NEW YORK CITY, November 20—The liberal NYC Council voted to close the Rikers Island prison complex, which has hounded mainly Black and Latin workers since 1935. Four new houses of horrors are expected to take its place. While capitalism unleashes its terror machine on Black and Latin workers, the communist movement looks to these oppressed workers as potential leaders for a just world, communism.
Prisons necessary for capitalism
Rikers is a massive complex of 10,000 beds. It currently holds around 7,000 daily and is now slated to close by 2026. As crime rates continue to fall, these liberal politicians still cling to the stick of the police and the courts to maintain their status quo. Rikers Island, one of the most racist, vile institutions, preys on and imprisons workers and is bad for all but the rulers.
Capitalism is guilty of murder
Under the liberal bastion of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Kalief Browder, a young Black man was robbed of his youth when he was sent to rikers as a teenager and held for three years with no court date on suspicion of stealing a backpack. After spending a majority of that time in solitary confinement, he was released. Unable to cope with the trauma that capitalism inflicted on him, he committed suicide. This is just one documented experience that reflects the racist terrorization of Black and Latin youth under capitalism. Kalief Browder, the Exonerated 5, and the youth being harassed in recent years by the MTA police (see last issue of CHALLENGE) is why we fight to smash racism.
Under the system of capitalism, the police, jails, and courts exist to keep workers separated, scared, and docile. At an outrageous cost of both resources and suffering, these new prisons will displace workers only to lock them back up for the sake of control.
Reform vs revolution
Workers are in motion against the new prisons, but without widespread working-class unity and a communist party, these efforts are doomed to fail. One protest was in Kew Gradens, Queens, where the Mayor plans to build a towering lockup for more than 1,400 inmates.
Capitalism disregards workers’ safety; our labor can be lawfully commodified and sold. When the main wing of the U.S. bosses abolished slavery, they still kept a loophole: “…except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted…” In other words, prison labor. Every imprisoned worker is one less visible voice of dissent in the face of the bosses.
Working for a better world
Currently under this racist capitalist system, Black, Latin, and women workers are the most brutally exploited. Capitalist bosses dehumanize workers using this special oppression. They use their state apparatus,especially the police to terrorize workers, and protect their bosses, politicians. But the main reason the bosses use racist terror is to divide workers. The capitalist’s biggest fear is  multi-racial unity, and working class leadership. They shudder at the thought of workers breaking their shackles and taking power. Under communism, the working class will have the power to make and enforce all of the laws which society operates under. The working class will hold all decision-making power for its own call.
 Only when the international working class holds power over their own lives can we expect to cultivate a world without racism, sexism, and all the lies that divide us. Under communism, crimes against the working class will be tackled by our class, for our class, with our class.

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Liberal venom comes in many flavors
Liberal misleaders are not all united behind this Rikers plan either: “In a sign perhaps of the challenges and opposition ahead, Councilman Carlos Menchaca, who represents parts of Brooklyn, said the legislation did not go far enough to address the reasons people end up in jail. ‘This vote only enriches developers in the short term,’ said Mr. Menchaca, who voted against the proposal. ‘I do not trust this mayor, do you?’” (New York Times, 10/17).
Let’s not be fooled by Menchaca, the City’s first Mexican American to hold public office. This councilperson will play a role in ushering in gentrification and displacement of Latin and other workers. Industry City (it was once a manufacturing complex) has been redeveloped into a campus of companies. Despite his big talk about hurting residents, Menchaca is moving forward with Industry City’s $1 billion rezoning application, which will upzone “20 percent of the neighborhood’s industrial waterfront property” (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 11/7).
Menchaca, and other liberals like him, still serve capitalism. In fact, they serve the most dangerous wing of the U.S. ruling class: the Big Fascists. This wing has the U.S. global Empire, in mind when enacting policies and buying working-class votes. They are Big Fascists because they pose a more lethal threat to the working class than Trump and his brand of domestic Little Fascism. The Big Fascists will use the working class to discipline their national enemy. In doing so, they will also aim to steer the direction of working-class movements and funnel them into a war effort against China and Russia. This is the fascist apparatus that Menchaca and Co. are a part of.

NEW YORK CITY, NOVEMBER 19– At a recent Delegate Assembly of the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), delegates were voting on whether to recommend the recent contract offer to the members. Not surprisingly, the contract presented before us was trash and drew the ire of a spirited group of 7K or Strike (7kos) members. The meeting was another attack and distraction brought to you by the sell-out union. Capitalism is only about profit for the bosses and misery for workers, no matter how much the liberal misleadership of the union and their politicians try to mask this.
The ongoing struggle around the contract has presented PL’ers in the fight with the perfect opportunity to raise our communist politics, and build student-worker solidarity in a time of rising fascism and racist attacks. Progressive Labor Party members, also part of the 7kos, participated in the forceful agitation against the union leadership to denounce their hypocrisy for force-feeding workers a contract that would only ensure the continuation of poverty wages.
On a positive note, through this struggle we’ve been able to expose the crisis of capitalism, and make CHALLENGE a regular staple on campus. Our goal is to continue to put forth the understanding that capitalism can never provide quality education or meet workers’ needs, and to win workers to fight for communism.
Agitate
 The union misleaders have been touting this contract as one of “equity” and “parity,” hailing it as a “historic breakthrough.”But the barrage of racist attacks on the working class by the CUNY administration, their CEO’s and fake progressive leaders Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio show no signs of slowing. Many campuses are crumbling and students must contend with broken elevators, broken sinks and toilets, missing lights, classrooms that are unfit for learning, etc.
All throughout CUNY campuses students must endure wretchedly racist learning environments even as tuitions climb. This goes hand in hand with the racist teaching conditions that educators are battling against. Recently, in secret bargaining sessions with CUNY, the union misleadership agreed to a contract that contains one racist attack after another. It offers measly two percent annual raises, which is below inflation, especially in New York where housing costs skyrocket every year. It locks part-time faculty, the most exploited and disproportionately Black and Latin constituency in the union, into poverty wages until the contract expires in 2022.
It abolishes yearly contractual raises for part-timers, but tellingly, not for full-time instructors, and increases workloads for part-time instructors. All this is stacked up mainly against Black and Latin faculty and students.
What’s more, the racist nature of these attacks is clear as day when we hear that there is no money for better college campuses, but plenty of money (billions), for the four new jails the Mayor wants to build in our backyards (NY Times, 9/4).
Build a base
As we battle the three-front battle against the bosses racist attacks, the sell-out union leaders, and their liberal politicians, PL’ers on campus have been using it as an opportunity to connect the contract fight with the racist attacks against students at CUNY. On a number of campuses, we’ve been involved in campaigns to highlight the deteriorating physical conditions, and trying to link the working conditions of professors and the learning conditions of students. Some student leaders have attended a number of union meetings and spoke up about our need to unite.
The whole experience has been a learning process, and our students have been leading it, as the majority of them are also workers and bring with them this understanding to campus struggles. At the same time, we’ve been leading a wide-scale organizing effort to reach as many members as possible to convince them to vote against the contract. In these conversations, we point out that, unlike the union leadership, which is content to lobby in Albany or at the CUNY Board of Trustees, 7K or Strike has a very clear plan to move us to a more militant option: a strike.
We plan to take the lessons from teachers around the country, especially Chicago, who have built years-long campaigns to win support from parents and students. It is in these conversations that PL members are able to bring forward communist ideas most directly.
Class struggle is in session
With the contract up for a vote later this month PL’ers will continue to try to expand the limits of what’s possible as well. We will continue to work in student organizations, set up strike committees with students and faculty, and continue to agitate for fighting .
Finally we will continue to raise workers consciousness around the understanding that we must continue to fight for better learning and teaching conditions wherever we are.
Ultimately the crisis of capitalism, and subpar learning conditions can only be solved when workers fight for a communist society: where education will be used for the transformation of society, and for the benefit of all.
 

Last month Russian President Vladimir Putin played host to more than 40 African heads of state. The summit solidified Russia’s growing presence and stronghold over the region, filling a vacuum left by a retreating U.S.
Just as the U.S. withdrawal from Syria left an opening for Russian troops to assert their military foothold, this week taking control of a former U.S. airbase in northern Syria (CBS News, 11/17), openings in Africa have provided in-roads for Russia’s growing global power.
As splits in the U.S. ruling class and the domestic wing’s control of the White House continue to give way to Fortress America policies, Russia has set its sights on the African diamond trade, seizing opportunities to flex economically, militarily, and most recently through cyber warfare. This growing instability and modern-day arms race is a flashing alarm that world war is looming.
The path to political gain is paved In natural resources
Madagascar, seemingly insignificant to Russia, was a hot bed for Russian meddling during the island’s 2018 presidential elections via time, support, money, and cyber influence.
Prior to the election a Russian company acquired a major stake in a government-run operation that mines chromium, a mineral valued for its use in stainless steel (New York Times, 11/19) explaining Russia’s new-found interest in the region. Chromium, is a relatively rare yet coveted mineral, with South Africa claiming up to 70 percent of the earth’s reserves (Engineer Live, 6/18). Madagascar has one of the world’s largest reserves of ilmenite (titanium ore), as well as important reserves of coal, iron, cobalt, copper and nickel.
Mica, another profitable mineral found in Madagascar, is currently being mined by “children as young as four years old performing long hours of labor-intensive work in often dangerous conditions to collect a mineral whose price will be inflated nearly 500 times by the time it leaves Madagascar’s shores” (NBC News, 11/19).
Imperialist gains over
workers lives
Madagascar’s working class faces unacceptable living conditions, unemployment, inadequate health care, poor access to food and economic resources, and severe power and water outages that have led to wide-spread riots and civil conflict since 1947 (Washington Post, 7/19).
The village of Andranondambo, known for its sapphire and mica deposits, is home to some of the most exploited members of our working class. NBC News calls the region “a 19th century slave trading center, where 75 percent of the population now lives on less than $1.90 a day” (NBC News, 11/19).
As in all capitalist countries, the state continues to hold power yet no responsibility for the living conditions of its workers. The sham of elections continues to play a central role in maintaining control of profits never seen by workers and Russia, keen to benefit from Madagascar’s rich physical land, saw an opportunity to gain political influence. Financially, Russia is still no match for China and the U.S., who both have billions of economic investments in the continent (NYT, 11/19), moving Russia to rely on back-room tactics.
Russian influence in Madagascar began in early 2017, ahead of the 2018 elections. The operation was directed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian businessman and close adviser to Putin. Prigozhin was indicted in the U.S. last year, after being accused of information warfare and disrupting the 2016 election (NYT, 9/19).
Until Russia can surpass its global rivals financially, it has found a way to flex its power in the form of providing fringe political leaders an edge through meddling tactics, learned from the U.S.
A member of Prigozhin’s team wrote in an email: “’Russia should influence elections around the world, the same way the United States influences elections. Sooner or later Russia will return to global politics as a global player and the American establishment will just have to accept that”(NYT, 11/19).
Russia’s collusion efforts in Madagascar, unlike their U.S. meddling, is not about upending a global rival, but rather about profit (NYT 11/19). After a number of shifts in candidate support, Russia retained their ultimate goal: control over the chromium operation in Madagascar. Russia now maintains “a staff of 30 in the country, including engineers and geologists and the contract gives them a 70 percent stake in the venture” (NYT 11/19).
Under capitalism world leaders and super powers will always have their eyes on profit. Global watchdogs, election meddlers -- whatever they may be called, are tools of state power to control means of production and rob workers of their power. The only solution for the international working class to control and use the world’s resources sustainably for our own benefit is to destroy capitalism-imperialism by means of a mass PLP. Workers in Madagascar and everywhere: build the communist Red Army and organize for revolution!

The liberal fascist Peronist Party regained power in the October 27 Argentinean elections, as workers once again had to choose between two anti-working-class options. In this case, “center-left” president-elect Alberto Fernandez beat the free-market incumbent, Mauricio Macri. Fernandez made vague nationalist promises to reform his way out of a worsening recession and out-of-control inflation. It’s just the latest capitalist crisis in Argentina. Regardless of which political party happens to be in power, one thing is sure: the working class gets screwed.
Back on top, for the moment, is Vice President-elect and former president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the Peronists’ star populist stooge. She will take office facing 11 cases of alleged bribery, embezzlement, and money laundering. In one case, her former chauffeur testified that he stashed 40 bags of money “in the mausoleum of Mrs. Kirchner’s late husband and predecessor, Nestor, who died in 2010” (Telegraph, 10/27).
From the U.S. to China, from Ecuador to Honduras to Haiti to Iraq, the bosses are mounting “anti-corruption” campaigns to discipline their ranks and contain workers’ anger. But since capitalist relations are rooted in individualism, it’s impossible for the ruling class to completely stamp out self-interest. Moreover, capitalism is based on the theft of the value of workers’ labor. It’s inherently corrupt from the jump! Cristina Fernandez steals—whether legally or illegally under the bosses’ laws—because that is what capitalists do. As one disillusioned former Macri voter told the New York Times, “I know they are all thieves, and I’m fed up of standing by while they all steal from me” (10/27).
Only a communist revolution can put an end to the bosses’ criminality. Only communism can create a society run by and for workers—without money or exploitation, racism or sexism, imperialist rivalries or imperialist war. Only communism can point the way forward for the international working class.
The Pink Tide of poverty
In 2003, on the heels of an economic collapse triggered by the U.S.-dominated International Monetary Fund, Nestor Kirchner came into power. He rode the Latin American “Pink Tide,” the same capitalist reform movement that elevated Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Argentina’s “left-wing” Peronists were elected after pledging to boost social spending and to end the austerity packages tied to massive loans from the IMF. Kristina Fernandez de Kirchner succeeded her husband as president in 2007 and was re-elected four years later.
For a time, conditions for workers in Argentina improved. Millions benefited from a new universal welfare program. More money was spent on pensions and unemployment benefits. Meanwhile, the Kirchners clamped down on the country’s “traditional powers,” including landowners and mainstream media, while subjugating judges and legislators. They subjugated the country’s judges and legislators while tightening the state’s control over industry—all hallmarks of rising fascism (Stratfor, 4/9/13). Meanwhile, their administrations took bribes for favors from industrialists like Paolo Rocca, “head of the conglomerate Techint Group and one of Argentina’s richest men” (New York Times, 8/25/18).
In the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008, the Kirchners’ protectionist, high-tariff policies no longer worked so well. As soy and beef prices plunged, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner cut back government spending and social services, which triggered mass layoffs. By 2015, her last year in office, “inflation levels were so high that Kirchner’s government had altered official statistics” and “roughly a third of the population lived in poverty” (New Yorker, 8/28).
In the profit-driven chaos of capitalism, any gains made by workers are invariably limited and short-lived.
Fake-left frying pan, imperialist fire
Once the Kirchners’ economic “miracle” lost its sizzle, the pro-market Macri campaigned on a “zero poverty” pledge and won office in 2015. He proposed widespread privatization and went all-in for foreign investment, heavy debt, and ultimately a $57 billion bailout from the IMF, the largest loan in that bloodsucking organization’s 73-year history (Telegraph, 10/27).
Macri had wide support among business owners and big farmers, two sectors that have made China the country’s second largest trade partner, surpassing the U.S. “Chinese investments in Argentina have multiplied in … mining, oil and gas, hydropower, nuclear energy, solar energy, biodiesel, transportation, telecommunications and electronics” (Argentine Republic Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship, 2017). Most recently, amidst the U.S.–China trade war, the two countries struck major commodity export deals, a loud warning to the U.S. of China’s growing influence in Latin America (Reuters 9/10).
As favored bosses flourished, workers in Argentina found the new Macri reforms an even bigger disaster than the old Kirchner regime. When foreign investors failed to arrive, and the U.S. Federal Reserve hiked its interest rates, the peso lost more than half its value. The country’s poverty rate is up to 35 percent, and 52 percent for children under 15 (Buenos Aires Times, 9/30). Without the Kirchners’ lavish state subsidies, utility prices have gone through the roof. In September, thousands of protestors occupied downtown Buenos Aires to protest a food emergency. While Argentina is classed as “upper-middle-income” by the World Bank, it also ranks high for inequality, “slightly worse than the United States” (BA Times, 1/28/18).
As the Nazi-loving Juan Peron [see box], the notorious founder of Peronism, once said: “It is not that we were good, but those who came after us were so bad that they made us look good” (New Yorker, 8/28).
Latin America: hotspot for insurrection
Through much of Latin America, workers are taking to the streets in violent protest against decades of austerity, U.S. imperialism, and strangulation by the IMF. Massive demonstrations have broken out in Chile and Ecuador. A strike wave has erupted amid a challenged election in Bolivia. In Ecuador, protests against an end to fuel subsidies grew so intense that President Lenin Moreno fled Quito, the capital, and moved his government to the calmer city of Guayaquil.
As the history of Argentina shows, liberal bosses are the main danger. Capitalist reforms are deceptions that pave the way for fascism. The next global war is coming—and with it, sharper attacks on our class. As communists, we must support rebelling workers around the world. Most important of all, we must destroy capitalism with communist revolution, organized and led by the Progressive Labor Party. Join us!

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Founding fascist father
As Eva Peron became a media darling and self-styled champion of the impoverished working class, her husband, Juan Peron, helped many Nazis fleeing Europe after World War II to find a safe haven in Argentina. Among them were mass- murdering fiends like Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele. Peron also offered a haven for German profits that were generated by the Nazi war machine (NYT, 4/4/2005).
Though Argentina was technically neutral when World War II broke out, there was broad support for the Axis powers—in part due to the country’s large Italian and German communities, in part to a tradition of sanctioned anti-Jewish racism. Argentina refused Jewish immigration during the pre-war Nazi pogroms. Peron remained loyal to the defeated Third Reich throughout his presidency (1946-55 and 1973-74). He vehemently attacked the Nuremberg Trials, which held former high-ranking Nazis accountable for war crimes. He also worked with the Catholic Church to gain amnesty for refugee Nazis who’d settled in Argentina.