Le Pen vs Macron: Two toxic brands of fascism, same rotten racism

The old U.S.-led liberal world order weakens by the day: the openly fascist and anti-NATO Marine Le Pen won 41 percent of the vote in the French presidential election while anti-France, pro-Russia forces rise in former French colonies in Africa. As rival imperialists China and Russia battle the declining imperialists (Ukraine is just the beginning), it’s our class that will pay the price. We workers cannot afford to walk into the traps of nationalism and liberal democracy. The alternative vision is evident—internationalism and communist revolution.
Celebrate this vision on May Day with Progressive Labor Party (see page 1)! As you wave your red flag of internationalism and chant, “Whose day? Our day!” remember how the might of the working class under communist leadership had produced revolutions out of the rulers’ world wars. Experience the revolutionary potential by joining our march for workers’ power as we fight to build an international communist movement. One day, the wretched of the earth will become its rulers. Need and commitment, not exploitation and profit, will be the driving force of society.

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No blood for oil! Smash all imperialists!

The latest crisis bulletin from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a stark reminder that the capitalist bosses stand ready to sacrifice millions of workers’ lives to preserve their profit system. The IPCC now projects global temperatures to rise even higher than the deadly target of 1.5 degrees Celsius agreed upon by the bosses at the 2015 Paris Accords (Guardian, 4/6). Extreme weather-linked disasters—wildfires, floods, droughts, hurricanes—are certain to get worse. Barring a fundamental change of course, one of three plant and animal species may be extinct by 2050 (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). None of these trends are “natural” or inevitable. All are the products of capitalism and the bosses who rule us—the parasites who must be destroyed for the good of the international working class.
Following the ruthless logic of capitalism, the top imperialist powers—the United States, Russia, and China—are doubling down on life-destroying fossil fuels as they intensify their competition over energy supplies, markets, and distribution routes. The world’s latest blood-soaked conflicts, from Ukraine to Yemen to Ethiopia, reflect the raging volatility and high stakes of these imperialist struggles. The rulers are hurtling down a path toward world war and nuclear destruction—the ultimate “climate change.”

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Bosses’ propaganda on Ukraine: The three big lies

 Whether in Russia, China or the U.S., the capitalist bosses use the media to oppress, mislead, and manipulate the working class. In wartime, in particular, the media’s job is to sell the bosses’ lies and hide the ugly truth about imperialism. The historic task for Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and the international working class is to turn inter-imperialist war into communist revolution for workers’ power. Workers have the capacity to do just that, but only if we reject the bosses’ fictions and are clear headed about what is really happening in the world.
In vilifying Putin and beating the drum for the victims of Russia’s invasion, the U.S. media isn’t helping the working class in Ukraine or anywhere else. In fact, it is just the opposite. Although the U.S. bosses are saying—for now—they want to prevent World War III, their goal is to build mass support for wider warfare to protect their profits against their imperialist rivals. While they may seem to have less formal control over television or newspapers or social media than in Russia or China, the liberal big fascists who own and run the mass media (with the exception of Fox) share the same class interests as ExxonMobil or JPMorgan Chase. Their phony claim of “objectivity”—an impossibility in class society—makes U.S. media more deceptive and even more dangerous. When push comes to shove—in Kuwait in 1991, in Iraq in 2003, in Ukraine in 2022—they guarantee that their “news” coverage serves the interests of finance capital.
Let’s look at three big lies the U.S. bosses’ media are spreading in their efforts to mobilize our class to die in their next global conflict.
Lie #1: The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a war crime and moral atrocity, far worse than the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan or the U.S.-backed devastation of Yemen.
The U.S. ruling class media is

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War in Ukraine: Smash imperialists, nationalism, & democracy!

“The first casualty of war is truth.”

With Ukraine on fire and Russia and NATO flexing their military forces within a handful of miles of one another, the capitalist bosses of the world are accelerating their momentum toward global war. None of the top imperialist powers—the United States, Russia, and China—are in total control over what happens next in Ukraine. Their

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U.S. & China will make world war; workers can make revolution

Facing the ‘Thucydides Trap’…the military must step up its efforts.
—Xu Qiliang, Vice-chairman of China’s military

[China] stated that war with the United States is inevitable...When you [U.S.] send an armored brigade combat team anywhere in the world...you have made a strategic decision to fight and win
—Major General Richard Coffman of U.S. military

Imperialist rivals China and the U.S. are caught in the “Thucydides Trap,” an inevitable drive towards war when a rising power threatens to displace the established world power. Driven by their need for maximum profit and world supremacy, the capitalists are on the course toward World War III. 

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Stimulus package: Crumbs on the road to war and fascism

The $1.9 trillion “America Rescue Plan” from Jim Crow Joe Biden, rammed through a Democrat-controlled Congress, is an act of desperation by the U.S. finance capital bosses. As they move toward more open fascism and global war, these liberal rulers need to build loyalty among workers devastated by Covid-19, mass unemployment, and the basic contradictions of the profit system.
The finance capitalists—the Big Fascists who have mostly run the U.S. and dominated the globe since World War II—are now threatened on all sides. They’re losing geopolitical ground by the day to China, their chief inter-imperialist rival. Their own Capitol was besieged by armed militias loyal to the openly racist Small Fascists, the isolationist wing led by the Koch and Mercer and DeVos families, among others. (See glossary on p. 5.) Meanwhile, tens of millions of workers have lost confidence in a system that can’t provide decent-paying jobs, basic healthcare in a pandemic, or enough reliable energy to keep their children from freezing to death in a winter storm (see CHALLENGE, 3/17).

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Bosses’ dogfight in Myanmar: racists vs. racists

Thousands of workers in Myanmar (also called Burma) have taken to the streets in defiance of the Tatmadaw, the thuggish military that has ruled the country for most of the last 60 years. In a February 1 coup, the Tatmadaw ousted the racist civilian misleader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and her NLD (National League for Democracy) Party. Protesters are demanding her release from prison and a return to democracy. But make no mistake about it, democracy will never liberate the working class from the horrors of capitalism.
Under class society, the ruling class dictates to everyone else. Under capitalism, a capitalist dictatorship rules for maximum profit and power for the few by exploiting the international working class. “Democratic” elections are a sham the liberal bosses use to hide the coercion and violence of their rule. We must fight for a workers’ dictatorship—for communism. Only then will workers have any control over society and their lives.
The current conflict in Myanmar, one of poorest countries in Asia, is between two enemies of the working class. It’s a fight over which group of bosses will rule the country and line their pockets with profits stolen from workers. It’s also a fight over which imperialist power Myanmar will align with—China or the U.S.? What’s happening in this small, impoverished country is part of a worldwide trend toward fascism and world war.

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The rulers’ democracy crumbles, fascism ahead

In Kenosha, Wisconsin, a 17-year-old Nazi killed two antiracists protesting the kkkcops’ attempted murder of Jacob Blake. In Lacey, Washington, an anti-fascist was assassinated by a federal government death squad after being targeted for the killing of a racist linked to Patriot Prayer, a group of armed white nationalists. With an upsurge of mass antiracist struggle since the May 25 lynching of George Floyd in Minneapolis, mounting political violence reflects a capitalist system that is falling apart before our eyes.

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Workers have no side in bosses’ volatile U.S.-Iran conflict

The assassination of the Iranian bosses’ top military and intelligence leader, Major General Qassim Suleimani, is a big setback for the U.S. finance capitalists and their already weakened position in the oil-rich Middle East. While what may happen next is unpredictable, it’s clear that the world is more unstable today than it was before the New Year. As inter-imperialist competition intensifies, a global conflict over Iran seems more likely than ever—and with it, a looming threat to millions of workers’ lives.
Workers need to draw our own “red line” against all wars for profit, and against all the rulers who wage them. We must organize on the job and in the street to resist the bosses’ fascist, nationalist campaigns—to fight for a new world based on workers’ needs. A united international working class can turn imperialist war for profit into a revolutionary war for communism!

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India: Capitalist turmoil rears its fascist head

From U.S. President Donald Trump’s impeachment to massive protests against austerity reforms in Chile and France, the international capitalist system is in crisis. Nowhere is this clearer than in India. Once paraded by the capitalist bosses as “the world’s largest democracy” and a shining example of economic growth, India continues to be plagued by racism, nationalism, and massive poverty and inequality.
Indian Prime Minster Narendra Modi has responded to workers’ frustrations over economic stagnation by scapegoating Muslim workers and forcing through a wave of anti-immigrant laws. Hundreds of thousands of workers are pushing back against these racist crackdowns, flooding the streets of major cities and battling with police and government forces.

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