Chapter Spotlight, LRS Washtenaw
Cracks in U-M Admin’s Tower – Santa Ono Resigns
Recently, the U-M community was informed Santa Ono will be leaving U-M to take a job at the University of Florida. This shows an unprecedented breakdown in the efficacy of the U-M capitalist administration to do their job. The regents had just recently extended Ono’s contract to 2032, investing in him for the long term in a 1.3 million dollar contract. The fact he is leaving so much earlier shows an intensification in the contradiction between factions of the U-M admin.
To set the record straight on what Santa Ono actually achieved at U-M, we present some of his “Achievements”:
- Violently suppressed Pro-Palestine movement on campus
- Broken promise on his commitment to unarmed crisis response team
- Militarization of campus through increased police funding and presence, and the hiring of multiple private security agencies to patrol campus
- Worked hand in glove with federal government to cut back on DEI programming and attack infrastructure critical to the already small amount of students of color who attend the university
- Expanded further into Ypsilanti and Detroit, utilizing U-M as an aggressive gentrifying force that pushes nationally-oppressed communities out
- Organized attack on working peoples at U-M through contract violations, unfair labor practices, and suppression of organized labor
- Set a track record of ignoring and actively contributing to islamophobic hate and violence on campus
- Pushed forward unilateral policy with the regents that allow them to bypass all procedures in disciplinary measures
Let’s be clear, Ono’s pathetic attempt at a LinkedIn-style list of achievements shows he knows his unpopularity. Thousands were mobilized against him and the regents. It is up to us to continue the struggle despite the face of administration.
National News
Two New Afrikans Martyred by Bloodthirsty CPD Pigs This Morning 5/5
From Dare to Struggle Chicago’s recent Instagram post
In the early hours of May 5th, CPD pigs were out on a rampage with two shootings back-to-back on the South Side of Chicago. One of the shootings occurred in the Grand Regency supportive living facility in the Jackson Park neighborhood (nearby the nearly-finished Obama Presidential Library in Woodlawn, estimated to potentially displace thousands of poor and working-class New Afrikans) at 2:50AM Central, when CPD pigs rammed inside the facility and proceeded to tase, then execute, disabled New Afrikan man Alfonso Wright, claiming he had a knife and was advanced towards the pigs.
Eerily similar to the pig martyrdom of Timothy Glaze at the beginning of this year, the fascist police are ramping up their offensive on the ground against Black, Chicano, Arab, and other poor nationally-oppressed people, with us seen and treated as the bane of the world.
Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, non-profits, reformists and snake opportunists including FRSO/CAARPR and their COPA/CCSPA initiatives hold mobilizations disconnected from and, in actuality, in fear of the deeply oppressed masses in Chicago and other cities, and hide behind the pigs they purport to “reform” for the masses in the community to “control.”
In fact, their “People’s Mayor,” Brandon Johnson, held a small conference in response to the martyrdoms; asked about the events that transpired, he replies with sheer nonchalantness, stating that since he took office “we have fully embraced constitutional policing” using the Blue MAGA Democratic National Convention this past August to tout about “compliance” between the pigs and the poor community members of the city.
This is the pattern we see amongst the capitalist city apparatus in connection to developing mass militancy amongst the youth towards revolutionary struggle: 37 New Afrikan babies, children, and youth have died from gun violence in Chicago, a direct manifestation of the scientific (and racialized) organization of poverty upon the New Afrikan mass in the city and across the empire.
CAARPR, FRSO and many of these other opportunists would not even dare organize the poor and nationally-oppressed where they are concentrated, holding mobilization after mobilization that go nowhere, away from the poor masses, not conducting social investigation into the daily lives of poor and disabled people (let alone youth), and taking the time to fuse the general revolutionary line with the particular conditions, issues and demands faced by the proletarian and disenfranchised masses currently under attack by the decaying fascist U.S. empire.
They serve capitulation and affirming the arms of the capitalists in the name of “revolution,” of mere reform, and quasi-proletarian politics that is anti-militant in nature, and the martyrdom of Alfonso Wright in his own living facility shows, once again, their sheer failure in the name of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
All Charges Dropped Against 7 UMich Diag Protesters
State A.G. Dana Nessel announced early Monday morning the dropping of all charges against 7 protesters for Palestinian liberation (all students) from their school’s encampment held last year. The seven people were kangaroo-charged with “trespassing” and resisting against the pigs after the mass destruction of UMich’s encampment for Palestine on the university’s Ann Arbor campus last May.
Previously pleading not guilty, the plea was set in stone as of this morning, with A.G. Nessel calling the charges “diversionary” and a circus in proceedings, a waste of tax money and resources (funnily enough given they’re on Anishanaabe land).
Another factor was a letter sent by the allies of the protestors from Ann Arbor’s Jewish Federation to the courts in defense of Nessel in response to selacious accusations of her “bias” towards Muslims and Arabs.
The TAHRIR Coalition, a conglomerate of dozens of UMich student groups in solidarity with Palestine, made a statement on their Instagram immediately after the announcement was made of charges dropping, stating the decision is “what happens when we resist, and refuse to cower.”
NYU Law Students Win Landslide Victory Securing Their Right to Final Exams Amidst Repression
Law students at New York University banded together and secured their right to protest and permitted final exams for the end of the academic year, a crushing blow to the capitalist academic apparatus of NYU repressing the student, faculty, and working masses against protesting in solidarity with Palestine.
NYU administration have attempted to suppress and silence 31 law student demonstrators with a ban from campus unless they “complied” with the “Use of Space Agreement” in an attempt to violate their right to protest on campus, no matter how disruptive it may be.
In turn, the 31 law students exposed the contradictions within their administration’s message, referring to the school’s Guidance and Expectations of Student Conduct in which one of the guidelines explicitly mentioned “peaceful protest,” clearly showing the NYU administration stopping at nothing to coerce students into submission and docileness against fighting for Palestine.
The victory of the law students’ permittance to campus and final exams reverberates across the growing student and youth offensive against the Trump administration and the U.S., in their escalated witch-hunts against free speech and nationally-oppressed, immigrant young people, revoking student visas, detaining youth organizers, and weaponizing their university administrations to carry out the work of the imperialists from within.
Although fully permitted their right to protest and academic exams, the 31 law students are still fighting NYU administration’s charge of “personae non grata” and other disciplinary measures enforced upon them.
Global Food Prices Surge Amid Trump’s Tariff War
The recent inter-imperialist tariff war, initiated by Trump and Co., has increased food costs worldwide, to the very detriment of the oppressed masses of the world.
Food products including cereals, dairy, and meat are soaring in prices, with a reported 2.4% and 3.2% increase for daily and meat, respectively. It may not seem much, but in the state of decaying imperialism, it has created sheer insecurity for the average poor person, specially in the Global South.
In Palestine, a single bag of flour costs a whopping $500U.S., in large part due to the genocide of Palestinians and destruction of their land by the Zionist state of Israel and their American and E.U. buddies.
Trump, suspending reciprocal tariffs, has created a domino effect within the world imperialist economy. The increase in food prices worldwide is not in isolation from imperialism; it is a material development of the crises within imperialism, including social-imperialist Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (in collaboration with Zelensky and Co.) and social-imperialist China’s growing war with American imperialists on top of the recent tariff war, increasing food insecurity for the Global South and intensified rent prices within imperialist countries.
Black Teacher and Son Racially Profiled at Universal Studios Florida
In yet another day of the U.S. empire despising New Afrikans and not leaving us alone, a Black male teacher chaperoning a group of high school seniors (including the teacher’s son) celebrating their upcoming graduation, along with other school staff and community chaperones at Universal Studios in Orlando, FL, were racially profiled by the theme park’s pigs, accused of “sneaking in” Universal with no ticket.
RUEP Calls for All Charges Dropped Against the Rutgers 4
On Tuesday 4/29, 4 Boricua students at Rutgers University were violently arrested on campus by university pigs for counter-agitation against an event held that hosted gubernatorial candidate and state rep Josh Gottheimer, a notorious Zionist who has consistently pushed for counterinsurgency against student organizing especially for Palestine.
So far, only three of those Boricuas were released, only to be outright suspended by Rutgers admin, and the fourth Boricua student involved is still in pig custody.
La Rutgers Unión Estudiantil Puertorriqueña, a Puerto Rican student union at the school, has posted a petition on their official Instagram to call for the 4th Boricua comrade to be released and all Boricuas arrested to be reinstated back to their school. They also offer a Canva template for organizations to add their logos in solidarity with the Rutgers 4.
¡PUERTO RICO Y PALESTINE LIBRE!
The Martyrdom of New Afrikan Man Christian Black by Dayton Pigs, On Camera
Two days ago, lawyers representing the family of Christian Black, a 25-year-old New Afrikan man from Zanesville, released the full surveillance footage of Black’s death on March 24th and are calling for the corrections pigs involved to be charged.
On the video, Black is seen being suffocated to death by a herd of corrections officers, with a lethal combination of mechanical and positional asphyxiation. Within the last week, the 10 pigs involved were placed on paid administrative leave, the same as in the murders of Timothy Glaze and Victor Perez.
Taken into custody after crashing a vehicle on Interstate 70, Black was tased, chained to a wheelchair, and later suffocated while visibly suffering a mental health crisis. Despite his resistance, the pigs’ response was terroristic and brutal.
Black’s family has expressed outrage, pointing out the failure to render immediate medical aid. After being placed on life support, Black died on March 26th. His death highlights the systemic targeting and execution of nationally-oppressed youth by the imperialist system.
International News
Headline: Long Live Victory Day
May 8, 2025, marks the 80th anniversary of Victory Day. This is not just a memorial to a distant past—it is a day to remember the anti-fascist and anti-imperialist struggles of the working class and the oppressed peoples of the world. Across Europe, in the face of brutal fascist occupation, genocide, and terror, the masses rose up, organized guerrilla resistance under the leadership of Communist Parties, and fought to liberate their countries. In the Soviet Union, under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) and great Comrade Stalin, the Red Army not only broke the back of the Nazi war machine but aided the liberation struggles of Eastern Europe and supported anti-fascist wars in Asia.
In Bulgaria, Albania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, Communist-led guerrilla armies rose from the factories, farms, and streets to drive out fascist occupiers and build worker-peasant democratic power. Though Yugoslavia later betrayed these principles under Tito’s nationalist-revisionist leadership, the armed masses of these countries showed the world that fascism can be defeated through people’s war and revolutionary leadership.
However, the struggle did not end in 1945. In Western Europe, the Communist Parties of France and Italy, under the revisionist lines of Thorez and Togliatti, surrendered the revolutionary path and handed power back to the capitalist oppressors. France and Italy were occupied not by fascists alone, but by U.S. and British imperialism, who installed their own puppet regimes and crushed the hopes of socialist revolution.
Victory Day teaches us that fascism is not just a historical event, but a living danger bred by capitalism in crisis. So long as capitalism and imperialism exist, fascism will return again and again in new forms. To truly honor the martyrs of the anti-fascist struggle, we must organize today’s battles: in our schools, our workplaces, and our streets—fighting police repression, imperialist war, settler-colonialism, and capitalist dictatorship.
On this 80th Victory Day, commemorations are taking place in many countries. But the greatest way to commemorate is to carry forward the anti-fascist struggle. Organize. Resist. Fight to win.
France’s Revolutionary Youth Lead True Victory Day Celebrations Across the Country
While the French state holds its official, sanitized ceremonies alongside military and political dignitaries, revolutionary youth and anti-fascist organizations across France marked May 8th, Victory Day, with mass political action, historical remembrance, and renewed calls for anti-fascist struggle.
Celebrations Rooted in the People’s Legacy
Far from the empty speeches and polished optics of the state, these grassroots celebrations reaffirmed that Victory Day belongs to the masses who shed blood to crush fascism and imperialist war. From Strasbourg to Rennes, revolutionaries reminded all that it was the working people of the Soviet Union, the communist partisans of Europe, and the colonized peoples of the world who paid the price for the defeat of fascism.
Strasbourg: Defending the Anti-Fascist Legacy
In Strasbourg, the Revolutionary Youth League united with organizations including the student union FSE, anti-fascist group Jeune Garde, the Union for Communist Reconstruction, and the youth group YDG. They marched to Wodli Park, named after Georges Wodli, a Communist Party leader martyred after resisting Nazi occupation.
There, they denounced the government’s attempt to dissolve Jeune Garde and honored Wodli’s sacrifice with red carnations, a moment of silence, and revolutionary songs—turning memory into a living act of resistance.
Limoges: Revolutionary Education in Action
In Limoges, young revolutionaries gathered for a political training session on the history of local anti-Nazi resistance. They concluded the day with a demonstration, raising their fists and waving USSR flags to salute the victory of the Soviet peoples and the working class worldwide.
Aix-en-Provence: Honoring the Worker-Combatant
The Young Communists 13 in Aix opened their space to the public under the slogan:
“Against the occupier and the bosses, long live the workers’ resistance!”
They paid tribute to Ernest Prados, a worker and communist who gave his life for the liberation of Aix-en-Provence.
Grenoble: Street-Level Revolutionary Propaganda
In Grenoble, militant graffiti appeared across the city celebrating the legacy of the Francs-Tireurs Partisans Main d’Oeuvre Immigrée (FTP-MOI). Slogans read:
- “Glory to the communist heroes who crushed fascism in 1945! Long live the FTP-MOI!”
- “Long live the victory of socialism over fascism! Long live the USSR! Long live May 8!”
Toulouse: Linking Past Struggles to the Present
In Toulouse, revolutionaries hosted both a commemoration event and a screening of the documentary “A l’assaut du ciel” reflecting on the Popular Front period, drawing lessons for today’s fight.
Rennes: Mass March and Revolutionary Culture
In Rennes, around a hundred people marched to the Butte de la Maltière, the execution site of 76 resistance fighters, including 25 communists. Following the march, participants engaged in a training session on anti-fascism in Turkey and gathered for a solidarity meal for 70 guests.
The following day, revolutionaries organized a screening of The Battle of Algiers, drawing attention to France’s colonial massacres in Sétif, Guelma, and Kherrata—reminding all that the fight against fascism extends to the fight against colonialism.
Victory Day Is a Call to Struggle
Across France, these commemorations served as a declaration that the struggle against fascism is far from over. As imperialist powers attempt to rewrite history, ban organizations, and suppress resistance, revolutionary youth continue to carry forward the legacy of May 8—not as a static memory, but as a living, fighting tradition.
Long live the anti-fascist resistance! Long live revolutionary youth! Long live May 8!
Photo from: La Cause du Peuple
Brazil: Natural Resources are handed over to Chinese Social- Imperialism
Photo from: A Nova Democracia
On May 12, 2025, the Brazilian government officially announced the handover of key national resources to Chinese social-imperialism, further entrenching Brazil’s role as a neocolonial supplier for the BRICS bloc, dominated by the expansionist interests of China and Russia.
The latest concessions include wind farms, mining operations, and other strategic sectors, sold off to serve the profits of imperialist monopolies disguised as “partnerships” under the BRICS framework. While these projects are presented as “development” by the Brazilian state, in reality they deepen dependency, destroy peasant livelihoods, and intensify exploitation of land and labor.
Resistance Emerges in Pernambuco
In response, peasants, workers, and communities have taken bold action to resist these colonial projects. In Pernambuco, communities have occupied the headquarters of ADEPE (Agência de Desenvolvimento Econômico de Pernambuco), demanding the cancellation of several wind farm projects that have displaced rural populations and devastated local ecosystems.
The protests denounce these projects as fraudulent “green” capitalism that masks environmental destruction and land theft behind a facade of renewable energy. Demonstrators demand justice for displaced communities, land reform, and an end to the exploitation of Brazil’s natural wealth by foreign and comprador elites.
Read more about the ADEPE occupation here.
The Agrarian Revolution Advances
Across Brazil, peasants organized through revolutionary movements continue to carry out the Great Agrarian Revolution, seizing land and organizing self-governance in defense of their rights and the environment. As imperialist capital pushes deeper into the countryside, the contradictions sharpen, further fueling the revolutionary movement.
These events reveal the true nature of BRICS—not as a bloc of “developing nations,” but as a tool for imperialist powers like China and Russia to expand their control over the Global South through neocolonial partnerships with local ruling classes.
As the estate problem worsens, the agrarian revolution will only deepen, and the peasantry will remain at the forefront of the fight to defend land, sovereignty, and national dignity.
Further Resources:
Columbia: Colombian Government Announces Deep Cuts to Social Programs as Crisis Sharpens
On May 13, 2025, the Colombian government announced sweeping reductions to social funding, affecting millions of workers, students, and peasants across the country. These cuts impact critical sectors such as education, housing, health care, and social insurance, deepening the economic hardship faced by Colombia’s poor and working-class people.
Social Programs Gutted
Among the changes announced:
- The “Colombia Without Hunger” food program is being eliminated and replaced with cooperative loans, shifting responsibility onto already impoverished communities.
- Student interest subsidies have been abolished, adding new financial burdens on working-class students.
- Housing subsidies have been slashed from 50,000 to 20,500, making it even harder for poor families to access stable housing.
Meanwhile, the government continues to prioritize debt payments to international financial institutions and military spending, reinforcing its commitment to a neo-liberal economic model that sacrifices social welfare for the interests of capital and imperialist creditors.
Crisis Rooted in the System, Not Just Policy
These measures are not just the result of bad leadership or political rivalry—they are the logical result of a capitalist system that has, since the foundation of the Colombian state, served landlords, big capitalists, and imperialist interests. The current crisis is structural, not accidental.
Resistance Will Rise
Faced with rising poverty and worsening inequality, mass struggles are expected to intensify, particularly among the peasantry, workers, and students. Movements that have already been growing in Colombia’s countryside—demanding land, food, and justice—will only deepen as the state accelerates attacks on the people’s livelihoods.
The line is clear:
The people must not bear the burden of the state’s crisis.
The solution lies in mass struggle and organization, not in false promises of reform.
Greece: Get Organized to Face the Repression
The Mitsotakis government has launched a new offensive against students and workers under the guise of “reforming” public education. On the table is the implementation of a comprehensive teacher evaluation system, designed not to improve education, but to discipline teachers, crush student organizing, and turn schools into factories of obedience to imperialism.
Teacher Targeted for Refusing to Obey
For the first time in decades, a teacher is facing dismissal for refusing to carry out the government’s anti-people policies. Chrysa Chotzoglou, a teacher who refused to participate in the evaluation system, is now being threatened with termination. This marks an escalation not only against teachers’ rights, but against the right of students and workers to resist state repression.
The government’s goal is clear: force educators to comply, silence dissent in the schools, and prepare the youth ideologically for imperialist war, in service of the interests of NATO, the EU, and U.S. imperialism.
An Attack on All Working People
As KKE (m-l) correctly points out, these attacks are not isolated to the education sector. They are part of a broader effort to force Greek society to submit to the ruling class and its preparations for new wars and economic exploitation. The oppression of teachers and students today is a warning to all working people of the repression to come.
Call to Organize and Resist
KKE (m-l) calls on the people of Greece to stand with the teachers, the students, and the workers. The fight against the teacher evaluation system, against layoffs and punishment, must become a fight of all the people. Only through mass, organized resistance can the working people of Greece defend their rights and resist the imperialist plans of their government.
Get organized. Resist repression. Fight for a future without imperialist war and capitalist exploitation.
Resources: https://www.kkeml.gr/ps984/ypothesi-oloy-toy-laoy-i-amesi-maziki-antistasi/
Kurdistan: THE PKK LAYS DOWN ARMS—THE DEAD END OF ARMED REVISIONISM
Yesterday, after decades of armed struggle, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) formally announced it was laying down its arms, dissolving its guerrilla forces, and seeking “peaceful democratic integration” with the Turkish Republic. This is not a victory, it is surrender. And it confirms a lesson already written in history: without proletarian leadership, armed struggle ends not in revolution, but in liquidation.
The PKK ended its struggle under the slogan: “Long live the brotherhood of the Turkish and Kurdish peoples.” Yet as Communist Ibrahim Kaypakkaya warned long ago, this slogan is a fraud. “The slogan of the brotherhood of peoples is a bourgeois-liberal trick from the very beginning! First, full equality of rights—then, the brotherhood of peoples.” The PKK abandons the field with no victory, no equality, and no liberation for the Kurdish nation, only empty words that mask defeat.
For years, much of the Turkish left attached itself to the PKK, politically, militarily, and ideologically. Revolutionary organizations failed to draw a clear line of separation.
The PKK’s capitulation exposes a crisis of dependency. The Turkish left must break this dependency, rebuild on the basis of independent struggle, and return to the path of proletarian leadership. This is not the end. It is a turning point. The road ahead for Turkish and Kurdish revolutionaries is a long and hard one.
Revolutionary Student Union 
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