Natural Factors Caused 1932 Famine, Soviet Efforts Ended It

Part 1 of the article on the Soviet famine of 1932-33 traced its causes to environmental factors leading to a poor harvest which did not produce enough grain to feed the entire population. While there were other contributing factors  — crop disease infestations, shortage of labor to harvest the fields and of horses to do the plowing and soil exhaustion reducing fertility — Ukrainian nationalists (who later fought on the Nazi side in World War II) spread the myth that the Soviet government deliberately cut off grain to the Ukraine, causing the famine. There was absolutely no evidence supporting this. The Soviet government reduced grain exports and diverted supplies to the famine-stricken areas, trying to distribute what grain was available in an egalitarian manner but this did not meet the overall need (see CHALLENGE  3/26).

The Question of Grain Exports
Like the pre-revolutionary Czarist regimes, the Soviet government exported grain. Contracts were signed in advance, which created the dilemma.

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French Fascists Stir Up Anti-Muslim Racism

For centuries, schools in France were run by the Catholic church. It was only in 1882 that the promotion of religion in public schools was ended. Ever since then, keeping religion out of the schools has been a left-wing position.
The fascist National Front (FN) copies the Hitler-era Nazis.  The FN tries to co-opt left-wing causes. This is one way they attract workers disgusted with the broken promises of the Socialist Party and other fake left organizations.
The latest case in point was on April 4, when FN leader Marine Le Pen announced on RTL radio that the fascists would begin serving pork again in school canteens in the ten cities where the FN controls the city council. She claimed that Muslims were preventing non-Muslim students from eating pork because Islam forbids eating pork. She said the FN would defend the exclusion of religion from public schools.
Journalists from Libération newspaper discovered that it was all a big lie. Pork is on the menu in all French schools. In schools with Muslim and Jewish students, but there is often also a school lunch without pork.
The basis for the big lie was the fact that, for one week in 2011, in the town of Séméac (population 4,700), the school canteen only served non-pork meals – not because Muslims had imposed religious dietary laws, but because of a temporary kitchen problem that prevented the chef from preparing two different meals. The fascists used this to create a rumor to stir up hatred between Muslim and non-Muslim workers.
This is a typical example of the fascist technique of the big lie. Workers everywhere, and not just in France, must beware of this. In particular, the fascists are very clever at spreading their lies and rumors on the Internet.
Anti-fascist from France

‘We will rise up to fulfill our destiny and rule the earth…’

The following letter is from a comrade in Haiti who heard one of his United States comrades had some health problems. She was touched by his comradely concern and revolutionary outlook and thought to share it with our CHALLENGE readers.

I just received the news of your health. I am moved to my innermost being. But I do not doubt your courage and your will to win for our class, despite illness and bad news about this “world without heart!”
Comrade, we are often betrayed by the size of our tasks. So much arduous work, worries and heartbreak to change the world from top to bottom spoils our physique. The long journeys here and there to help develop class conscience in our class, wear down our strength. But there is always the hope of our future that animates us, despite the daily task which becomes more difficult. Especially when there are borders between us, and we are divided by sexism, and racism kills us, the unjust system we live under tries to undermine us, then our solidarity becomes increasingly necessary and urgent.I regret frankly that I cannot come to see you physically. It is only possible to me to write to you.
Dear friend, I won’t keep you too long, just want to let you know that we are continuing the struggle here. The rulers of the world do not know now that they are going to have to face the wrath of the entire international working class. That those of us who do not own the means of production, those without, will rise up one day to improve not only the material conditions of our lives, but also to fulfill our destiny and rule the earth. The stakes are enormous. But we will take the risk! It continues until the final victory .
My sincere greetings to all our comrades and friends. On to May Day!
Compère Général Soleil

12 Years A Slave Neglects Mass Rebellions that Ended Slavery

12 Years a Slave is the story of Solomon Northup, a free black man living in Saratoga, New York around 1841. He is kidnapped and sold into slavery. The film does a good job of depicting the horrors of slavery, from beatings to the humiliations of being treated like animals, with men and women paraded naked for potential buyers to inspect. I watched the movie with clenched fists and tight jaws — I wanted to see the slavers punished for their wrongdoing.

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A Factory Collective Expands Production in the Cultural Revolution

Almost 45 years after the reversal of the Chinese Revolution, China has emerged as a major capitalist power and appears to be on a collision course with U.S. imperialism. The Chinese Revolution was one of the great achievements of the 20th Century — an advance over the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.
In 1967, more than 40 million workers, soldiers, and students launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR). It was an effort to stop the return to capitalism in China. Ultimately it was defeated, in part because the Red Guards and other revolutionary forces were unable to organize a new revolutionary communist party.

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Crimea: Flashpoint for Next Great War?

U.S. rulers and their European allies are locked in a fierce struggle with their imperialist adversaries in Russia for control over Eastern Europe. Among recent developments:
 • Russia’s seizure of strategic Crimea — after the coup backed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Ukraine (see CHALLENGE, 3/12) — foreshadowing a wider world conflict;
 • The crisis in Crimea intensifying inter-imperialist rivalries already in place;
 • U.S. rulers scrambling to oppose Russian bosses even as they must continue to “pivot” toward a military confrontation with China and try to police the Middle East;

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Capitalist Schools Fail Working-Class Youth

Schools should be wondrous centers of discovery and learning. They should be places where students develop life-long interests and abilities, where they gain confidence and knowledge, where they find cherished friends and mentors, and where they feel protected and cared for.
But public schools under capitalism fail on every count. First, they sort students into racist tiers to determine who will obtain the better-paying jobs at the top, and who will be left with the least desirable, lowest-paying jobs at the bottom. Put simply, schools define who will occupy the corporate executive suites and who will clean them! They also decide who will be the unemployed pittied against other workers; who will be the soldiers to kill workers around the world.

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‘CHALLENGE essential to my life…’

While at an Advisory Board hearing for parents and teachers in Newark, NJ, we had several hours to distribute 400 CHALLENGEs. There was time to take in the bitter cold. I glanced at the nearby cemetery. It was there I made my decision to join Progressive Labor Party. I used to study there, as it’s a beautiful spot, full of trees, shade and quiet.
My boyfriend back then had urged me to get a subscription to CHALLENGE, though he was not himself a PLP member. After a year of reading the paper, I wrote PL asking if I could do Spanish translation. Not long afterward, a newly married couple came to my door, themselves students and members of the Party. They had checked with my (now former) boyfriend to see if he vouched for my honesty and asked if I’d like to meet for a few months with them. (Back in the day, a six-month period of candidacy was required.)
That very week I went to “my” cemetery to contemplate about what I’d been reading in CHALLENGE: the organizational powers of the wealthy had waged the Vietnam war; the logical conclusion being that a revolutionary party was the only way to end the atrocities of capitalism. I recalled how words like revolution and communism had at first grated on my mind. Gradually, they took shape with each article as part of the logical beauty of science. Though joining seemed like the right thing, I knew to do so would put me in difficult situations, and sometimes danger. I might lose my life.  
I pictured closing the lid on my own coffin, there in that cemetery. I then knew I couldn’t die with integrity unless I lived a life making progress for the working class. While my anti-sexist pride takes joy in the fact that I joined without my boyfriend’s urging and before he did so, it’s only right to thank him today for insisting I pick up the subscription.
These are the reasons why, for forty-eight years, CHALLENGE has been so essential to my life. It is much more than a newspaper — it’s more like a comrade.
Longtime Roja

Protests vs. Hospital Bosses Rock Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH, March 5 — Militant protests rocked this city on March 3 and 4, bringing traffic to a standstill. Over 1,000 workers, some beating drums and others carrying banners, gathered at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) headquarters here to protest the anti-worker policies of the UPMC bosses. Members of the Service Employees International union, they are paid starvation wages while the bosses rake in millions, similar to tens of millions of other workers nation-wide. These protests in Pittsburgh demonstrate that workers are prepared to fight back against the bosses.J
Rap artist Jasiri X fired up the crowd with his song, “People Over Profits” which seemed to sum up the sentiments of all the workers. However, workers must fight for a society without profits. It will take a communist revolution to gain true equality and justice for all workers.

Celebrate International Women’s Day

CHICAGO, March 8 — A multiracial group of 30 workers gathered here to celebrate International Women’s Day. The purpose of the event was three-fold: to give a presentation and speeches concerning the history and importance of the holiday; to be social with friends and comrades; and to formally invite those present to May Day in Brooklyn and raise some of the funds for transportation.
After everyone got settled and ate their fill of some delicious international cuisine, the presentations began. A new comrade, originally from Michoacan, Mexico read aloud in Spanish a letter she had written to CHALLENGE recently. It highlighted her satisfaction with finding an international communist party, committed to the working class and the destruction of capitalism. Coming from a region of Mexico suffering from poverty and drug cartel/police violence, she expressed that she knew firsthand the importance of fighting back.
Next, a slide presentation was given by another PL member which provided history of women-led struggles in the former Soviet Union, revolutionary China, and Cuba. It showed the massive social, political and economic advancements that can be made when sexist and patriarchal capitalist ideology is rejected and workers of all genders are allowed to contribute to many different types of labor.
Both presentations generated important conversation and criticisms. It was pointed out that while the slideshow explained the importance of women filling roles traditionally held only by men, it didn’t go far enough to recognize the immense significance of domestic labor (child-rearing, cooking, cleaning, and so much more) and why it is best when those tasks are equally shared among all genders.
The comrade explained that men also suffer because of sexism because without performing the activities of raising a child, male workers don’t reach full human potential.
The event was a success. The local Financial Committee was able to raise some money for May Day, and a number of friends committed to taking part in the celebration. I was very happy to have learned a great deal more about International Women’s Day, and even happier to have spent the evening with other workers involved in the fight to destroy the sexist and racist society in which we currently suffer, and replace it with one that will value all labor which moves humanity forward.
Red Nurse