 |
 No. 78, April-August 2026 Table
of Contents Click on image to left for pdf version of complete issue. |
Urgently Needed: International Workers Action to Break the Energy Blockade!
Cuba Alert! Zero Hour to Defend the Revolution
The 176 Measures: Threat of Capitalist Restoration
Oppose Privatization! Workers Control, Now!
The Bureaucracy Is Bowing to Imperialist Pressure
What’s Key: Build a Genuine Communist Opposition
Return to the Program of Lenin and Trotsky
On June 17 and 18, moving at a breakneck pace, the leadership of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) introduced, voted on and had the National People’s Assembly (ANPP) approve a plan for “economic and social transformations” that, if implemented – even partially – could unleash a frenzy of privatizations that would threaten the foundations and historic gains of the Cuban Revolution. However, implementing these measures is a big question mark for a country under siege by the world’s most powerful imperialist power, lacking hard currency, where there is no capital to invest, and above all where there is no fuel. The “176 measures” are clearly an offer to yield to the demands of the U.S. administration of Donald Trump, but there is no indication that the recipient is interested in the offer. Quite the contrary. U.S. imperialism is doing everything possible to subject the island to a crippling energy crisis while insisting on “regime change.” It is continuing the policy that has been a constant across all administrations in Washington since 1960: to eliminate the “communist menace” on its doorstep. The surrender of the socialized economy must be resisted at every step. There is an alternative to surrender: to fight. And in the face of a crisis unleashed by an imperialist onslaught, that struggle must be international, mobilizing the forces of the working class throughout the Americas. Above all, it is necessary to return to Lenin and Trotsky’s program of international socialist revolution. Cuba Alert! Zero Hour to Defend the Revolution (17 July 2026)
Chinese and Vietnamese “Models”? Yankee Imperialists Aren’t Buying It (17 July 2026)
The Pseudo-Trotskyists: Obstacles to Defense of the Cuban Revolution (July 2026)
Labor: Use Your Power to Defend Immigrants and Trans Rights!
Anti-Trans Hysteria Fuels Police-State Repression
Racist, Anti-Immigrant, Anti-Abortion, Anti-Gay –
All-Round Bigots Want to Erase Transgender People
MAGA Hatemongers Escalate, Democrats Capitulate –
Build a Workers Party to Defend All of the Oppressed
On June 30, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld laws in West Virginia and Idaho banning transgender women from participating in girls’ and women’s sports teams or events. Five days earlier, on June 25, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump can strip Temporary Protected Status (TPS) from 350,000 Haitian and 6,000 Syrian refugees. The vicious assault on immigrants’ and transgender people’s rights is a battering ram of the drive for a racist police state that would shred the democratic rights of all. The same reactionary forces leading the charge against transgender people are also pushing for the mass deportations, are the ones who engineered the cancellation of the right to abortion, who opposed school desegregation, gay marriage and every other measure against social oppression. From banning transgender medical care for youth (and setting precedents to ban this for many adults), to “conversion therapy” and forced “detransition” of inmates in prisons, to setting up trans people for detention by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) police and invalidating their driver’s licenses and other identification documents, the federal and more than two dozen state governments are seeking to stigmatize and turn trans people into non-persons. In the process they are compiling lists of trans individuals and de facto barring them from buying firearms. Both for transgender people and immigrants, looking to the Democrats to defend them is a ticket for defeat. What is needed is a class-struggle defense of immigrants’ rights, trans rights and the democratic rights of all. We call on the organized workers movement to use its power to defend trans people and immigrants against the bigoted crusade targeting them. Anti-Trans Hysteria Fuels Police-State Repression (August 2026)
Trump Orders Oil Blockade to Strangle the Rebel Island
For International Workers Mobilization to Defend the Cuban Revolution!
Since the U.S. government kidnapped the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, and seized control of sales of Venezuelan oil, the next target on Washington's hit list is Cuba. On January 11, Donald Trump proclaimed there would be no more oil or money going to Cuba, "zero." He threatened to slap punitive tariffs on the products of any country that provides fuel to the island. On top of an economic embargo going back to 1962 that has made it near-impossible to earn hard currency on the world capitalist market, now the Yankee imperialists want to strangle the Cuban Revolution by cutting off energy supplies. With gusano (Cuban counterrevolutionary exile) hawk Marco Rubio in the forefront, the U.S. is demanding “reforms” aimed at dismantling the socialized economy. It is necessary oppose dangerous privatization measures such as permitting private businesses to import fuel, which would give the imperialists a lever to blackmail Cuba, potentially creating an existential crisis. The fate of the Cuban Revolution, despite its bureaucratic deformation, has not yet been decided. Ultimately, it depends on mobilizing the working class internationally to come to the aid of the Cuban people. While not a few pseudo-socialists have abandoned Cuba, revolutionary Trotskyists call for workers mobilizations in defense of Cuba and against imperialism and for an urgent fight for oil supplies, including through direct action of the workers movement. The struggle to defend Cuba is inseperable from the fight for international socialist revolution. For International Workers Mobilization to Defend the Cuban Revolution! (April 2026)
Grupo Internacionalista Demands Oil for Cuba (April 2026)
Mexican Workers: Break the U.S. Oil Blockade Against Cuba! (April 2026)Federal Government Uses Case to “Investigate” Unions, Labor Activists
Defeat “Conspiracy” Frame-Up Against the Minnesota 15
On January 23, upwards of 75,000 people jammed the streets of Minneapolis to demand that the marauding Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol get the hell out of Minnesota. For weeks on end, across the Twin Cities, thousands participated in rapid response networks tracking the movements of the immigrant snatchers. On June 16, the feds took their revenge. U.S. Attorney for Minnesota David Rosen released a 94-page indictment accusing 15 area activists of “conspiracy” to “forcibly challenge, block, or stop immigration raids, detentions. and deportations.” This is a phony “conspiracy” without any crimes committed. In this case, the purpose was to tar opposition to Donald Trump’s mass deportations, carried out by the paramilitary thugs of the Department of Homeland Security, with the brush of “antifa” and to try to criminalize rapid response networks. But who they indicted are members of the Minnesota labor movement, immigrant defense groups and environmentalist organizations. This prosecution is a threat to the right to protest and the democratic rights of all. It must be actively opposed not only by the labor, immigrant and community groups targeted, but by all those who are concerned to stop the U.S.’ headlong rush toward authoritarian, police-state rule. Defeat “Conspiracy” Frame-Up Against the Minnesota 15 (August 2026)
Health Care Workers: Organize Committees to Defend Immigrant Patients
ICE Out of the Hospitals – Free Chidozie Wilson Okeke!
For Workers Action to Stop the Deportations
On the evening of May 2, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents brought Chidozie Wilson Okeke, a Nigerian immigrant, to the Emergency Room of Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, for medical clearance after violently kidnapping him from his car. Alerted on rapid response Signal chats, some 200 protesters rushed to the hospital where they were met with a wall of New York Police Department riot cops. Hospital staff refused to let an immigration lawyer speak to Mr. Okeke. After a standoff of several hours, the ICE agents brought out their victim, shackled hand and foot, shoved him into a vehicle and hauled him off to detention, while the NYPD acted as a shield. Although Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a member of Democratic Socialists of America, had campaigned in support of NYC's increasingly frayed “sanctuary” laws, here were the DSA Democrat’s police openly working in tandem with ICE to block protests against the sinister immigrant snatchers. A week later, the DSA called a rally for “Justice for Mr. Okeke,” only to turn it into an indoor campaign event on the grounds of inclement weather. Internationalists, supporters of the Labor Committee to Defend Immigrants and others who had come for the rally protested at the hospital anyway. The Health Care Workers Working Group of the LCDI calls for forming committees to defend immigrants in every hospital, putting forward a number of measures they should call for. ICE Out of the Hospitals – Free Chidozie Wilson Okeke! (8 May 2026)
Aksyon ouvriye pou bat kampay rasis kont Ayisyen yo –
kounye a !
TPS Canceled – Courts and Congress a Dead End
For Workers Action Now to Defeat Racist Drive Against Haitians!
Trump and Democrats, Enemies of Immigrants
The Trump administration’s mass deportations drive has come to a head with the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 25 ruling giving the green light to the MAGA (Make America Great Again) racists in office to eliminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians whose work authorization and legal status are due to expire soon. The strategy of many “mainstream” Haitian community groups, elected officials and immigrants’ rights advocates has been to look to Congress and the Courts to preserve TPS, and to the Democratic Party for political support. That has always been illusory, and now it has come to the end of the road. The Court decision clears the way for ICE to target Haitian neighborhoods en masse by the paramilitary Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) police. In light of the recent murder spree by the ICE Gestapo in Texas, Maine and Florida, it may soon get bloody. In New York City, a union stronghold and home to the largest concentrations in the United States, the Labor Committee to Defend Immigrants is calling to mobilize workers action to stop the deportations, and to lead mass mobilization to run the modern-day slave catchers out of town, For Workers Action Now to Defeat Racist Drive Against Haitians! (31 July 2026)
Defend the Crockett Ten – Drop All Charges!
On August 19, the first court hearings were scheduled for the ten picketers who were arrested outside the C&H Sugar refinery in Crockett, California during a day of action called by International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 on July 21. Coming on day 37 of a strike by the refinery’s warehouse workers in ILWU Local 6, the union shut down all ports in northern California and more than 400 unionists rushed to Crockett. After the last pickets left, Contra Costa County sheriffs arrested ten of them, including five ILWUers and five Internationalists. A united-front solidarity rally to “Defend the Crockett Ten – Drop All the Charges!” was called by the Internationalist Group, and drew some 90 people. In both morning and afternoon court dates, the defendants were informed that the charges had not been filed yet, but that the district attorney has up to a year to present charges. The fight to defend the Crockett Ten and for victory to the ILWU Local 6 warehouse workers continues. Defend the Crockett Ten – Drop All Charges! (August 2026)
Solidarity with ILWU Warehouse Workers!
For 42 days starting on June 15, warehouse workers of International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 6 struck the C&H Sugar refinery in Crockett, California, refusing to accept a “take-it-or-leave-it” contract ultimatum from the company. On July 21, hundreds of ILWU Local 10 members members mobilized, shutting down all Northern California ports. They organized mass picket lines that blocked trucks and scabs, as strike supporters from around the region pitched in. This sent a powerful message to the union-busting bosses. The arrest of ten picketers was headlined across local media. The stage was set to escalate the strike into a major battle that could mobilize Bay Area labor. Instead, both the company and the union tops decided to pull back, issuing a joint press release from the ILWU and C&H Sugar saying they had agreed to a 60-day period of contract negotiations. From a class-struggle perspective, returning to work was a mistake and set back the struggle. But the struggle is not over and ILWU supporters have continued to push for labor solidarity with the warehouse workers at C&H, including from some of the most militant waterfront, transport and metal workers unions around the world. Solidarity with ILWU Warehouse Workers! (31 July 2026)
ILWU Strikers Show the Way – For Mass Pickets to Shut It Down!
Bay Area Labor: All Out to Win C&H Strike!
Finally! For the first time in a long time, in a key labor struggle in the United States, a mass picket line was organized to actually stop people and cargo from going in and out during a strike. And it is no accident that strikers are members of the ILWU in the San Francisco Bay Area. With the ILWU, the most powerful union on the coast, in the lead, there is clear potential for a labor offensive that can beat back the union-busters and point the way forward for the labor movement in organizing the unorganized. Bay Area Labor: All Out to Win C&H Strike! (26 July 2026)
No to Mayoral Control – For Teacher-Parent-Student-Worker Control of the Schools!
Mamdani Betrays Class Size Mandate, UFT Tops OK Delay
Use Union Power to Enforce Smaller Class Sizes!
On June 1, New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani, NY Governor Kathy Hochul and the state legislature closed a hole in the NYC budget by eliminating $500 million intended to finance lower class sizes, delaying by two years the full implementation of the state’s 2022 law setting a maximum of 22-25 students per class. For Mamdani, the supposed “democratic socialist,” this was a betrayal of his campaign promise, and of the hundreds of thousands of students who will face four more years of overcrowded classes. It was not the first time Mamdani abandoned a campaign promise on education. On the day before his inauguration, he reversed his call for an end to mayoral control of the public schools. Yet the leadership of the United Federation of Teachers has signed off on all this, and there has been hardly a peep of protest from the oppositions. Class Struggle Education Workers has fought for lower class sizes since its inception, noting that this is “the single most effective way to improve education, helping teachers teach, and students to receive more individual attention.” The sabotage of the class size mandate underscores the CSEW’s call for teacher-student-parent-worker control of the schools. Mamdani Betrays Class Size Mandate, UFT Tops OK Delay (10 June 2026)
For Workers Action Against Fascist Threat
Fascist “Patriot Front” Marches in D.C. on July 4
On July 4, on the morning of President Donald Trump’s “Great American State Fair” flop, supposedly celebrating 250 of American independence, several hundred Patriot Front (PF) fascists marched in uniform in Washington, D.C. in a publicity stunt recruiting for racist terror. These Hitler-lovers were all masked, in khaki pants and blue shirts, a number with full-body shields. Harking back to Mussolini’s Blackshirts and Hitler’s Nazi Brownshirts – paramilitary squads that attacked leftists, Jews and others branded as enemies – the PF blueshirts fit right in with the racist MAGA (Make America Great Again) crowd on the National Mall. As the Trump regime unleashes masked ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and Border Patrol thugs to carry out mass deportations, throwing immigrants into concentration camps, fascist action squads act as auxiliaries in targeting leftists, gay and transgender people and others deemed “the enemy within.” . They must be stopped by workers action. Fascist “Patriot Front” Marches in D.C. on July 4 (August 2026)
|
|