As the bigtime terrorists of U.S. imperialism suffer another humiliating defeat and leave Afghanistan to the small-time terrorists of the Taliban, the world is witnessing in real time the waning of a once-dominant empire. Thanks to flawed intelligence, decades of failed strategies, and one blunder after the next by their latest incompetent president, the U.S. bosses are currently unable to guarantee safe passage for the evacuation of their own citizens, let alone the translators and interpreters and women leaders whose lives are now in jeopardy. Wrenching photographs and reports are flooding out from Kabul airport: men plunging from departing U.S. military planes; at least seven people—including a two-year-old girl—trampled to death by a panicked crowd; desperate parents handing their babies over barbed wire fences to U.S. soldiers inside the perimeter. The profit system’s  contempt for human life is on full display.
As workers attempt to escape the chaos wrought by the U.S. capitalist rulers and their corrupt local stooges, we’re seeing a horrific preview of what awaits the international working class: open fascism and global war. But these images also lay bare the key to our future. Workers cannot leave our destiny in the hands of the capitalists, big or small. We must organize as a class to face this dangerous period head-on. We must redouble our commitment to organize a communist revolution—and to build a new communist society, run by and for the workers of the world.
The abrupt withdrawal of troops after the longest war in U.S. history reflects the collapse of the liberal world order and a worldwide crisis of capitalism. As a divided U.S. ruling class belatedly pivots to prepare for military conflict with chief inter-imperialist rivalry China and possibly Russia as well, it has squandered critical ground and influence in Central Asia. It’s lost the confidence of longtime allies in Europe, who are now charting their own course. But make no mistake: A wounded empire is no less dangerous.  As the world’s bosses prepare to sacrifice workers’ lives in the next big redistribution of global resources and markets, our class has only one way out: communism.
Weakness and collapse
On August 16, President Joe Biden openly acknowledged why the U.S. needed to withdraw: “Our Chinese and Russian competitors would love for the United States to continue to invest billions of dollars in resources and attention to stabilize Afghanistan indefinitely” (La Jornada, 8/17). Weakened by a split with the isolationist, “America First” bosses who’ve hijacked the Republican Party, the liberal U.S. ruling class must reserve their forces for potential flashpoints like Taiwan and the South China Sea.
Republicans and Democrats are equally responsible for the U.S. fiasco in Afghanistan. It was no surprise that Bomber-in-Chief Barack Obama backed the deal that Donald Trump initiated with the Taliban and that Biden ultimately implemented. Relying on NATO intelligence, the imperialists under Trump proposed an 18-month peace process and a transitional coalition government that would include exiled ex-president Ashraf Ghani. But as Afghan forces collapsed without a fight, the plan never had a chance. As the date of the U.S. military exit neared, Afghan National Army units disintegrated. Thousands of underpaid soldiers deserted or joined a budding insurgency. In just three days the Taliban captured five provincial capitals. Finding no resistance, they kept on going until they reached Kabul. All of the Afghan Army’s modern weapons and tanks and helicopters could not overcome their troops’ lack of commitment (La Jornada, 8/19).
Over 20 years and the last four U.S. administrations, this futile war directly took the lives of more than 241,000 people, including more than 70,000 civilians in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan (Costs of War project, Brown University). Along with the similarly disastrous Iraq War, it will wind up costing the U.S. more than $2 trillion—plus another $6.5 trillion in debt payments (abcnews.go.com, 8/14). These obligations will weigh heavily on the working class.
U.S. rivals fill the vacuum
The U.S. loss of Afghanistan creates a void that rival imperialists are eager to fill. Both the Chinese and Russian bosses announced that they would seek agreements with the Taliban and keep their embassies functioning normally amid the crisis, giving Taliban leaders international legitimacy. Central Asia is the “belt” of the Chinese rulers’ Belt and Road Initiative.  One prime target for Chinese investment in Afghanistan, according to Forbes Magazine, is the mining of 1.4 million tons of “rare earth elements,” which are crucial for renewable energy technology: “America needs rare earths, and China controls 90 percent of processing capacity” (8/17).
Russia, which endured its own devastating retreat from Afghanistan in 1989, may benefit most of all. “For Moscow,” observed the New York Times, “the chaotic American withdrawal...was a propaganda victory on a global scale....Russia's security presence [in Central Asia] is predominant” (8/19).
As the U.S. ruling class grows more vulnerable and isolated, their new, stripped-down plan for Afghanistan is to maintain an espionage network to destabilize the border with China. While leaving Afghanistan is a step backward for the U.S. bosses in terms of their global influence and stature, it also represents a step forward in their strategic plan for imperialist war and the fascism they will need to force the working class to fight for them. This is the danger workers must recognize and organize into a fight to smash capitalism.
From one exploiter to the next
When the U.S. bosses’ propaganda mouthpieces recount the history of the Afghanistan invasion, they cite the attacks of 9/11 and the need to wipe out terrorist groups like Al Qaeda. They neglect to mention the U.S.-backed TAPI pipeline that was designed to transport natural gas through Afghanistan to India and Pakistan without going through U.S. enemies Russia or Iran.
Despite their promises to bring “democracy” to Afghanistan, the U.S. bosses installed a narco-government that skimmed tens of billions of dollars a year by supplying opium and heroin to the West (El País, 11/19/09). Opium production during the invasion multiplied by more than 40 times, effectively turning the country into a drug lab that spawned deadly opioid addictions throughout the world (actuality.rt.com, 8/19).
The reformist illusion that a U.S. invasion would end terrorism and improve life for masses of workers in Afghanistan has disintegrated. Twenty years of occupation left nearly half the population under the poverty line (rebelion.org, 8/17) and generated 5.5 million refugees (La Jornada, 8/19). Tens of thousands more are now trying to flee the country. By abandoning political opponents of the Taliban and others who served the occupation, the U.S. has earned the hostility of the working class in Afghanistan and the entire world.
The capitalist media drama over an anticipated loss of "human rights" under the Taliban obscures the boundless hypocrisy of the U.S. ruling class. Sexism and racism are the ideological pillars that sustain the rulers’ system. Under capitalism, millions of women workers are super-exploited, raped, and murdered each day around the world.
The last 20 years of indiscriminate bombings and dronings, which claimed the lives of  countless women and children, is a testament to the sexist, traumatizing force that is the U.S military for millions of Afghan women.
But the Taliban are also enemies of the workers. They oppress the working class, particularly women. They’re essentially a rival opium cartel that will negotiate with any imperialist that promises to enrich them. The Taliban use religion to cloak their fascist control and to guarantee a disciplined working class, ready for exploitation by Chinese and Russian bosses (La Jornada, 8/23).
The working class around the world needs to rebuild the communist movement to confront and defeat capitalism. Only communism can guide the working class in building a new society without capitalists, exploitation, or imperialist war. That is the goal of Progressive Labor Party. Join us!

HAITI, August 23—On August 14 at 8:30 in the morning, the sun is struggling to rise as worker’s problems pile up: Coronavirus, five million starving, no functional institutions, no government.
At 8:31 am, the earth began to shake like it did a little more than a decade ago. The departments of the South, Nippes and Grand-Anse are the most affected. The numbers are mounting of dead, wounded and especially displaced.
Barely three hours after the earthquake, the comrades of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) were distributing snacks and clean water to more than 300 children and young people. It's not a lot, but it's the first help to be given. As we organize our class to help each other we are also bringing the communist ideas of PLP to fellow workers. The culprits are capitalism and the bosses for the failures of the system. We are asking people to build a communist movement that will overthrow capitalism and put the working class in power.
As of yesterday, Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency has reported that 2,207 people have been killed in the earthquake, 12,268 are injured, and 53,000 are destroyed (Associated Press, 8/22). These official numbers are a very low count because many areas, especially rural communities, have not yet been visited or even contacted by either the government or the non-governmental aid organizations. Those areas, like the one where PLP is organizing, are on their own, making do with very little as deaths and injuries mount and the people have no place to shelter in the relentless rain.
How different are humanitarian crises and catastrophes for capitalist bosses and bourgeois politicians—they see them as opportunities to consolidate their power. They don't give a damn about workers’ lives. Profit and capitalist domination is their only goal.
It has been more than 11 years since the devastation of the 2010 earthquake, yet hospitals still have no structure, materials or staff to take care of the needs of the population. A decade later and there is still no plan to take care of the disaster victims. Poverty is growing at a steady rate for the masses of workers and students. And we know from experience that the fake leaders will take advantage of the situation to line their pockets, hiding behind the just-declared,month-long state of emergency.
For now, the death and injury and damage toll is growing, along with fear and uncertainty. The gangs, unleashed over the last couple of years by the bourgeoisie to create an atmosphere of terror among workers, are blocking the roads that are still passable, demanding ransoms to allow aid and aid workers to travel. Covid-19 is running rampant; vaccines are rare and the insufficient test material means that only those with severe cases are even tested. Earthquake, hurricane, disease and gangs—all brought and exacerbated by the racist capitalist system.
In every situation, communists fight to prove their humanity and love for the working class. We know that capitalism must and will be defeated, and that a communist world, where workers struggle together in their common class interests, will prevail. We will grow in numbers and fight to our last breath to put an end to the horrors that racism and imperialism have brought to the workers of the world.The PLP is our international communist party, join us!

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 PLP solidarity efforts related to the earthquake in Haiti:

• Provided clean water and snacks to 300 children and youth within three  hours of the earthquake.
• Provided clean water to families, ongoing.
• Wrote to CHALLENGE within hours of the disaster.
• Helped in the rescue of people buried in rubble and injured during the quake.
• Participated in the collective kitchen, as those with resources fed those without.
• Raised money and organized building temporary shelters with donated materials, to protect people who had lost their houses and
• Comrades from the capital bought supplies with those funds and brought them to a provincial town, including food to feed breakfast to 120 children for one week.
• Used community radio to criticize capitalism for the deplorable conditions that made the earthquake even more disastrous than it would have been in a more developed capitalist country; and to promote the idea that a system that can’t even respond to the most basic needs of workers and students doesn’t deserve to exist. It has to be completely overthrown and replaced with communism.
• Discussed with our base that the only way this is going to change is by growing the PLP now and building our revolutionary forces to give leadership to the working class struggles to come.
• Reached out widely to our base around the world about relief efforts undertaken by PLP.
• Solicited letters of solidarity for workers and students in Haiti from mass organizations, job sites, schools and campuses where PLP has political work.

 Summer marks the anniversary of many multiracial rebellions against police terror, from Michael Brown Jr. in Ferguson (2014) to George Floyd (2020), and many more. These rebellions serve as inspiration for workers everywhere, but also begs the question: why do kkkops murder with impunity?
Anti-Black racism is at the foundation of the racist treatment and division of all workers. While racist violence hits Black workers hardest, it harms our entire class. State-sanctioned terror has propped up capitalism since the days of the slave trade. The super-exploitation of non-white workers nets the bosses super-profits and enables them to lower wages and living standards for all.
Capitalism holds no future for the working class, and especially for Black youth, except for imperialist war, unemployment, poverty, sexism and racist killings. Capitalists use the anti-scientific concept of “racial differences” to divide us and weaken our potential for fighting back. Only communism offers a solution to the hell of the profit system. Only a communist society can serve the needs of our class by eliminating the bosses who exploit us and reap profits from our labor. That communist-led workers’ society is what Progressive Labor Party (PLP) is fighting for.
State power rules
Police get away with racist murder because they are backed by the racist injustice system. Cops, courts, prosecutors, and juries—the whole state apparatus—are all controlled by the bosses. Consider:
In almost every case, murders by cops are completely legal. In Houston, grand juries haven’t indicted a cops since 2004; in Dallas, over a five-year period, grand juries looked at 81 cop shootings and returned one indictment (Daily Kos, 11/24/14).
Meanwhile, federal data shows that Black teenagers are six times more likely than white teenagers to be shot and killed by police ((Equal Justice Initiative, 12/2/20).
After so many rebellions over decades, how is it that less than two percent of kkkops are prosecuted (Vox, 4/2). The answer is state power — and who holds it.
Under capitalism, the “state”—including all levels of government, the so-called justice system, the police, the military, the schools—are instruments of ruling-class oppression and violence against the working class. As Frederick Engels pointed out in 1884, the state “is a product of society at a certain stage of development; it is the admission that this society has become entangled into irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to dispel" (The Origin of Family, Private Property and State).  
Capitalism is a society based on exploitation, accumulation of profit, and private property. The modern state developed to protect the capitalists’ interests. Contrary to liberal misleaders like Joe Biden, the “democratic process” cannot possibly resolve the antagonisms within capitalist society. The state is no neutral player. While it appears to regulate conflicts from above the fray, its role is to ensure business as usual, regardless of how many workers’ lives are destroyed.  
During protests, every politician preaches non-violence and restraint, while preparing riot police who fire tear gas canisters, stun grenades, and beanbag munitions at protesters.
Under capitalism, “non-violence” means the working class accepts violence by the state and is not allowed to retaliate.   
From slave patrols to killer cops
Legalized killings and mass imprisonment are age-old capitalist tools to control the working class. The first modern police force in what is now the United States, beginning in South Carolina in 1704, was the slave patrol. These forces hunted down and punished runaway and “defiant” slaves; they were a form of organized terror to deter revolts that might threaten plantation profits.
The original Ku Klux Klan was formed in 1865, just after the end of the Civil War. As Eric Foner noted in Reconstruction, America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, “In effect, the Klan was a military force serving the interests of the Democratic party, the planter class, and all those who desired restoration of white supremacy.”
In the mid-20th century, according to historian Diane McWhorter, the Klan formed alliances with governors’ administrations in states like Alabama and Mississippi. Throughout the South and Midwest, Klan members and local cops (often the same people) conspired to attack and murder civil rights activists.
So it’s not surprising that every year, media outlets “discover” links between rightwing groups and the police. “The Plain View Project, a database of public Facebook comments made by nearly 2,900 current and former police officers in eight cities, suggested that nearly one in five of the current officers identified in the study made public posts or comments that appear ‘to endorse violence, racism and bigotry…’” (Just Security, 6/1/20).
To this day, state-sanctioned racist terror against Black workers and youth is an indispensable weapon for the capitalist class.
In 1991 in Los Angeles, a gang of five cops beat Rodney King while other cops watched.
In 1997 in New York City, a cop assaulted Abner Louima by shoving a broken broomstick up his rectum.
In 2005 in New Orleans, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, a cop murdered Henry Glover before his fellow cops burned Glover’s body.
In 2012 and 2013 in Brooklyn, the cops killed Ramarley Graham, Shantel Davis and 16-year-old Kimani Gray, all without a single indictment.
In 2020, the cops murdered 1,021 people, including George Perry Floyd Jr. and Breonna Taylor.
According to the latest figures from Prison Policy, Black workers and youth account for 40 percent of the approximately 2.3 million people in U.S. prisons and jails, or about three times their percentage of the general population.
The problem with capitalist injustice isn’t about “a few bad cops'' or a few obviously racist prosecutors. The state apparatus is racist to its core, because racism is the lifeblood of capitalism. Bosses keep the working class divided by perpetuating racist ideology. Economic super-exploitation of immigrant workers pits them against Black and Latin workers, which in turn drives down the wages of all, including white workers.
As the sharpening global competition between U.S. and rival imperialists cuts into the bosses’ profit rates, racist attacks against workers are escalating. An economic crisis spells mass unemployment, budget cuts in education and healthcare, tuition hikes—and more killer cops. The capitalists need cutbacks to funnel their resources into the bigger wars to come. In their run-up to global combat, they are turning schools into jails with surveillance cameras and metal detectors. Their police are occupying Black and Latin working-class neighborhoods. They are spying on and detaining Muslim, Arab, Middle Eastern, and South Asian youth.
Why are they doing these things? To intimidate workers and discourage fightback. The bosses fear that workers are fed up and won’t take their oppression much longer.
Revolution is non-negotiable
We didn’t negotiate out of slavery and we won’t negotiate our way out of capitalism. From slave patrols to the hyper-militarized cops of today, the bosses’ state is the sworn enemy of the working class. The rebels during the anti-police-terror fightback rejected passivity and dead-end electoral distractions. The capitalist state cannot be reformed — it must be abolished with communist revolution. For that we need organized, revolutionary violence. Under the communist leadership of the Progressive Labor Party, the movement against police terror can be the beginning of an all-out fight toward revolution. From Afghanistan to the United States to Haiti—smash racism! Smash the capitalist state!

HYATTSVILLE, MARYLAND, August 11—Braving 99-degree heat, senior residents of Friendship Arms apartments held a spirited rally to demand that SHP Management Corporation (SHP) fix the roof, restore air conditioning and eradicate mice in the walls. Under capitalism safe housing is a dream for much of the working class particularly for some of the most vulnerable workers and super exploited sections of our class—disabled, retired, Black, Latin, Asian workers. Run down and unsafe housing is what the working class perpetually endures under a system where housing is a commodity to be bought and sold, and where landlords must provide as little maintenance as possible to maximize profits.
Criminal landlords rarely face consequences for subjecting workers to these tortuous living conditions. That’s because housing courts and government institutions like Housing and Urban Development (HUD) only exist to protect slumlords and to do their bidding. The Friendship Arms struggle further demonstrates that capitalism, not old age or disability, is the most debilitating force in the lives of all workers.
In October a fire damaged the roof of these apartments being overseen by HUD. For months the Tenants Organization has been demanding repairs through petitions and meetings with the management, but some displaced  residents are still living in hotels, while air conditioning of the common areas of the building remains broken. A Progressive Labor Party (PLP) member of Hyattsville Aging in Place (HAP) suggested taking the struggle to the next level and a friend from the building jumped on the idea and the rally was planned quickly. Never underestimate seniors!
Our PLP club mobilized in support of the rally, offered chants, creative posters, political leadership, and provided the bullhorn. But the residents led the event with chants such as “Ageism Means, We Have to Fight Back!” and a detailed speech about the failings of management to act on their demands. The Party would have preferred “Capitalism means we have to fight back!” Then the tenants went inside the building and continued chanting all around the first floor!
The rally was covered by the local press, Hyattsville Life and Times, and attended by representatives of the Prince George’s County Councilperson. We demanded that the Hyattsville City Council and the other politicians join in the demand to HUD and SHP to fix the problems immediately.
Capitalism lets workers free fall
Friendship Arms is owned and managed by SHP, a large landlord and HUD contractor. SHP has two properties in Maryland and both properties are in gross disrepair. The management contracting company has done a good job of ignoring the grievances of the buildings’ seniors and residents with disabilities. Nevertheless HUD is more culpable than SHP for these attacks. For decades the U.S. bosses strategy around the country has been to dismantle what little social safety net the working class counts on, and affordable subsidized and public housing has been high up on their hit list. While liberals blame the Donald Trump administration and his racist housing goon Ben Carson for destroying affordable housing, the latest assault on our housing follows former President Barack Obama era policies. Obama’s solution to fixing the nation’s aging housing stock was  privatization through the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program (The Nation, 6/9/2015).
The RAD program defers government responsibility to private developers and contractors. When developers and banks take over properties, rents will eventually be dictated by market values and not on subsidized income guidelines based on one’s ability to pay, putting seniors at risk for eviction.This fate which has already befallen public housing in New York City. The New York City Housing authority (NYCHA), the largest publically funded and state managed housing  in North America, will eventually grip senior and disabled housing if workers don’t fight back. By contrast, communism, a moneyless system organized according to human need, not markets, commodities, or ability to pay, can truly provide safe, accessible, dignified housing to all workers. Communism will not need to create silly rights and so-called protections for workers based on age, race, ability, or gender because all these oppressive distinctions will be abolished.
Party leadership is key to building class consciousness
The organizing of this event was only possible because communists in PLP discussed the problem in their club and urged our comrade to raise the issue with her friend who is familiar with our ideas. Our role in sharpening the struggle was evident. Self-critically we should also have had one of our club members speak at the rally to call out capitalism and link this struggle to other tenant fights in the county.
One exemplary case is the year-long rent strike and lawsuit against the Arbor Realty Trust, Inc that is continuing in nearby Langley Park, a predominantly immigrant Latin community. Arbor owns Bedford Station and Victoria Station, two buildings infamous for poor living conditions, whose residents are fed up! Together the Arbor Realty and Friendship Arms struggles underscore the sheer inability of capitalists to provide both safe and accessible housing for the most vulnerable sections of the working class. Unifying tenant struggles in the region and linking them to broader fightbacks for safe housing is an important next step in this struggle to demolish this rotten system and build the foundation for communism: a system that truly prioritizes and meets our needs.