Murderous World War I, known as the Great War then, ended one hundred years ago on November 11, 1918. It might be impossible to overestimate the impact of this war upon world history. It was by far the bloodiest war in history until that time. The slaughter horrified even those many patriots who had anticipated it and had celebrated when it began.
The Great War was pure imperialist—that is, capitalist—slaughter for empire and territory. There were no reasons behind it that could be called recmotely morally redeeming.
It wasn’t for “freedom”, whatever that means, or for “national self-determination”, or for an end to colonialism, or against racism or brutality. All these notions mask the fact that, in essence, World War II was also imperialist.
 No such ideological excuses can hide the fact that the Great War was over the division of the earth, a war FOR, not against, subordination, colonialism, empire.
It was a war among “democracies” — in that Germany was no less “democratic” than the United Kingdom (both were parliamentary monarchies) or, the monarch aside, than the United States.
The Great War led millions of people worldwide to seriously question or even reject “patriotism” as a cover-up for capitalist and imperialist rule.
This massive revulsion against imperialist slaughter and the misery it brought to the vast majority of the peoples of the world led to social and political progress. The Russian Revolution and the International Communist Movement; the militancy of organized labor; the certainty that a better world than capitalism, imperialism, and the devastation they produce must be possible.
The Great War was an event with mighty lessons for all of us today. No wonder it is neglected, Although largely forgotten those lessons were dynamite in 1918, and still are today.

*****

Letter

Today I commemorate my great-uncle, George Devine, a veteran and a victim of the Great War. He went off to war in 1917, at the age of 21.  In 1918 he returned “shell-shocked”—the name at that time for what is today called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He had been driven insane—literally—by the stress and shock of trench warfare. He never recovered.
For his family, this was worse than if he had been killed—to witness his unending suffering, year after year. My late mother remembered him living with her and her parents for brief periods in the 1920s. But then he had to return to the Veterans Administration hospital for the brain injured at Perry Point, MD, where he lived for the rest of his life.
 He died there on January 31, 1941. Poor young man! His whole bright future at the age of 21 ruined, and it was not to defend his country, or any noble ideal at all. To save J.P. Morgan & Sons, and other American banks, whose huge loans to the United Kingdom would have been lost if Germany had won the war. To put the capitalists of the United States ahead of the capitalists of Europe.My grandmother, his only sibling, could never speak of her younger brother George without weeping. Not wishing to cause her distress, we never asked her about him. And now it is far, far too late; Grandmother died in 1994, at the age of 99.
I think of him today, on the 100th anniversary of the end of the war that ruined his life.Yet he was but one of millions of young men, and tens of millions of men, women, and children the world around, whose lives were blasted by that terrible, imperialist war.
For me, great-uncle George stands in for all of them—all the people killed by wars for exploitation, for the enrichment of the few at huge cost to the many.And I prefer to believe this: As long as I—we—learn the lessons of the Great War, and struggle for a world of justice, free of exploitation, free of capitalism, free of inequality— then my great-uncle George, and the myriad of those like him throughout the history of the awful 20th century, did not die entirely in vain.

NEW YORK, October 19—Cheers from working-class fighters filled Chinatown’s Jing Fong restaurant in celebration today, as the 83-85 Bowery tenants (see Challenge 3/21) marked a historic victory against their racist slumlord Joseph Betesh. After a long struggle, the majority Asian tenants returned to their apartments in August. Betesh had colluded with corrupt NYC agencies like the Department of Buildings to have more than 75 tenants evicted in January after he reported building violations—ones he had done nothing to fix for years! The tenants were sent to shelters and single room occupancy hotels throughout the city. In the months before this victory, Progressive Labor Party (PLP) joined the displaced tenants of 85 Bowery, along with Black, Latin, and white workers who formed part of the Coalition to Protect Chinatown and Lower East Side, and other citywide anti-displacement groupings to swing our collective fist to beat Betesh and guarantee their return home.
Under capitalism, housing is a commodity that many working people have trouble affording, but which is the source of great fortune for developers and landlords. The lack of affordable housing is a serious crisis in NYC and other cities, with developers mostly building luxury housing and landlords trying to squeeze as much rent as possible out of tenants, while providing few services. In NYC alone, one million rent stabilized units have been lost since 2005 (wall treet journal 9/25).
Many hundreds of thousands in NYC are homeless, or doubled up with other families, or living in cramped and decrepit quarters. This in a city with the world’s highest number of billionaires!
Tenants unite against Betesh
When slumlord Betesh purchased 83-85 Bowery – along with eleven other buildings – in 2013, he began a relentless effort to force out long-time tenants and convert the buildings into luxury condos. Betesh used every dirty tactic he could to remove the tenants. It began when one worker received an illegal eviction notice. Immediately, occupants  banded together to form the 83-85 Bowery tenants’ association, dedicated to collectively resisting Bettesh’s many efforts, to evict or buy them out. Rather than falling into the trap of blaming gentrification on white workers, or viewing it as an individual workers failure, the tenants saw that these problems stemmed from the city’s rezoning plans favoring luxury development.
Throughout this fight, tenants united with the community to fight in favor of the Chinatown Working Group Plan. This is a plan developed by workers and organizations on the Lower East Side that would grant tenants legal protections and control over the city planning process. It would limit building heights, put a cap on rents, and ensure that any housing built be affordable. The tenants’ victory and their sponsorship of the plan has now galvanized dozens of neighborhood groups in the cross hairs of the city’s displacement agenda to take action.
Communism will solve the housing problem
One of the tasks that communism must devote itself to is guaranteeing that everyone has high-quality housing, integrated with nearby high-quality schools, recreational and health facilites, libraries and art spaces, and daycare and community centers. Housing will not be privately-owned, it will not be racially segregated, and it will be democratically run by councils of tenants. In the meantime, under capitalism we fight against the landlords and the city agencies that support them.
Lessons from Workers of 85 Bowery
The importance of the 83-85 Bowery victory did not lie in legal proceedings, or even the hunger strikes the tenants bravely waged. It came from elevating their battle from being against one slumlord to a much larger war against the city’s racist housing plan that is displacing workers. While housing battles historically have been reformist in nature, not challenging private ownership,  PLP workers engage in these struggle because of their potential to elevate the anti-displacement battle from a working-class reform to communist revolution.
The tenants victory did not come easily. Betesh and the city’s pro-capitalist apparatuses spared no expense to try stopping the tenants’ return efforts. In a cruel effort to break their spirit their slumlord threw their belongings in dumpsters. During a City Hall hunger strike, the Klan in Blue tried intimidating workers protesting by keeping an uncomfortably close watch, and asking us to keep our signs off their bosses’ property. Mayor De Blasio’s office removed port-o-potties, even after we received permits for them days earlier.
When the bosses discovered our plan to organize this hunger strike they mailed each tenant appointments to meet with HPD (Housing of Preservation and Development) workers for public housing in the Bronx the same day it launched! However, the tenants and their supporters continued to push back with more demonstrations and endless grit. They were able to win no rent increases, rent stabilization for both buildings, and monetary compensation.  
No reform struggle, no matter how impressive, will solve the housing crisis for working people. Yet, we must continue fighting the intolerable living conditions and the threat of displacement. The success of the 85 Bowery struggle came from its ability to unify our class around rezoning as a worker led process. Struggles such as this not only have the potential to build workers’ power, but will also build the confidence our class needs to win the more decisive battle to smash this system, and its racist borders be it locally or internationally, for a worker run communist society where decent housing will be provided for all.

HONOLULU, October 11—“This is real education!” a professor shouted as a strike-support rally at the University of Hawaii (UH) drew to an end. It truly was. The rally also inspired because it represented the potential for mass worker-student solidarity and an island-wide working-class movement against the evils of capitalism.
About 2,700 workers had been on strike against Marriott, the world’s largest hotel chain, for three days. Organizers from Unite Here Local 5 got together with faculty and student leaders to hold a strike-support rally in front of university’s School of Travel Industry Management.
Everyone cheered when it was announced that a United Airlines’ flight crew had checked out of Marriott’s Sheraton Princess Kaiulani hotel, and that the International Association of Flight Attendants was supporting the strike. The Sheet Metal Workers and the United Public Workers unions in Hawaii have also taken actions to support the strike.The slogan for the strike is “One job should be enough.” This expresses the feeling that mass poverty among U.S. workers can no longer be tolerated and awareness that only worker rebellion can bring change. Workers shouldn’t need two jobs to survive, but the grim reality is that they do. A Local 5 hotel housekeeper gets $22 per hour. The National Low Income Housing Coalition estimates that it takes more than $35 per hour to afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment.
Everyone at the rally voiced enthusiasm for building unity between workers off campus and UH students, teaching assistants, professors and workers. The rally was also the first of its kind at UH. No one could remember a campus rally led by rank-and-file workers.
The following morning, a march of about 200 workers and supporters in Waikiki picketed  in front of Marriott hotels,and ended with a demonstration on the beach next to the giant Moana Surfrider luxury hotel. The speeches and chants were an inspiring show of worker determination to fight for as long as it takes to win the strike.

What is winning?
This raises the question, what does winning mean? The Marriott workers may gain a meaningful wage hike and greater job security. But, as many of the speakers at the strike rallies have been saying, workers throughout the state have been under attack from the bosses for a long time and the working class has suffered defeats as social and environmental problems worsen.
The Marriott struggle must be seen as one part of an ongoing worker’s struggle. For example, on the same day local workers joined the nationwide hotel strike, local postal workers joined a series of nationwide protests against Trump’s latest attack on the working class, a proposal that the postal service be completely privatized. The capitalists are determined to intensify super-exploitation of workers. This means more racist, sexist and anti-immigrant attacks aimed at dividing the working class.
Strikers called for a “fair share” of the massive profits capitalists gain from tourism. Working people should not have to share anything with capitalists. We have to build a communist movement uniting all working people to eliminate capitalism once and for all. Participating in such strikes helps us learn to fight back.
The rallies this week were well organized and spirited, but they weren’t big enough. Mass leafleting in advance might have increased participation. The message that the Marriott workers’ struggle is everyone’s struggle and part of an ongoing anti-capitalist struggle must be brought out forcefully to thousands.

In late September, Meng Hongwei, a Chinese security chief and the president of Interpol, the international police organization, flew to China from his home in France—and disappeared. On October 7, Interpol announced he had resigned his position after a “watchdog” for China’s arch-capitalist “Communist” Party reported online that Meng was “’suspected of violating the law and is currently under the monitoring and investigation’ of China’s new anti-corruption body, the National Supervision Commission” (foxnews.com, 10/7).
As imperialist powers China, the U.S., and Russia prepare for World War III, they need more intense fascism, both to control and attack the working class and to discipline their own ruling classes. With its one-party system and significantly state-owned economy, unconstrained by the charade of electoral “democracy” or presidential term limits, the Chinese rulers have a head start on the rising fascist U.S. bosses—a potential advantage in the global conflict to come.  President Xi Jinping is imposing unity from above in a public crusade against corruption, acts of Small Terrorism (versus the Big Terrorism of the state), and political disagreement. Meng’s arrest sent out a flare that even the Chinese Gestapo is not safe:
The appeal by Meng’s wife for justice and fairness echoed pleas from the families of scores of people who have fallen out favor from the Chinese Communist Party under President Xi Jinping’s rule. Some of them might have been pursued by Chinese authorities under Meng’s watch as vice minister for public security.
Such targets, who have been subject to arbitrary detention and made unexplained disappearances, include pro-democracy activists, human rights lawyers, officials accused of graft or political disloyalty and the estimated one million ethnic minority [Uighur] Muslims…. [see CHALLENGE, 9/26].
Xi, China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, has overseen a harsh crackdown on civil society that is aimed at squelching dissent and activism among lawyers and rights advocates.He has also used a popular and wide-ranging anti-corruption campaign to boost supervision of the party and as a powerful weapon with which to purge his political opponents (foxnews.com, 10/7).
Four days before the news broke on Meng’s fall from grace, world-famous actress Fan Bingbing, the highest-paid celebrity in China, was fined $129 million for tax evasion “and other offences” (bbc.com, 10/3). Xi was sending another message: The rich are expected to contribute their share to China’s war plans and ambitious national projects for global dominance, namely the one Belt and Road infrastructure initiative and Made in China 2025, a bid for supremacy in robotics, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and cybersecurity, among other tech sectors. Though U.S. President Donald Trump is imposing tariffs on more than $250 billion in Chinese imports, China has shown no signs of backing down from the escalating trade war or its ambition to be the world’s number-one economy. As Chinese Commerce Minister Zhong Shan noted, “The U.S. should not underestimate China’s resolve and will” (Bloomberg News, 10/9).
China’s rising militarism
One aspect of rising fascism is the funneling of massive resources into military forces and equipment, a prelude to inter-imperialist warfare. In April, China deployed its first ever “Made in China” aircraft carrier. In the last decade alone, it has built more than 100 warships and submarines (Asia Times, 9/10/18).
In taking on the U.S., China’s bosses may choose not to go it alone. Last month, China staged its largest joint military exercise with Russia, which “has the largest [nuclear] arsenal of any country and is investing heavily in the modernization of its [7,000] warheads and delivery systems” (icanw.org]. The exercise coincided with the Eastern Economic Forum attended by Russia, China, and Japan (Economist, 9/6).  
Fasicsm strikes the Internet
According to the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs, the U.S. main-wing bosses’ authoritative publication, “the United States has ceded leadership in cyberspace to China.” While reaping “the economic, diplomatic, national security, and intelligence benefits that once flowed to Washington,” China’s rulers are also molding an Internet “that guides public opinion, supports good governance, and fosters economic growth but also is tightly controlled so as to stymie political mobilization and prevent the flow of information that could undermine the regime.”
One hallmark of fascism is ideological control over information—or disinformation—to serve the nationalist, racist agenda of capitalist bosses in crisis. At the same time, the Internet provides unprecedented power and reach for surveillance of workers and any capitalists who aren’t with the program. As Foreign Affairs notes:
Over the last five years, Beijing has significantly tightened controls on websites and social media. In March 2017, for example, the government told Tencent, the second largest of China’s digital giants, and other Chinese technology companies to shut down websites they hosted that included discussions on history, international affairs, and the military….Officials ordered telecommunications companies to block virtual private networks (VPNs), which are widely used by Chinese businesses, entrepreneurs, and academics to circumvent government censors….Beijing also announced new regulations further limiting online anonymity….
In an even more Orwellian move, authorities have rolled out a sophisticated surveillance system based on a vast array of cameras and sensors, aided by facial and voice recognition software and artificial intelligence. The tool has been deployed most extensively in Xinjiang Province, in an effort to track the Muslim Uighur population there, but the government is working to scale it up nationwide.
Workers in China fight back
Despite the fascist onslaught from the Chinese state, which has fought to bury real communism since the defeat of the Cultural Revolution in the 1970s, workers are not taking their oppression lying down. In response to a broken system that reserves decent health care for the wealthy, desperate patients and their families are rebelling at hospitals and clinics. Attacks on doctors “are so common that they have a name: ‘yi nao,’ or ‘medical disturbance’” (New York Times, 9/30).
As living and job conditions in China worsen for hundreds of millions of workers, a new surge of student activism is beginning to challenge the fake-left Chinese ruling class. These struggles are bringing together generations of Marxists, showing the potential for an organized communist movement in China.  In Huizhou, a group of recent university students converged from across the country and “attempted to put the party’s stated ideals into action” (NYT, 9/28) by organizing mistreated factory workers.
Carrying portraits of Mao and singing socialist anthems, they espoused the very ideals that the government fed them for years in mandatory ideological classes, voicing grievances about issues like poverty, worker rights and gender equality — some of communism’s core concerns (NYT, 9/28).
As more than 50 activists were arrested for the heresy of putting these ideas into practice, they began singing “The International.” Even in the hostile soil of today’s China, communist ideas will not die. The Progressive Labor Party looks to build our revolutionary organization worldwide. and especially in the face of rising fascism.  Join us!