The fight for Hadi, a nail on the bosses’ coffin
Last summer a teenager, Hadi Abuatelah of the Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn, was riding in a car stopped by the kkkops who said they smelled marijuana. Hadi ran in fear of the cop who tackled him and beat him around the head and body very severely. As a result, he had a brain bleed and injuries to his body. To this date, Hadi still has difficulty walking.

Watching the video, it is amazing that he survived this vicious attack! Initially, the three cops involved were going to get off. Since last summer, a multiracial group of dozens of workers and youth have attended the monthly Oak Lawn police and fire board meetings to demand the cops be brought up on charges. Finally, only one of the three cops has been charged.

Hadi, his family, and the majority of the leading organizers of the coalition are from Palestine. One can’t help but note the parallels of racist attacks here in Oak Lawn with the fascist Zionist regime of Israel.

A recent board meeting tried to impose a more fascist approach to the proceedings now that one of the officers is facing indictment. Several kkkop thugs and their buddies attempted to monopolize the meeting and build support by showing videos depicting violence against the police. After a few minutes of this “copaganda,” the multiracial coalition supporting Hadi started chanting to stop the video. The klan-in-blue was again forced to back down.

The struggle in Oak Lawn continues. Clearly, it’s not a question of “a few bad apples.” Police exist to instill terror against the working class and guarantee that the capitalist system continues its quest for maximum profits. The fight back to support Hadi is like a nail in the bosses’ coffin. Building an egalitarian communist society requires struggles like these to ultimately succeed.

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Nature of union leaders and confidence in workers
The January 18th article “Lessons From Historic Nursing Strike in a Time of Growing Fascism” was very poignant in pointing out the contradictions of the St. Vincent Hospital nurses strike against Tenet. However, I took issue with the subtitle that was added to the article entitled: “Union sells workers down the river.”Although there were strengths and weaknesses in the strike, I don’t believe your statement to be a true characterization of the union. Here are some reasons why:  The union fought for the nurses, and none of them went back to work unless they all went back. They were out for a year in wind, rain, snow and heat. Rank and file nurses who worked in the hospital, not just those on the union payroll, were on the bargaining team. After the strike ended, they had to reapply for their jobs and fight the state about paying back their unemployment insurance. They beat back the Right to Work Foundation, which tried to decertify their union, and they won! Now this is not to say that the role of the unions is not pro-capitalist and continues to rely on the Democratic Party and their politicians. However, as someone who was able to work with one of the nurses on the bargaining committee, your subtitle was disheartening.

There are limits working within the trade union movement and our role is to push past these limits, and politicize the rank and file, and fight ideologically for communist leadership of the unions, as much as possible. We apply theory and practice, as is the case in all of our struggles. Strikes are difficult to organize and sustain. Would it have been possible for the MNA leadership to organize the entire nation-wide membership of National Nurses United (NNU) to strike in solidarity with St. Vincent’s nurses and organize health care workers in all of Tenet’s facilities across the country? That would have been a historic feat. The fight for safe staffing which saves lives is the same fight as the nurses in the recent New York City nurses’ strike. However, the nurses in Worcester were up against Tenet, a nationwide for- profit Healthcare chain.

All in all, I thought this important to share with you because the subtitle that the editorial staff added put a real damper on my willingness to show this great article to the nurses, and others who organized and helped to support the strike. Many workers and other nurses across the country were inspired by the St. Vincent nurses strike. After recently speaking with our leadership collective, I have since distributed this issue to our base, to get their feedback and to my surprise several folks said they found the article to be inspiring and did not notice the subtitle. The role of the pro-capitalist nature of the union leadership is clearly explained in the article. I think they clearly agreed with that.

La lucha continua!

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Avatar: the problem with ‘purpose’ of art
In the March 1, 2023 issue of CHALLENGE, there is an astute review of the blockbuster film “Avatar 2.” The review acknowledges how the film plays to a romantic notion of classless utopia but, in fact, ends up reinforcing racist notions of species difference and divesting ordinary people of the power to change the world. It is at once aspirational and defeatist.  The review’s analysis is a dialectical and thoughtful piece of Marxist cultural criticism, a welcome presence in the pages of the paper.

The argument is weakened, however, by the proposition that “the purpose of art under capitalism is to reinforce the ideas that help the rulers to maintain their power while degrading the working class, so that we believe we are powerless and incapable of transforming or running society.”  There are two problems here.  (1) How can this square with the laudatory commentaries in this series on the writings of Langston Hughes, who is praised for his commitment to producing literary works calling for a revolution? Wasn’t he creating “art under capitalism?” (2) More importantly, this formulation confuses "function" with "purpose."  "Purpose" implies conscious intentionality, meaning that writers and screenwriters try their best to mislead working-class readers and audiences, turning them into passive recipients of ruling-class ideology. 

"Function" would be a clearer formulation, suggesting that the objective effect of most literature and film produced under capitalism is to confirm dominant ideologies, without the writer/screenwriter necessarily or consciously intending this effect. 

Asserting "purpose" rather than "function" actually weakens a communist analysis of how life under capitalism spontaneously gives rise to ideas and attitudes supportive of the status quo. At times there is conscious ruling-class intervention in the propagation of dominant ideologies, as is shown by current attempts by Florida Governor DeSantis to outlaw the teaching of antiracism.  But more often capitalism’s ability to reproduce dominant ideologies as "common sense"—what we all just know to be true--is far more toxic.  As Karl Marx noted, “The dominant ideas in any age are the ideas of the ruling class.” This “dominance” is achieved not primarily through intentional brainwashing, but through passing along—through art and literature, as well as everyday life—unquestioned and seemingly natural assumptions about what it means to be a social being. Common sense is much harder to combat than conscious ideological conspiracy. In its criticisms of cultural works, CHALLENGE should not make these issues seem to be simpler than they are.
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Recently, a Kurdish comrade from Turkey came to our Progressive Labor Party (PLP) club meeting to report on the devastating earthquake that has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions of Turkish, Kurdish and Syrian workers, youth and children. He is a member of the CUNY Professional Staff Congress, the National Writers Union, and the Labor Party of Turkey (EMEP).

On February 6th, back-to-back 7.7 and 7.6 earthquakes hit eleven provinces, home to 13.5 million people. Thousands of buildings collapsed. As of February 24, the official death toll is more than 44,000, and this only reflects reports from hospital morgues. Thousands of people are still missing, and authorities say that more than two million people have been displaced.

The bosses fear the masses and don’t want to mobilize workers and youth into a mass rescue and rebuilding effort. Communism would do exactly the opposite, we mobilize our class to provide aid and help to rebuild areas affected by natural disasters.  

While earthquakes may be a natural event, death, and destruction are not! They are a result of the greed of the profit system. All the ruined buildings were built by construction companies and monopolies using cheap and low-quality construction material. Safety was never a concern for them, even as Turkey sits on fault lines that cause earthquakes. In 1999, there was another big earthquake. Like now, the government did not send proper aid to the disaster zone. Instead, workers, socialists, trade unions, and mass organizations brought aid to Düzce and set up camps. The government sent riot police to attack the aid tents and then sent “aid.” Since then, communists and organizers have continued to fight back.

After 1999, the state passed an “earthquake” tax to prepare for future disasters. The amount of money collected in the last 24 years would save thousands of lives today. But the bosses used it for their ends.

Turkish President Erdogan’s first response was not to rush aid to the victims but to declare a state of emergency. There was no government relief effort for days, especially in the provinces of Hatay and Antakya.While people under the rubble were still tweeting their addresses, the government blocked Twitter to suppress live feeds of the devastation and opposition voices. After a public outburst, Twitter was unblocked, and almost 20,000 troops were deployed, but even then, soldiers were not directly involved in clearing the rubble and rescuing victims. Due to this capitalist incompetence, many victims died from hypothermia since the region experienced a harsh winter. Many people could not even find shroud cloths to cover their dead.

The state of emergency is aimed at attacking left-wing and progressive, mass organizations who rushed to set up relief efforts and camps for the victims. The government wants to counter class rage and solidarity. When working people act in solidarity, it boosts class confidence .”

We say NO to fascist provocations, and YES to the unity of Turkish, Kurdish and Syrian workers! We stand with workers and youth in Syria, fighting against racism and lynching that have been organized by fascist and counter-insurgency organizations. Racism is poisonous to our class. The working class has one option in confronting capitalist barbarism: our unity!

We will win. We will win with the understanding that working people do  not deserve this. We will clean this blood and dust together. And we will hold the bosses accountable for this destructive capitalist massacre. We know who the murderers are. The day is coming when the racist rulers will be buried under the rubble of their system as the workers come to power.

In Istanbul, Turkey, the riot police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters celebrating International Working Women’s Day. Even in the face of mass destruction from recent earthquakes, these women in Turkey remind us as antisexist, antiracist fighters worldwide, that working women are essential for a better world.

The Turkish government took a drastic turn to use religious fundamentalism to justify sexism and squelch the potential for women to live beyond the constraints of a society that supports harmful marriages and patronizing relationships between men and women. Turkish women are refusing to be silenced and are demanding an end to President Erdogon’s regime amidst complete negligence after the catastrophic earthquakes.

However, this reform obscures the Turkish bosses’ role in a rapidly declining liberal world order. Once a U.S. junior partner Turkey, desperate to compete and enjoy the imperialist spoils Russia,  is now a willing pawn of the ascendant Chinese bosses.Fascist bosses use identity puppet politicians to further capitalist terror as feminist misleaders. The Turkish opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu is spreading false promises that under his misleadership, a strong democracy will follow. He is riding on the mishandling of the recent earthquakes under the current regime, the dwindling democracy, and overall mistrust from the workers.

However, we know that no capitalist boss will end sexism and that no elected president can ever grant workers freedom. The women-led protests in Istanbul show workers we need fierce fighters to end this sexist system.

At the same time, we must confront the dangers of feminism. The capitalist women’s movement both divides the working class by gender and promotes a false unity with the liberal wing of the U.S. ruling class, basically the Democratic Party.

Like all identity politics, the women’s movement is a dead—and deadly—end for workers. It obscures the fact that capitalist society is driven by a fundamental conflict between the class that owns the means of production and the class that creates everything of value—between bosses and workers.

Feminism misleads women workers, in particular, by recruiting sell-out stooges like Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, and the late (and unlamented!) Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Women's liberation doesn’t come from voting, or electing women politicians to oppress us, or expanding the ranks of women CEOs to exploit us.

Bourgeois feminism and the movement of proletarian women are two fundamentally different social movements.”— Clara Zetkin, Die Gleichheit (Equality)

March 8 marks the 114th International Working Women’s Day since its initial celebration by NYC garments workers in 1909.

The struggle for working-class women was inextricably linked to the open call for overthrowing the czarist government. Today, working-class women’s demands are filtered into reforms that benefit bosses and their ruling-class servants. Still working women around the world are at the helm of class struggle, defying the bosses sexist and racist divisions.

From Baltimore to Brooklyn to Los Angeles to Haiti, women are leading the fightback against racist police terror and attacks on healthcare.

From Afghanistan to Russia, working women militantly defied the sexist national bosses and marched against imperialist violence.

The Progressive Labor Party fights to smash capitalism along with its special oppression against women that hurts all workers. Sexism relegates women to reproductive labor, such as cooking, cleaning, and care work, promotes sexist culture that cheapens, degrades, enables the exploitation and abuse of women as sexual objects, and ultimately pits men and women against each other, driving the global epidemic of femicide.

Across the capitalist imperialist world, the leadership and militancy of women, particularly Black women, is essential if we want to break free from the chains of capitalist oppression. Women workers—not “girl bosses”—should run the world alongside the multiracial, multi-gendered international working class.

How it began
International Working Women’s Day (IWWD) began in New York as “Women’s Day,” organized by the Socialist Party of America. After the strike of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union in 1909, women met at the international meeting of communist and socialist leaders, the Second International of 1910. They proposed establishing an International Women’s Day to commemorate their comrades in the U.S. By 1911, more than a million workers were celebrating IWWD.

We can also look to find lessons from the two great communist revolutions. The Soviet revolution was rooted in a firm rejection of sexism, from an early pamphlet by Lenin to struggles for more collective living experiments and job opportunities for women workers. Thirty years later, the Chinese revolution also began with an aggressive struggle to free women workers, most of them in agriculture, from the feudal oppression that had enslaved them. After both of these revolutions, important social and economic roles—including positions as doctors, teachers, and engineers--were opened to women workers as sexist notions of their “natural inferiority” were attacked. Divorce and abortion were made freely available. Relics of feudalism, such as the cruel binding of young women’s feet in China, were enthusiastically abolished.

Although sexism predates capitalism, all social relations under class societies like capitalism were always predicated on the idea of preserving private property and maximizing exploitation. Sexism, the special oppression of women, justifies dividing men and women into specific gender roles. Sexist divisions generate superprofits for the capitalists, oppress and objectify half the working-class population, in an attempt to paralyze any working-class unity.

International Working Women's Day belongs to the working class. Help build one world, one party for all workers by taking the lead in fights against police terror, exploitative landlords, and bosses. Painting banks pink and electing women politicians to a government that maintains the super-exploitation of women workers is far from the answer. Reformist solutions—such as  more "democracy"—will not end sexism. Under capitalism, they will only incentivize individuals to strive for their self-interest, the selfish, me-first thinking enshrined by capitalism.

Only by destroying the wage system can we bring an end to sexism. Only then will the profit system’s dogma--“Every man or woman for themselves”—be replaced by the communist principle, “To each according to need.” Only then will collective behavior overcome the selfish me-first thinking enshrined by capitalism.

A world led by PLP
Progressive Labor Party's deep commitment to seeing a world beyond the shallow gaze of identity politics is one of the tenets of our Party's line. Working class women are leading fights against the bosses’ racist and sexist attacks worldwide, including the recent nurse strike in New York City, protests against sexist political violence in Haiti, and battling sexist attacks in Iran against women who refuse to wear hijabs. Working women's power will be self-evident in a communist world, as they will be giving leadership in the fight against sexism. In a world led by millions of communists in the PLP, we have the basis for living an egalitarian life free from capitalist chains.

It is PLP’s obligation to expose and explain that women's liberation doesn’t come from voting, or electing women politicians to oppress us, or expanding the ranks of women CEOs to exploit us. J
For a deeper look at sexism, see PL magazine article “ONLY COMMUNIST REVOLUTION CAN END SEXISM” at www.plp.org/plmagazine