Anaheim, CA, February 27—The Ku Klux Klan scums showed up to hold a racist “White Lives Matter” rally against Muslim and immigrant workers. But 200 anti-racists, including communists Progressive Labor Party, put an end to that before it started. Stopping a rally by these terrorists is a small victory in the fight against racism.

We are working now to get anti-racists out of jail. The racist cops targeted anti-Klan demonstrators while racists were stabbing people. Hugo Contreras and Mark Liddell, who are members of Unitarian Universalist congregations, were among those arrested and still held on “elder abuse” charges. Hugo has a broken arm, possibly at the hands of the police. The cops have now released all of the Klansmen—saying the stabbings were justified. Meanwhile, they trump up charges against anti-racists. The police are bigger racist terrorists than the Klan.

Mass incarceration holds 7.3 million in jail, prison, probation or parole and stigmatizes another 13 million as felons.

The biggest terrorists are the capitalists and their military. Obama’s ICE police are rounding up and deporting immigrant workers in record numbers—2.5 million since 2009. The U.S. military has or controls at least 700 military bases or installations worldwide as it engages in constant warfare. All of this is in service of a small class of capitalists, particularly oil interests responsible for constant wars in the Persian Gulf region.

Only communist revolution can end these racist horrors. We will create a society without their racism, exploitation, sexism, mass incarceration, and terror against the working class. Join us in celebration of the international workers’ holiday, May Day.

KKK leader hits the pavement

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National borders are drawn by the capitalist rulers to serve the profit system and divide the international working class. These borders—and the “countries” they define—are repeatedly redrawn through imperialist war. This is the essence of the latest tensions in the South China Sea. As CHALLENGE goes to press, the U.S. capitalist media is raising alarms over the Chinese capitalists’ deployment of advanced missiles and fighter jets on a disputed island chain called the Paracels.
Workers have no side in this dispute, which signifies another step toward inter-imperialist war.
Profit and Blood
For the U.S. and Chinese bosses, the South China Sea dispute is a typical capitalist conflict. Each side attempts to justify imperialist aggression with treaties and laws that favor its respective empire. An ExxonMobil-funded policy group, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), warned:
This marks a historical turning point…[T]he United States finds itself in a competition among great powers…. It is more important for the United States to increase its own military presence in the Baltic states and the South China Sea….[G]round troops constitute a more credible demonstration of U.S. power, because they advertise the country’s willingness to shed blood to honor its commitments (March/ April 2016).
Whose blood are the U.S. bosses willing to shed? Workers’ blood! The capitalists ruling China are more than willing to do the same. Both sides are working overtime to build nationalism to enlist our working-class sisters and brothers to support their imperialist ambitions.
The U.S. bosses’ empire is in relative decline and mired in political crisis. As reflected by the turbulent U.S. presidential campaign, leading forces of U.S. finance capital—ExxonMobil, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase—are struggling to impose political unity on their own ranks to shore up U.S. imperialism. But they cannot rebuild their war machine and defend their empire without the political loyalty of U.S. workers. They cannot fight the next big global war without workers as cannon fodder.
But there is an alternative for our class. The revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party is organizing a mass movement—from the U.S. to Mexico, Africa, Pakistan, and China—for working-class power. Our goal is to build a Red Army that will smash the capitalist system once and for all.
A mass PLP must be organized within the bosses’ military war machines, to spread communist politics until soldiers can “turn the guns around” and fight for their class. The Chinese bosses’ so-called People’s Liberation Army fields 1.6 million soldiers, the world’s largest ground force. As China’s rulers expand the PLA’s high-tech elements (including surface-to-air missiles and electronic warfare), and the risk of confrontation between the U.S. and China grows, our military work becomes even more crucial for the international working class.
A Silk Road to Imperialist War
The Chinese rulers’ military deployment in the Paracel Islands, and their claims on the South China Sea, reflect a growing boldness in their projection of imperialist power. As they attempt to win workers across Asia and the Middle East with empty promises of a better life, the Chinese imperialists have advanced an ambitious plan called “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR). It’s been called the “New Silk Road,” in reference to the ancient trade route from Asia to Europe.
As projected, OBOR will link Central Asia and the Middle East and Europe via massive infrastructure and commercial projects. They will be funded by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), China’s rival to the U.S.-backed World Bank. China President Xi Jinping’s first official visits of 2016 were to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Iran, all founding members of the AIIB (China Central Television, 1/18/16).
China claims that OBOR will deliver prosperity for workers in the Middle East. But the Chinese bosses’ real concern is an acute labor shortage (Xinhua, 1/22/16). They see the Middle East’s millions of young, unemployed workers as potential wage slaves to protect the capitalists’ profit margins.
Land, Water and Oil
In addition to valuable oil reserves, Iran occupies a geostrategic position of increasing importance to China’s growing imperialist ambitions. Decades of brutal economic sanctions on Iran’s workers were lifted with last July’s nuclear deal, which also freed Iran’s bosses to purchase conventional weapons. Now China’s bosses are keen to enlist Iran as a full member of their Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) military alliance.
It was China that helped Iran kick-start its nuclear weapons program back in the 1980s…[T]he two countries’ military-industrial complexes have been close ever since, and one source…confirms that secret military protocols were also signed this week (Newsweek, 2/1/16).
Sixty percent of China’s imported oil is shipped over oceans patrolled by and vulnerable to the U.S. Navy and its fleets of warships. China’s agreements with Iran include refinery and pipeline construction deals linked to the Pakistani port city of Gwadar, where the Arabian Sea meets the Persian Gulf. An enormous operation financed, built and now controlled by China, Gwadar will route critical oil supplies to China over land, a safer bet than the 10,000-mile maritime route to Shanghai, the Chinese bosses’ only commercial port.
Same Enemy, Same Fight
From Latin America to the Middle East, millions of workers have been killed and millions more forced to seek refuge by imperialist-fueled wars. No sooner do workers cross the imperialists’ borders, in search of work and safety, than they face horrific anti-immigrant racism and sexism.
At the same time, workers within the borders of the U.S. and China, as well as Russia and Iran, are being coerced to fight and kill one another to defend the bosses’ capitalist preserves. In every imperialist power, rulers are intensifying their racist, nationalist propaganda to blame workers from other countries for their problems. The bosses know their days are numbered if they cannot deflect workers’ anger from the true cause of our misery: capitalist exploitation.
The working class has no country; our class has nothing to gain by respecting capitalist borders. Of all the political parties, only PLP represents workers’ interests.
PLP calls for international working-class unity. PLP organizes and fights to turn the coming imperialist wars into class wars for communist revolution. PLP calls on workers in the U.S., China, and every capitalist country to distribute CHALLENGE at their workplaces and in their barracks. Join our party, and help lead the working class in communist revolution! Same enemy, same fight! Workers of the world unite!

INDIA, February 22—Students rose up today against the capitalist-caused suicide of 26-year-old Rohith Vemula, a Dalit left-wing student protester at the Nehru University (JNU) in Hyderbad. The rise and suppression of student protests demonstrate the growing fascist dictatorship here and, more important, the growth of widespread resistance.
Rohith, Anti-Racist Fighter
Rohith Vemula was a Hindu from the lowest caste group, the Dalit (formerly known as “untouchables”), who was protesting against the Hindu nationalist organization Hindutva and their activities.
A right-wing student group, the ABVP (All-Indian Student Council), allied with the pro-fascist Hindutva party RSS (National Patriotic Organization), had shut down a film screening that exposed the complicity of government officials in an anti-Muslim riot in Uttar Pradesh (state in northern India) that killed at least 100 and left tens of thousands homeless.
Rohith was protesting that anti-Muslim racism as well as the 2012 execution of a Muslim for supposed involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack. After a conflict broke out at the demonstration, Rohith and his four friends were suspended from school, while the upper-caste students from the nationalist group were not punished at all.
In protest, a multi-caste group of students pitched a camp in front of the university. They called their camp Velicada, or Dalit Ghetto. Many consider Rohith’s suicide to be his last symbol of protest—and yet another example of racist discrimination against Dalits. Students have taken to the streets and the hashtag #dalitlivesmatter.
Nationalism, Tool of the Bosses
At Nehur University in Dehli, students were given permission to hold a rally protesting the death penalty decision against the alleged Muslim terrorist. Contrary to reports by the bosses’ media, these student protesters were not pro-terrorist; they objected to how the government conducted the trial. Thirty minutes before the rally was scheduled to begin, the university revoked its permission. Students then went to the canteen in the cafeteria area, where political discussions are a common custom. Some students held up posters and shouted slogans that the Indian government considered “treason” because they criticized the government’s role in Kashmir.
The police arrested Kanhaiya Kumar, a leader of the student group, even though he was not present at any of the protests. Kumar was assaulted in the courtroom while the police did nothing, another indication of the breakdown of capitalist law and the move toward open fascism. The government crackdown against the student movement reflects the critical role of Hindu nationalism in sustaining the capitalists’ rule.
The role of Hindu nationalists is not simply to attack the Muslim working class, but in fact to suppress the whole working class. We are divided by caste, religion and nationalism when we need to unite as comrades in struggle.
While anti-worker hatred and violence is making news, it is class exploitation that needs to be exposed. This exploitation soars whenever there is an economic crisis and the bosses need to turn toward fascism. This is happening in India despite all the fake rhetoric about a prosperous middle class. Autoworkers and agricultural workers have been suffering. The jute industry is collapsing, with tens of thousands of workers losing their jobs or facing wage cuts to approximately USD $15 a week. At a recent protest by jute workers near Kolkata, a police attack critically injured a protest leader.  
One Working-Class Struggle, One Party
Resistance movements are beginning to connect the many attacks on the working class. Students at two universities in Kolkata are protesting in solidarity with students in Hyderabad and Delhi. Some students have begun to show more direct support for workers’ struggles. In many parts of the country, the struggle against exploitation and oppression of women has also been growing in important ways.
As competition among the U.S., China and Russia intensifies, the Indian capitalist class will intensify its exploitation of workers here. They will use all kinds of racism, caste exploitation, and propaganda against different ethnicities in a desperate attempt to promote selfishness within the working class. Our allegiance must be to our working-class sisters and brothers, not our supposed race, ethnicity, or religion. All kinds of nationalism are suicide for the working class.
Only communist philosophy and strategy can free the working class. As long as there is capitalist exploitation for profit, there will be capitalist oppression to intimidate and divide the working class. We must dedicate ourselves to building a new international communist party that fights for equality and unity of all workers, across all borders. We PL’ers have dedicated ourselves to this for the past 50 years.
As PLP continues to grow throughout the world, including in South Asia, we can draw on the wisdom, experience and leadership of workers everywhere to build a Party that can put an end to all forms of class exploitation and oppression. Learn more about PLP—check out the website and contact us!
Our call to students, campus and education workers in the United States, Latin America, Africa, and everywhere there is a PLP base: Act in solidarity with the campus struggles in India! An attack on Rohith, Dalit students or Muslim workers is an attack on the whole working class. Fight back!

WASHINGTON DC, February 10—With the help of communist leadership from Progressive Labor Party, bus drivers poured out of the 175-bus Northern Garage to protest the agency’s racist disregard for their safety.
More than 35 transit workers, joined by some riders, picketed for an hour with signs calling for “Service With Protection” and “Transit Workers Lives Matter.”  In a lively call-and-response, workers chanted, “It ain’t right!” after each example of abusive action by the bosses was called out by speakers at the rally. People driving by honked and cheered.
Instead of standing up for assaulted drivers, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) bosses are supporting the arrest, suspension and disciplining of any drivers who defend themselves when attacked.
The attacks on transit workers are racist. As the transit workforce changed from predominantly white in the 1960s to predominantly Black today, WMATA has ratcheted up its attacks. Management is determined to take back the gains that were won in the wildcat strike of 1978, led primarily by PLP members, which closed the city down for a week.
Racist Bosses Blame the Victims
Bus operators’ physical and psychological welfare has been jeopardized by cutbacks in their passengers’ mental health and substance use treatment, rising homelessness, and mass unemployment. Still, drivers are expected to collect fares from all riders while navigating the snarled traffic. Assaults on operators, recorded by video cameras mounted in all vehicles, include spitting and punching, with 90 percent of all incidents involving fares. The video recordings are used to justify disciplinary measures against drivers who react in self-defense.
Recently, two drivers were assaulted in separate cases. Both were suspended by Metro and one was arrested and charged with assault. The response by both municipal police and transit police is to blame the victim. WMATA bosses have piled on by subjecting victimized drivers to internal discipline.
In 2015, WMATA introduced a new disciplinary matrix that imposed harsher punishments for minor driver errors, leading to more suspensions and firings of operators. More recently, WMATA bosses have used retroactive criminal background checks to fire established older workers at the top of the pay scale.
In response to protests by PLP members and friends, a lawsuit has been filed on this issue and a grievance hearing is coming up soon.
Some operators have called for stationing police on the buses to prevent rider assaults. At our rally, a retired transit worker denounced this strategy. The siege of racist police violence in recent years has made it all too clear that the cops are more of threat than protection. Putting police on the bus would criminalize riders and divide them from the operators, which in turn would hurt workers’ ability to combat abusive management practices.
What’s Fair? No Fare!
At today’s rally, workers demanded that WMATA eliminate driver responsibility for fare collection. In fact, WMATA could eliminate fares entirely. Riders and drivers can unite around this issue. In 2014 in Brazil, hundreds of thousands protested to demand free transportation. As one of our signs said, “What’s Fair? No Fare!”  
Who would pay the transit costs instead? The bosses and their federal government. The transit system is essential for developers who have built hugely profitable enterprises in downtown DC. Currently, about 50 percent of transit operating funds come from fares. Increased taxes on developers and other corporations could cover all costs. A popular refrain at the rally made this point:  “I don’t know, but I’ve been told, the Verizon Center is lined with gold!”
As the U.S. bosses’ rivalry with China’s bosses intensifies (see editorial, page 2), attacks on the working class will only increase. A demand for the bosses to pay challenges the capitalist system’s profit motive. No worker should have to pay for a transportation system built and maintained by our class. A world based on workers’ needs is possible—but only under communism.
Building Workers’ Power
In July, workers in Amalgamated Transit Union 689 will face a contract fight over pensions, health benefits and wages. Today’s rally is another step in empowering people to prepare for that fight.
PL’ers and workers organized the Take a Stand Team in the December 2015 union election on an anti-racist slate. They are organizing against the transit bosses’ attacks, including the racist disciplinary actions and the racist retroactive background checks. Demands for shortening the wage progression (number of years needed to receive top pay), restoring retirement health benefits for newly hired workers, and fully funding the pension plan were part of the campaign. The Take a Stand Team received 1,800 votes (32 percent of the total) and came close to overturning the current president, who received less than 40 percent of the vote. Importantly, it demonstrated that many more workers are prepared to organize and strike. Through this struggle, PL’ers are building a pro-communist network of workers throughout the transit system.
They are thinking about what it means to be strike-ready, to fight for a better contract and to raise anti-racism. More than 40 workers have joined biweekly meetings and day-to-day discussions on the need for more militant and organized resistance.
Our discussions also address racist police violence and the increasing wealth of the ruling class. As a result, the need for a communist revolution and worker control over society became clearer to many friends of PLP.