a real way with sit-ins, walk-outs and informational picket lines.

The following day at my ATR job assignment, I bumped into a teacher who said, "That was a great communist speech you made." I hadn’t realized this person was an ATR or that he’d been to the meeting and asked the man if he liked it. He said that he did and so did everyone else. There was a lot of applause. Now it’s my job to get to know this teacher better and to raise these ideas in the new school.

A Red ATR, NYC

a name="Johnstown Workers Expose Fascist ‘ID’"></">Jo"nstown Workers Expose Fascist ‘ID’

On Nov. 29, a large number of people attended a town hall meeting in Johnstown, Pa., to protest the National ID. The meeting was sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the panel consisted of ACLU members, including Dr. Jim Scofield, the group’s local leader. Following the panelists’ presentation, the floor was open for discussion.

One young man said he was put through hell and high water when he renewed his commercial driver’s license recently. "I felt like a criminal going to get it renewed," he said. "I was fingerprinted. They checked my tattoos." The government wanted to know all about him and he wondered why.

Dr. Scofield responded that the government of the wealthy wanted to criminalize not only black workers but ALL workers in an attempt to gain control.

The head of the Coal Country Coalition took the mic and explained that "the phony war on terror was really an attempt to regiment and control all workers, for the imperialist oil wars and to save the capitalist imperialist system." "This is all about fascism," he said.

One young woman from Somerset, Pa., asked the panel why immigrant workers were applying for driver’s licenses while U.S. citizens were being forced to carry ID cards. A worker pointed out to her that immigrant workers were not the problem, and that, in fact, the government was rounding up these workers.

CHALLENGES were distributed at this interesting meeting.

Red Coal

CHALLENGE comment: It’s good to see many workers questioning this ruling-class move for social control. The "REAL ID" law would bar anyone from using their driver’s license as identification if their home state does not meet Federal standards. And the bosses will make sure that a driver’s license is required for everything. Every cop in the country would, in effect, become a Border Patrol agent, ostensibly to "hunt down" undocumented workers.

Such a system would enable the government to gather information about everyone’s life, especially if one opposed the rulers’ policies, such as opposition to their endless imperialist wars. It is nothing less than fascist control. (For a detailed explanation of REAL ID, see CHALLENGE, Dec. 12, page 8.)

Industrial Workers Key to Revolution

Recently a flight attendant for a major airline who has been reading CHALLENGE asked me, "These articles you have written for CHALLENGE are good! So why are you not teaching at a university instead of working at the airport?" (I’m a janitor.)

A fair question. I explained that organizing for a successful revolution to defeat the racist oppressors means the Party must reach and recruit workers in key areas — auto, steel, mass transit, airports, hospitals, agriculture, etc.

Equally important, we need comrades in the bosses’ armed forces to politically win soldiers and other service personnel to side with their working-class brothers and sisters, not to protect the oppressors.

I referred to the Soviet film director Sergei Eisenstein’s 1920’s movie "Potemkin" and explained how, in 1905, the battleship Potemkin’s sailors were influenced by Bolshevik sailors to fight against horrific conditions, their officers and Czarist oppression.

My friend, who likes to read about history and politics, said this all seemed strange and different to her. I wanted her to understand it was crucial for millions of industrial workers, not just university workers, to see the need for a communist revolution and for PLP and the working class to destroy racist, sexist capitalism.

I said, "There’s absolutely no shame in being an industrial worker or working with one’s hands. Intelligent workers come from all different backgrounds." Of course, capitalism teaches us that if you work with your hands for a living, "there’s something wrong with you," as well as the racist, sexist elitist view that only particular types of workers are "intelligent."

After the victory of communist revolution, the workplace will be the center of education, with schools and libraries right there; workers will work with brains and hands. Universities, as elitist institutions, will no longer exist. (During the Chinese Cultural Revolution workers in places like hospitals encouraged doctors to not only work with their brains but also their hands. For a good first-hand account, read "Away with All Pests" by the English Marxist surgeon Joshua Horn.)

I look forward to more conversations with my friend. All workers, black, white, Latino, non-immigrant and immigrant, must struggle to make communist revolution and society possible. Marx and Engels said it best: "Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it."

Airport Red

REDEYE ON THE NEWS

Why free pass on Israel nukes?

As the fascinating papers released last year by the National Security Archive show, the US government was aware in 1968 that Israel was developing a nuclear device. The contrast to the efforts being made to prevent Iran from acquiring the bomb could scarcely be starker….

On November 27, 1968, Lyndon Johnson’s administration accepted Israel’s assurance that "it will not be the first power in the Middle East to introduce nuclear weapons."

As the memos show, US officials knew that this assurance had been broken even before it was made….

[Later] the Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir… and Nixon appear to have agreed that the Israeli programme could go ahead, as long as it was kept secret….

While the International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors crawl round Iran’s factories… they have no legal authority to inspect facilities in Israel. So when the Israeli government complains, as it did recently, that the head of the IAEA is "sticking his head in the sand over Iran’s nuclear programme," you can only gape at its chutzpah….

Israel under Olmert is also a dangerous and unpredictable state involved in acts of terror abroad. Two months ago it bombed a site in Syria. Last year, it launched a war of aggression against Lebanon…. Nuclear weapons in Israel’s hands are surely just as dangerous as nucear weapons in Iran’s.

So when will the US…. admit that Iran is not starting a nuclear arms race, but joining one? (GW, 11/30)

L.A. forced to cancel Muslim map

The Los Angeles Police Department is scrapping its contoversial plan to create a map detailing the Muslim communities in the sprawling metropolitan area, bowing to the outcry among Muslims and others that the project was a thinly disguised form of racial profiling.

"We put it out there, it was rejected, it’s dead on arrival," the police chief, William J. Bratton, said at a news conference after a meeting with Muslim residents and civil rights organizations… (NYT, 11/16)

Pope sees why oppressed turn red

VATICAN CITY, Nov. 30 – Atheism may be "understandable" when mankind is confronted with evil and suffering, Pope Benedict XVI wrote in his second encyclical, issued on Friday….

He also said that attraction to Marxism was understandable given the terrible conditions of workers and that atheism could be read as a "type of moralism: a protest against the injustices of the world and of world history." (NYT, 12/1)

Gov’t anti-foreclosure plan is a big lie

…the mortgage relief plan unveiled last week…. isn’t mainly intended to achieve real results. The point is, instead, to create the appearance of action, thereby undercutting political support for actual attempts to help families in trouble….

As Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard bankruptcy expert, puts it, "The administration’s subprime mortgage plan is the bank lobby’s dream…."

Hundreds of thousands, and probably millions, of American families will lose their homes…. But [Treasury Secretary] Paulson’s plan – or, to use its official name, the Hope Now Alliance plan – is entirely focused on reducing investor losses….

But won’t the borrowers gain, too? Not if the planners can help it…. in many, perhaps most, cases those who get debt relief will be borrowers who owe more than their house is worth. These people would be nearly as well off in financial terms if they simply walked away. (NYT, 12/10)

US will back Pakistani military

A small group of US military and intelligence experts met in Washington for a classified war game last year, exploring strategies for securing Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal if the country’s political institutions and military safeguards began to fall apart….

The conclusion of last year’s game, said one participant, was that there were no palatable ways to forcibly ensure the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons….

"Our best bet to secure Pakistan’s nuclear forces would be in a cooperative mode with the Pakistani military, not an adversarial one…" (GW, 12/7)

1. Rulers' Wars Intensify Racist Police State
   1. POLICE TERROR
2. France: Black and Arab Youth Rebel Against Cops' Terror
3. Rally Against Police Violence
4. Surging to Wider War
   1. SHORT ON GIs, U.S. PLANS IRAQI COLONIAL FORCE
   2. LIBERAL DEMS ENLIST BUTCHER OF ABU GHRAIB TO PREACH FOR GLOBAL WAR
5. `WANTED FOR MURDER: CHICAGO KKKOPS!'
6. Two Million Strikers Battle Sellouts, French Gov't
   1. SPECIAL PENSION PLANS
   2. PUBLIC SECTOR WORKERS
   3. STUDENTS AND TEACHERS
   4. COMMUNISTS NEEDED
7. Workers Put Brakes on Ford/Russia
8. Auto Workers Strike Navistar War-Truck Production
9. Anti-Racism the Main Subject At B'klyn H.S.
10. Haiti's Workers Battle Hanes' Firings
11. Grim Reaper at APHA as Leadership
    Sows Seeds of Fascism and War
12. Chávez Reform Won't Bring Workers' Power
13. Obrador's `Fight' All About Oil for Mexico's Bosses
14. Stagehands' Strike Proves `Show Can't Go On' Without Workers
15. LETTERS
    1. Anti-racist `Feast' Energized Workers for Another Year of Struggle
    2. No Short-cuts to Revolution
    3. Vows to `Whip Racist's Ass'
    4. Tribute to A Red Spanish Civil War Vet
    5. One Way to Raise the Red Flag
    6. Huge March in Rome Against Violence Suffered by Women
16. REDEYE ON THE NEWS
    1. Profiteers deserve to be smashed
    2. Jailed kids: Damaged or dead
    3. Insured against wildfires? Not!
    4. `Charity' hospitals sue the poor
    5. Teresa's life shook her from `God'
17. Rulers' CIA Is Biggest `American Gangster'
18. PL History: Battle of Carson Beach -- Anti-Racists Send ROAR Thugs Running
19. `War on Terror' Cover for War on Workers

---

Rulers' Wars Intensify Racist Police State

Amid escalating war in the Middle East, and threatening inter-imperialist clashes (see page 2), the rulers must impose wartime discipline on the home front -- FASCISM. With the liberal, imperialist wing of U.S. capital leading the effort, a full-blown police state exists for black, Latino and immigrant workers and those of Arab and Muslim background:

*Chicago: In August, the police went on a racist rampage and brutally murdered four young black men in cold blood, in four separate incidents. This year the police have murdered at least 31 workers.

*Atlanta: Undercover cops shot and killed a 92-year-old black grandmother, Kathryn Johnston, in her own home.

*Cleveland: In May 2007, police killed three black people - Aaron Steele, Steven Ray and Ira Mitchell - within three days.

*Conneaut, Ohio: On Nov 17, Immigration Customs Enforcers (ICE) arrested an immigrant mother breast-feeding her child.

*North Carolina: Police shot and killed Phillipe McIver, a 23-year-old black man.

*Los Angeles: LA cops murdered Francisco Mondragon a 24-year-old schizophrenic.

* Minnesota: Law enforcement agents have killed five black people in the first half of 2007.

*New York City: Nov. 25 marked the one-year anniversary of the assassination of Sean Bell, a 23-year-old unarmed black man, murdered with 50 shots from NYPD gunmen. On Nov. 7, the same NYPD assassinated 18-year-old Khiel Coppin, shot 13 times (see box). Since then, they have killed at least ten more people.

*Jena, LA.: Six black youth are being legally lynched for standing up against the racism of fellow students who hung a noose under a "whites only" tree. On September 20, over 50,000 people marched in Jena, protesting this racism and supporting the six youth.

*Since then over 60 incidents of noose hangings have occurred nationwide. (NY Times, 11/24)

*Thousands of Muslim workers have been detained in the U.S. and the Middle East and imprisoned and tortured in concentration camps in Guantánamo and "secret" CIA jails.

On the road to waging imperialist wars to control the flow of oil, the U.S. war machine has been tripping over a few roadblocks. Two of the main ones are their troop shortage and the fact that a crumbling economy hits most heavily on the super-oppressed black and Latino workers and youth. On the one hand, they need to win black, Latin and immigrant workers to fight and die in their wars. But since racism is inherent to capitalism, it inevitably shoots and harasses black and Latin workers while using the threat of deportation to terrorize and persecute immigrant workers. This racist terror undermines many of these workers' loyalty to the system.

As a result of such racism, 2.2 million people are imprisoned nationwide, 70% of them black or Hispanic. Every twelfth black male between 25 and 29 languishes behind bars; the figure for whites is 1 in 100 (Bureau of Justice Statistics). Liberal misleaders and reformers have been working overtime to try to solve this insoluble contradiction: the system's inherent racism oppressing black and Latino workers and their need to super-exploit them for super-profits, versus needing to use them as cannon fodder in their wars. They try to divert workers' anger into such reform efforts as "community policing," "civilian review boards" and their election campaigns. But to fight police murders we can't fall into this trap!

The only way to smash the Klan in blue is to smash the racist system -- capitalism -- that uses them to terrorize working-class communities. Communism -- the system of workers' power, a society run for need, not profit -- will sweep away these new night riders and their politician masters, crushing them like the cockroaches they are. To achieve this, we must organize!

POLICE TERROR

There is an alternative to capitalist oppression and its rotten culture: a society that produces for need, not profit; a society where the workers from all backgrounds can determine their own destiny as one united class; where we can stamp out selfishness, racism, sexism, killer cops, "workfare," profit wars, prisons, deportations and national borders; where this system will be ground into the dust under the feet of millions of united workers and students.

That society is communism, and Progressive Labor Party is serious about organizing to make that world a reality. Join us!

France: Black and Arab Youth Rebel Against Cops' Terror

100 COPS INJURED:
"THEY WON'T STOP 'TIL THEY BURN DOWN A POLICE STATION"

VILLIERS-LE-BEL, FRANCE, Nov. 28 -- Black and Arab youth have rebelled against the racism they face every day. Two police stations were attacked and 100 cops were injured in several nights of violent protest that rocked this Paris suburb. Angry youth have shot at the hated cops with hunting shotguns. The rebellion has spread to Toulouse.

The rebellion began after a police car deliberately struck and killed two Arab youth on a mini-motorcycle. The racist cops then fled. When the police failed to investigate the "accident," the neighborhood exploded.

Le Monde, a French newspaper, quoted Younès B., a resident of Villiers-le-Bel: "A second police team came to pick up their colleagues. But they left the two kids without doing anything."

The rebellion followed on the heels of two weeks of labor and student struggle (see page 3). On Nov. 27, while the Socialist Party Student group (UNEF) was trying to sell out the student and teachers' struggle, riot cops attacked protesting students in Nantes. One 17-year-old high school student suffered a serious eye injury when riot cops aimed point blank at his face.

Meanwhile in this Paris suburb where the rebellion began, the father of one of the slain Arab youth, Larami, 16, said his son had been threatened by police last week.

"We're fed up with the lack of respect," said Ikram, 23, who used to live here. He predicted the uprising would continue. "The young people won't stop until they've burned down the Sarcelles police station," he said. Youth anger at the cops and the racist system they serve is very justified.

Rally Against Police Violence

BROOKLYN, NY. Nov. 9 -- High school students and teachers and college students -- members and friends of PLP -- rallied and leafleted in the neighborhood where the racist NYPD pumped 13 bullets into the unarmed Brooklyn teenager Khiel Coppin, killing him -- and then handcuffed him! We sold over 300 CHALLENGES and distributed more than 800 leaflets denouncing police terror and imperialist war. Many passers-by were angry at the continuing police terror in their communities. They see little hope to destroy the cops' racist brutality but were still searching for answers. Throughout the weekend we visited the neighborhood and attended a vigil, where anger permeated every resident we spoke to.

Surging to Wider War

New mass killings in Iraq shatter the myth that the U.S. military surge (this year's addition of 30,000 troops) is bringing stability. Various pundits speaking for the U.S. ruling class had hailed a recent lull in Iraqi violence as a "turnaround" offering "light at the end of the tunnel." But the murderous competition for Iraq's oil wealth, the root cause of the war, remains unsettled.

Meanwhile, on November 22, insurgents dressed as Iraqi Army troops shot to death at least 11 people in a village near Baghdad. The next day, a bomb wiped out 15 more in a busy Baghdad market, while blasts in the northern city of Mosul killed another 21. Any reduction in violence in Iraq had little to do with the surge. It occurred because native Sunnis broke with chiefly foreign bosses, from al Qaeda and Iran. Also, Iran is preoccupied with furthering their nuclear arms program, forced their proxy Sadr militia into a cease-fire.

With Shiite, Sunni, Kurdish, al Qaeda and Iranian-backed factions battling one another and the U.S. for a bigger slice of oil revenues, the U.S. has "lowered expectations" of getting its Iraqi national energy law passed. Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP had been counting on the law granting them fabulously profitable production-sharing agreements. Washington is now focused on extending its military occupation indefinitely by "renewing the UN mandate that authorizes an American presence in the country." (New York Times, 11/25/07)

In addition to turmoil within Iraq, U.S. rulers face head-on competition with China for Mid-East crude. As China enters the Automobile Age its soaring needs contribute to the $98-a-barrel oil price and impel construction of a Chinese navy that can reach the Persian Gulf. All armed to the teeth, capitalists ranging from Iraqi warlords to Iranian mullahs to Osama bin Laden to U.S. and Chinese generals and oil barons covet Iraq's six-million-barrel-a-day potential. Fighting can only intensify.

SHORT ON GIs, U.S. PLANS IRAQI COLONIAL FORCE

The mounting stakes in the Persian Gulf include the world's leading oil producer: the increasingly unsteady Saudi Arabia. This U.S. "ally," while the biggest supplier of U.S. oil imports, is also the source of the bulk of anti-U.S. foreign fighters in neighboring Iraq. Faced with this contradiction, and with designs on securing the entire region, U.S. rulers seek to escalate their Iraqi surge into a permanent occupation. Employing a tactic favored by the British and French empires, the Pentagon plans to build a colonial-style U.S.-trained, -commanded and -reinforced Iraqi Army.

The New York Times (11/23/07) reports, "Under the approach, some American combat brigades due to stay behind would slim down their fighting forces and enlarge the teams mentoring Iraqis. Within a 3,000-member brigade, for example, one or two battalions might help train the Iraqis while the rest would be retained as quick-reaction forces to back up the Iraqis if they ran into stiff resistance....Even after President Bush's `surge' of troops is over in mid-July and the number of brigades shrinks to 15 from the current level of 20, American units in some of the more highly-contested areas would continue their combat roles."

Max Boot, a senior fellow at the rulers' influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) think-tank, wants to add an imperialist Foreign Service agency focused on "creating governments from scratch." This goes beyond Iraq, to all countries containing U.S. imperialism's most "vital interest": oil. Boot's scheme involves exporting the racist U.S. police state. He envisions a "federal constabulary force -- a uniformed counterpart to the FBI that...could be deployed abroad. Its efforts could be supplemented by municipal policemen....Along with these police officers, we need a deployable corps of lawyers, judges and prison guards who could set up functioning legal and penal systems abroad." (NYT, 11/14/07)

LIBERAL DEMS ENLIST BUTCHER OF ABU GHRAIB TO PREACH FOR GLOBAL WAR

Democratic leaders fully support training an Iraqi colonial army while U.S. forces redeploy for wider wars. They chose war criminal General Ricardo Sanchez, who presided over atrocities at Abu Ghraib, to give their party's weekly radio address on November 24. Speaking of opportunities presented by the surge's "success," he said, "Shifting the primary mission of our troops away from combat will lead to a smaller U.S. military presence, and a greater obligation on the part of the Iraqis to take the lead in solving their country's problems. Having fewer American troops in Iraq will also allow us to devote more resources to refit our ground forces to respond to different contingencies in other parts of the world."

Democratic presidential front-runners Clinton and Obama hypocritically court votes with a war-weary public by promising "phased withdrawal," while vowing loyalty to the war needs of the Rockefeller wing of the ruling class. The CFR's journal, Foreign Affairs, recently ran a series of candidates' manifestos. In it, Hillary and Barack recited virtually identical versions of Jimmy Carter's 1979 doctrine which called the slightest threat to U.S. access to Persian Gulf oil a potential act of war. Clinton: "As president, I will never hesitate to use force to protect Americans or to defend our territory and our vital interests." Obama: "I will not hesitate to use force, unilaterally if necessary, to protect the American people or our vital interests whenever we are attacked or imminently threatened."

This proves that no pro-capitalist party, Democrat or Republican, can bring stability or security, let alone peace, to Iraq. Cutthroat competition is inherent in the profit system. It will only bring death and destruction to workers in the Middle East, the U.S. and worldwide. It's only a matter of time before the dogfight over Mid-East oil becomes a global war. Far better than voting for Clinton or Obama would be joining and building the pro-working-class Progressive Labor Party. We have the long-term outlook of eliminating the profit system and its profit-driven wars through communist revolution.

`WANTED FOR MURDER: CHICAGO KKKOPS!'

CHICAGO, Nov. 16 -- Students from Chicago State University, Purdue University-Calumet in Indiana, PLP members and other community members took part in a rally against police brutality on 87th and the Dan Ryan Expressway. The Chicago Police Department's (CPD) long history of racist murder was repeated in August when cops killed Aaron Harrison and three other young black men and even more recently with the murder of rapper Freddie "Latee" Wilson. Protesters carried signs reading "Police Kill!!!!," "Victims Must Have Justice," and "Wanted for Murder: Chicago KKKops!" and chanted "No justice, No peace. No racist police!!!" and "Hey pigs what do you say? How many kids did you kill today?"

We distributed dozens of CHALLENGES and flyers to workers getting off the El train and to young high school students who talked about how the cops would stop and harass them and their friends in the neighborhood. We made many contacts and will be talking to them in the future about communist ideas and building a PLP base within the community.

To date, in 2007 the Chicago police have shot 31 people. Community misleaders like the Rev. Ira Acree of the Leaders Network and 28th Ward Alderman Ed Smith want an Independent Review Board to pacify angry workers and let the killer KKKops off the hook, but the protesters at the 87th street rally have some understanding that racism and police brutality cannot be ended by any "independent" board. We in PLP must win more anti-racist workers and youth to our communist politics to build the fight against capitalism, the real cause of racist police terror.

Two Million Strikers Battle Sellouts, French Gov't

PARIS, Nov. 23 -- The class struggle tests the mettle of organizations and individuals. Over the past two weeks, three simultaneous, interconnected battles have offered workers and students in France and around the world an assessment of their friends and foes.

SPECIAL PENSION PLANS

On Nov. 13, 202,000 rail, energy and Paris commuter train workers struck a second time to defend their special pension plans, which allow them to retire at 50 or 55. On Oct. 18, a 24-hour strike by 247,600 couldn't force the government to abandon plans to increase retirement age by five years.

This attack on pensions is the first battle in the bosses' effort to make all workers work longer for smaller pensions. The MEDEF -- the French bosses' association -- wants to force everyone to work 41 or more years to be eligible for retirement. By attacking the transport and energy workers, the bosses hope to break the working-class unity needed to defend and extend existing retirement plans.

The bosses' media, especially television, accused transport workers of "holding passengers hostage" and regularly said the strike was over. Socialist Party leader Emmanuel Valls attacked the special retirement plans as "unfair." In October, labor faker François Chérèque, CFDT union head, said that "a long strike doesn't lead anywhere" and on Nov. 16, the CFDT advocated ending the strike.

Worse yet, hours after the strike began, Bernard Thibault of the CGT union, the leader of the three-week 1995 strike that successfully defended special pension plans, abandoned maintaining the plans intact, offering to "negotiate" their "reform." Thibault -- a top member of the French "Communist" Party -- also stooped to red-baiting, warning workers not to allow "political organizations" to hijack their strike. The CFDT and UNSA unions and the Socialist Party immediately supported Thibault's sellout. Only the SUD union refused to downsize the workers' pensions.

Negotiations began on Nov. 21 after French President Nicolas Sarkozy dropped ending the strike as a precondition.

The union hacks in France and Germany also did nothing to build international solidarity, although train drivers in Germany were simultaneously striking for higher wages.

Despite these attacks, a minority of transport and energy workers held out for nine days. On Nov. 22, Anissa, a Paris rail ticket agent, said "a gulf is opening up between the CGT and rail workers." In Marseilles, a striker declared: "We should have blocked traffic! No trains moving. We know how to play cat-and-mouse with the CRS [the national riot police]."

PUBLIC SECTOR WORKERS

On Nov. 20, 1.7 million public sector workers (out of 5.2 million) struck and 700,000 demonstrated in cities nationwide, demanding higher wages, job creation and better public services. In particular, 454,000 of the country's 739,000 school teachers struck; 40,000 university and high school students joined them. It was a golden opportunity to unite civil servants, rail and energy workers and students.

The bosses' friends made sure that didn't happen. When the strike was announced on Oct. 23, Chérèque declared that "if there is a combination of strike movements between the special retirement plans, civil servants, and I don't know what else," the CFDT would not participate. The UNSA union also insisted that each industrial sector remain separate.

On Nov. 20, Alain Olive, UNSA union general secretary, condemned rail and energy workers for defending special retirement plans, and thus "cannibalizing" civil servants' demands. And President Sarkozy red-baited, saying "the majority must prevail over a very small minority, even if that minority is violent" -- as if 1.7 million workers were "a small, violent minority."

Paris workers refused to let Chérèque demonstrate with them, showing they've seen through that faker. But they allowed Thibault, who's no better, to lead the march.

The leaders of the public workers' unions are threatening another 24-hour strike in early December if the government does not announce measures to increase purchasing power by Nov. 30. But the rail and energy workers' experience shows that only long, earnest strikes have a chance to win some demands.

STUDENTS AND TEACHERS

Students have been striking for three weeks against the Pécresse law, which gives private business an even bigger say in running public universities and gives university presidents despotic power. Of 80 universities, 30 have been shut down and another 20 are severely disrupted. The movement has spread to high schools, where 80 have been disrupted or shut down. The CRS riot police have brutally attacked students on many campuses.

Although teaching loads will increase dramatically under the Pécresse law, university teachers have been slow to support the student movement. The SNESUP-FSU, the main university teachers' union, and the CGT and SUD-Education unions have finally called for a teachers' strike on Nov. 27 to demand abrogation of the Pécresse law.

COMMUNISTS NEEDED

The sharpening class struggle in France is exposing the union hacks' and fakers' treachery. These class traitors' reformism puts them even more on the enemy's side of the class struggle, in this age of fierce inter-imperialist rivalry, based on pushing racism and lowering workers' standard of living still more to make us pay for their economic crisis and endless wars.

But, as Chérèque's and Thibault's betrayals show, exposure's not enough. To avoid the pitfalls of discouragement and cynicism, workers need to build a revolutionary communist party. Only such leadership can move past these traitorous union misleaders and turn these class struggles into schools for communist revolution to eliminate the profit system.

Workers Put Brakes on Ford/Russia

LENINGRAD, Nov. 21 -- Over 1,700 workers have struck the Ford factory in Vsevolozhsk near here. The workers are demanding a 30% wage increase and a 6_-hour night shift. They had staged a one-day warning strike on November 7, the 90th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. Currently, workers make between 16,000 and 25,000 rubles ($600-$1,000) monthly.

Workers won a 14% wage hike after a strike here last February, in a one-year contract that expires February 28, 2008, but they decided not to wait until then to strike Ford again. This strike follows an August walkout in Togliatti against AvtoVAZ, Russia's largest carmaker, which is owned by the biggest Russian weapons exporter on the world market. Some AvtoVAZ strike leaders were fired while the factory director became Togliatti's mayor.

Auto workers aren't the only ones stirring in Russia. On November 9, the newspaper Nezavisimaia Gazeta reported "a gathering strike movement in the country....For four days, dock workers at the oil port in Tupas [on the Black Sea] were on strike. Currently, the workers at Ford are carrying out a warning strike. Next week, dockworkers at the seaport [here] are threatening to shut down operations."

Fifty percent of Russian families with one child live in poverty. The number grows to 65% of families with two children and 85% with three children. The real numbers are really much higher because the official poverty line is set far below the level that allows people to eat properly and meet their needs. In capitalist Russia there are four million homeless people, three million destitute and five million abandoned children.

The sharpening class struggle in Russia reflects the growing attacks on the international working class by the bosses worldwide as they intensify their competition for markets, resources and cheap labor. Auto workers are in a unique position to build solidarity globally, but this requires communist leadership. U.S and Russian auto workers met together in an international conference last spring and we're attempting to forge that unity, one of the building blocks to communist revolution.

Auto Workers Strike Navistar War-Truck Production

CHICAGO, IL, Nov. 25 -- Since Oct. 23, about 4,000 workers, members of the United Auto Workers (UAW), have been striking over unfair labor practices against Navistar. Over 500 of those workers, in UAW Locals 6 and 2293, work just outside Chicago building the MaxxPro engines for the blast-resistant trucks used by the U.S. military in Iraq. The MaxxPro chassis is built in Garland, Texas, and the trucks are assembled in West Point, Mississippi. Both plants are non-union.
Navistar is using scabs at the Melrose Park engine plant here, with a wink and a nod from the UAW leadership that boasts, "Our commitment has always been to both the membership and the company because we, the UAW, know we need each other to be successful, but I am not sure the company agrees." No solidarity rallies have been organized or attempts made to stop the scabs. In fact, the company was able to increase output and meet its October production targets despite the strike, delivering 140 MaxxPro blast-resistant trucks for the Pentagon's mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle program. Navistar has orders for almost 3,000 MaxxPros, more than any other supplier, and plans to build 500 a month by February.

Navistar, encouraged by the massive concessions just granted to GM, Ford, Chrysler and Delphi, is taking a hard line with the workers and the union leaders. As with the other recent contracts, the union is asking for some "guarantee" of work over the life of the new contract, but Navistar is forming a joint venture with a major auto producer in India and is unwilling to grant guarantees.

PLP will be organizing support for, and attempting to build some ties with, Navistar workers on strike against this war profiteer. One good way to solidify ties would be uniting to physically stop scabs from entering the plant.

Building solidarity against super-exploitation can help build revolutionary class consciousness among workers to take on the war-makers with the goal of destroying them.

Anti-Racism the Main Subject At B'klyn H.S.

BROOKLYN, NY, Nov. 26 -- Anti-racist consciousness and actions are mounting at our high school. The frame-up of six black youth in Jena, Louisiana, struck a chord here. As soon as we raised the issue, students began organizing. Proposals for rallies, buttons, petitions, forums and even walkouts emerged.

We decided to start with an anti-racist assembly to be followed by an anti-racist fair. Meanwhile, we produced stickers that said, "Free the Jena 6, Unite Against Racism." Everyone wanted one. We produced over 1,000 buttons with the same slogan. Students are still asking for them weeks later.

On the day of the big rally in Jena, we organized a "wear-black" day. Many students and staff participated. We had an especially large meeting to hear a report from someone who had attended the Jena 6 rally in Louisiana. Clearly many students and staff wanted to take a stand against racism.

When the students went to the principal to present the idea of an anti-racist assembly, a roomful of administrators awaited them, but the students were not intimidated. The idea of the assembly was generally well received, but there was objection to the term "anti-racist." "Tolerance" was proposed. This provoked good discussions about the nature of racism. The students were very clear -- their goal was to fight racism. They did not want to "tolerate" it or have others do so.

A lively discussion began on whether racism could ever be ended. Many students thought "no." Yet many saw that racism is man-made. Starting with the slave trade and plantation slavery, racism had been immensely profitable for the slave-owners. That is still true today as capitalists super-exploit black and Latino workers, and now especially immigrant workers. Additionally, racism divides and weakens the working class. To achieve any improvement, one must confront and fight against racism. As Karl Marx said long ago, "labor in the white skin cannot be free as long as labor in the black skin is enslaved." Thus, you have to end capitalism to end racism.

Such divisions have been evident at some recent anti-war marches. Students and staff who attended noticed the marchers were mainly white and saw almost no signs mentioning the Jena 6 case.

When racist cops shot and killed a mentally ill, 18-year-old young black man recently (see front page) whose brother attends our school, the administration did not even acknowledge this tragedy until a teacher raised it. Although an announcement was read, grief counseling was never mentioned. The dead youngsters' brother is devastated. Several students attended a rally and also the wake for the young man. They said at least there should be a moment of silence at the school.

A more recent meeting discussed the anti-racist assembly with the principal and several administrators. What was its goal? "Education about racism" was the answer. It was suggested that some positive activities come out of this assembly. "Good idea" was the reply. When students asked an administrator for suggestions, none were forthcoming -- but "don't get students mad about racism. They will just get riled up and angry. We have a nice school. Don't get students stirred up. Provide something positive."

This is a challenge for those of us organizing this anti-racist assembly. However, how can one not get "riled up" when racism still exists everywhere in so many vicious ways? Yet getting upset but doing nothing is useless. So we need to do two things. Firstly, we must organize a series of anti-racist activities in which lots of students and staff can participate. Even more importantly, we must commit ourselves to a lifetime of struggle against racism and against the capitalist system that promotes it.

PLP members are participating in all these activities. We have expanded our membership and developed two study groups. Our goal is to increase CHALLENGE sales and recruit students and teachers to our Party as we intensify the fight against racism in the school.

Haiti's Workers Battle Hanes' Firings

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI -- Since last May, 500 fired garment workers have been fighting against a Hanes Brand (HBI) contractor, CD Apparel, in an industrial park here. CD Apparel, owned by Haitian boss Frantz Pilorge, blames the firings on problems with HBI's two other local contractors. So in the fight among local and international bosses, workers pay with their jobs.

The contractor gave the fired workers some meager compensation, hardly more than the low wages they were already making. They're demanding compensation comparable to the higher Hanes' wage rates in other countries. The fired workers have been holding street protests and other actions for their demands. They've maintained their unity and received solidarity from other workers here and internationally.

Workers are learning, in the midst of class struggle, that a boss is a boss, whether they're Haitian or an international corporation. Haitian workers and youth are tired of being super-exploited by capitalism and imperialism. After the U.S.-Canadian-French military invaded Haiti in 2004 and ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, they left U.N. "peacekeeping" forces here led by the Brazilian army. Lula, elected President of Brazil as a "militant labor leader" but who went on to serve local and international capitalism, continues to support the Brazilian-led invasion force. This U.N. occupation army, like the drug dealers here, has just become another oppressive gang.

These militant workers must learn that capitalism and imperialism will never serve workers. They need to become revolutionary communist leaders and join the international fight for a world without bosses.

Send messages of solidarity to the struggling garment workers at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Grim Reaper at APHA as Leadership
Sows Seeds of Fascism and War

WASHINGTON, DC, Nov. 3-7 - This year's American Public Health Association (APHA) meeting dealt with many of the truths about health care under capitalism that PLP has been raising in recent years. For example, the "Get Ready" public health campaign is directed at Bird Flu -- a theoretical threat which allows the bosses to practice their plans for large-scale quarantine and population control -- and says nothing about the real threats to health, including war and disease. In contrast, PLP and friends organized a rally against AIDS and its social causes: poverty, rotten education, substance abuse, unemployment, homelessness and ultimately capitalism. While the APHA leadership joins with the ruling class, we were discussing communist ideas and the need for a revolution with workers, students and public health professionals.

As part of our work, we leafleted at the opening session calling for the APHA to take the small step of eliminating military recruiters from their exhibit. War is killing thousands of U.S. troops, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and destroying public health as U.S. imperialists grasp for control of oil. We held picket lines at fascist booths (Army, Air Force, Homeland Security) in the exhibit hall, led by a costumed grim reaper, to applause and thumbs up from spectators. Later, at a session on War and Public Health we managed to turn the discussion from liberal angst to a positive discussion about soldiers organizing against the war led by a young panelist from Iraqi Veterans Against the War. He described organizing at Fort Meade where the National Security Agency operates and at Fort Bragg. All in all, we had some success at linking U.S. imperialists' drive to control Mideast oil with the deterioration in public health all over the world.

In another lively session focusing on public hospitals, the callousness and greed of the Cook County (Chicago) bosses was exposed. They are continually reducing the number of clinics in working class neighborhoods and laying off hundreds of health-care workers. Meanwhile, in the face of increasing numbers of cases of asthma, obesity, type II diabetes, etc., the need for quality health care is increasing! Clearly the needs of the working class are not taken into consideration when these decisions are made. A fascinating exposé of the failure to open Charity Hospital in New Orleans was also presented at this session. The New Orleans bosses want to build a new hospital and so they refused to use the hospital that some physicians and workers had cleaned up within days of the hurricane. To justify their actions, they made up lies about the hospital and how it could not be used. This report made us all aware of the ruthlessness of the ruling class - and more determined to fight back.

The APHA conference presented great opportunities to expose the capitalist system and its supporters. We showed that the APHA and its leadership cozies up to the ruling class and the military, giving them the endorsement of the main public health organization in the U.S. Public health (which is really working-class health) can never be the first priority under capitalism because this system prioritizes profit over everything else. Only under communism will the health of the working class truly be valued. The best thing we can do to improve public health is to destroy the system that keeps us unhealthy.

Chávez Reform Won't Bring Workers' Power

CARACAS, VENEZUELA, Nov. 23 -- Chanting "Educación Primero para el hijo del obrero; Educación después para el hijo del burgues" (First educate the workers' children, and only then those of the bourgeoisie), and "Obreros y Estudiantes, Unidos en Combate" (Workers and Students, United in Struggle), tens of thousands of college, high school students and teacher from all 24 states marched to Miraflores, the presidential palace, on Nov. 21 to support President Chávez's Constitutional Reform referendum scheduled for Dec. 2. It was the biggest youth march in recent history, countering those by right-wing students opposing Chávez's plans.

The reform has sharpened all the contradictions here. The right-wing opposition says it will establish Chávez as a "communist dictator." They have used the right-wing students to lead the anti-Chávez attack and are trying to provoke a military coup against him. It's also sharpened the in-fighting among Chávez's supporters. General Baudel, his former Defense Minister, has now joined the opposition.

But Chávez's reform won't bring in "communism." It will continue Chávez's Bolivarian Socialism -- state capitalism with lots of privatization.

The U.S. and the local opposition say the reform will enable Chávez to be re-elected forever. Of course, they don't level this criticism against Egypt's Mubarak, Pakistan's Musharraf, Saudi rulers or any other U.S. ally actually in power with no real mass support.

The reform, while making some nationalist changes in the army, won't change its class nature, and it will still serve the executive power. The National Guard will become a Territorial Guard and will include "Bolivarian people's militias," but will still be subordinate to the Army. And the latter's main pillars will be discipline, obedience and subordination. So basically, soldiers will be ordered to serve the ruling faction.

The reform will facilitate state expropriation of private companies for the "social interest." But this maintains "just payments" to private owners for their holdings. Recently the government bought Verizon, paying it more than its value on the stock exchange, a good deal for the phone company. This is just a "change" from one form of capitalist property to another. It will guarantee "mixed-capital" ventures like those PDVSA (the state-owned oil company) now has with big international oil corporations -- again another form of capitalism.

The reform will institute a 6-hour work-day and "popular councils," supposedly organs of "people's power." But these councils will be limited to the municipal level. They're similar to Brazilian President Lula's ruling Labor Party (PT) "reforms." Its "participatory budget" (as labeled in Brazil) has even been attacked by PT rank-and-filers as government control of the mass movements.

In Venezuela, these "popular councils" will have no power over national policies, the state budget, the PDVSA, the armed forces or the judicial system.

This constitutional reform fight is one about which kind of capitalism will rule Venezuela, not one about destroying capitalism and putting workers in power under a system based on workers' needs not on profits. It also involves a section of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie wanting a bigger piece of the pie, and not giving the best part to the U.S. imperialists (as the old ruling class did).

Chávez now is making deals with international imperialist companies in China, Russia and even India instead of just with U.S.- or Spanish-owned corporations. (That's why Spain's King shut down Chávez during the recent Ibero-American Presidential Summit meeting in Chile). Brazil's Senate has just approved Venezuela's full membership in Mercosur (the Brazilian/Argentinean-controlled South American Common Market).

In 1989, Venezuela's workers and students rebelled with a mass popular uprising ("el Caracazo") against International Monetary Fund-imposed austerity measures. It was crushed brutally by the then social-democratic President Carlos Pérez, who sent the army to smash it with tanks, killing over 1,000 workers and youth. Afterwards, Chávez and a few other officers, fearing the masses would continue to rebel and eventually topple the whole capitalist system, led a military revolt against the old corrupt ruling class. He was jailed and then released and ran for President in 1999, winning with the support of angry workers and youth.

But revolutionary workers' power -- communism -- won't come from above, from any "savior" trying to reform capitalism, but only through organizing a mass communist-led movement. That movement must be built among the workers and students who have supported Chávez, struggling with them to shatter their illusions in "Bolivarian socialism."

Obrador's `Fight' All About Oil for Mexico's Bosses

"Our movement has the obligation to play a very important role, given the imminent decision of the usurper government and its allies, to hand over the oil to the foreigners ..... It's obvious that it was this that led them to carry out the electoral fraud of 2006, to violate the constitution and impose the coup d'etat." -- Lopez Obrador, addressing over 100,000 followers last November 18 in Mexico City's Zócalo.

Since 1938 when Mexico's oil industry was nationalized, there's been a tug of war between elements of the Mexican and U.S. ruling classes, seeking to re-privatize it, and other elements of Mexico's elite who adamantly oppose it. This struggle has lasted for decades without major consequences or disruptions.

However, the sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry and relative decline of U.S. imperialism relative to its rivals are rapidly changing this. Wars in the Middle East and other oil-producing areas have endangered energy security for the world's imperialists, forcing U.S. bosses to speed efforts to take over Mexico's energy industry and militarize the country via the Merida Plan. An added bonanza: Mexican oil costs $4 a barrel to produce. But this drive has also sharpened what has become the main contradiction in Mexico: privatization versus nationalization, with its potential of escalating into civil war.

Since 1983, U.S. imperialists and their Mexican allies have intentionally run PEMEX into the ground, to justify privatizing it. Consequently PEMEX is practically bankrupt, owing over $42 billion to private investors despite yearly revenues of almost $100 billion. Of this, the government takes $60 billion in taxes, or 40% of its budget. Very little of the rest is invested in PEMEX or into exploring for, and drilling, new wells. If this persists at its present rate, in seven years, PEMEX will be unable to extract any oil from the ground.

This scenario and the pressing needs of their U.S. masters requires the consolidation of control over Mexico's oil, cheap labor, and a new but growing aerospace industry linked to the one in Southern California. To address this situation and in preparation for global war President Felipe Calderon and his political cohorts are preparing a reform bill to privatize Mexico's energy sector. This has forced those rulers who oppose privatization to move their struggle from the legislative chambers to the streets of every city, town and village.

Heading their efforts, Lopez Obrador is building his Convencion Nacional Democratica with an alternative plan. So far he has traveled to 1,009 municipalities and gathered over 1.7 million signatures of people committed to becoming representatives of what he calls the "Legitimate Government of Mexico." By the end of 2008, he will have visited all 2,500 Mexican municipalities and hopes to have signed up another five million representatives.

Obrador's alternative plan would immediately invest about $36 billion in PEMEX. He claims $20 billion would come from the federal budget by halving the high salaries and perks of top bureaucrats in the three branches of government and PEMEX. The other $16 billion would come from the surplus obtained from selling the oil above the price set by the Mexican Congress. Because of oil's high price, this sum could easily top its $10 billion average of the last three years. Like a true capitalist defender, Obrador wouldn't raise taxes on the corporations or on his billionaire friend Carlos Slim, even though all private enterprises combined pay less than $20 billion in taxes.

Obrador aspires to turn Mexico into a major energy power and use its huge revenues to enrich a few Mexican capitalists and fund some social programs a la Venezuela's Hugo Chávez. The Mexican capitalists he represents are fearful that a U.S. take-over of PEMEX will not only deny them access to its profits but will also destabilize the country by further grinding the working class into poverty and hopelessness. These nationalist capitalists want stability to keep their exploitation of the working class running smoothly. However, U.S. bosses plan to militarize the country to squelch the nationalists' opposition, if necessary, and any potential working-class rebellion.

Only time will tell how this contradiction among these vultures will evolve. But from Oaxaca to Tabasco, workers are simmering with anger over the racist capitalist exploitation they suffer. PLP must win all workers and youth to the understanding that neither Calderon nor Obrador or Hugo Chávez, nor U.S. or any other imperialists represent our interests. PLP'ers and friends must work in factories, schools, neighborhoods and mass movements, like Obrador's, to offer workers and youth the only alternative to capitalism: uniting millions of workers, students and soldiers to build the PLP and smash all capitalists/imperialists. From this we'll build a communist society, where workers will control oil and everything else, serving the needs of the international working class.

Stagehands' Strike Proves `Show Can't Go On' Without Workers

NEW YORK CITY, Nov. 29 --(As we went to press, the stagehands' strike ended after 19 days reaching a tentative agreement with the producers and theater owners. The lessons presented in the following article, written before this agreement was reached, are still very valid.)

The strike of 350 Broadway stagehands entered its second week as they shut down the multi-million-dollar theater district right at the beginning of its biggest money-making season of the year. It was this union's first strike in its 121-year history and is defying its own international leadership's opposition to the walkout.

Broadway is booming now, with ticket prices of $100 and $200 a seat fairly routine. The bosses -- theater owners and producers -- have adopted a hard line, unilaterally imposing new work-rules on members of Local 1 of the International Association of Theatrical Stage Employees, rules that would sharply cut their wages and hours and lead to workers becoming part-timers. They've hired the same $800-an-hour law firm used by the Metropolitan Transit Authority whose intransigence triggered a transit-worker walkout two years ago.

Even though this is a "little strike," it reflects the anger and frustration of many workers who see the bosses making profits hand over fist -- even during periods of a capitalist crisis caused by the sub-prime/credit-crunch/Dow Jones squeeze and war. So these bosses want to "solve" their crisis on the backs of the workers who are told they must tighten their belts even more.

The workers appear well-prepared for a long strike, having built up a $5-million strike fund. Union members will start receiving $400/week strike pay and are offering part of their strike fund to ushers and porters who have refused to cross the picket lines.

But to strengthen its position, the rank and file should call on other unions and workers to support the strike, something the hacks in the Central Labor Council should be doing. But long ago they gave up on organizing solidarity for striking workers.

LETTERS

Anti-racist `Feast' Energized Workers for Another Year of Struggle

For 22 years neighbors, coworkers and antiracist activists in the D.C. area have gathered on the Saturday before Thanksgiving for our annual "Thanks-for-fighting-racism Feast." This is our answer to Thanksgiving, a celebration of the Pilgrims, who began the genocide of Native Americans. At our dinner, where we celebrate anti-racism instead of genocide, we made new friends and gained inspiration and momentum to fight racism for another year. This year brought together more than 80 people and raised over $1,200, a new record on both counts, and two dozen subscriptions to CHALLENGE were collected.

Speeches covered the Jena 6, recovery from Katrina, fighting against fascist anti-immigration laws, and the fight against the AIDS epidemic. A PLer performed an anti-racist rap written by a high school student, and called on anti-racists to join PLP to smash imperialist war and fight for communism. Other highlights included four youth who spoke for the first time and a film on immigration issues conceived and produced by high school students. The film generated much discussion on the fascist nature of capitalism, and to follow up we will have a special film night to show it again and have more discussion.

Government workers, bus drivers, hospital workers, public health workers, Howard University and University of Maryland students, high school students and teachers from D.C., Prince George's County, MD, and Baltimore public schools attended. The food was plentiful with more food donations than in the past and more helpers with washing and cleanup. Many vowed to come next year and bring more friends. After the speeches, people stayed another 2 hours involved in deep political discussion.

DC Red

No Short-cuts to Revolution

I've been a CHALLENGE reader for many years. A communist political school inspired me to preserve the dream of a totally different future, a classless society for the present and future generations. I participated in the past war in El Salvador. I joined that guerrilla struggle and it helped me learn a lot. Essentially its aim was to reform the ruling military dictatorship, against fascism, electoral fraud, economic crisis and lack of freedom.

The demise of socialism elsewhere affected us because, although we fought for reforms (socialism), we thought that afterwards we would achieve communism. But it turned out this was only a tactic to maintain our morale while the leaders negotiated an end to the armed conflict.

Today, with my new experiences, I understand there are no short cuts. Struggles shouldn't be hurried, but at the same time we should be bold in entering all struggles in the interests of the working class where we can make inroads among workers with qualitative leaps and fight to massively develop a winning movement.

The current and emerging imperialists can have many contradictions, but that won't do our work for us. We should intensify our organizing efforts and take our accumulated experience and understanding to new members who we need in this no-holds-barred war that sooner or later we'll have to confront. There's no other road. The capitalist system is the worst. It must be eradicated.

Capitalism is destroying the planet. The bosses talk about global warming but aren't doing anything about it. On the contrary, they're preparing for more conflicts over natural resources. Only communist revolution can save humanity from this future cataclysm.

My father gave great help to the past revolutionary process. He introduced me to DESAFIO. When he discovered that I was in the guerrilla war he encouraged me, saying "an army of free and brave men and women is invincible; there's no act more sublime than giving your life for the rest in defense of the most exploited. It's the greatest deed before a just god."

We're in a life-and-death struggle. Only the building of a new communist society will stop the imperialist nightmare and end wage slavery. There's no other road. Many of us have understood things through the theology of liberation, and by being active in PLP we should show that we're the vanguard in putting all our energy and intelligence in spreading our revolutionary message.

An old general said, "A people who are conscious and organized is an invincible beast. There's no bully who doesn't fall in the hands of the coward and the bully is only brave as long as the coward wishes." I like to write in metaphors since I'm a farmworker who learned that only through war and the extermination of the class enemy can we go forward.

I will continue my activity in the international PLP, reading, distributing CHALLENGE to youth and war veterans, and also through my experiences, those I can give and those which I receive. That's what happened at the latest international communist school, where I once again felt the camraderie and solidarity of the international working class.

Farmworker comrade from El Salvador

Vows to `Whip Racist's Ass'

I have been working on a construction site building at Lowe's for the past two months. The site has about 70 people working on it representing several different trades. Almost all of the trade workers are union, all that is except for the concrete formers who are non-union and all Latino. This makes them subject to some of the most vile forms of racism from the other workers. They are openly mocked and made fun of, their supplies and tools are stolen by the other trades, and the port-o-potties are riddled with racist writing. This racism is well cultivated by the building trades unions who use racist lies about Latinos in order to explain away cuts in pay and healthcare. They hope that these racist lies will hide the truth that the union leadership is made up of ruling class stooges, from their workers. It is perhaps a sign of the weakness of the communist movement right now that this racist crap is so widely accepted. However, there is also hope in that not all workers buy into this racist garbage.

The other day a co-worker and I were digging a ditch when the man who cleans the port-o-potties came up to us demanding to know where the job site superintendent was. We took him to see the superintendent who refused to talk to him pretending to be on the phone the entire time. The worker then came back to us and told us, "You tell the superintendent, whenever he decides to get off the phone, that if I see anymore racist garbage in the bathrooms then I'm not coming back to clean them. I have to clean shit all day I shouldn't have to read it!" I told him that we would gladly relay the message for him at which point he asked us if we knew who wrote it so that he could "whip his ass."

It was amazing and refreshing after so many weeks in such a negative environment to see a fellow worker take such a militant anti-racist stance. I brought a CHALLENGE for him the next day that he was supposed to be there, but unfortunately true to his word the racist writing didn't stop and he didn't come back. Still it was an inspiring and reinvigorating experience. It helped remind me that while the communist movement may be at a low point it has amazing potential for growth. Our fellow workers will accept communist ideas and leadership. We just need to continue to build the Party so that we can provide these things. This experience allowed me to talk to my coworker more in depth about the nature of racism and how it hurts all workers. He now reads CHALLENGE and is becoming more open to communist ideas everyday.

Red Builder in the Southwest

Tribute to A Red Spanish Civil War Vet

I, along with some 500 people, attended a memorial for Moe Fishman, a Spanish Civil War veteran who passed away at 92. Hundreds more could not get in but came to pay their respects. Many speakers said Moe had devoted his life to the international working class, from his early days in the communist youth league aiding striking workers, and helping evicted tenants during the 1929 Depression to fighting fascists in Spain where he was wounded and hospitalized.

In the U.S. he opposed McCarthyite anti-communist purges while organizing resistance to the Korean and Vietnam wars and helped raise millions of dollars for ambulances to aid the Nicaraguan people when they were attacked by the U.S.-backed Contras. He organized against the imperialist invasions of Serbia, Iraq and Afghanistan and marched in many Veteran's Day parades opposing those wars.

I really never knew Moe's history until now, only just to say hello at anti-war rallies. But I knew he was a volunteer in the international brigades that came from countries worldwide to fight the fascists and capitalists who had united with imperialists to overthrow the working-class movement in Spain. These volunteers were not following the calls of patriotism to their own bosses' flags nor the appeals to racism or religious differences to protect "Democracy" from "terrorists." They were working-class brothers and sisters willing to support and even give their lives to protect the gains of the working class.

Today, when billionaires are making war on billions of workers trying to survive on less than a dollar a day, and when millions die every year for want of a few dollars worth of medicine and water purification, it is refreshing to know there are people like Moe Fishman who devote their lives to answering the call of the international working class and serve as an inspiration to all who come after.

Korean War Vet

One Way to Raise the Red Flag

During the campaign to support Gary King's family -- after racist cops killed him -- and raise the fight for jobs among transit workers, some took the position that young black men in Oakland make a "personal choice" that puts them into "at risk" situations.

To deal with this we felt we needed to address the more fundamental questions of human nature and institutional racism. We argued that capitalism as an economic system needs pools of unemployed, under-employed and jailed youth as pressure to lower wages of those who do have jobs. People asked, "Why do they kill each other?" and asserted, "It's a few `rogue' cops who kill; we need more protection on the bus."

In this struggle, communists explained that "race" and "racial difference" are social, ideological and economic creations of capitalism, not scientific, biological or natural. We say that human behavior is influenced by many things; it's complex, changing and often contradictory within one individual. Young people have the potential for a whole range of behavior: from collective, supportive or sharing and identification with "my group" all the way to anti-social or degrading to parasitic and murderous.

Generally, capitalist-sponsored culture reinforces the individualist side and supports "race" identification and politics. The media uses code words about race as camouflage to justify why one group is "less deserving," or why police occupation of a neighborhood is O.K. When workers accept these ideas, it becomes fertile ground for division among those who should see their common exploitation.

The mass idea that we're from different "races" didn't just appear in our consciousness out of the blue. Using "race" as a biological term is an important source of profits for the bosses. The eugenics movement -- "sterilization to purify the race" -- is but one example of how the capitalist class supported these ideas. Most recently Nobel Prize winner James Watson, ex-Chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Labs, trotted out tired old racist statements about black people. Much of the eugenics studies that supported this policy were carried out at this facility.

In the context of police murders and destruction of our community, we presented the communist alternative of production for need, instead of profit, to remove the economic source of racism. We advocate overthrowing capitalism as necessary to change social relations among people. This is a big leap from common anger about a killer cop or a contract fight. Our speech at the union meeting and the Oct. 31 CHALLENGE article are steps in an on-going process.

PLP members put communism on the agenda in this struggle, with more interaction with our friends and co-workers. These are some of the steps in a long process of presenting a communist world outlook while immersed in a battle against institutional racism.

Bay Area Comrades

Huge March in Rome Against Violence Suffered by Women

November 25 is celebrated worldwide the International Day Against Violence Suffered by Women. It honors the three Mirabal sisters brutally murdered on Nov. 25, 1960 by goons of the dictator Rafael L. Trujillo of the Dominican Republic. This horrendous crime sickened the entire world. A year later, the Trujillo dictatorship, which ruled that Caribbean nation for 31 years, supported until the its last year by the U.S., ended when Trujillo himself was murdered by some of his former allies.

This past November 24, 150,000 people participated in a huge march in Rome, Italy, to denounce violence against women and a recent "security package" (similar to the U.S. Patriot Act) by the Prodi government.

The marchers attacked the Prodi's government plans to use the recent muderr of an Italian woman by a Rumanian immigrant as an excuse to pass this racist anti-immigrant law. The marchers pointed out that most of the violence suffered by women here are in their homes, at hands of their Italian husbands, boyfriends, etc. A good aspect of the march was the participation of Muslim, Gypsy and immigrant women.

The marchers also expelled from the march women parliamentary politicians from the right and "fake left," saying they are also part of the problem.

Many workers internalized capitalist violence using it against their wives, daughters, etc. These workers just emulate the violent culture of capitalism. The liberation of all workers demands a sharp and constant struggle against anti-women and racist violence.

An Internationalist Reader

REDEYE ON THE NEWS

Profiteers deserve to be smashed

93 percent of completed foreclosures this year involved....the so-called affordability mortgages, with adjustable interest rates that skyrocket after several years.... Greenlining Institute, an advocacy organization in Berkeley, Calif., says...that lenders, not borrowers, should shoulder the blame for this debacle.

"Lenders were like the worst stockbrokers peddling stocks in 1999 saying there is a new dynamic now....Financial institutions have a fiduciary responsibility. They shouldn't be promoting instruments that are high-risk and they know it." (NYT, 11/25)

Jailed kids: Damaged or dead

Since the 1990s when states began sending ever larger numbers of juveniles to adult jails...they face a high risk of being battered, raped or pushed to suicide....

More than 40 states regard children as young as 14 as "of age" and old enough to stand trial in adult court....

Young people are 36 times more likely to commit suicide in an adult jail than in a juvenile facility. Young people who survive adult jail too often return home as damaged and dangerous people....The rush to criminalize children has set the country on a dangerous path. (NYT, 11/20)

Insured against wildfires? Not!

As Californians recover from another season of devastating wildfires, one of the biggest obstacles is a painfully familiar one. As many as 40 percent of homeowners statewide lack enough insurance to cover their home-replacement costs...and most realize the problem only when it is too late.

After past disasters, California state officials tried to raise homeowners' awareness of their coverage limits by requiring policies to be written clearly....

"Most Americans still think that full coverage means full coverage, but insurance companies know otherwise." (NYT, 11/13)

`Charity' hospitals sue the poor

So-called charitable hospitals...no longer give out charity, [Mr. Geoghegan, a labor lawyer, author of "See You in Court"] says. Instead they charge poor people more than those with insurance, because insurance companies have negotiated special rates. And when those same poor people can't pay, the charitable hospitals sue them....

This is, at bottom, an argument about capitalism, not law, and Mr. Geoghegan is candid enough to suggest that the lawsuits...are a sort of guerrilla warfare [or] harassment. (NYT, 11/24)

Teresa's life shook her from `God'

The private journals and letters of the woman now known as Blessed Teresa of Calcutta will be released next month as "Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light...."

"In my soul I feel just that terrible pain of loss," she wrote in 1959, "of God not wanting me - of God not being God- -- of God not existing." According to the book, this inner turmoil, known by only a handful of her closest colleagues, lasted until her death in 1997....

The woman widely known in her lifetime as a "living saint" apparently didn't even believe in God. (NYT, 8/29)

Rulers' CIA Is Biggest `American Gangster'

The cop action thriller American Gangster opened the holiday movie season as the most viewed film with $100 million paid at theaters around the country in the first three weeks. The film is "based on a true story" and more than 15 million have watched this look at modern drug lord Frank Lucas, played by Denzel Washington.

The film charts the 1970's rise of Lucas from small-time Harlem thug to become New York City's heroin kingpin. He out-competes and then buys off the Mafia drug chieftains. Later in the film, he attracts the attention of an honest New York cop Richie Roberts, played by Russell Crowe, who puts together a task force of other honest cops who finally bring down Lucas and his extended drug "family."

The destructive, racist nature of the "true story" in this film is aimed at both white and black viewers. Richie Roberts is clearly offered as the cop hero for white audiences. Roberts is a messy "all too human kinda guy" who sports Hawaiian shirts and aviator sunglasses; a guy who can't keep it in his pants around women. But hey! He's believable and he's got integrity. This cop won't steal a nickel.

Black movie audiences are encouraged to identify with Frank Lucas as a hero who "against all odds" became rich and highly successful outside the Mafia-dominated crime world. This message is doubly dangerous; first, it tries to persuade black viewers to see in Lucas a hero; but his character embodies the major racist stereotypes promoted about black people --- they are violent and criminal. The skillful filmmaking and acting attempt to draw our admiration toward someone who devastated the lives of thousands of black workers and others as well.

Denzel Washington said that he took the role because he didn't want to see Lucas glorified. But despite that claim, the movie focuses on Lucas' unprecedented success, while the victims of his drug trade are invisible in the film. The movie basically did not show the horrible suffering caused by the drugs. There are a few token scenes, involving nameless, faceless junkies. This allows Lucas to loom larger than life while his victims remain crushed and anonymous.

If American Gangster had shown something of the lives of working people, with a major character being ruinously affected by heroin, it would have undercut the portrayal of Lucas as a hero to black audiences. It would have undercut the racist message of American Gangster.

The key element that is completely ignored in the film is the U.S. government's role in the drug trade. Lucas' crimes were small potatoes compared to the CIA's. There is no exposing that the U.S. government has always done business in opium, heroin and cocaine and has helped narco-traffickers bring drugs into the U.S. for profit and social control. During and after the Vietnam War, the U.S. government used heroin traffic to subdue GI rebellions in Vietnam as well as cities stateside. The movie leads us to think that the government is really against the drug trade and that the "corruption" is mainly street-level cops.

This film and its ideas are being marketed aggressively this holiday season. The BET series American Gangsters about all the big-city crooks is on cable almost every night (and for sale) as is Jay-Z's tie-in album to the movie. If you go to see the film, go with friends, co-workers and PL'ers. Any one of them will surely help inject some truth into the movie's "true story."

PL History: Battle of Carson Beach -- Anti-Racists Send ROAR Thugs Running

(Last issue's article described the alliance between the gutter racists in ROAR and their political backers in the Kennedy wing of Boston's liberal ruling class during the fight against anti-busing fascism in Boston. Despite multiple arrests, the forces of anti-racism in INCAR and PLP continued to advance.)

The Kennedy-ROAR axis pursued its intimidation against the anti-racists. An incident at South Boston's Carson Beach on Sunday, July 27, 1975 provided the excuse. During a record-breaking heat wave, six black bible salesmen traveling to Boston from the Midwest decided to take a swim. They had probably looked for the nearest beach and logically chose Carson, unaware that the racists had marked it as a "whites only" preserve. A mob of bat-swinging racist punks attacked them.

Immediately, the press, the cops and Mayor White began adding grist to the race-war mill. Instead of arresting the racists, the cops and media made the absurd suggestion that a handful of black men had gone to Carson Beach to provoke a brawl. A ROAR mouthpiece told the Boston Globe: "We've always welcomed good colored people on Carson Beach. However, we won't tolerate black militants and communists." He added, however, that no "colored" people ever came and then blamed INCAR and PLP for this incident. The rulers had made the point: Boston in the summer of 1975 might as well have been Mississippi in 1960.

The following Sunday, a similar fascist assault occurred at Carson Beach. An even larger gang of bat-wielding racists attacked first a black taxi driver and then a Puerto Rican family with young children. The next day, the Globe and Herald ran interviews with ROAR leaders, who lied to justify these barbaric acts by declaring INCAR and PLP had distributed a leaflet demanding that white people be denied access to the beach. Once again, no arrests were made.

The NAACP made a few cautious statements but issued no call for action. The union leadership remained mute.

INCAR issued a call for "Beach Liberation Day" and urged masses of black, Latino and white Bostonians to visit Carson Beach the following weekend and assert everyone's right to use it without facing attacks from ROAR's stormtroopers.

Mayor White responded immediately to this leaflet by asserting that although he supported "free access" to the beach, he would not allow "provocative" demonstrations.

INCAR's announcement provoked NAACP head Thomas Atkins to schedule his own "Carson Beach picnic" within two days. Until this moment, Atkins had confined his verbal militancy to diatribes against INCAR and PLP. He had told an INCAR leader several months earlier; "We're going to drive you out of Boston." Despite the NAACP's timing, which ensured that the "picnic" would be ill-organized and at best modestly attended, an integrated group of 2,000 people participated.

As the demonstration assembled, a Trotskyite from the Young Socialist Alliance made a pacifist speech calling on the demonstrators to reject militancy and place their trust in the cops, who he "guaranteed" would protect them. A PLP'er seized the microphone, declaring the fight against fascism was no picnic and that if the demonstrators were attacked, they should defend themselves and reject the politics of placing false hope in the cops. The crowd cheered this speech.

A motorcade of 200 cars proceeded to the beach, met by 1,000 racists whom the cops had allowed to assemble there. Eight hundred riot cops stood between the two groups. The racists began throwing rocks and bottles. The anti-racists returned the volley. The cops tried to force the anti-racists off the beach, but under leadership from INCAR and PLP members, many anti-racists linked arms and shouted militant slogans. The cops allowed some ROAR marshals to charge the anti-racist ranks. Hundreds of anti-racists shouted "Let `em come," and the thugs beat a hasty retreat.

In addition to ROAR and the cops, nationalist provocateurs unsuccessfully attempted to divide the demonstration from within by attacking several white anti-racists and a number of black and Latino people who opposed this crude attempt to cripple the anti-racist ranks.

Mayor White, the NAACP's Atkins, the nationalists, the cops, ROAR and the Trotskyists had all collaborated in organizing the Carson Beach "picnic" as a trap. The message: fight racism, and you'll get killed. Only the courageous, resourceful leadership of INCAR and PLP and the militant solidarity of hundreds of workers and students prevented a catastrophe.

Carson Beach was the last straw for many black working-class youth, who had suffered their entire lives under racism and police terror. The next day rebellions broke out in several sections of Boston.

(Next: Bosses' red-baiting goes into high gear.)

`War on Terror' Cover for War on Workers

(Part 1 described the rulers' use of anti-terrorist rhetoric to justify the increasing oppression of immigrants through the expansion and reorganization of the Border Patrol.)

The "REAL ID" law is yet another U.S. ruling class attempt to use terrorism as an excuse for employing fascistic tactics on workers, especially immigrants. The 9/11 Commission proposed national standards for driver's licenses, arguing they were too readily available for terrorists. In 2005, Congress demanded that states convert them into a means to hunt down undocumented workers. When the law is fully effective, the licenses are supposed to be issued only to legal U.S. residents, with tamper-proof features like fingerprints. Moreover, Washington wants to embed a radio-frequency identification (RFID) chip, enabling the license be read from up to 300 feet away.

The law is a sneaky attempt to claim that Washington is only encouraging, not mandating, what the states must do. States can ignore the law -- but if they do, then driver's licenses from those states cannot be accepted as an ID, for instance, at airports. If a state meets Washington's standards, then people with licenses from that state will be able to cross from Canada and Mexico without a passport; but in non-cooperating states, those crossing the border will need an expensive passport.

Heavily-affected border states are under pressure to cooperate with REAL ID. Big liberal governor Democrat Janet Napolitano is bidding to make Arizona the first state with a secure driver's license. Other states like New York are fighting the law, mostly because it will be expensive to implement and may make it harder to enforce the traffic laws. At the moment, it appears the law will become effective slowly over the next ten years. As they say, bitter medicine goes down easier if fed slowly.

Once the REAL ID is issued, then every local cop becomes a Border Patrol agent. And the cops won't even have to ask to see your license, thanks to the RFID. They can automatically check whether the fingerprint on the license and in the computer data bank match yours, to see if the license is fake. The bosses won't need a formal "national ID" card; they will just make sure that a driver's license is required for everything.

Already the Feds have a small program to train and then deputize local and state police to enforce immigration laws. Virginia is debating a proposal to require that all counties join that program. Once the local cops go through the program, they're fully authorized to detain people just as the Border Patrol does.

These are just a few of the many racist plans for harassing undocumented workers. For instance, there was much publicity about how a court has temporarily blocked the government's plan to force all companies to check the Social Security accounts of all their employees for discrepancies, which might be signs that an undocumented worker is using somebody else's number. But the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division (ICE) has long done the same thing under the "voluntary" IMAGE program (ICE Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers). ICE threatens companies: "volunteer" for IMAGE or else the ICE agents will show up at the factory to do a mass round-up.

We should discuss with workers the reason for these programs. Some U.S. bosses oppose them because they want a ready supply of undocumented workers to exploit. We must explain that the ruling class wants these undocumented workers, while simultaneously terrorizing them so they don't fight for higher wages or to get government services like public education or emergency medical care.

The Dream Act is another example. Even though it's opposed by gutter racists like Tom Tancredo (a GOP presidential candidate), the Pentagon wants it to help recruit young undocumented immigrants to the military. Already, tens of thousands of immigrant workers are in the armed forces.

The rulers don't want to deport the millions of undocumented immigrants. They just want to use racist terror to impose more fascist social control on ALL workers.