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Editorial: Imperialist rivalry sharpens, U.S. fascism rises
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- 29 November 2024 195 hits
As the global crisis of capitalism drives the bosses toward fascism and war, the bloody clash between Russia and U.S.-backed Ukraine is escalating by the week. Amid speculation that president-elect Donald Trump might try to force a peace deal on Vladimir Putin’s terms, a body blow to NATO, North Korean troops massed alongside Russian forces in the Kursk border region. In response, lame duck President Joe Biden gave his blessing for Ukraine to launch British-made missiles deep into Russian territory. Russia upped the ante with a threat to lower their threshold for using nuclear weapons (NY Times, 11/19), and then attacked Ukraine with a ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear payload (Reuters, 11/22).
While we can’t predict where or when the next world war will start, three things are clear. First, the collapse of the old liberal world order has ushered in a period of dangerous instability and chaos. Second, the U.S. rulers are both deeply divided and in steep decline as they struggle to stave off their imperialist rivals in Russia and China. Third, the imperialist bosses’ vicious dog fights are lose-lose propositions for the international working class. To date, official estimates count close to 200,000 workers–conscripted soldiers and civilians–killed in the inter-imperialist proxy war in Ukraine (economist.com, 11/26).
For the international working class, there is only one solution to the madness and carnage of capitalism: communist revolution. We need fighters to turn the guns around and choose to fight for a borderless communist world led by Progressive Labor Party!
Inter-imperialist rivalry sharpens after U.S. election
As the unpredictable “America First” Trump prepares to take office, the main-wing U.S. rulers–the Big Fascists of finance capital–are scrambling to keep on board their European allies, who have already invested over $100 billion in the Ukraine bloodbath. While France and Britain backed Ukraine’s missile strikes in Russia, Germany has refused to deliver its own long-range missiles to the cause (politico.eu, 11/18). Polish Prime Minister Donal Tusk warned that the escalation posed a “real and serious threat of global war” (Politico, 11/22). This shows the Big Fascists’ desperation and disregard for the lives of millions of workers - who will ultimately pay with their lives.
Meanwhile, China is pressing its case as a more reliable ally than the U.S. At last week’s G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, President Xi Jinping promoted the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and strengthened a bilateral relationship with Brazil (aljazeera.com, 11/20). In a pointed contrast to Trump’s threats to raise U.S. tariffs, Xi promised open trade and benefits for emerging economies in Asia, Africa, and Latin America (New York Times, 11/20). Alongside their carrots, the Chinese capitalist bosses are also sharpening their sticks. They are outpacing the U.S. in arms manufacturing and now boast the largest blue-water navy in the world (Foreign Affairs, 10/2). In September, China tested its first intercontinental ballistic missile in the Pacific Ocean since the 1980s (AP, 9/26), While the Chinese bosses are struggling at home with slowing growth and a debt crisis in their housing sector, they still have a big advantage over their U.S. rivals: a more disciplined and united ruling class that is further down the road to full-blown fascism.
The current period’s proxy wars, trade wars, arms buildups, unstable alliances, and dramatic shifts in economic power are reminiscent of the years leading up to World War I, when more than 20 million workers were slaughtered for the rulers’ profits. Compelled by the vicious, zero-sum competition of capitalism, the bosses are always being driven toward the next world war, whether they are ready for it or not.
But just as workers are now being won or coerced to kill their class brothers and sisters on the other side of made-up borders, they can also be won to kill a system that has no regard for their lives. As they develop an internationalist, antiracist, class-conscious outlook, workers can be organized into a mass party to smash the bosses’ profit system and build a world run by and for the working class.
Bipartisan rising fascism in the U.S.
Global volatility and the split within the U.S. ruling class will bring even sharper attacks on workers in the U.S. With less of a stake in liberal democracy, the Small Fascist bosses behind Trump (see glossary, page 6) are using him to accelerate the rise of fascism. In most cases, they are building on a foundation laid by the liberal racists of the Democratic Party over the last thirty years. Echoing Bill Clinton’s work-or-die welfare reform, Republicans are pushing Medicaid work requirements and spending cuts that could strip millions of workers and children of their healthcare (NYT, 11/20). Following up on the Biden administration’s threats to slash aid to colleges that allow anti-Zionist, anti-genocide protests, Trump is vowing to eliminate both aid and accreditation (Jerusalem Post, 11/14).
Moving forward with Trump’s nazi plan for mass deportations of undocumented workers, arch-racist “border czar” Tom Homan has jumped on a Texas rancher’s offer of 1,400 acres for immigrant concentration camps (Texas Tribune, 11/19). Citing an 1807 law for suppressing “insurrection” or “domestic violence,” Trump is already pushing for the U.S. military to round up migrating workers for detention and expulsion (NY Times, 11/18). The soon-to-be Klansman-in-Chief will inherit a headstart on anti-immigrant policy and infrastructure, thanks to Biden’s assault on asylum and the border cages built under Barack Obama (cnn.com, 7/13/19).
Fight back!
From Ukraine to Gaza to the U.S., we need multiracial unity to stand up and fight back against these brutal attacks. We must expose the capitalist system as a bosses’ dictatorship that can never serve the needs of our class. Under capitalism, mass murder, racism, and sexism are essential elements of the bosses’ pursuit of profit and power. Our only alternative is communism, a dictatorship of the working class.
The current period is dangerous to be sure. We have a long road to travel to build a mass communist party, but it’s also a period of huge opportunity. While Trump’s fear-mongering and scapegoating found traction among more workers than before, the winner of the 2024 U.S. presidential election–in a landslide–was “none of the above.” Where Trump got around 77 million votes and liberal misleader Kamala Harris around 75 million, close to 90 million eligible voters didn’t bother to go to the polls (usnews.com, 11/15)--and that doesn’t include the millions of undocumented workers or felons convicted by the bosses’ racist criminal injustice system.
In short, there is a great mass of workers who have lost all confidence that capitalism can make their lives any better. It’s our job to transform their cynicism and passivity into class consciousness and organized fightback against the rulers’ rotten death machine. We must struggle together by joining and building the international communist Progressive Labor Party. Together, we can fight to win a communist world. Join PLP!
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LA Forum: For workers’ power, not bosses’ elections
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- 29 November 2024 170 hits
LOS ANGELES, CA, November 3—Don’t Vote, Revolt! This was the theme for a gathering of workers and students in Los Angeles at a forum the weekend before the election. This message was not only received by our base, but embraced. Participants were already open to the ideas of voting as a big con, but were thoroughly convinced by the end of the evening. These workers will be needed to help build a worldwide, multiracial fightback for a communist world under the Progressive Labor Party (PLP).
Liberals will kill our class
The L.A. PLP education club, including two brand new members, developed and led the event. We created four sections, starting with the idea that liberals are the main danger for the working class. In this section participants were able to read about different policies and quotes from the most recent and popular liberal politicians. The gallery walk included information about Clinton’s assaults on social welfare programs, Obama’s droning in the Middle East and mass deportation policies, Biden’s support of the genocide in Palestine and his push for profit over the climate, and finally Harris’ support for police and “tough-on-crime” policies. Everyone circled through the gallery and took note of their notices and wonders. During the share-out, base members pointed out that the same groups of workers who Democrats claim to represent– Black and Latin, LGBTQ, immigrants – are the same groups against whom the liberals launch the sharpest attacks.
Workers fought for bosses’ reforms
In the second section of the evening, we discussed the CHALLENGE article “Elections: Capitalist myth vs working-class truth” in small groups. Each breakout was responsible for reporting back to the collective on dispelling one common myth. These included the working-class victories of Social Security commonly attributed to Franklin D. Roosevelt, but actually won by the Communist Party, the Civil Rights Act giving credit to LBJ when Black workers led years of fightback to attain it, as well as the Vietnam War and South Africa. The share outs ensured all participants had a new perspective on these four common myths.
Then we shifted to a discussion on the truths about propositions. In states like California, the bosses convince the working class that they have power through legislation because anyone can put forward a proposition for the state to vote on and that is how we can make change. Workers truly believe in these propositions, so this wasn’t going to be an easy struggle to win. Through a PowerPoint presentation, we were able to address the reality of how the propositions work and who they really serve.
Like all other forms of electoral politics, the ruling class uses them to keep workers tied to the system. Yet, they are often funded and promoted by billionaires and serve the interests of the ruling class. Even in cases where the working class has been able to create propositions and get them passed through the popular vote, they have eventually been overturned through the bosses’ courts as “unconstitutional”. Our presentation helped convince our base members there that even propositions won’t bring about the change they want to see.
Join PLP to fight for the world we deserve
In the last section we led a whole group share out on the possible alternatives to voting. We didn’t want people to leave the forum depressed, but rather empowered. Our base focused on the importance of education – sharing what we learned with their friends and families. Party members added that we can organize through mass organizations to spread the message of “Don’t Vote, Revolt” with more members of our class. All participants left the event convinced that we could change society through communist revolution, albeit a long-term solution, but truly the only one that will bring about the world that they want to see. Moving forward, we will continue to struggle alongside our base to choose the Party for this fight.
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H.S. study group: Spot the fascism, build the fightback
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- 29 November 2024 108 hits
Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members from Brooklyn New York organized a study group about fascism on Saturday, November 16th. The purpose of the study group was to learn about how fascism has developed in the United States, and how both parties-both sets of capitalist bosses-have brought fascism on the working class. The event brought workers, teachers, and students from five different New York City high schools together to discuss what fascism is and how we can fight it.
Spot the Fascism
While there is a lot of talk about fascism under a Trump administration, PLP believes that fascism has been growing here all along. The event began with a gallery walk. Participants viewed articles, images, and memes posted on the walls and identified the fascist element in each piece of media. The media, among many topics, included statistics about abortion restrictions, deportations under both parties, and state sanctioned punishments for speaking out against genocide.
One political cartoon about voting read “How many women’s corpses must I step over to vote for women’s rights?”In regards to voting between Trump and Harris one student said, “False choice is no choice.”
A teacher said that prioritizing the rights of women in imperialist countries over women in Gaza “divides the working class through dehumanization.”
Fascism: Our Definition
Students and teachers discussed what made each example fascist. Many people talked about division between workers through nationalism, racism, and anti-trans sexism. Others discussed the increasingly harsh limitations on free speech, and the growing anti-migrant racism. Members analyzed the PLP definition of fascism:
“A state of late capitalism in crisis where the liberal democratic veil peels away to reveal a rotting dictatorship. The bosses use state terror to discipline their own class and enforce compliance by the working class-both essential conditions for waging global war. Fascism is marked by a more direct and centralized rule, with intensified racism, sexism, and nationalism.”
Communists organize to fight fascism
After the gallery walk participants read about communist fight backs against fascism throughout history. Students and teachers analyzed how communists fought against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War, the Klan in Mississippi, and genocide enablers today. Two of the articles featured PLP antifascist action: PL’ers beating up a racist shooter in Tupelo, Mississippi and a PLP teach-in at the Rutgers encampment against the Gaza genocide. In each example members noticed that the capitalist class, when push comes to shove, will side with fascism. From the “democratic” United States sending bombs to fascist Spain to liberal university bosses raiding protests against genocide, both Democrats and Republicans will tolerate fascism as long as it protects their best interests.
Rely on the working class
While bosses routinely sell out the working class, communists will never compromise with fascists. In each reading students and teachers noticed that communists are always committed to the fight against fascism. After the event, a few high schoolers, some of whom met at the event, gathered to discuss antiracist fight backs in New York City schools. Workers and students must rely on each other to fight fascism in our schools, our cities, and the world!
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After Elections: BK Forum - What now? Fight Back!
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- 29 November 2024 95 hits
BROOKLYN, November 23 – “How many times have we been here before?” asked the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) singers in a new song they created in the week of the recent election. In the background of the song, a speaker listed countries where workers face growing fascism and ongoing imperialist oppression. At the end of the song, the whole room roared together: “The only solution is communist revolution!”
About 50 PLP members and friends gathered to analyze the impact of the election and growing fascist developments and to grapple with the question, “What is to be done?” Planned mainly by teachers and students, the forum was extremely interactive, leaving some attendees asking for more time to discuss the questions of the day.
Understanding fascism to fight it!
We began with a gallery walk in which small, integrated groups moved about the room, discussing a wide variety of articles, graphics, cartoons and other media depictions of current events and discussing how each item indicated growing fascism. Then the small groups combined to examine the definition of fascism and try to create a bigger picture understanding based on the different examples each group studied. After the gallery walk, a Party speaker called on us to fight back against the crisis facing workers around the world today.
Next steps to fightback
Next we returned to the tables and discussed a series of questions which moved us from analysing how the bosses have convinced workers to vote (and vote for Trump) to looking for examples of workers fighting back in recent times to thinking about what it would look like to fight for communism instead. In every group, people shared their own experiences and those of workers they are talking to. They took calendars of upcoming events and planned how to be more involved in the work of the Party. They took home communist literature, copies of CHALLENGE and PLP buttons. At least one base member told the friend who brought him that he thought he was ready to join the Party. A young comrade involved in the college work gave an inspiring speech that recapped the college conference.
Old and young, new and experienced, our multiracial gathering ended on our feet, singing the Internationale together, looking forward with revolutionary optimism to the challenges ahead.
The following article is a reprint of a leaflet was written by PL’ers in the Mutual Aid and Community Organization Club and was distributed in large numbers at the Immigrant Rights March, which was featured on the front page of CHALLENGE in the 11/27 issue. The leaflet sums up the politics need to build a communist movement to smash this increasingly fascist system and is useful for talking to workers and friends in our organizing work.
The PLP Mutual Aid Club has been actively building solidarity with migrant workers, organizing clothing drives and donation drop-offs in collaboration with community groups at Floyd Bennett Field. This former airplane hangar has been converted into a shelter, but it more closely resembles a concentration camp, where hundreds of migrant workers are subjected to horrific living conditions.
In the face of attacks from liberal fascist NYC Mayor Eric Adams and Donald Trump against migrant workers, our efforts have stood as a beacon of hope and support. Many workers are forced to sleep on cots in freezing tents, exposed to the harsh elements, with little privacy or access to basic resources.
At a recent clothing drive PL’ers brought donations and friends that lent a helping hand to our migrant siblings Floyd Bennett field. In addition to sharing hot cocoa, coffee on this cold fall day, along with resource flyers, we brought our communist politics and smiles to the faces of dozens of working class migrant families, many fleeing from Haiti, Venezuela, Ecudaor, and many parts of Latin America who gratefully took donations and CHALLENGE. Look out for an article in the future issue of CHALLENGE.
All workers around the world are working harder than ever and are getting less and less of the value of our labor while the ruling classes rake in massive profits. We are robbed of our time and wages. Inflation and state sponsored violence is killing us and forcing us to leave our homes. The situation in the U.S. is getting more dire by the minute. Millions of working people cannot afford to put food on the table or get medical care. Many more are one paycheck away from being homeless. Capitalism is threatening to turn us all into climate refugees.
When workers are misled by racist rhetoric against our asylum-seeking siblings we forget one important detail: Capitalists (the profit making exploiter class) and their politicians don't care about any of our lives; we are cheap and disposable to them. Today, it is our migrant, asylum seeking class siblings. Tomorrow, it could be you and your family who are forced to flee the U.S. because of war, climate, or economic crisis. We are one world, one international class. Borders are artificial lines written with the blood of our class.The ruling class uses national borders to control their profits and take ownership of our labor.
The rulers put up their deadly border walls and guards to keep workers out, but the borders are always porous for weapons, money, and drugs. Imperialist bosses and their militaries know no borders and neither should we. When capitalist disasters or violence strikes it is we who always have each other’s back, not the government or our bosses. We care for and defend our class with mutual aid, antiracist, antisexist fightback, solidarity, and unity.
Progressive Labor Party has been supporting Mutual Aid efforts in Floyd Bennett Field called Welcome Migrants. These are the seeds we need to build a better world—a communist world where workers own and control all the fruits of our labor and can solve the world’s problems without money or racist and sexist bosses. In a communist world workers will be free to move and receive the benefits of society from each according to need. Together, we could smash these lethal borders once and for all. Join us!
It’s not just Klansman Trump or Holocaust Harris, it’s capitalism
Trump winning the presidency is a scary thing —for his divisive gutter racism and attacks on women’s health, for his threat to deport millions of migrating workers and the list goes on. His motto is drill baby, drill and get the migrants out of here so “America is Great Again.” He plans to force Medicaid recipients, many disabled, to work or die. Even so, Kamala Harris' presidency would have been a greater danger to our class. She has shown her true colors in her unwavering support for fascist Israel and the bloodbath in Ukraine, in her embrace of concentration camps at the Mexican border, in her stated pride that the U.S. is producing more oil and gas than ever before. She is ready and willing to sign on the dotted line for World War III.
Don’t mourn Trump, fight back and defend each other
For the millions of workers duped into voting for Harris or Trump, millions more rejected an unhinged racist, open fascist and a covert genocidal fascist Harris. We don’t deny another Trump presidency is depressing, but we are more powerful when we unite and fight back against our common enemy. We must raise the consciousness of those who voted for Harris, and of those who will soon regret voting for Trump, and rebuild the only movement proven to stop the advance fascism— the revolutionary communist movement— and break the chains that bind us once and for all. Join Progressive Labor Party!
