U.S. Training Nazis in Ukraine

Openly racist Nazi forces are now integrated into Ukraine’s military and are receiving training from the U.S. Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade.
The U.S.-funded Ukrainian government in Kiev has merged the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and several other battalions into the Ministry of Defense. Further, the foremost neo-Nazi leader in Ukraine, Dmitry Yarosh, has been made a Special Advisor to the Chief of Staff of the Ukrainian Army. And according to the Minister of the Interior, the U.S. Army is now training Azov.

Click to read more ...

PL History: Fighting Racism the Key to Revolution

To mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of Progressive Labor Party, CHALLENGE is publishing a series of articles on our Party’s history, from its origins as the Progressive Labor Movement (PLM) to its presence today in more than two dozen countries worldwide. This issue reviews one of PLP/PLM’s historic fights against racism.

In the class war to overthrow capitalism, fighting racism is a strategic necessity. When the bosses divide Black and white workers, the entire working class is denied the potential of Black workers’ leadership in the fight for armed communist revolution. In the United States, drawing from their historical super-oppression, Black workers led the battle against slavery. They have stood on the front lines in major strikes, in the fight for jobs and in other attacks on the profit system.

Click to read more ...

War-Bent Bosses

From Eastern Europe to the Middle East to the Pacific, sharpening imperialist competition is escalating both regional warfare and the risk of global conflict. In the latest U.S. move to contain Russia, “the Pentagon is poised to store battle tanks, infantry-fighting vehicles and other heavy weapons for as many as 5,000 American troops in several Baltic and Eastern European countries” (New York Times, 6/14/15). Barack Obama has announced plans for more U.S. troops and bases in Iraq. Meanwhile, as CHALLENGE recently reported, the U.S. and China are vying militarily over strategic Pacific and Indian Ocean shipping routes.
These conflicts represent potential imperialist flashpoints for a massive armed confrontation — and a heavy toll on the international working class. While the capitalist bosses create these wars, workers are pitted against each other on the frontlines. Workers suffer the brunt of the racism, sexism, and nationalism that are intensified by imperialist rivalries.

Click to read more ...

Students, Teachers Combat Racist Culture

BROOKLYN — Students and education workers in a high school here cheered on as anti-racist poems, dances, video interviews and speeches were performed at the school’s first ever anti-racist assembly! This event was organized by teachers and friends of Progressive Labor Party.
The idea  was to counter an upsurge of racist expression, by students, in particular anti-Haitian, comments. It emerged when one courageous student came forward and spoke about what so many students endure daily. It is no surprise that some students repeat the racist remarks they hear in society. This capitalist system we live under was built on racism. Beyond the billions of super-profits that the bosses make from paying Black, Latin and immigrant workers less, the main way racism hurts our class is by convincing us that we are more different than similar, based on how we look or where we were born.

Click to read more ...

Shantel Davis: Three Years Later, the Struggle Continues

BROOKLYN, June 14 — Three years ago, Shantel Davis was murdered by Philip Atkins, a plainclothes detective for the New York Police Department, at the intersection of East 38th Street and Church Avenue in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. In the ensuing weeks and months, Shantel’s relatives, neighbors, along with members of PLP, local clergy and elected officials organized a series of marches to the 67th Precinct to demand justice.  
Ever since that tragic day, Shantel’s sister battled through phases of grief but remained steadfast in her determination to keep her Shantel’s memory alive.  While misleaders from a phony left group and the New York City Council attempted to derail the struggle away from confrontation with the NYPD and the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, the anger of Shantel’s family and friends and members of Progressive Labor Party burned even brighter.

Click to read more ...

Homeless Workers Occupy Buildings, Confront Bosses

Bologna, Italy June 7 — Bologna, a city of about one million in northern Italy, suffers from the same economic crisis affecting all of Italy and Europe. Unemployment, especially among young and immigrant workers, is huge (officially 12.6 percent overall, 40.9 percent for youth). At least 48,000 nationally and 7,500 in Bologna are awaiting housing. Unknown numbers of others are living on the streets; beggars can be seen on many corners. In response to these conditions, many of the homeless have occupied empty buildings, from a hotel in Florence and a farm in the countryside, to a deserted Telecom building in Bologna.

Click to read more ...

De Blasio vs. NYPD: A Fight Between Workers’ Enemies

NEW YORK CITY, June 15 — In the wake of the decision not to indict the cop who murdered Eric Garner on Staten Island, an obvious rift opened between the New York Police Department (NYPD) and Mayor Bill de Blasio. It might be encouraging for workers to see the boss of New York City having trouble with his foot soldiers, but a class analysis can help us to put this event in context.
It only appears that the NYPD and New York’s bosses (represented by de Blasio) are having a conflict that threatens to disrupt the city. In essence,  both parties are on the same side — for the capitalist ruling class and against the workers. It is important to examine history to understand how integral the police are to maintaining ruling-class power.

Click to read more ...

FIFA: Playing Ball with Imperialism

The workers are in constant competition among themselves as the members of the bourgeoisie are among themselves. — Frederick Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England, 1844

The capitalist media is working overtime to hype a factional dispute within the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, or FIFA, the sport’s international governing body. Days before one of the most contested FIFA presidential elections in its history, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) revealed its investigation into a series of alleged bribes to various capitalist governments for hosting rights for the immensely profitable World Cup.
The international working class cannot be fooled by the FBI’s sudden interest in FIFA or the capitalist media’s new mission to expose corruption in sports! The FBI discovers and jails FIFA crooks but can’t investigate or jail a single Wall Street criminal responsible for stealing billions from the working class in the 2008 Great Recession. The FIFA scandal is another step toward an inter-imperialist war that will kill hundreds of millions of workers.
FIFA: Tool of Imperialism
Men’s football, called soccer in the United States, is far and away the most popular sport among workers. Teams in almost every country on the planet are organized into national and regional federations, governed by FIFA. Recognized by the United Nations, FIFA is a powerful instrument of international capitalist rule. Despite football’s British origins, the body’s headquarters is strategically based in Zurich, Switzerland, a center of U.S. and European finance capital.
Founded on corruption, FIFA is as shady as any bank on Wall Street. Given the sheer amount of profit a World Cup host country can exploit from workers in construction, advertising, tourism, entertainment and other sectors, the top FIFA brass wield tremendous power in global finance capitalism. While bribery for hosting rights is merely business as usual, the current scandal represents a new battleground for U.S. and Russian bosses in their escalating competition for global dominance. The U.S. ruling class has indicted top FIFA brass to further isolate Russia, both to damage the Russian rulers’ political standing and possibly to deprive them of a needed economic windfall in hosting the World Cup in 2018.
Blatter Allies with Russian, Chinese Bosses
Along with other high-ranking officials, Sepp Blatter, the longtime FIFA president who announced his resignation six days after seven associates were arrested in Zurich, is being hounded for his failure to play ball with U.S. and European imperialists. In 2005, one year after a kickback of $1 million Swiss francs to a FIFA official was exposed (with no repercussions), Blatter defied U.S. pressure to bar Iran from competing in the 2006 World Cup. Then he publicly endorsed Palestine’s admission as a full FIFA member, another move in line with Russian and Chinese interests. Beyond helping Russia secure the World Cup for 2018, Blatter went on record to say that China’s rising influence had created an “irresistible trend” toward China hosting the event as well (Time Magazine, 8/4/2010).
Stung by Blatter’s continued support from the vast majority of federations comprising FIFA, U.S. Senator John McCain called for Blatter’s removal from FIFA “for his continued support of Russia” (The Wire, 5/31/15). In the same online article, Thiago Cassis, a Brazilian sports writer, said: “All this talk about corruption is an attempt by Europe and America to bring the game back into their sphere of influence. There is a lot of corruption in European football too. They do not talk about it. This whole game is not about tackling corruption, but regaining control.”
Sports and Wage Slavery
People have played games since the dawn of our species. Class society perverted physical culture into “sport,” an instrument of class domination. Under capitalism, sports became riddled with racism, sexism and nationalism; they are one of the bosses’ top ideological weapons against the working class. Imperialist nations like Great Britain and Nazi Germany used sports to showcase their pseudo-scientific notions of racial and imperial superiority. Sports also provide a vehicle for the profit system’s core illusions: fair competition, equality under the law (or rules), the capacity of individual talent to triumph over all.
Football came to world dominance during the rise of the first capitalist state, Great Britain. As the factory system developed and workers spent up to sixteen hours a day in shift work, new cultural institutions arose to promote a sexist glorification of the male body. Amateur sports were designed to enable British workers to vent their rage at one another, rather than the bosses who exploited them. One early capitalist-financed group of this stripe was called the “Muscular Christians.” As it attracted more workers and opened numerous clubs, it adopted a new name: the “Young Men’s Christian Association,” or YMCA. The organization soon spread internationally.
Professional sports flourished with the rise of imperialism. Football, which prohibits hand contact with the ball, required leisure time to master that working-class amateurs did not have. The British exported this sport to its colonies, and it wasn’t long before it captured the attention of bosses in other imperialist powers. Football became a global phenomenon of tremendous importance to capitalism, a tool to build nationalism while distracting workers from their daily exploitation.
Whatever the outcome of FIFA’s current crisis, workers have no dog in this fight. Rival bosses are fighting for control over FIFA because of its usefulness in misleading the working class.
A Communist Vision of Physical Culture
The Progressive Labor Party fights to build a mass movement of millions to turn the bosses’ imperialist wars into class wars for revolution. It will also take millions to build a new, communist culture. We can look to an example from Christmas Day, 1914, when British and German soldiers defied their generals’ orders and played a game of football on the strip of land between their trenches. This expression of internationalism inspired workers and soldiers in every army.
PLP fights for communism and the aspiration of billions: an egalitarian society dedicated to the physical and mental development of every worker.

Capitalist Allies: Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

Recent actions by U.S. allies suggest rapid deterioration in the strength and influence of U.S. capitalism. This increasing weakness is the result of intensified inter-imperialist rivalry driven by a continuing crisis of overproduction. Last fall, after Russia began operations in Ukraine against a U.S.-sponsored coup, the U.S. rallied its allies to impose economic sanctions against Russia. But the French still wanted to deliver two ships they were building for Russia.

Click to read more ...

China Military Growth Sets Stage for War

Recent tensions between the U.S. and China reflect a sharpening battle among imperialists for the world’s wealth. The U.S., top dog since World War II, is struggling to maintain control over resources, markets and exploitable labor. With critical shipping routes and huge oil reserves in the South China Sea at stake, a clash between the U.S. and China looms as a potential prelude to all-out war, the inevitable outgrowth of imperialist competition.
As always under capitalism, the international working class will bear the brunt of this conflict. Imperialist war will end only when the working class, led by the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party, seizes state power. Only communism can serve workers’ needs. Only a communist society led by PLP can truly make us free.

Click to read more ...