Letters of April 20

Build Worker Solidaity from Brazil to U.S.
On Thursday, March 30, I attended at rally at the Brazilian Embassy in Washington, DC protesting the rise of a fascist movement in Brazil against the social democratic government. The government of President Dilma Rousseff and her predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a former labor organizer turned politician, are under sharp attack by fascists supported by the U.S. for their imperialist gains. I spoke to the group about how the U.S. ruling class has long installed and toppled governments in Latin America, usually opting for fascist regimes like that of Augusto Pinochet in Chile (1973-1990). After the rally, I hung out with several protesters and discussed the inability of social democracy to defeat fascism, and that only a disciplined communist movement could defeat fascism for good. I distributed Challenge and leaflets about May Day to the group, and hopefully some will join us on April 30 in Brooklyn, NY for May Day, the international workers’ holiday.
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McCain Praises Communist, Spreads Anti-Communism
On March 25 The New York Times carried an op-ed by Republican Senator John McCain praising Delmer Berg, a lifelong communist. Berg was last the known surviving veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, a military force composed mainly of English-speaking volunteer fighters during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). McCain’s piece, titled “Salute to a Communist,” gets right a handful of facts about the war: that it was a conflict between Fascist rebels (Nationalists) and left-wing Republicans (Loyalists) who were trying to defend the democratically elected Spanish government; that Hitler and Mussolini provided the Nationalists/Rebels with military aid; and that the Abraham Lincoln Brigade was part of the Soviet-organized International Brigades, which were made up of volunteer fighters—mostly communists—from around the world.
Predictably, however, McCain’s op-ed is rife with anticommunist propaganda. He observes, for example, that the Spanish communists were either “cynical” or “naïve,” that communism “inflicted far more misery than it ever alleviated,” and that, ultimately, “the advocates of liberty, and their champion, the United States,” would put an end to the clash of ideologies—communism, fascism, and self-determination—that began in Spain (a reference, it seems, to the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s). In addition, he fails to mention a number of facts about the Spanish Civil War that fly in the face of his anticommunist claims.
Yes, workers from the U.S. sacrificed life and limb to defend the Spanish Republic; yet this was possible not thanks to the U.S. government, which imposed a travel ban on Spain in the spirit of “neutrality” during the conflict. (Some neutrality.) The “freedom fighters” McCain rhapsodizes about, in other words, did not receive any official support from the “champion” of the “advocates of liberty” at a time when the governments of Portugal, Germany, and Italy were unequivocally supporting General Francisco Franco and his fascist regime with precious military gear. In fact, over a decade after the end of the Spanish Civil War, soldiers like Berg were persecuted by the U.S. government for their “premature antifascism”—that is, their involvement in the communist-led antifascist struggles of the 1930s. During the “high” Cold War, this past involvement was presumably a sign that those who opposed fascism in the 1930s were secret communist sympathizers.
But perhaps the most problematic omission in McCain’s op-ed is the fact that, unlike the U.S. military, the International Brigades were fully integrated. Several Black fighters attained positions of leadership in the Brigades and were celebrated war heroes in Spain. Oliver Law, for instance, became the first Black fighter ever to lead a fully integrated military force in U.S. history by rising to the rank of Commander of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. The antiracism that characterized the International Brigades and made possible the ascent of Black soldiers like Law, as well as the organization of a military front against fascism in Spain, happened under the auspices of the international communist movement. These are hardly the doings of a movement and ideology hell-bent on—as McCain would have it—“inflicting misery.”
I am not implying here that McCain, a pro-capitalist warmonger, should have penned a different piece—despite his clear admiration for Berg. Rather, I want to suggest that learning the history of the international communist movement is necessary for us communists if we are to contest anticommunist discourses more effectively. These discourses often obscure and distort aspects of red history—that is, our history—in order to steer fighters towards cynicism and into the bosses’ camp. More importantly, the struggles of the past have the power to inform and energize our present struggles. There is, for example, a clear revolutionary line connecting the sacrifices of communists like Berg and Law during the Spanish Civil War to the militancy displayed by PLP members who recently disrupted a KKK “White Lives Matter” rally in Anaheim, California (see CHALLENGE, 3/23). In short, we must know our history not only to debunk vile anticommunist claims, but also the better to organize, agitate, and fight to tear down this racist capitalist system and build a communist world.

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No to Racist Colocation

Teachers, parents, and students in East Flatbush stood up and fought back against the racist agenda of the NYC Department of Education! The DOE is as usual showing who they really serve—the capitalist bosses, not the Black and Latin families in their schools. A proposed colocation of a charter school into a non-charter elementary school’s building was being debated at a public hearing on March 31.
Members of the school community and Progressive Labor Party spoke passionately about the disruption to students’ learning that this colocation would cause—the loss of their media room, their indoor garden, their music spaces, to name a few. The DOE doesn’t care about their mostly Black and Latin students having these essential learning spaces; in fact it’s because of rooms being used for these purposes that the DOE space planners dare to say the school is “under-utilized” and has plenty of rooms to give up to another school. Members of this school are ready to fight!
It was inspiring and heartening to hear many people stand up to speak out about how all parents are looking for the best for their kids, and that all children deserve a quality education, but that the DOE’s decision won’t provide that for any of them. A couple people called out the DOE’s actions as racist. Unfortunately, several parents also yelled at the parents and teachers of the charter school for the proposed move—a sign of the divisive tactics of the DOE.
The charter school is currently in their fourth year of being colocated with the school several PL’ers work at. Four years ago, the staff and students of our school waged a battle against the DOE’s decision to do that then. One PL’er spoke to the crowd about how much our students and staff absolutely need our space back, but that the solution to our problem is not to have it shoved on the backs of others. She talked about how the DOE has used these colocations and charters to divide working class parents and teachers, and has us pitted against each other pointing the blame. The working class can’t allow the school bosses to turn us against each other. Instead, we must to unite fight them back. It was made clear that the DOE is part of a racist system that doesn’t care about the needs of our students.
The purpose of schools under capitalism is to prepare young people to become the next generation of exploited workers and soldiers, and to maintain the extreme systemic racism that capitalism’s profits depend on. As was made clear by the parents and teachers of the soon-to-be reduced school, speaking about the work they had done on their own to develop the school’s special programs, it is the working class that knows best how to build and shape a school that serves our young people. It is only in the fight for communism that the working class can achieve that.
This is the message we need to bring to our co-workers, students, and the families, and to the next public hearing. Our school staff will be meeting this week to make plans for the next hearing. Join PLP and fight for a real working-class education!