In the world’s most economically unequal country, 220,000 South African metal workers of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) have taken a swing at one of the most powerful auto companies on Earth — GM.
The sheet metal workers’ strike that started over two weeks ago has shut down and seriously curtailed production for GM, Ford, BMW and many other corporations throughout South Africa. This strike comes on the heels of last year’s four-week NUMSA strike of 30,000 and a recent five-month long strike in the platinum mining sector.
These mainly black and African NUMSA workers have been on strike since July 1 demanding an end to wage exploitation and to labor brokering. Labor brokering is a practice that attacks the power of organized labor by contracting with workers individually rather than through the union. In the face of an inflation rate of 6.6 percent (only 2.1 percent in the U.S.), these workers have demanded a 12-15 percent wage increase and a one-year contract. The company has countered with a 10 percent increase and a less than desirable three-year contract.
The workers rejected the company’s most recent offer because it does not meet their demands. NUMSA is now working to broaden and intensify the strike by bringing in several of the public sector unions in solidarity.
Twenty years after the official ending of apartheid and the election of South Africa’s first black president Nelson Mandela, the socioeconomic status of black workers in South Africa has changed very little. According to the Times Colonist, only 27 percent of black South African children have access to piped water, a problem that is non-existent in white areas. And the unemployment of South Africa’s black youth is the third highest in the world. Many of the current conditions in South Africa are worse today than under apartheid.
President Jacob Zuma, who despite his fight against apartheid in the past, was booed at Nelson Mandela’s December memorial service. Due to multiple charges of corruption and various scandals, he has taken much of the blame for the recent waves of labor strikes. However, the misery faced by the working class of South Africa is not caused by corrupt individuals, but by the corrupt system of capitalism.
Once a site of significant U.S. and British investment, now, as competition over Africa has heated up in recent years, South Africa is beginning to cozy up to imperialist China. China is making investments in South Africa’s energy and infrastructure and has already started training South Africans in the renewable energy sector (out-law.com). Zuma has assured Chinese investors that the recent strike is not a cause for alarm.
With the death of Nelson Mandela still fresh in the minds of most South Africans and the world, let us not forget that “great men” do not make revolutions. Mandela’s collaboration with U.S. and British capitalists and appeals to nationalism disarmed workers in the fight for a truly equal world. The recent strikes in South Africa, however, show that the most oppressed people are the natural leaders in the fight against capitalist exploitation. These black and African workers also hold the key as the potential leaders of a communist revolution.

Providence, RI, July 1 — Over 30 people participated in Progressive Labor Party’s forums at the Unitarian Universalists (UU) convention. For most, it was their first PL event. A few rejoined us from last year’s convention. Most were high-school students or young adults. The positive response to the forums and to CHALLENGE demonstrates the potential for building PLP among UUs.
Four thousand UUs from congregations all over the United States, Canada, and several other countries attended the denomination’s annual General Assembly (GA) June 25-29. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) invited participants to Party forums at lunchtime on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday of the GA.
We gave out 2,000 copies of a four-page mini-CHALLENGE at the GA. It called on people to come to the forums and analyzed the seven UU principles from a communist perspective, described the anti-fascist origins of the UU symbol, the flaming chalice, and included the “Our Fight” column that appears on page 2 of every issue of this newspaper. We also distributed 400 copies of CHALLENGE. Most people contributed $1 for it; some gave $5 or $10.
The topics of the forums were “Overview of PLP’s goal of worldwide communist revolution,” “Smash racism and nationalism with multiracial unity,” and “Revolution not reform: Building the Party in the ‘dark night’ of capitalist terror.” At each forum, participants vigorously asked questions and contributed to the discussion.
UUs Debate Violent Revolution
Perhaps the best discussion was on the third day, around the question of violent revolution. The Unitarian Universalist Association pushes non-violence, so it was not surprising that many people initially opposed using violence. Yet later in the discussion, one said, “I agree with you that capitalists would never give up power peacefully and that violence is the only way to get rid of capitalism.”  A number of others voiced similar sentiments, including one who said that violently opposing capitalist exploitation and oppression was “essentially self defense.” Even if protests are non-violent the capitalist state will always impose violence to control and intimidate the working class.
Other discussions centered on questions such as whether society is best understood as a collection of individuals or as classes (workers and capitalists) locked in struggle. Additional questions included whether poverty, racism, and war are inherent to capitalism, and whether national liberation struggles are compatible with proletarian internationalism. We also touched on how to carry out communist work in UU congregations. One individual was struggling about the contradiction between reform and revolution while still being involved in reformist movements.
Now that the GA is over, our job is to follow up with the new people we met at the PLP forums and — even more critical — expand and intensify the day-to-day communist organizing we do in our local congregations.
PLP works to transform the reform movement into a “school for communism.” The GA selected “Escalating Inequality” as the congregational study/action issue for the next four years. The issue was described as follows:
Upward mobility — the American Dream — has become a myth. Concentration of wealth and power has skyrocketed. King’s dream of justice and equality has fractured. Half of all Americans are impoverished or struggling, as the middle class shrinks and billionaires take the profits. Where’s our commitment to the Common Good?
Study and class struggle around this issue will give us the opportunity to learn and teach many lessons in the school for communism.

This article is the latest in a series written by a comrade who grew up in China during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR). The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the fledgling Progressive Labor Party were fraternal parties at the time. The GPCR marked a turning point in China, as more than 40 million workers, peasants, soldiers and youth fought to defeat the “capitalist roaders” and protect the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The GPCR and socialism were ultimately defeated, in part out of a failure to break with the CCP, as PLP ultimately did, and form a new communist party. But mainly socialism was defeated because it maintained too many aspects of capitalism. In particular, the use of money and wages helped sow a division between workers and peasants on the one hand, and professionals and intellectuals on the other. After the defeat of the GPCR, China went full speed ahead down the capitalist road. Today it has emerged as the main imperialist challenger to U.S. imperialism.
This article reflects the tremendous gains made by the Chinese revolution, as well as a glimpse of the material incentives and wage differences that ultimately undid those historic advances.
 
In its quest for maximum profits, global capitalism has long been destroying the environment. This wholesale damage has sparked a movement for “sustainable development.” The term was coined by the United Nations’ 1987 Brundtland Report, which defined it as development that meets the needs of the current generation without undermining future generations’ ability to meet their needs. Five years later, the UN called on every nation to develop new plans for 21st-century development.
But since all capitalists must grow or die, the last two decades have proven that this system has no room for sustainable development.
The rich and powerful are always after more wealth, while the poor often struggle to get three meals a day. If we are serious about sustainable development, the world must look for a solution outside the capitalist system.
I grew up on a collective farm in rural Shandong, China. The thousand people in my village were divided into eight production teams of about 30 households and 120 people. Each team collectively owned about 13 acres of land, where we grew everything we needed to survive.  During idle times, the children went to school and adults tended the land. In busy times of harvesting and planting, school would close on Wednesday, Friday afternoon and Sunday, and children worked alongside adults. Like every other child in my village, I started in the fields when I was nine years old, getting paid in work points. My first year, I was paid 5.7 points, whereas adults made 10. Adults carried water on their shoulders from the river, and children would water the plants with ladles; adults dug field ditches, and we would plant and cover seeds inside them. In socialist China, everyone worked together to get things done — male and female, old and young.
Waste Not, Want Not
Most of what we grew, 70 percent of the grains and vegetables — were divided among the families in the production team — based on need. Bigger families received more than smaller ones. Regardless of whether people worked in the fields, everybody received their share. The remaining 30 percent was distributed according to work points or wages. People who worked more would earn more points and receive more foodstuffs. Families could earn additional points by collecting ashes and human and animal waste, and fermenting them into fertilizer. Nutrients were efficiently recycled to the soil. We wasted nothing.
The production team paid taxes to the state collectively, about ten pounds of grain per mu [.16 acres], or about 800 pounds each year. If we had any surplus, we were encouraged to sell it to the state first.  When we had a poor harvest, we could buy grain in the spring from the state-run granary for one or two cents more than our selling price. The state also guaranteed farmers at least 16 square feet of cotton cloth at a few cents a square foot to ensure they could have new clothes each year. Well-off farmers could buy more cloth at a higher price.
We produced about forty varieties of grain and vegetables, mostly for our own consumption. We bought cooking oils, farming tools, matches, liquor, vinegar, wine, soap, rope, clothes, and shoes from the state-owned shops and free markets. Under socialism, state-owned enterprises didn’t need lavish packaging to compete. We bought vinegar, liquor and wine to go into our own bottles. We bought matches in bulk. Everything was recycled. People would pick up pieces of glass, metal, paper, rubber and plastic, and sell them to the recycling stations. Our village, like all of China, lived a waste-free lifestyle.
Socialist Health Care: Rx for Equality
The village built its own school and hired its own teachers. Tuition was free for all children, who learned a curriculum relevant to their lives. Teachers earned work points, much as farmers did.
 Farmers had free medical care, though we had no well-trained doctors in the rural areas and no sophisticated pharmaceuticals. Each village sent a high-school graduate off for six months’ training in an army hospital. They came back to the villages as “barefoot” doctors, people who lived and worked like village farmers. After the first barefoot doctor returned, a second high school graduate was sent off. By the time I left my village for college, in 1978, we had four barefoot doctors serving about 1,500 people. They were on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When barefoot doctors could not handle a medical problem, they referred patients to the commune or county people’s hospital, where the cooperative medical system paid their expenses.
 Many dismiss the barefoot doctors, but I disagree. Despite their minimal training, they constantly bettered themselves on and off duty. They knew their patients and families well and cared deeply for them, which made a big difference. For example: my father worked for the government at the time and enjoyed free, state-provided medical care in a large hospital. Even so, he preferred to see our barefoot doctors.
Chinese Communists Made Historic Advances for Workers
At the time, many uprooted farmers in India, Brazil and Mexico ended up in the slums, where living conditions were horrible and crime rampant. But under socialism, collective farms provided free medical care and free education to farmers. China was the only major country to avoid large-scale urban migration in the 1950’s and 1960’s — and the high environmental costs that come with it. With urbanization, supplies must be shipped and heavily packaged, creating lots of waste. Chinese farmers who grew their own food generated very little waste, and what there was could be disposed of locally with minimal environmental impact.
Different people can make different judgments about China under socialism.  But it is undeniable that the Chinese made huge progress during the socialist experiments. Chinese life expectancy soared from 35 years in 1952 to 69 years in 1976, an advance unmatched in human history. By contrast, India had the same life expectancy, 35 years, in 1952. By 1976, it had increased only to 50 years.
Though a very poor country, China was able to provide all its people — rich or poor, urban or rural, mental or manual laborers — with free education and medical care. In terms of living standards, the gaps between these groups were small.
In light of the environmental degradation in capitalist countries in the West, development experts at the UN had good reason to call China the hope of the human race. We must remember that recent history contains a model of sustainable development — under socialism.

 

The so-called Great Powers have long been exploiting and enslaving a whole number of small and weak nations. And the imperialist war is a war for the division and redivision of this kind of booty.
—Vladimir Lenin, State and Revolution, 1917

The escalating crisis in Iraq signals the sharpest threat yet to U.S. control over Middle East oil — to the point where the U.S. ruling class is more openly acknowledging the prospect of the next world war.
The last two weeks have seen the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an al-Qaeda offshoot, sustain its advance toward Baghdad from northern Iraq. ISIS forces now occupy one-third of the country and are laying siege to Baquba, just 30 miles from the capital. They have obliterated the border between Iraq and Syria and overrun a crossing between Iraq and Jordan, one of the very few reliable U.S. allies in the region. The region’s national boundaries, drawn to divide the spoils between imperialist powers Britain and France after World War I, are being erased before our eyes.
“Having taken Mosul and Tikrit,” The Guardian reported, “ISIS is now near striking distance of some of Iraq’s most strategic sites. It continues to menace the Baiji oil refinery and the Haditha dam and has encircled Iraq’s largest airbase north of Taji” (6/28/14). Reuters observed that both ExxonMobil and British Petroleum “are pulling foreign staff from Iraq, fearing Sunni militants from the north could strike at major oilfields concentrated in the Shiite south despite moves by the Baghdad government to tighten security” (6/17/14).
Even more alarming to the U.S. ruling class is the growing threat to the vulnerable slave state of Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil producer and the linchpin to today’s inter-imperialist rivalries. According to Fahad Nazer, a former analyst at the Saudi embassy in Washington, ISIS “has vowed to ‘conquer’ Saudi Arabia after it has ‘vanquished’ the regimes in Damascus and Baghdad” (Al-Monitor, 6/25/14). The Saudis designated the group as a terrorist organization in March. They recently issued a statement calling for “the defeat and destruction” of ISIS and all al-Qaeda networks in Iraq. Ten days later, the ISIS offensive had “brought it within a few dozen miles of Baghdad and a couple of hours’ drive from the Saudi border” (Wall Street Journal, 6/27/14).
Motley Fool, a savvy financial services company, warned in veiled terms of an oil shock if ISIS gets its fingers on Saudi treasure: “The spread of extremist ideology and the mobilization of groups like ISIS to neighboring countries is an even bigger threat ... of supply disruptions in key OPEC-producing countries.”
Rulers Can’t Back Down
By contrast, Russian gas giant “Gazprom....is experiencing ‘no problems’ in Iraq,” boasted Moscow’s RT website (6/19/14). It’s not a coincidence that Russia is bolstering the pro-Iran administration of Iraq’s sectarian Shiite president, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. As the New York Times (6/29/14) reported:
Iraqi government officials said Sunday that Russian experts had arrived in Iraq to help the army get 12 new Russian warplanes into the fight against Sunni extremists. The move was at least an implicit rebuke to the United States, where concerns in Congress about the political viability of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government have stalled sales of advanced jet and helicopter combat planes to Iraq.
For the international working class, the stakes in this growing conflict could not be higher. In their determination to control the world’s oil production and distribution, U.S. rulers killed more than three million Iraqis in two wars and an intervening decade of child-starving sanctions. But their divide-and-conquer strategy — to fuel murderous divisions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims — has apparently backfired. The prospect of losing Iraq yet again, not to mention the energy reserves of Saudi Arabia, would likely prompt a third, even more lethal Gulf War.
From a global perspective, Iraq is a flashpoint for the intensifying competition among the world’s most dangerous, nuclear-armed, capitalist powers: the U.S., China, and Russia. All three are vying for oil and gas supremacy from the Persian Gulf to Crimea to the South China Sea. All three have demonstrated their willingness to slaughter countless workers in pursuit of maximum profit. None of them can afford to back down. In particular, the U.S. bosses — still on top, but in relative decline — will not passively stand by and watch their adversaries overtake them.
Forecasting WW III
Of late, U.S. ruling-class organs have begun to address the inevitable upshot of this inter-imperialist antagonism in more candid terms. In line with Lenin’s century-old analysis, they are predicting a third world war in so many words. Consider “World War Next,” an essay in Asia Times (6/27/14) written by Michael Vatikiotis, director of the Geneva-based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue. Among the organization’s funders are George Soros and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, two leading financiers for the dominant finance capital wing of U.S. capitalism.
Vatikiotis compares ISIS and al-Qaeda to early 20th-century anarchist groups and the Serbian nationalist who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, the trigger to what is now known as World War I. “[T]he Sunni insurgents of western Iraq,” he writes, “are connected to the sprawling civil war in Syria …  which in turn has allowed the Kurds to carve out with alacrity their proto-state. This risks opening a path for new age Persian adventurism, bringing the counter-threat of Israel’s use of nuclear weapons one step closer to reality.”
In Asia, Vatikiotis points to China’s “wide-reaching territorial claims in the South China Sea” and the resulting tension with Japan, which “may soon shed the constitutional constraints on its armed forces in place since the end of World War II.” (On July 1, the cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced plans to “reinterpret” the constitution to ease the use of military force.)
With the U.S. and the European Union preoccupied by the Middle East and East Asia, the writer sees “almost nothing stopping Russia’s slow annexation of East Ukraine, which will inevitably embolden Vladimir Putin to roll out his grand design for a greater Russia.” Throw in the imploding states of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and it is “no surprise … that the number of refugees globally has now exceeded 50 million people, the first time the figure has been higher than [in] the immediate aftermath of World War Two.”
Stating the obvious, Vatikiotis believes the United Nations is worthless in dealing with this latest “revival of great power rivalry and interstate conflict.” Then he goes one step further: “In this, the 100th anniversary of the start of the war to end all wars, we could be once again on a slippery slope towards what looks like old-fashioned world war.”
From War to Revolution
The working class has no control over how or when the bosses wage their next worldwide clash. We hold a different kind of power: the power to transform inter-imperialist war into the fight for communism. The two “great wars” of the 20th century gave rise to the two great communist revolutions. But this sequence of events was neither spontaneous nor inevitable. In both the Soviet Union and China, a dedicated communist party organized masses of workers for many years before hostilities broke out. Communist leadership — and patient preparation — were essential.
Today we are faced with a similar challenge. Progressive Labor Party has taken on the historical task of organizing the working class to be ready to turn the guns against the rulers. Our aim is to create a world free of racism and sexism, of exploitation and unemployment, of poverty and war. Join us!