Capitalism and the Pandemics of 1918 & 2020

By Steve Halpern

Few people living today experienced the pandemic of 1918. Being a student of history, I’ve learned that in order to make judgements about the past, we need to look at the almost unimaginable reality humanity experienced in previous years. Clearly there are lessons we can learn from the pandemic of 1918. However, in order to learn those lessons, I believe we need to look at the unvarnished reality of what life was like 102 years ago.

The events leading up to the 1918 pandemic

The First World War was winding down in the year 1918. The armed forces of the European powers became disgusted with the war. Literally millions had died. Those who survived lived in filthy fox holes that lacked sanitation, and became the perfect incubators for disease.

Czarist Russia suffered literally millions of deaths because of the war. Russia has large areas of fertile land, but because of the war famine gripped the country. Because mothers didn’t have enough food, they weren’t able to breast-feed their children. Under those conditions, workers mobilized and overthrew the Czar.

The new provisional government promised to make changes, but there were no fundamental changes. So, workers supported the demands of the Bolsheviks that included: Peace, Bread, and Land.

Ministers in the provisional government argued that those demands constituted acts of treason and moved to arrest the leaders of the Bolsheviks. Then, a growing consensus of workers and farmers supported the Bolshevik demands.

As a result, a new revolution erupted, and the Bolsheviks took power. The new Soviet government immediately redistributed the vast landholdings to the peasants who worked the land. They did everything in their power to insure the people had food. They negotiated for peace with Germany, even though this meant giving up large tracts of land.

By the year 1918 the pandemic struck the Soviet Union. At this same time, fourteen nations invaded the country in an attempt to overthrow the revolutionary government. Workers and farmers knew what was at stake. They had experienced the routine brutality of the Czar as well as the loss of millions of soldiers in the First World War. Now the masses of people had a government of their own, and they were determined to defend it.

The 1918 pandemic caused the deaths of about 2.7 million people in the Soviet Union. However, the Red Army successfully defended the country from those who attempted to reimpose the horrendous reality of the past. 

President Wilson had different ideas

Frank Macfarlane Burnet was a Nobel laureate who lived through the 1918 pandemic and spent his life studying influenza. Burnet concluded that the evidence was “strongly suggestive” that the 1918 pandemic started in this country. The likely source was Haskell Country, Kansas. However, there is no doubt that from Kansas the influenza spread to Europe and then the world.

Loring Miner was a prominent doctor in Haskell County. In late January of 1918, Miner observed that many of his patients were dying of a disease he diagnosed as, “influenza of a severe type.” Miner wrote to public health officials in the United States about this influenza.

At this same time, soldiers from Haskell Country travelled to Fort Funston in Kansas where 56,000 soldiers lived. They were all preparing to go to Europe to battle in the First World War.

President Woodrow Wilson was well aware of the anti-war sentiment in the world. When he ran for President, he promised that he would keep the United States out of the war. After Wilson became President, he went on the most sustained and vicious war drive this country has ever seen.

All the industries in the United States mobilized for war production. Literally everyone was brow-beaten to do their part in supporting the war effort. This included the purchase of war bonds used to finance the slaughter.

Why did Wilson argue that the United States needed to go to war? He claimed this was to “Make the world safe for democracy.” There were a few things Wilson forgot to mention when he made that argument.

In all the major industries at that time including: coal, steel, and rail, thousands of workers died as a result of preventable industrial accidents. Upton Sinclair wrote his book The Jungle that exposed the horrendous conditions in the meat packing industry. Certainly, the workers who toiled every day in those industries didn’t feel that their jobs were in any way safe.

Then, there was the fact that while Wilson talked about making the world safe for democracy, women in this country didn’t have the right to vote. That reality was too much for the suffragettes under the leadership of Alice Paul.

So, Alice Paul organized a picket line in front of the White House arguing that the United States couldn’t experience democracy when half the population didn’t have the right to vote. The government responded to this demonstration by arresting the suffragettes and placing them in prison.

The suffragettes demanded to be treated as political prisoners. The government was determined to make any opposition to the war a criminal offence. They refused to recognize that the women were in jail merely for advocating for the right to vote and in opposition to the war.

The suffragettes protested their treatment in prison and went on a hunger strike. The authorities restrained Alice Paul and inserted a tube into her throat in order to force feed her.

Thinking about these extreme measures, we might question why President Wilson was so adamant about organizing to go to war. First, I think it is useful to look at what the war was all about.

Working people have nothing in common with the capitalists who profit off of our labor. While they profit off of dangerous working conditions, workers have an interest in having safe working conditions. Workers in other countries have essentially the same interests as workers in this country. Workers all over the world want and need food, a place to live, health care, and education. So, President Wilson’s order to go to war, was in essence an order to murder millions of workers who happened to be born in other countries. As you might imagine, there were many who didn’t like that idea.  

On the other hand, the British empire was in a state of decline. The capitalists in Germany and the United States both wanted to replace the British empire and rule the world. Both world wars, as well as the many subsequent wars were about making the capitalist system in the United States dominant in the world. While it was the workers who died in the war, the working class would merely be used as tools to advance the capitalist drive for profit after the war. 

In June of 1918 Eugene Debs gave a speech against the war in Canton, Ohio. He explained that the Wilson’s call for a war for democracy was nothing more than a myth. He exposed that myth by pointing out how the government compromised laws aimed at defending children from the horrors of factory labor.

At his trial, a government prosecutor read a transcript of Debs speech. That transcript was the only evidence against Debs. In his defense Debs argued that he wasn’t the one on trial, but the Constitution of the United States. Debs was then convicted and ordered to spend ten years in prison. There were many others who opposed the war who also received sentences of ten years in prison.

If President Wilson made good on his campaign pledge to keep the United States out of the war, the effects of the pandemic would have been minimized. Instead, the soldiers at Fort Funston travelled by railcar, then by boat, then into foxholes where they spread the pandemic to the rest of the world.

When the 1918 pandemic came to Philadelphia

In September of 1918 soldiers were returning from their service in the First World War. These soldiers returned with an unwelcome guest. This was what was then known as the Spanish Flu.

Spain was neutral is the First World War. All the other powers that were at war made it a practice not to report on the pandemic. The people who had power in those countries felt that if the pandemic was reported, this would demoralize the soldiers. Why would a soldier want to fight to keep the world safe for democracy, when there was a pandemic that would cost the lives of tens of millions all over the world?

So, while medical experts knew that the pandemic was killing many people in this country, most workers weren’t aware that this was happening. What people did know was that the people who had power in Philadelphia were sponsoring a huge rally to promote the purchase of war bonds. Those bonds would be used to finance the murder of workers in Europe.

Medical experts pleaded with Philadelphia city officials to cancel this demonstration. They argued that the demonstration would be the perfect way to infect thousands of people in the city.

The city officials demonstrated their routine indifference to the lives of the working class in Philadelphia. They allowed the Liberty Loan parade to happen. Within just a few months about 12,000 people died in the city.

We might consider that the population of Philadelphia increased because of the need to increase production to support the war. Workers might sleep in a bed, then leave so another worker might sleep in the same bed. Perhaps 100 people might use the same outhouse that had no access to running water.

While 12,000 people died in the city, a much larger number became sick for about one week. Faced with this reality, most workers stayed at home. They did this, at times, while they lived with a corpse of someone who recently died. 

Eugene Debs was placed on trial in the fall of 1918. While he was on trial, the pandemic was beginning to take the lives of 675,000 people who lived in the United States. In the world, the estimates are that between 50 and 100 million people died of the pandemic of 1918. Most people who contacted the influenza were sick for a week and then recovered. So, we might estimate that the majority of the human race contacted the influenza of 1918.

The German government finally sued for peace in 1918. They did this at a time when hundreds of people in the United States passed away because of exposure to influenza. President Wilson responded to this state of affairs by continuing to send troops to Europe. The ships those troops travelled on became floating graveyards. This was because of Wilson’s decision to continue the war when there was absolutely no reason to continue the slaughter. 

While he served time in a dungeon of this country, Eugene Debs ran for President. He received close to one-million votes.

By 1919 the worst effects of the pandemic subsided. In Seattle 65,000 longshore workers went on strike. Aside from their demands for improved working conditions, they refused to load ships with arms that were to be used to support the armed forces aimed at overthrowing the revolutionary government in the Soviet Union.

In the year 1920 the United States followed the lead of the Soviet Union, and adopted the 19^th Amendment to the Constitution, that gave women the right to vote. The revolutionary government of the Soviet Union gave women the right to vote shortly after it took power in 1917.  

 When we look at Eugene Debs’ election campaign from prison, as well as the strike of 65,000 longshore workers, as well as the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, we see how the consciousness of the working class of the United States was moving in a different direction.

People began to realize that President Wilson’s war drive was nothing more than a declaration of war against the working class of the world. By the year 1934, in the middle of the depression, millions of workers began to join unions and organize independently of the capitalists.    

How are things different with the pandemic of 2020?

Clearly the medical technology has advanced in the last 102 years. While the pandemic of 1918 lasted just a few months, the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to last for an extended period of time.

What clearly has remained the same in the last 102 years, is the total indifference of capitalist governments to the interests of working people. In the year 1918, the government supported the drive of capitalists in the United States to dominate the world. In the year 2020, the capitalist governments in the world have organized to ensure that the drive to maximize corporate profitability will be the top priority.

We see this in the delay of the response to the pandemic. Clearly the government didn’t want to stop production while capitalists were gouging out profits. Now, the government is desperate to get workers back to work.

Banks depend on loans for their assets. Without continual payments on those loans, the assets of banks vaporize. This is why the United States government voted unanimously to give corporations trillions of dollars, while hospitals are in dire need of supplies. Even with that massive investment, the unemployment rate is about 20%.

It is becoming clear to more and more workers that the government knew that a pandemic was coming for a long time. It is also becoming clear that while the government was aware of this, they made massive investments in the military, while cutting back on medical research, and the storage of medical supplies. There is only one reason for those seemingly insane actions. Capitalist governments routinely value profits over human needs.

The pro-capitalist press routinely argues that the pandemic caused the hardships workers face today. That is a bold-faced lie. The pandemic never eliminated a single job. The pandemic didn’t give corporations trillions of dollars, while many workers don’t have enough food to eat. The pandemic isn’t asking workers to work in unsafe conditions. The people who have power in the capitalist system are the ones who are doing all of these things.

When we look back at the pandemic of 1918, we see how the attitudes of workers began to change all over the world. This is going to happen again.

There is something that is different today from the pandemic of 1918. That pandemic only lasted a few months. Today’s pandemic might last years. The world capitalist economy isn’t capable of sustaining a downturn for that long a period of time.

The Chairman of the Federal Reserve is Jerome Powell. Powell argued that the economy in the United States would begin to rebound, if there isn’t a second wave of the pandemic. Epidemiologists are predicting a second wave of the pandemic.

All of this means that in order to rationally respond to the effects of the 2020 pandemic, we need a new political economic system. A worker’s government would ensure that all workers work in safe environments. A worker’s government would ensure that everyone would have all of the things we need. A worker’s government would state clearly that the needs of workers who create all wealth are more important than the drive to maximize profits for corporations. In my opinion, this is the only rational way to deal with our current reality.  

A few questions workers might ask in the year 2020

Human Needs Before Profits

By Steven Halpern

At this time last year, how many people would have thought that we would be in the midst of a world-wide pandemic? How many people would have thought that today there would be an unemployment rate of 30%? However, there is one thing that we might have been able to predict. The most affluent one percent of the population in the United States would continue to own obscene amounts of wealth, while tens of millions would not have enough food to eat.

So, understanding that many aspects of our current reality weren’t predicted, we might not like to think about what will be happening for the rest of this year. However, in order to begin to deal with what will be happening, I think we need to look at the dynamics unfolding in the world today.

Before we look at the future, I think it is useful to take an unvarnished look at our reality. There are three issues that I believe will have the most impact on our lives. One is the pandemic. Another is the economy, and then there is the political response.

The COVID-19 Pandemic

For me, the most reliable source of information on the pandemic is Dr. Michael Osterholm. Dr. Osterholm is an epidemiologist who has spent his entire life studying infectious diseases. He predicted the current pandemic in his 2017 best-selling book Deadliest Enemy.

According to Dr. Osterholm, the current pandemic will last 16 to 18 months and will cost the lives of about 1.6 million people in this country. Why does he make this horrendous prediction?

Dr. Osterholm believes the pandemic will end for the following reason. When about half of the population of the United States comes in contact with COVID-19, those who have recovered from that contact will have immunity. This will mean that the virus will have no place to go where it can survive. If one percent of that number die as a result of exposure to COVID-19, that would mean there would be 1.6 million deaths due to the pandemic in the United States.

Dr. Osterholm advises that we practice physical distancing. Why? By supporting the guidelines of isolating ourselves, using facemasks, and staying six feet apart, this would “flatten the curve” of increasing numbers of those infected. So, if we don’t practice physical distancing, the health care system would become overloaded and ineffective.

We might keep in mind that many people who came in contact with COVID-19 are alive today because they were cared for in hospitals. There are also many people who have life-threatening conditions other than COVID-19, who will need health care. If the hospitals become overloaded, many of those people would die unnecessarily.

In other words, in the past government officials and corporate bosses demanded that we “take responsibility” for our problems. They live in denial of the fact that most of our problems stem from the corporate drive to maximize profits. However, the pandemic, as well as the many political and economic problems we face, can only be effectively dealt with by advancing the interests of the international working class.

Understanding that reality, I think we need to look critically at statements by government officials and corporate officers who applaud healthcare workers for their heroic service. What are the facts?

The United States spends significantly more on health care per capita, than any other nation in the world. Yet, since 1980 about 400,000 hospital beds have been eliminated. I attended a demonstration protesting the closure of Hahnemann Hospital where 2,500 health care jobs were eliminated. I’ve also been on picket lines where health care workers were forced to go on strike because of the corporate drive to maximize profits. I’ve also seen the effects of the drive for profits when I worked in health care for twelve years.

We can also say that the problem of the increasing number of pandemics in the world has been exacerbated by unrestrained growth of capitalism. The deforestation of parts of Africa aided the spread of the Ebola virus. The mass industrialization in China, where large populations of bats live, also contributed to the current pandemic. The deteriorating standard of living in the world makes workers more vulnerable to the pandemic.

So, while government officials and corporate officers thank health care workers for their service, they have been advancing a routine, unrelenting war against those same health care workers, as well as all kinds of workers all over the world.       

The economy

We live with an economy known as capitalism. Capitalist investment is not about human needs, but about profits for the owners of capital. This is a fundamental contradiction.

Initially capitalists hired workers to produce commodities, as well as to provide themselves with profits. Then, as technology developed, the cost of producing those commodities went down. However, individual capitalists needed to purchase expensive machinery and factories. So, capitalists needed to spend more and more money to produce commodities, while fewer and fewer workers were needed to produce those commodities.

In a rational world, technology would be used to make life easier and more rewarding for everyone. However, in the system of capitalism, the surplus derived from labor is used to enrich the affluent in their drive for profits.

So, as small enterprises are forced out of business, the dominant corporations become larger and larger. As this happens, banks and finance companies took over the financing of most corporations.

This means that when a worker produces a commodity, that worker generates profits for the corporation, as well as interest payments for a bank. We might consider that most of the assets of banks are in its loans. Without continuous payments on those loans, the assets of banks vanish.

In order to maintain this system, capitalists need to do three things that are antagonistic to the interests of workers. This is because capitalists routinely need to invest more and more money to produce a commodity. They do this in spite of the fact that usually the basic costs of production decrease because of advances in technology.

First, they need to routinely drive down their production costs. They have done this by making huge investments to build factories in nations where the wages are between $1 and $10 per day. They also keep wages as low as possible, while demanding that workers become more productive.

In order to maintain their interests in the world, they make massive investments in the so-called “Defense Department.” The armed forces of the United States have gone to war all over the world in order to advance international capitalist interests. So, while workers has the same interests all over the world, capitalist governments demand that we murder one another to protect capitalist interests.

Then, they need to sell more and more commodities. This is why capitalists invest about $200 billion every year in advertising. Entire armies of workers talk on the telephone contacting people in our homes to sell more and more commodities.

Then, they need to go into astronomical debt. Today Bernie Madoff is serving time in prison for violating the laws regulating the sale of bonds. However, there are hundreds of trillions of dollars in derivatives that are not regulated. Comparing the money Bernie Madoff lost to the money invested in derivatives, is like comparing a flea to an elephant.        

So, the interests of workers are antagonistic to the interests of corporations. When workers receive more in wages, benefits, and improved working conditions, capitalists have less in profits. Likewise, when capitalists have more in profits, workers have less.

Understanding this relationship, workers go on strike to force capitalists to grant our demands. Then, there are the general strikes where an entire nation’s workforce goes on strike. These actions can be effective because they stop the flow of money capitalists rely on. However, when those strikes are over, capitalists have gone back to business in their drive for profit.

Today, we are seeing something different happening. The unemployment rate is at about 30%. This state of affairs will continue for an indefinite future. This means that capitalists aren’t receiving those routine flows of capital.

The government has responded by giving corporations trillions of dollars in bailout money. This obscene amount of money is already much more than the corporate bailout of 2008. This is happening while there are dire shortages of medical equipment and hospitals are cutting back on their staff in the midst of a pandemic. 

We might consider that no one in Congress or the Senate voted against those massive bailouts. Why? Because in the capitalist system, if banks aren’t receiving routine massive payments, they will simply shut down. However, unlike a strike, the pandemic will continue for the indefinite future.

We also might consider that in other capitalist economic downturns, capitalists wait until the market bottoms out, then they buy up stock thinking they will turn a profit when the stock goes up. This isn’t happening today.

Warren Buffett is the CEO of the investment company Berkshire Hathaway. He has just dumped his stock in the airlines. This is Buffett’s reasoning for selling that stock. “We will not fund a company. . . where we think it is going to chew up money in the future.”

Buffett also argued that the investment fund of derivatives are, “financial weapons of mass destruction.” Today, we are beginning to see the “mass destruction” Buffett was talking about.  

Thinking about these statements, some people have argued that today there are corporations that will be going be bankrupt in the course of the pandemic. Some have called these, “zombie corporations” because they are like the walking dead.

Understanding this reality, we can ask the question: Why will corporations hire workers, when they don’t think profitability will be a possibility? We might keep in mind that in normal times corporations need to increase their sales every three months. With an unemployment rate of 30%, that isn’t happening.

Before the pandemic, about one out of every ten people in the United States didn’t have enough food to eat. Today, the numbers of people who lack enough food is increasing dramatically. Yet because there is a decreased market for food, farmers are in the position where they need to destroy their crops. Clearly the pandemic isn’t taking food out of the mouths of anyone. No, today people suffer from hunger all over the world because of the capitalist drive to maximize profits.

Understanding this, we can say that the political crisis in the world is much more devastating than the pandemic. In addition to losing access to food, millions around the world are losing direct access to water and electricity.

Then, what will it mean if and when the banks close their doors? How will anyone get paid or purchase a commodity? This state of affairs means that the consequences of the political crisis of capitalism will be much worse than the effects of the pandemic.      

How can the working class respond to this crisis?

Before we answer this question, we might ask the question: How did people who have power respond to the pandemic? When we begin to understand the above facts, we can see how and why this story unfolded.

Because the capitalist system relies on a continuous flow of obscene amounts of money, we might see why capitalists around the world were slow to shut down large parts of the economy. If capitalists depend on about three percent growth, they don’t get this when there is an unemployment rate of 30%.

Understanding that reality we can see why capitalists and people who have power are desperate for people to go back to work. If this doesn’t happen, large amounts of money they have invested will vaporize.

Then, we can see why investors like Warren Buffett are selling off large hunks of their portfolios. They don’t expect the economy to rebound.

So, I think we can say that the capitalists are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They are driven to get people back to work in unsafe environments, while they don’t expect that the economy will rebound.

Working people have a different perspective. We aren’t motivated by profits, but by human needs. We need food, clothing, a place to live, transportation, communication, health care, and exposure to cultural activities. We also need to work in safe environments because our lives depend on it. We don’t need to work our entire lives so a tiny minority of the population can have more wealth than they could use in 1,000 lifetimes.

When we look back at the time when fascism existed in Germany, we can see how the capitalists organized in the past to deal with an economic crisis. After the First World War, the German economy collapsed. People who lived relatively comfortable lives before the war, suddenly experienced dire poverty. Adolf Hitler and his supporters responded to this crisis in support of German capitalists.  

First, they supported those who physically attacked anyone who demonstrated in defense of the interests of workers. Then, when they took political power, they systematically eliminated anyone who did not agree with their criminal program. In order to support capitalist profitability, the Nazis cut the wages of workers in half. Then, they created scapegoats of Jews and others, who they blamed for the ills of society and murdered millions. Finally, they mobilized the armed forces in their attempts conquer the world.        

Leon Trotsky was a leader of the Russian Revolution. He was the central commander of the Red Army that successfully defended the Soviet government from invasions from fourteen nations for over two years. After Joseph Stalin and his supporters betrayed the Russian Revolution, Trotsky managed to continue the struggle for the liberation of the working class in the world.

At that time, there was a huge Communist Party in Germany that collaborated with Stalin in the Soviet Union. Trotsky argued that the communists in Germany needed to organize to stop the Nazis from taking power. The German Communist Party had ample resources to resist the Nazis. However, Trotsky noted that the fascists took power without anyone firing a shot in protest. The lack of action by the German communists, convinced Trotsky that there was no hope of convincing the Stalinist movement to advance a revolutionary course in the world.

Today, the pandemic is exposing the routine criminal nature of capitalism. The pandemic never eliminated a single job. Capitalists have done that. The pandemic never prevented anyone from getting the food we all need. Capitalists have done that. The pandemic never gave corporations trillions of dollars in bailout money, while hospitals are in dire need of supplies. The supporters of capitalism in the government have done that.

I don’t see how the international system of capitalism can avoid a complete collapse. If and when this happens, we need to ask these questions: How will anyone be paid a salary? How will anyone purchase the things we need? Under those conditions, why would anyone support the government that is locked into a system that makes a priority of corporate profit over human needs?

There is an alternative to the seeming madness we see emanating from the supporters of capitalism today. Working people have the real potential to advance an international movement aimed at making the needs of workers and farmers the top priority.

Instead of giving trillions of dollars to corporations, a worker’s government would spend that money to ensure that everyone has food, a place to live, medical care, and education. Instead of working to enrich a tiny minority, a worker’s government would make sure everyone has the things we need. Instead of declaring sanctions against many nations in the world, a worker’s government would help to coordinate the international battle against poverty and the pandemic.

That government would work to end the routine discrimination we see in the capitalist world against nationalities and women. That government would also work to reverse the destruction of the environment. They could do this by recycling garbage, planting trees, revitalized soil that has been destroyed, and restoring the oceans.

A worker’s government would be able to hire massive numbers of people to trace all those who have come in contact with COVID-19. By doing this, those who have come in contact with the virus could be isolated and those who need medical attention would be guaranteed all the care they need.

Because we need to organize a movement to put in place a worker’s government, we need to organize. Today, governments all over the world are working to restrict demonstrations of workers. Clearly, when people come together, we are all risking the spread of COVID-19. However, asking a capitalist government to stop the spread of the pandemic is like asking an arsonist to organize the fire department. Workers are the ones who ultimately believe that our lives are more important than the drive to maximize profits. Therefore we are the ones who are organizing to defend our interests and not those who manage the drive for capitalist profitability.    

When we see the difference between what the capitalists have in store for us, and the possibility of a worker’s government coming to power, I believe there is a clear choice.

Today the nation of Cuba has medical doctors, nurses, and medical students visiting every Cuban to see if they have symptoms of COVID-19. Since the Cuban Revolution in 1959, Cuba has sent its health care workers to over 100 nations, treating some of the least affluent people in the world. While people living in the United States need health care insurance, Cuba has established health care as a right for everyone who lives in the country.    

The idea that the future will merely be a repeat of the reality we faced in the past, is nothing more than an impossible dream. Working people are learning that we have better things to do than to spend our lives working so a tiny minority can have more wealth than they could use in 1,000 lifetimes. Cuba is an example of how a profoundly better future world is possible.

Some of the Demonstrations on May Day

By Steve Halpern

Recently I participated in two care caravans demanding a moratorium on rents and mortgages for the duration of the pandemic. We also demanded an end to deportations, safe working environments, freedom of prisoners, and health care for all. A few months ago, there weren’t many people who would have demonstrated in support of these issues. However, the pandemic and the deplorable response by the government and corporations is convincing people that we need to make these demands now.

The 2019 Cuba May Day Brigade

On May Day of last year, I attended the demonstration of over one million people in Havana, Cuba. There I witnessed one million Cubans enthusiastically celebrating their government. I also attended that demonstration in Cuba in 2017, and was so inspired that I wanted to return and see it again.

Seeing these May Day demonstrations, I asked myself: Why are the Cuba people so enthusiastic about supporting their government? Anyone who has travelled to Cuba sees how the Cuban people lack many of the things we have in the United States. At times, Cubans need to wait on lines just so they can have food. So, considering that reality, why is the Cuban government so popular?

Before the Cuban Revolution the Cuban most of the Cuban people lived in dire poverty lacking in health care, education, and decent housing. In spite of the immense challenges facing Cuba, largely because of the United States’ embargo, the lives of the Cuban people have been transformed. Today, every Cuban has the right to free health care, and education.

In the 1990s the Soviet Union collapsed, and Cuba lost about 80% of its trade. Because of the transformation that had taken place on the island, the Cuban people found ways of transforming themselves again. The difficult times Cuba experienced in the 1990s would have toppled any capitalist government in the world. But because of the determination of the Cuban people not to return to the horrors of capitalism, Cuba found ways of dealing with that crisis.

The over three-hundred members of the Cuba May Day Brigades of 2017 and 2019 were all inspired by what we experienced in Cuba.

Returning to the United States

Two events highlighted my shocking return to the United States. First there was an explosion at an oil refinery in Southwest Philadelphia. A refinery worker took action within minutes of the explosion. This saved Philadelphia from being exposed to the potentially lethal substance of hydrofluoric acid.

Responding to this explosion, I supported actions of the Philly Thrive organization. Even before this explosion, that refinery was the biggest source of air pollution in the city. Residents of the neighboring Point Breeze area frequently suffered from cancer as well as respiratory problems. Members of Philly Thrive demanded the right to breathe clean air.

Largely because of these actions the Philadelphia city government held hearings on the future of the bankrupted refinery. Eventually a new corporation purchased the sight where the refinery was located and claimed that land would no longer be used as an oil refinery. As a consequence, about 600 union members at the refinery lost their jobs.

Today, there is a glut of oil and oil production has become less profitable than it once was. President Trump responded to this by making war moves against the nation of Iran. That action provoked instability in the region, and the price of oil went back up. We might consider that while there is a glut of oil today, in about fifty years the world will begin to run out of oil reserves.

The closing of Hahnemann Hospital

At around the same time as the refinery explosion, the owner of Hahnemann Hospital announced that it would be closing. This meant the elimination of the jobs of about 2,500 health care workers. I attended a demonstration of about 500 people who protested the closing of the hospital.

Then, after the hospital had been shuttered, the COVID-19 pandemic struck Philadelphia. Mayor Kenney asked the owner of the former hospital, Joel Freedman, if the city could use the empty building to treat COVID-19 patients. Freedman responded that this would be all right if he received a $900,000 per month rental fee.

That action earned Freedman a national reputation as someone who cares more about money than human life.

Car caravans in Philadelphia

About a week ago I participated in a car caravan that went from the Philadelphia Art Museum to City Hall. This was organized by the Party for Socialism and Liberation We demanded a freeze in rent payments and mortgages for the duration of the pandemic. At the beginning of the caravan we stood at least six feet apart wearing facemasks to listen to several speakers.

This was a spirited rally that pointed out how we need a completely different political and economic system to deal with the pandemic. Almost all of the participants in this caravan were young and after riding to City Hall, the caravan went to the home of Joel Freedman. There we expressed our rage at his criminal disregard for the lives of people.

On May Day I participated in another caravan. This one was organized by the Workers World Party. In this caravan, the organizers set up a system where we could listen to speeches on our cell phones using Zoom. In addition to the demand to freeze rents and mortgages, this caravan demanded an end to deportations, the freeing of prisoners, and safe working environments.

This caravan went up Broad Street to Temple University Hospital where we were greeted by hospital workers who also were celebrating May Day and demanded safe working environments. A few years ago, I joined with nurses at that hospital who were on strike. They protested the indifference of Temple management to the basic demands of the nurses.

Then, our caravan went down 15^th Street where we viewed the gentrification that had taken place in that part of North Philadelphia. Brand new housing and Temple University buildings stand right next to one of the least affluent neighborhoods in the city.

We stopped in one of the neighborhoods in this part of the city. Here speakers explained why we are demanding a freeze in rents and mortgages. People living in this neighborhood were friendly to this demand.

Returning to Broad Street, we stopped at the Philadelphia Board of Education. Recently I attended another demonstration at the Board of Education protesting the fact that teachers and students had been exposed to asbestos in the schools. A teacher in one of those schools became ill with the fatal disease of mesothelioma while teaching in a school with asbestos. I was also at another demonstration at the Board of Education protesting the cutbacks of hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for the schools.

We might view the above photograph of our caravan on our way down Broad Street, with City Hall in the background. To the left is a large modern building. This is the Convention Center of Philadelphia. Before the city government cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the public-school system, the government invested $800 million in the construction of that convention center. Half of the revenue of that center comes from the flower show and the auto show. In our caravan, we protested the cutbacks in education, while obscene amounts of money has been spent to support the corporate drive to maximize profits.

Then, our caravan stopped at the shuttered Hahnemann Hospital. We pointed out how there is an increasing need for health care during the pandemic, while this hospital sits empty with 2,500 laid off hospital workers. Even in Spain, a capitalist country, the government confiscated hospitals for the duration of the pandemic. Here, the former Hahnemann Hospital sits empty because the owner wants $900,000 per month in order to keep it open.

Conclusion

These caravans have been joined by job actions at Amazon, Whole Foods, and at meat processing plants. All these job actions are demanding safe working environments. Corporations have responded with indifference to many of these demands, and have fired several workers who demand a safe place to work.

It has just been about two months since most of us became aware of the pandemic. There has been a world of changes since that time. In the past, working people experienced how our standard of living was deteriorating. Now, we are seeing how the government and corporations are demanding that we risk our lives in order to support their drive to maximize corporate profits.

The epidemiologist Dr. Michael Osterholm predicted the pandemic in his best-selling 2017 book Deadliest Enemy. He predicts that the pandemic will last 16 to 18 months. Laurie Garrett predicted the pandemic in her 1994 book The Coming Plague. She argues that the pandemic will last 36 months.

We might consider that the capitalist system was in severe decline before the pandemic. The only reason why the economy was saved in 2008 was because of a massive government bailout. Corporations used that money to buy stocks and this caused the stock market to skyrocket. As a result, a tiny percentage of the population gouged out obscene amounts of wealth.

However, working people had a different outcome. In the world, about 800 million people don’t have enough food to eat. Hundreds of millions don’t have direct access to electricity or running water. In the United States about one out of every ten people had insufficient access to food. Today there are long lines of people waiting for food assistance.

Yet, because of the decline in the market for food for restaurants, farmers are in the position where they need to destroy their crops. The government sees itself as incapable of moving this food from the farms to people who need it.

Yet, the government has found trillions of dollars for a corporate bailout. They have also spent more trillions of dollars on a defense department that isn’t designed to defend people against COVID-19. Yet hospitals have dire shortages in medical supplies.

What does all this mean? The government at all levels is making it clear that they have no intention of taking rational steps to fight the pandemic. Millions of people in this country and around the world are faced with the prospect of fending for ourselves. We do this, while experiencing massive unemployment, while the super-rich continue to hoard their money.

Cuba

My experience in in Cuba, as well as the sixty-year history of that country informs the world that there is a different way. Cuba has been able to withstand sixty years of the U.S. embargo, as well as the collapse of the Soviet Union. During those years, Cuba has made health care and education a right for everyone on the island.

Today Cuba has more doctors per capita than any other nation in the world. While Cuba has much fewer resources then the United States, they have sent medical doctors to treat patients in some of the poorest nations in the world. They also developed drugs that have proven to be effective in fighting a number of diseases. Today the Cuban Alpha 2B drug has been effective in preventing COVID-19 patients from getting pneumonia.

When the pandemic struck Cuba, Cuban doctors, nurses, and medical students visited literally everyone on the island. They determined if people had symptoms of COVID-19. If they had those symptoms, they were tested, and if their test were positive, then they were treated and isolated. Because of these measures there have only been about 50 COVID-19 deaths on the island.

Vietnam

According to an article in the Washington Post, there have been no COVID-19 deaths in Vietnam. Vietnam is about 1,200 miles from Wuhan, China where the pandemic originated. Because of policies put forward by the Vietnamese government, that nation was spared the fate of nations throughout the capitalist world.

We might consider that literally millions of Vietnamese lost their lives because of the war the United States government waged against their people. The U.S. military dropped thousands of gallons of agent orange to kill the vegetation in Southeast Asia. This was the unimaginable cost that was required to force the United States military to leave Vietnam.

However, while there are no COVID-19 deaths in Vietnam, the United States has become the epicenter of the pandemic.      

This situation is teaching working people that we need a government that makes the needs of people it’s only priority. The friendly response to the caravans I participated in is clear evidence of this. In the coming months, increasing numbers of working people will see that we need a profound political and economic change in this country. Only the masses of people are capable of making this happen. This means that today working people have a real potential to transform the world.