Vladimir Lenin once said “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks when decades happen.” As 2024 comes to a close we can safely say that we are living in a time where decades are happening. 

The human race and the world have lived under capitalism, where bosses control all resources and use them for profit instead of humankind, for about 300 years now. History shows us that capitalism inevitably has periods of utter chaos caused by the bosses’ insatiable desire for profit. In the last century this has meant multiple World Wars. The period of United States domination is coming to a close and China and its allies are looking increasingly ready to challenge for this spot as top dog in yet another global massacre,world war. Regardless of which set of bosses wins in such a conflict, workers will die in the millions (or even billions!) and end up in the same state of exploitation as before.

That is unless we, the working class, have a fighting communist party with billions of workers capable of turning the guns of war away from workers and towards our capitalist rulers. We can then put control of the world in the hands of the working class once and for all.

2024 has been a year of building Progressive Labor Party to be that party. PLP members have been leading and standing alongside workers fighting back against attacks on our class, whether  declining conditions, increasing racism or rising fascism. And we have done this while putting communist politics first, raising class consciousness, and increasing Party membership while also expanding our base. 

Inter-imperialist rivalry 

Every day this year has seen the United States-NATO alliance and its proxies become more entangled with their rivals China and Russia, and it is becoming increasingly clear that the United States imperialists are not in control.

2024 has seen the unceasing genocide of workers in Gaza by the U.S. attack dog, Israel. Israel’s ruling class is foaming at the mouth with nationalism, racism, and visions of imperial plunder. The United States needs Israel to project its own power in the Middle East but seems to have lost control over its ally who increasingly isolates itself worldwide, while also threatening to pull countries like Iran and Lebanon into a conflict the U.S. is not prepared for. This as Syria is once again in civil war and the U. S. does not even appear to have a role, as admitted by elected capitalist stooge Donald Trump. 

In Europe the war between Russia and Ukraine continues with U.S. rival Russia slowly gaining ground (BBC, 12/6), with over 200,000 deaths and several times that amount wounded. The domestically focused small fascists (see Glossary, page 6) like Trump do not even want to continue arming Ukraine, but the big fascist imperialists, still fronted by Joe Biden, do not want to lose their international influence. They are desperately sending aid to Ukraine as fast as possible and gave Ukraine approval to use longer range U.S.-supplied missiles inside Russia. The United States’s ruling class is not even united as they lose ground in multiple continents. 

Armed conflict runs riot all over Africa. Haiti has been virtually left to gang rule. Workers in South America deal with murderous drug gangs and the fascist states vying against them for power. Rulers world wide struggle to choose between what side to choose in the developing world war. 

A year of building the Party

As the world situation deteriorates Progressive Labor Party believes that no set of bosses: not the U.S. bosses, not the Chinese bosses, not the Israeli bosses or Hamas, not the Republicans or the Democrats, are any kind of solution for the working class. Every day we must be organizing with workers out in the streets, at our jobs and in mass organizations to build working class fightback and build this Party! 2024 has been a year of doing just that.

PLP stood with workers and students all over the United States and protested the genocide in Gaza. PL’ers led marches, distributed thousands of CHALLENGES, and held teach-ins and cadre schools. We fought back when teachers who taught students about the genocide were fired. When workers and students held encampments in universities across the country, PL’ers were there. We fought alongside workers but also made the point that workers cannot allow themselves to be won toward nationalism of any stripe as world war approaches. 

Party organizers and friends helped lead and were present for the strike wave that occurred all over the United States and the world. While we have consistently been involved in labor struggles such as those of transit workers in DC, PLP organizers and friends must struggle to further enmesh ourselves in these struggles and push for a communist understanding of labor fightback, along with calling for better wages or benefits for workers.

We have fought back against the bosses’ infectious racism. From supporting Kingsborough Community College (KCC) students organizing against anti-Arab racism, to demonstrating in Springfield against anti-Haitian racist propaganda, to standing with tenants fighting racist landlords in Lennox, California, the Party has consistently prioritized the fight against racism. Whether it’s marking 555 days of fightback for justice for Tyrone West, or keeping the memory of Alex Flores, Shantel Davis, and too many others alive, our dedication remains strong in the protracted struggle to build a classless, antiracist, and antisexist society under the communist banner of the PLP.

The election of Donald Trump shows that gutter racism remains one of the bosses’ most effective tools and only a communist party committed to the fight will be able to defeat racism. 

Two standout moments this year were of course when we stood side by side with PL’ers, friends of the Party and workers at May Day and when the Party went to Chicago to join in the protests against the Democratic National Convention. While these demonstrations and large gatherings of friends and comrades help reinvigorate us we must also remind ourselves throughout the year that we should always be pushing to bring more workers to May Day to show them that workers can be won over to communism. We must always be showing workers that voting for any politician is a vote for our own oppressors. 

A step toward fascism

Fascism is the unconcealed use of state power by the capitalist state and its allies to attack workers and their movements. Bosses use fascism when their “democratic” system doesn’t get them what they want. While the election of Donald Trump will likely usher in new fascist policies such as using the military to detain and deport millions of immigrant workers, fascism was already on the rise regardless before he was elected. With inter-imperialist rivalry heating up the U.S. bosses know that China and its allies have a clear advantage in that they have a more disciplined and obedient working class and a united ruling class. The U.S. bosses will continue to ramp up fascist policies as their sham democracy fails to preserve their empire. 

In 2024 we saw the bosses use the police to tear down the encampments of workers protesting genocide, quietly set up “cop cities” across the country, murder workers like Murod Kurdi, Jean Carlos Martinez Rivero, Win Rozario, Sonya Massey, and Samuel Sharpe, and are threatening to cut funding (taken from workers pockets!) to healthcare and education. It is important to remember that these are conditions that workers around the world, and many in the United States, are already exposed to on a daily basis because fascism is baked into capitalism. Fascism will only increase as World War III approaches, climate catastrophe heats up, and other capitalist-created crises emerge. 

2025: Year of the working class

We must dedicate ourselves more than ever to building the Party and adapting to new fascist conditions in the new year. If we are going to be victorious when the bosses try to send hundreds of millions of workers to their deaths during a new world war and climate disasters, we must expose the capitalist snakes for who they are and mobilize workers into fighting for their own class. Here’s to 2025, a year of the working class! Join PLP!

Public transportation is the life blood of every major city globally, and millions depend on it. It is also a major employer of Black workers who make up about 40 percent of the U.S. transit industry, and 47 percent here in New York City (Gothamist, 2/28/23).

Racist transit bosses can't fix subway

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)’s New York City Transit fare has risen to $2.90, as a way for the transit bosses to gouge more money from workers. Which isn’t only a racist attack on workers by harassing and profiling Black and Latin workers, but it also stands as a method to divide transit workers and the ridership. This method has led to the anger towards this capitalist system to be directed at transit workers. When capitalism is in crisis, the ruling class has no real answer to the racist unemployment, lack of housing, mental health, and drug addiction ailments their system creates. In response to the bosses’ lack of safety after a conductor was brutally slashed in the neck, train operators and conductors stuck back by refusing to operate their trains in February, causing mass service disruptions on several subway lines for a day (New York Times, 2/29)!

Union hangs workers to dry

The bosses used their state power to deploy 1,000 state police and National Guard to patrol the subway in response to these anti-social attacks (Politico, 3/7).The Transportation Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 saw this as a victory and requested more cops to patrol the platforms in the stations. This has only led to more attacks on our class. In September, transit cops shot four people in a Brooklyn subway station over a Black worker not paying $2.90. One of the bystanders shot now has permanent brain damage. This proves two things: when workers want safety, the bosses will only use that safety to protect their rule and the racist cops they claim are here to protect are prepared to kill workers to protect that rule.

The transit union has a long history of leading workers into the bosses’ hands, which is the path into further poverty. Our current contract has left us with 3 percent raises which don't keep up with inflation and a new way to deduct money from workers if they are sick and want to work overtime, but worst of all they have changed our medical insurance once we retire. Medicare Advantage is what the bosses have instituted to replace traditional Medicare. Medicare Advantage leaves retired workers paying more into their medical with hidden fees. The workers now are also the majority under Tier 6 which  caps what we can earn towards our pensions. On top of all of this, many of us in different departments have had our overtime cut, and there has been a surge of non-unionized subcontract workers doing the jobs that were once ours.

Direct engagement with workers

I have recently joined with a union opposition candidate running for union president against the current leadership. I’m trying to see how I can use this as a way to organize workers to strike back and  hopefully fight for a communist revolution. 

Running against the TWU union leadership  has reminded me of lessons from past struggles I've learned:  No one running for union president can be trusted. If you're choosing to fight back, you can't leave anything for the union or bosses to use against you. Working with the aspiring union leadership makes workers question your motives, but campaigning has offered an opportunity to organize the workers.

Over the course of the last 7 years all these attacks and struggles had been slow and frustrating. Our transit comrades have been base building and struggling with other workers to take action. As our union election comes to an end we have been bringing our line to the forefront of organizing by incorporating the U.S. presidential election result. Stating to the workers that the ruling class only cares about their interests and they will use us however to achieve their goals however wins. Which is the same for this union election. 

We are in a great position now to organize the workers. This will be the first anti racist anti sexist transit worker meeting with over 40 members willing to join. The plan is to start in one department and bring all the other departments close to a dozen into the fold, sharing information, struggles and actions! This is very inspiring and exciting and it's only the beginning. 

I've been going out to different quarters collecting names and numbers of workers willing to fight back by starting  workers’ meetings. I've gotten close to 40 contacts so far, with the enthusiasm ranging from “I don't give a f***” attitude to “Thanks for bringing the hope.” Many workers are very cynical and  don't trust me, at least not until I give them a reason to. I've told them that these meetings will be built on antiracism and antisexism with the purpose of getting strike ready. I've told the candidate who I’m campaigning for  that during our campaigning we need to fight for the workers now and not wait until later. She said,”We Can't do anything until we get into power.” Spoken like a true scheming boss. So I've made it a point to tell the workers it doesn't matter who wins this election; if we're not organized, then we’ve already lost. The election results are due back by the end of the month. Worker meetings will kick off in January. I'll keep y’all updated. Power to the working class!

NYC, December 1 – Trump was elected in large part, on the promise of carrying out mass deportations of migrant workers and their families, refugees seeking some safety from terrorists, civil wars, climate disasters, drug cartels and more. Basically, seeking higher ground from the perils of imperialist rivalries. While Obama and Biden have carried out their own mass deportations, and Biden and Harris sealed the border and told refugees, “Don’t come here,” Trump’s “America First” campaign of open racism and xenophobia won the votes of more than 75 million people, a big goose-step on the road to fascism straight out of Hitler’s playbook. 

This affects us all directly, from high school teachers and students, college students and professors, workers on almost every job.  Every Progressive Labor Party collective must prepare to confront mass deportations and the use of the military with international solidarity, boldness, and bravery in the face of fascist terror.  This is “how the steel is tempered.”

Small Fascist Trump to out-goosestep Obama’s deportation plan?

Trump appointed Tom Homan as "border czar" and Stephen Miller as his deputy chief of staff. These two were the architects of Trump’s previous family separation policy, which involved tearing children away from their families at the border. This time, they are promising to cancel the temporary protected status for millions of immigrants from Haiti and Afghanistan, and use the National Guard to carry out mass arrests of immigrants, confining them in military camps as part of an "historic deportation operation." Although he once proposed ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which protects young people brought to the United States, Trump—both a Small Fascist and a big hypocrite—claims he is open to working with Democrats to preserve the law, even as he threatens to overturn birthright citizenship. This would mean that children of immigrant or migrant workers born in the U.S. would no longer automatically receive citizenship (AP News, 12/9).

Recently my union, the National Writers Union (NWU), set up a committee to respond to these threats, based on what we were able to do during Trump’s first term. Back then journalists covering the border crisis in Mexico had their devices seized and copied before being allowed to return to the U.S. NWU organized an International Committee and sent members directly into the fight. At the time we were in UAW Region 9A, and this became an issue among its 45,000 members. The UAW leadership tried to get in front of this and decided to subsidize travel for any member who wanted to go to the border to help in the crisis. 

Labor united against anti-immigrant racism 

We worked closely with New Sanctuary City and participated in escorting workers to their asylum hearings, helping to fill out asylum applications, and took part in mass rallies to close the immigrant detention centers and stop deportations. When Trump threatened to target sanctuary cities, NWU convened a meeting of representatives from ten unions, including RWDSU, LiUNA, 32BJ, PSC, NYSNA, 1199 and others to develop a labor rapid response to any mass roundups in NYC. We are going to try to renew and expand this work to Los Angeles, Tucson, and Springfield, Ohio, raising the issue within other local unions and Central Labor Councils. 

Some Party collectives are already immersed in mass organizations doing this kind of work. We can all learn from them. Every Party collective must develop a plan, a way to respond to the coming crisis. The workers are not going to roll over and play dead for Trump, he is in for a fight. The more we are involved in this struggle, leading with our revolutionary politics, the more we can build PLP and become more of a force in the class struggle. All hands on deck!

CHICAGO, November 16 - “I will build for revolution by fighting racism.” “I will build for revolution by fighting for unions to be led by communists.” These were a couple of the pledges that workers shared during the conclusion of our annual Bolshevik Revolution celebration this evening in a local fieldhouse. This event celebrated the first time in history where workers, with communist leadership, seized state power from the capitalist class in the year 1917. Its monumental impact spread far and wide, as other workers around the world were inspired to rise up and fight back. We are still seeing the inspiration and power of the Bolshevik Revolution today and carry on its revolutionary fight through the international communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP). 

Revolutionary lessons, past and present

It was an inspiring program, kicked off with a comrade reading the classic poem “Good Morning, Revolution” from communist artist Langston Hughes. Next came a skit where Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin was transported to the present day to offer advice to youth on the daily work and discipline needed to build the mass movement for revolution.

We heard about historical class struggle inspired by the Bolshevik Revolution, including when soldiers refused to continue fighting for the German imperialists as well as an uprising by workers in Egypt that won them independence from British colonial rule. There were enthusiastic table discussions about inspiring collective action that workers had taken part in. Young workers who happened to be passing through the fieldhouse after a nearby event even stopped to check out the program, liking what they heard!

Workers come together for fightback 

Comrades who have been facing censorship in the American Public Health Association for speaking out about the genocide in Gaza did a report back on their bold action during this this year’s conference (see CHALLENGE, 11/27). Led by comrades from the PLP, workers from across the country organized to protest outside the convention and march through the convention hall. Other workers who happened to be in the hall were inspired to join the march. Workers are ready to join a movement that will fight back. These comrades showed our fellow workers that following the bosses’ rules will never achieve anything meaningful and the importance of banding together with other workers.

With attacks on workers from all sides and the ruling class moving us closer to an imperialist war, the lessons of the Bolshevik Revolution and knowing what workers taking state power can accomplish are more important than ever. In their keynote speech, a veteran PL’er offered wisdom and inspiration:

“I want to focus on the beauty of revolution. Many times we think about death, destruction, misery, or pain and yes, that’s a part of it but it’s what we do it for. Why would we go through such a thing and the Bolshevik Revolution showed us. The aftermath of that revolution showed us what a glimpse of what the world could be if the working class was in power under communist principles and leadership.”

“Women were given the right to divorce. Racism was outlawed in the Soviet Union. They created new art forms to promote pro working-class culture. The Bolsheviks focused on unifying the workers. We have to commit ourselves to rebuilding the only movement that can get our class free, a communist movement, a movement led by Progressive Labor Party that will get our class liberated from the terror, from the genocide, from the racism, from the sexism of global capitalism. The capitalists are taking our world to hell in a handbasket and there is not a lesser evil. That means we have to commit ourselves to be the alternative. We have to join Progressive Labor Party if we are not in it yet and if you are in it, we have to recommit ourselves to building an army to take state power once again, so that our class can once again experience the beauty of communist revolution.” 

Communist culture inspires the masses

We capped off our celebration by singing the communist anthem “The Internationale,” which got the multiracial crowd of workers and youth on their feet. While the racist bosses want to spread fear and division among the international working class, we communists want to spread revolutionary culture that motivates the masses to unite, stand up and fight back – Join us!