The following is a speech given by a new PL’er at the conclusion the of the NY/NJ march.
Hi Everyone, today is one of the most exciting days of my life , words cannot express how i feel to be here celebrating May Day with my comrades and be active like I wanted to be a year ago. I want to share with you all my experience, and why I chose to join the fight. I join the fight to defend my convictions and my ideas. From my experience, I know that only the struggle pays off. This is the reason I came here And not staying in my corner to push a rant.
I joined PLP because I know that although the bosses try to fool us with their “Labor Day” in September, we know that May Day is the real holiday for workers because it emphasizes working-class unity and shows the potential of our class to lead society. I experienced this when I flew to Alabama with one of my teachers to support the nine months-long miner’s strike. That's when I discovered more about PLP and saw workers’ power in action. Despite the bosses’ best efforts to distract us, workers around the world and around the U.S. will celebrate May Day with marches and rallies like the one we are having right now. Workers around the world are showing that we must build multi-racial unity and working-class consciousness to raise a new, dynamic political construction: the dictatorship of the workers, where every worker is respected and given the opportunity to contribute and lead in society.
I joined PLP because I am currently a nursing student at Lehman College. My school is made up of working-class Black and Latino students who have been neglected because of the racism of the capitalist system. We know that communists believe that workers need to be truly educated, not just in how to treat patients and prescribe medicines, but also in how capitalism functions, how class struggle is the key to progress, and how workers can run society. I still remember my first experience fighting this racism - joining a march to the CUNY chancellor’s house. We marched against racism and for better pay for our teachers. As a student I couldn’t just sit back and watch what is happening at CUNY without joining the fight. I united with Hostos students to fight for the opening of the cafeteria and their cafeteria is now open. Together we can succeed! Just like in China in 1949, we know that when the working class, led by communists such as us in PLP, take power again we will bring this education to every worker in the world!
I joined PLP because I was born in Haiti, and when I look at how the working class there continues to suffer under racist oppression, I know there has to be a better way. We can see how the system forces our brother and sister to run away, how they force us to leave our beautiful community for a better life elsewhere, and what happens to the people who stayed. What happens to people like me that have family that we would like to spend time with? They use our own people to kill us, they use fear to tear us apart, to divide us, to convince workers to turn against workers. We are strong together, we did it before, we can do it again. Nou se premye pep nwa libere, nou konen byen unite se fos nou, we show others the way, we can find our way back and save workers in Haiti and around the world from this mess. Let’s unite, let's find our way back, let's fight together.
I joined PLP because we are fighting for a society where everyone should have the same opportunities to build a life. Where ordinary individuals can become extraordinary.Where another of our brothers will not have a knee on his neck for another 9 minutes 30 seconds. Say his name. George Floyd. In that society we are fighting for, no role will be bigger or smaller because it will guarantee the idea of human equality. You, you, and you, join us, join me, let’s unite, and fight this system that keeps breeding servants of the ruling class, killer cops, racist unemployment and imperialist war!
Join me and fight together against anti-immigrant policies!
Join me, join us, let’s fight together for the international working class!
Join me, join us, let’s fight for a communist revolution!
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EDITORIAL: Sudan devastated by inter-imperialist rivalry
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- 11 May 2023 66 hits
At least 500 workers have been killed and hundreds of thousands more displaced since the start of a bloody civil war in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum. This will always be the fate of the working class under capitalism, a system built on competition and exploitation, and which in times of crisis resorts to fascism and war. As the U.S. bosses—the most criminal rulers of them all–call for “democracy,” we remind our working-class brothers and sisters to not be fooled by this trap. The capitalist bosses will never have our interests at heart. We call on workers in Sudan and across the globe to join Progressive Labor Party in the fight to smash this profit-driven system and create a communist world.
Imperialism creates instability in Sudan
Less than four years ago, the two current warring generals and capitalist thugs, Abdel Fatahl al-Burhan and Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, were championed by millions of Sudanese workers (and the U.S. ruling class) as they partnered in a coup d’etat against Omar al-Bashir, the blood-soaked dictator aligned with the Chinese imperialists. But as CHALLENGE pointed out (7/27/19), this fake campaign for “democracy” was in reality a violent push by the U.S. ruling class to limit the Chinese bosses’ influence over the region’s energy and trade routes.
As we noted at the time, the main contradiction in Sudan is the same one shaping events worldwide: inter-imperialist competition among a rising China, a resurgent Russia, and a declining U.S. We warned that workers in Sudan will be “sharing” power with the very forces responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of workers in Darfur and Yemen. Whenever workers are duped into compromising with the bosses, the consequences are deadly. Sudan, the third largest country in Africa, is now a tinderbox for an expanding regional war. As the desperate U.S. rulers keep losing ground to their rivals, their inability to control events will inevitably lead to a global conflict that will sacrifice millions of workers. The working class needs international communist consciousness more than ever to turn imperialist war into class war against the capitalists!
Russia, China target Sudan’s riches
Sudan rests between two critical choke points on the Red Sea, a passageway for 10 percent of all global trade. The Suez Canal connects markets in Asia and Europe; the Bab-el-Mandeb strait links the Red Sea to the Arabian Sea. Sudan is also where the White Nile and Blue Nile rivers converge, a critical intersection for trade and access to fresh water. Additionally, it contains large reserves of gold and uranium, and houses critical infrastructure for refining and transporting oil from South Sudan. No imperialist power will easily let go of such a large prize. Russia’s interest in Sudan predates the current conflict.
In 2017, President Vladimir Putin joined with al-Bashir to form Meroe Gold, a subsidiary of the Wagner Group of Russian mercenaries. After al-Bashir was deposed and jailed, Putin strengthened ties with General Degalo, a criminal best known as a leader of the genocidal Janjaweed militias in Darfur, a region of western Sudan. Degalo built a vast pool of wealth and political power by leveraging his ties with al-Bashir to seize some of the richest gold mines in Darfur (Guardian, 4/17). The Janjaweed evolved into the Rapid Support Forces that are now at war with Sudan’s military. Sudanese gold now appears to be financing Russia’s war with Ukraine in return for weapons and training for Degalo’s militia (CNN, 4/21).
Meanwhile, China has long relied on Sudan’s minerals for Chinese industry. Between 2011 and 2018, as part of its Belt and Road Initiative, China made hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to Sudan and invested in oil pipelines, textile factories, railways, and bridges across the Nile. China is Sudan’s largest trading partner and their biggest supplier of goods. Stability in the region is a priority for the Chinese bosses.
U.S. complicity in Darfur genocide
Ever since Chevron discovered oil in Sudan in the 1970s, the U.S. ruling class has kept a hand in the country (Human Rights Watch, 2003). Under presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency worked closely with the notorious General Salah Gosh, who rose to become head of intelligence for Sudan (The Daily Beast, 1/9/2019). Between 2003 and 2008, al-Bashir, al-Burhan, Degalo, and Gosh were responsible for the mass murder of at least 300,000 workers in Darfur and for displacing 2.7 million more. In return for al-Bashir’s help with a “counter-terrorism” campaign against Al Qaeda in Iraq, the U.S. bosses turned a blind eye to the genocide and kept sharing intelligence with Sudan.
Before the latest armed conflict broke out, the Joe Biden administration continued to negotiate with these war criminals to find a path back to “democracy,” the bosses’ word for capitalist dictatorship. But like the CIA support for U.S.-friendly pro-democracy coups in the Arab Spring in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Syria, U.S. moves in Sudan have backfired and further exposed the weakness of the U.S. ruling class.
Fight for communism!
Liberal democracy is a nationalist tool to mislead and pacify the working class. From Sudan to the U.S., we are asked to choose between one mass murderer and another. When we are fooled by the bosses into thinking that their fight is our fight, we lose sight of the essence of capitalism: imperialism and war.
The only solution is communist revolution and a dictatorship of the working class, a society run by and for workers. It is our task to expose this dogfight between the bosses and the slippery slope to World War III. We must connect the attacks on workers in Sudan to attacks on workers everywhere. Join us! Build a fighting PLP!
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MAY DAY ... Oaxaca: Hoist red flags with working-class pride
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- 11 May 2023 78 hits
On May Day, as part of the mass march of Section 22 of the teachers union of Oaxaca, 15 workers hoisted the red flags of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and chanted revolutionary slogans.
We distributed 2,000 flyers with the slogan “Communist May Day,” electoral democracy is bosses’ dictatorship, highlighting the deceitful essence of the capitalist class’s electoral democracy. We attacked the bootlicking political parasites of the pro-bosses’ parties that support this criminal capitalist system that oppresses the working class throughout the world.
We also called on workers to join our revolutionary communist party, PLP, to make revolution and build communism, a new society without bosses that serves the needs and interests of the international working class.
We enthusiastically wore caps imprinted with the PLP logo. Young men and women carried a banner that invited workers and students to “Destroy capitalism!” and “Fight for a communist world!”
Our slogans resounded in unison during the march and in the main streets of the Historic Center of Oaxaca City, drawing the attention of teachers and other workers who were witnessing the mega-march. The slogans that we chanted with energy and great enthusiasm were: “This march is not a celebration, but a struggle and a remonstration”, “May Day is a Workers’ Day”, “The proletarian struggle is not parliamentarian”, “Electoral democracy is bosses’ dictatorship”, “The only path to freedom is workers’ dictatorship”, “Fight, win, workers to power”, “Government and bourgeoisie, the same crap”, “Who are we? The communists from PLP ”, “The workers’ struggles have no borders.”
At the end of the march, we had a get-together where we discussed our participation in this commemorative march of the international working class, and we agreed on activities to give continuity to the revolutionary process outlined by our revolutionary communist party, PLP.
Imperialist conflict explodes in Sudan
France24, 4/23–As gunfire again echoed through Khartoum and fighter jets roared above, foreigners also fled the capital in a long United Nations convoy, while millions of frightened residents hunkered down inside their homes, many running low on water and food. Across the city of five million, army and paramilitary troops have fought ferocious street battles since April 15, leaving behind charred tanks, gutted buildings and shops that have been looted and torched. More than 420 people have been killed and thousands wounded, according to UN figures, amid fears of wider turmoil and a humanitarian disaster in one of the world's poorest nations.
Russia and Ukraine look to Koreas as new sources of weapons
Bloomberg, 4/23–Half a world away from the front line of Russia’s war in Ukraine there’s a stockpile of probably more than a million artillery shells on the Korean peninsula — a hoard that’s drawing attention as South Korea’s leader heads to Washington. President Yoon Suk Yeol has indicated his government may be open to changing its policy about providing lethal aid to Ukraine under certain conditions. That would be welcome news for US President Joe Biden, who has been seeking help from partners to ease Kyiv’s perennial ammunition shortage.
The Kremlin has said that if South Korea supplies arms to Ukraine it would make it a participant in the conflict, with former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev suggesting Moscow could respond by selling advanced weaponry to North Korea, according to a Tass report. The Koreas have two of the world’s largest artillery forces, with thousands of big guns pointing at each other across the demilitarized zone that separates them. They have stockpiled hundreds of thousands of shells that include North Korean artillery inter-operable with Soviet-era artillery in Russia, and South Korean 155 mm caliber shells, which are the standard used by the NATO countries supplying Ukraine.
Chinese and Russian bosses look to expand military power
Foreign Affairs, 4/12–But the truly significant developments took place during closed-door, in-person discussions, at which Xi and Putin made a number of important decisions about the future of Chinese-Russian defense cooperation and likely came to terms on arms deals that they may or may not make public. The war in Ukraine and ensuing Western sanctions on Russia are reducing the Kremlin’s options and pushing Russia’s economic and technological dependence on China to unprecedented levels. These changes give China a growing amount of leverage over Russia. At the same time, China’s fraying relationship with the United States makes Moscow an indispensable junior partner to Beijing in pushing back against the United States and its allies. China has no other friend that brings as much to the table.
Workers in United Kingdom spiral deeper into poverty
Der Spiegel, 4/18– As this winter came to an end, more than 7 million people were waiting for a doctor’s appointment, including tens of thousands of people suffering from heart disease and cancer. According to government estimates, some 650,000 legal cases are still waiting to be addressed in a court of law. And those needing a passport or driver’s license must frequently wait for several months…Recently, a number of chains announced that they would be rationing cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers for the foreseeable future…it is impossible to deny the dismal reality of Blackpool…
The life expectancy of male residents is just under five years below the national average, while that for women is almost four years lower. Almost one in five residents suffers from what local doctors call "shit life syndrome," while anti-depressants are prescribed here twice as often as in the rest of the country. "If you are poor, sick, weak or tired, don’t come to Blackpool,"..."Nobody will help you here."
Strike: ‘we don’t need bosses or their system’
Last week I had the honor of participating in the Rutgers strike. It was great that in the very issue of CHALLENGE newspaper that was being passed out during the strike, there was an editorial on the protests in France which made the following point: strikes show us just a glimpse, just a small window into the panoramic potential of workers’ power when we run the world without answering to bosses. This is the point that should have been the mass line that we spread during the strike, but it was not. Instead, we were so upset and worried at the sellout social democrats who were selling us short at the bargaining table, that we focused instead on pushing for the most radical strike possible as the penultimate show of workers’ power.
When I gave my speech, I should have made the point that striking shows us that we don’t need the bosses or their system. Instead, our strike under capitalism gets turned into a tool for bargaining for more power under the bosses’ system. And while it was an empowering week, inspiring even my colleagues next door at Essex County College (ECC) to become more militant, it did not and does not inherently lead to workers’ power.
It is our job to make that point as often as possible: the bosses need us; we don’t need them. So this is the point I will be continuing to push in my own union, New Jersey Education Association, and with my honest and hard working co-workers. In fact, many ECC full-time faculty teach at Rutgers part time just to make up the difference in our ridiculously low salaries, so we were in fact involved in the strike directly via some of our faculty members. Yes, we salute our fearless and militant colleagues at Rutgers!
We draw inspiration from you and learn the lessons of the victories from that strike–such as folks agreeing to come to May Day–as well as the pitfalls–such as thinking the most militant strike is the goal of our time and energy. Above all, we are inspired that the strike helps us see the necessity for building Progressive Labor Party and sharpening our fight for a world run by our class–a communist world!
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Rutgers strike gave us a chance to talk
The struggle at Rutgers is an important event for the working class to be part of. It gives us the opportunity to talk to our coworkers, friends, and students about the importance of class struggle.
As a high school teacher I discuss the role of unions and strikes in class, but it is actions like this that make it real for high school students. Some of my fellow coworkers joined me at the strike. They began to raise questions of fighting back and organizing within our own union. This led to a larger discussion with a coworker of the limitations of strikes - and more importantly - the dangers of focusing too much on individuals like Rutgers President Holloway while ignoring the larger capitalist system. This was somebody who has been reading the paper for over a year, but it was still hard for him to conceptualize how you build a revolutionary movement while still fighting for reforms. We discussed it more when we went back to school this past week.
Thank you to the Rutgers strikers for creating this opportunity to raise our line of reform and revolution in a period of relatively low class struggle in Newark.
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Teacher speaks out vs ‘profit nest’
Schools in Montgomery County need more funding to serve our students. As a teacher in the county, I spoke at a County Council hearing about raising taxes to do this. After hearing dozens of testimonies about student needs, I decided to change my 3-minute testimony from appealing to the Council and instead blasted them for listening to real estate developers who opposed the tax.
I remembered what a Progressive Labor Party comrade had suggested a few years ago: “You’re talking to the crowd of working class peers and comrades, not the politicians.”
The audience did include many teachers, bus drivers, education support staff, mechanics, public nurses, students and parents. As I spoke to the council, I turned and faced my real brothers and sisters. I asked them if their wages met the median wage in the county.
“No way!” rang out from the crowd!
I pointed out that the county council salaries go way over the median threshold and that there are five billionaires and 2,500 millionaires in the U.S. who could easily fund the needed budget. The County has 21 large real estate and/or construction companies. Are their interests really with keeping taxes low for the immigrant pursuing the “American dream” or the young couple buying their first house? Not at all. They just want to feather their own profit nests!
Here’s a thought: tax the rich to pay for our basic educational needs in the name of antiracist, equitable action and fund our schools.
I have no illusions that the bosses will “take the losses” on their own, but militant struggle to force such changes has a chance!
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CHALLENGE: It’s always a win when we can expose the bosses’ profit motive! But, the main-wing U.S. bosses do want their class to “take the losses” to some extent. In addition to exposing the rulers’ limits of reform, it is important to show workers that reforms of “shared sacrifice” and “tax the rich” are all part of the bosses’ fascist war preparations.