ATLANTA, GA, February 15–Rejecting much of the bosses’ liberalism over the past year, the working class has taken direct action against the building of Cop City, destroying vehicles, damaging banks, and erecting a tent city to try to stop the construction of this urban warfare  training center. Within the context of 19 protesters being arrested and charged with terrorism,  the Atlanta Police Department (APD) murdered Latin worker Manuel “Tortugita'' Teran during a raid to clear the encampment.

After weeks of militant multiracial fightback led by Black and Latin workers, the APD released body camera footage of the killing. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Atlanta’s killer kkkops, and politicians claim that Tort shot cops first, and thus, “deserved” to die. However, Tort’s family in Panama and friends in Atlanta called it: the police shot each other first and used it as ammunition to shoot at workers occupying the forest and killed Tort with 13 shots in the crossfire.
For the last two years, working-class fighters have occupied the Atlanta forest in protest of what fighters call ‘Cop City,’ a 85-acre $90 million police training facility through an Atlanta forest. Police forces from Atlanta to Israel will learn how to squelch working-class rebellion, especially any fightback led by communist fighters like Progressive Labor Party (PLP).
With bosses in the U.S, China, and Russia ramping up for World War III, and the U.S. bosses sinking deeper into crisis the last thing they need is militant multiracial working class rebellion in the urban centers.
The desperate rulers will need fascism to discipline the working class and will need to build more kkkop cities to keep workers in check as they spend trillions oiling their war machine while workers are pushed into starvation and homelessness. Black liberal mayors across the U.S. are proving they are the best candidates for the job.
Black-led city attacks Black workers
Georgia is a key state in the battle to win workers to pledge allegiance to the U.S. The bosses plan to build Cop City in “South River Forest,” called the Weelaunee Forest, “one of Atlanta’s largest remaining green spaces, a prime example of environmental racism. The forest encompasses a three-hundred-acre, city-owned tract of land that sits in a poor and predominantly Black” part of Atlanta (New Yorker, 8/3/22).
After the police murder of George Floyd in 2020, Atlanta workers responded with mass antiracist protest, marching toward and smashing the headquarters of U.S. liberal news media– the CNN building.
Keisha Lance Bottoms— former mayor of Atlanta and now part of  the Jim Crow Biden administration—supports Cop City and openly shamed the protestors’ militancy and left her position to make way for liberal misleaders like Mayor Andre Dickens, Senator Reverend Warnock and Stacey Abrams.
“Most of the residents in neighborhoods around the forest are Black and municipal planning has neglected the area for decades. The plans to preserve the forest and make it a historic public amenity were adopted in 2017 as part of Atlanta’s city charter, or constitution. But the Atlanta city council wound up approving the training center anyway…” (The Guardian, 1/23)
The bosses want to ensure that they have a militarized and functioning force to attack the working class. The U.S. ruling class and bosses all over the world want to be prepared for the international uprisings that will spring up in the wake racist police murders.
Liberal politics and police murder
PLP stands with the protests against Cop City. With Cop City now being green-lighted, it is more urgent than ever that PLers connect the struggle to what’s happening locally and internationally. Antiracist leaders are calling protests the week of February 19-26.
For our class to smash racist police terror, workers around the world must commit to building a Party that will organize and shape struggle, galvanize it and focus it, and push for communist revolution.

The two imperialist superpowers are accelerating toward World War III, with more brazen provocations by the day. Since shooting down an apparent Chinese spy balloon on February 4, the U.S. military has downed three unidentified flying objects over Alaska and Canada that “might turn out to be harmless commercial or research efforts that posed no real threat to the United States” (New York Times, 2/14). The Joe Biden administration blacklisted five Chinese companies accused of links to military surveillance programs—barely a week after the U.S. expanded its footprint on military bases in the Philippines less than 200 miles south of Taiwan.
As rulers in both the U.S. and China promote an orgy of patriotism, we need to remember that capitalism is a system based on theft from workers and the violent elimination of any and all competition. As Lenin pointed out in Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, war between rival imperialist powers is inevitable. Driven by their relentless pursuit of maximum profits, the capitalist bosses continuously seek to redivide the world’s markets and resources. The lethal, racist U.S. ruling class is ramping up nationalism and anti-China rhetoric to prepare for the next global war. China’s vicious, racist bosses have been whipping up mass fervor to recover “lost” territories for years. Neither side can afford to lose; neither can settle to be “number two.”
The coming imperialist war between the U.S. and China will likely dwarf World War II’s death toll of 70 million and poison much of the planet. But the international working class has no side in this fight. Only a communist revolution to overthrow the warmakers and smash their murderous plans can save our class and eliminate the root of these conflicts: the capitalist system itself. In Russia and China, in the wake of both World War I and World War II, the old communist movement turned imperialist wars into revolutionary wars, seized state power, and established workers’ dictatorships. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) has a long and proud history of organizing against imperialist war and for revolution for communism.
China preps for imperialist slaughter
One year ago, shortly before the start of the war in Ukraine, China declared a “no-limits” partnership with Russia. Despite pressure from the U.S., they have not backed down. While not directly involved in the fighting, China is now Russia’s biggest customer for oil. China’s bosses are also studying the Russian playbook for lessons to apply to their planned takeover of Taiwan. According to a leaked internal memo, U.S. Air Force General Michael Minihan is predicting war between the U.S. and China over Taiwan in 2025 (South China Morning Post, 02/09). China has repeatedly warned the U.S. to stay away from Taiwan, and conducted live military exercises after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the contested island last year.
Joint naval drills by China, Russia, and South Africa were scheduled to begin on February 17. China’s rulers have steadily increased military spending, to the point where their navy is now larger than that of the U.S. (CNN, 02/03). Their ships are also more capable of navigating shallow waters in the South China Sea—another potential flashpoint.
Even as the U.S. attempts to improve its military foothold in East Asia, China is strengthening its military and economic ties in its home region. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, a free trade pact that includes Australia, Japan, Indonesia, and Vietnam, gives China a clear advantage in writing the rules for business for 30 percent of the world’s population. Despite an aging population and slowing economic growth, China has one other big edge over the divided U.S. bosses: a united ruling class that is further along the path to full-blown fascism.
U.S. bosses out for blood
The main wing of the U.S. ruling class, representing finance capital, is mounting an aggressive strategy to contain China. Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, is demanding a “forceful” response if China moves on Taiwan (Foreign Affairs, September-October 2022). He’s calling for a massive 27 percent increase in the Pentagon’s budget, to more than $1 trillion. Haas is demanding the “promotion of order” over “democracy and human rights”—not that U.S. foreign policy ever shied away from murdering workers en masse when money was at stake.
The proposed military buildup aligns with recent U.S. maneuvering in the Pacific. Last year’s U.S.-British agreement to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Australia was just the beginning of a plan to surround China with a ring of fire. The U.S. has bludgeoned Japan into buying hundreds of U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles and to approve a “more lethal” deployment of U.S. Marines in Okinawa, a Japanese island less than 400 miles from Taiwan and barely 500 miles from Shanghai, China’s largest city (NYT, 1/11). The new U.S.-Philippines deal was equally ominous. According to a former Biden adviser, the bases in the Philippines “would be critical launch and resupply points in a war with China” (NYT, 2/3).
The U.S.-China trade war, declared by ex-president Donald Trump, has evolved into permanent tariffs on $350 billion of Chinese exports. China has retaliated with tariffs on U.S. exports. Economic tensions escalated last October, when the U.S. banned sales to China of semiconductors and the machines that build them, and even barred U.S. citizens from working on them. The objective: “strangling with an intent to kill” China’s technology industry, particularly corporations “closely allied with China’s military” (NYT, 10/20/22).
More recently, days after the spy balloon humiliation, Biden issued an executive order to restrict U.S. investment in China in “advanced technologies that could be used in war.” The order targeted U.S. hedge funds and equity firms trying to make a quick buck at the expense of the broader needs of the U.S. ruling class. Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters, a reliable stooge for finance capital, complained about those “funding adversarial actions of the Chinese government” (NYT, 2/9).
The biggest problem for the warmakers is their need to win reluctant workers to fight and die for their profits. Because capitalism feeds off racism like rats on garbage, institutions like the U.S. military are racist to the core. But to create a larger “multiracial” military, the rulers desperately need to recruit Black and Latin students into the officer corps—the logic behind mandatory enrollment programs for Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps in urban high schools (NYT, 12/11/22).
We’ve got to fight back
As bosses in both the U.S. and China up the ante in preparing for war, it’s time for PLP members and friends around the world to go on the offensive by exposing the imperialists’ motivation and strategy. We can connect these war plans to every struggle we’re immersed in, from the fightback against racist cop terror to strikes to struggles for decent healthcare. We can expose university and corporate connections to the war buildup and move masses into action against these pro-imperialist institutions. The only solution to capitalist butchery is to turn the guns around—to fight to transform imperialist wars into revolutionary wars for communism. Join PLP!

Under liberal fascist former mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and current mayor Andre Dickens, Atlanta began plans to build Cop City. This $90 million training center would include a shooting range and model neighborhood to stage raids on 85 acres of forest adjacent to historically Black communities (CNN, 9/24/22?). Workers are fighting back with street protests and erecting their own camps in the threatened forest.

On January 18, Tortuguita, a widely loved environmental organizer, in a raid on the encampments was killed (PBS, 1/29). The police killing prompted several nights of protests in downtown Atlanta and worldwide as workers questioned the police account of the murder. More than a dozen protestors have been charged with domestic terrorism. This chilling new trend is popular with liberal fascist politicians to squash worker fightback.

NEWARK, NJ, January 30—Workers across the U.S. are taking to the streets to rally against the murder of  Tyre Nichols after the release of bodycam footage showed Nichols's brutal, deadly beating by Black Memphis cops. Progressive Labor Party members (PLP) joined a rally in Newark in solidarity with Tyre Nichols and the countless names of workers slain by this murderous system. This latest murder confirms a trend of Black-led liberal fascism where we see cities with a Black democratic ruling class government are becoming the new faces of terror against our class.

Now, the workers’ anger confirms a) the shallowness of identity politics as a tool to divide us, and b) reforms don’t work.

Instead, workers need to join PLP. Smashing the racist, fascist police terror that robbed Tyre’s life is a pillar of our Party’s work.

A Black cop is still a kkkop
The protest was led by the liberal reformers in the city of Newark and had more local government officials than workers present. This can only be explained by the historical contradiction of this period–where identities are primary to the capitalist ruling class to divide and exploit workers and squash rebellion more intensely. Tyre Nichols, Carl Dorsey, Manuel Esteban Paez Terán or Tortuguita, and Keenan Anderson are victims of the liberal fascist state ruled by Black and Latin politicians and cops.

“See, us Black people are suffering everywhere,” one woman said. Monique Rodwell, mother of the Rodwell-Spivey brothers, assaulted by police in 2020 and friends of PLP replied, “it’s not just Black people; it’s poor people.” Another educator with us noted, “the protests stopped once Biden got in office. He’s the same one that introduced the 1994 Crime Bill.” This is someone that has been in our base for years and a former student of a comrade in Newark.

We were not strong enough  in numbers to provide leadership at this rally but we do plan to organize a worker-led response to the murder of Tyre and the rise of liberal fascism in the near future. When liberal fascists are forced to face the rage of the working class and manage to get away, we as communists cannot stop organizing. For every Tyre there are masses of workers killed by racist police terror around the world that don’t make the headlines. Fighting for Alex Flores, for Shantel Davis, Raymond Chaluisant we didn’t stop. And we won’t stop until masses of workers around the world see that police brutality is as vital to capitalism, as communist revolution is to workers!

Liberal fascism unleashes killer kkkop gangs
In the aftermath of the George Floyd worldwide movement led by Black workers, liberal fascist mayors and politicians misled workers with the most revolutionary potential, funneling our class’ rage into the ballot box, while also unleashing a viscious wave of racist police terror.

Black mayors from Atlanta, Washington, DC, and Newark painted Black Lives Matter slogans on the same streets where they send their killer kkkop special units to spill workers’ blood. These units–from the Jump Out Boys in Newark that killed Carl Dorsey and threatened the Rodwell Spivey family to the Executioners in Los Angeles to the Memphis Scorpion Unit that killed Tyre Nichols – are essentially a kkkop murder inc., a persistent nationwide element using corruption and intimidation tactics to cement their control over the Black and Latin working class communities they cannot profit without.

Like Newark, Memphis is a model for Big fascists to pour in their finance capital. For Bank of America, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase, extracting superprofits from the guaranteed racist super-exploitation and super-neglect of a majority Black and Latin workforce is a winning formula! These parasites are the largest beneficiaries of extra payments, commonly known as a “Black Tax,” placed on such municipalities forced to take loans to close gaps in budgets unmet by taxing such low wages (Bloomberg, 09/29/22). Tennessee, the state where Memphis is located, is on par with the lowest minimum wage across the U.S. $7.25.

The answer of fascist U.S. President Jim Crow Joe Biden has been to betray workers by riding the wave of workers’ anger into office. Once elected, Biden assured finance capitalists that there would be no effort to defund the police (itself a liberal reform) under his administration.

Today, U.S. police forces represent the third largest military expenditure globally; as former New York City mayor Bloomberg called it, the NYPD is one of the world’s largest armies. Expect the Biden administration to opportunistically milk the Nichols tragedy to stoke their political momentum for the 2024 election. As we go to press, Kamala Harris–a former prosecutor who sent hundreds of workers to prison– hopes we will forget that when announcing that she will attend Tyre’s funeral.  

Fight fascism with communism
Under capitalism, there can be no justice for workers against racist killer kkkops. Their job is to serve and protect the ruling class, especially the Big Fascists–the liberal politicians and finance capitalists. For decades, these Big Fascists have wielded the lethal power of the police with near impunity to clear cities of Black and Latin workers for gentrification. At the same time, these liberal fascists push reforms to keep workers invested in the system–from voting to hiring more Black and Latin cops. Tyre Nichols brutal slaying shows that neither works. Only with organized worker fightback with international communist leadership like PLP will we finally realize communism and smash racist police terror once and for all.

On the same day that the first Black woman police chief, Cerelyn Davis, fired the five Memphis cops, the Newark police force under Black Mayor Ras Baraka’s leadership walked away scott-free for murdering another Black worker, Carl Dorsey, in 2020. Politicians at the rally praised Davis, the murderer-in-chief, for swiftly penalizing the cops that killed Tyre. When agents of the capitalist state are disciplined, our class must beware that this is not a victory but a sign of developing fascism.

However, locking a few cops up will never smash racist police terror. Only when workers recognize capitalism as the sham it is and commit to building an internationalist, communist, worker-led state will racism, sexism, and exploitation be eradicated from the face of the earth.