The killing of four U.S. troops in Niger brought to light the escalating role of the U.S. military in West Africa—and the sharpening rivalry between the U.S. and China throughout this strategically vital continent.
In his March 2017 testimony before Congress, the commander of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) spoke bluntly about inter-imperialist competition in the region:  
Just as the U.S. pursues strategic interests in Africa, international competitors, including China and Russia, are doing the same…whether with trade, natural resources exploitation, or weapons sales, …. These competitors weaken our African partners’ ability to govern…and they also undermine and diminish U.S. influence.…
U.S. imperialism is determined to exploit African resources and labor in the service of corporate profits and geopolitical power. Former president Barack Obama greased the path for corporate entrenchment with programs like Doing Business in Africa Campaign, Power Africa, and Trade Africa. In 2014, in another Obama initiative, the U.S.-Africa Business Forum (USABF), public and private deals totaling $62 billion were cemented. Between 2008 and 2015, direct U.S. investment in Africa jumped more than 70 percent, from $37 billion to $64 billion  (Whitehouse Archives, 9/21/16).
China, Imperialist Giant in Africa
But China, which has quietly laid its groundwork in Africa for decades, remains far in the lead. In 2009, it surpassed the U.S. as the continent’s largest trading partner. From 2000 to 2014, trade between China and Africa rose more than 20-fold, from $10 billion to $220 billion, while US-Africa trade faltered (see graph, page 5). In 2015, to increase Chinese influence, President Xi Jinping pledged $60 billion over three years for African infrastructure projects ranging from pipelines, and ports to railways and highways, from manufacturing plants to electric power generation (Financial Times, 6/13, Forbes, 3/14). To protect its expanding role, China is establishing a naval base in Djibouti, in East Africa, the first overseas base for the People’s Liberation Army Navy. In addition, China has deployed a total of 2,500 troops with United Nations peacekeeping missions in South Sudan, Liberia, and Mali. President Xi has pledged up to 8,000 such troops, along with $100 million to the African Union standby force and $1 billion to establish a UN Peace and Development Trust Fund. More than a million Chinese nationals are currently in Africa as workers, contractors, or businesspeople (CNN, 7/13).
To counteract growing Chinese clout in Africa and stake a claim to the continent’s vast resources for its own empire, the U.S. is countering militarily. AFRICOM was established by President George W. Bush in 2007 and greatly expanded under Obama. This year, some 6,000 U.S. troops will conduct 3,500 “operations” out of military bases and U.S. embassies across Africa—a 1,900 percent increase since 2007 (Newsweek, 10/23). At least 800 troops are stationed in Niger, where the U.S. is completing construction of a $100 million drone installation capable of launching advanced attack and surveillance drones, like the MQ9 Reaper and Predator (Newsweek, 9/30/16).
U.S. Build for War
At the same time, the U.S. continues to build up its main base of operation in Djibouti and set up “forward operating” bases throughout Africa, which it describes as “temporary facilities” (Mother Jones, 9/6/2013). The U.S. recently agreed to commit $60 million to a joint anti-terrorist (read: imperialist) force under U.N. auspices. The European Union has likewise pledged $58 million, with France playing a leading role in the Lake Chad region, where it has longstanding colonial interests. The U.N. already has a force of 14,000 personnel in neighboring Mali (New York Times, 10/30).
The official U.S. rationale for expanding its military presence in Africa is to defeat the same radical Islamic insurgencies that U.S. imperialism helped create by devastating Libya and assassinating Muammar Qaddafi (Independent, 9/15/16). In reality, this expansion is a thinly veiled pretext to secure the bosses’ foothold and safeguard U.S. corporate investments and resource transfers. The U.S. imperialists’ best bet is to put U.S. boots on the ground. From Vietnam to Afghanistan, efforts to train local proxy military forces to defend U.S. interests have failed dismally (Foreign Affairs, Nov-Dec 2017). Most recently, in the October 4 ambush in Niger, local troops fled the scene before French special forces arrived.
As the conflict among imperialists escalates in Africa, the Middle East, the South China Sea, and Latin America, a global armed conflict grows more likely. The next world war will require a much larger U.S. army than the current active duty roster of 483,000 soldiers. Restoration of the military draft appears inevitable.
For the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party, there can be only one response. We must build a mass, international, anti-racist movement to turn inter-imperialist war into revolutionary war for workers’ power and communism. As the rulers’ latest fight for spoils intensifies, we look to our brothers and sisters throughout Africa to help lead this battle!

*****

The Scramble for Africa in Historical Perspective

Imperialist exploitation of Africa is nothing new. Today’s national borders on the continent began with the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, establishing most of the continent’s borders today.  German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck used negotiations to avoid a European war over African territory. True to their racist colonial mindset, the European powers invited no Africans to these discussions.
As imperialists competed for dominance over the continent’s riches, Africans suffered the greatest losses. Leading up to World War I, Germany demanded a broader role in Africa at the expense of the British, French, and Belgian colonial powers. About 1 million people were killed in East Africa in the ensuing conflict. In World War II, over a million Africans were conscripted to fight for their colonial oppressors. After the war, the U.S. deepened its involvement in the continent. It plundered raw materials and tried to blunt the influence of the Soviet Union, which supported national liberation movements combatting colonialism.
These liberation struggles, influenced and often led by communists, seemed to hold great promise. Bold revolutionary actions were taken in Ghana (Kwame Nkrumah), Tanzania (Julius Nyerere), Guinea (Sekou Toure), Mali (Modibo Keita), Angola (Agostinho Neto), and Mozambique (Samora Machel). Because these movements allied with local capitalists, they reverted back to neocolonialism and capitalism. But their brave, anti-colonlialist struggle remains inspirational.
As the imperialist powers continue to exploit workers and resources in Africa as they challenge one another for world hegemony, PLP seeks to build communist revolution and smash capitalist exploitation for all time.

Churchill wryly told his World War II ally Stalin, after the Red Army had stopped Hitler’s invading army in its tracks: “I’m lucky I didn’t kill you back in 1919.”
In 1919 Churchill had been in charge of invading forces from 14 capitalist countries attempting to overthrow the new Soviet government and to put in power the generals of the counter-revolutionary “White” Russian army fighting a civil war against the “Red” Soviets. From 1918 to 1922, troops from the U.S., Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Serbia, Poland, Rumania, Turkey, Czechoslovakia, Greece, and China intervened on the side of the “Whites” in the civil war which killed over seven million Soviet workers and peasants. Michael Sayers and Albert Kahn wrote the book The Great Conspiracy (1946), our main source here, about this now little-known invasion of the young Soviet Union. It shows the lengths world capitalism will go to to prevent the loss of its profit system. Revolution, and counter-revolution, are not a tea party! But in this epic test of its strength, the first workers’ state triumphed.
The First Plot Is Hatched—and Defeated
The WWI Allies (Britain, France, Italy, and the U.S.) feared in 1917, as the German army was pressing the Russian army to near collapse, that Germany would gain control of the vast natural resources of Russia (oil, coal, wheat, and timber, much of it owned by Allied capitalists), and be free to concentrate their forces against the Allies on the Western front.
Rebellious Russian troops were deserting in the tens of thousands, having fought for three years against superior forces and suffered more casualties than all the Allies combined, and many were joining the revolutionary committees known as Soviets. As one soldier said:
Show me what I am fighting for. Is it Constantinople or is it free Russia? Is it democracy or is it the capitalist plunderers? If you can prove to me that I am defending the Revolution, then I’ll go out and fight without capital punishment to force me. When the land belongs to the peasants, and the factories to the workers, and the power to the Soviets, then we’ll know we have something to fight for, and we’ll fight for it.
A U.S. spy on a mission to keep Russia in the war, Raymond Robins, reported from a Russian village that when he asked to see the local government official, he was told to see the chairman of the Soviet, the workers’, soldiers’, and peasants’ deputies. “But that’s some sort of revolutionary organization!” Robins protested. “I want the regular civil power.” “Oh that!” the peasants laughed. “That doesn’t amount to anything. You had better see the chairman of the Soviet.”
Robins’ reports from the field favored reaching terms with the coming power in Russia, the Bolsheviks, but the decision of the Western capitalists went the other way. Sir Samuel Hoare, chief British spy, said a military dictatorship in Russia (replacing the first post-Tsar elected government of Kerensky) was the solution. The Allies planned this putsch before the Soviets’ revolution, hoping to install the Russian army head Lavr Kornilov as dictator on September 6.  Kornilov on September 8 called for the overthrow of the Kerensky provisional government and marched on Petrograd with 20,000 troops, accompanied by French and British officers in Russian uniforms. But the Petrograd Soviet mobilized armed workers (Red Guards), soldiers, and sailors, who defeated the plotters’ forces in four days. A Soldiers’ Committee secretly formed by the Bolsheviks within his own army arrested Kornilov. The first plot actually strengthened the Soviets.
The World-Shaking Bolshevik Revolution
Still underground, Lenin called for “All Power to the Soviets! Down with the Provisional Government!”  On November 7 the Bolsheviks took power in Petrograd:
To the Citizens of Russia!
The Provisional Government is deposed. The State Power has passed into the hands of the organ of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies…
The cause for which the people were fighting: immediate proposal of a democratic peace, abolition of landlord property rights over the land, labor control of production, creation of a Soviet Government—that cause is securely achieved.
That night the All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies met in the Smolny Institute, the mud of the trenches still on the soldiers’ clothing, and a short, stocky man in a baggy, unpressed suit declared: “We shall now proceed to construct the Socialist order.” It was Lenin, who headed the first Soviet government formed that night.
As he later told Robins,
We are going to challenge the world with a producers’ republic. We are not putting in the Soviet anybody who simply owns stock, and simply has ownership. We are are putting in the producers. The Donets coal basin will be represented by the producers of coal; the railroad by producers of transportation; the postal system by producers of that system of communication, and so on.
The working class had taken state power. But the counter-revolution was about to begin.
Secret Diplomacy
The invasion to crush the Soviet workers’ state was set in motion by secret diplomatic moves among the Allies. Though Robins still, after meeting with Lenin, recommended relations with the Soviets, the U.S. was plotting to overthrow them.
On December 2, 1917, Ambassador Francis sent Washington his first confidential report on the activities of General Alexei Kaledin, Ataman of the Don Cossacks. Francis described the General as “Kaledin, commander-in-chief of the Cossacks, numbering 200,000.” General Kaledin had organized a “White” counterrevolutionary army among the Cossacks in southern Russia, proclaimed “the independence of the Don,” and was preparing to march on Moscow to overthrow the Soviet Government. Secret groups of Czarist officers in Petrograd and Moscow were acting as anti-Soviet spies for Kaledin and were maintaining contact with Ambassador Francis.
The U.S. recommended a secret loan to Kaledin via the British or French, then publicly denied it, but on December 23, 1917, the British and French met in Paris and secretly concluded an agreement to dismember Soviet Russia. England was to receive a “zone of influence” in Russia, giving her the oil of the Caucasus and control of the Baltic provinces; France a “zone” giving her the iron and coal of the Donets Basin and control of the Crimea. This secret Anglo-French treaty shaped these two nations’ policy towards Russia.
It took until 1922 for the eventual triumph of the Soviet people over the Whites and the Allied troops.

OAKLAND, CA—Twice, Oakland workers and their children invaded the wealthy enclave of Piedmont to confront racist slumlord Steven Kalmbach at his $4 million mansion. This battle is centered in East Oakland, a predominately Black, immigrant and working-class area.
For weeks, up to a dozen Oakland families and friends fought back against Kalmbach who doubled rent, from $1200 to $2400/month. According to a notice, the tenants must pay the new rent or move. This is basically an eviction notice.
Capitalist investors salivate over “opportunities” to profit from the “housing stock” there. Police terrorizing of Black and Latin youth, and Immigrant Customs Enforcement activity work hand in glove with these investors. Progressive Labor Party is uniting with local antiracist fighters and building a base for communist politics.
Bosses Profit Off of Housing Crisis
Starting with the foreclosures in 2008, the racist removal of many families is now in full gear. Kalmbach is the Northern California Director of Pulte Homes; a parasitic investment company specializing in buying “distressed property” as foreclosures at fire-sale prices during the housing crisis of 2007-2009. Even at $1200/month, Kalmbach is making a profit on his investment especially since he does almost nothing to maintain the property.
But modest profit is not enough for these blood-sucking capitalists, as they seek to maximum profits off the “hot” Bay Are housing market. He had the audacity to say he needed the money to send his son to college and  make a return on his investments, and might “negotiate” smaller rent increases for individual families but eventually, he would raise the rents to “market rate.”
Workers’ Solidarity Leads the Way
The workers responded with collective actions and are involved in a local non-profit to plan the fightback. This organization’s direct actions recently succeeded in preventing foreclosures, evictions and rent increases for several working class families. Tactics varied from direct action picketing, to email/calling blasts, and coverage in local liberal media. There are Oakland and Statewide movements to pass laws for reforms in housing and rent control. Their demands include:

• Providing relocation funds to tenants facing rent increases over 10 percent.
• Prevent discrimination due to a tenant’s immigration status.
• Make single-family homes covered by rent control.
• Find socially conscious investors to set up a Land Trust to buy property and rent it as affordable housing or provide a path to home ownership.
• Secure funding for housing for the homeless.

The bosses are attacking the livelihood of mainly immigrant workers and families. Many tenants have school-age kids, and work as housekeepers, bussers, landscapers and in other low-paying jobs. The battle for decent housing is related to the battle for better wages and benefits.
Their homes are mainly small two bedroom bungalows. Some families have been living there for ten years. Even at $1200/month these low-paid workers struggle to make ends meet. Therefore, the proposed rent increases are essentially an eviction notice and an invitation to join the ever-increasing number of displaced and homeless in the Bay Area. Twenty-five percent of Oakland’s homeless have jobs. Of course, this is all legal and approved by the capitalist government: “Single-family homes aren’t covered by rent control because they are exempt under Costa-Hawkins, a state law passed in 1995 that limits local rent control efforts” (East Bay Times, 9/29). As the fight continues, it is important to show whose interests the government protects.

No Safety Under Capitalism
At a debrief, organizers and lawyers encouraged people to get involved in legislative campaigns. A PLP member active in this fightback said it was “outrageous that one man in a $4 million mansion could dictate the lives of dozens of working-class family members, giving them the choices of poverty or homelessness. As long as homes could be owned for private profit that we will never have justice, equality, or a secure place to live.”
Kalmbach sees “housing stock” as “an investment opportunity”.  PLP sees that these houses are full of living; breathing families who need decent shelter and have the capacity to organize and fight back. We will continue to fight and learn to more confidently promote a communist future for the working class.

NEW YORK CITY—Twenty-five PLP members and friends in the community from eight different countries  held a forum connecting Yemen, Venezuela and the rebellion in Charlottesville. For the first time, seven immigrants from Yemen participated. Together we read a leaflet about the theme. The discussion took place in English, Spanish, and Arabic.
We made the connections between these three places in different parts of the world. Forums like these are the basis of international working-class unity.
Yemen
Yemen has been destroyed by non-stop bombing by Saudi Arabia, backed up by U.S. bombing drones and billions of U.S. dollars in armaments to Saudi Arabia. Yemen has untapped oil and natural gas reserves, is located on an important oil shipping waterway and is directly across from Djubouti, where the U.S. has a new military base overlooking oil riches and oil routes from West Africa to the Middle East and beyond. As our Yemeni friends said, “It’s about power and oil.”
This genocidal war by the Saudis, backed by the U.S., against the Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, has killed more than 10,000 civilians and wounded over 40,000. By UN estimates seven million Yemenis out of a population of 25 million are facing starvation. According to the World Health Organization there are 777,229 cases of cholera, soon to surpass Haiti which reached 815,000 cases seven years after the outbreak there. It has taken only six months to reach those numbers in Yemen. More than half of the cholera victims in Yemen are below 18 years of age and 26 percent of those are under 5. The utter destruction of infrastructure and sewer systems has led to a near total absence of pure drinking water. In addition there is a near total blockade on the entry of any kind of aid. The Yemeni refugee crisis equals Syria’s resulting in many deaths; Yemeni refugees are among those targeted by the U.S. government’s anti-Muslim travel ban. We are learning more every day from our Yemeni friends.
Venezuela
    Like Yemen in Venuezuela it’s all about imperialist competition for control of oil. We talked about the growing tension between the U.S. and Venezuela, focusing on the rivalry between U.S. and Chinese imperialists over control of oil reserves. In Venuezuela the working class is facing shortages of food, medicine and basic services. The children and infant mortality rate has risen drastically. All this is due to the fall of oil prices, in great part designed by the U.S. and its Saudi partners. Furthermore the U.S. government has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund opposition groups to Maduro, leading to hundreds of deaths.
Charlottesville
    On August 11 and 12 300 Nazi terrorist and white supremacists invaded the small university town of Charlottesville to «defend» the Confederate statue of Robert E. Lee. Given the green light by the election of arch racist, fascist Donald Trump, they marched with no police interference attacking protesters, who fought back valiently, killing one and wounding 19.
    Everyone at the forum agreed that the deadly situation is Yemen and Venezuela are the consequence of inter-imperialist rivalry for power and control of oil that puts us closer to world war 3. In the U.S. the intensification of racism and nationalism is what the ruling class pushes to divide and win the working class to support racist terror and poverty as they force young people to be cannon fodder in wider wars.
Only the unity of the international working class and the building of a mass revolutionary communist PLP can make us stronger to confront the horrors of imperialist war and enable us to convert those wars into revolution for communism and workers power. We concluded our event with distribution of CHALLENGE and vowed to continue the fight for the working class of Yemen. All enjoyed a delicious lunch with food from Ecuador and Yemen. Power to the international working class!