OAXACA, MEXICO, January 13 — Last December, 37 comrades attended a communist school here. A broad discussion included an analysis, with examples, exposing the evils of capitalism, studying political economy, and stressed the urgency of continuing to build a base for communism. But, in a new dynamic, we formed work-groups to answer such questions as:

Why does poverty exist?

Why are there wars, and can they be avoided?

What is communism and how does it work?

Why do we need a party to build communism?

Why should we fight directly for communism, not for socialism?

Then each work-group reported on its understanding of these questions, enabling the majority to participate. It was encouraging to hear some of the new participants explaining that war is inevitable due to the nature of capitalism or that the only war that will exist under communism is one against hunger, racism, sexism, etc.

Discussions focused on the lessons of the 2006 uprising against the Oaxaca state government and its murderous Governor, Ulysis Ruiz. One lesson was that, if we fight consistently for the Party’s line of organizing a movement of workers and students with the long-term goal of communist revolution, we get results.

Fighting for PLP’s politics in the heat of the uprising wasn’t easy. Internally Party members disagreed. Some thought our main role should be to support the uprising while others felt it was more important to sharpen and develop the ideological struggle for communism. We concluded that they aren’t necessarily opposites — we were part of many of the actions, including proposing more militant workers’ struggles — if we focus the action on our communist outlook and expose the illusions in reforms and reform leaders.

This produced results: recently some communities who were among the most militant, today are disillusioned with APPO — a coalition of unions and mass organizations — and see PLP as an alternative. Recently a group of families who regularly read CHALLENGE and gave mass leadership in these struggles agreed to meet with PLP. Another positive aspect was the presence of new youth, creating the potential for future leaders among young workers to build the Party.

At an afternoon dinner at some comrade’s home, we continued discussing what communism is and how it will work. Despite the fatigue of those who had traveled all night to come to the schools, our enthusiasm lasted well into the night. 

An older comrade, whose activity had been somewhat distant from the rest of the Party’s, asked for support to carry out the Party’s political work in his community, which we’ll be planning shortly.

In order to gain greater ability to carry out the Party’s politics among the masses and develop new political leaders who will guarantee building for communism, we’re planning three communist schools in 2010.

Greetings to all comrades worldwide as we advance qualitatively and quantitatively this year in the fight for the international working class. LONG LIVE COMMUNISM! r c `_ ing back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”('War is a Racket,' Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler)

NEW YORK CITY, January 3 — The recent Obama Nobel Peace Prize award and widespread budget cuts have opened the door to build the Party at our school. Our goal as communists in PLP is to link the cuts to the bosses’ massive war budget for Afghanistan and Iraq, to expose the inter-imperialist wars and rivalries dominating the world and to expose the nature of the cuts as racist, an attack on the overwhelmingly black and Latino student population.

A PL teacher had already planned to teach a unit on Afghanistan as part of the World Literature curriculum. As soon as he heard that Obama was sending even more troops, he seized the opportunity to discuss it in the classroom.

The comrade discussed the pipeline (see CHALLENGE, 12/23/09) and explained that capitalism is little more than organized crime — whoever controls the product, controls the streets. When the class was asked what product was being fought over, they shot back “oil to control the world.”

The students were informed that they would soon be watching the film “Afghan Women” and that a comrade who had served in Iraq would be visiting the classroom to discuss the war. Integrating Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize with the current escalation of the pipeline war, combined with proper classroom planning, created the opportunity to build closer ties with the students and raise class struggle and consciousness.

That same day, the school’s union chapter was meeting to discuss the budget cuts, the fact that the bosses want to remove tenure and fire teachers after ten years as well as other attacks on the working class. PL teachers and students in the school had already decided at an earlier PLP club meeting to call for a demonstration in front of the school. So at the union meeting PL’ers raised the need to fight back through a rally. The chapter leader liked the idea so it was agreed that a union action would be set for the following Tuesday. PL’ers envisaged bringing students since only by building
worker-student unity can the Party and the fight for communism be advanced.

One teacher who has previously participated with the Party took leadership, made the flier and posted it for the event on Monday. The event could not have happened without her help and initiative.

The PL teacher didn’t do enough to build for it, but at 5:30 AM the alarm rang and he showed up alone, in the cold, to be met by other teachers. Several others showed support, and one asked to join the action committee to help plan larger future events. Several students walking by joined the rally. Within ten minutes, a group of four teachers and ten students were rallying outside the school chanting, “Budget cuts mean, we gotta fight back.” One teacher in particular was impressed and inspired as she did not believe the students would be so loud.

Though the rally was small, it raised spirits at the school. Now people there want to hold another one. Aspects of the Party’s politics were clearly present as workers and students united under communist leadership to fight for our class. Years of patient CHALLENGE distribution and struggles inside the classroom as well as hours spent afterwards at local taverns bore fruit when the opportunity presented itself.

Though the chapter leader had the best of intentions, she wanted to postpone the rally until the media could be called. This could have been disastrous since it might have re-enforced the ideology of “we can’t do anything.” This thinking of “let’s not do anything until every ‘t’ is crossed” and “let’s rely on the media” are bad ideas. They hold us back from struggle and make us dependent on part of our enemy — the bosses’-owned and -controlled media.

We must constantly do everything we can, within the limits of our circumstances, to motivate our co-workers towards increased struggle and understanding of communist ideas.

Many students who later heard about the rally were excited about it and wanted to participate in another one. Two signs that the students made were posted in the hallway adjacent to a classroom and many students read them with pride. This will be the first of many actions we will organize, becoming schools for communism to bring down the system.

The following Thursday the union chapter leader noted that a recently-closed school had just organized a large rally, saying we should do one in solidarity with them. She said that since the Tuesday rally went so well, we should have a larger one in front of the school, invite students and parents and notify the media. This action clearly illustrates how the working class leads the way and that we have much to learn from them.

(Continued next issue; stay tuned)

ALGIERS, January 15 — A massive wildcat general strike of nearly 20,000 auto, steel, port and public health workers is in its twelth day and is spreading across Algeria, amid repeated pitched battles with thousands of cops and security forces. Workers are not only striking against their companies but also directly against the government, defying its ban on public rallies and demonstrations, stemming from a “state of emergency” declared in the early 1990s.

Strikers are demanding a wage hike, and in a political challenge to the government, changes in the minimum wage and tax laws. They’re also denouncing the sweetheart deal signed by their union misleaders which raises the retirement age from 50 to 60 for workers doing difficult and dangerous work, some of whom began working at age 17.

One worker declared, “For years they’ve been promising us significant wage increases. Algeria is raking in hundreds of billions of dollars in oil profits but the citizen still has to contend with indescribable poverty.”

In condemning the union sellouts, one worker told the press: “I began to have doubts when all the parties said they were satisfied with the meeting of the UGTA [the union], the government and the bosses. Three speakers, each of whom is defending his interests, cannot all be equally satisfied unless it is on the backs of the workers.”

Strikers Battle Cops

On January 3, 5,000 SNVI auto workers wildcatted near Rouiba, to be joined within 24 hours by workers in Hussain-Dey near Algiers, in Annaba to the east and in Tiaret in the southwest, as well as by thousands in the industrial zone east of here. The cops blocked marchers there by massing all-country vehicles, troop transport vans, tear gas grenades, water cannon and sanitation trucks to occupy strategic intersections in the zone. One worker said it was ironic since it is the workers who had produced all these vehicles.

Workers from Anabib, Mobsco, Hydroamenagement and Enad also walked. All told, 11,000 had struck.

Marching workers have been attempting to force their way through police roadblocks. On January 6, 2,000 workers heading from their factory gates to Rouiba were stopped by police, who injured three workers. The next day, 5,000 marched on Rouiba, when two more were injured in clashes with thousands of riot police. The latter are trying to prevent different groups of factory strikers from joining together in these demonstrations.

On the same day, workers tried to force their way through roadblocks leading to the Mobsco factory on the main roads in the industrial zone. Then when hundreds of gendarmes armed with wooden clubs resembling pickaxe handles rained down blows on the front ranks, barring the route. The workers chanted slogans exposing the government and the union confederation and its chief sellout, Sidi Said.

When the union misleaders tried to pacify the angry workers, they began throwing stones at the cops’ roadblocks.

“We work under difficult conditions and we can’t even manage to feed our children,” declared one worker. “The oil money is shared by the [government] and their zealous servants, while the worker is condemned to live a hell on earth.”

Another said, “Despite the repression, we aren’t going to stop demonstrating if the authorities do not announce concrete measures to improve our purchasing power.”

Steel Goes Out; Port Paralyzed

On January 12, 7,200 workers at Arcelor-Mittal, the giant multi-national outfit, began an “unlimited strike” to prevent the company from closing its El-Hidjar plant near Annaba and force it to renovate to keep it open. The next morning, the steelworks, the depots and warehouses, and port installations were totally paralyzed. Two days later a massive march of steelworkers went from company offices to the guard post at the steelworks.

This uprising of basic industrial workers in Algeria is a model for all industrial workers to follow. But the bosses still hold state power and will use this apparatus, helped by their lieutenants “leading” the unions, to attempt to either crush or divert these militant workers from their just demands. What is needed is communist leadership to head the workers’ movement in the direction of revolution, to destroy the bosses’ state power and establish workers’ power, the only answer to the continuing hell created by capitalism. :12` ; o d `c :"Cambria","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-US; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA'>(Continued next issue; stay tuned)

PARIS, January 9 — About 6,000 people marched here today in the cold and snow demanding “across-the-board ‘legalization’ and the abolition of the ministry of shame,” that is, the Ministry of Immigration and National Identity. Simultaneously, there were calls for greater unity among the organizations defending undocumented workers, 6,000 of whom have been on strike since October 12.

The march included 14 undocumented-worker collectives from the Paris region, plus the CSP 59 collective from Lille in northern France. The latter group chanted, “We have marched from Lille to Paris to remind Mr. Sarkozy [France’s president] that it’s because of the IMF [International Monetary Fund] and the multi-nationals that we left our countries.” (The chant rhymes in French.) Other chants were: “I’m here, I’m staying, I won’t leave!” and, “We are in danger, we aren’t dangerous!”

Massed anti-riot police stopped the marchers from reaching the French presidential palace.

“We’ve been trying to achieve unity around the rue Baudelique [see below], but it hasn’t been easy to organize,” said Djibril Diany, a spokesman for the CSP 75 collective. “Since [the 1996 occupation of the church of] Saint Bernard, the undocumented workers’ movement has not been unified. But unity is very important so that we can be strong and solid against the government.”

The “rue Baudelique” is a complex of empty buildings in Paris which has been occupied since last July by thousands of undocumented workers led by the CSP 75. They’ve renamed the complex the “Ministry of Legalization of All Undocumented Workers.” Roland Diagne, a CSP 59 spokesman, said: “Today, Paris is the center of the struggle, which has taken on two forms: the strikes of undocumented workers and the Ministry of Legalization. These two forms overlap and they have to come together. We need the broadest possible united front of resistance to the government.”

Continuing its attacks on the undocumented workers’ movement, the French government has gone to court to force the village of Billière (population 25) in southwestern France to blot out a fresco, “The wall of the deportees,” that’s painted on their community center. It’s dedicated to the memory of deported undocumented workers and their children. In 2009, France deported 29,000 undocumented immigrants.

Today’s demonstration proclaimed an aim to protest “laws that create undocumented workers.” It’s clear, however, that demonstrations and strikes cannot end such laws, because capitalism needs the super-profits it makes by super-exploiting undocumented workers. Only communist revolution, which will smash all borders and the capitalists who create them, will emancipate these and all workers. cks.D `_ =MsoNormal>“We work under difficult conditions and we can’t even manage to feed our children,” declared one worker. “The oil money is shared by the [government] and their zealous servants, while the worker is condemned to live a hell on earth.”

Another said, “Despite the repression, we aren’t going to stop demonstrating if the authorities do not announce concrete measures to improve our purchasing power.”

Steel Goes Out; Port Paralyzed

On January 12, 7,200 workers at Arcelor-Mittal, the giant multi-national outfit, began an “unlimited strike” to prevent the company from closing its El-Hidjar plant near Annaba and force it to renovate to keep it open. The next morning, the steelworks, the depots and warehouses, and port installations were totally paralyzed. Two days later a massive march of steelworkers went from company offices to the guard post at the steelworks.

This uprising of basic industrial workers in Algeria is a model for all industrial workers to follow. But the bosses still hold state power and will use this apparatus, helped by their lieutenants “leading” the unions, to attempt to either crush or divert these militant workers from their just demands. What is needed is communist leadership to head the workers’ movement in the direction of revolution, to destroy the bosses’ state power and establish workers’ power, the only answer to the continuing hell created by capitalism. :12` ; o d `c :"Cambria","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-US; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA'>(Continued next issue; stay tuned)