In evaluating non-communist authors and their work, communists must pose one critical question: On balance, does the work advance the interests of the international working class? In celebrating Looking Backward, 2000-1887,the wildly popular novel by the 19th-century utopian Edward Bellamy, as “a powerful plea for…a communist world” (10/5/22), CHALLENGE seriously missed the mark.
On its surface, Looking Backward would seem to align with Progressive Labor Party’s vision of communism: an egalitarian society with no money, profit, war, poverty, cops, or lawyers, with all capital controlled by the state. But as the CHALLENGE article concedes, the book has its “imperfections.” There are no Black or Latin or immigrant workers in this imaginary year 2000. There is no anti-racist or anti-sexist struggle—no class struggle of any kind, in fact. A supposedly perfect society has evolved with “absolutely no violence.” In essence, Looking Backward is anti-dialectical and anti-revolutionary. Written 17 years after the communards fought and died on the barricades in Paris, it fosters the dangerous illusion that we can make an omelet without breaking any eggs.
If Bellamy were simply a naïve idealist, it would be one thing. But a close reading of Looking Backward reveals a bitter anti-communist who accepted without question the casual racism and sexism of his day. The main obstacle to the great evolution, we learn, was “the red flag party,” which was “paid by the great monopolies'' to “talk about burning, sacking, and blowing people up” and “head off any real reforms.” Only when parties representing labor were replaced by “the national party,” “the most patriotic of all possible parties,” composed “equally of all classes, of rich and poor,” could the United States move forward “as a family, a vital union, a common life...”
Elsewhere around the globe, the nations of Europe have joined the evolution, and a joint council regulates policy “toward the more backward races, which are gradually being educated up to civilized institutions.” Meanwhile, all women are excluded from all “heavier sorts of work”; the top-down “industrial army” that runs the show is led exclusively by men. Even a seemingly positive development—the liberation of women from marriages driven by financial dependence, to make “matches of pure love”—is poisoned by Bellamy’s racist eugenics: “It means that for the first time in human history the principle of sexual selection, with its tendency to preserve and transmit the better types of the race, and let the inferior types drop out, has unhindered operation.”
Who was Edward Bellamy? He grew up in a family of evangelical Baptist preachers and flag-waving U.S. patriots. (His cousin and close associate, Francis Bellamy, wrote the original U.S. Pledge of Allegiance, which American schoolchildren honored with the “Bellamy salute”—a stiff-armed facsimile of the fascist salute—until 1942.) Though widely viewed as a “Christian socialist,” Edward Bellamy called himself a “nationalist”—hence the hundreds of Nationalist Clubs, inspired by his book, that pushed for state ownership of industry. When he founded a magazine, he named it The New Nation. As Bellamy wrote in an anti-communist, anti-Semitic letter to the literary critic William Dean Howells:
…the word socialist is one I never could well stomach. In the first place it is a foreign word in itself, and equally foreign in all its suggestions. It…suggests the red flag, and with all manner of sexual novelties, and an abusive tone about God and religion, which in this country we at least treat with respect….No such party can or ought to succeed that is not wholly and enthusiastically American and patriotic in spirit and suggestions.
While we’ve learned from Russia and China that socialism leads back to capitalism, that’s not the main issue here. (The error of the two-stage theory of revolution wasn’t obvious in 1887). The problem with Edward Bellamy is that he strips socialism of its class content and ties it instead to the nation. That’s how socialism turns into its opposite—into national socialism, the fascist ideology implemented by Mussolini and then Hitler. As Sylvia Bowman observed in her book Edward Bellamy Abroad:
During the period in which Hitler’s Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterparei was rising to power, some Germans – usually socially inclined but anti-Marxist bourgeois – thought at first that the National-Socialist German Worker’s Party would be a version of the American Nationalist movement as outlined by Bellamy since its program had certain superficial similarities to it. These comparable plans included the Reichsarbeitsdienst, the compulsory labor force which everyone had to join after his education had been complete; the Volkgemeinschaft, the formation of a classless society which combined the arbeitsfront(workers) and the stirne und faust (intellectuals and investors); and the appeal for a unified, patriotic, collectivist society to solve the social problems which existed.
Edward Bellamy had some positive anti-capitalist ideas. He influenced a broad range of advanced thinkers, from Tolstoy to Martin Luther King. But Looking Backward is far from a plea for “a communist world.” Instead of militant class struggle and revolutionary working-class consciousness, it promotes racism, sexism, pacifism, and all-class unity. In this period of rising liberal fascism and looming world war, workers must look forward, not backward—to the fight for a communist future.
The nuclear age began with the atomic bomb developed by the U.S. to “win” the war with Japan. The real reason the U.S. dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was to scare the USSR and establish the U.S. as top dog imperialist. There were over two thousand experimental atomic bomb tests by the U.S and other countries competing in the nuclear arms race. The atmospheric fallout polluted the entire world with plutonium and other radioactive chemicals.
There are 600 USEPA Superfund sites on former or current U.S. military sites and another 734 superfund sites that are non-military. A superfund site is considered so polluted that it is dangerous to human health and must be cleaned up. The military accepts the illnesses and deaths caused by the environmental pollution at their superfund sites as necessary for the national defense. The U.S. military enforces U.S. imperialism and it is not subject to any scrutiny either politically or legally. It cannot be sued due to “sovereign” immunity.
Most of these superfund sites have not been cleaned up because it is too costly (for the capitalists). The lives lost or ruined by the pollution are falsely written off as unavoidable. The truth is that these waste sites exist because the military is focused on weapons and destruction. They don’t follow any anti-pollution regulations, are exempt from lawsuits and can hide behind national security.
Many of these sites are contaminated with radioactive waste from atomic bomb testing, plutonium production and ongoing use of nuclear-powered naval vessels. The damage done is never compensated and health care costs are left up to the victims. And government agencies constantly lie about environmental pollution and health effects
These horrors are illustrated by the Hanford Plutonium factory in southeastern Washington state. It is an abandoned factory where plutonium for atomic bombs were made. The site is huge (½ the size of Rhode Island). The location was confiscated by the U.S. government in 1942, pushing out five indigenous tribes and hundreds of farmers to put 11,000 workers in place to make plutonium.
Plutonium is the most-deadly of all radioactive substances. It has a 24,000-year half-life in the environment. The workers at Hanford (and the children and spouses) have been dying and suffering from uncontrolled exposure to the radiation. The U.S. government refuses to compensate the victims and their health care has driven many into bankruptcy.
Hanford is just one site of horror. The Santa Susana, California, atomic reactor experimental facility operated for the Department of Energy by private companies has caused an epidemic of child leukemia and brain cancer in nearby residents.
Imperialism poisons workers
Hunter’s Point Naval shipyard in San Francisco has poisoned the neighbors who suffer from high rates of cancer and birth defects, and shortened life expectancy. Radiation was spread in the community when radioactive ships used in atomic bomb testing in the west Pacific were decontaminated in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Originally, poisoned workers and residents were all Black, but subsequently the community has become ethnically diverse. All this is business as usual for the U.S. military.
Recently the U.S. Congress admitted that Camp Lejeune in North Carolina had poisoned thousands of marines and their families because of pollution in their water supply. The contamination had been known for decades but the U.S. government refused to clean it up, or compensate, and provide medical care for the cancer and other diseases caused by the pollution.
Many communities have fought back against environmental pollution and environmental racism. If this has raised its ugly head in your community, fight back against the racist polluters!
There have been millions of victims of military pollution. These victims are the inevitable casualties of endless war to protect and extend the imperial goals of U.S. capitalism. The answer to these injustices is communism. The imperialist U.S. government cares no more about its citizens’ health and survival than they do about the rest of the world’s working class. We are all expendable. The sickness and death caused by the capitalists’ perpetual need for more profits and power must be eradicated by communist revolution.
Healthcare profits keep rolling along as patients die
New York Times, 9/24–Norman Otey was rushed by ambulance to Richmond Community Hospital. The 63-year-old was doubled over in pain and babbling incoherently. Blood tests suggested septic shock, a grave emergency that required the resources and expertise of an intensive care unit…But Richmond Community, a struggling hospital in a predominantly Black neighborhood, had closed its I.C.U. in 2017…It took several hours for Mr. Otey to be transported to another hospital, according to his sister, Linda Jones-Smith. He deteriorated on the way there, and later died of sepsis.
Ringed by public housing projects, Richmond Community consists of little more than a strapped emergency room and a psychiatric ward. Yet the hollowed-out hospital — owned by Bon Secours Mercy Health, one of the largest nonprofit health care chains in the country — has the highest profit margins of any hospital in Virginia.
The secret to its success lies with a federal program that allows clinics in impoverished neighborhoods to buy prescription drugs at steep discounts, charge insurers full price and pocket the difference. More than half of all hospitals in the United States are set up as nonprofits, a designation that allows them to make money but avoid paying taxes…Bon Secours …made nearly $1 billion in profit last year at its 50 hospitals in the United States and Ireland and was sitting on more than $9 billion in cash reserves.
Plans for escalating war on the European front
The Economist, 9/29–Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, has repeatedly warned that he could resort to nuclear weapons.
On September 21 he said he would use “all weapons systems available” to defend the “territorial integrity” of Russia. In response Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, sternly warned Russia of “catastrophic consequences” if it used nuclear weapons.One option would be to pile more economic pressure on Russia, perhaps through secondary sanctions on those buying its oil and gas, with the hope of turning Mr Putin into even more of an international pariah. Another option would be for the West to help Ukraine fight in a nuclear battlefield, by providing advice, protective gear and decontamination equipment. It could also supply more advanced arms. At the other end of the scale, America, Britain or France could respond with a limited nuclear strike of their own.
The middle way…is the likeliest…deploying NATO troops to Ukraine, or carrying out direct strikes on Russian targets. The U.S. could…destroy the ports, air bases, or mobile missile launchers used in any Russian nuclear attack.
Ben Hodges, a retired general who once commanded American. ground forces in Europe, suggests sinking Russia’s Black Sea fleet, or destroying its bases in Crimea.
Farmers in Pakistan crushed by flooding and by capitalism
New York Times, 10/1–The young woman waded into the waist-deep flood water that covered her farmland, scouring shriveled stalks of cotton for the few surviving white blooms. But the farmworker — Barmeena, just 14 — had no choice. “It was our only source of livelihood…She is one of the millions of farmworkers whose fields were submerged by the record-shattering floods that have swept across Pakistan. In the hardest-hit regions, where the floods drowned entire villages, the authorities have warned that the floodwater may not fully recede for months.Still, wherever the water has receded even a bit, farm laborers are scrambling to salvage whatever they can from the battered remains of their cotton and rice harvests. It is desperate work. Many already owe hundreds or thousands of dollars to the landlords whose fields they cultivate each year, as part of a system that has long governed much of rural Pakistan.
But now, their summer harvests are in ruins. Unless the water recedes, they will not be able to plant the wheat they harvest each spring. Even if they can, the land is certain to produce less after being damaged by the floodwaters, from a cataclysmic combination of heavy glacier melt and record monsoon rains, which scientists say were both intensified by climate change.
“Our life goes like that — sinking into debt, not earning the money to pay it back, and then we do it again,” said Mairaj Meghwar, 40, a farmer who lives in the village of Lal Muhammad in Sindh Province, the region that sustained the most flood damage... “We are slaves, that is clear,” he said.
‘It enriched my ideas’
During the cadre school, I was able to learn many things that will not only help me grow as a person but will be useful to me as a fighter for my class, the working class. I learned about understanding people better without underestimating them—having confidence in our class. The training taught me some of the differences between communism and capitalism. I understand better how capitalism functions--through corruption, abusing people's trust and individualism. And I understand better about how communism will function—aiding each other to overcome problems, showing solidarity, and such.
I also learned some history of previous revolutions and how to evaluate why they failed, and what lessons we can learn from those failures, and what good things they accomplished (even if they didn't last as long as we would like).
I also learned about the difference between reforming a society—which means just to make some surface changes—and revolutionizing society—which means changing it from the root, turning it upside down, in the interests of our class. What was most important to me is that the cadre school enriched my thoughts and ideas about just about everything.
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‘Found myself inside a communist world’
To be honest, what I learned from the cadre school is more words like materialism, idealism, reform and revolution. And thanks to these words, I found myself more inside a communist world. What struck me the most was the awareness and solidarity that each person in a communist world has that has become more human, compared to capitalist society. Under communism, we would abolish private property and claim not only liberty but also the right of each member of society to fulfill himself or herself by serving that society. When I try to understand these two different ways of living, I see that a communist society, where we cooperate instead of compete with one another, makes us more social and more sensitive to anyone.
I would like to thank the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) for inviting me to this cadre school and I hope to attend more and become more active in the struggle for the liberation of the working class.
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‘As we grow, our movement will grow too’
The PLP cadre school taught me a lot of things. I learned what a communist revolution is, how a communist revolution can happen, and how it differs from other so-called revolutions. The school taught me what the capitalist system is and how it functions by exploitation and racism. I learned to view my position in the world according to my class. And finally, it taught me to respect those who fight for the working class, to love and share equally according to need. That's why I think it's really important to have cadre schools, so we can deepen our understanding of how the society functions, and what we need to know and do to change it. As we grow in our experiences, our movement will grow too.
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‘I liked the communist goal of abolishing private property’
The cadre school was a very special experience for me. I learned a lot about historical materialism, communism and revolution. During the debates, I learned how to understand the world from a materialist point of view, rather than the idealism that we learn in schools and in church. I especially liked our discussions about the communist goal of abolishing private property and replacing it with collective property, so that the collective—the vast majority—takes over from the individual and makes decisions based on the needs and interests of the majority. I've seen in my life how private property gives all rights and control to a few to run roughshod over the majority, and the vast majority—who work for and create the wealth of the owners of private property—have little or nothing to feed, clothe, shelter and educate themselves and their families. That kind of system has got to go!
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See article in this issue: "Haiti: revolutionary spirit sprouting"
Covid-19: capitalist genocide continues
On Sunday, September 18, President Biden declared that the pandemic has ended, and the U.S. can now return to “normal.” Yet, The People’s CDC reports that over 98 percent of the U.S. population live in areas with high rates of transmission (pcdc.org, 9/19). The Lancet, the British medical journal, confirmed that the world’s response to Covid-19 is “a massive global failure” (Washington Post, 9/18).
Is Covid-19 over? If you are one of the 400-500 people in the U.S. who die each day, or the one person in five living with long Covid, or a person living in a previously-colonized country where only seven percent are fully vaccinated, or one of millions with chronic disease or advanced age, Covid is not over.
Returning to “normal” is as appealing as Trump’s “make America great again.” Normal is billions without healthcare, paid sick leave, housing, a job, food, safety, racial and gender justice, energy, clean air, education, social connections, and other critical components for a good life. While all workers experience these problems, Black, Latin, and indigenous workers around the world suffer in disproportionate numbers. We are all connected. The denial of vaccines to poor people endangers their lives as well as ours as variants develop and travel across borders.
We can prevent future diseases by stopping climate change, deforestation, and dangerous farming practices. We can mitigate Covid-19 with masking, ventilation, free universal vaccination and health care, free test kits, medications like Paxlovid, and accommodations for people with disabilities.
This will take a concerted fight to prioritize health and create a better normal around the globe. And that will take a communist society organized by the working class with no profiteering.
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Red seniors are living libraries of antiracist history
Feeling a bit down during the long dark night period of Covid-19, capitalist climate destruction, war, racist, sexist violence and, because of a comrade’s suggestion, I am writing about positive developments at my New York City senior center. Because of Covid and fear, our center lost most seniors that formed regular discussions where I got to discuss communist ideas and showed CHALLENGE to some.
I recently got the program director to provide a weekly discussion table (with masks and cookies) which produced eight seniors who discussed homeless people in the neighborhood and Mayor Adams. The second meeting included two Black seniors and the discussion was racist shootings.
One Black senior said he was a supporter of Malcolm X and his anti-white Muslim group because they were the only Black workers that were fighting back. Another Black maintenance worker said he attended many Malcolm X rallies and Martin Luther King rallies. I got to say I was a member of a transit worker mostly Black rank and file group that joined the Harlem Unemployment Center’s picket lines to support the hiring of Black workers on all white construction jobs in Harlem. The Unemployment Center was across the street from where Malcolm held his rallies. Our transit group went over to hear Malcolm who on seeing me, the only white, said “take that honky around the corner and break his fxxking head.”
So luckily my transit buddies convinced the crowd that I wasn’t a cop and I survived. I told my senior group that after Malcolm went to Mecca and talked with many white Muslims he realized that racism was a capitalist invention used to pit workers against each other to protect the bosses’ profits. We had a lively discussion and the program director said later that she didn’t realize that seniors had such a rich history and that they were, “living libraries.”
I got a lift from the discussion and I hope the struggle continues.
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