Nearly 40,000 US airline workers could lose jobs on October 1

Jerry White

Nearly 40,000 airline workers in the United States face the loss of their jobs on Thursday, Oct. 1, after the temporary prohibition on layoffs included in the $25 billion government bailout on US airlines expires on Sept. 30. The cuts are part of global massacre of jobs as carriers compete to cut costs and secure market share amid an historic decline in air travel.

The new layoffs include roughly 20,000 jobs at American Airlines, which received $5.8 billion under the CARES Act, and 16,000 at United Airlines, which got $5 billion. Delta, which received $5.4 billion, previously said it would lay off 1,941 pilots in October. Southwest, which got $3.3 billion, says it will hold off layoffs until the beginning of 2021.

The CARES Act supposedly prohibited permanent job cuts until Oct. 1. After taking the bailout, however, the airlines slashed 100,000 jobs through so-called voluntary leaves of absences, which included deep pay cuts, and early retirement packages. Since March, the airlines have forced 100,000 workers to take furloughs or buyouts, including 20,000 separations at American Airlines, 17,000 at Delta and 4,200 at Southwest.

These furloughed workers could ostensibly be hired sometime in the future, but this could be years down the road or not at all. As one United worker caustically wrote on a page for airline workers, “No layoffs. You’ll just be furloughed for the next 10–20 years.”

The job cuts will have a devastating impact on airline workers and their families across the US, including those who have already suffered deep cuts in wages due to reduction in hours or pay cuts accepted by the unions.

Far from opposing the cuts, the Association of Flight Attendants, the Allied Pilots Association, the Teamsters, the International Association of Machinists and other airline unions have joined corporate executives in urging Congress to back a second bailout of the airline industry. Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said they were negotiating with Trump to reach an agreement on another bailout.

“We have heard about the layoffs coming, but we’re only told it’s in the hands of Congress and that the airline executives and the unions are pleading with Congress to pass legislation,” a flight attendant who works at Endeavor Air, a low cost regional carrier owned by Delta, told the World Socialist Web Site. “The reality is that United States of America is a corporation, and they don’t care about the people. It’s capitalism, a system that does not meet the workers’ needs,” she said.

The airlines squandered billions of dollars in profits that they accumulated since the financial collapse in 2008–09. Referring to United Airline executives Scott Kirby and Oscar Munoz, one worker said, “With Scott making $19 million and Oscar the Grouch making $12 million why don’t they take $18 million and $11 million of their salary and give back to the company for operating expenses? Let’s see that happen! Not the American taxpayers’ fault how United runs and when they should have been saving the money they had instead of buying stock back for executive bonuses.”

The airlines have exploited the crisis to accelerate restructuring plans developed well before the pandemic. Lufthansa, which received a $10.5 billion bailout from the German government, is cutting 22,000 jobs, putting some of its fleet into long-term storage and permanently decommissioning its seven remaining Airbus A340–600s. UK-based Virgin Airlines—which is 49 percent owned by Delta—is cutting 1,150 jobs, bringing its layoffs to 3,550, after receiving a $1.8 billion rescue package.

Crain’s Business reports that over 350,000 aviation jobs have been cut over the past six months, mostly in North America and Europe. This includes 220,700 jobs so far at airlines and 60,000 at aircraft manufacturers like Boeing and Airbus. Another 46,500 job cuts have hit airline servicing workers and close to 30,000 at airports. Crain’s says another 130,000 jobs could be cut, bringing aviation-related job losses to 470,000 or higher by the end of the year.

The major airlines, with the full backing of the unions, have established subsidiaries and regional carriers, which pay lower wages to flight crews, leading to high turnover rates. “We get below poverty wages and flight attendants are disposable like toilet paper,” one worker posted on a web site for regional carrier workers.

At the same time, the airlines are pressing to get seats filled on their planes even as the pandemic threatens the lives of crewmembers and passengers alike. Delta flights are presently operating at 60 percent capacity and the planes are sprayed by low-paid cleaners before crews and passengers board, but there is concern about the health impact of the chemicals, the Endeavor flight attendant told the WSWS.

“We’re not given any information about what is in the spray, and I am fearful that I’ll be hearing on the news in six months about the deadly implications of contact with these chemicals,” she said. “The cleaners wear masks and gloves but no hazmat suits or even shoe coverings, the spray is in a backpack. If you board the aircraft before the spray dissipates completely, you cough and your throat is sore.”

“Delta owns our company—even though it’s owned by Delta there is no testing. Delta has a clinic where flight attendants can get tested, but not us. We’ve asked management for this, but nothing. If we get tested, it’s on our own. The union? We have told the union we want to have testing, but the union has not responded. I was exposed to a pilot who tested positive but by the time they called me two weeks had already passed. I was told, “Well if you’re not having any symptoms, then you’re fine,” she said.

US hits leading Chinese chip maker

Nick Beams

In a major escalation of its economic war against China, the United States, at the direction of the Pentagon, has imposed a crippling ban on the country’s leading chip maker, following earlier decisions to cut off the telecom giant Huawei from its US chip suppliers.

The Commerce Department issued a letter to companies on Friday declaring that exports to Semiconductor Manufacturing International Company (SMIC) posed an “unacceptable risk” of being diverted to “military end use” and licences had to obtained before exporting technology to the company.

The decision by the Commerce Department emanates from the Pentagon which earlier this month said it was working with other agencies to ascertain whether the company should be blacklisted because of alleged links with the Chinese military. The Commerce Department did not completely blacklist SMIC but the decision to require export licences is a significant step in that direction.

A statement issued by the department said: “In general, the Bureau of Industry and Security in the Department of Commerce is constantly monitoring and assessing any potential threats to US national security and foreign policy interests. While we cannot comment on any specific matter, BIS, with its inter-agency partners, will take appropriate action as warranted.”

When the Pentagon’s move first became known, SMIC said it was in “complete shock” over the news and was open to communication with US government agencies to resolve any misunderstanding. That proved to be of no avail.

Responding to Friday’s decision, it said: “SMIC reiterates that it manufactures semiconductors and provides services solely for civilian and commercial end-users and end-uses. The company has no relationship with the Chinese military and does not manufacture for military end-users and end-uses.”

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian accused the US of “blatant bullying,” but did not indicate whether China would take any retaliatory action.

“What it has done has violated international trade rules, undermined global industrial supply and value chains, and will inevitably hurt US national interests and its own image,” he said.

Trump launched a trade war against China in 2018, leading to the imposition of tariffs on around three quarters of all Chinese exports to the US. This was couched in terms of reducing the trade imbalances between the two countries, with Trump claiming China was ripping the US off to the tune of $500 billion a year.

But the underlying objective was always to prevent China from developing high-tech industries that the US regards as an existential threat to its economic and military dominance. In the two and a half years since economic warfare was launched, this objective has emerged ever more clearly into the open.

At present there are more than 275 China-based firms on the US so-called entity list, meaning they are effectively banned.

The decision on SMIC, which is China’s biggest chip maker, means supplies of US components will be choked off, crippling its further development. Roughly 50 percent of its equipment comes from American sources. Reflecting the complex international division of labour characteristic of high-tech industry, the company also supplies the US firms Qualcomm and Broadcom.

Explaining the significance of the latest US move, Paul Triolo, head of tech policy analysis at the Eurasia Group, told the Financial Times: “It all depends on how the US implements this. In the worst-case scenario, SMIC is completely cut off, which would severely set back China’s ability to produce chips. This would be a tipping point for US-China relations.”

Nicholas Klein, a Washington lawyer specialising in international trade told Reuters: “There’s been a lot of coverage on the Trump administration’s action regarding TikTok, but the more significant action … [is] the increasing restrictions on SMIC and other Chinese national champions like Huawei.”

China lags well behind the US in the development of chip technology and SMIC is regarded as one of the companies, a so-called “national champion,” that could start to close the gap. The US moves are aimed at ensuring this does not happen.

Established in 2000, SMIC is now China’s largest chip maker and in July raised $6.8 billion in its initial public offering (IPO), more than double its target and the largest IPO in China for 10 years. The company recently announced a joint-foundry venture with the government for the making of chips, and increased its capital expenditure budget for 2020 to $6.9 billion from $4.3 billion.

The fact that the escalating measures against China are being dictated by the Pentagon and the military-intelligence establishment, rather than the Commerce Department or the office of the US Trade Representative means they are likely to intensify under a Biden administration.

The most significant difference between the Democrats and Republicans is the Democrats’ assertion that Trump has used tariffs in a way that alienates US allies and weakens a common push against China.

As the Wall Street Journal commented in the article published at the weekend: “The former vice-president and Democratic challenger says he will woo allies battered by Trump trade sanctions, rethink the use of tariffs and try to create a united front against China.”

Speaking to the Journal, Biden’s national security advisor Jake Sullivan said: “It’s better to be pulling together a range of like-minded economies. That’s how you get real leverage.”

That leverage goes far beyond trade because, as the article noted, the trade war had “morphed into a technology war and has now reached deeply into areas of national security.”

Amid escalating military operations by the US directed against China, the present situation recalls that which developed in the lead-up to the outbreak of war between the US and Japan in 1941.

In the late 1930s, the US imposed a series of sanctions against Japan over the supply of oil that led to the Japanese push into South East Asia, starting with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Today the US is seeking to cut China off from the contemporary life-blood of the global economy—the development of computer chips and other major technologies—on the basis that this constitutes a threat to its “national security.”

Johnson government rolls out Kickstart youth cheap labour scheme

Harvey Thompson & Robert Stevens

There are almost 538,000 young people under 25 years of age on Universal Credit (UC), a rise of around 250,000 from March when a temporary national lockdown went into effect.

UC, established in 2010 as part of austerity cuts to eradicate £12 billion in welfare spending by 2020, merges all previous state benefits into one payment. As planned, this led to huge cuts in the value of benefits overall and increased hardship of the poorest families. Many workers in the lowest paid employment are in receipt of UC, as well as the unemployed.

Within two months of lockdown starting, 2.4 million more people were forced to claim UC for the first time. More than 1.6 million families—two in five households on UC—had an average sum of £60 deducted in May to cover “advance payments” tiding claimants over the five-week waiting period before the benefit kicks in.

In Birmingham, the UK’s second largest city, 142,516 people were claiming UC in July. This was a rise of more than 50,000 claimants in the four months since lockdown began.

The collapse in the number of jobs and apprenticeships available due to the pandemic meant that by July one in 13 of the seven million UK workers aged between 16 and 24 years was claiming UC. By July, an estimated 1.8 million jobs had been furloughed for employees aged 16-24 years—44 percent of eligible jobs.

Youth unemployment in Scotland, which has a population of less than 5.5 million, could top 140,000 by the end of this year according to the Institute for Public Policy Research.

Exploiting the unprecedented situation, the government launched its “Kickstart” cheap labour employment scheme for those aged 16 to 24 earlier this month. The £2 billion scheme places emphasis on employers to create job placements of no more than six months duration, and then apply for funding from the government. Young workers are then matched with a placement by a jobcentre “work coach.”

Funding for each Kickstart job placement covers the relevant National Minimum Wage for 25 hours a week, plus National Insurance contributions and minimum pension contributions. Any higher contributions from employers is at their discretion. An additional £1,500 per job is available to employers for “set-up costs, support and training.”

Conceived as a means for firms to take on cheap labour, one of the conditions attached is that employers should not require people to undertake extensive training before they begin the job placement. The first placements are expected to be available from November.

These and worse conditions are envisioned by the ruling elite post-Brexit, with the withdrawal date, with or without a trade deal with the EU, set for December 31. Chancellor Rishi Sunak said of the scheme, “This isn’t just about kick-starting our economy… The scheme will open the door to a brighter future for a new generation and ensure the UK bounces back stronger as a country.”

Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey said Kickstart was based on “putting young people at the heart of our revival—we are urging businesses to get involved in this innovative scheme and take advantage of the enormous pool of potential out there.” The scheme could fund “well over 200,000 jobs,” she said, adding, “But as I’ve said, the number is unlimited.”

There is concern in ruling circles over social unrest and the implications of an immiserated young population without any employment. Former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith, who as work and pensions secretary devised UC, said that ministers “have to get them [young people] back to work because if they don’t, they carry a wage scar on their backs and they are difficult to employ.”

The Johnson government is utterly indifferent to the hardships of the working class and concerned only with enabling the major corporations to further enrich themselves.

On the launch of Kickstart, small business leaders complained that the schemes requirement to create a minimum of 30 placements means that it is inevitably geared towards the larger corporations. Among the first companies to indicate their interest in a state handout via Kickstart was Tesco, the UK’s top groceries and general merchandise retailer and the world’s third-largest retailer measured by gross revenues.

Writing in the Financial Times, one small business owner, Ibrahim Khan, complained that more of the state subsidy should go to firms like his. “The government claims this will create hundreds of thousands of jobs. I have no doubt that it will fund hundreds of thousands of jobs. But funding a job is not the same as creating one… Such issues will lead some to see the scheme as a sweetheart deal between the government and big employers. The employer gets the taxpayer to fund their existing payroll commitments and both the government and the employer get a PR win. This will have little or no effect on the jobs market over the long-term.”

In response to criticism, smaller businesses will now have access to a growing pool of cheap labour. Federation of Small Businesses national chairman Mike Cherry said last week it had successfully lobbied the government “to develop the new Kickstart scheme, and help small employers to be part of the solution.”

The FSB will work as an “intermediary” to help smaller firms apply for funds. Many other bodies are to be involved in allocating a share of the £2 billion available. The Financial Times reported, “The Department for Work and Pensions [DWP] said that more than 500 bodies, including local authorities, charities and chambers of commerce, had signed up to act as intermediaries.”

Jonathan Reynolds, Shadow Secretary of the DWP, attacked the government’s Kickstart scheme even as it became evident that it was largely based on a previous Labour government initiative. In October 2009, Gordon Brown’s government introduced its Future Jobs Fund to support the creation of subsidised jobs for unemployed young people. It was aimed at 18-to-24-year-olds in receipt of the then state benefit, Job Seeker’s Allowance. It is estimated the scheme created just over 105,000 largely low-paid jobs.

Even as it launched Kickstart, the Tories are devising the expansion of cheap labour, and particularly voluntary schemes, with a report by Tory MP Danny Kruger proposing a “Volunteer Passport system to match the supply and demand for voluntary help.” Kruger has impeccable Tory credentials, moving from being chief leader writer of Daily Telegraph in 2005 to then Tory leader David Cameron’s chief speechwriter from 2006-2008. In 2019, he became Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s political secretary and in last December’s general election entered parliament after being handed a safe Tory seat.

The Volunteer Passport system would be centred on a “new National Volunteer Reserve to help with future emergencies and ongoing environmental challenges.” Central to this would be “paid ‘service opportunities’ for unemployed young people to work on social and environmental projects, funded through the Kickstart programme.”

Jobs previously associated with highly qualified workers are considered fair game for parceling out to the voluntary sector. The report states that after gaining “their Passport and signing up for the Reserve they would log their skills and capacity for a variety of essential tasks. Most immediately, they could be available for further health emergencies, requiring mobilisation in support of the NHS... Subsequently, people could be asked to sign up to help with non-health emergencies, such as fire or flooding, which may involve giving permission to local authorities or other trusted agencies like the British Red Cross to access the information on their Passport and deploy them as necessary.”

Youth protests over COVID-19 mount in working-class districts of Madrid

Alejandro López

Protests are mounting against police repression and the “restricted mobility” order imposed in working-class districts of Madrid amid the resurgence of COVID-19. The order, worked out between the right-wing regional government and the national Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government, requires workers and youth to continue reporting to work and school and imposes lock-downs only in working-class areas. It thus guarantees that the virus will continue to spread.

As the PSOE-Podemos government threatens to deploy 7,500 soldiers to the streets of Madrid to impose the “restricted mobility” order, the class gulf separating the workers from a ruling elite desperate to keep workers at work at all costs is increasingly obvious.

On Friday, around 5,000 demonstrators, called through social media, marched peacefully in the streets of the working-class district of Vallecas, to denounce the savage police repression of youth who had demonstrated against herd immunity the day before. They shouted “Here we are, the anti-fascists,” “police leave our neighbourhoods,” “freedom for the detainees,” “Madrid always anti-fascist,” and “less police and more health care workers.”

On Wednesday, the PSOE and Podemos sent 30 national police vans to crush a protest by a group of 50 teenagers, which had broken off from a small demonstration called by the Podemos party. Police savagely used their truncheons, leaving six seriously injured and four arrested.

On Sunday, thousands marched again on the streets of Vallecas. Protesters carried their own homemade placards with slogans in favour of public health, against police and military violence and for Madrid regional premier Isabel Ayuso to resign.

Some read “less priests and more vaccines” in reference to Ayuso’s increase in the budget for the Catholic Church during the pandemic; “more hospitals and less military” in reference to the threat of the Podemos-PSOE government to deploy the army to Madrid; and “this is not confinement, this is the class struggle.”

Podemos, though it had called the initial demonstration to try to prevent an eruption of mass strikes and protests against its reactionary policies in government, could barely hide its hostility.

On Wednesday, they called off what was widely expected to be a large demonstration today, noting that “the epidemiological situation makes it difficult to carry out mass demonstrations.” This only raises the question, however, of why Podemos and the PSOE can order millions of workers and students to gather in large workplaces and schools instead of sheltering at home. Intent on calling off the protest they had just called, however, Podemos instead insisted there should only be “symbolic, decentralized actions.”

Podemos general secretary and Deputy Prime Minister Pablo Iglesias maintained a deafening silence on the Vallecas protests. This is all the more significant in that, when the media were trying to market Podemos as a “radical left” party, Iglesias, the son of a labour inspector and a lawyer, prided himself on living in Vallecas. He has since acquired a €600,000 villa in the Sierra of Madrid and now sits on the National Intelligence Commission that runs Spain’s intelligence services.

The main Podemos-backed “symbolic” action was held in Madrid’s central Puerta del Sol square. A hundred protesters chanted for Ayuso to resign. The president of the Podemos-backed Regional Federation of Neighbourhood Associations, Quique Villalobos, called for Ayuso to implement a battery of measures, leaving out the only effective one: a complete shelter-at-home order with full compensation for workers and small businesses.

Instead, Villalobos called on Ayuso for a “science-based plan to strengthen tracing and primary care centers”; “a scientific committee” to pilot the measures against the pandemic; strengthening of public transport and other measures including more resources for retirement homes. He made no criticism of the PSOE-Podemos government, which is as responsible as Ayuso for the disaster in Madrid.

Neither Podemos nor the PSOE sent either of their leading figures to attend the protest, which was clearly an empty and “symbolic” stunt.

The Madrid protests come amid an international upsurge of the class struggle, with strikes and mass high school occupations proceeding in Greece. Internationally, teachers, autoworkers and other sections of the workers are building rank-and-file safety committees in the United States, Britain, Germany and internationally. The affluent middle-class forces making up Podemos are terrified of the growth of the class struggle.

On Friday, the Madrid regional government announced it would extend existing COVID-19 mobility restrictions on 37 health areas in the Madrid region, mostly working-class areas in the south, to eight new zones. Madrid has an extremely high confirmed prevalence of the virus, with 746.2 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. With over 100,000 new infections since August and 3,215 coronavirus patients in its hospitals, its health care system is once again on the verge of collapse. Over 500 people died over the last week throughout Spain.

The same afternoon, Health Minister Salvador Illa held an unexpected press conference, declaring that the ministry had expected “more ambitious measures” from the Madrid government. He called for a limited confinement of the entire capital city.

The following day, Illa again called for a city-wide confinement, accusing the region of Madrid of inaction. He cynically urged the Madrid authorities to “listen to the science” and put aside politics. “We’re very worried about the situation in the Madrid region, where there’s a serious health care risk not only for the people there, but also those in neighbouring regions,” said Illa. He added: “It’s time for proper action and to take control of the pandemic in Madrid with the aim of flattening the curve.”

In fact, the PSOE-Podemos government, of which Illa is a part, is pursuing a policy of herd immunity, rapidly loosening health restrictions and pushing the population back to work and school, while designing austerity measures to qualify for billions of euros in EU corporate bailout funding.

Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha González admitted to El Confidencial: “A lot of my opposite numbers in other countries are asking me what we’re doing, because they’re seeing the figures getting worse in their countries, too. … It’s higher in Spain than in other countries, maybe because we opened up earlier than others and gave ourselves less time between the de-escalation and re-opening measures.”

The Spanish and Madrid regional governments, concerned for the financial elites’ profits, have both opposed total lock-downs at this stage, saying that these are off the table.

The Spanish government is now threatening to intervene and take over the region, either using the State of Alarm or invoking the General Health Law, which empowers it to execute special intervention measures in public health matters—mobilising resources, civil servants, police and soldiers. The government is meeting on Tuesday.

Workers must be warned: calls by the PSOE and Podemos to take over the Madrid region do not aim to implement a “more scientific” approach to fight COVID-19. They aim to somewhat isolate and confuse growing working class opposition, while preparing the police and the army. However, their herd immunity policy and Ayuso’s are indistinguishable from the standpoint of the working class. The way forward for workers and youth is to organise independently in rank-and-file safety committees, to prepare a general strike to halt the resurgence of COVID-19 in Europe.

Trump’s Operation Legend prepares local police forces to suppress opposition

Alex Findijs

As Trump lays the grounds for a coup d’état in the event he loses the November 3 presidential election, the United States Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Operation Legend approaches its third month of activity in cities across the country. The operation—named after LeGend Taliferro, a four-year-old boy killed in June by a stray bullet in Kansas City, Missouri—has seen the deployment of hundreds of federal agents and millions of dollars in funding to local police departments to aid in the suppression of protests against police violence.

The operation has been presented by the Trump administration as a means of helping beleaguered police departments crack down on a rise in violent crime. However, this is only a cover for the funneling of more federal money and personnel primarily into the local police departments of nine major cities across the country: Detroit, Michigan; Chicago, Illinois; Baltimore, Maryland; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Cleveland, Ohio; Indianapolis, Indiana; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Memphis, Tennessee; and Kansas City, Missouri.

Shelby County Kentucky Sheriff's with electronic "Tazer" shields. (Image credit Twitter/Hunter Demster)

The influx of funds for expanding police departments and their equipment has been considerable:

• In Cleveland, the DOJ’s Bureau of Justice Assistance provided $1 million to Operation Legend activities and the Community Oriented Policing Service Office made $10 million available to the Cleveland Police Department to fund the hiring of 30 officers, five Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers, and four Adult Parole Authority officers.
• The Detroit Police Department was provided $2.4 million for the hiring of 15 officers and issued $1.4 million for the operation.
• The police departments of Milwaukee, Wauwatosa and Cudahy, Wisconsin, were provided $10.2 million to hire 29 new officers and $1.9 million to support Operation Legend.

The money that is being provided far outstrips the expected costs of these hirings alone. The rest of the money that is being provided to cities is intended for a vast expansion of the repressive tools of the state, including upgrading crowd control equipment and the development of surveillance operations.

In Memphis, Tennessee a video has surfaced this week of sheriff’s deputies wielding taser riot shields, reportedly purchased through funding from Operation Legend.

The cities of Memphis and Detroit have also expanded their surveillance capabilities since the launch of Operation Legend. According to a report from the Intercept, Memphis signed a contract with the Israeli company Cellebrite, which is famous for its technology that can hack and extract data from smart phones. This purchase was made on August 2, just two days before federal agents arrived in the city. Two weeks later, Detroit also purchased a plan from Cellebrite for its “premium” software package at a cost of $100,000.

In Chicago, where over 100 federal agents have been deployed through the operation, it was announced on August 14 that the city was implementing a new “around the clock” monitoring program using social media to identify looters.

Additionally, five cities—Memphis, Cleveland, Albuquerque, Milwaukee and Detroit—will receive money from Operation Legend to implement gunshot detection technology. The surveillance system, pioneered by company ShotSpotter, uses microphones placed in neighborhoods to detect the sound and location of gun shots. The possibility that this technology could be expanded to track protesters and monitor workers is not out of the question.

Operation Legend is a significant component of Trump’s scheming, but it is only part of a broader move to militarize and federalize the police launched in December of 2019 under Operation Relentless Pursuit (ORP).

ORP was announced by Attorney General William Barr with the stated goal of combating crime in America’s most violent cities. More accurately, it was intended to lay the groundwork for advanced police repression and greater federal police presence on the ground.

Many of the same cities that have been targeted under Operation Legend were also the focus of ORP. A considerable $71 million was allocated to be distributed in grants to cities for the purpose of purchasing new equipment and technology as well as increasing the size of local police forces and financing “federally deputized task force officers.” In addition to these grants, Trump stated during a meeting with International Association of Chiefs of Police in 2019 that he had made $600 million worth of surplus military equipment available for local law enforcement agencies.

A critical aspect of both of these operations has been their deployment to Democratic-led cities that approved the allocation of federal agents and funds under Trump’s plan. This is a significant exposure of the Democratic Party and its false claims of opposition to Trump.

In fact, the Democrats have welcomed the deployment of federal police agents with open arms. Many of these programs, particularly the distribution of military equipment to local law enforcement, were enabled by the Obama administration which also provided military-style equipment to local police forces and aided local police departments in suppressing protests against police violence.

All opposition to Trump and his authoritarian maneuvers is being channeled behind the presidential campaign of former Vice President Joe Biden, a similarly reactionary character who splits from Trump on tactics alone, particularly when it comes to foreign policy regarding Russia and China. Towards this end the Democrats are working to prevent the mass mobilization of the working class against Trump out of fear that it will challenge the interests of the financial oligarchy.

Operation Legend, and the complicity of the Democrats in enabling it, is a dire warning of the political repression that is being prepared by both parties in the lead up to and aftermath of the election. Only the political mobilization of the working class in the fight for socialism can defeat Trump’s plotting and the descent of the United States in the direction of fascism.

US political warfare escalates with New York Times release of Trump tax returns

Patrick Martin

In a further escalation of the political warfare within the US ruling elite, the New York Times, the leading newspaper backing the Democratic Party, has begun publishing an extensive report on President Trump’s personal finances, based on the leak of 20 years of Trump’s income tax returns.

Trump has refused to release his tax returns, as all US presidential candidates and presidents have done for the past 50 years, and he has waged a bitter legal struggle against the House of Representatives and New York District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. over subpoenas for his tax returns in connection with legislative and criminal investigations.

Only three days before, a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments by representatives of Trump and Vance over Trump’s effort to quash Vance’s subpoena of Trump’s financial records from his accountants, Mazar’s. In response to questioning by one judge, a Trump attorney admitted that any request for Trump’s financial records would be “overbroad” in his opinion. The representative of Vance’s office argued that the recipient of a subpoena could not go to court “and demand to be told what an investigation is all about.”

President Donald J. Trump talks to members of the press [Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian]

The Times report, however, could make moot much of the barrage of litigation mounted by Trump over the past four years, since its main purpose was to suppress the disclosure of politically unflattering financial information about the president.

While Trump lamely denounced the Times for publishing “fake news,” and the chief legal counsel for the Trump Organization claimed there were gross factual errors in the first article posted on the Times website Sunday evening, there seems little doubt that the newspaper’s account is substantially true. It conforms to prior leaks of individual pages of a handful of Trump tax returns, as well as to the more general picture of his business affairs given in various media accounts and several of Trump’s own ghost-written “business” memoirs.

According to the Times account, the team of writers who produced the initial 10,000-word article, the first in a promised series, had nearly all of Trump’s personal and business tax returns for the past two decades, with the exception of his personal tax returns from 2018 and 2019. The documents were supplied by people who were legally authorized to possess them, the newspaper said, a category that would include employees of the IRS, the Trump Organization, or Trump’s various accountants and legal representatives. The Times will not publish the actual returns in graphical form, it said, to protect its sources.

The main revelation in the initial article is the sheer scale of the financial manipulation made possible by the possession of great wealth and a tax code that virtually encourages the wealthy to pay as little as possible. Despite a cash flow in the tens of millions or hundreds of millions yearly, Trump paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the 15 years before he ran for president. He paid only $750 in income taxes for 2016 and 2017, as his accountants carried out various stratagems so that Trump could say he was paying taxes, even though the amount was derisory.

On two separate occasions, in the early 1990s and in 2009, Trump has filed returns claiming massive business losses—nearly $1 billion in the first instance, when his casino empire in Atlantic City collapsed; and $700 million in 2009, when he took advantage of a favorable change in tax laws incorporated into the Obama administration’s bailout of Wall Street. He has now accumulated another $421 million in paper losses, in part as a result of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which the Times reports he could use to offset income beginning next year.

Through various accounting gimmicks, Trump claimed and was paid a $72.9 million tax refund by the IRS in 2010, which amounted to the repayment of all his income taxes from what was his highest income period, 2005-2008, the heyday of his reality television program on NBC, “The Apprentice.” From 2011 on, this gargantuan refund has been the subject of the IRS audit about which Trump rails incessantly whenever asked to divulge his tax returns.

One passage in the article suggests plausibly that Trump’s decision to make a bid for the Republican presidential nomination was connected to these financial strains, and an effort to revive the “marketability” of the Trump name as his long-running television program was fading. The Times writes:

The picture that perhaps emerges most starkly from the mountain of figures and tax schedules prepared by Mr. Trump’s accountants is of a businessman-president in a tightening financial vise.

Most of Mr. Trump’s core enterprises—from his constellation of golf courses to his conservative-magnet hotel in Washington—report losing millions, if not tens of millions, of dollars year after year.

His revenue from “The Apprentice” and from licensing deals is drying up, and several years ago he sold nearly all the stocks that now might have helped him plug holes in his struggling properties.

The methods of self-enrichment were endless. Trump claimed business expenses and charitable tax deductions for his Seven Springs estate north of New York City, although the Trump family used it as a summer estate and residence, not a business investment. And Trump’s children, particularly Ivanka, collected six and seven-figure “advisory” fees as “consultants” on various business deals, even though they were themselves executives employed by the Trump Organization (also at six and seven-figure salaries).

The Times series has a self-evident political purpose, demonstrated above all in its timing. Trump’s tax returns were not dropped through the newspaper’s mail slot last week. The newspaper has been in possession of them for many months, if not longer, in order to analyze them in the detail provided in the first article. The series began appearing only 38 days before the presidential election, and only one day before the first presidential debate.

At least in one respect, the initial exposure seems to have hit its target. Trump gave a press briefing on his nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court about an hour after the report first appeared on the Times website. He was even more disjointed and hysterical in his comments than usual, denouncing criticism of Barrett as attacks on the Catholic religion, declaring that the Democratic Party “has been taken over by socialists, extremists, and probably communists,” and demanding that Democratic candidate Joe Biden take a drug test before the debate Tuesday night.

Asked directly about the tax returns, Trump denounced the Times report as “fake news.” He claimed repeatedly “I pay a lot” of taxes, while not actually denying that he paid zero income taxes in 10 of the 15 years before his election.

US governors told in February that pandemic would get “much worse,” but did not alert public

Kevin Reed

In a secret Feb. 9 meeting, 25 US governors were told by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield, “The coronavirus outbreak is going to get much, much worse before it gets better,” even as those same governors publicly downplayed the pandemic.

The report of the meeting was detailed in Bob Woodward’s recently published book, Rage. Woodward made headlines earlier this month when he published transcripts of Trump admitting that he sought to downplay the pandemic in the eyes of the public.

But no attention has been given in the media to the growing evidence, including in Woodward’s book, that Trump’s cover-up involved not just the White House, but both houses of Congress and a wide range of government officials.

Panelists facing the governors at the NGA meeting on February 9

Woodward says the briefing included National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIH) Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, Redfield and “other members of the Coronavirus Task Force” who all “took their seats at a table in a large conference room in Washington” that was attended by “over 25 state governors.”

“The coronavirus outbreak is going to get much, much worse before it gets better, Redfield warned. We have not even seen the beginning of the worst, Redfield said, letting his words sink in. There is no reason to believe that what’s happening in China is not going to happen here, he said. There were nearly 40,000 cases in China then, with more than 800 deaths, barely five weeks after announcing the first cases. I agree completely, Fauci told the governors. This is very serious business. You need to be prepared for problems in your cities and your states. Fauci could see the alarm on the governors’ faces. ‘I think we scared the shit out of them,’ Fauci said after the meeting.”

Although the author of Rage does not name the other officials on the panel, a Health and Human Services (HHS) press release—which reports the briefing without mentioning Redfield’s warning—says that they were Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli, HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Robert Kadlec and CDC Deputy Director for Infectious Diseases Jay Butler.

While there is no published list of state governors in attendance at this special session—the agenda for the three-day conference at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center and Marriott Marquis hotel does not include the coronavirus briefing—a partial list can be assembled from those speaking on the second day of the NGA winter meeting.

The NGA attendees listed as speakers on Feb. 9 were New York Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo, Maine Democratic Governor Janet Mills, North Dakota Republican Governor Doug Burgum, California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, Arkansas Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson, Iowa Republican Governor Kim Reynolds, Arizona Republican Governor Doug Ducey, Kentucky Democratic Governor Laura Kelly, Montana Democratic Governor Steve Bullock and Colorado Democratic Governor Jared Polis.

Panelists at the February 9 coronavirus presentation to the NGA

Not one of the governors among the group of more than 25 who sat through the presentation in Washington D.C. on Feb. 9 reported to news media or to the public that Redfield and Fauci told them, “we have not seen the beginning of the worst” and that “there is no reason to believe that what’s happening in China is not going to happen here.”

Instead, the NGS meeting was followed by a campaign of silence, misinformation and lies spearheaded by the White House and President Trump. On Feb. 9, there were a total of 12 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the US and the primary concern of the entire ruling establishment was not the dangerous and deadly threat to public health posed by the pandemic but making sure that the truth about it did not get out.

Additionally, the corporate media—which has focused exclusively on Woodward’s interview with President Trump—has not reported on this revelation of bipartisan cooperation with the White House in hiding from the public what the top public health experts were saying in the earliest days of the pandemic, information that could have saved tens or hundreds of thousands of lives.

As Woodward points out in Rage, “The official press release from the Department of Health and Human Services describing the [NGA] meeting read: ‘The panel reiterated that while this is a serious public health matter, the risk to the American public remains low at this time, and that the federal government will continue working in close coordination with state and local governments to keep it that way.’”

It is now established fact that the complicity of the governors in this conspiracy enabled President Trump to lie to the public about the coronavirus with impunity in the ensuing critical days. Within 30 days, the number of cases in the US rose to 1,263 with 28 deaths, and within 60 days, the number of cases in the US was at 500,000 with 16,690 deaths.

As Woodward explains, “The next day, President Trump said publicly three times—once at the White House, once on TV and once at a New Hampshire rally—that the virus would go away on its own. ‘When it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away,’ he said at the packed rally. ‘I think it’s going to work out good. We only have 11 cases and they’re all getting better.’”

These facts substantiate the September 10 assessment made by the World Socialist Web Site about Woodward’s book and that President Trump’s plot against the people of America and the world was aided and abetted by accomplices in the Democratic and Republican parties and the corporate media.

The world has reached the grim milestone of one million COVID-19 deaths

Benjamin Mateus

According to the Worldometer coronavirus dashboard, the number of COVID-19 deaths globally surpassed 1 million on Sunday morning, US Eastern Time. The Johns Hopkins dashboard, more commonly cited in the American media, puts the figure over 995,000, and by all accounts, will register one million deaths today.

This massive tragedy is an indictment of the ruling classes which have allowed such misery to rain on the working class populations who have suffered the brunt of this pandemic.

A healthcare worker pushes the body of a man who died of COVID-19 to the spot where his family will wait for a funeral home to take him away, outside the General Hospital in La Paz, Bolivia, Thursday, July 23, 2020. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)

The United States, with 209,361 deaths, leads every other nation in this horrific category. Brazil takes second place with 141,503 deaths, followed by India, with 95,162 deaths, and Mexico, with 76,243 deaths.

Right-wing authoritarian rulers in the first three countries, Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro and Narendra Modi, and the “left” populist demagogue Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in the fourth, have embraced identical policies of letting the infection rip through the population without serious resistance. These four horsemen of death account for half the world’s total.

Mexico has consistently averaged close to 500 deaths daily, and by all experts, the official reports have been gross underestimates. Earlier this month, the government shamefully announced they had run out of death certificates. By Aug. 1, the official death count was 69,095 though the government had announced excess deaths at 122,765.

Graph of monthly global deaths. Credit: wsws.org

As Figure 1 demonstrates, daily global deaths have remained nearly stable since peaking in April. The column for September marked in yellow is a projection that the last four days will see, on average, about 5,300 deaths per day using the latest seven-day average estimate. By all accounts, the limited response and measures that have been employed throughout the pandemic have only stabilized the impact of the virus around the world. However, as winter approaches for the far more populous northern hemisphere, case numbers and deaths are expected to begin climbing again.

To the figure of one million officially killed by COVID-19 must be added hundreds of thousands who have perished with the cause of death signed off by the medical examiners or health authorities as unknown, or cardiopulmonary or organ failure, concealing the true impact of the pandemic from family members and the public at large.

Excess death in the United States. Credit: Our World in Data

According to the Economist, between March and August, all-cause mortality data for western Europe, some Latin American countries, the United States, Russia and South Africa from March to August showed 900,000 excess deaths. However, only 580,000 fatalities were attributed to COVID-19. This suggests that the real number of fatalities due to COVID-19 is 55 percent higher than the tallies maintained by Worldometer and Johns Hopkins, which are based on official death reports.

the Economist also remarks that the US death toll may be underestimated by 30 percent, placing the actual figure closer to 300,000. By their estimates, the real global death toll due to the pandemic may be closer to two million.

Some of these excess deaths are a byproduct of the social impact of the pandemic rather than the virus itself. The social crisis surrounding lockdowns and financial hardships have led people to avoid seeking medical attention for health issues out of legitimate fear of contracting the coronavirus.

Tom Inglesby, director of the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University, told the Wall Street Journal, “For a long period of time there was a pretty dramatic drop-off in ER visits, elective-surgery screenings, things that Americans do all the time to keep themselves healthy.”

Weekly estimates for deaths due to heart attacks, Alzheimer’s and dementia, diabetes and strokes consistently have been above the baseline in the months from March to August. According to data from Boston University, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Pennsylvania, 20 percent of excess deaths were linked to other factors than COVID-19, with poor communities hit worst.

Providing context for the magnitude of this preventable tragedy, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention registered 2,813,503 deaths in 2017. The “normal” death toll in 2020 would have been roughly similar. This means that COVID-19 has already accounted for a nearly ten percent increase in US deaths this year, with several months still left to go.

Homeless encampment in Buenos Aires. Credit: Ronaldo Schemidt.

The one million COVID-19 deaths worldwide is more than the 690,000 people who succumbed to AIDS-related illnesses in 2019, according to World Health Organization figures. In 2016, malaria, which afflicted 216 million people, led to 445,000 deaths. In 2018, tuberculosis killed 1.5 million people.

The economic impact from the pandemic falls hardest on the poorest people, with the closure of schools leading to setbacks in education gains, a halt in critical vaccination programs and lessened access to health care and pharmaceuticals. This means that the impact of the pandemic will continue to ripple across the globe for many years after it subsides or a vaccine is found.

The World Bank predicts that the number of impoverished people who live on less than two dollars a day will climb from 70 to 100 million this year. In July, Oxfam wrote in a media brief that by the end of the year, 12,000 people per day could die from hunger linked to COVID-19, more than the number dying now from the disease itself.

Oxfam wrote, “The pandemic is the final straw for millions of people already struggling with the impacts of conflict, climate change, inequality, and a broken food system that has impoverished millions of food producers and workers. Meanwhile, those at the top are continuing to make a profit: eight of the biggest food and drink companies paid out over $18 billion to shareholders since January, even as the pandemic was spreading across the globe.”

In 2019, over 821 million people were categorized as food insecure, with approximately 149 million suffering from “crisis-level hunger or worse.” The World Food Program estimates that the number will rise to 270 million by year’s end, an increase of 82 percent.

The critical question that remains is to what extent has the globe acquired sufficient immunity that most of the population is protected from the transmission of the virus. In a cross-sectional study published in the Lancet on Friday on the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in a large nationwide sample of patients on dialysis found that less than ten percent of the US adult population had been exposed and developed an immune response.

An estimate on 279 serological surveys conducted across 19 countries found that approximately 500 to 730 million people worldwide, or 6.4 to 9.3 percent of the total, have been infected.

Critical also in this global equation is vaccine development against SARS-CoV-2 and access to these potentially life-saving measures. Should these trials for the vaccines be conducted ethically and appropriately, by all accounts, the necessary data will not be available until the spring or summer of next year. Additionally, the manufacturing and distribution of vaccines will most likely be used as a political ploy to force lopsided trade deals and financial traps.

The death of these million-plus people is a clear indication that the financial oligarchs and the capitalist mode of production have abdicated any responsibility for their criminal response to the pandemic. By any measure, the pandemic still has much fuel to burn through, and only the working class has a vital interest in putting this fire out immediately. Only they have the capacity to prevent this further loss of life.

Armenian-Azeri conflict erupts in Caucasus, threatening wider war

Ulaş Ateşçi & Alex Lantier

Large-scale military clashes erupted yesterday in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Caucasus. Artillery, drone and tank fire killed many soldiers and civilians on both sides, each one accusing the other of starting the conflict.

Armenia said that there were 16 killed and over 100 injured, while Azerbaijan acknowledged taking significant losses without giving figures. Yerevan and Baku posted videos of strikes against each other’s forces and pictures of a blackout in Nagorno-Karabakh. The Azeri defense ministry claimed it seized seven border villages in the region, while Armenia claimed to have destroyed four helicopters and hit 10 tanks and 15 drones.

This is the most intense Armenian-Azeri fighting since the 1988-94 conflict between the two former Soviet republics that began before the 1991 Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union. This war is, in the final analysis, a disastrous product of the restoration of capitalism of the Soviet Union and the reactionary character of the nation-state system. It is now directly caught up with global geopolitical rivalries stoked by the imperialist wars in Iraq, Syria and Libya.

VIdeo purporting to show an attack on an Armenian position. (Screen capture from video provided by the Azerbaijan Defense Ministry)

An Armenian-Azeri war could rapidly spiral out of control and escalate into a broader conflict involving Russia, Turkey and the other NATO powers in Europe and North America.

In July, Armenian-Azeri clashes erupted at Tayush in northeastern Armenia and the Toyuz district in Azerbaijan, killing 12 Azeri and four Armenian soldiers.

Since then, military tensions have escalated. Turkey, a NATO member state and key ally of Azerbaijan, conducted joint military exercises of air and ground forces with Azerbaijan in Baku, Nakhchivan, Ganja, Kurdamir and Yevlakh immediately after the July clashes. Russia, backing Armenia, announced a “surprise combat readiness check” involving 150,000 troops, over 26,000 weapon systems, 414 aircraft and 106 warships.

NATO wars in Libya and Syria have undermined the ability or willingness of states that brokered earlier Armenian-Azeri ceasefires—the United States, France, and Russia—to do so. Their relations with Turkey have collapsed: Russia is waging a proxy war against Turkish-backed forces in Libya, France is backing Greece against Turkey in eastern Mediterranean oil disputes, and America is backing Kurdish-nationalist guerrillas opposed by Turkey in Syria. Armenia declared its support for Greece in the eastern Mediterranean, and Azerbaijan announced it was backing Turkey.

Olesya Vartanyan, an International Crisis Group analyst, wrote on Twitter: “There were numerous signals, all saw them and did nothing for weeks. There was a need for proactive international mediation. Many found reasons to OK this attack. If they stay silent now, expect a real war.”

Instead of brokering peace, however, the major powers are in fact preparing for war with each other. Across the Black Sea, US and British troops together with German, Polish and Lithuanian advisers conducted joint exercises with Ukraine last week. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry stated: “For the first time, the military units of the armed forces of NATO member states will be involved in the strategic command and staff exercises.”

Russia’s Kavkaz-2020 (Caucasus-2020) war games involving 80,000 troops have also begun in the North Caucasus and the Black and Caspian seas. Up to 1,000 troops from China, Armenia, Belarus, Iran, Myanmar and Pakistan participated, as well as 250 tanks, 450 armored personnel carriers, and 200 artillery or multiple rocket launcher systems.

Statements by Armenian and Azeri officials make clear that all-out regional and even global war is a real and imminent danger in South Caucasus.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated: “A full-scale military confrontation in the South Caucasus, which we stand on the brink of now, can have the most unpredictable consequences. It can spill outside the region and acquire a much larger scale, threatening international security and stability.” He called on “the international community to pull every available lever to deter Turkey from any possible involvement.”

A few hours earlier, however, he had announced martial law and full war mobilization in Armenia: “Based on a decision by the government, martial law and a full mobilization have been declared in the Republic of Armenia. These decisions take effect immediately after official publication. I urge all personnel attached to the military to report at their territorial military commissions.”

Azerbaijan’s equally belligerent government responded by declaring a state of siege in several cities and regions. According to Turkey’s state-owned Anadolu Agency, the Azeri parliament passed a “measure partially and temporarily restricting the constitutional and property rights and freedoms of Azerbaijani citizens and foreigners in the country as long as the war situation continues.”

The ruling elites in both countries are pursuing an aggressive militaristic policy amid the explosive social tensions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Armenia has reported nearly 50,000 cases and 951 deaths in its population of less than three million, the highest death rate in Asia, but Pashinyan said on Thursday that Armenia “must live with the coronavirus.” Azerbaijan, with a population of 10 million, has registered over 40,000 cases and 586 deaths.

Both countries have drastically raised military spending at the expense of the working class. In 2019, military spending rose to nearly $1.8 billion in Azerbaijan, an all-time high, and nearly $650 million in Armenia—nearly five percent of its GDP, one of the highest rates in the world.

After bloodshed escalated yesterday, officials internationally began to call for the fighting to stop. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on Armenia and Azerbaijan to “immediately stop fighting, deescalate tensions and return to meaningful negotiations without delay.” NATO stated that it is “deeply concerned by reports of large scale military hostilities along the line of contact in the Nagorno-Karabach conflict zone,” calling on both sides to “immediately cease hostilities.”

European Union Foreign Policy chief Josep Borrell called for “an immediate cessation of hostilities,” while the French government declared it is “extremely concerned by the confrontation.”

The Russian and Iranian foreign ministries each called for “self-restraint,” with Moscow calling on “all parties to immediately cease fire and begin negotiations in order to stabilize the situation.”

Turkish officials denounced Armenia as the aggressor, declaring their full support for Azerbaijan. While President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan labeled Armenia, one of the region’s poorest countries with a population of only three million as the “biggest threat to regional peace,” Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar called his Azeri counterpart to say: “Turkey will always stand by Azeri Turks by all means in their struggle to protect their territorial integrity.”

A 2010 Turkish-Azeri military pact requires both to respond militarily if either party is attacked by a third country. Pro-government Turkish media outlets are working to provide a pretext for Turkish military intervention, making unsubstantiated claims that the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and People’s Protection Units (YPG) militias have gone to Nagorno-Karabakh to train Armenian militias. Both Kurdish groups are labeled as “terrorist” by Ankara.

Turkey’s bourgeois opposition is again lining up behind the government’s aggressive policy. The Republican People’s Party (CHP) denounced an “Armenian attack,” while the CHP’s far-right ally, the Good Party, declared that “Armenia's attacks on Azerbaijan are unacceptable,” and that it is “standing with Azerbaijan in its legitimate cause.”

While Turkey aggressively backs Azerbaijan, Russia has traditionally supported Armenia and has a large military base in the country at Gyumri. Were full-scale war to ensue between Armenia and Azerbaijan, an intervention by either Russia or Turkey to avert defeat of their ally could lead to all-out war between Moscow and Ankara. This would inevitably pose the question of whether the entire NATO alliance would side with Turkey against Russia.

The growing war danger across the Caucasus, as well as in Syria and the eastern Mediterranean, underlines the urgent necessity of building an international movement against war and herd immunity policies in the COVID-19 pandemic, unifying the working class on a socialist program.