Inflamed Ukraine: World war ahead, smash imperialist butchers!

The Russian capitalist bosses have invaded Ukraine. It’s impossible to know how this war will ultimately play out, but we do know that small wars can lead to larger wars, particularly in volatile times. The war in the Ukraine is a nightmare brought about by the rivalry among the U.S., Russian, and Chinese capitalist rulers. There are no good sides among these imperialist butchers. Our class, the working class, must take on all bosses. We must turn the imperialist’s wars for profit into war to liberate our class with communist revolution.

As the old liberal world order has disintegrated, capitalism has come to be defined by constant invasions and wars--from the Middle East, where the big imperialists have fought to control the region’s oil, to Africa, where capitalists big and small compete for control of vital resources. 

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Nato Imperialist alliance falters at Ukrainian border

Whether or not Russia invades Ukraine in the coming days or weeks, the growing weakness of U.S. imperialism—and of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the U.S. military arm in Europe—is more and more apparent. French President Emmanuel Macron is pushing for “strategic autonomy” for the European Union (news.usni.org, 2/8). Russian President Vladimir Putin is demanding a NATO rollback from Eastern Europe. Ukrainian officials are sending mixed signals about their long-term ambition to join NATO—a move that Putin has warned would lead to nuclear conflict. Weakened by internal ruling-class divisions and knowing they’re not politically prepared for a global military conflict, the U.S. finance capital bosses—represented by President Joe Biden—have openly ruled out sending troops to Ukraine. Eight years after invading and grabbing back the Crimean Peninsula, the Russian imperialists are determined to restore more of the old Soviet sphere of influence. 

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Killer KKKOP Van DyKKKe—We charge you with genocide!

CHICAGO, February 5—The capitalist ruling class has again showed that their prosecution of racist kkkops who murder workers is just a farce. A multiracial and militant group of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members and friends held a CHALLENGE sale and open protest at a busy intersection on the city’s south side against the release of Jason Van Dyke, the white cop who murdered Black teenager LaQuan McDonald in October 2014.

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Red flags over dollar$ as workers in LA protest racist SoFi

INGLEWOOD, CA. February 13 - In the shadow of the newly-built $5 billion SoFi Stadium, home of the LA Rams football team and host to Super Bowl 56, working-class tenants in a local apartment complex are organizing together to secure their class interests. They are fighting evictions, and putting their rent money towards the cost of basic repairs instead of paying their blood-sucking slumlord, Alfa Investments. This struggle has the potential to spread in this city torn apart by racist unemployment, gentrification, homelessness and poverty. 

Under capitalism, everything that the working class needs to live is tainted and poisoned by the practice of commodity exchange. Whether it is the need for decent and safe housing, food, or clothing, capitalism puts a price tag on it.

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Sit-in at the CUNY Chancellor’s house: Racist cuts means fight back!

NEW YORK, February 5— Over 45 students, faculty, staff, and parents, including members of the communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) marched on the home of the City University of New York (CUNY) Chancellor Felix “Felo” Matos Rodriguez in Pelham, New York, humorously advertised as “Brunch with Felo.” We were sending a message that we, the united working class, won’t accept the racist austerity at CUNY. The relatively quiet suburb was rocked by chants, speeches, and later, music.

These struggles give PLP members and friends lessons in class struggle—learning how to organize, be bold, and struggle with friends and co-workers to step forward. We want to continue working with education workers and students to build this movement towards a strike, and, at the same time, to expose the nature of capitalist education and the limits of reform. 

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Black Workers’ Leadership, STILL Key to Communist Revolution

In 2022, as was the case over 500 hundreds years ago, Black workers remain the most brutally attacked section of our class. Now as then, they must help take the lead in building an international communist movement. U.S. history is a chronicle of genocide, slavery, segregation, and enduring racist oppression. Black workers have less invested in the capitalist status quo. Since racism infects all relations within the profit system, they stand to hold fewer illusions about “justice” or “democracy” under the bosses’ dictatorship. 

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Black communists in the Spanish Civil War: Douglas Roach, a red ace

*This is part of a three-part series exploring a few of the Black communists from the U.S. that fought in the International Brigades against fascism. 

In the early 1930s the urban bourgeoisie (capitalists) of Spain, supported by most workers and many peasants, overthrew the violent, repressive monarchy to form a republic. In July 1936 the Spanish army, eventually commanded by Francisco Franco, later the fascist dictator, rebelled to re-establish the repressive monarchy. Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy gave Franco massive military aid. The Western imperialist countries and the United States refused to help the Republic. Only Mexico and the then-socialist Soviet Union came to the Republic’s aid, to try to stop fascism before it engulfed the world. 

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Black & Red: W.E.B. Du Bois remembers Stalin as courageous and common

One thing that is always ignored in the fight against racism is the influence the communist movement had. The great William E. B. Du Bois was one of the leading fighters against racism in the 20th century. He founded the NAACP a century ago. After 50 years of antiracist struggle, he joined the Communist Party in 1945, declaring that becoming a communist was “the logic of my life.”

That fact will be well-hidden by the hypocritical U.S. rulers as they “celebrate” Black History Month while preparing another racist war for oil against their rivals China and Russia.

Even more hidden will be the homage Du Bois — a true hero, beloved by the working class, Black and white — paid to the communist world leader, Josef Stalin, on the occasion of Stalin’s death.

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Letters of March 2

100 Copies of CHALLENGE

We’ve been selling 100 copies of CHALLENGE almost every week and have received multiple reactions from the public about our Party’s paper. From the occasional “I have one already” (when they don’t wanna be bothered) to those who throw a dollar and run with the paper. But then there are those conversations that sit with us longer, that leave us with hope and sometimes even a bit of cynicism.

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Communist revolution will liberate us!

CHICAGO, January, 24– This racist profit system has stolen yet another child, this time the life of eight-year-old Melissa Ortega. She and her mother were walking down the street in the Little Village neighborhood on January 22 when they got caught in a gang-related crossfire. Melissa was struck twice in the head. A system ruled by the biggest gangsters of all time, the bosses, will foster violence against our class.
To amass profits, bosses must force our class to work under dangerous working conditions, and endure equally miserable living conditions, pushing millions of workers into an early grave. These horrific capitalist conditions—social murder and imperialist wars—create the perfect storm for gang violence.

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