One hundred days into the Donald Trump presidency, the bosses’ mouthpieces have rated it a failure by all measures. Trump’s health care bill “is a zombie. His border wall is stalled. He’s only now releasing basic principles of a tax plan. Even his executive order on immigration is tied up in the courts” (New York Times, 4/26).
Trump’s ineffectual and volatile administration heightens the insecurities of the finance capital, the U.S. bosses’ main wing: Citigroup, ExxonMobil, JPMorgan Chase. What the rulers call the Liberal Order (read: U.S. imperialist hegemony) is in danger. Trump has failed to take steps to reverse the U.S. capitalists’ faltering attempts to reassert their dominance. Most dangerous for the bosses, Trump has failed to prioritize the rebuilding of working-class confidence in capitalist institutions. As the Council on Foreign Affairs, the finance capitalists’ leading think tank, observed with naked alarm:
A hostile revisionist power has indeed arrived on the scene, but it sits in the Oval Office, the beating heart of the free world. Across ancient and modern eras, orders built by great powers have come and gone—but they have usually ended in murder, not suicide...(Foreign Affairs, May/June).
Liberal Order: Out of Order
Today, the reign of U.S. imperialism is in jeopardy. The internal crisis of U.S. capitalism, coupled with ever-fiercer challenges from rising Chinese and resurgent Russian imperialists, are exposing the inherent and lethal instability of the capitalist system:
… [A]mid a wider crisis across the liberal democratic world... governing coalitions that built the postwar order have weakened. Liberal democracy itself appears fragile, vulnerable in particular to far-right populism. Some date these troubles to the global financial crisis of 2008, which widened economic inequality and fueled grievances across the advanced industrial democracies, the original patrons and beneficiaries of the order. … Western publics have increasingly come to regard the liberal international order not as a source of stability and solidarity among like-minded states but as a global playground for the rich and powerful (Foreign Affairs, May/June).
As U.S. power declines, and inter-imperialist competition intensifies, the Liberal Order is teetering. The capitalists’ concern over the growing mass base for fascism around the world—expressed as hyper-racist nationalism from the U.S. and France to Turkey and Iran—reflects their inability to control events as they unfold.
To solve their growing problems, the U.S. bosses must resort to wider conflicts and heightened fascism to discipline their own class as well as the working class. They need racism to divide and exploit workers. But they also need patriotic unity to recruit massive numbers of ground troops for their next world war. As their imperialist rivals grow in strength, potential flashpoints for World War III are multiplying. The bosses worry that the U.S. could “stumble into” war before it is ready:
There is a real risk that events will turn out far worse—a future in which Trump’s erratic style and confrontational policies destroy an already fragile world order and lead to open conflict—in the most likely cases, with Iran, China, or North Korea.
Possible Hotspot: Korea
In some ways, North Korea is to China as Israel is to the U.S. While dependent on its powerful imperialist sponsor for trade and aid, its bosses operate relatively autonomously in their home region. Meanwhile, South Korea has been under the military thumb of the U.S. military since the Korean War ended in 1953. The U.S. bosses view the Korean peninsula as a key part of its Pacific sphere of influence, along with Japan, Australia, the Philippines, and Guam. The U.S. needs to sustain its alliance with these nations to counter recent Chinese expansionism in the South China Sea.
While North Korea’s nuclear missiles have shown uneven reliability, they are theoretically within striking distance of vital U.S. interests, including cities like Los Angeles and San Diego, the main port of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet.
The bellicose ruler of North Korea, Kim Jong Un, is a problem for both China and the U.S., though for different reasons. “China does not gain if North Korea destabilizes East Asia, or starts a regional arms race that leads Japan and South Korea to build their own nuclear weapons” (The Economist, 4/22). In addition, China needs a stable North Korea as a buffer against South Korea, with its 28,500 U.S. troops massed on the two countries’ border. But the Chinese bosses are struggling to rein in their client state:
North Korea’s development of nuclear and missile technologies also intensified the situation in Northeast Asia, giving Washington an excuse to enhance its military deployment in the region…This would render China with no cards to play in the face of the US and South Korea…At least for now, what North Korea is doing goes against China’s strategic interests... If the North Korean nuclear issue boils over, a war on the peninsula is unavoidable (Global Times, 4/27).
Diplomatic cooperation between China and the U.S. buys time for both rivals to prepare for a bigger war.
Build a Communist Order
Though the U. S. empire is in decline, it remains, at least for now, the number one imperialist, and a threat to workers everywhere. Hundreds of millions are fed up with the Liberal Order. The crucial question before our class is this: To whom do we entrust our future? Whose leadership will we follow in the coming struggles against racism, sexism, exploitation, and imperialist war?
In past crises, the working class, led by its international communist party, has taken up the challenge. Twice in the last century, in the Soviet Union and then in China, it has seized power and built a society run by workers. The fact that these revolutions were reversed, primarily because of political weaknesses, doesn’t change the fact that communists led workers to take state power. And communists, especially the heroic Soviet Red Army under Joseph Stalin, led workers to smash Hitler’s fascism in World War II.
Capitalism is a deadly system. It serves the needs of the capitalist bosses by attacking the world’s workers. It cannot be reformed to meet workers’ needs. There are no lesser evils, “good” corporations, or “friendly” cops. Sooner or later, the capitalist profit system must resort to racist, fascist terror and war.
The long-term goal of Progressive Labor Party is to lead the working class in a communist revolution to take power once more. This time we will destroy capitalism once and for all, along with the racism, sexism, and imperialism it feeds on. We will build a communist world that serves the needs of the international working class, not the bosses’ profits—from each according to commitment, to each according to need. It is not an easy fight. Yet even in the current period, we are growing modestly.
And we can continue to grow. Join PLP! Help make it a mass party of the working class, a party steeled in fighting and giving leadership in small and large battles against the bosses—in the factories, unions, schools, churches and community organizations. Each new member of PLP, each new CHALLENGE subscriber, becomes a step forward on the long march to working-class liberation.
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What is the Liberal Order?
The Liberal Order rose at the end of World War II, when U.S. imperialism became the world’s leading capitalist power. In 1991, the formal collapse of the Soviet Union—after decades of decay into state capitalism—left the U.S. bosses virtually unchallenged to create a world in their image.
Globally, this meant creating institutions and alliances and trade agreements to legalize imperialism. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank were formed to legitimize exploitation and wars that mainly benefitted the U.S. ruling class..
The Liberal Order has coerced the U.S. working class into relying on the bosses’ trade unions, police departments, the media, the court system, and the electoral system and political parties. Many Black and Latin workers long ago lost confidence in these ruling-class institutions because of racism. The latest crisis of capitalism has led many oppressed white workers to share their alienation. This is a threat to the U.S. bosses, because it opens the door for more rebellions, strikes, and fightbacks. It’s also an opening for workers to learn and take up communist ideas.
NEW YORK CITY—Over three hundred workers, students, friends, and comrades in the Progressive Labor Party rocked the streets of Flatbush this May Day. For three hours, the streets were brushed red, and the working class was boosted with confidence. Indeed, this world is ours to win, ours to safeguard; this working class is ours to serve, ours to lead.
We chanted “Shut It Down” and “What Day? May Day! Whose Day? Our Day!” to reggae beats. In addition to our usual reggae and dancehall, the DJs also played salsa beats this year. Passersby came out of stores and homes to watch PLP marching by. They pumped their fists in the air and danced to the music (see letter, page 6). Some strangers even chanted, “Who are we? PLP!” in unison with the marchers. We distributed over 2,300 CHALLENGE newspapers in English, Spanish, and French Kreole.
People hailed from all five boroughs, as well as from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Baltimore, Boston, and Washington, DC.
May Day is International Workers’ Day. Its origin comes from the struggle for an eight-hour workday in Chicago in 1886. While it is officially celebrated in 80 countries, the U.S. bosses don’t recognize it. PLP has been raising the red flag on May Day for over 30 years. It is a day to celebrate all the gains of revolutions and rebellions of the past, advance the fightback of the present, and build a communist revolution for the future.
This year’s May Day was especially important: it is a centennial celebration of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. One hundred years ago, the working class fought for and eventually ruled one sixth of the whole world.
We commenced the day with a passionate and haunting song about our sisters and brothers slain by the police, “Too Many Names.” We also heard an inspiring speech about a new comrade of why he joined PLP.
Working-Class Creativity
The beauty of May Day is the show of force and collectivity.
2017 is the first in a long time for us to incorporate artwork as part of the May Day march. Together, we created huge fists of different colors, designs, and slogans. We also brought movement and color to a well-known cartoon (see page 7)—a school of red fish attacks a green capitalist shark. The fish puppets looked formidable with their fang-like teeth and scarlet red bodies painted with slogans in Spanish, English, and Bangla. Many of the fish had names those targeted by police painted on them; the spectres of Shantel Davis, Kiki Gray, Kyam Livingston, Michael Brown, and Tyrone West, each representing the fightback and rebellions that rose from the deaths, have come back to haunt the capitalists.
The main victory of this artwork was the collective nature of the production. Everything, including the politics, was discussed, decided, and produced by a multiracial multigenerational group of women and men. This goes against what capitalism says about what art can be: individual creation of one “genius,” owned by and for the genius.
We look forward to what artwork and collectivity next year will bring.
Proud to Be Working Class, Proud to Be Communist
The keynote speaker of the march gave an emboldening delivery and called on our working-class pride.
We’ve achieved workers’ power in the past, and we can do it again. The numbers are on our side!
We’ve built society from the ground up with blood, sweat, and tears. We built the homes, roads, and the bridges! We are the teachers, the students, soldiers, service workers, healthcare workers, electricians, technicians and engineers. We produce the food, the meds, and the cure.
I’m talking working-class pride y’all!
Whether you are a young student, construction worker, engineer, unemployed worker, soldier, or street vendor—pledge your allegiance to the working class of the world.
Like our enthusiastic keynote speaker said,
If you want this new world without racism, sexism imperialist wars, we must fight for it! Join PLP. When the working class is under attack what do we do! Stand up fight Back!
Revolution vs. Reform
Compared to PLP’s small communist May Day, the mass march in Downtown Manhattan was barely mass, and hardly lively. The uplifting part: all the workers from unions and community organizations who showed up and interested in fighting back. But the relatively low turnout reflected the low level of class struggle at this point in history. All the leadership of the unions and community groups represented the base of the Democratic Party. PLP held a banner that read, “Imperialist Wars Enslave Workers—Communist Revolution Is Our Liberation” and distributed CHALLENGEs.
The system is a growing house of horrors. Our class is facing brutal attacks by the bosses, and the terrors and ravages of world war are soon approaching. The rise of a racist, fascist movement is a real possibility, and both workers and communists have countless challenges and assaults to face by the rulers. Yet, the future is bright, because we are building a new world. PLP is 52 years old, but we are still a young and revitalized Party. Onward to another year of fightback! Happy May Day!
TEL AVIV—This Year’s May 1 fell on on the Israeli Independence Day, so various left groups, including the Histadrut union federation, held the May Day march on April 27. A few thousand participated, including the Progressive Labor Party (PLP).
Gov’t Withhold Wages from Black Refugees
The best part of the march: African refugee workers fighting back. Many protested against the racist wage deduction law for refugee workers.
There are over fifty thousand refugees from East Africa, whom the racist Israeli government tries deport to their near-certain deaths. Most have fled the monstrous fascist state at Eritrea or the genocide in South Sudan. While many are granted visas, they are still not granted the right the work, so they work without documents. Bosses pay them far less than the minimum wage and work them for long hours (see box about the condition of Black workers in Israel.
Effective May 1, the government will be deducting 20 percent of asylum-seekers’ wages. The money will be returned when they leave the country. Employers will deposit the deducted wages in a fund managed by Bank Mizrahi-Tefahot (Surely that fund will be making even more money for the bosses.) The fund was approved under the racist Prevention of Infiltration Law.
The law is intentionally driving Black workers to further destitution. The racist Israeli government’s intention is to force workers to leave. Instead, they marched on May Day (see photos with signs in both depicted in Tigrinya and Hebrew) demanding an end to the racist law and for better pay and work conditions.
Direct Employment
The Coalition for Direct Employment was also present. Some chanted for the end of contract employment and for workers’ rights. There were very few revolutionary slogans, although we PL’ers did raise such calls.
The Coalition for Direct Employment is an organization fighting against ultra-exploitative and often racist contract bosses. Part of the Coalition’s work is organizing contract workers into study groups so they can better fight their bosses for better working conditions.
Greetings to Workers Overseas
We, PLP supporters in “Israel”-Palestine, send our Mayday greetings to comrades and workers overseas. Here, we are faced with life and political work in a country overrun with fascism. The government has won many Jewish workers to racist ideas. The bosses’ state has forced the majority of Palestinian workers to despair. The bosses have also passed laws to prosecute opposition groups.
While things are monstrously hard, we retain our hope that with slow and patient work, revolution and liberation will eventually come. If not in our generation, then in our children’s generation, and if not in our children’s generation, then in our grandchildren’s generation. This is the reason we keep fighting - the glimpse of hope for a better world where workers will take control over their lives and work from the bosses and build a future of freedom and equality.
We say—Jewish, Arab, and Africans—unite for workers’ revolution!
- Information
Stanford Admit Weekend Students Sit In, Demand Sanctuary for Undocumented
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- 04 May 2017 815 hits
STANFORD, CA, April 27—A group of students staged a sit-in demanding sanctuary for undocumented students in front of hundreds of admitted students, families, and administrators during the main University Welcome event. About a dozen students walked onto stage with signs stating, “ICE is not welcome,” and sat down for an hour, chanting intermittently.
One parent yelled out, “Only legal immigrants are welcome here,” so the students chanted, “ALL immigrants are welcome here! No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here!” People from the audience joined in. Several later thanked them for their actions.
Administration did not know what to do with themselves! The Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Richard Shaw and Provost Persis Drell looked flabbergasted. At the moment they said the protesters were doing this because they love Stanford, and “this is one the things that makes this place so special.” Later, the University released a statement in the Stanford Daily expressing “disappointment” in the students’ tactics. The university bosses’ liberalism only hides their true nature: to perpetuate and normalize the class inequalities—this includes borders and differences based on citizenship.
The next day, even more students stood outside the auditorium with a banner, signs, and chants (see photo).
It was a weekend of action for the over-forty multiracial, multigender students determined to show the incoming class an example of fightback against the racist policies on campus, and to demand that Stanford be a sanctuary campus. Stanford is one of many campuses across the country where students, faculty and campus workers are fighting to safeguard against president Trump’s deportation plans.
Progressive Labor Party applauds the antiracist actions of these students. They are part of a long-term struggle to abolish borders. Wherever there is an opportunity to expose the deadly liberalism of universities and their role in endorsing racism, there is also an opportunity for the fighters to become working-class leaders for a border-less and egalitarian world.
The Battle for Sanctuary
Since the election of Trump, Stanford Sanctuary Now (SSN) has been working to make Stanford a sanctuary campus. Their demands include:
- Supporting students offering need-blind admission (the college doesn’t consider family’s finances when deciding to admit) to all students, including undocumented and international students.
- Protect campus workers, as they are the most exploited and at-risk of harassment. SSN considers them as much a part of Stanford as the students and faculty, because without them, they would not have food to eat and clean classrooms
- Stanford should refuse to cooperate with Immigration Customs Enforcement (immigration police)
- Provide free legal services to all students, campus workers, and their families
- Divest from private prisons and detention centers and all other corporations that profit from displacement and exploitation of immigrants, refugees, Black, and indigenous communities.
For the past few months, the students have been meeting with administration to push these demands. After several meetings, their intentions were clear. The racist administration has sanctuary, hurting undocumented students and workers on campus.
What’s more, the university bosses counter that a sanctuary campus will endanger the lives of the undocumented. They have also have patronized and ignored the formerly undocumented students who are leading the movement, telling them that Stanford has “plenty of undocumented applicants.” The bosses have gone on to claim the only place where undocumented are targeted is at the southern border. So much fake news, so many lies for a university that prides itself on intellectual superiority.
The meetings with administration have exposed the university bosses for the rotten capitalist goons they are. It was then they decided to escalate to direct actions. It is evident that students can only rely on themselves and the campus workers to fight back.
The students and workers at Stanford can benefit by arming themselves with communist politics and a fighting organization. Progressive Labor Party fights to abolish borders, when all of the working class belongs to one world. To find out more about PLP, follow us on twitter @PLPchallenge.
CHICAGO—“Workers from Chicago to South Sudan to Mexico must unite to smash this capitalist system” were the closing words from a comrade who gave a speech at the Progressive Labor Party’s (PLP) rally for International Workers Day: May Day. It was a rainy and cold day in Chicago but that didn’t stop about 50 PLP members and friends from calling out capitalism for its destruction of the lives of working people. We chanted and distributed Challenge to workers walking by and in their cars. Some joined our chants as they passed, and many more honked in solidarity. In this heavily Latin community, our call to smash deportations and fascism was especially well received.
Get Involved In Fighting Back
At the dinner later that day, a comrade summarized the year of struggle we had in Chicago. From marching on racist, murdering kkkop Jason Van Dyke’s house, to helping organize a march on the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), to fighting back against the racist lead poisoning of workers, we have immersed ourselves in the class struggle against capitalist attacks.
Recommit To Communist Revolution
Another comrade called for all members, and friends to commit and recommit themselves to the revolutionary struggle for communism. We want more than just a few reforms. As the capitalists plan for more imperialist wars and more racist attacks on the working class, we say that a better world is possible! With about 100 in attendance, our comrade called on our friends to join the Party. We need to sharpen the fight against fascism and imperialism and everyone can contribute. He then told a story about a young mother in the Soviet Union during World War II. During the battle of Stalingrad, after dropping her child at the communal daycare, she and her older daughter went straight to their volunteer work digging anti-tank trenches. Everyone has a role to play in fighting for and building communism. When the working class is under attack, we need everyone to step up and be part of an organized fightback. These fightbacks are the building blocks of our future world without sexism and racism; that’s communism!
The past and future of our party were exemplified by a moving tribute to a veteran comrade, and a heartfelt speech by a new member about why he joined. Spoken word and musical performances enlivened our May Day celebration.
Join the Progressive Labor Party
May Day is a celebration of workers’ struggles but it is also a time for people to recommit themselves to the revolutionary communist struggle. It is a time to get inspired, and to get involved fighting back against school closings, cut backs in healthcare, imperialist wars, and police terror. A united working class is destined to win. Get off the fence! Join the Progressive Labor Party!
