International Women’s Day; Only Communism Can End Sexism

 The only day the world recognizes women is the one to celebrate their “reproductive” role as mother and wife, Mother’s Day. But it was the Soviets, the communist movement, that celebrated women as political beings with revolutionary power. March 8 is International Women’s Day (IWD), the day that communists organized to salute the strength and contributions of women workers.

Women are not docile but have been organizing and fighting back for hundreds of years. In the United States, the fight of the slave and of women began from the same thread. The Grimke sisters fought against slavery and for women’s rights as one and the same battle. Angelina Grimke declared, “Until he [a slave] gets his rights, we [women] shall never have ours.” Struggles led up to the German communist Clara Zetkin taking the initiative in 1910 to organize an official International Working Women’s Day. Anti-sexist struggle makes it a historic day for all workers, women and men. 

Communists Fought to Smash Working Women’s Oppression

During Czarist Russia, the struggle for working-class women became synonymous with the open call for the overthrow of the government. During World War I, the Russian Bolshevik Party tried to turn March 8th into a demonstration of women workers against imperialism. On that day, the women of St. Petersburg began and led the February revolution in 1917.

Re-centering IWD within its rich revolutionary communist history helps increase the class-consciousness and organization of working-class women. This militancy is crucial to the future of the working class.  

What is Sexism?

Much like racism, sexism is a systematic tool used by the bosses to divide the working class against itself. It is the special oppression of female workers. This is manifested in many forms. In 1921, Lenin wrote that “under capitalism the female half of the human race is doubly oppressed….

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‘The workers’ crew must seize the helm…’ ; Film Exposes Bosses’ Exploitation of Global Transport

“The Forgotten Space” is a poetic, visually stunning, and unabashedly anti-capitalist documentary about the global transport system. The film opens aboard a massive cargo container ship carrying products from low-wage manufacturing and farming centers to major ports in Europe and the United States. 

The seas are the pathways over which 100,000 ships, manned by 1.5 million seamen, deliver materials and goods worth trillions of dollars to a web of manufacturers (like Foxconn in China), importers (like Walmart and Apple), and banks and financiers on Wall Street and elsewhere. “The Forgotten Space” interviews the normally invisible people who make and transport the goods, rather than the billionaires who get both the credit and the profits.

The film depicts how the entire transport system of capitalism relies on cheap labor: factory workers in China; Korean and Indonesian workers who service the cargo ships; low-paid truck drivers at the huge port in Los Angeles. 

As economist Minqi Li explains, capitalism relentlessly seeks to lower production costs by cutting wages and benefits and also by demanding lower taxes and minimal environmental regulations, giving it freedom to pollute the oceans. 

The cargo container — a standardized metal box that can be moved from ship to train or truck — was developed by U.S. shippers who were eager to cut the number of dockworkers required to load cargo. Millions of containers now travel the globe’s oceans, a watery conveyor belt that moves 90 percent of the world’s cargo. Once they reach their destinations, trains and trucks bring their contents to stores. 

Meanwhile, farms in Holland are uprooted to make room for the tracks the railroads run on, while the entire village of Doel is demolished to expand the port of Antwerp, Belgium. Nothing appears to stand in the way of global capitalism as it moves factories abroad and shunts industrial workers to the unemployment lines or to stock shelves at retail stores.

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India: Millions in General Strike

MUMBAI, INDIA, February 28 — Millions of workers in eleven major unions and 5,000 smaller ones went on a 24-hour general strike in one of the largest walkouts in the country’s history. They were demanding protection against soaring prices of vital commodities, more jobs, an end to privatization and to government anti-labor policies and a rise in the minimum wage.

The strike was virtually total in transportation in Kerala state, with buses, taxis and rickshaws off the roads. Striking banking workers halted all financial transactions in the states of Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh. In Mumbai, the country’s financial center, the shutdown in banking was complete.

While the bosses and government were attacking even a one-day strike, it remains to be seen if workers will begin to realize that they need an extended walkout to get any real results. While the ruling classes always refer to India as the world’s “largest democracy,” the mass poverty and unemployment that exists here exposes the hypocrisy of that claim. Real solutions to workers’ problems here will only come when the working class takes power, led by a revolutionary communist party.

School Fight: PEP Gets a U; Capitalism Gets an F

NEW YORK CITY, February 16 — “How do you spell racist? DOE!”

A young comrade led over 500 people in a series of such anti-racist chants as billionaire Bloomberg’s Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) used their state power and had their Department of Education (DOE) close 33 largely black and Latino schools for “underperformance.”

PLP members’ exposure of capitalism as the real underperformer was well-received among co-workers there, as well as among passers-by who took over 300 leaflets containing the above headline.

NYC teacher union mis-leader Mike Mulgrew led a rally outside, trying to “boycott” the sharp struggle inside where angry masses had gathered in the high school auditorium. His effort to lead folks away from the panel meeting flopped. He made a lackluster cameo appearance once the defeat of his boss-serving ploy became apparent to all.

Comrade Indicts Profit System

Only PL had students actively leading chants. At one point, the crowd demanded to “let the students speak.” Then our young comrade took center stage to give the only speech that named capitalism as the culprit. We met this young leader several years ago and she has been schooled in the fight against racist school closures. We need more youth like her.

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No Capitalism = No Profits, No Prison

NEW JERSEY, February 22 — Sixty people marched twelve miles today to protest against the racist expansion of detention centers in Northern New Jersey. We were young and old, black, white, and Latino, representing many countries.  We marched to three detention centers and three branches of the Wells Fargo bank, which invests in the federally funded companies that profit from the workers they imprison. 

The protest was organized by First Friends and the Interfaith Refugee Action Team at Elizabeth (IRATE), an umbrella group that sponsors legal aid, social services and volunteer visits to detainees. Some of us were critical of the march’s vague demands, such as “justice” and “freedom.”  We remarked that the sort of justice that has people paying up to $12,000 to release their loved ones

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PL’ers Point Occupy LA Toward Worker-Student Alliance

LOS ANGELES, February 29 — In the months following the clearing of the Occupy encampment in downtown Los Angeles, the idea of the 99% has penetrated college campuses and workplaces throughout Southern California. From public college students facing tuition hikes to transit and airport workers confronted with wage-cuts, the Occupy message resonates deeply in their respective fights. This political development is an opportunity to build the strategic worker-student alliance that can serve as the basis for a revolutionary communist movement. 

Student members of Progressive Labor Party recently organized a conference on the economic crisis of capitalism and higher education at a state university here. The students collaborated with transit workers, high school teachers and friends from the Occupy movement to hold workshops on the need for a worker-student alliance. One political goal was to show the similarities between the struggles of students and teachers in high schools and colleges. 

Point of Disunity

At the morning plenary, one group of students raised a “point of unity” that called for the exclusion of communist parties from the conference. Some Occupy participants, particularly the self-proclaimed “facilitators” (the de facto leaders of this “leaderless” movement), red bait organizations they see as “authoritarian.” 

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Undocumented Steel Workers Battle Fascist Firings

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA, February 17 — PLP members joined 500 workers and students in a march and rally to support the 200 undocumented workers and families fired by Pacific Steel Casting (PSC) in Berkeley, California. 

We distributed a leaflet and CHALLENGES, focusing on racism in capitalism as a labor policy. Many gave thumbs up to our poster: “A world without Borders is a Communist World” (Un Mundo sin Fronteras es un mundo Communista).

We are following up on contacts among these workers and some of the younger activists on the march, which included NGO’s, community organizations, churches and Occupy Oakland. There was no official presence from the labor movement.

Using CHALLENGE and actions in our various mass organizations, we’re

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Haiti: Women Defy Capitalist Repression

PORT-AU-PRINCE, February 27 — Many workers in many industries in Haiti have been fired for organizing a union or striking, including printers, hospital workers, archivists, transportation workers, teachers, city workers and others. This treatment violates labor laws on the books but never enforced. One such group who has stayed together in their union and are still — years later — demanding their jobs back, met with PLP to find out about the Party and to ask how it could help them expand their campaign. 

This is a very determined group of workers, including many active women, who have dared to oppose the repressive and cruel capitalist system here by staging  demonstrations, confronting the corrupt management, organizing petitions and press conferences, and requesting the support of various unions and organizations. Although their efforts so far have been ignored by the rulers, they continue their fight-back.

Those of us present were thrilled to see such courageous workers who, in spite of the misery being imposed on them by the deadly duo of capitalism and imperialism in Haiti, continue the struggle for dignity and bread. We explained that we will do what we can to obtain the support of other unions where we have a presence. Our student friends will continue to meet with a workers’ committee to plan how students and workers can help one another’s struggles. The workers clearly understood the need for this unity of workers and students in confronting a common enemy.

Spreading the Struggle 

Our exchange of experiences and ideas gave rise to a pledge on our part to work harder in the U.S. to denounce these attacks on workers in Haiti and to step up circulation of a petition in their support. We delivered some petitions containing hundreds of signatures for the workers, who received them with great appreciation and will show them to other unions. They will also gather signatures on a petition of their own supporting U.S workers’ struggles.

We stated, however, that we have no “magic bullet” to help them win their demands. The capitalist system is a deadly treadmill of attacks against workers worldwide. Like any reform struggle, even if they succeed, the bosses can take those wins away the next day, or make new attacks. Without an outlook that involves the destruction of capitalism and the fight for communism, we will  always be fighting the next assault against our class since that’s what the system produces in its thirst for profit from our labor. 

During the meeting we discussed the ten PLP principles stated in “Our Fight”” from the Kreyòl issue of CHALLENGE.  In response, women workers were especially passionate in their hatred of the system. One told us she lives in a single room with four grown children since being fired. She asked how workers could win an armed revolution when the state has all the weapons. One answer stressed that our strength is in our numbers, if we get organized.  

Some liked “Our Fight” but asked how these ideas could help win their long struggle for their jobs. We stressed that each battle, win or lose, can “win” if we come out of it stronger in numbers and with more comrades committed to revolution. One comrade found it very painful to have to tell such hard-hit workers that only revolution and expanding the Party can win. But that is the challenge we all face.

Their determination is a good example of a working-class fighting spirit. No matter how destitute, hungry and oppressed the workers might be, they are fighting back and refusing to submit to the nightmare of misery and neglect that their masters have created for them in Haiti. They have our support and admiration as communists. In the course of their struggle, they can understand that capitalism, just like a leech sucking up our blood, must be destroyed so that we can live and prosper under a system of justice and equality: communism.

Rocks Send U.S. Puppet Martelly Fleeing; Haiti: Students Fight Fascist Attack

PORT-AU-PRINCE, February 18 — The ruling class is stepping up its attacks here. The government has turned its fascist power against the students, especially those at the State University of Haiti, and particularly the Faculty of Ethnology, invading the campus and brutally assaulting the students. However, the students fought back with rocks, sending Haitian President Martelly running off with his personal guards while a large force stayed.

At 3:00 p.m. on February 17 a Toyota with tinted windows pulled up to the Ethnology Faculty. An envoy from Martelly had come to announce his imminent arrival. This was the same campus — the most militant left-wing campus in Haiti — where Martelly had organized a December 27 raid to win over certain students and divide the rest.

Anti-Martelly students vowed not to let him on the campus as had happened in December when the pro-Martelly “pink” student-mercenaries (as they are known) took advantage of student vacations to open the gates for him. Now again they and his militia thugs were prepared to invade the Ethnology campus.

Martelly arrived at the head of a crowd in a Carnival-like entrance as performer “Sweet Micky” (Martelly’s stage name as a pop singer), shirt unbuttoned, urging on his thugs. After two turns around the campus shouting slogans (“Martelly, the country belongs to you, show your buttocks as you want. Micky is not afraid of anything!”).

Well-Planned Assault

Martelly tried to enter the campus grounds by force, along with his armed men. It was all well-organized. People in civilian clothes carrying guns, machetes, knives and clubs broke down the fence and invaded the courtyard. Eighteen windows on cars belonging to students and faculty were totally smashed. Dozens of students were manhandled and clubbed by the thugs who brutalized them with their batons and anything that could wound or kill.

All this occurred under the gaze of the well-armed security forces, who simultaneously used their heavy weapons to prevent the students from escaping. Those with heart conditions or asthma had trouble breathing. Many were taken to the hospital.

The cops took some students away after having beaten them nearly to death. The police fired their heavy weapons to scare off the students. Thus, the armed forces protect the profits of the criminal leaders who want to hang on to power!

Workers in the Ethnology department office, where some students had taken refuge from tear-gas attacks, were pushed around by Martelly’s thugs, who broke everything they couldn’t steal. They burglarized the office of everything of any value. Martelly’s armed gangsters in civilian clothes surrounded the campus until the last students left, ransacked and bruised.

This organized criminal act made certain students targets of Martelly’s thugs, one being attacked by a pro-Martelly “pink” criminal. The massacre targets this campus to erase any denunciation of those in power, who lie and make false promises to the people and use mercenaries to divide them.

This recipe for fascism shows clearly that the rulers plan to re-institute dictatorship in its most ferocious form. All this explains the massive presence in the Martelly government of Duvalierist-Macoute forces (murderous holdovers from the former Duvalier dictatorship). Down with fascism! Long live communism!J

Editor’s note: The above eyewitness account came from a student at the scene. We thank him and his comrades for fighting back and giving leadership to the international class struggle against fascism. As the 1930s Spanish communists said of Franco’s fascists, “No pasaran!” (“They shall not pass.”) We would add that Haiti’s rulers are a local capitalist ruling class who are clients of U.S. imperialism, not simply the gutter fascist Martelly and his thugs.

From an international perspective, this student struggle is an antiracist one. The fact that Haiti is being left to rot as a pool of reserve cheap labor for the region, and a possible military asset in the U.S. imperialists’ battles with their rivals, is a gross racist assault on all workers and students in Haiti. Antiracism, too, is an international fight.

[Note: An international petition campaign is being organized to condemn this raid and support the students’ struggle. Please sign it at www.ipetitions.com/petition/condemn-raid-on-haiti-university-campus. The students in Haiti will use it there.]

Electoral Circus; No Solution for Workers; Turn ‘Occupy’ General Strike into Communist May Day

The Occupy movement has called for a general strike on May 1. While this is a positive development, it falls far short of the traditional communist holiday, a celebration for the international working class. May Day grew out of a real general strike in Chicago in 1886 (see page 5), one that shut off the bosses’ flow of profits — and not just for one day. For over a century, communists have organized around May Day’s revolutionary message worldwide. It has never stood for the reform of capitalism, which is what the liberal bosses want us to believe is possible. Rather, May Day stands for the overthrow of the profit system, a system that brings the working class mass racist unemployment, periodic depressions, poverty, racism, sexism and tens of millions of deaths in imperialist wars.

As we have witnessed in Italy and France, one-day general strikes are organized by pro-boss union misleaders who encourage workers to let off steam and then return to the workplace with the same unsolved problems. They barely touch the bosses’ profits. They’re more an inconvenience than a threat to the system.

The capitalist media will be sure not to cover

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