On the one hand 2017 was another year of rising imperialist rivalry between the Chinese, U.S., and Russian capitalist bosses, leading to more and more devastating attacks on the world’s workers. It was also the year Donald Trump was inaugurated and carried on many Barack Obama policies, while adding his more openly vicious brand of racism, nationalism, sexism and warmongering.
As the imperialist powers prepare for more wars and eventually world war, the rulers are trying to get their houses in order. While Presidents Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia lead somewhat disciplined ruling classes, Trump presides over a U.S. ruling class in disarray. Moreover, Trump’s chaotic “America First” foreign policy has alienated many of the U.S.’s allies.
At the same time, the world’s workers are fighting the attacks of capitalism, but they need communist leadership more than ever. The fightbacks are often based on nationalism, religion or identity politics.
It is the job of the communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) to build working-class unity. PLP has participated in many of these struggles and we have been able to raise revolutionary communist ideas, helping to unite the working class and bring us a little closer to a society run by the working class of the world.
Masses Rebel vs. Rising Fascism
The year started with a bang of mass protests following the inauguration of racist Trump. PLP members and friends energized those around them in a passive crowd of 60,000 at the National Women’s March in Oakland, with militant anti-capitalist chants and speeches. Just hours after the inauguration, 175,000 people gathered in Boston to stand against Trump’s racism and sexism. The following weekend, thousands across the U.S. poured into the streets and airports to protest Trump’s racist travel ban against Muslims. One of many moving moments came when a multi-generational Latin family enthusiastically joined the internationalist chant, “Working people have no nation, smash racist deportation.”
Clap Back vs. Racism on Campus
In addition to the mass organizing against racist segregation and redbaiting in the Brooklyn high school Park Slope Collegiate, the working class shut down fascist, racist speakers throughout the year.  

• At the University of California at Davis several hundred students and workers shut down fascist Milo Yiannopoulos of Breitbart News.
• The fascist, anti-Muslim hate group Act for America was confronted in 25 cities and towns across the U.S. PL’ers joined hundreds of anti-racists in the Bay Area to shut down Nazi demonstrations two days in a row.
• Yiannopoulos was again shut down at the University of California at Berkeley.
• Students at Bethune-Cookman University, a Historically Black College and University, turned their backs and booed their graduation speaker, Trump’s Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.
• Over 300 Columbia University students militantly protested against Tommy Robinson who violently opposes all immigrants and calls them criminals.
• At Stanford another 300 protested anti-Muslim racist Robert Spencer.
• And racist and sexist eugenicist Charles Murray was shut down by an integrated group of students at Middlebury College. The list goes on.

Building International Workers’ Movement
Meanwhile in Mexico, 2017 started with occupations, demonstrations, marches, and road blockades throughout the entire country. This was the working class response to the government’s 20 percent price increase on gas and diesel fuel. PLP has been involved in the reform fightback while organizing for communist revolution.
In Colombia, PLP is organizing with construction workers who went on strike demanding back pay that was stolen from them. During the summer, 350,000 public school teachers went on a 37-day strike demanding better health care, higher pay and more school funding. Many teachers discussed revolutionary ideas and helped distribute PLP literature.
At airports in Chicago and Indiana militant protests tried to stop the deportations of our immigrant brothers and sisters. In Chicago, protesters almost got onto the tarmac to stop the planes, but were misguided by liberal misleaders. In Indiana they were confronted by fascist cops in military gear. In both places PL’ers raised revolutionary communist ideas in the heat of these battles.
The summer also saw thousands of multiracial anti-racists confronting and attacking hundreds of Nazis, KKK, and white supremacists in Charlottesville, VA. PL’ers were there to confront these racist scum and call for revolution.
The call for communist revolution also went out in Haiti as several thousand workers and students demonstrated for three straight days for an increase in the minimum wage. Later in the year there were more demonstrations and a call for a general strike as up to 10,000 angrily took to the streets against the government’s anti-working class budget. The Party in Haiti pledged to fight to build “a new society, communism, based on equality, where workers rule in our own interest.”
All these fightbacks and the Party’s struggle to make revolution primary are important. But the imperialists’ drive toward world war is relentless and the devastation on the world’s working class is beyond horrendous. These imperialist butchers only expose these atrocities when they can attack their competitors.
he U.S. bosses say little about Yemen that would reveal that their Saudi ally is bombing Yemen into oblivion. They want Saudi oil. But they criticize the Venezuela bosses who are allying with China and Russia. China doesn’t criticize the North Korean butchers because they are “allies.” Russia loves butcher Assad because Syria houses Russian military bases and the U.S. attacks him for the very same reason. Neither set of bosses gives a damn about the working class in Syria.
Year of Capitalist Disasters
With hurricanes, earthquakes and other disasters, the bosses have a similar spin. But instead of blaming another imperialist rival, they blame nature. Whether it is famines and droughts in Africa, massive flooding in South Asia, earthquakes in Mexico, or hurricanes in the Caribbean and U.S., it is never the fault of their capitalist, profiteering system. They ignore the fact that the capitalists survive these ‘natural disasters’ quite easily, while workers suffer greatly.
And now added to this worldwide, capitalist disaster, we have Trump. The capitalist propaganda says that world war with nuclear weapons is unthinkable. They tell us they can control themselves, compete gracefully, and divide the world among themselves peacefully. That was always bull, and with Trump, the world is more volatile than ever.
Another Year of Workers’ Unity
Our job as communists is more vital than ever. Let’s rise to the task and build our revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party so we can lead the world’s working class to turn the bosses’ imperialist war into a war for workers power—communism!

When Democrat Doug Jones upset accused child molester and open white supremacist Roy Moore in the December 12 special U.S. Senate election in Alabama, the vote exposed deepening divisions within the U.S. capitalist ruling class. It also pointed to the challenges facing the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party.
News of the race monopolized the bosses’ media for days. The rulers’ dominant finance capital wing, representing the interests of ExxonMobil and JPMorgan Chase, went all out to stop Roy Moore. The Democrats poured in more than $4 million to the Jones campaign through a “mysterious super PAC” called Highway 31, “a joint project of two of the largest national super PACs—Senate Majority PAC and Priorities USA Action” (Politico, 12/11). The party brought in its biggest guns—Barack Obama and Joe Biden—to campaign for Jones. Meanwhile, top Republican leaders publicly slammed rogue Republican Moore as a serial sexual predator who was unfit for office.
The rulers understood that stakes were high, though not for the reasons broadcast on CNN. Here are some lessons we might draw from what happened in Alabama:
Gutter Klan-type candidates get slapped down because they are bad for business. Moore threatened the main wing bosses’ con game by peeling back the curtain and revealing the rotten essence of capitalism. While the finance capitalists depend on racism and sexism to divide and exploit workers, they also rely on the false unity of U.S. patriotism as they ramp up toward World War III. They need a multiracial army of men and women willing to fight and die for the bosses’ profits.
Moore’s defeat was a setback for Donald Trump, who played to his arch-racist base by endorsing his fellow predator. While Trump’s political loyalties remain unclear, he is too unreliable to represent the mainstream bosses in a time of intensifying inter-imperialist rivalries. Like Moore, he exposes the hellish profit system—with its racism, sexism, and grotesque and widening inequalities—for what it is. Now that Trump is showing weakness, the main wing may decide to show him the door, sooner than later.
The domestic-leaning wing of the ruling class—represented by Steve Bannon and the Mercer and Koch billionaire families—is determined to spend less on a worldwide military and to cut U.S. support for NATO and other expensive alliances. To gain white workers’ support, they are aiming to build more open racism. Though these bosses lost the battle in Alabama, they’re not about to surrender. With the help of Fox News, they managed to mobilize 48 percent of the electorate, 68 percent of the white vote, and 91 percent of registered Republicans to choose a monster over the big bosses’ Democratic and Republican machines. With rumblings of a threatened “deep-state” coup against Trump, the prospect of civil war no longer seems so farfetched.
Black workers made the difference, with 95 percent—including 98 percent of black women—voting for Jones. They represented 30 percent of the turnout, significantly more than their share of the Alabama voting-age population, and even more than the Black share of the electorate in Obama’s presidential runs (Mother Jones, 12/13/17).  Despite the ever-deepening crisis and intensifying racism of U.S. capitalism, masses of Black workers—the essential vanguard for a communist movement—remain trapped by the rulers’ false promise that voting can lead to real change. The victory of Doug Jones, another politician pledged to keep this racist system going, highlights the need for our Party to recruit many more Black women and men as revolutionary communist leaders.
In short, what transpired in Alabama was a victory for bosses of all stripes. Barely a year after the widespread cynicism that surrounded the presidential race between Trump and Hillary Clinton, the special Senate contest renewed millions of people’s enthusiasm for elections. Younger voters, in particular, were galvanized by Jones, a “former crusading civil rights lawyer” (DailyMail.com, 12/13) who won 60 percent of the 18-to-29-year-old vote in a heavily Republican state (huffingtonpost.com, 12/13).
These young workers are the future soldiers the bosses will need to enlist for the next global conflict. They’re also the ones our Party needs to win to shed this racist system and fight back for the international working class.
Democrats Use Sexism Instead of Fighting It
The sexual assault scandals that have torpedoed liberal Senator Al Franken, among many others, may thin the field for the 2020 presidential nomination and help unify the Democrats. For now, the main wing bosses seem to be rallying behind the tack taken by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who led the charge against Franken and is using the pain of sexual assault as a prop to advance her own career.
This superficial solidarity, however, is limited by the deeply embedded racism of capitalist society. In Alabama, the Democrats’ sudden show of zero tolerance for sexual assault may have gotten more younger and educated white women to tilt their way than in the past. But 66 percent of white women in Alabama still voted for the naked racism of Moore (Newsweek 12/13).
Meanwhile, with the influence of older Black politicians on the wane, the rulers are cultivating new misleaders to keep Black workers and the entire working class tied to capitalism. A number of electorally focused organizations, like BlackPAC and Movement for Black Lives Electoral Project, are led by Black women. The bosses’ media are pushing them as the people to follow (New York Times, 12/16).
There Are No Good Bosses
“‘The elections in Virginia and Alabama have proven that it is possible for Democrats to focus on white and minority voters without alienating either,’ said Zac McCrary, a Democratic pollster based in Alabama. ‘Technology, for one, makes it possible to target specific populations with particular messages through email, text messages and phone calls’”(NY Times 12/13). In other words, the new Democratic playbook is to quietly tell Black voters the party is against racism, but not to say it so loud that racist white voters will jump ship.
Capitalism can never end racism or sexism. Without a divided working class and segments of super-exploited workers, the profit system would collapse. At the same time, the capitalists need to build unity around the myth that capitalist “democracy” is still the best option for workers. When workers stop voting and abandon the bosses’ misleader politicians for working-class leadership in the class struggle, the whole capitalist system will be in jeopardy. That’s the greatest fear of the ruling class.
And that’s when our class will be free.

This is the  part of an extensive series about the Bolshevik Revolution and the triumphs, as well as the defeats, of the world communist movement of the 20th century. We welcome your comments and criticisms, and encourage all readers to discuss this period of history with their friends, classmates, co-workers, family, and comrades.

One of the reasons workers around the world need to join and build the international communist Progressive Labor Party on their jobs, campuses and in their military barracks is because there is no capitalist country on earth protected by capitalism’s periodic crises. As we close out 2017, ten years since the last major political-economic crisis, capitalist economies are in a dark forest of uncertainty and peril for the international working class.
Capitalism Means Crisis
As CHALLENGE goes to press, the world’s top-dog imperialist power, the U.S., is passing a complex tax reform bill that on the one hand, will rob the working class and give the U.S. economy a short-term jolt, and on the other, will have unpredictable long-term consequences. The tax bill’s changes to will impact local and regional economies in ways far outside of what the federal government’s economist fortune-tellers could ever predict.  
As desperate as times have been for the working class since the last crisis, deeper crises loom ahead. Indicators like housing sales, construction activity, and freight movement contradict the falsely optimistic headlines in the capitalist press. The economy is troubled because of capitalism’s fundamental contradiction: the private capitalist ownership of the few over how things are produced, and the majority dispossessed working class who are compelled by starvation to produce for them.
For the bosses, crisis means the surviving big capitalists gobble up their competitors and life goes on. As 18th century British banker Baron Rothschild once said of the necessary relationship between crisis and capitalism: “It’s time to buy when there’s blood in the streets.”
History Is A Science
No amount of legislative sorcery from either the liberal Democrats or the Republicans can change capitalism’s periodic plunges into crisis. And the bosses’ solutions to the crises are as equally inevitable. In our era of imperialism, they solve them with sharpening racism and fascism to exploit and divide workers harder, and bigger imperialist wars to conquer more resources, workers, and markets.
As communists we learn from the past and study history as a science. One of the biggest crises of the last century was the “Great Depression” that began in 1929. This crisis sent the world capitalist economy headlong into staggering unemployment and social dislocation.
This time though, the bosses and their liberal politicians were scared. There was one place in the world that completely escaped the Great Depression—the Soviet Union. There was such a shortage of labor that the Soviet Union invited workers from all over the world to help build socialism.
We reproduce below a description of workers’ daily lives in the Soviet Union as told by a U.S. auto worker. It is the text of a letter dated January 20, 1934, when the Reuther brothers were working in a new Soviet automobile plant in Gorky. Walter Reuther had been laid off in 1932 as the Great Depression in the United States worsened. The letter is signed “Vic and Wal” for Victor and Walter Reuther.
Walter Reuther later became a vicious anti-communist. After he became president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1949, he promptly expelled all communists from their elected positions in the United Automobile Workers union. He also expelled 11 communist-led unions from the CIO.
In return, U.S. bosses “forgot” about the letter below:

Dear Mel and Glad: It seemed ages since we had heard from you, so you might well imagine with what joy we welcomed news from Detroit.
What you have written concerning the strikes and the general labor unrest in Detroit makes us long for the moment to be back with you in the front lines of the struggle: however, the daily inspiration that is ours as we work side by side with our Russian comrades in our factory, comes with the thought that we are actually helping to build a society that will forever end the exploitation of man by man. This thought is that what we are building will be for the benefit and enjoyment of the working class, not only of Russia but the entire world. This thought is the compensation we receive for our temporary absence from the struggle in the United States.
Mel, you know Wal and I were always strong for the Soviet Union. You know we were always ready to defend it against the lies of reactionaries. But let me tell you, now that we are here we are more than just sympathetic toward our country, we are ready to fight for it and its ideals. And why not? Here the workers, through their militant leadership, the proletarian dictatorship, have not sold out. Here they have against all odds--against famine, internal strife and civil war, against sabotage, capitalist invasion and isolation--our comrades here have maintained power. They have transformed the “dark masses” of Russia into energetic, enlightened workers. They have transformed the Soviet Union into one of the greatest industrial nations in the world….
Here are no bosses to drive fear into the workers. No one to drive them in mad speed-ups. Here the workers are in control. …This is what the outside world calls the “ruthless dictatorship in Russia.” I tell you, Mel, in all the countries we have thus far been in, we have never found such genuine proletarian democracy.
In our factory…Women and men work side by side. At noon we all eat in a large factory restaurant where wholesome food is served. A workers’ band furnishes music to us from an adjoining room. For the remainder of our 1-hour lunch period we adjourn to the Red Corner recreation, where workers play games, read papers and magazines or technical books, or merely sit, smoke, and chat. Such a fine spirit of comradeship you have never before witnessed in your life. If you saw our superintendent as he walks through the shop greeting workers with “Hello, Comrade,” you could not distinguish him from any other worker.
The interesting thing, Mel, is that 3 years ago this place here was a vast prairie, a waste land, and the thousands of workers here who are building complicated dies and other tools were at that time peasants who had never before even seen an industry, let alone worked in one. Through the bitter Russian winters of 45° below zero they have toiled with bare hands, digging foundations, and erecting structures.
About a 20-minute walk from the factory an entirely new Socialist city has grown up in these 3 years. Here over 50,000 of the factory workers live in fine new modern apartment buildings. Large hospitals, schools, libraries, theaters, and clubs have sprung up, and all for the use of those who work. Three nights ago we were invited to the clubhouse in “Sosgor” (Socialist City) to attend an evening of enjoyment given by the workers of the die shop. Imagine, all the workers with whom we daily work coming together that evening for a fine banquet, a stage performance, a concert, speeches, and a big dance…
In all my life, Mel, I have never seen anything so inspiring. Once a fellow has seen what is possible where workers gain power, he no longer fights just for an ideal, he fights for something which is real, something tangible. Mel, we are witnessing and experiencing great things in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. We are seeing the most backward nation in the world being rapidly transformed into the most modern and scientific, with new concepts amidst new social ideals coming into force. Who would not be inspired by such events?
Carry on the fight for a Soviet America.
Vic. and Wal J

BROOKLYN—A multiracial, multigender gathering of 150 members and friends of all ages of the Progressive Labor Party gathered to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, and kick off organizing for this year’s May Day celebration. Organized and led by younger comrades, the event was set up where there was nteraction between participants.
The speakers got things started by describing some of the tremendous accomplishments made by the communists in the Soviet Union from wiping out illiteracy to wiping out the Nazis during World War II. One young transit worker was inspiring, describing how buying chicken for your fellow workers enables a deeper discussion of revolution (see letter, page 6).
There was plenty of discussion in various groups in the audience. Rather than listen to lectures, the event was intended for people to interact and talk with each other.
The two questions were posed for small group discussion: Why did the Bolsheviks need a party, and why do we need an international party today?
Reflections from Participants
Afterwards, a speaker from each group summarized the ideas of the discussion. One woman said we need an international party because we are all workers and we are all suffering at the hands of the capitalist bosses.Another woman said we need a party to help organize the working class to fight against the bosses.
An EMT worker said that we need a party because this system does not care about working class lives. She mentioned her encounter with other working class people who refused medical treatment because of fear of having to pay out-of-pocket because they lacked health insurance.  This is a crime against the working class that would be illegal under communism, but we need a party to organize the fightback and lead the way to revolution.
One young man pointed out that the party keeps us disciplined in our fight. He pointed out that unlike anarchists, we believe the leadership of the working class is necessary to lead us toward a better society where all of us have our needs met. He also said the Bolsheviks needed a party to make sure the working class was organized and following the line of the party.
The reason we need an international working class party today is because we know from studying the history of the world communist movement, especially the Bolsheviks, that nationalism was one of the causes of the reversal of workers’ power.
There was bilingual translation (English/ Spanish) at certain tables, but for the most part the whole event was a bilingual event. We are truly an international party. Money was raised. We had a table of some Party literature and Soviety posters decorated the walls. There was also a silent auction where members and friends bid on framed posters of the Revolution.
The celebration ended with everyone singing Bella Ciao and The International in both English and Spanish.
A final political strength of this event was that comrades inexperienced in planning mass events organized it. Evaluating how we organized for this event is vital, because as a communist Party we understand that collectivity and democratic centralism are needed to ensure our success—from organizing locally, to running a society under workers’ power.
Learning these lessons is a part of realizing and gaining confidence in the strength of the international working class.
With that confidence, the same confidence the Bolsheviks demonstrated one century ago, we can advance and build our international Party and beat the bosses everywhere as they try to run and hide. On to May Day (April 28) and communist revolution!