On June 24, the U.S. Supreme Court by 6 to 3 overturned the right to abortion established almost 50 years ago in the Roe v. Wade decision. Over half the states had abortion bans ready to enact or will soon.

Based on the precedent set by this ruling, the court also threw into doubt the future of same-sex marriage, bodily autonomy for trans, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming people, the right to contraception, and the right to love who you want, free of laws banning queer and interracial relationships. 

The theft of a fundamental, popular right from women and other people who can become pregnant – more than half the population–  garnered the most attention. But in the last two weeks of June the court unleashed an avalanche of reactionary decisions repealing the rights of workers and oppressed people:

• Police are no longer required to inform suspects of their Miranda rights against self-incrimination;
• Two major blows against the separation of church and state, allowing government funding for religious schools and school staff to lead prayer in public schools;
• Undermined the sovereignty of Indigenous nations established in treaties with the U.S. government;
• Severely limited federal agencies’ authority to regulate corporate polluters, effectively gutting the federal government’s ability to mount any response to climate change;
• In a “shadow docket” case, the court upheld the right of right-wing state governments to gerrymander voting districts to minimize Black and Brown voters;
• Additional rulings supporting police brutality, limiting the rights of prisoners to challenge their convictions and immigrants to challenge their detention; and more. (Read a complete breakdown on this Twitter thread.)

The coup enacted by the unelected, appointed-for-life Supreme Court is sweeping. It is no exaggeration to say these decisions taken together have completely upended the social and political landscape of everyday life in the U.S. Each ruling was crafted to have a domino effect which will have consequences we cannot fully know at this time.

Already the court has announced plans for further attacks. Its next docket will include a case arguing that states should have control over the results of federal elections, which could allow state governments to decide the 2024 presidential election. Another that threatens to gut the Indian Child Welfare Act that put an end to the official policy of kidnapping Indigenous children and putting them up for adoption.

Big money campaign

The Supreme Court coup moves in tandem with legislation and executive orders by far-right state governments aimed at Black voting rights, immigrants, trans people and the rest of the LGBTQ2S community, reproductive freedom, freedom of information and the ability of teachers to share any scrap of truth about real U.S. history. 

The states’ legislative offensive produces the cases that allow the Supreme Court to strike down people’s rights.

Another component is the growing violence of fascist gangs – from the ballooning budgets of official police stormtroopers to the Buffalo, New York, mass shooting of African Americans to the widespread attacks on Pride events by the Proud Boys, Patriot Front and other armed fascist gangs.

This highly coordinated and richly funded campaign amounts to a counter-revolution against the gains won by the blood and sacrifice of generations of workers and oppressed peoples, from the Civil Rights Movement to the women’s movement, the LGBTQ2S movement, the labor movement and beyond. 

More attacks are promised, including an attempt to enact a nationwide abortion ban if Republicans take control of Congress next year.

Hollow U.S. democracy crumbles

The institutions of U.S. capitalism have always been a source of hollow promises for poor and working people – at best, capable of granting crumbs that are always in danger of being swept away.

But now those institutions, including the Democratic Party, have proven themselves completely unable to defend even the most basic rights of the people and functions of bourgeois democracy. Each day, they bow and scrape to the far-right onslaught of the ruling class.

The Democrats cling to the trappings of power by carrying out the capitalists’ demands for more war, sanctions and funds for killer cops, while ignoring the desperate pleas of the communities who voted for them and whom they claim to represent.

The Supreme Court dropped reactionary decision after reactionary decision against the backdrop of Democratic-led Congressional hearings about Donald Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. But with each day that passes, it becomes clearer that the hearings are a show meant to give the appearance that the Democrats are actually doing something – even while they ignore the disaster unfolding around them NOW.

Biden and the Democratic leadership in Congress have much power to push back against the Supreme Court on abortion rights. But the president has already signaled that he’s thrown in the towel, trotting out his Health Secretary to claim there is no “magic bullet” to save abortion access – despite Biden and the Democrats having the power to declare a national health emergency, abolish the filibuster and much more. We must not let them off the hook! 

Democrats are opportunistically using the Supreme Court’s attack on abortion rights to raise money and promote voting as the solution. But reliance on voting for Democrats and abandoning the independent struggle is what got people’s movements into this mess.

As was clear to anyone attending anti-court protests or Pride events in recent days, people are fed up with the Democrats’ lies and are opening their eyes to the reality that this party serves the rich and powerful, not the people. Revolutionaries must provide the masses with an alternative.

We need a political fightback!

High-tech, “liberal,” “socially conscious” companies like Starbucks, Amazon, Tesla, Netflix, Facebook, Google, etc., are turning more and more in the direction of the ultra-right as workers fight for their rights and decent working conditions.

Heroic organizing drives from below at Amazon and Starbucks have inspired workers at many other non-union companies to begin their own fight for union rights. This work is absolutely essential to the fight against the ultra-right coup. It must continue and grow.

But by itself it is not enough. The struggle for union rights and economic demands has to be accompanied by a national, political fightback movement – independent of the capitalist parties – with clear demands and goals. 

We must not only fight to push back the attacks on democratic rights, but struggle for political power and new forms of governance that invest power in the people, not the banks, corporate monopolies and landlords. 

First of all, the undemocratic institutions rooted in slavery – the Supreme Court and Electoral College – must be abolished.

We must raise demands that address the most urgent life-and-death needs of millions, like a rollback on food and fuel prices, an end to rent-gouging, a minimum wage of $25 or more, and wage increases that keep up with inflation.

The fightback must be international in scope, building solidarity with the people of the world struggling to throw off U.S. imperialism’s military, economic and political domination.

It must be a movement led by the working class, oppressed communities, the poor and disenfranchised, whose very ability to exist often now hangs by the slenderest thread. 

We must build a movement toward socialism to defeat the capitalists’ movement toward fascism.

Un borrador de opinión filtrado describe los planes para que la mayoría de la Corte Suprema anule la histórica decisión Roe vs Wade del 1973 que garantizaba las protecciones constitucionales federales del derecho al aborto y la decisión Planned Parenthood vs Casey de 1992 que mantuvo estos derechos. Aquí hay un enlace al proyecto de opinión de la mayoría.

Mujeres en Lucha / Women in Struggle y el Partido de Socialismo Unido / Socialist Unity Party afirman que es hora de tomar las calles y resistir la inminente y profundamente reaccionaria decisión de la Corte Suprema que allana el camino para una oleada de ataques de la extrema derecha, incluidos los elementos neofascistas responsables del golpe fallido del 6 de enero de 2021.

Revertir Roe vs Wade busca hacer retroceder el reloj a la época en que las mujeres, especialmente las mujeres negras, latinas y pobres, se vieron obligadas a buscar abortos clandestinos.

Esta decisión es un ataque a los derechos de todos los géneros, incluidas las personas transgénero y el movimiento LGBTQ2S. Si se afirma, los argumentos en los que se basa el proyecto de opinión también socavarían muchos otros derechos a la intimidad ganados con tanto esfuerzo, incluido el matrimonio entre personas del mismo sexo, y se utilizarían para promover el ataque continuo contra las personas trans.

Este ataque también está profundamente relacionado con los ataques de la supremacía blanca contra el derecho al voto de las personas negras y latinas y los intentos de impedir que los trabajadores se sindicalicen.

En el análisis final, la derogación de los derechos reproductivos recaerá de manera desproporcionada sobre las mujeres de color y las mujeres pobres, así como sobre los hombres trans, las personas no binarias y de género no conforme que también necesitan el derecho al aborto. También afectará a las personas transgénero y LGBTQ2S al reducir su acceso a la atención médica. Las muy ricas siempre han encontrado una manera de acceder a abortos y a otros cuidados.

Los principales políticos demócratas y republicanos no han hecho casi nada para detener a la derecha y defender los derechos de las mujeres. Claramente, el ataque ha estado ocurriendo durante años; sin embargo, la Casa Blanca de Biden, con una mayoría demócrata en el Congreso, no hizo nada para prepararse.

En un abrir y cerrar de ojos, Biden y el Congreso se están preparando para entregar otros $33 mil millones de dólares para intensificar la guerra subsidiaria de EUA/OTAN contra Rusia y el Donbass. Pero siguen siendo incapaces de detener la tormenta que amenaza a millones de mujeres, personas de género oprimido y la clase trabajadora en general.

Lo que se necesita para detener esta tormenta es una movilización masiva en las calles, independiente de los partidos capitalistas. Esta movilización debe afectar el poder real detrás de la amenaza de la derecha: los grandes bancos y los patronos capitalistas.

Proponemos hacer una huelga de un día, faltar al trabajo por enfermedad, salirse del lugar de trabajo y hacer una sentada que sería costoso para quienes están en el poder. Nuestro poder como trabajadoras y trabajadores, como estudiantes y como miembros de la comunidad, puede trascender la Corte Suprema reaccionaria y las políticas lucrativas, antimujer, antitrans, antipueblo y antiobreras.

Cuando los negocios como de costumbre se detengan, ¡tendrán que revertir su plan!

A leaked draft opinion outlines plans for the Supreme Court majority to strike down the historic 1973 Roe v. Wade decision which guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights and the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision that maintained these rights. Here is a link to the draft majority opinion.

Women in Struggle/Mujeres en Lucha and the Socialist Unity Party/Partido de Socialismo Unido assert that it is time to take to the streets and resist the imminent, deeply reactionary Supreme Court decision that paves the way for a surge of attacks by the far right, including the neo-fascist elements responsible for the failed January 6, 2021, coup.

Reversing Roe v. Wade seeks to turn the clock back to the time when women – especially Black, Brown and poor women – were forced to seek back-alley abortions. 

This decision is an attack on the rights of all genders, including transgender people and the LGBTQ2S movement. If affirmed, the arguments the draft opinion is based on would also undermine many other hard-won rights, including same-sex marriage, and be used to further the ongoing assault on trans people.

This attack is also deeply connected to the white supremacist attacks on voting rights for Black and Brown people and the attempts to stop workers from unionizing.

In the final analysis, the crushing of reproductive rights will fall disproportionately on women of color and poor women, as well as trans men, non-binary and gender non-conforming people who also need the right to abortion. It will also impact transgender and LGBTQ2S people by cutting their access to medical care. The very wealthy have always found a way to access abortions and other care. 

Mainstream Democratic and Republican politicians have done almost nothing to stop the right wing in its tracks and to defend women’s rights. The attack has been clearly coming for years – yet the Biden White House, with a Democratic majority in Congress, did nothing to prepare.

In the blink of an eye, Biden and Congress are preparing to turn over another $33 billion dollars to escalate the U.S./NATO proxy war on Russia and Donbass. But they remain powerless to stop the storm threatening millions of women, oppressed-gendered people and the working class in general.

What is needed to stop this storm is a massive mobilization in the streets, independent of the capitalist parties. This mobilization must hurt the real power behind the right-wing threat – the big banks and capitalist bosses.  

We propose building a one-day strike, sick-out, walk-out and sit-down that will be costly for those in power. Our power as workers, as students, as members of the community, can transcend the reactionary Supreme Court and the for-profit, anti-women, anti-trans, anti-people, anti-working-class policies.  

When business as usual stops – they will reverse themselves!

Standing up against war fever

Rosa Luxemburg, born in 1871, was a Polish and naturalized German revolutionary socialist. She taught Marxism and economics for the German Social Democratic Party in Berlin. Her rhetorical skill was formidable. 

After the Russian Revolution of 1905, she and other leaders had tremendous prestige among the workers on the European continent. In the Social Democratic Party of Germany’s women’s section, she met Clara Zetkin, with whom she became a life-long ally.

Facing the imminent danger of World War I, Luxemburg worked with V.I. Lenin and others on the “Basel Manifesto” that was addressed to the Extraordinary International Socialist Congress held in November 1912.

“If a war threatens to break out,” said the resolution,” it is the duty of the working classes and their parliamentary representatives in the countries involved, supported by the coordinating activity of the International Socialist Bureau, to exert every effort in order to prevent the outbreak of the war. …

“In case war should break out anyway,” the resolution continues, “it is their duty to intervene in favor of its speedy termination and with all their powers to utilize the economic and political crisis created by the war to arouse the people and thereby hasten the downfall of capitalist class rule.”

A key part of the manifesto was the one about using the crisis created by imperialist war to struggle for the abolition of capitalism. That passage was written by Rosa Luxemburg. (see “Bolsheviks and War” by Sam Marcy)

In August 1914, Luxemburg, along with Karl Liebknecht and Clara Zetkin, wrote illegal anti-war pamphlets. They vehemently rejected the German Social Democratic Party’s betrayal of its principles in support of funding the war, and called for an anti-war general strike. As a result, Luxemburg and Liebknecht were imprisoned in June 1916 for two and a half years.

After their release, Luxemburg and Liebknecht were captured and executed in Berlin on Jan. 15, 1919, by the Rifle Division of the Cavalry Guards of the Freikorps. Luxemburg’s body was flung into a canal.

‘Caballeresa del Sol’

Manuela Sáenz was born in 1797 in Quito, Ecuador (then called New Granada). For a number of years she fought by the side of Simón Bolívar in the revolutionary war against Spanish colonialism. They fought to unify South America. 

In 1819, when Simón Bolívar took part in the successful liberation of New Granada, Manuela Sáenz joined in a conspiracy to oust the Spanish viceroy of Perú. Sáenz and other pro-independence women conspired to recruit colonial troops from the Spanish royalist defense arsenal in Lima. The action was a success, with much of the regiment, including Manuela’s half-brother, defecting to the anti-Spanish army of José de San Martín. 

After proclaiming Peru’s independence in 1821, José de San Martín awarded Manuela Sáenz with the highest distinction in the campaign against the Spanish Royalists, the title of “Caballeresa del Sol” – the Order of the Sun of Peru.

During her years of collaboration with Bolívar, Sáenz supported the revolution against Spain by gathering information, distributing leaflets and protesting for women’s rights. Her heroism was evident in support of a Creole uprising against Spain. 

Sáenz did not feel constrained by gendered conventions of feminine behavior. She dressed in military uniforms and trained for military action.

Bolívar named her “Libertadora del Libertador” (“The Liberator of the Liberator”) after she saved his life on Sept. 25, 1828, by confronting assassins intent on killing him.

In Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s book about Simón Bolívar, “The General in His Labyrinth,” he characterized Sáenz as “astute and indomitable, she had irresistible grace, a sense of power, and unbounded tenacity.”

Great general in war against slavery

Harriet Tubman, born circa 1821, became widely known as “Moses.”

Frederick Douglass said of Tubman, “I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people.”

Radical abolitionist John Brown characterized Tubman as one of the bravest persons on this continent. She was five feet tall, commanded others with unflagging strength, had brilliant intelligence and carried a rifle.

Tubman was born into slavery on a plantation in Dorchester County, Maryland. As a teenager, she defended a fellow slave from the violence of an overseer and suffered a heavy blow to her head. That head injury left a grave scar, causing her to experience sudden sleep attacks (narcolepsy) for the rest of her life.

In 1849, when the owner of her plantation died, she was aware that all of the slaves could be sold away from their families to the cotton plantations of the Deep South, where life expectancy could be as short as two or three years.Tubman made the decision to escape.

When she reached Philadelphia, Tubman was, under the law of the time, a free woman. But the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 gave legal cover to those who could be paid for her recapture, so she operated with caution.

During a period of 12 years, she returned to Maryland 18 or 19 times, bringing more than 300 people out of enslavement. Because of the Fugitive Slave Act, Tubman was forced to guide her passengers on the Underground Railroad all the way to Canada.

Tubman became known throughout North American 19th-century Black activist circles and freedmen’s communities as a fantastically successful “conductor.”

In addition to her trips to Maryland to help freedom seekers escape, Tubman developed oratorical skills at abolitionist meetings and, later, at women’s rights gatherings.

During the U.S. Civil War against slavery, she earned the title of General Harriet Tubman. She fought as a Union soldier, a scout, a spy, a nurse and a leader of Black and white troops fighting for freedom.

Rewards were offered for Moses’ capture — at one time as high as $40,000, an unimaginable bounty in that era. Tubman was never betrayed.

Washington, D.C., Oct. 2 — Hundreds of thousands of people came out across the U.S. to protest not only the reactionary Texas “heartbeat law,” but growing attacks on reproductive rights in many other states. 

Women marched not only in large cities, but in towns and rural areas in every single state. The national Women’s March announced more than 650 marches and protests in all 50 states.

Here in Washington, where Women’s March tweeted that more than 20,000 people marched, the group targeted the U.S. Supreme Court, which allowed the Texas law to go forward. The court was scheduled to open its new session two days after.

The Texas law encourages a witchhunt to enforce the ban, which prohibits abortions after six weeks — before most women even know they are pregnant. It promises to reward individuals with a $10,000 bounty if they successfully sue anyone who helps a woman get an abortion.

At the Supreme Court building, bigoted rightwing groups advocating to take away the rights of women and oppressed-gendered people marshalled less than 100 counter-demonstrators. They were protected by a phalanx of riot police.

In Austin, Texas, women and supporters flooded the grounds of the State Capitol, demanding “Our bodies, our choice, our right!” Thousands more marched in cities throughout the state.

Los Angeles hosted the largest of California’s many marches for reproductive rights. In New York City, thousands marched across the Brooklyn Bridge and converged with thousands more in lower Manhattan, chanting “Bans off our bodies!”

Who will be most impacted?  

Women In Struggle/Mujeres En Lucha and the Socialist Unity Party distributed thousands of flyers from the West to East coasts, pointing out that “it is Black, Brown and Indigenous people, the poor and youth who rely on reproductive rights centers for basic healthcare, including contraception, general checkups and cancer screenings. Texas law SB8 will shut down care for transgender people who will no longer be able to access needed hormone replacement therapy.”

“Many women will be forced to flee to other states just to obtain the basic right to control one’s own body. But even this will not be possible for many poor, working-class and very young women, who will be forced to risk their lives or health in back-alley abortions.

“The same reactionary forces responsible for this measure, and those who do nothing about it, care little about children and less about all women, regardless of who they love and their gender identity, including transgender women.  

“A box full of diapers and a carseat is of little help when families are facing joblessness and homelessness. Where is the fight to stop unemployment benefits from being cut? Where is the moratorium and cancellation of rents, foreclosures and utility shutoffs?

“Where is the fight to stop forced sterilization of poor and oppressed women from Puerto Rico to Mississippi; or the fight to make sure that every person and all children have free healthcare; or for paid maternity leave for working families?  What about the lack of affordable, safe daycare that has forced women and all genders out of the workplace?” 

Concern for most oppressed

In Orlando, Fla., these sentiments were echoed by protesters who expressed concerns that poor, Black and Brown women, along with trans women, would be disproportionately impacted. 

Over a thousand people took over the streets, reflecting the urgency felt since a bill similar to SB8 was introduced this September in Florida, which would ban abortions and allow lawsuits against doctors who perform the procedure.   

The power of protest had an immediate effect.

On Oct. 6, just three days after the historic mobilization, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pitman temporarily blocked enforcement of SB8, declaring that “This Court will not sanction one more day of this offensive deprivation of such an important right.”

“We’re celebrating today, but our fight isn’t over,” Women’s March tweeted. “Texas will appeal. Which means the law could be put back into place soon. But we know this: hundreds of thousands of us showed up last weekend for abortion justice and we’re not done yet.”

On Oct. 2, women’s marches were held all across California. Los Angeles hosted the largest of those marches with thousands in attendance.

In an interview given at the march, Emiliana Guereca, president of Women’s March Foundation and founder of the Women’s March LA Foundation, which initiated the action here, said the movement has grown “into a really strong feminist movement for women, pro-choice … 

“This moment, Oct. 2 for us, represents standing in solidarity with our Texas sisters so that SB8 is struck down and does not happen in Mississippi, does not happen in Florida. 

“Unless all of us women rise up to this occasion, we are not going to be able to stop it. And, I think we’ve got the momentum and we’ve got to take to the streets and fight,” Guereca said.

At the rally, representatives from the Socialist Unity Party distributed a statement condemning the misogynistic, anti-working-class Texas abortion law. The SUP also made the point that the movement cannot depend on the Democratic Party, or politicians from either ruling class party, to sincerely or effectively fight this major attack against women. 

Maggie Vascassenno, co-coordinator of the Socialist Unity Party in Los Angeles, said: “Many of the speakers made great points. But the fact that our literature was so greatly in demand showed a thirst for a more class-conscious perspective, going beyond the Democratic Party politicians.”

Statement from Women In Struggle / Mujeres En Lucha and the Socialist Unity Party 

Texas Senate Bill 8, which took effect Sept. 1, bans abortion after six weeks, before many women are even aware that they are pregnant.  

Anyone who sues an abortion provider under this law will be awarded a $10,000 bounty.  Texas Right to Life has already set up a “whistleblower” website where people can give anonymous tips about who might be violating the law.

In upholding SB8, the U.S. Supreme Court basically approved the notion that vigilantes can track down women and their “abettors.”

There are no exceptions for rape, incest or diagnoses of fetal anomaly. 

Who will be most impacted?  

It is Black, Brown and Indigenous women, the poor and youth, those who rely on reproductive rights centers for health care, including contraception, general checkups and cancer screenings. SB8 will effectively shut down care for transgender people, who will no longer be able to access needed hormone replacement therapy.  

Many women will be forced to flee to other states just to obtain the basic right to control one’s own body.  But even this will not be possible for many poor, working-class and very young women who will be forced to risk their lives or health in back-alley abortions.

The same reactionary forces behind SB8, and those who did nothing to prevent it, care little about children and less about all women, regardless of who they love or their gender identity, including transgender women.  

A box full of diapers and a car seat is of little help when families are facing joblessness and homelessness.  Where is the fight to stop unemployment benefits from being cut?  Where is the moratorium and cancellation of rents, foreclosures and utility shut-offs?  

Where is the fight to stop forced sterilizations of poor and oppressed women from Puerto Rico to Mississippi, or the fight to make sure that all children — and every person — have free healthcare, or paid maternity leave for working families?  

What about the lack of affordable, safe daycare that has forced women and parents of all genders out of the workplace? 

The importance of Texas

Many reproductive-rights advocates have already pointed out that SB8 and the Supreme Court’s ruling will give impetus to similar measures in other states. This is certainly true.

But Texas itself is important.  

It is the third-most populous state, after California and Florida. Twenty-nine million people are impacted. And SB8 is not the only right-wing bill that has swept the state.  

Exactly 666 new reactionary laws went into effect Sept. 1.  It is now basically illegal to be homeless, as a statewide ban on homeless encampments precludes any locality from opting out and fines the homeless $500 (for being homeless).  

Teachers are now forbidden to tell the truth about slavery. A new law provides funding for the so-called “1836 Project” that is set against the 1619 Project and projects a “patriotic education” about Texas’s racist “war of independence” from Mexico.   

Cities with over 250,000 people will be punished for defunding police budgets, effectively giving the green light to police murders of Black, Brown and poor people. 

And what about the basic right to vote that is still being denied to Black and Brown people?

Don’t mourn — organize and hit the streets!

Women in Argentina and all over Latin America, in Ireland, Poland and so many other countries, have shown the way by taking to the streets in the millions, forcing change.  

We need a “green bandana” movement in the U.S. like the one in Latin America. We must organize to stop every reactionary, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic and anti-working class attack.  

From capitalist climate change to racist police terror, from imperialist war to attacks on workers’ rights — we cannot wait for or depend on the Democratic Party.  What is needed is in-your-face, independent action to push the clock forward.  

We need car caravans, people’s blockades and resistance to defend clinics. It’s time to march on Texas and the Supreme Court!

We will not go back!  

Healthcare and childcare, maternity leave, food, work and shelter, along with the basic ability to control one’s body — all of these are basic human rights.  

Black and Brown women must be guaranteed the right to walk out of their houses without fear that police will shoot them down, or murder their children or loved ones in the street. Trans and queer women must have the right to exist without fear of violence and bigotry.  

Im/migrant women, children and families need to be released from cages. So must the many women rotting behind bars in the colossal U.S. prison system. 

Indigenous women and communites must be guaranteed the right to their land and an end to violence and murder. 

Our children have the right to live on a planet that is not destroyed by capitalist climate change, imperialist war, occupation and sanctions.  

We pledge ourselves to this fight so that all women and all workers, at home and abroad, can finally be free from capitalist and imperialist misery.

Women and oppressed genders unite and fight back! We have nothing to lose but our chains!

There is no greater hypocrisy than the deceitful lies of imperialist propaganda. One of the most damaging, since it rests on 20 years of destructive war and occupation, is that the U.S. war on Afghanistan was about liberating Afghan women. 

U.S. imperialist involvement — a euphemism for war and terror — actually began 42 years ago, when the CIA’s Operation Cyclone launched in 1979 under Jimmy Carter’s presidency.  It continues today in the form of sanctions and even bombings, as witnessed by the recent drone strike that killed at least 10 people, eight of them children, as young as two years old.

The real fight for women’s rights

U.S. terror and intrigue began following the 1978 Saur Revolution that brought the socialist and progressive People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) to power, decisively toppling the old Kingdom of Afghanistan.  

The April Revolution, led mostly by young women and men of Kabul, ushered in major changes that included women’s rights in education and participation in government. Debts owed to cruel feudal landlords were abolished. Women were trained as teachers and books were published in all of the Indigenous and minority languages.  

Brigades of women spread out across the country to teach and provide medical services, similar to the Cuban Revolution’s “literacy brigades” of mostly young women that went into the countryside and mountains to teach the poor.  

The marriage age was raised from 8 years to 16. Maternity leave with a three-month’s salary was established. By the end of the 1980s, half of the health and education workers in Afghanistan were women.  

The story of Afghanistan’s women and their struggle for liberation is remarkable. But it’s seldom told in the capitalist West, whose propaganda is filled with distortions and bitter lies.   

First woman vice president

Dr. Anahita Ratebzad was an Afghan socialist, a founding member of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan and a member of the Revolutionary Council. She was also the first woman vice president of Afghanistan from 1980 to 1985 — decades before the United States could boast about the election of Kamala Harris.

In the 1960s, she founded the Democratic Organization of Afghan Women (DOAW), and in 1965, Ratebzad and other Afghan women organized the first International Women’s Day March in Kabul. Earlier in 1963, Dr. Ratebzad graduated as a medical doctor. 

There is vast documentation that the imperialist bourgeoisie knew full well that the Soviet Union had not planned, let alone carried out, the April Revolution.  

It was Afghans led by the PDPA that requested assistance from the Soviet Union, whose borders bounded with Afghanistan, to help in the growing civil war promulgated by reactionary and corrupt warlords bent on overturning the new government.

What is not well understood is that the U.S. was deeply involved in the Afghan civil war, not on the side of the new government, but on the side of the reactionaries who were bent on the destruction of the progressive gains, which foremost included women’s rights.

In 1979, the CIA began arming and financing the Afghan mujahideen — murderous warlords — and later conspired with both Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban. The CIA operation, dubbed “Operation Cyclone,” was the longest and most expensive in U.S. history. It continued after the Soviet army withdrew in 1989.

Later, the CIA ran death squads that terrorized Afghan villagers and murdered children.

U.S. war and occupation

In 1992 the Afghan warlords, backed by the U.S., finally succeeded in overthrowing the PDPA government. At the time, Western governments celebrated this as a “victory against Soviet tyranny.” In 1996 the Taliban movement, a product of infighting among the warlord factions, seized control of the country. Socialist leaders who had been held under house arrest were executed.

In 2001, the Taliban made a convenient first target for the U.S. “war on terror” after the 9/11 attacks. In two decades of U.S. war and occupation since then, only a tiny percentage of women and girls were able to advance themselves, inadvertently becoming show pieces for Western NGOs and the media. But the vast majority of Afghan women have remained in the worst possible conditions.   

Business Insider, certainly not a revolutionary source, documents Afghanistan among the 25 poorest countries.  Afghanistan is listed as the 7th poorest, with a gross domestic product of $499.44 per person, just ahead of war torn Yemen. It was more likely that an Afghan woman or girl would be blown up by a landmine or starve to death than have the opportunity to go to school. 

Wherever imperialism goes, it creates misery and backwardness, stunting and distorting the development of the colonized, occupied and even the neocolonial world.

Class roots of women’s oppression

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, the founders of scientific socialism, advanced a materialist conception of history. Included was the thesis that the development of private property during the period of prehistory led to the first division among humans — the overthrow of matrilineal society and the consequent oppression of women. 

While they rested that conclusion on anthropological studies that were available in the 19th century, their conclusions have now been more fully documented. (See Engels’ “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State” and Bob McCubbin’s “The Social Evolution of Humanity.”)

The materialist view of history explained that the development of society was based on changes in the mode of production from slavery (refering to the slavery of antiquity), feudalism and capitalism to socialism and what lies in the future, communism.  

It is the struggle of classes that drives this process forward.  

Marx and the thinkers that followed him did not view this process as stagnant and linear but rather one that was ruptorous, chaotic and revolutionary. Sometimes different modes of production existed side by side for a period of time before contradictions gave way to change.

The role of religion and culture is a product of the dominant economic system. Ideas do not abstractly exist somewhere in the stratosphere; they are deeply connected to all human society. That includes the ideology of patriarchy.  

The modern-day women’s liberation movement in the United States is not exempted. It emerged and was influenced by the great struggles against imperialism, including the Vietnamese liberation struggle, and domestically, the Black liberation movement.  

Dorothy Ballan explains in the pamphlet “Feminism and Marxism” how the development of the birth control pill, which gave women some modicum of control over their bodies, buttressed the movement.  

Socialist revolutions

The Russian Revolution of 1917, which established the Soviet Union, was the very first revolution that shook off both the chains of capitalism and feudal relations, and others followed.

In 1949, the Chinese Revolution threw off the shackles of feudalism. Chinese women, who “hold up half the sky,” participated in bringing about a new China that abolished child brothels, concubinage and arranged marriages in the revolutionary Marriage Law of 1950. Foot binding, a cruel process of mutilating girls and a product of feudal China, was banished.  

What the revolutionary socialist women and men of Afghanistan were able to accomplish from 1978-1992, prior to their revolution’s destruction and losses, was nothing short of heroic.  

The grinding poverty and the existence of feudal conditions mitigated against everything they were trying to accomplish. Yet they fought.

Their struggle took place in the shadows, both literally in proximity and figuratively, of the great Bolshevik Revolution that brought innumerable gains to women and all of the Soviet people. The Soviet revolution could not have helped but raise the expectations of the Afghan people.   

Ironically, it was the retreat of the Soviet leadership during this period, leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union, that would also figure negatively into the equation.

While today it is the oppressor’s history that dominates our capitalist culture with slanders and self-righteous criticism, none of it can change the heroic character of those women and men who fought for genuine social change. 

Reparations needed for Afghan people

At present the Afghan people are suffering from staggering inflation. It’s not just burqas rising in price, as the media snidely reports, but food and many other necessities. The New York Federal Reserve and other banks are blocking Afghanistan’s nearly $9.5 billion in assets. 

U.S. imperialism and its banker rulers owe reparations to the people of Afghanistan who have suffered pillage, death and destruction for the last four decades.   

Our role as women in the Western capitalist world is to end imperialist war, occupation and sanctions — the only sure route to the liberation of women worldwide. Regardless of twists and turns, self-determination for the people of Afghanistan will ultimately bring progress.  

U.S. out of Afghanistan — reparations now!

As we celebrate Women’s History Month and reflect on the contributions of women in society, it is critical to highlight our struggles as Filipino women with an anti-imperialist perspective. As a community organizer with GABRIELA Washington, D.C., I’ve realized there is a need to go beyond U.S. identity politics in the political movement and study the experiences of women with a class analysis. 

Coni Ledesma, from the Executive Committee of the International Women’s Alliance (IWA), provided further context during her speech for GABRIELA USA’s 2021 General Assembly:

“We believe that women’s oppression started with the development of private property and the development of classes. And women will continue to be oppressed as long as there are classes and private ownership of the means of production. That today, imperialism exploits the majority of women because the majority of women belong to the oppressed classes.

“That is why building an anti-imperialist women’s organization is imperative today. An organization that recognizes that women are oppressed as long as there is private property. That it is imperialism that keeps women oppressed and exploited.”

The COVID-19 pandemic only exposed the worsening conditions of working-class people in our communities, both in the U.S. and abroad. Fears of contracting COVID-19 at the workplace were exacerbated by the longer working hours (if employees/staff were reduced in workplaces) or cut hours as people experienced reduction of hours, or complete layoffs. 

Reporting in-person to work, without the understanding of guidance or particular protocols and restrictions, further worsened spaces that congregated workers (or people) and confined them in spaces — i.e. factories, prisons, detention centers, schools, healthcare facilities, service industry workplaces, etc. 

Even prior to the pandemic, working people had already experienced being overworked, underpaid, lacked protection, and have been neglected by state governments that lacked sufficient handling and planned responses to COVID-19 prior to reopening phases, which only proves that state governments only view workers as dispensable. 

In being exposed to the experiences of migrant Filipino women, our kababaihan (women) also share a common struggle of economic hardship. Their work is a cheap source of labor and a commodity bought and sold in order to produce more profit. Lack of citizenship status creates an abusive economic environment where the employer utilizes the lack of immigration status to either threaten or further exploit women. 

Abusive or controlling dynamics in the workplace against women only prevent women from reporting or exposing their conditions because of the fear of retaliation or losing their only source for economic survival. 

With common struggles and coercive conditions, migrant women bear the brunt of worsening exploitation and oppression. 

For Filipino women, their hardships are even more dangerous when encountered with harassment, sexual assault, physical or verbal abuse, and other controlling and power dynamics that become manipulative and harmful — whether in the workplace or at home. Being unable to afford basic needs on their own and feeling shamed, Filipino women for these reasons sometimes stay with an abusive boss or spouse/partner. 

As one of the largest sectors of the population living outside of the Philippines, Filipino women face an urgent call to unite with a collective understanding of who our oppressor, our enemy, truly is — U.S. imperialism. While holding the culprits and perpetrators accountable in situations met with violence and abuse, it is not enough. It is not enough to bash the cis-presenting male, it is not enough to name patriarchy, misogyny and the looming arguments about a women’s right to her body. It’s beyond these symptoms of oppression. The conditions of women demand further investigation and unity in fighting our common oppressor. 

A woman’s place in the struggle should always be linked to the conditions of people, of the most marginalized in our communities. These conditions necessitate a broader demand to organize women, particularly among the ranks of the working class. Our fight for human rights and protection as Filipino women is dependent upon the growth of a mass movement to defend and protect the livelihood and rights of the people. With a deeper understanding of our common enemy and building an organized movement, we can truly defend her, defend Filipino women, and fight for our liberation! 

Jo Quiambao is a community organizer from GABRIELA Washington, D.C. GABRIELA D.C. was formed as an organization in the D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area of GABRIELA USA. The organization formed as a vehicle to empower Filipinas in our communities, whose human rights and welfare are being attacked and neglected. Founders of GABRIELA D.C. united to rise up, take action, and advance the national democratic movement as a path to genuine liberation, equality and justice for all marginalized Filipinos in the motherland and abroad.

Inspired by the growing movement to address the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW) throughout North America, true-crime podcast Project Sunlight aims to address the worsening crisis of missing and murdered Filipinas in the United States. 

The solo-hosted podcast, relaunching in April, is based on the first-ever database documenting more than 350 missing and murdered Filipino American women.

Project Sunlight takes its inspiration from the MMIW movement as a podcast focused on untold stories of true crimes, whose victims are national minority women. There are more than 4 million Filipinos in the United States; as a demographic, Filipinos are the third-largest Asian American subgroup after Chinese and Indian Americans. 

Despite the rich multi-generational history of Filipinos in the U.S. and the rapid growth in immigration, Filipinos are chronically underrepresented in mainstream media and culture. Filipino women who have disappeared or died as a result of violent crime have been woefully ignored.

Project Sunlight will appeal to audiences that are looking for an in-depth podcast that dares to examine how colonization, foreign policy, immigration and institutionalized oppression have created an epidemic of missing and murdered Filipino American women. As the first-ever show of its kind, Project Sunlight is a groundbreaking venture that will draw the listener into a world where true crime and social sciences intersect.

The podcast will provide a bedrock of information from which Filipino American communities and the greater public can glean, but its broader goal is to promote a culture of awareness around the epidemic, leading to a reduction in incidences. Listeners can expect that “taboo” subjects, from intimate partner violence, divorce, immigration status, sexual assault, intergenerational trauma and mental health, will be covered through the lens of the Filipina as a Filipino American-hosted show.

The victims documented in the database range in age, background and circumstances, but what they all have in common is that they were daughters, sisters, aunts, mothers and grandmothers whose stories must be told. The hope is that this podcast can lead by example in its mission to promote awareness and healing, inspiring others to be active participants in this important initiative.

Project Sunlight has been on hiatus since early last year, but returns with all new episodes April 30. Project Sunlight is available on popular streaming platforms iTunes, Spotify and Google Podcasts.