Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
1. This week in history: September 15-21
- 25 years ago:
Unions end Indian telecom strike, opening the door for privatization
50 years ago:
Patricia (Patty) Hearst arrested
75 years ago:
US Congress passes act preparing concentration camps for communists
100 years ago:
Trotsky’s Where is Britain Going? published in the United States
2. Trump White House weaponizes Kirk’s death to prepare police-state dictatorship
The ruling class is carrying out a wholesale assault on the working class: slashing social programs, gutting public health, accelerating exploitation and preparing for world war. This offensive unfolds under conditions of acute instability, including an economy staggering under mountains of debt, a looming global recession and intensifying geopolitical conflicts that threaten to spiral into global conflagration.
The oligarchy knows these conditions will produce explosive resistance. And it knows that the unprecedented concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny elite means that once workers begin to fight back, the struggle will inevitably raise the most fundamental question: who controls society’s resources: the oligarchs or the vast majority who produce its wealth?
The response to Kirk’s killing in the media and political establishment has been to normalize his fascist politics while shifting the entire framework further to the right. Any reference to his record of racism, antisemitism or calls for repression is excluded, and in some cases it has even become grounds for losing one’s job to state well-documented truths about what Kirk actually said and stood for.
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The Democratic Party’s response is a mixture of cowardice and complicity. As a party of Wall Street, it fears nothing more than legitimizing genuine mass opposition to the Trump administration. Its refrain is the platitudinous mantra that “there is no place for political violence in America,” coupled with ritual condemnations of “violence on both sides.” The clear implication is that the United States is equally plagued by violence from the left and the right.
This is a grotesque falsification. In reality, political violence in America has always come overwhelmingly from the right.
The labor movement was forged in battles against armed strikebreakers, police repression and the National Guard. From the reign of lynch mob terror of the 1920s and 1930s to the assassinations of civil rights leaders in the 1960s, to Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, violence has been the weapon of fascist forces and the capitalist state.
Legally sanctioned murder by the state is a political fact of life in the United States. Since Utah’s firing squad execution of Gary Gilmore in January 1977—the first following the US Supreme Court’s lifting of the temporary ban—approximately 1,600 people have been out to death in the country as a whole.
Since 2015, the number of people killed by the police in the United States totals over 13,000.
Politically-motivated mass killings are carried out overwhelmingly by individuals driven by the fascistic ideology of the far right: the 2015 massacre of nine Black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina; the 2018 slaughter of 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh; the 2019 massacre of 22 people at an El Paso Walmart, explicitly targeting Mexicans; the 2022 shooting of 10 people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, motivated by the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory promoted by Kirk and others; and the racist murder of three people at a Jacksonville, Florida Dollar General in 2023, to name just a few.
Incidents of overt rightwing political violence include the January 6, 2021 coup attempt; the kidnapping plot against Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer; the assault on the husband of Nancy Pelosi; and the vigilante shootings of Kyle Rittenhouse, celebrated by Trump and his allies.
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In contrast to the political right, the socialist left has always rejected individual terrorist actions, not out of moral squeamishness but because the method of individual violence disorients the working class, provides a pretext for ruling class repression and contributes nothing to the development of the political consciousness of the working class. The socialist perspective is rooted in the education, organization and mass action of the working class.
3. United States: Fain’s September 11 livestream: UAW president touts collaboration with fascist Trump
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain held a livestreamed “town hall meeting” on September 11, which was broadcast from the UAW’s national headquarters in Detroit. In his comments, Fain expressed the concerns of the crisis-ridden union apparatus, which is alarmed by the growing restiveness of workers over ever-greater economic insecurity and the Trump administration’s moves to establish a dictatorship.
Held in the immediate aftermath of the shooting of far-right provocateur Charlie Kirk, which is being used by the Trump administration to criminalize left-wing and socialist opposition, Fain said nothing in his 45-minute address about the existential threat to democracy and the rights of the working class. Instead, he doubled down on his support for Trump’s trade war policies, presenting the fascist president’s actions as a boon for American workers.
After pitching himself to the anger of workers with empty rhetoric about “corporate greed” and social inequality, Fain boasted that the UAW bureaucracy is holding regular meetings with Trump officials on expanding tariffs as part the administration’s nationalist, fortress-America policy of preparing for global war.
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The UAW bureaucracy’s embrace of Trump’s Make America Great Again chauvinism is not a break from, but a continuation and deepening of its policy under Biden. While Biden promoted the unions as his “domestic NATO,” Fain offered the services of the UAW in the transition to a war-time economy, making frequent references to the WWII era military mobilization, the so-called “arsenal of democracy.”
Fain has been supported by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Labor Notes and other pseudo-left organizations who falsely portrayed him as a “union reformer.” All of these organizations opposed the campaign by Will Lehman, the Mack Trucks worker who ran as a socialist candidate for UAW president and called for abolition of the UAW apparatus and transfer of power to the workers on the shop floor.
In his livestream event, Fain said nothing about Trump’s open drive toward dictatorship expressed in the deployment of troops to Washington D.C. and threats to deploy troops to Chicago and now Memphis; the provocations against Iran and Venezuela; or the escalating genocide in Gaza. He cynically tried to claim that the UAW’s embrace of Trump’s right-wing, nationalist and militarist agenda did not imply agreement with other aspects of the administration’s polices such as “plucking people off the street” and destroying the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Department of Education and other agencies.*****
Fain sought to cloak his right wing, anti-worker polices with militant sounding rhetoric, denouncing “billionaires” and even talking about “class struggle.” He promoted the May Day 2028 contract expiration as the moment when the union would supposedly lead a great showdown with management. In other words, workers should wait almost three years before doing anything against the plans by Trump and the oligarchy to establish a dictatorship and return workers to conditions of industrial slavery not seen for over a century!
4. US Supreme Court’s shadow docket attack on the Constitution
On September 8, the six-justice fascist majority on the United States Supreme Court repudiated with no explanation whatsoever the constitutional principle that government agents must have individualized “reasonable suspicion” based on something more than ethnicity, employment or whereabouts to seize a person for investigation of immigration status.
This appalling ruling adds to the growing list of recent Supreme Court “emergency” interventions in pending lawsuits, most of which favor the Republican Party and particularly the expansion of executive powers under President Donald Trump, who openly seeks to wield dictatorial power.
5. Tens of thousands of Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers to vote for strike
Around 32,000 Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers, including registered nurses, pharmacists, physical/occupational therapists and optometrists, are voting this week to authorize strike action once their contract expires on September 30. The workers in California and Hawaii, members of the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP), are under a wider contract involving over 60,000 people in the Alliance of Health Care Unions.
The vote comes a week after 600 midwives and anesthetists conducted a one-day strike at Kaiser facilities in Northern California. The strike involved workers from over 20 facilities, although picketing was held only at the Oakland and Roseville locations.
The strikers were joined by a roughly equal number of “sympathy strikers,” including physician assistants (PAs) and acupuncturists. While they are members of the UNAC/UHCP, they are governed by a separate bargaining framework. They voted to join in 2023-2024 and are still working without a contract.
Handmade pickets at the Oakland facility last Monday accused KP of “Bad-faith bargaining” and declared, “Stop profits over babies and families!”; “Safe staffing for patients and providers!”; and “Expert care under attack!”
World Socialist Web S reporters spoke with workers at KP in Oakland on Friday. “I think all the workers should come together and do a physical, all-union strike,” one worker said. “I don’t think it’s enough communication from union officials because I didn’t even know they were going to be striking the other day. I didn’t even know until I came to work.”
“We have no information,” he said. “Information needs to be spread for every union … That’s simple. The transporters, the receivers, all the people that you don’t really know about, they need to be heard. It’s one of the most important jobs people don’t ever hear about it. It’s always about the doctors and the nurses, and maybe the pharmacists, but it’s the little people that make this thing run.”
This is a small reflection of the enormous determination of the Kaiser workers to fight for decent wages, safe staffing ratios and other key demands. But workers are also fighting in defense of healthcare against an entrenched financial oligarchy which is slashing jobs and benefits, and imposing brutal working conditions all over the country.
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A strike by Kaiser nurses would be a major step in creating the conditions for a movement of the working class against fascism and corporate oligarchy. It would send a powerful signal to workers everywhere, including tens of thousands of public educators in virtually every major city in California, who are working without a contract.
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The critical question at Kaiser and every other workplace is the creation of rank-and-file committees. These new structures, independent from union officials, will develop the means to maximize workers’ initiative, enforce their democratic will to strike and prepare the ground for a broader fight, combining the defense of healthcare with a powerful movement in the working class against capitalist oligarchy. Such a committee had been initially founded in the fight against the 2021 sellout contract.
Key demands for a Kaiser rank-and-file committee today would include:
An immediate strike at the expiration of the contract on September 30 if a new deal is not in place which meets all of workers’ demands, including inflation-busting pay increases and meaningful enforcement of safe-staffing ratios, which Kaiser and other hospital chains presently flout at will;
All bargaining sessions must be open to the public and livestreamed, with rank-and-file representatives on hands to enforce nurses’ demands and override any unauthorized concessions to management;
Rank-and-file control over picketing, including preventing Kaiser from using scab labor, and sending “flying pickets” to hospitals, schools and workplaces to appeal for wider support;
Measures to protect co-workers and patients from attacks by ICE and other government agencies being used by Trump to terrify and crush resistance;
The defense of vaccine and public health science, including the reinstatement of all vaccine mandates and the provision of COVID vaccines and other vaccines at no cost to the public, and;
The expropriation of the healthcare conglomerates, which make billions through price-gouging and denial of care. Their resources must be used to create a high-quality public healthcare system, under workers’ control, to end needless suffering and death created by subordinating lives to profit.
6. Former head of Israel’s military admits over 10 percent of Gaza’s population killed or injured
Over 200,000 Palestinians in Gaza, or over 10 percent of the population, have been killed or injured during the Israeli onslaught on Gaza, the former chief of Israel’s military said last week.
Herzi Halevi, the Israeli general who served as the chief of the Israeli military during the first 17 months of the Gaza genocide, said Tuesday in a local town hall that “There are 2.2 million people in Gaza, over 10 percent were killed or injured,” according to the Israeli publication Ynet.
This statement is broadly consistent with the official casualty count published by Gaza’s Ministry of Health, which found that 64,718 Palestinians were killed in Gaza and 163,859 were injured since October 7, 2023.
Halevi’s comments contradict repeated declarations by the Israeli government that the death toll reported by Gaza’s Ministry of Health, and cited by the United Nations and other international institutions, is not credible. In reality, all efforts by Israel and its imperialist backers to deny the death toll of the Gaza genocide are a fraud from beginning to end.
Explaining this massive death toll, Halevi added, “We took the gloves off,” and “This is not a gentle war.”
7. New Zealand government glorifies US fascist Charlie Kirk
New Zealand’s deputy prime minister David Seymour, leader of the far-right ACT Party, took to social media on September 11 to glorify the fascistic demagogue and prominent Trump supporter Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated at Utah Valley University.
Seymour claimed that Kirk stood for “the free exchange of ideas, the freedom to speak and the freedom to receive ideas so we can all work towards a better understanding together.” Seymour said Kirk’s “legacy” would be “greater understanding of the value of free speech and why it is not violence.”
The right-wing nationalist NZ First Party leader Winston Peters, the foreign minister in the National Party-led coalition government, similarly wrote that Kirk “stood for freedom of speech and especially fought for the right of others to express theirs—even if he disagreed. The essence of democracy is under threat around the world and we must do everything we can to protect it.”
Like capitalist governments in the US, Europe and Australia, Seymour and Peters have gone far beyond simply condemning Kirk’s killing and expressing condolences for his family. They are seeking to make him a “martyr” in order to legitimise his extreme right-wing, racist and bigoted views.
The portrayal of Kirk as a paragon of non-violence, mutual understanding and civilised debate is a fraud. The founder of the far-right Turning Point organisation, Kirk was a fervent cheer-leader of the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza, an anti-transgender bigot and opponent of abortion rights, and a proponent of the Great Replacement theory. According to this racist conspiracy theory, non-white immigrants are being deliberately brought in by Jewish elites to “replace” the white population.
8. Merz government paves the way for the far-right Alternative for Germany
The claim by the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Left Party, the trade unions and the media that an alliance of all so-called “democrats” would stop the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is being refuted every day.
Last week, the Infratest Dimap polling institute published the latest projections for the state election in Saxony-Anhalt next year. According to this, the AfD has almost doubled its share of the vote compared to the 2021 state election, reaching nearly 40 percent. It would then be by far the strongest party in Saxony-Anhalt.
The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the SPD, who govern both federally and in Saxony-Anhalt, have slumped badly in the polls. The CDU has lost ten points and fallen to 27 percent. The SPD, at 7 percent, is close to missing the five-percent threshold for parliamentary representation and faces political irrelevance.
The AfD is also expected to make gains in the municipal election held Sunday in North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous federal state, which contains the former center of heavy industry in the Ruhr region. This is the first ballot since the federal elections in February and is being seen as a test of the political mood. In a recent nationwide poll, the AfD stood at 25 percent, one point ahead of the CDU, making it the strongest party.
These are polls, of course, which not only test moods but also shape them. Nevertheless, it is clear that the right-wing course of the Merz government, which has adopted the AfD’s policies in key areas, is strengthening the fascists.
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The only way to stop the rise of the AfD and the rightward turn of the state apparatus is to build an international socialist movement in the working class and youth, which unites the fight against war, militarism, social cuts and dictatorship with the struggle against capitalism and for a socialist society. This requires building the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party), which advances this perspective.
9. Britain’s largest far-right protest capitalises on Starmer’s xenophobic, anti-working-class agenda
Saturday’s Unite the Kingdom demonstration was the largest far-right mobilization in British history.
Estimated at between 100,000 and 150,000, participation in London exceeded the numbers usually mobilized by anti-Muslim demagogue Tommy Robinson and extended beyond his usual support base of football hooligans and fascist thugs. This core periphery was boosted by the presence of workers and their families, including from among the most deprived layers, who have swallowed the far-right’s message blaming social distress and the collapse of essential services on migration.
This scapegoating has only been made possible because the guttural barks of the fascists have been deliberately and systematically amplified by the mass media and the entire political establishment, with the central role played by Keir Starmer’s Labour government.
10. Trump targets Memphis, New Orleans for troop deployments
The Trump administration is accelerating plans to deploy National Guard troops to Memphis and New Orleans, while delaying such action in Chicago, according to statements by Trump and a report based on Pentagon documents obtained by the Washington Post.
Trump is maneuvering, conducting probing operations using federal police agencies while seeking to determine how best to advance his plans for outright military dictatorship. While the White House cites “crime” as the pretext for federal intervention, all the cities Trump has targeted have seen significant drops in crime and violence in the past two years.
Trump announced the targeting of Memphis, the second-largest city in Tennessee, during an appearance on Fox News Friday. “I’ll be the first to say it now, we’re going to Memphis,” he declared, then adding, “I would have preferred going to Chicago.”
He said he would deploy the “National Guard and anybody else we need. And by the way, we’ll bring in the military too, if we need it.”
CNN reported a shift in White House plans as follows: “Trump had started backing off his threats to send troops to the Democratic-controlled city last week, saying, ‘We’re waiting on a call from Chicago.’ And Attorney General Pam Bondi has hinted at the shift in strategy as well, telling reporters the administration will go to cities ‘who want us there.’”
The network cited unnamed White House sources suggesting that there were legal complications in ordering National Guard troops into Chicago when the governor of the state and the mayor of the city, both Democrats, were opposed to it. In Memphis, by contrast, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, a Republican, enthusiastically backs whatever action Trump chooses to take.
To his credit, veteran rock musician Neil Young debuted a protest song in late August that denounces President Donald Trump’s authoritarian military takeover of Washington, D.C. and calls for a fight against fascism. The song, “Big Crime,” is one of the few public artistic protests released by popular musicians in the US against Trump’s unfolding military-police coup d’etat.
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The lyrics of ‘Big Crime’ explicitly refer to Trump as a fascist, and denounce the military takeover of Washington, D.C. as a criminal act:
Don’t need no fascist rules
Don’t want no fascist schools
Don’t want soldiers walking on our streets
Got big crime in DC at the White House
There’s big crime in DC at the White HouseThe music is propulsive and thick with Young’s familiar distortion-heavy guitar sound and backed by a multi-vocal chorus. The second verse begins: “Got to get the fascists out / Got to clean the White House out!”
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Young has a long history of important protest songs. One of his most well-known songs is the powerful “Ohio,” a response to the killing of four Kent State University students and wounding of nine others in May 1970 by the Ohio National Guard. Other notable Young songs include “Southern Man” (1970), “After the Gold Rush” (1970) and “Rockin in the Free World” (1989). The latter is an indictment of the George H. W. Bush administration. Young repeatedly opposed and eventually sued Trump for using the song during his election campaigns in 2016 and 2020. He dropped the suit after Trump lost the 2020 election.
Young, whose political views are all over the place, has also produced several muddleheaded and misguided songs, particularly in support of the US-NATO-provoked war with Russia. Nevertheless, Young’s opposition to the fascist military coup unfolding in Washington, D.C. and other cities is an important sign of widespread popular opposition and speaks to Young’s better instincts and artistic courage. The song is also notable because, at the moment, it is one of the few popular artistic protests in the US to openly denounce Trump’s unfolding coup. As noted above, while there is vast opposition among workers and young people, very little of this yet finds its way into the work of popular artists in the US.
12. Behind the partial opening of borders in Ukraine and the murder of far-right MP Andriy Parubiy
On August 28, the government decree of August 26, 2025, No. 1031 came into force in Ukraine on permission to travel abroad for men between the ages of 18 and 22. Previously, since the beginning of the war on February 24, 2022, only men under 18 and over 60 were allowed to leave the country. At the border they need to present a passport and a document with their latest military registration data in paper or digital form. The majority of the remaining male population aged 23–60 remains hostage to the state.
There are different versions of reasons for releasing some of the hostages now: from the possibly approaching elections to, on the contrary, the desire to get rid of pro-western students, who were a central social base for mass anti-corruption protests a month ago, and to prevent the holding of elections. A certain role was also played by the fact that men under 25 are not subject to mobilization, so it is much easier for them to approach the border with a backpack through checkpoints and raids of territorial recruitment centers. Moreover, the political situation in the country, which appeared stagnant for some time, has now entered a new, tumultous period. Perhaps for the first time since 2019, there is a whiff of a thaw in the air, against the backdrop of such a regular tightening of the “tie of freedom” on the people’s neck. [The “tie of freedom” is an ironic phrase from the 1905-1907 revolution, meaning a noose for hanging.]
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Whatever comes out of the peace talks this year, there can be little doubt that Ukraine will keep the male population on the chain for as long as possible. And a hypothetical truce with Russia could even strengthen border control by sending fresh reinforcements from the eastern to the western front. Moreover, there is no indication that if Ukraine opens an exit door for everyone, Russia will cancel its mocking border filtering system. The European Union will also probably take measures to limit migration flows from Ukraine in such a case—neither it nor Russia needs new millions of refugees. So for us, in any case, there will still be a lot of work in the struggle for freedom, the implementation of which depends on our audience.
13. Former chief justice appointed as interim prime minister in Nepal
Three days after the resignation of Nepal’s Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli amid mass protests, former Chief Justice Sushila Karki, 73, was installed as caretaker prime minister in Nepal on Friday. Her interim government will be a right-wing capitalist administration, relying on the military’s support, focused on restoring a semblance of political stability in the wake of mass unrest.
Following Karki’s appointment, President Ram Chandra Poudel dissolved the parliament and announced general elections for March 5 next year. Karki’s cabinet is to be limited to 15 ministers, though she can appoint up to 25. She reportedly plans to consolidate power in her hands by holding a number of key ministries, including Home, Foreign Affairs, and Defense.
It is evident that the military and state bureaucracy will largely determine the government’s policies and direction. On Saturday evening, Karki met with Chief of Army Staff General Ashok Raj Sigdel as well as top state officials—Chief Secretary Ek Narayan Aryal, Home Secretary Gokarna Mani Duwadi, and Finance Secretary Ghanshyam Upadhyay.
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None of the issues underlying the social discontent in one of the poorest countries in the world will be resolved by the interim government or elections next year. More than half the population—56 percent—is under 30, and facing bleak prospects. Youth unemployment stands at more than 20 percent, forcing millions of young Nepalis to emigrate.
Since 2008, the country has been plagued by political instability, with 14 governments dominated by three major parties—Nepali Congress, the CPN-UML and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) which has split. Sharma Oli of the CPN-UML, who resigned last week, was serving his fourth term as prime minister. The Maoists, who waged a bloody insurgency from 1996, exchanged their guns for a place in the political establishment in 2006 and were instrumental in containing the mass movement that brought down the monarchy.
All of these parties are responsible for the country’s social crisis, which is now being compounded by a global economic downturn and the imposition of the Trump administration’s tariffs. The root cause of the social crisis, however, is not corruption, which undoubtedly is widespread in ruling circles, but capitalism. Corruption arises out of the nexus between big business, government and the state apparatus that is fundamental to capitalism. The government and state do not serve “the people” but the interests of the bourgeoisie—a relationship that is obscured under parliamentary rule.
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The United States, India and China have all publicly congratulated Karki on becoming Nepal's caretaker prime minister. Bordering China and India, Nepal has been a focus of geopolitical rivalry as the US, backed by India, has ramped up its preparations for war against China throughout the Indo-Pacific.
14. Freed from prison by federal judge, scientist at University of Michigan deported back to China
On September 10, in a federal courtroom in Detroit, Chengxuan Han was sentenced to “time served” and remanded to the custody of the US Marshal, whereupon she was immediately deported back to China and banned from reentry. The 28-year-old Ph.D. student had been unjustly imprisoned for three months. She pleaded “no contest” on August 19 to inflated and politically motivated charges.
While the state sought three additional months of incarceration, the judge ordered Han to be released from jail, rebuking the government’s narrative. “This is not a case of smuggling in some sort of virus or a crop-destroying something or other,” US District Judge Matthew Leitman stated from the bench. “From what I can tell, this material was not a threat at all.”
The ruling exposes the fabricated and baseless character of the state’s case, but the outcome is no victory for Han. Her scientific career has been irreparably damaged by a vicious state-media campaign. According to her defense lawyer’s sentencing memorandum, “Even if she returns to China and is able to finish her Ph.D. on time, she has in all likelihood eliminated the option to become a professor in China, which requires international research experience. This has been her long-held professional dream.”
The government, even though its case was determined to be fraudulent, achieved its primary objective. Through the public vilification of a young scientist, it has sent an intimidating message to the academic community, created a precedent for the further persecution of Chinese scholars, and whipped up anti-Chinese sentiment to advance its agenda of economic confrontation and war. The senior officials who orchestrated this frame-up face no consequences for ruining a career and trampling on constitutional rights.
15. Union Pacific CEO advising Trump on where to send National Guard
President Donald Trump announced that he was sending the National Guard to Memphis, Tennessee, during an interview last Friday on Fox News’ show Fox and Friends. During the announcement he noted that he had chosen Memphis because it had been suggested to him by Union Pacific CEO Jim Vena.
This revelation by Trump himself is further proof that his fascist program is being carried out on behalf of the capitalist oligarchy, which is dismantling all democratic forms of rule to protect its profit interests. It follows a high profile, friendly White House visit September 4 by leading tech CEOs.
It is also further proof that Trump’s primary target is the working class. Workers must become the basic social force in a mass movement against dictatorship and war, independent of the capitalist parties, including Trump’s Democratic Party enablers. Such a movement must be combined with a fight against the trade union bureaucrats, who worked with Biden in 2022 to prevent a national rail strike and are doing everything possible today to sabotage opposition from below.
Trump claimed during his interview that Vena had complained about crime in Memphis, saying, “‘Sir, ... when I walk one block to my hotel, they won’t allow me to do it, they put me in an armored vehicle with bullet-proof glass to take me one block.’ He said it is so terrible.”
According to Trump, he asked Vena during the discussion what cities he should send troops to next, after initiating the military occupation of Washington D.C. last month and threatening to send the National Guard to Chicago and New Orleans.
Trump said of Vena, “I said to him: ‘Where else should we go? Where would you say?’ He said, ‘Sir, please, do me a favor. St. Louis has been so badly hit. It’s very hard. Very very hard.’”
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Vena’s meeting with Trump last week was scheduled to discuss the proposed $85 billion acquisition of Norfolk Southern by Union Pacific. If approved by the federal government, it would create the first transcontinental railroad under a single company in US history. (The famous “Transcontinental Railroad” completed in 1869 was in reality operated by different companies based in each coast.)
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Vena’s three chosen cities—Memphis, St. Louis and Chicago—are critical rail junctions for Union Pacific, in particular. Should the merger go ahead, there will be five major cities where the two company’s rail lines connect: New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, Kansas City and Chicago. Of these, only Kansas City has not faced direct threats of military occupation so far.
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he threat to send troops to St. Louis carries historical resonance. The city was the center of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, America’s first nationwide strike, which brought the entire country to a halt in response to efforts from rail companies to cut wages in half.
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The strike spread along rail lines and inspired other sections of workers to strike, threatening a revolutionary upheaval. During the strike, workers in St. Louis took effective control of the city under the leadership of the Workingmen’s Party.
The strike was bloodily suppressed through the deployment of federal troops across the country. Soldiers, augmented by vigilantes and the infamous Pinkerton agents, were routinely deployed in the following decades to cut down strikers fighting for the basic right to organize and for livable wages.
Legal restrictions on strikes led to the Railway Labor Act in 1926, whose extreme limits on the right to strike are aimed at preventing another national strike movement centered on railroad workers. (The law was later extended to the airline industry in 1936.)
Nearly 150 years later, the ruling class has not forgotten the lessons of this experience. But workers must also learn the lessons. From these experiences, the most dedicated working class leaders, including rail union leader Eugene Debs, came to the conclusion that they were in a fight against not just greedy employers but the capitalist system itself and joined the growing socialist movement.
16. Pseudo-left “day of action” covers for Australian unions’ complicity in Gaza genocide
A “national day of union action for Palestine” last Wednesday was a complete farce. It served only to highlight the hostility of the union bureaucracy to any mobilization against the genocide in Gaza and the Australian Labor government’s complicity in it.
The event was not national, there was no action and the unions were largely absent. Instead, the pseudo-left held two small rallies, one organized by Solidarity in Sydney and the other by Socialist Alternative in Melbourne. The aim was to cover the refusal of the unions to take any action against the genocide in Gaza for the past two years.
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The “day of action” again underscored the reality that whatever their occasional left-wing or “socialist” rhetoric, the pseudo-left functions as an adjunct of the union bureaucracy, with which it is increasingly integrated. The aim was not to develop union action to defend the Palestinians, but to cover over and excuse the complete absence of any such action.
The mobilization of the working class against the genocide, including through strikes, requires a rebellion against the corporatized, pro-war union bureaucracy and the establishment of independent rank-and-file committees, controlled by workers themselves.
Leon Trotsky
This is the second part of the lecture “The Revolution Betrayed” delivered by Johannes Stern and Jordan Shilton to the 2025 Summer School of the Socialist Equality Party (US) on the history of the Security and the Fourth International investigation.
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The fight for the Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist's freedom is an essential component of the struggle against imperialist war, genocide, dictatorship and fascism.
