In September, Trudeau formally accused his brother-in-fascism Narendra Modi’s government in India of having orchestrated the murder of a Canadian Sikh leader. Hardeep Singh Nijjar was murdered outside of a Sikh temple in Surrey, BC, in June, and now Trudeau’s cabinet announced that it has obtained intelligence that the murder was a political assassination related to the Indian government’s ongoing persecution of Sikh people and those they suspect of participating in separatist movements in India and abroad.

Besides parliament, Trudeau also briefed the “Five Eyes” alliance members (Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand), and all have put out statements “urging” India to participate in any and all international probes.

Indian officials have called the accusation “absurd,” despite their proven record of persecuting and retaliating against the Sikh population, and Chinese media have choked the allegations up to ‘Western hypocrisy’ (CBC, Al Jazeera, Global Times).

Liberals honor Nazi war criminals
All this posturing shouldn’t fool anyone: the racist Canadian state has never much cared for the welfare of Sikh workers, only now with India joining forces with China in the BRICS formation does Canada seem moved to care about Hindu fascism and political suppression, and no justice for workers in China and India is possible while its rulers pursue imperialist ends.

Later this same month, Canada attempted to follow up its bold stand against India with more political theater, only this time it backfired. To welcome Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, on his first in-person visit to the House of Commons, Speaker of the House, Anthony Rota, announced the presence of another honored guest in attendance. The speaker called 98 year old Yaroslav Hunka a Canadian “hero,” describing him as a Ukrainian nationalist that fought bravely against Russia in World War II (Guardian). All of parliament and  Zelensky gave Hunka a standing ovation.

In truth, those fighting against the Soviet Union in World War II would have been fighting on the side of Nazi Germany. It was quickly revealed that Hunka was a nazi member of the 14th SS Waffen, 1st Galician Division, responsible for the massacres of ethnic Jewish  and Polish workers.

The event sparked an international controversy. Canadian liberal fascists like Trudeau and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh pleaded ignorance, despite the fact that the Prime Minister’s own right hand, Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland, has multiple degrees in 20th century Ukrainian and Russian studies.. Like Hunka, Chomiak escaped Soviet punishment for nazi crimes by fleeing to Canada. Canada resettled more Ukrainian nazis than anywhere else in the West after the war, including 600 of Hunka’s compatriots in the 1st Galician division of the SS.

Even if the rest of the Canadian parliamentarians like Singh and Trudeau feign ignorance, Freeland, with her lineage and education, cannot. She is part of a well-established diaspora of Ukrainian fascists in Canada, who have been usefully re-cast by the Canadian state as refugees of communism, despite the fact that only approximately 10,000 to 12,000 Ukranians fought with the nazis during the war, while millions fought bravely against naziism as communists in the Soviet Union’s Red Army.

After pressure from Jewish ethnic organizations, Anthony Rota apologized for inviting the nazi to parliament and resigned, while slimy Trudeau called the ovation a “mistake” and warned against “Russian propaganda” about World War II, and the current presence of naziism in the Ukrainian national army.

This kind of revision serves to perpetuate anticommunist myths, despite Putin and modern Russia being imperialist, while inoculating the Canadian public to its government’s continued support for Ukraine in the war.
Zelensky’s current tour is looking for increases beyond the 6 billion in money, training, and weapons Canada has already provided (BBC). These kind of farcical political stunts are how the ruling class wins us to endorse and participate in their bloody agendas, and to reject the only path to liberation we have: communist revolution!

What’s BRICS got to do with it?
The war in Ukraine and Western posturing against India are not unrelated, nor are they demonstrations of the ruling class’s care for justice or workers’ lives. BRICS, the economic alliance between Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa is a direct threat to U.S. hegemony and global economic control. BRICS’ proposal to trade oil outside of the U.S. dollar is not only a huge blow to the U.S., but to the rest of the world that was under the sphere of U.S. imperialism. Canada’s major exports primarily go to other nations in the West, and its economic dependence on gold and oil in these flows is greatly threatened by BRICS’ moves to shift those industries into their control.

Let’s be clear: no movement of capital amongst the ruling class and their fascist governments will benefit workers anywhere, and the resulting wars they will start to resolve the economic contradictions will kill us before we ever see any trickle-down crumbs like higher wages or better access to healthcare.

In both events, the normally divided political class in Canada has been surprisingly united. No member of parliament, not even the phony social democrats, openly questioned the celebration of someone who they knew fought against their own historical alliance in World War II. Celebrating Nazis and fighting “foreign interference,” are ultimately working toward the same destructive end. This hypocrisy is even more blatant now, as countries like Canada and the United States have lined up to denounce antisemitism by arming and funding Israel’s ongoing genocide on Palestinian workers in Gaza and the West Bank.

The truth is that each nation’s ruling class will discipline each other into more and more unity as inter imperialist rivalry between the U.S. and China continues to sharpen. The prospect of World War means not even social democrats will oppose the fascist efforts to save capitalism in crisis. All of the bourgeois politicians are committed to the enrichment of capitalist pigs, as well as the ongoing suppression of communism. That, however, is one war they are set to lose.

As class consciousness grows, and more join Progressive Labor Party worldwide, our class will be strong  enough to turn the guns around, and end their war-mongering exploitation of us once and for all.

Our comrade, Horace, passed October 14th 2023, at the age of 94. Horace, you were a communist, and the light of so many lives. Words cannot express the grief we feel at your loss. You were striving for a new world, a world that would not know the meaning of exploitation, racism, nationalism and sexism, a communist world.
Horace was born in Trinidad and Tobago on June 9th 1929 during the Great Depression. He became interested in world affairs at the age of nine, as World War II loomed. At 15 he joined the Negro Welfare Cultural Association (NWCA), which was organized by the international communist movement. He started reading the works of Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx. He married in 1955 to his lifelong partner, Cynthia, and they had three children, two boys and a girl.

After WWII Horace participated in the struggles of workers in Trinidad against the inhumane harsh economic conditions suffered under the racist British colonial system. He became the secretary of the Federation Workers Trade Union, organizing bus drivers and conductors. There he joined many workers on a march to the U.S. military base in Trinidad, to protest against the racist conditions. In 1970, the working class rebelled in an insurrection against the capitalist-run government. Horace’s committee united Indian and African workers marching through the streets of Trinidad. Unfortunately, the insurrection was put down by the government. Many workers were arrested and sent to prison. Horace lost his job. His family was forced to bag up peanuts which Horace would sell for 6 cents a bag to put food on the table.

In the early 1970’s, he moved to New York City. He got a job at Montefiore, a hospital where workers were represented by 1199 SEIU. In time he received a scholarship allowing him to become an x-ray tech and was able to bring his family to Brooklyn.

At the hospital he came in contact with a PLP member. PLP’s newspaper, CHALLENGE, resonated with his militant anti-capitalist experiences in Trinidad.  His journey began on the long struggle for communism. He participated in many May Day marches in Washington, D.C., always bringing a busload of workers from his building. He organized many social events among family and friends. He was a great chef. Using tropical ingredients: peppers and chilies , coconuts, plantains, sweet potatoes and spices, he gave us a taste of the Caribbean. On behalf of our entire Party, our class, our women and youth, dear Comrade, Farewell.

H.S. teach-in vs genocide
Last week, a few days after Israel began bombing the workers in Gaza, my coworker and I decided we needed to organize a space for our high school students to learn more about what was happening. My co-teacher and I had already spent a class lesson teaching students some of the history of Palestine and taking questions and comments, so I knew some students wanted to learn more. I spoke to other coworkers, including one who has family in Palestine about the plan to respond to this war with a discussion. Because there is a Zionist teacher at the school, who has a history of opening up investigations on coworkers, I was given lots of warnings to think twice about having this event and to be careful.

We went ahead and organized it by making announcements in all of the history classes, so all students were invited. This was a good way to build with the teachers in the department, too. Given the email by the New York City Schools Chancellor expressing support only for those killed in Israel and implicitly threatening anyone with an alternate point of view, it was a big deal that teachers agreed to announce it.

At the meeting about ten students showed up. My co-worker, who is a relatively new teacher, and very antiracist, wanted to lead by explaining why he, as a Jewish worker, felt strongly about criticizing Israel’s fascist attacks. Students responded by expressing what they had been hearing on the news and Tiktok. They compared what was happening in Palestine over the last six or so decades to gentrification in NYC. They expressed outrage at the racism of it all and the attacks on innocent people. One student asked what we thought the solution was. I immediately took the opportunity to explain that I was a communist and why I thought communism was the only solution. I invited them to a study group happening a few days later. Although none made it, a few have told me they are interested in attending future events. The next step is to share CHALLENGE with them and get to know their parents!
*****

Boston UAW picket: mood of the workers is changing
Several groups of Boston/Worcester PL’ers and our friends walked the UAW picket line at the Stellantis distribution warehouse in Mansfield, MA to bring our solidarity and communist politics. The picketers welcomed our Challenges and leaflets. It was clear that the mood of the working class is changing!

I have never seen striking workers so open to an anti-capitalist perspective. It was pushing an open door for them to condemn the Democratic Party and Biden for bailing out the Big 3 in 2008 and coercing the workers to accept give-back contracts. They also know that the future of auto production works against them. Electric vehicles production is simpler, and uses fewer production workers. This is the logic of capitalism that they can do nothing about short of destroying the profit system.

There were workers who were also walking the picket line from several different unions—SAG-AFTA, Steel Workers, Electrical Workers. This organizing of strike support represents some improvement in the leadership of the AFL-CIO, and It made a big impression on the UAW workers. They commented on how their demands were clearly resonating with all workers. It fostered their class consciousness in that they could see that their bold strike action was leading the way for the working class. Strike support should always be a cornerstone of our practice.
*****

How nationalism poisoned the communist movement
The CHALLENGE editorial in the Nov. 1 issue stated, “The...U.S. ruling class....supported the creation of a ‘Jewish state’ and the displacement of millions of workers from Palestine in exchange for a Cold War ally against Soviet influence in the Middle East and support in the fight to control...the region’s oil.”  However, the issue of nationalism is much more complex.

Zionism, a form of Jewish nationalism, was always an anathema to early Jewish communists. The book Perfidy, by Ben Hecht exposes the role of Israeli rulers in sacrificing Jewish workers in the Holocaust in order to gain control and pad their own nests. But in addition, the Soviets were instrumental in establishing the State of Israel in 1947. The U.S. was, in fact, at first opposed to it.

The Soviets had hoped to find a home for the remnant of Jews after the Holocaust, during which six million were murdered, and established Birobidzhan in Siberia, which didn’t succeed for long. During the war, once they realized the magnitude of Hitler’s designs, they moved surviving Jews to Uzbekistan in the East to save them. In 1948 the Soviet ambassador to the U.N., Andrei Gromyko spoke about the Jewish historical claim to Palestine and the need to respond to “...the aspirations of the Jews to establish their own state.”  The U.S. would be the first to recognize this new state, but the U.S.S.R. soon followed, the first to offer ‘de jure’ recognition, a stronger form of international recognition and one that the U.S. delayed in giving.

In 1948 the U.S. had joined with Britain, its wartime ally, in following a U.N. embargo on arms shipments to the Middle East, leaving the Zionists with only one major lifeline of weapons, the then-socialist Czechoslovakia. Included were weapons, ammunition, fighter airplanes, and secret training areas for Israeli troops.  A brigade of Czech volunteers was also trained to fight with the Israeli army.  The Arabs knew something was going on, and in the U.N. an Arab diplomat charged that Zionists were using weapons, “the source of which was known to the U.S.S.R. representative.”

Although Soviet Jews were prevented from emigrating to Israel, other countries permitted it.  During the “thaw years” between 1948 and 1952, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, and Poland allowed almost 300,000 surviving Jews to go to Israel.The Soviet Union’s help ended almost as soon as it began, and Israel started turning to Western imperialists who welcomed them in the competition for dominance of local resources, especially oil.  What had motivated the Soviet Union to take the position it did? Stalin’s concern for the Jews was already evident.But nationalism as a political ideology was not thoroughly rooted out in the Soviet Union. There were so-called progressive nationalists, who were to be supported,whilst bad nationalists were to be opposed.  Progressive Labor Party says all nationalism is bad. In this way we attempt to correct errors which led to the revival of capitalism in the Soviet Union and China.

Some of the reasons historians have offered for the Soviet Union’s stance on Israel are: that Stalin was angered with the Arabs for being pro-German during the war and sided with the Jews who had suffered at the hands of the Nazis; that the Soviets wanted to penetrate the Middle East and the Mediterranean and saw a Jewish state as an opening wedge; that the Jews were more open to communism than the reactionary Arabs; that the Jewish state would grow increasingly favorable to the Soviet Union and thereby spurn the U.S. imperialists. That isn’t how it turned out.