China’s bold response to the recent visit to Taiwan by Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and third in line to the presidency, exposed the decline of the U.S. as a superpower, the rise of capitalist China, and a sharpening competition that will eventually lead to World War Three. Pelosi’s provocative trip had nothing to do with the defense of “democracy” or the promotion of “freedom.” In reality, despite disagreements over her tactics within the U.S. ruling class, it was a move to defend U.S. imperialist profits with a risky show of power. The workers of the world must have the clarity to turn inter-imperialist war for the division of the world into a revolutionary war for communism where the working class runs society.

The U.S. capitalist bosses know that China is the main threat to their imperialist dominance and the global military advantage they’ve held since World War II. But their actions in the face of China's growing influence, particularly in the Pacific, do not match their rhetoric. On the economic front, China has built the Belt and Road Initiative and the Comprehensive Regional Economic Association. On the technological front, it is in the forefront of artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Militarily, China has developed the world’s largest navy. Its expanded nuclear forces almost rival those of the U.S.; in hypersonic weapons and other new technologies, China is out front.

Where the current U.S. defense budget is flat, after inflation, China continues to raise its military spending by up to 10 percent each year (foreignaffairs.com, 8/10).  President Xi Jiping has declared that China will become a “world-class power” capable of “fighting and winning wars” by 2049 (bbc.com, 7/28). As their recent military maneuvers demonstrated, they may be ready to move against Taiwan long before that point. Even before Pelosi’s trip escalated tensions, a U.S. admiral predicted that China might invade the island nation off its coast by 2027 (nbcnews.com, 3/10/21).

As the U.S. tries to counter China’s buildup with its Quad alliance with Japan, Australia, and India, imperialist war drums are beating loudly in the Pacific. It’s up to the workers of the world to reject all of these criminal bosses and respond with international working-class unity and communist revolution.

Taiwan: inter-imperialist flashpoint
Taiwan has been an anti-communist haven since 1949, when Chiang Kai-Shek and his nationalist band of murderers and thieves fled there after being smashed by Mao Zedong’s communist forces. The future of Taiwan is critical for both China and the U.S., the island’s two biggest trading partners. The Taiwan Strait, as the main shipping route for "goods from Asian factory hubs to markets in Europe, the US and all points in between" (bloomberg.com, 8/2), is a linchpin for global supply chains. Taiwan manufactures two thirds of the world’s computer chips and more than 90 percent of the world’s advanced semiconductors, essential components for both industry and modern militaries (bbc.com, 8/8; sputniknews.lat). In addition, if China takes control of Taiwan, it “could be freer to project power in the western Pacific region and could possibly even threaten U.S. military bases as far away as Guam and Hawaii” (bbc.com, 8/8).

Today the U.S. promotes Taiwan as a beacon of "democracy" in a period when liberal democracy is failing left and right. In fact, Taiwan is a beacon of super-exploitation and rotten, anti-worker ideas. Its capitalist bosses have fostered a Taiwanese national identity to divide workers from their class sisters and brothers in China and throughout the world. The country’s prosperity has been built on apartheid--the racist treatment of 700,000 migrant workers from Southeast Asia, who labor in unsafe factories and are exploited and controlled by third-party labor brokers (thediplomat.com, 10/10/19).

Taiwan’s nationalist poison is a core part of the ideological arsenal to win workers to fight in the impending inter-imperialist war. The communist antidote is proletarian internationalism. Only a united, international working class can sweep away the imperialist, fascist forces.

U.S. imperialists in decline, China on the rise
The Chinese imperialists used Pelosi's trip to escalate their nationalist rhetoric about "One China" (elfinanciero.com.mx). Under the pretext of guarding its territorial security, the Chinese bosses moved their ships into Taiwanese waters and other areas of the South China Sea. Similar to the Russian bosses’ invasion of Ukraine, these imperialist attacks only promote nationalism. They do nothing good for the working class.

Inter-imperialist rivalry inevitably leads to war. This provocation of the U.S. imperialists is one more sign of their desperation to contain the rise of China and their inability to weaken China’s deepening alignment with Russia (jordana.com.mx, 8/17). Pelosi’s trip also signaled the corruption within the U.S. ruling class. Pelosi and her son, Paul Pelosi Jr., met secretly with one of Taiwan's largest computer chip manufacturers. It's probably no coincidence that Paul Jr. "has the second largest stake in a related Chinese company" (thegatewaypundit.com, 8/15).

The U.S. bosses realize that time favors the Chinese in the inevitable military confrontation. However, Biden’s off-script remark that the U.S. would defend Taiwan militarily against a Ukraine-style invasion revealed the lack of discipline within the dominant liberal wing of the U.S. ruling class. In this case, the U.S. bit off more than they could chew. China responded to Pelosi’s visit with unprecedented and aggressive military maneuvers around Taiwan, including a simulated invasion that might accelerate their war plans.

As the decayed U.S. ruling class selfishly grasps at every chance to protect its capital and prop up its sputtering stock market, the Chinese bosses are grappling with a banking crisis that has left hundreds of workers in Henan without savings. A Chinese mortgage crisis threatens the economic stability and future of the middle class. But even as the stability so doggedly pursued by Xi Jinping is in danger, he protects his power with promises to the workers that the Chinese Communist Party—a nest of corrupt capitalist bureaucrats and profiteers—will solve the crisis. But the Chinese bosses long ago reversed the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and plunged the world into a dark night from which we are still struggling to emerge. They have nothing to offer the working class but exploitation, misery, and death. When workers turn the guns around, these bosses must be among the first to go.

The working class will end the dark night

Amid this escalation of inter-imperialist rivalry, workers in South Korea held massive protests against military exercises between South Korea and the U.S., demanding an end to the military alliance and the departure of U.S. troops. Liberal bosses will always turn to nationalism to mobilize workers to support their imperialist plans. Our Party must be present in these struggles to organize workers around communist and anti-racist ideas, and to inject internationalist class consciousness.

Amid rising racism, sexism, nationalism, and fascism, Progressive Labor Party stands as the future of the working class. We must sharpen the struggle to turn movements against imperialist war into movements for communist revolution. In the midst of the growing danger posed by rival capitalist gangs, we must maintain our unwavering trust in and dedication to our class. Our goal is to end this criminal system and build a communist world of social equality. Join us!

OAK LAWN, ILLINOIS, August 5—Over 50 multiracial workers and youth gathered in bold unity today in front of the local kkkop station to protest the racist beating of 17-year-old Arab student Hadi Abuatelah. Members of the international communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) proudly joined the ranks of the angry fighters, advocating for communist revolution as the only solution to capitalist state terror.

On July 27, Hadi and friends were pulled over by the klan-in-blue because the car they were in allegedly “smelled like marijuana.” During the frisk that the youth were subjected to, Hadi took off on foot. Dashcam video as well as bystanders recorded three large Oak Lawn cops soon tackling him to the ground and viciously beating him with fists after he had already been subdued and handcuffed.

Hadi was taken to the hospital (under custody) where he was diagnosed with a brain bleed, a fractured pelvis, and a broken nose (CBS Chicago, 8/1). The kkkops as well as their racist defenders in the bosses’ media and in the community have wasted no time attacking his character in the aftermath, smearing him as a “thug” and claiming that he resisted arrest and was in possession of a handgun.

As the bosses’ racist and sexist attacks worsen against the international working class, we need to constantly ask ourselves what true justice for workers looks like. Seeing a few killer cops jailed and legal settlements may bring some solace, but this alone cannot stem the tide of capitalist violence. For that, we need the worker-run society of communism. As we fight for Hadi and so many other victims of this profit system, we call on all workers to join the fight for revolution!

Young  workers refuse to back down from racism

This evening’s action doubled as an antiracist rally as well as a press conference. A handful of different reform groups attended the program, including an anti-violence mass organization where a number of PL’ers have been active for years.

Walking up to the front of the police station was like walking into a militarized zone. The kkkops had blocked off all entrances with city vehicles and other roadblocks, no doubt in response to another mass rally that took place a few days after the racist assault. Helicopters could be heard circling above, and we could feel the stares and hear the taunts from counter-protestors and racist “back the blue” types nearby.

But the leadership provided, mostly by young Arab women,  refused to be intimidated. This area of the south suburbs of Chicago is home to many workers originally from occupied Palestine. They are no strangers to fighting back. Many correctly drew the connections from facing down racist forces here to battling against racist zionist forces and their U.S. imperialist backers in the  Middle East.

At different points during the rally, the racist counter-protestors tried to interrupt speeches and chants with their own filthy messages attacking Hadi and us antiracists. Instead of backing down, Hadi supporters chanted and spoke even louder into the microphones, turning the speakers to directly face the racist scum and drown them out.

In barely an hour, we were able to get out dozens of copies of CHALLENGE, while having good political conversations with new and old contacts. Our communist messages of multiracial unity and fightback definitely struck a chord!

Liberal bosses will never serve workers
Throughout the course of the rally, three main demands were brought to the forefront. First and foremost is that all criminal charges against Hadi be dropped immediately (he has been charged with one felony and two misdemeanors; his family has filed a counter-lawsuit). Second is that the kkkops responsible for brutalizing Hadi be fired. Lastly, is that Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx press charges against the cops.

Although the bogus and racist charges against Hadi definitely need to be dropped and it’s always gratifying to see cops get the axe, we must be wary of trusting in liberal bosses like the Black “progressive” Kim Foxx to achieve justice. PLP has held from the beginning that it is the liberal Big Fascist (see Glossary, page 6) bosses who in fact present the greater threat to the working class, even over the open racists like Donald Trump and those who back him. These Big Fascists are able to use identity politics and the promise of minor reforms to disarm workers politically while they ratchet up attacks on us, often to a scale that exceeds what the Small Fascist types like Trump can achieve.

We cannot forget that it was Kim Foxx who refused to prosecute killer kop Eric Stillman after he snuffed out the life of another teen, 13-year-old Adam Toledo in March 2021 (Block Club Chicago, 3/15). Both the courts and the cops ultimately serve the needs ofW capitalism, and work in tandem to attack and divide working people while protecting private property. There’s a reason why in PLP we chant: “The kops, the kourts, the ku klux klan – all are a part of the bosses’ plan!”

Communism will smash the bosses
We will never forget what racist kops did to Hadi, nor the sum total of violence that this racist capitalist system has rained upon workers from its beginning. The bosses may hold power now, but the growth of communist-led multiracial fightback will one day spell their end. Join PLP and help bring that day here sooner.

The following article can be used in history and other humanities classes. This model of multiracial unity is a good foundation to set the tone for the school year.

This coming October 17 marks the 163nd an- niversary of the raid on Harpers Ferry. It was a revolutionary revolt showing the need for militant, antiracist, multiracial, revolutionary struggle! The fight against racist terror continues with the re- bellions sparked by police murders this summer. As workers recognize the power of unity, the cops crack down harder on protests.

The southern enslaving class was terrified by the Harpers Ferry raiders’ militant, multiracial unity, a real-life rebuke of their racist stereotyp- ing. One of the raiders’ five Black freedom fight- ers, Osborne Anderson, described the atmosphere before-hand:

“I have been permitted to realize to its furthest, fullest extent, the moral, mental, physical, social harmony of an Anti-Slavery family, carrying out to the letter the principle of the Anti-slavery cause. In John Brown’s house, and in John Brown’s presence, men from widely different parts of the continent met and united into one company, wherein no hateful prejudice dared intrude its ugly self — no ghost of a distinction found space to enter.”

From childhood, Brown vowed to fight slavery
This trust among white and Black fighters did not happen overnight. John Brown’s father was a conductor on the Underground Railroad in Ohio. At 12, Brown met a fugitive enslaved boy and saw the suffering slavery had inflicted
on him, influencing Brown forever.
He believed Black and white work-
ers were completely equal. He put
this knowledge into action daily.

As an adult, Brown moved his family to a farm in North Elba, N.Y. near a Black community of former enslaved workers. Black sisters and brothers were regularly invited to the house for dinner with Brown’s family. He addressed them as “Mr.” or “Mrs.,” sharply contrasting with the era’s racist mores (true even among many slavery opponents).

Preparing for the raid, Brown turned to both Black and white abolitionists. In April 1858, while gathering money, arms and volunteers in Canada, he visited Harriet Tubman. She was well-known to the Black fugitive slave community there, having personally guided many to freedom. Tubman sup- ported his plans, urging him to set July 4, 1858, for the raid and promising to bring volunteers. They agreed to communicate through their mutual friend Frederick Douglass, reaching out to Black abolitionist and former enslaved workers.

Tubman single-handedly freed 300 enslaved workers
Tubman’s own experiences made her and Brown allies. Born around 1820 to enslaved par- ents on a Maryland plantation, Tubman performed house and field work, was subjected to physical abuse and tearfully saw many of her nine siblings sold away from the family. In her teens, Tubman suffered a broken skull from brutal plantation life. Her “owner” tried selling her as “damaged goods.” Instead she fled, walking for several weeks, mostly at night, the 90 miles to Philadelphia via the Un- derground Railroad. She returned shortly after- wards, guiding her family out of slavery to Canada. And that was just the beginning.

Over the following 11 years, with a bounty on her head, Tubman made approximately 13 trips south and guided an estimated 300 enslaved work- ers to freedom in Canada. This resolute, daring revolutionary declared, “I never ran my train off the tracks and I never lost a passenger.”Tubman warmly endorsed Brown’s armed struggles in Kan- sas against the pro-slavery gangs. Brown, in turn, knew Tubman’s courage, militancy, and knowledge of the land and Underground Railroad network, and felt Tubman would be invaluable in executing their plans to free the enslaved by any means nec- essary. He always addressed her as “General Tub- man.” Both believed in direct action and armed violence to end slavery.

Tubman became ill and could not bring her forces to Harpers Ferry, but her work inspired the rest of the raiders. Tubman’s example, like that of Osborne Anderson and the other Black raiders, discredited the image of Black people as passive victims, terrifying the southern enslavers and poli- ticians, and inspired the abolitionist movement.

Black rebels petrified slave-owners
To those today who say workers won’t fight oppression, the stubborn facts of history show struggle is universal. The slave-owners, although talking of “docile” Black workers, knew this well. They were petrified of potential Black rebels and of “outside agitators.” They patrolled all night with dogs and guns to intimidate their enslaved work- ers and to keep Yankees and abolitionist literature away from them.

Today the “outside agitators” are Progressive Labor Party (PLP) communists, fighting to abolish racist capitalism. The bosses assure us that the im- poverished working class is too ground down, too alienated to fight back collectively, saying workers hate communism. Yet they organize cops, plant security, the Minutemen, Black nationalists and sellout union “leaders” to try to keep communists out, and instantly fire them when they’re discov- ered in a factory. Why are they afraid if the working class is supposed to be so passive?

Today, uniting to fight the mutual class enemy is one of the main ways people of different back- grounds are able to overcome the “natural” seg- regation capitalist society promotes. Brown and Tubman demonstrated that racist and nationalist ideas cannot be overcome primarily inside one’s head. It requires material change in the way one lives. Among the Black and militant white aboli- tionists, multiracial unity developed over years of working together, getting to know each other while struggling over their differences.

Today, U.S. capitalism has created its own contradiction. Workers still often live in neighbor- hoods separated by “race” but many are integrated within their workplaces and schools. The bosses try to divide us there as well, with racist job clas- sifications and different types of bourgeois culture to keep workers apart (e.g., soul “versus” country music). Nevertheless, workers rub shoulders every day. Class-conscious workers in PLP must devel- op these acquaintances into friendships and un- breakable bonds in struggle.

Class struggle trumps racism
As in Tubman and Brown’s time, racism perme- ates society. But rebellions and strikes reveal mul- tiracial unity and struggle against the bosses. At the Smithfield Ham Factory in Tarheel, NC, for ex- ample, a 15-year unionization fight witnessed in- tense intimidation from the bosses to scare work- ers from signing union cards. But by organizing support from grocery workers from far and wide, Smithfield workers felt part of a larger community. When the bosses got immigration agents to raid the plant, targeting Latin workers for deportation, the workers saw through this divisive trick and, in November 2006, 500 marched out in a two-day strike protesting this raid, forcing the company to rehire all the fired immigrant workers!

In 2008 in the Bronx, NY, the Stella D’Oro work- ers went on strike for 11 months. These immigrant workers from across the world, men and women, overcame differences and stuck together. Not one worker crossed the picket line! PLP had organized friends, comrades, teachers and students onto the picket lines, bringing solidarity and communist leadership. PLP members steadfastly stood in solidarity with the strikers via donations, rallies and marches, and supported their fight against plant closure. The fight against police brutality is a protracted class war still being waged today. It is the same war left unfinished by Tubman and Brown. This summer PLP joined the militant anti- racist fightback against the kkkops, who in less than a year’s time, stole the lives of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Jacob Blake, and countless others The multiracial character of these protests are glimmers of the revolutionary potential of the working class.

John Brown’s raid and Harriet Tubman’s cour- age in freeing 300 slaves along the Underground Railroad teach us many lessons that hold valuable to the for antiracists. First, Militancy was foremost in their thinking. Tubman declared she would never return to being a slave, that she would rather die fighting. Brown, after fighting in Kansas, real- ized that only bloodshed could end slavery. Many workers agreed with them, especially after the 1857 Dred Scott decision legalizing slavery nation-wide.

The second is that Multiracial unity is essential in any fight. Black workers escaping from enslave- ment received needed help from white abolition- ists to reach the North. Thousands of workers,
Black and white, helped escaping slaves along their journeys and defended them when attacked by slave-catchers. These workers attended public meetings, donated money, passed word to their friends and helped harbor fugitive slaves.

PLP does similar things today. We discuss po- litical struggles and the vital need for multiracial unity against the racist system with friends, cow- orkers and neighbors. We urge them to join in militant antiracist demonstrations, build a multi- racial base with fellow workers or donate to CHAL- LENGE. Every time someone we know does one of these simple acts, they’re making a political com- mitment in the fight against racism, capitalism and imperialism, just as thousands of anti-slavery porters did against slavery — taking small steps to serve and defend those who had escaped slavery as well as those who fought it directly.

Join PLP 

We invite all workers, soldiers and students who participate in these struggles to join Progressive Labor Party.

Today’s supporters of antiracist struggle un- derstand — just as did the thousands backing Brown and Tubman 161 years ago — that revolu- tionaries like the raiders then and PLP now are the honest, reliable leaders in struggle. When direct action is required, they know to whom to turn. CHALLENGE constantly reports workers being won to militancy and multiracial unity in struggles against the racist bosses, hailing those joining our ranks. Step by step, the communist movement will grow and lead the working class to revolution and a new world based on members of our class mu- tually meeting each other’s needs, without racist bosses and their profit system.

NEWARK, NJ, July 26—As a group of multiracial workers rallied outside the Veterans Courthouse on MLK Blvd., Monique Rodwell, the mother of the Rodwell-Spivey Brothers, texted the Rodwell Spivey Defense Team group chat. “Come up guys, they agreed to release him.”

After a year and two months of being detained and punished in one of the most dehumanizing ways on earth, the City of Newark’s prosecutor’s office temporarily set down its whip to release Justin Rodwell from jail. Our defense team of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members and friends have rallied around the Rodwell-Spivey family from the beginning in support of their decision to unite against police terror and in defense of every worker ever put under the boot of this racist, capitalist system. One of the first things our defense team did was invite the family to attend a kickoff to the PLP 2022 Summer Project, and now this year, we’re fighting side by side with a stronger relationship and more lessons learned.

Although the defense team called to ‘FREE JUSTIN,’ as long as capitalism rages on, no worker could ever be free. Not only does this system thrive on exploitation of our class—and the super-exploitation of Black, Latin, Asian, immigrant, and women workers—it also strips workers of our humanity through police terror and mass incarceration. Both are just another form of roping workers into wage slavery.

On June 1, 2021, the Rodwell-Spivey brothers were roped into the system's clutches when two undercover kkkops pulled up on and assaulted Jaykil (Supreme) Rodwell and Jasper (Kick) Spivey as they were talking with a street vendor outside of their house. Their brothers, Justin Rodwell, Branden (Bam) Rodwell, and neighbors came running to their defense. Kkkops called on their klan-in-blue for backup. A truckload of cops, from undercovers to suits, accosted and arrested all four of them. Bam, arrested the most aggressively, was tossed to the ground when he verbally refused to be arrested from behind. 

Smash mass incarceration
After discovering that one of the Rodwell-Spivey brothers’ public defenders was an ex-cop who was fired for planting drugs on someone, we spread the word like wildfire that we needed to fundraise for another lawyer. We shared the body camera footage with students from Essex County to Kingsborough College, started (and still run) social media pages, sent emails, and made calls to as many people as we knew. It helped exponentially that the story went viral on Twitter. For months we petitioned outside of a Home Depot, grocery stores, and on the ‘number blocks’ in Newark about the terror Black and Latin workers in the area face. Black workers shared their experiences about being roughed up by the cops, robbed, and duped to take pleas and sit in jail for years. On the day of the most recent trial, one man heard our speeches and chants outside the courthouse and ended up spending the day with us, telling us about how he was recently released from Northern State Prison and could tell the courts were trying to railroad the family over like they did him and countless others affected by mass incarceration.

Nearly 50 of us packed the court and showed proof that the eyes of the working class are on this case. With the sharp strategy of our collective, we were able to build our lives around the family and use a huge political event for our base to highlight these racist courts and pack them with an intergenerational, multiracial group of fighters. It was a lesson and a reminder that this system will never favor our class, from Newark to Colombia. In cahoots with racist public school administrations, politicians, welfare systems, and police, judges and court-appointed bailiffs exist to penalize and lock workers up as soon as we step out of line (see previous CHALLENGE issue). And to these historically racist courts and prosecutors' offices’ dismay, the Rodwell-Spivey family will not go at this harassment and terror alone. As long as anti-racist workers under this system can fight back, no worker will ever be alone.

Released, but not free
Justin may have been released, but that does not mean he is free. Justin and his brothers face prison time, with Justin facing the harshest penalty: forty-three years with no possibility of parole. All because he and his brothers dared to fight the police. As Justin, the Rodwell-Spivey family, and countless others in Newark still battle for housing, peace without police, and economic stability, the fight is far from over! Being targeted and harassed by these institutions under capitalism is an economic and emotional tax on our class. As the U.S. Marshals service functions, ‘Operation Essex Thunder,’ “the District of New Jersey and the New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force once again used their multi-jurisdictional investigative authority” to target and arrest 34 Black workers in June (usmarshals.gov, 6/17).

With two liberal Black mayors, Newark’s Mayor Baraka and NYC Mayor Eric Adams, in office, this is fascism or betrayal and institutional stomping out of the working class by so-called liberals. On the heels of another week-long water crisis with a break in Newark’s water mainline, Baraka led a ‘Peace March’ and, in his speech, blamed parents of incarcerated workers for eruptions of gun violence in the city. But what Baraka and Adams will never say is that they represent the largest gang known to man, the United States government, and are sweeping up the pieces of the failings of bosses before them, all while blaming the workers for their complacency in the exploitation of our labor. But for their reign to live on, they must punish one working-class sector while pretending to serve their more loyal base of workers.

The only way to grant our class a true victory against this system is a full communist revolution. To get there, we need to actualize the potential of what we as workers can do as an armed mass movement, not by swearing into electoral politics and anti-working class rhetoric year after year. Many of us need to participate in antiracist struggles like these because struggle and fightback are the only way that we build and learn how to fight for a communist world where racist courts, judges, and prisons cease to exist. No amount of police accountability or bail reforms will work when it is the system itself that is rotten.

Next steps in the ring of fightback
Our next steps include petitioning and flyering throughout Newark and celebrating Justin’s release on September 9 on the block where it all happened. Although Justin is released, this system fails Black and Latin workers like Justin and the Rodwell-Spivey brothers en masse. And reforms like the decision to end cash bail reform in NJ only adapt the chains around our class’ necks. Justin is open to our politics and agrees that racist mayors and overseers like COs and street officers only look out for themselves and their capitalist bosses. Also, both phony politics of having identity-based representation and reform failed his family and will fail workers worldwide without an international working class revolution. Even when we are released from one form of terror, without communism, we will never be free!