I was recently asked to serve on a webinar panel attacking the U.S.-Israeli unjustifiable war on Iran and Lebanon. It was organized by the Scholars for Social Justice, a relatively new organization that includes many diverse young faculty members who want to organize against this vicious war launched by the U.S. ruling class on February 28. The webinar was organized on a “rapid response” basis —no useless academic bickering about anything! Let’s just get on with the struggle! Over 300 people attended the webinar out of the 400 who had registered, a powerful indicator of the growing revolutionary anger against the U.S. and Israeli bosses.

The panelists varied in their assessments, but all sharply opposed U.S.-Israeli attacks. I was happy to encourage people to get active in the fight against the war, while understanding the underlying role of inter-imperialist rivalry between the U.S.-Israeli capitalist bloc and the growing Chinese-led opposing imperialists. I argued that such rivalries had been central to World War I and II and dozens of subsequent wars, and that today we are in a pre-world-war period because the relative decline of U.S. imperialism and the rise of Chinese imperialism can only be resolved by war -- unless we succeed in revolutionary struggle. Iran is a close ally of China, and so the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran and its allies, while certainly over oil and trade routes in West Asia, is also an attack indirectly on Chinese. That emerging confrontation is driving the globe to world war. The choice before us? Fight for world communism, or face the barbarity of yet another world war.

I would encourage readers of CHALLENGE to help organize teach-ins, rallies, sit-in, and strikes against the war, and join PLP study groups to get a better understanding of the dire world situation we face — and how a revolutionary communist party can make all the difference in the world!

Intro

Grateful for this opportunity to share some thoughts and a call to action in response to the U.S.-Israeli imperialist wars against Iran and Lebanon. I hope that our words here will inspire you to organize teach-ins and actions against the U.S. and Israeli governments and the corporations and institutions that support their devastating aggression. Where possible, bring working class people into this movement both on our campuses and at work sites, especially key industries that have potential power to “close it down”. We also need to reach out to soldiers and sailors who come from the working class as well. Let’s build towards a strong, national action on May Day that honors the revolutionary spirit of the communists who launched May Day as an international opportunity for workers to review their troops in preparation for the coming battles!

I plan to make two broad points this evening. First I want to place this war within the framework of inter-imperialist conflict between rivals seeking to dominate the world economy for their respective enrichment. Second, I want to talk about providing solidarity to the working class of Iran, which has an impressive history of class struggle often under communist leadership, battling to overthrow the Shah and then to unseat and defeat the Islamic republic. Our focus politically, I think, should always be on advancing the interests of workers throughout the world, which can be met ultimately by a communist world of equality and collectivity.

Inter-imperialist rivalry

Let me begin by saying we are living in a pre-World War III period. Pretty scary, but that’s what it is.

For over two decades and perhaps even more, the U.S. capitalist-imperialist system has seen its position as the dominant imperialist power in the world decline relative to the rise of the Chinese capitalist-imperialist system.

U.S. imperialism became the global powerhouse after Bretton Woods and World War II. When the Soviet Union imploded, in the early 1990s, for a time the U.S. had no serious imperialist rivals. But imperialism is characterized by uneven development. China had set off on the capitalist road in earnest in 1979 with Deng Tsai Ping’s Four Modernizations, and over the next decades established a powerful state capitalist-imperialist system. Today, China is the relatively rising imperialist in the world, challenging U.S. imperialism across the globe.

How does this play out in the Middle East?

After World War II, the U.S. succeeded in thoroughly dominating the region, securing Israel as a loyal ally and, through a military coup in 1953, placing its puppet in power in Iran. Two cops for U.S. imperialism. And then came the Ayatollah in 1979, and the U.S. lost a cop. Things are different today.

In 2016, Iran and China established a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and reached a 25-year cooperation agreement that included China making a $400Bn infrastructure investment in Iran in exchange for oil exports. China and Iran also agreed to strengthen military and security cooperation, including exchanging military experience and conducting military exercises and jointly developing weapons and sharing intelligence.

Economic ties between China and Iran are deepening. China already purchases 1.3-1.6 million barrels per day (b/d) of oil at discounted prices (between 8% and 10% below Brent crude prices) from Iran, about 80% of Iran’s international sales (Reuters, 1/13/26). China dodges U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil by working with the IRGC and its extensive undercover trade network.

Politically, China leads both the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the BRICS group as capitalist blocs which it hopes, with Iran’s help, will strengthen global organized opposition to U.S. imperialism and its allies and favor that of China.

The attack on Iran by U.S. imperialism is not only about immediate economic gains and domination of the Middle East. It is another U.S. move to prepare for world war against a Chinese-led rival bloc. For imperialists in general, there is no space in the world for competitive rivals to co-exist. The world and its markets have been fully divided among the major imperialists since the early 20th century. Now any advance by one imperialist bloc comes at the expense of another. Such inter-imperialist rivalries were at the heart of both 20th century World Wars and dozens of smaller wars over the past 60 years, and will be at the heart of the next one.

The Working Class

Our hope for a better future relies on the global working class. The working class in Iran has fought the shah’s regime and the ayatollah’s regime. Battles since the 1979 revolution include the student rebellion of 1999, strong worker engagement in the Green Revolution of 2009, and the ever- intensifying rebellions of workers through strikes, often initially for immediate demands but then turning into calls for an end to the Islamic Republic. Two powerful rebellions happened in 2017 and 2019. The Woman Life Freedom battle in 2022 raised the ante further, (say her name, Jina Amini) and the recent December-January rebellion struck fear into the heart of the exploitative repressive leadership.

However, rebellions require communist leadership and organization to be successful in overthrowing the government and creating a communist workers society. Communists have tried. The Persian Communist Party was formed in 1920 and joined the Communist International, organized labor unions, and led a country-wide strike centered on oil workers in 1929. As a result, the British puppet Reza Shah banned the party and arrested many members, and the party was dispersed. Communists reconstituted themselves as the Tudeh Party in 1941 and grew substantially in numbers and influence and political positions. After the CIA-sponsored overthrow of Mossadegh and the installation of the Shah’s son as dictator in 1953, communists were attacked and worked underground for many years. In the 1970s they joined the national front dominated by the clergy led by Ayatollah Khomeini in overthrowing the government and functioned openly for a brief time. The alliance with the mullahs quickly ended in 1982-3 with the slaughter of the communists and increasing repression and exploitation of the working class, reminding us that uniting with nationalist, capitalist-minded clerics eager to exploit workers for themselves is a recipe for defeat.

Lesson learned, perhaps. In order to defeat imperialism, we need a mass movement that consciously fights racism, sexism, imperialism, nationalism, and other bourgeois divisive strategies and keeps our eye on the ball – fighting for a world of equality, collectivity, and the creation of a worker planned economy that abolishes the wage system and produces goods and services to meet people’s needs, not profits.
As we build a mass movement against the war, let’s keep in mind that this pre-world War III period will end either in communism, or barbarism and the devastation of world war. Let’s get busy. We have a world to win.

Students slam Minga surveillance

Minga is a digital hall pass system that has just been started at my high school in Chicago. It forces you to type in your ID to get a pass and it starts a timer for five minutes and you have to return to log back in before the time runs out or it pings a security guard to go look for you. It limits the number of times you can use the bathroom during the day. It is sexist because there is not enough time or number of visits for girls on their period. It doesn’t solve any problems for teachers or the school. It just causes more problems for the kids and teachers. It uses money that Chicago Public Schools (CPS) doesn’t really have to get us used to the “clock in, clock out” mentality and the surveillance state. 

The money could be better spent on extracurriculars like sports or art. 

The students have done lots of organizing against Minga. There was a walkout on the first day that it went live. The first wave had 30 students, then the second wave had 15-20 students.  We’ve also started a petition against it and some of us have made anti-Minga merch and other anti-Minga art. Students have researched the company and made google docs that we all are sharing with each other, explaining the possible harm. We tried putting those concerns into a Q&A to the principal and school leadership and they shut us down and said our concerns weren’t valid or real. Teachers don’t like it either. It is a useless system that nobody asked for.  Hopefully this information will be helpful to any other teachers or students who see surveillance software like Minga being introduced in their school. We need to fight back against these sexist and repressive systems. 
*****

We used CHALLENGE to analyze the world

After more than two months without an in-person meeting due to inclement weather, our Study Group was finally able to gather again this Sunday, March 22. With the arrival of spring and its pleasant temperatures, we met at our usual location with 17 predominantly Spanish-speaking PL’ers and friends.

This was a particularly meaningful study group. We were joined by a Latin woman leader from the mutual aid club, who brought with her two new women workers — recently immigrated from Colombia — along with their children, all attending our study group for the first time.

We began with a warm welcome, introductions, and brief presentations. Our comrade, accompanied by our two new friends, then read aloud the excellent editorial from our newspaper CHALLENGE, which focused on the war against Iran. This was followed by a rich discussion in which we examined the root causes of the war and the motivations behind the attacks carried out by Israel and the United States.

Some comrades offered thoughtful and in-depth analyses, while others contributed perspectives that, though not fully aligned with our party’s line, were valuable nonetheless. Overall, everyone present came away with a clearer understanding that this war is part of the broader global crisis of capitalism and the decline of U.S. imperial power — increasingly challenged by China and, to a lesser extent, Russia — as these imperialist powers compete for control over resources and spheres of influence, particularly oil.

We discussed how Venezuela came first: with the effective kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro, the United States secured control over its oil. Not satisfied, the attack on Iran followed, using the same justifications initially deployed against Venezuela — that these governments were dictatorships oppressing their people and therefore had to be removed. In time, however, it became clear that the true motive was oil, and in the case of the Middle East, control over critical global trade routes as well.

The broader aim is to prevent rivals like Russia and China from gaining access to these vital resources and strategic corridors. We also discussed how the escalation of these conflicts could lead to a third world war, with unimaginable consequences — especially for the international working class.

Three comrades gave a clear voice to our shared conclusion: under capitalism, the working class will always suffer. No ruling class, on any side, will meet our growing needs. Under this brutal system, poverty, exploitation, hunger, misery, lack of healthcare, and mass death are not accidents — they are the norm. It is the children of the working class who are sent to serve as cannon fodder in endless wars.

Only under a communist society — with workers’ power and under the leadership of our PLP — will our class be able to meet its needs. To achieve this, we must make a revolution and seize power. That is why it is essential to build our party into a mass revolutionary organization and to transform the next inevitable world war into a struggle for communism.

At this moment, our newspaper CHALLENGE is a crucial tool for spreading our political line, alongside our work in community organizations, churches, schools, and workplaces. Through these efforts, we aim to grow our ranks by inviting more people into our Study Groups.

We also discussed May Day and the importance of bringing as many friends and community members as possible to join us on Saturday, May 2. As we do every year, we will march proudly with our red flags — full of energy, commitment, and solidarity — raising our revolutionary and communist slogans.

One important self-criticism and takeaway from this study group: our two new friends said very little throughout the meeting. When asked for feedback afterward, they shared that the editorial was informative but a lot to absorb, and that they would like the opportunity to read the paper and ease into the study groups gradually. They expressed genuine interest in learning more about communism and what we fight for, and they hope to attend future sessions to deepen their understanding of our line. This was a valuable reminder that as we grow, we must create space for workers who are joining us at every level of political development.
*****

Stomp out sexism!

Recently, it has been revealed that the late labor misleader, Cesar Chavez, was a serial rapist, having raped multiple women with at least two of them reporting that Chavez’s abuse of them started when they were teenage girls. Dolores Huerta, Chavez’s biggest ally, revealed that she too been raped by Chavez and had two children by him, admitting that she didn’t say anything because she didn’t want to discredit the United Farm Workers movement.

The revelations of Chavez’s transgressions reminded me of the plights that women in similar movements had to endure. The Black Panther Party, despite a large percentage of its members being women, were subjected to physical, emotional, and sexual abuse by prominent male members who felt resentful of having to take orders from female leaderships. Marlene Cummins, who was a leader in the Australian chapter of the Black Panther Party in the 70s, spoke of her experiences with physical and sexual violence in her 2014 documentary, Black Panther Woman. Cummins recalled that the victims couldn’t report due to lack of support in those days. Sexism is a big issue that can hinder potential revolutionary movements if not addressed and dealt with accordingly.

I think it’s important to acknowledge that while members of these movements achieved great things, they were also human, full of contradictions, and susceptible to the bad ideas of capitalism. I say all of this not to justify sexist behavior in these movements, but to point out how the ruling class loves to create a cult of personality surrounding these men. They are mythologized in the media, while their transgressions are whitewashed.

The accounts of these women and their experiences remind me of how important it is for the Progressive Labor Party to continue the practice of democratic centralism, which encourages collective accountability by disciplining anti-social behaviors, and promotes speaking up, being open to receiving and giving criticisms not in a harsh way, but in a reflective way that helps our movement grow, unlike bourgeois democracy, which protects sexist abusers like Cesar Chavez, Eldridge Cleaver, Jeffrey Epstein, and countless others.  It is not enough to be anti-sexist.

We must actively address and stomp out sexist behaviors.
*****

Racist organ transplant policy now ended, helping patients find kidneys

Boston Globe, 3/9–An unprecedented effort to reverse the effects of a racially biased medical test that blocked or delayed Black people from getting kidney transplants seems to be working. Researchers reported Monday that thousands of Black transplant candidates have been given credit on the transplant waiting list for time they lost because of that misguided test, moving up their priority in an attempt at restorative justice. That test used a race-based formula to calculate patients’ kidney function. It made Black patients’ kidneys appear healthier than they really were, delaying diagnosis of impending organ failure and referral for transplant. Among the more than 21,000 Black transplant candidates given waiting time modifications, the median gain was 1.7 years…

Gulf region depends on easily bombed desalination plants

New York Times, 3/14–Last week, Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, said an attack on a desalination plant on Qeshm Island, in the Persian Gulf, on March 7 had affected the water supply to 30 villages…Over the last few decades, the arid countries of the Persian Gulf have become increasingly reliant on desalination plants to supply water to cities and towns. Desalination plants have become crucial infrastructure in places like Qatar and Bahrain, both of which now rely on the technology for more than 50 percent of their fresh water.

“In wartime, the enemy always gets a vote”

The Atlantic, 3/13–Astonishingly, President Trump and his aides were caught unprepared when Iran, under air assault from the United States and Israel, retaliated by targeting shipping in the Persian Gulf region and specifically through the Strait of Hormuz. Military planners have pointed out for decades that the waterway—through which one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passes—is highly vulnerable to Iranian assault. But the Trump administration acknowledged in classified briefings…that it did not make provisions for a closure because officials assumed that such a move would hurt Iran more than the United States…U.S. leaders have drastically underestimated the Iranian regime’s ability to survive, adjust, and strike back. 

Airline prepares for huge surge in fuel price

Yahoo Finance, 3/21–One of the world’s largest airlines has begun taking fuel-saving measures as managers brace for the possibility that the price of oil could surge 60 per cent higher. United Airlines said it was scrapping flights on less-profitable routes following a doubling of jet fuel prices since February. Scott Kirby, the airline’s chief executive, said the moves were part of steps to prepare for a scenario in which oil hits $175 (£131) a barrel and remains above $100 through 2027. That would push up United’s annual fuel bill by about $11bn – more than twice the company’s best-ever profit, Mr Kirby warned.

U.S. quadruples missile and bomb production 

Breaking Defense, 3/6–Six top defense contractors have agreed to quadruple production of what President Donald Trump has termed “Exquisite Class Weaponry” following a meeting at the White House on munitions production… “They have agreed to quadruple Production of the ‘Exquisite Class’ Weaponry in that we want to reach, as rapidly as possible, the highest levels of quantity. Expansion began three months prior to the meeting, and Plants and Production of many of these Weapons are already under way,” he said.

Civilians in Lebanon crushed by Israeli bombs

Reuters, 3/20–Lebanon has suffered the deadliest spillover of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. Israeli warplanes have pounded Beirut, hitting apartments and downing entire buildings, in strikes that Israel says are targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah, which fired into Israeli territory in early March. As of Thursday, March 19, Lebanese authorities said Israeli strikes had killed at least 1,000 people and displaced another million across the country. Figures from conflict monitor ACLED show 666 people in Lebanon were killed between March 1 and 16, the most recent dates for which it has analyzed data. Eighty percent were killed in attacks in which civilians were the main targets or the only targets, according to the data.

The attack on Iran by the U.S. and Israel is one of the clearest signs yet of U.S. imperialist weakness masquerading as strength. As Iran chokes off oil and gas trade through the Strait of Hormuz, and State-Terrorist-in-Chief Donald Trump barrels along with no apparent strategy or end game, the scope of the conflict widens by the day. There is no predicting the outcome. Trump could panic at rising fuel prices, declare victory, and end his chaotic campaign; or both sides could dig in for a long and blood-soaked conflict; or some unforeseen escalation could push the bosses closer to world war. In a period of deepening capitalist crisis, volatility is the order of the day.

But some things are clear. One is that workers, as always, will pay the price for the rulers’ ruthless battle to control the Persian Gulf’s oil and gas, the lifeblood of capitalist economies and militaries. More than a thousand workers and children in Iran have already been killed, including 150 schoolgirls slaughtered by a U.S. Tomahawk missile (Guardian, 3/10). Airstrikes on oil depots in Tehran, a city of ten million people, set off huge sulfurous fires and toxic black rain that will seed future epidemics of heart and lung disease and cancer (New York Times, 3/10). In Beirut and southern Lebanon, Israeli bombs have massacred at least 570 and displaced 780,000 more (newarab.com, 3/11). Iran’s equally vicious rulers have countered with cluster bombs, munitions banned by 120 countries, but used repeatedly by Israel and the U.S. to target civilians (Times of India, 3/9). 

What’s also clear is that the bosses have no solution for the contradictions of capitalism, a system built on racist and sexist inequality, exploitation, and an insatiable drive for maximum profit. As competition sharpens between a declining U.S., a rising China, and an opportunistic Russia, current or impending proxy wars will spread misery from Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to India and Pakistan. None of these clashes are happenstance. As Vladimir Lenin wrote in 1915, the grow-or-die imperative of monopoly-stage capitalism forces imperialists into war over resources and markets. 

As long as the parasitic rulers and their profit system survive, a hellscape future is in store for our class.

But two years later, Lenin and the Bolsheviks also showed that imperialist war opens the door to communist revolution. The international revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party fights to smash this racist, sexist, imperialist system once and for all!

Chinese interests threatened

Iran is a nation of 90 million mostly impoverished workers whose corrupt and fascist rulers use religion to shore up their base of support (see back page). Despite losing several top leaders and absorbing the region’s most intensive bombing since the 2003 Iraq war, the Iranian bosses are leveraging their geopolitical advantage to disrupt much of the world’s commerce, travel, and energy supply lines. They’re also having some military success; they destroyed the U.S.-made missile defense radar system in Jordan, damaged the one in Qatar, and may have hit the radars in Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (twz.com, 3/7). They also killed six U.S. soldiers in a drone strike in Kuwait and have injured dozens and forced mass evacuations in Israel.

While China’s ruling class may not be wedded to the current regime in Iran, it’s committed to keeping its foothold in the region—and to keep cheap oil flowing for its industry and transport, not to mention its fighter jets. Around half of China’s oil imports come from the Persian Gulf, and 14 percent of its seaborne oil from Iran (moderndiplomacy.eu, 1/13). The Chinese imperialists cannot allow the U.S., their main rival, to disrupt this crucial traffic indefinitely, or to wreck Iranian ports that China needs to skirt U.S.-controlled maritime routes for its Belt and Road Initiative (specialeurasia.com, 3/1). Nor can China sit passively by as the U.S. blusters about Iran’s “unconditional surrender” and hints of a ground invasion. After the initial U.S. attack, two Iranian ships left a Chinese chemical-storage port known for loading sodium perchlorate, a rocket fuel precursor that Iran needs to rebuild its missile stockpiles (Washington Post, 3/7).

With the global oil market on tilt, Russia’s bosses are cashing in. The price of Russian oil shot up close to 50 percent, and the U.S. was forced to grant India a 30-day sanctions waiver to buy it. Russia is now sharing satellite intelligence with Iran to target U.S. aircraft and warships (Washington Post, 3/6). It’s not hard to imagine a scenario where even indirect military aid might precipitate a more pointed superpower confrontation.

U.S. imperialism backfires

Control of the Middle East, which sits on half the world’s oil reserves, has been a bedrock necessity of U.S. ruling class policy since the CIA coup to restore the Shah of Iran in 1953. But after the Iranian Revolution brought the ayatollahs to power in 1979, the U.S. bosses have squandered lives and treasure in one humiliating setback after the next: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya. Though Iran’s capitalist bosses were economically hamstrung by U.S. sanctions, they bolstered their regional influence with proxy militias and workers’ hard-earned hatred of U.S. imperialism. From the first Obama administration, U.S. power projection grew dependent on Israel’s genocidal Zionist regime. As the U.S. became isolated from its Western allies, Obama and later Biden knew the country wasn’t ready for all-out war with Iran, much less its backers in Moscow or Beijing—hence the 2015 nuclear deal.

The U.S. killing machine remains fearsome, as we’re seeing in Tehran today. But as Mao Zedong pointed out, the bosses are tactically strong but strategically weak. Enter Donald Trump, the diseased creature of a rotting and divided empire.

Trump reminds us that accidental factors can shape history alongside historically inevitable ones. We know that sooner or later, material conditions will compel the U.S. to move toward full-blown fascism and world war. While the U.S. bosses still aren’t ready for that war today, Trump’s ego and ignorance and twitchy trigger finger could jump the gun to deploy the deadliest force in human history. The dysregulation of Trump’s reign is spiraling the danger and decay he inherited in wildly new and unpredictable directions.

Fight for communist internationalism: MARCH ON MAY DAY!

If the erratic Trump is the bosses’ biggest variable, the ultimate wild card in the class war is the power of a united, conscious working class. The outbreak of global demonstrations to protest the U.S. and Israeli slaughter in Gaza showed proof that an internationalist heartbeat persists in masses around the world. As Progressive Labor Party has found in Minneapolis, the working class is open to revolutionary communist politics, even in the belly of U.S. imperialism. 

What the working class is won to fight for sets limits on what the ruling class can do. Our task is to push our limits and win the working class to communism. When workers worldwide defend the lives of children from Haiti to Iran as heroically as workers in Minneapolis defend their Black and immigrant neighbors, we will be on the road to communist revolution. It’s the only road that can turn us away from the bosses’ death march and transform imperialist war into a global class war for communism. Let’s make May 1 a massive day of disruption and general strikes, and join PLP on May 2 for marches and more. FIGHT BACK!