Andor: Greater than the sum of its parts?
I just finished watching the new Star Wars series Andor on Disney Plus, and I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised. For a science fiction franchise that usually leans on the deeds of individuals with supernatural powers to save the day, this new show seemed surprisingly class-conscious.

It emphasized the collective and covert methods of “ordinary” persons to organize under fascism, often at great risk to their safety. The cast is multiracial, and women are seen giving courageous leadership in every episode. To be honest, to watch the show reminded me of reading about the inspiring deeds of the Red Orchestra, the communist-led partisans that were organizing across European cities when the continent was occupied by the Nazis.

But then again, Andor was produced by Disney, a bonafide capitalist “empire” if there ever was one, so I kept asking myself: what’s the catch? I think that answer lies in showing some of the leadership making cold and calculated decisions to sacrifice freedom fighters to guarantee the growth of the young Rebellion. In doing so, the writers lean into anti-communist tropes that revolutionary leaders are generally just as corrupt as their capitalist counterparts and the best thing that the working class could hope for is some kind of vague “democratic” middle ground between fascism and communism.

Only time will tell what kind of lessons about revolutionary struggle get told in upcoming seasons of the show, but I’ll definitely plan on viewing it with a critical communist lens. If other CHALLENGE readers have seen this show, I’d be interested to hear your opinion.

*****
Radiation IS harmful in low doses
The letter in the November 16, 2022 CHALLENGE “Radiation, harmful only at high doses,”accepts the ruling class view on radiation. and says, “We live on a radioactive planet” and that radiation is not harmful in low doses. Not so!

This author fails to distinguish between types of entry of radiation into the body. External radiation poisoning can kill, as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or burn the body. Internal radiation enters the body by inhalation of irradiated dust doesn’t kill or injure immediately but causes DNA and cellular damage. External radiation injury involves gamma rays. Internal radiation poisoning causes much more cellular damage than can be calculated from external exposure. Internal radiation damage comes from alpha and beta radiation. Alpha particles have 625 times more energy than gamma rays, and beta rays also have more energy than gamma rays. Since gamma radiation can leave the body and alpha radiation can’t, the latter is more damaging.

When the author says “we live on a radioactive planet,” it’s true that Earth has radon and that radiation naturally reaches Earth from cosmic rays, but the body is built to handle this radiation with robust repair capacity.  The body is NOT built to handle the 1,400 new man-made radionuclides from atom bombs, nuclear-powered ships or plutonium factories. The Atomic Energy Commission (now the U.S. Department of Energy) and other authorities tell us that low level radiation is safe. This is a lie! In fact, nuclear submarine personnel have increased rates of cancer; babies of X-Ray technicians have increased birth defects, etc. The author of the letter claims that after the meltdown in Chernobyl, it was found that people had doses of radiation “to the thyroid that were a tiny fraction of the doses used in nuclear medicine to save lives.” This is untrue! Chernobyl fallout caused increased thyroid cancer (Busby, 2022). Medical radiation also causes cancer. There is a large literature on low dose radiation causing cancer, birth defects and other harm.

The research on radiation in both epidemiology, invitro and in laboratory animals indicates that radioactive agents inside the body create damage to DNA and other adverse cellular effects (Busby, 2022). Busby presents evidence “that atmospheric nuclear testing in 1959-63 caused the increased global cancer epidemic that began some 20 years after the fallout.” Internal adverse effects from radionuclides inside our bodies are not detected with the external dose devices. Not surprisingly, all the research sponsored by the International Atomic Energy Agency and its fellow agencies in the countries using nuclear technology have a vested interest in confusing the public to force acceptance of continued nuclear power plants, atomic powered ships and atomic weapons.
Busby, Christopher. 2022. “Ionizing radiation and cancer: The failure of the risk model.” Cancer Treatment and Research Communications 31: 100565.

*****
Critical the cult of the individual and voting
The article in the November 30th issue of Challenge on Stalin was excellent and timely given the renewed attempts by the U.S. and European bosses to attack Stalin. The article said so much with the line “The reason the capitalists hate Stalin is because he helped lead a revolution that threw them out of power”.

What people do (or don’t do) does make a big difference. As the article documents, Stalin made an enormous contribution to the working class. He gave leadership on how to fight the bosses and have the will to win even in the face of massive counter attacks and setbacks. That leadership set the tone for the communist movement.

There are two criticisms I have of the article as well. First, when we write about the old movement, particularly when we’re writing about Stalin and Mao it’s important to point out that they fostered the cult of the individual. The cult of the individual ended up being devastating to the movement as it gave a backward idea about leadership and when Stalin died it left many members paralyzed and not trained to help develop the line. It was then impossible at that point for the members to correct the Party and get it back on the path towards communism.

The second criticism is that in a couple of places the article talks uncritically about using voting to make decisions inside the party. Voting is a bad way to make decisions. We believe in communist centralism and the idea of from the masses to the masses.

The October 30 election victory of fake-leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva – better known as Lula – as president of Brazil points to a sharpening of inter-imperialist rivalry and intensified fascist control over the working class. In a sign of deep divisions among both bosses and workers, Lula defeated his incumbent rival, gutter racist and climate change denier Jair Bolsonaro, by a razor-thin margin and secured his third term.

A popular former trade unionist, Lula enjoys a cult-like status in the economic powerhouse South American nation, where previous capitalist reforms by his Workers Party threw some crumbs to sections of the working class. Several leaders of the U.S.-dominated liberal world order expressed hope for improved ties with Brazil after the unstable Bolsonaro presidency--notably top-dog imperialist President Joe Biden, who personally called Lula to congratulate him (Reuters, 10/30).

But Biden and Company’s optimism is likely misplaced. Lula’s return to power figures to consolidate Brazilian capitalism’s alliance with the U.S. rulers’ main imperialist rival, China. During his first two terms in office, from 2003 to 2010, Lula oversaw a dramatic expansion of diplomacy and trade with China that both sides appear eager to rekindle (SCMP, 10/31).

As Lula and his Worker Party cronies opportunistically work both sides of the imperialist competition for their own benefit, it’s the workers in Brazil and across Latin America who stand to lose. Liberal bosses like Lula will cynically promote all-class unity, nationalism, and identity politics while simultaneously escalating racist, sexist attacks and more environmental destruction.

As members of the international working class, we have nothing to gain by supporting any boss. Our future lies in building the mass communist Progressive Labor Party as the revolutionary alternative to fascism, environmental devastation, and war. Join us!

Imperialist competition hurtling toward WWIII
The over-the-top congratulations to Lula from imperialist leaders around the world shows Brazil’s importance to the global profit system. Brazil’s $1.45 trillion economy is second largest in the Western Hemisphere (International Trade Admin, 1/22) and eighth largest in the world. Lula is deeply committed to the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, Indian, China and South Africa), which he helped found in 2009. In 2019, he said that he envisioned BRICS as “an instrument of attack. So we could create our own currency to become independent from the U.S. dollar in our trade relations” (Asia Times).

In Bolsonaro’s first election campaign, he accused China of “buying Brazil” (Reuters, 1/24). Once in office, he aligned with ex-U.S. president Donald Trump and delayed Chinese trade agreements. But with Lula back, and China investing more in Brazil than in any other country, the two countries should restore their close ties—a clear threat to the weakening U.S. bosses in their Latin American “backyard.” Lula’s election is one more step toward World War III.

Liberal bosses are more effective fascists
Shortly after his runoff win, Lula stated, “This country needs peace and unity. This population doesn’t want to fight anymore” (BBC, 10/31). Make no mistake: liberal politicians’ plan for “peace and unity” always involves their boot on workers’ necks!

With global capitalism entering a period of contraction, Brazil’s bosses see Lula as a more reliable stooge to ram through fascist attacks than the erratic Bolsonaro. In his previous presidential terms, Lula took advantage of a commodity boom and surging demand from China to finance social programs like Bolsa Familia, cash payments that helped alleviate extreme poverty (Foreign Policy, 11/4). This time around, facing an enormous debt crisis, the Brazilian bosses won’t fund big reforms. Rebellious workers will see more sticks than carrots.

Shrewd politician that he is, Lula has shown a willingness to work with bosses of all stripes in the name of a “better” Brazil. His vice president-elect, Geraldo Alckmin, presided over rampant police murder and cover-ups as governor of Sao Paulo state (HRW, 7/29/13). Lula’s likely appointee for environmental minister, Marina Silva, a Black woman from similar humble origins, will exploit identity politics while failing to offer any real solution to the devastation across the Amazon and beyond (AP News, 11/12).

Bosses who look and talk like us are no less dangerous when they’re put in charge of a lethal, racist profit system in crisis. The working class must expose and confront these deadly misleaders wherever they are and fight for true workers’ power and communist revolution.

Liberals lie, Black and women workers die!
Black workers in Brazil fought for survival under Lula’s previous regime, and they won’t be stopping now. The government-directed, militarized violence in Brazil’s neglected favelas (slums) will continue because they’re an essential tool for Brazil’s ruling class for keeping workers oppressed and intimidated.

In July, in the Complexo do Alemao favela in Rio de Janeiro, 18 people died in a violent militia-style attack. Residents said cops prevented them from helping the injured and called the attack a massacre (BBC, 7/22). Not a single politician running for office—including Lula—spoke in support of these workers. Under capitalism, politicians everywhere applaud cops for doing their state terror dirty work.

The same deadly state violence assaults women throughout the country. Brazil has “one of the highest rates of femicide—the killing of women due to their gender—in the world” (The Status of Women in Brazil: 2019, Prusa, PICANÇO, Barnes, et. al). Meanwhile, the bosses try to convince women that the only way to change the system is to vote or run for office. Case in point: ex-president Dilma Rousseff. who was impeached over the same kickback scandal that sent Lula to jail for 17 months.

Back to a fightback future
It won’t take long, as Lula shows his true colors once again, that he’ll be faced with the bold tradition of militant fightback from the working class in Brazil. In recent years, mass protests have been waged against deforestation, transit fare hikes, racist police terror, and displacement from favelas. Unsurprisingly, many of these fights are led by Black and indigenous workers, key revolutionary forces for our class.

PLP invites all of these antiracist fighters into our revolutionary struggle for a world without bosses or politicians, where the working class and its mass Party runs society in our own interests. From Brasilia to Beijing, workers of the world unite!

BROOKLYN, NY, November 10—“Racism means?” “WE GOT TO FIGHT BACK!” More than 30 students and staff chanted as they marched through the campus of Kingsborough Community College (KCC). Students and staff are in motion following racist attacks against a student last week, and this fightback is led by multiracial Black, Latin, Asian and white, women and men students. These antiracist fighters bravely marched despite a week of campus and New York Police Department threats of arrest, campus cops assaulting students, daily harassment, and constant surveillance. The cops even locked down our campus the day of the march!

The week before, students made detailed plans to resist this racist police terror, even organizing a “flash protest” in the main administration building one day to practice for the planned rally. They were long gone before campus police arrived! Meanwhile, our YouTube video “KCC Students vs Racism and the Police” spread like wildfire through the campus and beyond. These working class students are showing their ability to organize. Workers and students like them can and should run the world. That’s communism. That’s the fight of the international revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP)!

This ongoing struggle is exposing KCC’s and the wider CUNY (City University of New York) administration as the lapdogs of the liberal Big Fascist wing of the capitalist class (see Glossary, page 6). The struggle is also exposing the bankruptcy of the capitalist class’ identity politics, liberalism, and fake capitalist democracy.

The revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party’s politics of building militant student leadership and smashing racism with multiracial unity are spreading among the student body. Through this sharpening struggle, we’re winning new comrades to our fight to build a mass, international PLP and smash this racist, sexist and imperialist profit system once and for all with communist revolution!

Racism means?
WE GOT TO FIGHT BACK!
On November 3, a racist student in Kingsborough’s cafeteria was having an argument with a multiracial group of students who are part of a large antiracist student club. The racist became confrontational using the n-word, and KCC’s campus cops arrived. Instead of detaining the racist, they tackled a student trying to defuse the situation, put their knees in his back, and detained him in handcuffs. Their chief later lied saying Adrian “shoved an officer.”

Since the antiracist club had just met, over twenty students were still together. They immediately marched on the cops’ “Public Safety” office, where Adrian was held. We chanted and demanded Adrian’s release and the name of the officer who tackled Adrian. In response, the NYPD was called “to calm the situation” — with tactical gear, tasers, guns, and batons! The NYPD arrested Adrian and secretly took him to the 61 police precinct. We followed him there.

We were told Adrian would be released “in 30 minutes” — another lie. Finally, after four hours of detention, Adrian was freed with a bogus charge of “disorderly conduct” and a threat to charge him with weapons possession.

Students dare to struggle and organize!
The next day, the Dean of Student Affairs emailed all students saying “an incident” happened, warned students to “not threaten anyone,” and advised everyone to “move on.” Students, staff and PL’ers met that weekend and used our Party study group to write a collective leaflet explaining the situation. Our demands are: drop the charges; terminate and charge the officers and the racist; and abolish law enforcement from CUNY campuses.

Students and staff began distributing thousands of leaflets. “Public Safety” declared all leafleting illegal and began assaulting students, including a member of the student government. Campus police approached students reading leaflets and ripped them up, while following and harassing prominent student organizers. So much for U.S. capitalism’s “free speech!”

Scratch liberalism, find fascism
Adrian was tackled by a Black campus police officer, held and charged under the orders of a Black campus police chief. All under the misleadership of Kingsborough’s Black woman president, Claudia V. Schrader, and CUNY’s Latin chancellor, Felix Matos Rodriguez, in a city ruled by a Democratic city council and a Black Democratic mayor, Eric Adams.

The Big Fascists rely on servants like Schrader, Rodriguez and Adams to give capitalist, racist and sexist oppression an inclusive appearance and mask the role of institutions like universities in supporting and reinforcing capitalist dictatorship. Capitalism depends on the political-economic division of the working class to enable exploitation and racist super-exploitation for profits. Universities have a dual role: producing workers suited for various types of manual and knowledge labor, while promoting the ideologies of anticommunism, racism, sexism and countless professional schisms.

In recent years, Big Fascists have been pushing the liberal flavors of racism and sexism by promoting identity politics and “white privilege” politics as fake alternatives to the Small Fascist gutter racists and sexists (see Glossary, page 6) like Trump, DeSantis and company. Scratch beneath the surface however, and they’re ALL fascists: smash them all with communist revolution.

The only solution is communist revolution
While PL’ers continue to struggle over these ideas through Party study groups and there is much political struggle ahead, comrades have confronted these political disagreements head-on. In the meantime, our Party’s confidence in these working class students is reflected with growing confidence in our organization. Following our successful march, a group of students took their commitment to smashing racism, sexism and imperialism to the highest level and joined our Party. This struggle and these students show the working class can run the world, and now we welcome their leadership to take us all the way!

The imperialists ruling the U.S., Russia and China are firing what could be the opening shots of World War III, and preparing our working class youth to be missile food. But PLP is growing and developing the next generation of leadership. Our international working class needs to build the Red Army that will destroy this entire capitalist hellscape once and for all! JOIN US!

On the anniversary month of the Bolshevik Revolution, and it’s time to debunk some anti-communist myths, again. The U.S. ruling class reviles Joseph Stalin, one of the first communist leaders of the Soviet Union (USSR), and so they lie about him.  But they lie about so many things, why would they tell the truth about Stalin. Yet the capitalist slander campaign against Stalin led many authors, university researchers and even ordinary people to dislike Stalin. Why so much capitalist hatred against Joseph Stalin?

First, some facts. After the Russian Revolution, 12 European countries (including the U. S. and Japan) invaded the Soviet Union to kill this new socialist society in its cradle. They were defeated. Instead Stalin led the socialist Soviet Union from being “the poor man of Europe” to a world power that challenged the worldwide empire of the capitalist United States.

Under Stalin’s leadership, the Soviet Union became powerful enough to defeat Hitler’s Nazis in World War II. Of the 250 Nazi divisions that fought in World War II, 200 of them fought to conquer the Soviet Union...and were defeated. Eighty five percent of German casualties were at the hands of the USSR. It was only after the Soviets began pushing the Nazis back, that the Allies invaded Normandy. The Soviet people and their Red Army suffered huge casualties (20 million dead) and destruction, but it was they that defeated the Nazis.

The Soviet leaders educated all citizens, including college and trade schools. They provided universal health care and employment. Workers had four weeks of paid vacation and received a pension at age 60, women at age 55. They had paid maternity leave and free childcare and they eliminated the centuries-old famines that had racked the Ukraine.

Some charge that Stalin was a dictator, yet he struggled mightily for a new constitution with secret elections so that the entrenched bureaucracy would be challenged. Local Party Secretaries defeated him in this effort.

It is helpful to see the sources of the criticisms of Stalin. The sources of the forced starvation stories in the Ukraine are anti-communist, pro-Nazi sympathizers who left the Ukraine and headed to the Western countries.

In 1956 Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin and his achievements in a secret speech. Khrushchev wanted to take the USSR in a more capitalist direction. Professor Grover Furr documents that of the 61 charges Khrushchev levels against Stalin, 60 can be proven to be false. Needless to say that speech is the source of many of the attacks on Stalin.

Another source of attacks was the writing and organizing of Leon Trotsky. He was a charismatic individual with the emphasis on individual. Trotsky belonged to a different party than Stalin and Lenin. He joined the Bolsheviks when the Russian Revolution was imminent. When Lenin died, Trotsky thought that he should be the next leader. He organized for his ideas. They were publicized widely in the Party, but when it came to a vote, his position lost 724,000 to 4,000. The Bolsheviks and Lenin chose Stalin.

However, he continued to organize against Stalin and the Bolshevik leadership and was finally kicked out of the Party. He secretly continued his anti-Stalin organizing and propaganda. He appealed, not to the workers, but to the capitalists all over the world for support. Capitalists loved his stories because it gave them more ammunition against Stalin. But Furr speaks and reads Russian and English and has had access to Trotsky’s archives as well as the archives of the former Soviet Union. He has written and self-published several books on the period. For those who want to learn what really took place under Stalin’s leadership, please go to his website:https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/

The fact is that college professors who try to write a balanced or a favorable view of Stalin are ostracized by the system. They can’t get published. Those that promote anti-Stalinism get published, paid and praised.

The reason the capitalists hate Stalin is because he helped lead a revolution that threw them out of power. The capitalists who exploit workers, who bring death and destruction, who promote racism and sexism, hate Stalin. They benefit from our ignorance that it is possible to have a system where the capitalists do not exist. But a better world is possible. It’s communism where the workers of the world rule and the capitalists are in the trash heap of history.