U.S. and Russian imperialists are engaged in an all-out struggle for control over the territories of the former Soviet Union. U.S. rulers have gained a foothold in Eastern Europe, up to the border of Ukraine. But Russia’s vital oil and gas pipelines run through Ukraine to European Union (EU) countries, netting Russian bosses huge profits and a stranglehold on EU energy supplies.
In the short run, Russian bosses appear to be winning. But this is just one battle in a long war, and U.S. bosses will not willingly surrender to the emerging Russian power grab. Given the stakes, the conflict between these imperialist rivals could easily escalate into a broader, open conflict.
Russian-Backed Rebellion in Ukraine
Putin has massed 40,000 Russian potential invaders on Ukraine’s border. According to U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, supreme NATO commander, the Russian force includes “support for planes and helicopters as well as military hospitals and electronic warfare equipment.” These troops, the general said, “could accomplish a major incursion into eastern or southern Ukraine ... in between three and five days” (Wall Street Journal, 4/2/14).  
Putin’s nationalist strategy is to oppress the Russian working class while rebuilding the Russian empire for the profits of Russian capitalists. Having overrun Crimea, Putin and his oligarch cronies now aim to grab other strategic parts of Ukraine. In addition to threatening a future invasion, they are fostering an armed rebellion among pro-Russians inside the country. The imperialists’ ultimate goal is to absorb all the countries of the former Soviet Union.
Mikheil Saakashvili, the anti-Putin politician who became president of Georgia with the backing of U.S. billionaire George Soros and the CIA in the 2003 Rose Revolution, has first-hand experience with resurgent Russian militarism. In 2008, Russia overran Georgia and carved out “independent” states in Russia-leaning South Ossetia and Abkhazia. In an April 5 opinion piece in Foreign Policy headlined “War is Coming,” Saakashvili wrote:
Russian strategists are talking about a ‘weekend of rage’ that could involve some kind of armed siege of government buildings in southern and eastern Ukraine. If these local provocateurs and ‘self-defense forces’ manage to hold these buildings as they did in Crimea, it might serve as a basis for further military intervention.
Events on the following day, April 6, lent further credence to Saakashvili’s scenario:
Crowds of pro-Russian demonstrators stormed government buildings Sunday in two major cities in eastern Ukraine. In Luhansk, 20 miles west of the Russian border, hundreds of people surrounded the local headquarters of the security service and later scaled the facade to plant a Russian flag on the roof. In Donetsk, to the southwest, a large group of people surged into the provincial government building and smashed windows. A gathering of several hundred, many of them waving Russian flags, then listened to speeches delivered from a balcony emblazoned with a banner reading “Donetsk Republic.”
U.S. Bosses’ Weak Counterpunch
NATO’s response to Kremlin aggression has been muted and rear-guard: a couple of U.S. warships dispatched to the Black Sea, increased air policing over the Baltics, Romania and Poland.
But while Russian boots cross Crimean soil, NATO, by its own admission, stands unprepared to deploy its foot soldiers beyond their barracks:
The trickiest question may be whether NATO should move troops into Eastern Europe, where the alliance currently has few installations. Countries like Poland are pushing hard for such a shift, but it would almost certainly be seen as highly provocative by Moscow. While NATO’s air and sea options are fairly clear, Gen. Breedlove said, “Frankly…we have work to do on what the ground options would be” (Wall Street Journal).
U.S. capitalists, and especially Big Oil, recognize the political advantage they gain from controlling the flow of gas and oil to maintain their top dog status among the world’s imperialists. For them this is an absolute necessity, not some breakable addiction to profits. Their long-term strategy is to counter the Kremlin by flooding world markets with newly found shale gas and free Europe from its dependence on Russian energy.  
But for the foreseeable future, the U.S. bosses have neither the infrastructure nor the unity in Congress they need to export gas. Resources expert Michael Klare warned that “increased U.S. oil and gas output have provided White House officials with no particular advantage in their efforts to counter Putin’s aggressive moves.... the prospect of future U.S. gas exports to Europe is unlikely to alter his strategic calculations” (OilPrice.com, 4/5/14).
The bosses also understand they need to ramp up militarism within the U.S. to protect those interests. One step in that direction is the ENLIST Act, now being debated in Washington. A more nightmarish version of the DREAM Act, it aims to draw undocumented youth into the Pentagon’s war machine with the promise of citizenship.
But like the DREAM Act, ENLIST is likely to fail. It lacks bipartisan backing in Congress, and — most important — has failed to win mass working-class support, a problem for the capitalists since the Vietnam War.
Workers’ Power Can Triumph
From Ukraine and Russia to Western Europe and the U.S., workers have nothing to gain from a war between the rival imperialist camps. Meanwhile, we suffer from the cyclical capitalist crises that cause mass unemployment, wage cuts, widespread poverty, reductions in healthcare, and increasing racist attacks on black, Latino, Asian, Muslim and Arab workers. The rulers use this racism to reap super-profits from super-exploited workers and also to divide the working class, weakening its ability to fight back.
The answer for our class is to destroy the capitalist system, the source of all our problems, and create a communist society free of bosses and profits, run by and for the working class. This can only be achieved through the leadership of a communist party, the Progressive Labor Party. Our goal is a communist revolution to smash the capitalists’ state power and replace it with worldwide workers’ power. A revolution means the overthrow of one ruling class and its replacement by the rule of the formerly oppressed class, the working class, which produces everything of value in society. This was never the aim of the bosses’ phony “color revolutions,” which merely replaced one set of bosses with another.
Capitalist society oppresses us today and will drive us into broader wars tomorrow, to kill our class sisters and brothers for the rulers’ greater profit. But a united, communist-inspired working class, led by the revolutionary Progressive Labor Party, has the power to combat the bosses and ultimately to destroy their parasitic system. Join us!

Newark, NJ, April 7 — “If Cami Anderson thinks that putting me in jail is going to stop me as a parent, then she is sadly mistaken,” said a PTA President who is banned from entering any Newark public school and was arrested after he spoke out against the Newark schools superintendent’s plan called One Newark. He went on to say, “I have to keep it real, if (U.S. Education Secretary) Arne Duncan came here, then we have to go after him and Obama. Anyone that makes money off the backs of our kids, whether it be a pastor, elected official or whoever. So going to jail is not going to stop me.”
This fight is against the racist cutbacks on the students, mainly black and Latino. They suffer from the ruling class’s drive for superprofits. The bosses track these students into low-wage jobs, racist unemployment, or into the military to kill Arab, Muslim, and Asian youth on behalf of U.S. imperialism.
The education struggle has intensified as students, workers and parents took their fight to the streets with two big demonstrations over the past month. On March 18, more than 300 students and workers marched to protest the cutbacks in store for us. On April 3, more than a thousand students walked out of school to protest against the cuts and the Foundation for Newark’s Future, the group that administers the $100 million grant to the city’s schools by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.  
The March 18 demonstration, organized by the Newark Education Workers, or NEW (a caucus within the Newark Teachers Union), Newark Student Union, and NJ Communities, reflected a growing anger among those in the struggle.
At the start of the march, a member of Newark Student Union told a member of Progressive Labor Party that she overheard a teacher telling another teacher to avoid the rally because communists were going to be there. She said she interrupted that teacher and told him she was going and that he should stop being an anti-communist.
Energy at the demonstration was high, as the group of over 300 shut down the center of the city, Broad and Market, during rush hour. After one or two speeches, the students marched down Broad Street and took over the intersection of Raymond Boulevard and Broad. Despite the cops’ demands to clear the area, the streets remained blocked for about 15 minutes.
At that time, several people spoke passionately about the need to address the bigger picture: imperialism and capitalism. “This is about power,” said a member of the People’s Organization for Progress, a community group in Newark that holds anti-racist rallies. “This is about social control. This is about a decaying imperialist system.”
Another teacher from the NEW Caucus spoke about the need to understand capitalism and how it really works.
While this rally showed a growing militancy within the working class as well as PL’s influence in winning workers and students to our world analysis, it still reflected many of the bosses’ ideas. This included supporting one politician over another and nationalism: falling into the illusion that a black politician will serve the interests of Newark’s largely black and Latino working class. Superintendent Anderson and Governor Chris Christie were the main focus of the event, with most of the chants reverting to “Cami Must Go!” Many demonstrators held “Baraka” signs in support of Newark mayoral candidate Ras Baraka, whose group has considerable influence in this struggle.
The same contradictions were on display during the April 3 walkout. The students defied pushback from their administrators and an attempt by Newark police to intimidate them by standing outside the school. Many students chanted, “They say cut back, we say fight back!”
Newark Student Union President Kristen Towkaniuk acknowledged that the problem was bigger than Superintendent Anderson:  “Even if we get Cami Anderson out, even if we stop the One Newark Plan, somebody else will come in and continue doing what she is doing.”  While this is correct, there weren’t any broader critiques of the proposed budget cuts or the capitalist system. The demonstration stuck to the same chants and political content as before, in tune with speaker Ras Baraka.
As this battle sharpens, the fight to win workers to the idea of running the world rather than depending on politicians or a “better” superintendent is essential. While we are making some headway in bringing workers and students to our study group on Vladimir Lenin’s What is To Be Done?, we need to win others to put forward a communist analysis in the rallies, walkouts, and everyday struggles that workers are engaged in. We are optimistic that over time more workers and students will be won to our ideas.

WASHINGTON, DC, April 5 — Today over 400 workers and students marched over three miles from D.C.’s Mt. Pleasant neighborhood to the White House, condemning President Barack Obama as the “Deporter-in-Chief.” Demonstrators called for a halt to all deportations. Several individuals whose families had been separated by deportations pledged to camp out on Obama’s doorstep until deportation orders for family members were reversed.
A local planning committee led by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network included students from area universities, immigrants’ rights organizations, and a PLP member. Several PL’ers participated in the march, distributing 400 May Day leaflets as well as copies of the 2013 May Day issue of CHALLENGE containing some sharp articles on immigration. They called on marchers to join the upcoming May Day march on April 26 in New York. PL’ers made many new contacts. Afterwards several marchers came to a dinner at the PL’ers’ home to discuss continuing the struggle.
The march was inspiring. It created a spirit of solidarity and power that determined fightbacks can build. It overcame the fear and isolation that we often experience. But the march also reflected the ongoing challenge of divisions within the working class over racism. The march included mainly Latinos with a few whites and fewer blacks. Despite an effort to reach out to black workers and youth, the march failed to include a significant group outside the Latino community, a weakness that must be overcome.
Fortunately, there is also a surging multi-racial, anti-racist movement led by PLP that clearly points out that all forms of racism hurt all groups of workers by destroying the solidarity needed to fight and defeat the capitalist class. Racist divisions in the working class also give capitalists the maneuvering room afforded by super-profits reaped from the super-exploitation of black and Latino sections of the working class.
The strategic insight that racism hurts all workers has not yet penetrated the mass movement adequately in the U.S. or elsewhere. Consequently, the bosses still hold the trump cards in the class struggle. But this can be reversed!
PLP will bring ALL workers together on May Day to fight back as a class against racism and the capitalist system as a whole. This approach must be reflected in all organizing efforts. Bring black and white people to immigration rights events; bring Latinos and whites to fights against racist murders by the police, and unify the working class to topple capitalism, the root of all modern oppressions.

WASHINGTON, DC, March 26 — Metro bosses were stopped in their tracks today in the face of determined workers sticking up for one of their own. Metro workers, community activists in the returning citizens movement, public health workers in the Metropolitan Washington Public Health Association, PLP members and many others have been sharpening the struggle against racist background checks for months.
Metro bosses and union leaders are nervous because of our bold, open offensive. We took it to another level with a planned confrontation at the monthly Metro board meeting, armed with an open letter to the board signed by outraged workers, many of whom we had never even met before.
We exposed the lies of General Manager Sarles, who had testified in public that a Metro employee who was out sick would not have to undergo a criminal background check when he/she returned to work. But behind closed doors Sarles’ agents were firing a bus driver returning to work after a year-long struggle with cancer. When his background check turned up two previous convictions, he was told he was terminated. Both convictions occurred more than ten years before he was employed by Metro.
Afraid of the workers and continued public criticism, the bosses called him in at the last minute and rehired him on the spot. One of the driver’s friends texted us: “how grateful he is to have u guys jump to his corner and did not even know him. Shows that u guys just don’t talk the talk. You guys make it happen.”
Now is the time to press our offensive against racist mass incarceration, the New Jim Crow. We must force Metro to stop its racist policies. Metro must create new personnel policies that don’t discriminate and stop reinforcing the systematic racist injustice that characterizes all of capitalism.
This struggle is challenging because racism is a key part of capitalism’s effort to stigmatize and divide groups of workers. The capitalists want to divide ex-offenders from workers who have escaped being arrested in the drug wars, pay everyone less and make off with the profits.
This small victory today came because all workers said NO to injustice.  We can’t stop now. We have to fight for the big victory of overthrowing bosses like Sarles and having our own system that relies on unity and equality of workers — communism.