Challenge, April 12, 2000

As the May Day organizing heads into its final month, we should take a moment to think about the future. On April 30 in San Francisco and May 6 in Washington, D.C., several thousand workers, students and soldiers will march for communist revolution, workers’ dictatorship and a world free of the profit system’s horrors.

In order to win these goals, our Party must grow until its members number in the millions. To win a communist world, we must become billions. Is this possible, or as some believe, are we merely a bunch of well-motivated people who are spitting into a hurricane?

On the face of it, the bosses would appear all-powerful. The old communist movement, which had once led great revolutions and anti-imperialist struggles throughout the world, died from its own political weaknesses. Capitalists hold power everywhere. U.S. imperialism, which years ago could claim more victims among the world’s workers than even Nazi Germany, still rules the roost. So today, communist revolution would seem to be a noble but unattainable dream.

However, communists have a "secret weapon," which teaches us how to look deeper than appearances and see the possibilities that lie beyond the actual. It’s called dialectical materialism. It’s our philosophical tool for understanding everything in the natural world, in society, even in our own minds. Dialectics enables us to see that everything changes, that things turn into their opposite, and that a small Party can grow until it eventually becomes capable of seizing power. Many people believe social classes have always existed and that the few have always oppressed the many. But the truth is that social classes came into existence only about 15,000 years ago, after human beings had been a biological species for hundreds of thousands of years.

What’s this got to do with May Day? Plenty! Fifteen thousand years may seem like an eternity when compared to an individual life span, but relative to human history, it’s a very short time. The bosses would love us to believe that the present rotten order of things will last forever. They talk endlessly about the "end of history." But we see that history’s pages are filled with tales of class struggle, revolution and change. We see the hundreds of years the capitalist class needed in order to make their own revolution, which overthrew feudalism. Feudalism itself had needed centuries of struggle to dump slavery as the dominant form of class society. And almost at the very moment when the capitalists were taking hold of state power barely 200 years ago, working-class revolutionaries were rising up to Challenge them.

Eighty-two years after the first capitalist revolution, in France, the Paris Commune of 1871 tried to overthrow it. The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 was the most profound event of the last millennium. The Chinese Revolution and Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of 1949 and the 1960s again shook the world. These great movements defeated themselves. Our Party is still trying to absorb the lessons of these defeats. But we should learn from the victories as well.

Each of the parties that led these revolutions began as a small, weak organization facing apparently overwhelming odds. Despite their many errors, the great leaders of these movements learned through dialectics how to build the possible from the actual. This lesson is crucial for PLP’s leaders and members to absorb now, as we enter the last few weeks before May Day.

This year’s May Day organizing is characterized by a spurt of Party activity against racist police terror. This is good! It means that we are acting and fighting as well as talking. It gives us an opportunity to expose the liberal rulers’ deadly "community policing" scheme as well as to struggle against the more obvious Giuliani brand of fascism. It creates the possibility of bringing more May Day marchers. But each new May Day marcher is also something more than a May Day marcher. Each new May Day marcher is also a potential Party member. And each new Party member is a potential mass leader. Everything we do to ensure a larger, more militant May Day creates the opportunity to build a bigger, more militant Party. A bigger, more militant Party can take bolder, sharper action in the mass movements and win still more members and leaders.

So far, we’ve mentioned dialectics only to show our Party’s potential for growth despite its present apparent weakness. That coin has another side. The rulers appear strong, and we shouldn’t delude ourselves about the enormous advantages they hold over us. But they have many weaknesses as well. They can’t hold power without oppressing us. They can’t rule the world without driving their rivals to unite against them. Capitalism is an unstable system. It will always lead to war. History shows that communist revolutions can seize power in the turmoil of imperialist war.

Our Party is on the right side of history. Our class is bound to win. As we approach May Day, we should think about the ancient Chinese fable about "The Foolish Old Man Who Moved the Mountains" (see box). The Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong liked to quote it to show the importance of revolutionary optimism and of digging in to accomplish the seemingly "impossible."

At the end of the fable, the "foolish old man" is helped by a god. But the working class doesn’t need god to get the mountain of capitalist misery off our backs. We need to build the Party, day by day, May Day marcher by May Day marcher, Challenge sub by Challenge sub, recruit by recruit, struggle by struggle. Mastering the science of dialectical materialism will enable our class to achieve eventual victory, however long and hard the road ahead may be. Whatever we do now and for the rest of our lives to build the Party can help change the face of the world.

THE Fable of the Foolish Old Man That Could Remove…

There is an ancient Chinese fable called "The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains." An old man who lived in northern China long, long ago was known as the Foolish Old Man of North Mountain. His house faced south and beyond his doorway stood the two great peaks, Taihang and Wangwu, obstructing the way. He called his sons and, hoe in hand, they began to dig up these mountains with great determination. Another graybeard, known as the Wise Old Man, saw them and said derisively, "How silly of you to do this! It is quite impossible for you few to dig up those two huge mountains." The Foolish Old Man replied, "When I die, my sons will carry on; when they die, there will be my grandsons, and then their sons and grandsons, and so on to infinity. High as they are, the mountains cannot grow any higher and with every bit we dig, they will be that much lower. Why can't we clear them away?" Having refuted the Wise Old Man's wrong view, he went on digging every day, unshaken in his conviction. God was moved by this, and he sent down two angels, who carried the mountains away on their backs.

(This is quoted directly from Mao’s concluding speech at the Seventh National Congress of the Communist Party of China, June 11, 1945.)

Wanted for Racist Murder: LAPD

LOS ANGELES, April 1 — Today over 100 workers and youth demonstrated outside the Ramparts police station, protesting the racist, murderous brutality of the LAPD. But the real story of this demonstration is how it got organized, the combination of forces that produced it. It is a testimony to the close political and personal ties being developed with workers we meet on our jobs, youth in schools and in mass organizations and in the struggles we and they are involved in together.

Recently a co-worker on one of our comrade’s jobs told him about a relative of his, Jason Rodriguez, who had been murdered by the Montebello cops. This co-worker and friend had been reading Challenge for a while, especially its coverage of many such cases around the country. This led to some PLP’ers going to Jason’s funeral and to a demonstration his family and friends organized in their community.

Through these activities, we met some friends of Jason’s who became friends of ours. Two of these friends came to a rally with us against Proposition 21 (which will try teenagers as adults and send them to adult prisons). Another friend of Jason’s spoke in a class of one of our comrades and decided to help build for today’s demonstration.

He and his friends put out their own leaflet about it and distributed our leaflet in the neighborhood surrounding the Ramparts station. A bus driver who has known the Party for several years came to the May Day Dinner with his wife, who had been beaten by the Rampart cops seven years ago. He took some leaflets from the dinner to distribute in the neighborhood. Then he called for more early in the morning before the march. He spent the entire morning passing out the leaflets in the Ramparts neighborhood.

We invited Jason’s best friend to speak at our May Day dinner, which he did. He also went with some of our comrades to a police-organized community meeting where he rose to denounce the cops. Another friend of Jason’s came to a forum on police terror we organized at Santa Monica College.

Meanwhile, Party members in shops and schools had been discussing the issue, the Rampart scandal and today’s demonstration with co-workers and classmates. Garment workers and bus mechanics responded. Students from Manual Arts and Washington high schools, who had been involved with us in walkouts against Proposition 21 and police terror, also were convinced to come, along with students from Huntington Park HS. Party members brought classmates from their college campuses. Several rank-and-file Central American workers, whom we know from a community organization, came. People from the neighborhood who had received the leaflets showed up. Jason’s family and friends also attended. Many of these participants have been regular Challenge readers.

All these workers and youth rallied in the Ramparts neighborhood and then marched to the stationhouse. Two dozen racist Rampart thugs were guarding the station, with black, Latino and women cops in front. They had cordoned off the streets for four blocks around the station to prevent people from seeing and joining us. Despite this, neighborhood people whistled, honked their horns and raised clenched fists in support. The angry demonstrators yelled "Murderers!" and "Liars!" at the cops. They chanted, "Hey, hey, what do you say, how many drugs have you sold today? How many kids have you jailed and killed today?"

One woman passionately denounced the cops who had arrested her son and are holding him on false pretenses. Several others said the Ramparts cops had beaten and unjustly imprisoned them. One man who came had recently been attacked and arrested by the Rampart cops. He and his wife loved the march. A pastor said the Ramparts cops had harassed his family for years. He wants us to come to his church to help organize a bigger march. Others declared that the entire LAPD, Police Chief Parks, D.A. Garcetti and Mayor Riorden, Clinton and the Feds are all guilty. The Feds want to impose community policing on us to win workers and youth to support the cops.

One young speaker said the system will not and cannot reform itself. The bosses need racist police terror to enforce low wages and lousy conditions. Only communist revolution will end that. We must build a mass revolutionary movement for workers power. Another called on the demonstrators to deepen this fight by marching on May Day in San Francisco. One high school student who marched told a comrade in school a few days later she was joining PLP. She asked to get the red May Day T-shirts soon so she and her friends could wear them to school to publicize the march.

This demonstration was a good start. Some of the work we have done in mass organizations, in unions and shops, in schools and on campuses and in the communities led to this turnout. But we must deepen these ties and class struggle to be able to move masses of workers and youth into action against these racist terrorists and the profit system they protect and serve. This will help dispel the illusion that the system which is somewhat revealing this Ramparts scandal will somehow "take care of the problem."

Through these efforts, PLP will grow. This is the long-term struggle we aim to win.

Youth on the Move Against Police Brutality, But Watch Out for Liberal Schemes to ‘Reform’ NYPD

BRONX, NY, April 4—As part of the wave of protests against cop terror, high school students demonstrated today against police brutality. They marched from Wheeler Ave., where the four NYPD cops murdered Amadou Diallo in February 1999, to the Bronx Supreme Courthouse.

In the last few weeks, after the four cops who killed Diallo were found not guilty, the NYPD has slain Malcolm Ferguson, Patrick Dorismond and two black Brooklyn youth who supposedly tried to rob two undercover cops with toy guns.

After PLP and other rank-and-file high school students organized large walkouts in March against cop terror, liberals like the ACLU have gotten into the act. They don’t want these youth to understand what PLP says: the role of cops is to oppress workers and youth.

The ACLU and other liberals are using the April 5th student march on City Hall to try to divert these increasingly militant youth into the "safe" politics of "reforming" the NYPD. This "reform" includes "community policing," a scheme where the cops can oppress us with our support. Workers and youth must fight their ruling class ideas.

PLP Mobilize Among Workers and Youth to Expose Real Role of Cops As Rulers’ Goons

CHICAGO, IL, April 4 — Today 1,000 people marched against the growing prison industrial complex and racial profiling by the police. The action was called in the wake of the acquittal of the four racist killer cops who shot Amadou Diallo in NYC, and many other incidents of racist police terror.

Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and a host of other preachers led the march. But due to a lot of struggle to prepare for it, the working class and PLP led a good section of the crowd, 100 of whom came directly because of our efforts in mass organizations and elsewhere. Their presence, unified chants and militancy gave leadership to several hundred others.

In our club meetings and mass organizations, we had made ambitious plans to bring people to the march under our leadership. We saw this as an opportunity to organize in the schools and on the job, to bring revolutionary communist politics into the mass movement against racist police terror. To some degree, we accomplished this. A contingent of postal workers marched because of the discussions we had raised in union meetings and the resolution to march we had gotten passed (see Challenge, March 22). Similarly, 25 students came from Chicago State Univ., growing out of a teach-in we had organized there, inspiring people to organize for this march. We brought rank-and-file workers came from Cook County Hospital. Modest advances in the mass work enabled us to lead hundreds in this mass action.

The youth were very enthusiastic. Their energy and militancy set the tone. Many wore May Day stickers on their coats and book bags, and we distributed hundreds of ChallengeS, May Day leaflets and Prison Labor pamphlets. These youth and workers defended the Party from the harassment of Operation PUSH security. Workers all along the march received our literature enthusiastically.

This constant interaction between the Party and the masses in struggle will illuminate the road to revolution. Fighting for the political leadership of the mass movement has strengthened and excited us. Everyone is feeling stronger and more confident, in themselves and in the Party. The stage is set for a bigger May Day. On to Washington!

Janitors’ Anger About to Explode

LOS ANGELES, CA, April 3 — "Strike! Strike!" "Give it to the Scabs!" yelled thousands of janitors during a meeting to vote on the final contract offer of the cleaning companies. Workers unanimously raised their red cards to say "no" to the contract offer and "yes" to strike.

This militancy contrasted with the union leaders’ "strategy": "Today you’re going back to work. We’ll go out in small groups, little by little, to show the companies we’re strong, and to take them by surprise." As we go to press, the leaders are striking only a few buildings at a time, and not telling the workers which building until the last minute. This makes it difficult for other workers to support the strike. It saps the strength and power of a united working class. The union leaders want us to rely on politicians, not our class.

But the bosses were prepared with their scabs and police thugs. The first workers to walk out were confronted by the cops, who shoved and beat strikers who tried to block scabs. The strikers fought back but some scabs got through.

The AFL-CIO has used the militancy of the janitors in their marches, protests and previous strikes, to build support for the Democratic Party. When they say, "Yes, We Can" ("Si Se Puede"), they mean, "Reform the System." But if we win strikers to join PLP to get rid of the bosses and their system of exploitation, this militancy and class hatred can build the revolutionary communist movement. Every strike and struggle can be a lesson in how to put the working class in power with communist revolution.

"A Penny to Get Them Out of Poverty" is the slogan of SEIU Local 1877 in its campaign for a new contract. The old contract between 8,500 workers and the cleaning bosses expired on March 30. Some of the main companies are One Source, ABM, Advance and Peerless. Most janitors make $15,000 a year. Even if they won the wage increase the union is demanding—a raise of $1 an hour every year for the next three years—in the first year they would make $17,000. That would not get them out of poverty! The companies are only offering $1.30 over three years, and only for some areas, with no increase in any benefits.

The Democratic Speaker of the State Assembly and LA mayoral candidate Antonio Villaraigosa came to the strike meeting to "give his support." So did a Teamsters official, who said UPS and sanitation workers would honor the picket lines.

But the Teamsters have been organizing against truck drivers from Mexico, and the Democrats put an additional 100,000 racist killer cops on the streets. The essence of their "support" is to keep the anger of the janitors within the limits of this rotten system and maintain the illusion that it can be reformed. The main wing of the U.S. ruling class is counting on the union leaders to deliver the workers to fascism and imperialist war. They want us to accept poverty wages as a "victory," and then send our children to fight their oil wars.

PLP is organizing garment workers and others to join the picket lines to support the strikers. We are building class consciousness, exposing the role of the liberals, and inviting factory workers and striking janitors to march on May Day.

Miners Rebel Against Capitalism in China

The AFL-CIO lieutenants of the bosses claim that China is a communist country. They are using that fiction in their anti-China campaign to serve U.S. imperialism in its drive to compete with China’s bosses. This, in turn, also spreads anti-communism. But the fact is China is now a capitalist country and exploits workers the same as any other capitalist set of bosses. Chinese workers will rebel the same as any other group of exploited workers. In fact they are doing exactly what the AFL-CIO bosses try to prevent their own members from doing.

In recent months, workers’ rebellions have been erupting throughout China, reacting to the spread of capitalist exploitation. Last February, in the northeastern city of Yangjiazhangzi, 20,000 miners and their families took to the streets after their mine was closed, protesting the low level of unemployment benefits. The mine, which produced molybdenum for the electronics and aerospace industries, was the area’s only major employer.

Police were unable to prevent the workers from blocking traffic, smashing windows and vehicles. Several hundred army troops from nearby towns were called in to quell the uprising.

At least five million workers will lose their jobs this year as Chinese capitalism moves into high gear. BBC correspondent Duncan Hewitt reports the mining industry is particularly vulnerable to these "drastic economic reforms." More than 20,000 mines are due to close.

In the latest protest, on April 1^st, 500 miners in Sichuan province blocked rail traffic for several hours on the Gulyang-Kunming railway. Several hundred cops were called in to clear the tracks. The miners from the Liuzhi mine were protesting the effects of the company declaring bankruptcy, threatening 40,000 workers’ jobs.

At least 10 similar protests have erupted on the railway line in recent months. The biggest occurred in December when 10,000 workers halted rail traffic for half a day.

The solution for workers in China is similar to the one for workers worldwide: destruction of capitalism and the building of communism. Chinese workers, having gone through the "half-way house" of socialism, need to learn from that experience and build a mass communist party that will abolish the capitalist wage system and fight directly for communism.

Teachers Must Fight Against Rulers’ Use of School to Control Workers

LOS ANGELES, April 2 — Thousands of teachers and other workers mobilized in downtown Los Angeles last week in a show of strength designed to kick off contract negotiations and build the unions. The largest group was the teachers. They were angered by the district's contract proposal which amounted to a measly 1% pay increase after deducting a proposed payment by teachers into the medical plan. They were also enraged over "merit pay" linking teacher salaries to scores on standardized tests. Teachers also face attacks on seniority and the rights of teachers to select their grade and class assignments. Rather than paying for medical benefits, teachers are demanding increased health benefits and calling for a strike. Many were happy to get Challenge and hear about the student walkouts at Manual Arts and Washington high schools against racist police terror and Proposition 21.

The demonstration was big due to the efforts of rank-and-file teacher activists, with little help from the union bureaucracy. This indicates teachers’ anger at being blamed for the failure of the educational system. The teachers' union leadership is deflecting this anger into a useless proposal for a legislative initiative to increase school funding.

The attacks on teachers reflect a move nationally toward a more fascist educational policy. The capitalist system is tightening its control, to better use the schools for social and ideological control of the working class. The curriculum is to be standardized, only one reading series will be used in schools with low test scores, lessons will be scripted and tests will measure adherence to the scripted curricula. Schools will be ranked on how well their students measure on standardized tests and teachers will be graded on how well they push the standardized curricula. Students who score low on high stakes tests will be flunked and then flunked out, instead of getting the tools they need to survive. Unions will collaborate with administrators and institute "peer review" to eliminate teachers who cannot or will not toe the line.

It's part of a move towards a more fascist U.S., with cops shooting down black and Latino youth in the streets, two million people in prison and a widening gap between rich and poor. Teachers are told to teach that this country is a democracy and that we have "freedom." In truth, this country’s rulers are launching racist terror at home and abroad. They are now trying to force teachers to teach a curriculum that unquestioningly guarantees that teachers and students defend this system to the hilt.

PLP stands 100% for teaching and learning the basic skills needed by youth not only to survive, but also to better fight against fascist attacks and for liberation. Neither the school board nor the union leadership wants this kind of education, a kind that’s in the interest of the vast majority of students, teachers and parents.

Social control or teacher-student-parent unity against fascism—that's at stake in the current contract and in the struggles to come. The union leadership has already folded on the question of peer review, instituting it a full year before it was mandated by the state. The union has tried to lessen the impact of the Stanford 9 and other high-stakes tests only because of organized rank-and-file pushing from below. In teachers' contract struggles around the country, union leaders have given in on all the questions that affect the rights of teachers and students in exchange for a small pay raise. The role of the teachers' union leadership is to try to guarantee that teachers toe the ideological line, and prepare our students to march off to war.

PLP teachers have been organizing together with other teachers, students and parents to resist these attacks. We are inviting our fellow teachers and students and their families to march with us on May Day for the unity of the working class against these attacks. Whether or not there's a strike, the main victory will be more teachers, students and parents marching on May Day and reading Challenge. That way, more will join the long-term fight to smash fascism and build a communist system where the development of the youth to lead in producing for need will be the top priority.

May Day Resolution at UTLA

The following resolution was passed by the Central Area of the UTLA (LA Teachers' Union). We plan to fight for it in the House of Reps and to show it to teachers throughout the district, along with literature about the revolutionary history of May Day and our PLP May Day March. Our goal is to unite workers, soldiers and students to fight racism and imperialism. The only way to end these capitalist evils is with communist revolution.

WHEREAS, our students and the working class in general are increasingly subjected to racism, overcrowded schools deprived of resources, police terror, skyrocketing levels of incarceration and increasing use of prison labor, and ongoing wars in the Balkans, the Middle East, and elsewhere; and,

WHEREAS, May Day is the international holiday of the working class, and demonstrates the fighting unity of our class; therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED that the United Teacher newspaper publish an article about the origins and history of May Day; and,

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that UTLA urge its members to participate in the celebration of May Day and the various May Day events planned for this year.

Teach-In at Santa Monica College on Police Brutality

LOS ANGELES, April 3 — About 50 students at Santa Monica College (SMC) attended a communist led teach-in on police brutality. Students—including a PLP member—organized the event. The speakers included a PLP member from UCLA, a community activist from Watts and an SMC staff member.

The speakers explained the role of police brutality in capitalist society. The student speaker described police terror’s relationship to the Three Strikes Law [giving 3^rd felony offenders 25 years to life no matter what the actual sentence for that conviction] and to Proposition 21 [sentencing teenagers as adults and jailing them in adult prisons]. He said this was part of the ruling class’ attempt to oppress the working class. He also pointed out that victims of these fascist laws are used by capitalists to super-exploit prison laborers as part of the growing prison-industrial complex. He said James Q Wilson, who teaches in UCLA’s Business School, is one of the main proponents of tougher policing and targeting youth early on for prison.

The Watts community activist recounted his experience under the Three Strikes Law, explaining that he had unjustly been given a 25-year sentence because of it (but was one of the first to win release on appeal). He blamed capitalism for this injustice and encouraged the students to organize to prevent such cases.

Finally, the SMC staff member described the racism underlying these attacks on the working class and how it is instituted in the educational system. She encouraged students to ally with part-time teachers in their fight for paid office hours and a place to meet with students She said these conditions showed the Administration didn’t care about working-class students, many black and Latino, reflecting another racist attack. Others pointed out that to effectively attack police brutality, we must attack capitalism, the system that creates it.

Students enthusiastically joined the discussion, relating fascism to imperialism and proposed ways to fight back. One said, "In the schools, they teach you how to think, but not to think." Another student concluded, "Education is necessary in order to understand police brutality and organize a communist revolution to end it."

A communist student who helped organize the forum invited students to May Day, describing its significance in the workers’ fight against fascist police brutality. Many students belonging to different campus clubs agreed to help organize for May Day. Some have been reading Challenge. Three days later one group came to a demonstration at the Rampart Police Station, organized by PLP and friends, and by family members of Jason Rodriguez, murdered by the Montebello police (part of LA County).

USWA Hacks March by 5,000 in Support of AKSteel Strikers

MANSFIELD, OH, March 25 — "Hey, Hey, What Do You Say? Kick a Scab in the Ass Today!" That was the most popular chant as 5,000 workers marched in support of 620 members of the United SteelWorkers (USW) Local 169. AK Steel has locked them out since last September 1. It’s a familiar story.

AK Steel was originally ARMCO Steel, having made high quality stainless steel for 28 years with absolute labor peace. Then ARMCO merged with AK Steel and brought in 200 uniformed security guards during contract negotiations. The new company is demanding unlimited mandatory overtime, to slash jobs and increase profits at the expense of workers’ lives.

The wonderful potential of the mighty working class and the formidable obstacles to be overcome were both on display. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were raised from rank-and-file workers and delivered by the various union contingents. Food was prepared by the locked-out workers, delicious and hearty, and plenty for all. Donations accepted!

But we also were subjected to speeches by local politicians and union hacks. The union leaders had us honoring a court injunction against mass picketing so we did not march to the plant gate and confront the scabs. Following a sparsely populated route, many strikers complained there was "nobody to give hell to."

Finally, USW President George Becker said the workers, many of whose fathers and grandfathers worked at the plant, have more at stake than the new owners. While the strikers have been attacked by the scabs, cops and courts, Becker tried to cover up the class dictatorship of the bosses stating, "When we go back in the plant to claim our jobs, democracy will go back with us!" Becker’s job is to keep us tied to the bosses’ system of wage slavery. That’s why he’s led the fascist "Stand Up for Steel" campaign as a spokesman for Big Steel. He will have us going to war to save the bosses before he’d lay a glove on them.

By involving more of our co-workers in actions like this, we can build on the positive aspect of workers’ solidarity while exposing the role of union leaders like Becker. By being active in the class struggle, we learn who are our friends and enemies. We call on all steel workers to march on May Day as part of the fight to smash the bosses’ dictatorship and replace it with the dictatorship of the working class—communism. Then all production will be to meet workers’ needs, not some bloodsucker’s profits.

LTV Drive for Profits Is Deadly for Workers

EAST CHICAGO, IN., April 3 — In less than a month, one worker has been killed and another severely burned at LTV Steel. The company and the union lament these "unfortunate incidents," claiming they want to prevent them. But what's really going on?

In the first case, an electrician in his late 40’s, nearing retirement, tripped and was swept into a water discharge trough where the water was travelling over 40 miles per hour. A warning sign stated, "Do Not Enter While Casting," or while the water is running.

But the bosses want workers to go down there regardless. The pressure is always on to get the job done. And all too often, we go along with this. "Let's get the job done"; "We've done it a million times"; "It’s not really that unsafe." And then following the bosses’ dictates forces us to pay the price.

It's called an "accident," but it's really not. Capitalism and the drive for profits caused this death. The head of the union safety committee said this was a preventable accident--if we’d done things just a little different. In one sense he’s right. All that was needed was to shut off a valve. So why was the valve open? Because it was easier. Because that's how the job gets done quicker. Because that’s how we keep production going. The bosses will wear your ass out if you don’t wear your safety glasses. But if safety means shutting down, well that’s a different story. And that is why Eddie is dead. Because closing that valve would have shut everything down, and his life just wasn't worth it—to the boss.

Two weeks later a train crew member, trying to avoid an impending accident, jumped off an engine and fell into a slag cooling pit that was full of boiling water. This worker had over 25 years seniority, but less than six months on the engine. He was burned over 30 percent of his body. The next day the pumps used to drain the slag-cooling pit were back in service. Workers had complained about the inoperable pumps and all the steam. If those pumps had been working properly, this guy would be working today.

When PLP says capitalism kills, it sure ain't just rhetoric. Day in and day out the profit system kills and maims workers to make the bosses richer. It’s time to stop cleaning up after boss-caused catastrophes and start running the show for the workers—for ourselves.

The Battle In Seattle Continues…

HAMMOND, IN, March 30 — Tonight anti-WTO (World Trade Organization) coalition forces in this area, including some USW (United SteelWorker) activists, showed a documentary called, "Showdown in Seattle." The video was directed at steelworkers in night school. It called last November’s anti-WTO demonstrations a "great people’s victory." AFL-CIO president Sweeney, USW president Becker and other demonstrators repeated this term in the video.

This movement has attracted thousands of honest forces opposed to child and prison labor and mass poverty caused by imperialism. But only Challenge and PLP have exposed the leadership, especially the AFL-CIO, using this anger to build support for U.S. imperialism against its rivals.

A USW member and Seattle protester said that if Sweeney and Becker called it "a people’s victory," everyone should be very suspicious. He said the same union leadership that attacked the anti-Vietnam War demonstrators and was now praising workers and students for "fighting the system" had ulterior motives.

These bosses’ junior partners are attempting to convince everyone that the "good" U.S. bosses really care about prison and child labor, and "bad" bosses, like China’s, don’t. This sets up a future scenario of U.S. bosses saying, "China has to be stopped," like Iraq or Yugoslavia, for "humanitarian" reasons.

Another USW member defended Becker, saying he had sent lots of people to maquiladora factories on the Mexican border, and that Becker truly cares about the workers. But all of the "cross-border organizing" by U.S. unions has been against Asian-owned factories in Mexico. They haven’t led one campaign against Ford or GM, even though there are 300,000 autoworkers in Mexico making less than one-fourth of U.S. wages.

A PLP member attacked the widespread use of prison labor, and women locked in garment factories in the U.S. When she Challenged the organizers about what their plan was to deal with this, their answer was to elect people "friendly" to labor, protest the IMF/WTO meetings in Washington, D.C. and fight to keep China from having normal trade relations with the U.S.

Some ChallengeS and Prison Labor pamphlets were distributed, and some contacts were made. The bosses are pushing nationalism inside the workers’ movement. We have to be there, fighting U.S. bosses and their labor lieutenants, and fighting for internationalism and communist revolution.

Elián Soap Opera

Who needs "The Days of Our Lives" when the Elián story has stuff the best soap opera can only dream of? As the Elián saga approaches its finale (maybe), it’s had everything: lies, political intrigue, fancy lawyers, rabid anti-communism and last week even the image of the Virgin Mary "appeared" in the Little Havana house of little Elián’s kidnappers. Wow!

But the most interesting aspect of this real life soap opera, and the one never mentioned, is the inter-imperialist rivalry and the fight among different U.S. bosses behind it. A good section of the U.S. bosses have decided to break the inordinate power of the Cuban exile lobby (better known as the Mafia) over U.S. international politics. They have decided they just can't let the Europeans, and maybe even the Russians, grab Cuba. So the Cuban exiles, with their kidnapping of Elián, have given this section of the ruling class and Fidel Castro an opportunity to make a deal.

The fact that Al Gore opportunistically broke with the Clinton administration and the leadership of the Democratic Party over the Elián case (Florida has 25 electoral votes, and the Cuban exile vote is crucial) is just one more proof of the need for some U.S. bosses to break the Cuban exile lobby.

Boy, Did They Lie to Start Kosovo War!

It is now a little over a year since the NATO/U.S. war against Yugoslavia. Remember how the imperialists justified it, saying that Milosevic’s Serbian forces had killed "100,000 Albanians" (according to Secretary of Defense Cohen). The grotesque comparisons by NATO and the U.S. of the plight of the Albanians with the holocaust served to win people to support the imperialist war. Now the real truth comes out: "Figures released by war crimes investigators have been in the hundreds rather than thousands. "Financial Times, April 1). Many of these were probably killed by the bombing or the KLA nationalists.

Never believe the imperialists’ justifications for war!

Building for May Day: Details, Planning, Hard Work…

(This is the conclusion to last issue’s article, "May Day 2000, What Everyone Does Counts," which discussed the political importance of May Day internationally, its relation to recent class struggles and the link between May Day and every individual involved—and not-so-involved—in those struggles. Part I ended by saying, "May Day doesn’t organize itself simply because we want it to. It requires detailed plans and hard work.")

A Plan

NEW YORK CITY — In Upper Manhattan our leadership collective and clubs have an overall plan. In mid-February, over dinner and discussion, a group of comrades prepared our first mailing to 800 households, which included a Party letter and a ticket book. Club meetings planned protests of the not-guilty verdict in the Diallo trial and for each member to mobilize for May Day. We identified key mass organizers and made pledges to help pay for the May Day buses.

On March 11 our section had a May Day dinner. A student spoke about fighting police terror. A factory worker reported on conditions on her job and on inviting co-workers to May Day. A spirited discussion followed. She later wrote a leaflet inviting her co-workers and other factory workers to the March. The workers’ club made a plan to distribute this leaflet inside and outside three factories where the Party has members or friends. We will distribute the flyers at an Upper Manhattan location where hundreds of factory workers board buses and vans to their jobs in New Jersey.

A group of us will soon do our second mass mailing, reminding people to contact us and soliciting ticket money. We will include two May Day stickers and distribute many moreto our members and close friends. Those stickers have a way of appearing in many apartment buildings and on street corners.

In mid-April we will hold our bus captain’s dinner and discussion, open to all members and numbers of Challenge readers and May Day organizers, whether or not they have a specific bus captain responsibility.

Our Goal

Our goal in Upper Manhattan is 600 marchers. We continue to focus on factory workers, on the job and inside mass organizations. The factory workers’ contingent should be 45 to 50. Probably 10 to 15 marchers will come from friends in our mass organizations. This work is important, but not sufficiently developed to produce more. The bulk of the may Day marchers, including many families, will come from an area where the Party has had a mass following for years.

A Six-Point People Plan

Specifically, each club member has a plan to invite friends. Additionally, we have four groupings: the first contains 42 Party members, active and not so active plus those in a study group and other close friends of the Party. The second grouping includes 77 people: more Challenge readers and distributors, annual May Day marchers and organizers and factory workers. We have varying degrees of personal and political ties with them. Twenty-four people in the grouping are previous May Day marchers with whom we have little or no contact. There are 45 names on a telephone tree.

An important part of the six-point plan is the effort to mobilize a two-person bilingual team with long term neighborhood ties. So there are a total of about 200 individuals and households. We have seen or contacted 115 so far and will finish by April 15. Of course, not all of these will march or help mobilize for it, but many will. Finally, as we cover all these groupings we can expand into the other names from our mass mailing list. How far to spread out depends on how much time we’ll need to gather in those people who express interest.

There are obstacles. Communists welcome struggle and solutions. Each member and friend, whatever his or her effort, needs to feel part of the team. We must delegate more responsibility, overcome language barriers and timidity; open ourselves more to the questions and needs of our friends and contacts; be patient, persistent and positive. We must continue to struggle against the outlook that all May Day marchers should be, or will be, fully informed about the Party’s ideas and goals. Our job is to work with masses of workers and youth and fight for their hearts and minds. In the real world, this process is not smooth and easy. But it is necessary and also invigorating, and out of this the Party can grow and lead.

A Red May Day Versus a Hacks’ May Day

SEATTLE -- Here in Seattle our kickoff for May Day was a successful dinner on March 25. It was especially heartening to see a good number of high school and college youth and young workers, all of them on low-paying jobs. Five additional young workers and students said they would be making the 1600-mile round-trip to May Day in San Francisco, among them the son of a recent Boeing striker. We will be visiting the rest to assure their presence.

All over the world, workers, students and soldiers are preparing to celebrate this working-class holiday, led by communists. This is our annual opportunity to join with other workers, students and GI's of all backgrounds to take stock of our forces and celebrate the world we aim to win.

But there are groups who would usurp this holiday and try to make it their own, even though they are subservient to the bosses. Some of the coalitions formed around the World Trade Organization (WTO) protests are having their own "May Day" rallies against the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, etc. At our May Day dinner, one Party friend said, "It's great there are all sorts of May Days, like those sponsored by the anti-WTO organizations." He was being fooled in the same way the capitalists hope to fool many left-leaning workers and students. Unless communists fighting for revolution lead the May Day marches, they are deceptive at best and more likely to be deadly to our class. They lead workers straight into the arms of the bosses by offering them the hope of reforming capitalism. The liberals or fake-leftists will not deceive us. We are clear that the only real May Day is the communist one. It is the property of the working class.

The wife of a Teamster from the Boeing local brought the back page of the most recent union magazine to the dinner. This ad showed the real aims of this "anti-WTO" coalition.

The back page features an individual in front of Chinese tanks with the caption: "If he can stand up to communist China, so can you" The thrust of this ad is to prevent the U.S. government from establishing normal trade relations with China. Under a humanitarian guise, they’re saying those awful "communists" are violators of human rights.

This is from the same union leadership who vigorously pats itself on the back while losing 25% of the jobs it covers at Boeing. Last week they agreed to a contract with Boeing costing many more jobs. Adding insult to injury, the union pushed a plan for the "right of first refusal"—if the union drivers cannot do a job "competitively" the company can hire cheaper labor. Other Business Representatives in this local, allied with the national leadership, undercut rank-and-file efforts to answer the bosses’ attacks with a strike. It seems all this Teamster leadership can do is sabotage class struggle and spend our money building anti-communism.

In the face of these "traitors within our ranks," it is time to hold fast to our proud heritage. May Day, the working-class holiday led by the communist Progressive Labor Party, is a symbol of our strength, our potential, the world we have to win. Come to May Day with PLP. Show the bosses that we are not fooled by the rhetoric of the fake left.

LETTERS

Communist Principles Win Out

A recent experience illustrates how people who are not workers can be won to our politics. My immediate supervisor at work was very different from most supervisors. He showed some solidarity with people under him. For months I thought about showing him Challenge, but feared he would fire me for this.

One day two years ago I decided to do it, telling him, "Boss, read this and we can talk later." I was still afraid, but the next week he asked, "Do you have the new Challenge?" When I gave it to him I noted that Challenge says what others don’t dare to say.

That began his relationship with PLP. He participated in many of our activities, including some cadre schools, and joined the Party.

A few weeks ago, the big boss asked him to fire two workers because they "weren’t doing a good job." The comrade refused, saying "They are two exploited workers and have families to support." He told the big boss to do the dirty job himself, but he was too cowardly and sent another supervisor to do it.

Of course our comrade lost his job. At our last club meeting he told me, "I still have not found a new job, but I have a clear conscience. I did not betray those workers."

I now have a plan to recruit other co-workers who have told me, "If all communists are as rebellious and show as much solidarity" as the fired comrade, they "would like to work with our Party."

That’s the difference between communist and capitalist ideology. We don’t think of ourselves as the bosses want us to be, but serve the working class and win others to fight the bosses.

A Member of the PLP Grouping in Dominican Republic

Bring PLP Ideas to Fighting Students in Mexico

A small group of students in the Party went to Mexe, Hidalgo where workers and students had routed the police while demanding that students protesting the closing of the Rural normal school be released from jail. We wanted to meet these students.

It was very inspiring. We were surprised to find they have a disciplined organization with study groups where they read the Communist Manifesto and other books by Marx and Lenin. We agreed to return next weekend to discuss our Party’s ideas. We took them Challenge, copies of the Party’s Political Economy pamphlet, Road to Revolution IV and the pamphlet on Dialectical Materialism. We’ll tell you how it goes.

A PLP Student

The X-Generation Is Not Safe from the Men in Blue

When I was an adolescent many years ago, I was taught to respect police officers. They were called "Officer Friendly" when they came to my school. I viewed them as individuals who served and protected the community without regard to race, creed or color. Unfortunately this perception has changed in the African-American community as a result of several incidents.

First, police officers shot and killed Latonya Haggerty. They were eventually fired, but not prosecuted. Second, a police officer shot and killed Robert Russ, a black male college student. Finally, my 15-year-old son was almost arrested for a false allegation of shooting another black adolescent.

The neighbors observed one police officer pointing a gun at my son's body, throwing him against the police car and hitting him twice on the back. My son sustained a fractured wrist and torn ligaments. He also experienced elevated blood pressure, detected during his physical exam.

My son is a student in a very prestigious private school. He was wearing his school uniform when this ordeal occurred. The officers stated that he was under suspicion because the alleged shooter had the same color coat as my son, but in fact my son had on a sweater of a different color. Fortunately the neighbors who observed the incident said my son was visiting them and could not have shot anyone.

I am appalled at the tactics used by police officers to investigate the X generation (Lost Children). This is what they are called in the 21st century. I feel more working-class people, especially minorities, need to come together as the neighbors did to identify police brutality and defend our youth. We should hold law enforcement officials responsible for their officers' conduct.

As a concerned mother, an educated professional and a single parent, I felt compelled to let the community know this incident happened to my child. DON'T THINK THIS CAN'T HAPPEN TO YOUR CHILD OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW!

An Outraged Chicago Mother

Careful with Symbols in Our Literature

The recent PLP pamphlet, "Prison Labor: Fascism U.S. Style," is excellent. My thanks to the comrades who must have worked hard to research and write it.

For many years, without publicity, the U.S. Postal Service has used prison labor to repair torn mail sacks. With this in mind, I recently gave copies of the pamphlet to most other members of the "Candidates For Change" slate in the NY Metro-Area Postal Union election. One of those workers has read the last few issues of Challenge as well. He asked, "What is the meaning of the symbol of the hand with the swastika on Page 2?" He was clearly wondering what Nazism had to do with communism.

We looked at the symbol together and agreed the meaning was unclear. Perhaps the almost uniform red color, or the positions of the different parts of the total symbol, are what confused the meaning. I said the idea must have been of communist workers smashing Nazism.

In our writings, cartoons, etc., we must be very clear about what we say to our readers and friends. We should consider how things might appear to our friends.

A communist postal worker

American Beauty Is Real Ugly

It was disappointing to read Red Rex’s review of "American Beauty" in the March 29 Challenge. Rex liked the movie because it shows the misery of long hours at work and alienated personal relations at home that workers have to put up with. But he doesn’t mention the movie’s line on what can be done about this. Kevin Spacey’s character quits a white collar job to work in a fast food take-out place. I doubt that many fast food workers will believe this change would mean less frustration from powerlessness at work. Marx showed long ago that alienation at work and in personal relations is a product of capitalism and can’t be eliminated without getting rid of the system.

American Beauty has a different line, however. It gives no indication that rotten jobs or personal relations can be changed. Instead it argues that beauty compensates for misery in the rest of our lives. This line is a very common capitalist view of what art should do, that art should make it easier for people to tolerate an intolerable system. Finding beauty in everyday life is not a bad thing, of course. But American Beauty makes beauty a kind of drug that anesthetizes us to the realities of capitalism. The beauty that the movie offers as an escape is pretty pitiful in any case: rose-covered kiddy porn and a flying plastic bag.

The truth is that personal relations can improve through struggle, and workers’ struggles can resist and eventually destroy capitalism. Art that shows beauty in these processes is not escapist, but helps move humanity forward.

American Beauty is beauty that holds us back, and is therefore a reactionary movie, that should not be praised in Challenge.

San Diego Reader