PERIODICO EN ESPA Ñ OL ADENTRO
CHALLENGE
THE REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNIST NEWSPAPER OF PROGRESSIVE LABOR PARTY
Volume 54 No. 25 December 14, 2022 suggested donation $1
JOIN THE INTERNATIONAL FIGHT FOR COMMUNIST REVOLUTION
H Editorial Midterms mask liberal fascist
agenda..p2
H Boston Communists provide leadership
for public health..p3
H CHICAGO Over a century of communist
celebrations ..p6
H rED analysis Big fascists discipline Ye...
p8
BROOKLYN, NY—“What if PLP takes power
and not everyone wants to live without money right
away?” “If communism outlaws racism, how are
laws enforced under communism?”
These were some questions our multiracial Progressive
Labor Party (PLP) student study group’s
new comrades and attendees asked and discussed
following our march against the racist KCC (Kingsborough
Community College) campus police, administration,
and the NYPD (New York Police Department).
PLP and students are fighting them to
drop the charges against Adrian, a student tackled
by campus police, after being harassed by a racist
student using the n-word (see CHALLENGE, 11/30).
Since then, the students have received a crash
course in racist capitalism’s state power. Since our
last article, instead of dismissing and dropping
charges against the student tackled by campus police,
KCC is pursuing allegations made by the racist
student and charging two student leaders with violating
CUNY’s (City University of New York) “Henderson
Rules of Public Order,” threatening penalties
up to suspension or expulsion. This is another
example in a long line of liberal and reform institutions
siding with racism instead of the working
class.
For the capitalists, militant antiracist fightback
is the true “crime.” As punishment, for three weeks
students have faced combined attacks, from daily
campus police harassment, to the lying of president
Claudia V. Schrader, and confusing disinformation
from the various campus administrative offices.
This pattern of racist harassment shows why
this fight is about more than dropping Adrian’s
charges. If we lose this struggle, campus police will
feel free to harass, assault and beat up ANY student
they want.
Despite these attacks —or because of them—
the antiracist club Common Ground has seen over
100 students express interest. Leadership of a core
of militant, Black, Asian and immigrant women
and men leadership is emerging. This growth under
sharpening external attack has sharpened internal
debates, and members and friends of the Progressive
Labor Party (PLP) have encouraged making
time for addressing important questions. Rich exchanges
that began over tactics and strategy have
widened into debates over reform versus revolution,
with the ultimate question of confidence in
the international working class at the heart of it all.
No more racist harassment!
As friends and students began joining us in
greater numbers and gathering daily in the cafeteria,
the campus police decided to brazenly harass
those fighting back. On November 9, a half dozen
campus police surrounded a group of club members
and their friends, one of whom was bouncing
a green foam ball while sitting (see “Exhibit A”) and
was told “this is not a playground,” and “the ball
constitutes a public safety threat.” To everyone’s
shock, campus officers then declared that all students
who do not have class at the moment must
exit campus immediately. The students sat defiantly
and remained.
The following week, students were sitting and
enjoying music through a speaker when another
half dozen campus officers surrounded them, telling
them “playing any music is banned on campus.”
This time, the students stood up together and
confronted the police shoulder to shoulder. The
campus police then repeated that everyone needs
to go home and stated “it’s time for an ID check, as
CUNY students you automatically are subject to
them” even though IDs are already checked at the
Exhibit A: the dangerous "public safety threat," a foam ball.
Exhibit B: students resist racist "ID check" and force campus police to retreat.
THE FIGHT CONTINUES
KCC students fight
racist attacks
Continued on page 5
page 2 • CHALLENGE • December 14, 2022
OUR FIGHT Editorial
PProgressive Labor Party (PLP) fights to
destroy capitalism and the dictatorship of the
capitalist class. We organize workers, soldiers
and youth into a revolutionary movement for
communism.
PThe dictatorship of the working class —
communism—can provide a lasting solution to
the disaster that is today’s world for billions of
people. This cannot be done through electoral
politics, but requires a revolutionary movement
and a mass Red Army led by PLP.
PWorldwide capitalism, in its relentless drive
for profit, inevitably leads to war, fascism,
poverty, disease, starvation and environmental
destruction. The capitalist class, through its
state power — governments, armies, police,
schools and culture — maintains a dictatorship
over the world’s workers. The capitalist
dictatorship supports, and is supported by, the
anti-working-class ideologies of racism, sexism,
nationalism, individualism and religion.
PWhile the bosses and their mouthpieces
claim “communism is dead,” capitalism is the
real failure for billions worldwide. Capitalism
returned to Russia and China because socialism
retained many aspects of the profit system, like
wages and privileges. Russia and China did not
establish communism.
PCommunism means working collectively
to build a worker-run society. We will abolish
work for wages, money and profits. While
capitalism needs unemployment,
communism needs everyone to contribute and
share in society’s benefits and burdens.
PCommunism means abolishing racism and
the concept of “race.” Capitalism uses racism to
super-exploit Black, Latin, Asian and indigenous
workers, and to divide the entire working
class.
PCommunism means abolishing the special
oppression of women— sexism—and divisive
gender roles created by the class society.
PCommunism means abolishing nations and
nationalism. One international working class,
one world, one Party.
PCommunism means that the minds of millions
of workers must become free from religion’s
false promises, unscientific thinking and
poisonous ideology. Communism will triumph
when the masses of workers can use the science
of dialectical materialism to understand, analyze
and change the world to meet their needs
and aspirations.
PCommunism means the Party leads every
aspect of society. For this to work, millions of
workers — eventually everyone — must become
communist organizers. Join Us!
CONTACT US
Email
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Mail
Box 808 GPO, Brooklyn, NY 11202
Online
www.plp.org
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December 14, 2022•Volume 54 No. 25
WHO WRITES
FOR CHALLENGE?
CHALLENGE is for the working class, produced
by the working class. The fact that CHALLENGE/
PLP articles are not signed grows from
PLP’s criticism of the cult of the individual in the
former socialist Soviet Union and China. We do
not want to encourage the possibility of building
up a “following” around any particular individual.
While an article may be written by one person,
the final version is based on collective discussion
and criticism. Many times this collective
discussion even precedes an individual’s writing
of an article.
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. www.plp.org PO Box 808, Brooklyn, NY 11202
In capitalist societies, elections like the recent U.S.
midterms serve two critical purposes for the bosses.
First, they resolve disagreements within the ruling class
before the need to resort to violence. Second, they help
to mask the true nature of the profit system—a capitalist
dictatorship—and to keep workers tied to that system
with the illusion that they can decide how it works.
The fallout from the November 8 elections reveals
that ruling-class disputes—both within the U.S. and
among the globe’s imperialist rivals—are becoming
less and less controllable. The insurrection in Washington
in January 2021 was a sign of things to come. As the
U.S. economy deteriorates, as bosses in China continue
to rise and authorities in Russia destabilize Europe,
the U.S. bosses soon may be unable to rule in the old
way. In a desperate attempt to save their failing system,
they’ll need to turn to more open fascism as they move
toward world war.
Over 100 million workers felt compelled to cast
their votes in this capitalist dogfight, a near-historic
midterm turnout. The rotten myth of liberal democracy
remains a stubbornly powerful force. In reality, workers
have no stake in the capitalists’ fight. All bosses
routinely unleash racist terror on workers in the U.S.
and worldwide. All are willing to sacrifice millions of
our working-class sisters and brothers in wars to keep
their profits and power. While the bosses and their media
use lies and scare tactics to win votes for one side
or another, Progressive Labor Party (PLP) has been organizing
workers for over 50 years so that we can dump
every one of these fascist capitalists, fake leftist or right
wing , and run society for the needs of our class.
U.S. rulers: both factions in disarray
The election results exposed the volatility swirling
around the U.S. ruling class. The bosses’ media were
predicting a landslide victory for the Small Fascists,
the domestically oriented capitalists who are fronted
by Donald Trump and seek to organize mainly dissatisfied
white workers. But while Republicans regained a
majority of the House of Representatives, their margin
was far narrower than projected. After catering to the
erratic Trump for the last six years, the Small Fascists
are in disarray. This time around, his endorsed candidates
lost most of their high-profile elections (CNBC,
11/9). Rupert Murdoch, the Small Fascist owner of Fox
News and the Wall Street Journal, labeled Trump the
Republicans’ “Biggest Loser” (WSJ, 11/9). Meanwhile,
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a more disciplined racist
and sexist, easily won reelection. Though DeSantis
spouts the same garbage as Trump, he seems more reliably
committed to sustaining the illusion of “free and
fair” elections.
Meanwhile, the Big Fascists of finance capital,
mostly Democrats who aim to organize the multiracial
working class to fight for U.S. imperialism, retained
their slim control of the U.S. Senate. But a closer look
reveals that their position is far from secure. In House
races nationwide, Republicans outpolled Democrats by
more than three million votes (Cook, 11/9). The Democrats
lost support among Black and Latin voters (CNN,
11/9). Their Racist-in-Chief, Joe Biden, is 80 years old
and without a clear-cut successor for the presidential
election in 2024.
China and Russia: more
advanced fascism
By contrast to the disunity and dysfunction of the
U.S. ruling class, China President Xi Jinping deals ruthlessly
with renegade bosses or workers who step out
of line. He routinely expels members of China’s fake
“Communist” Party. In 2021, three of the largest Chinese
tech companies were investigated for “graft.” After
Alibaba chairman Jack Ma took issue with the state’s
criticized financial regulations, he was temporarily
blocked from putting his company on the Chinese
stock market (Washington Post, August 2021).
In Russia, critics of Vladimir Putin tend to end up
in jail or dead. In August, when Lukoil chairman and
Ukraine war critic Ravil Maganov reportedly fell from a
hospital window, he became the eighth Russian energy
executive to die ‘mysteriously’ this year (CNBC, 9/2).
Both Xi and Putin understand that they must impose
rigid discipline on the ruling class to maintain fascist
control over the working class.
“Protecting democracy”
= building fascism
In the U.S., as the Big Fascists prepare for World War
III against their imperialist arch-rivals, they are doing
what they can to convince a broad section of the working
class to join a mass patriotic movement. After failing
to guarantee women’s right to abortion, they used
the Supreme Court’s sexist decision to overturn Roe
v. Wade to convince angry workers to vote for Democrats.
Moreover, the Big Fascists unleashed the FBI to
investigate the 2021 attack on the Capitol and the Jan.
6 Committee to charge at least 955 people in one of the
most documented crimes in history (Insider, 11/22).
This same legal beast will also be used on progressive
fighters against capitalism.
Not only that, their pleas to “save democracy” from
Trump and the Small Fascists drew millions to the voting
booths in November, resulting in the second highest
midterm turnout among 18-to-29-year-olds over
the last 30 years (The Hill, 11/9). Always ready to hide
their racism behind identity politics, they are bragging
about the record number of Muslim candidates elected
(Guardian, 11/26). These maneuvers represent a deadly
trap for workers!
The Big Fascist liberals aren’t the lesser of two
evils—they’re the greater evil. From Bill Clinton to Barack
Obama to Jim Crow Joe Biden, Democrats are the
architects of racist mass deportations and racist mass
incarceration. They’ve deployed racist drone bombings
across Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. Behind
their crocodile tears and phony shows of compassion,
they are callous mass murderers.
There is no lesser evil;
fight for communism!
For the international working class and the revolutionary
communist Progressive Labor Party, the chaos
engulfing the U.S. ruling class is both a great danger
and an enormous opportunity. The bosses will continue
to fight among themselves and ensnare millions of
workers who are won to support one side or the other.
But we also have the opportunity to show that capitalism
offers us nothing but death and destruction—and
that workers have a communist alternative. It’s an opportunity
to point out that voting for one lying, racist
politician or another every two or four years has nothing
to do with real political power.
Workers will gain real power only when they smash
the profit system and control every aspect of society,
as they did after the two great revolutions of the 20
century. In the Soviet Union and China, politics was
part of everyday life. Workers made historic advances
in healthcare and education without ever going to the
polls. They created a new society without campaign
slogans or political stooges and parasites. Unfortunately,
the Soviet and Chinese communist parties kept
facets of capitalism, a mistake that ultimately led to
the reversal of their tremendous gains on behalf of the
working class. PLP celebrates the history of communist
achievements, recognizes past mistakes, and organizes
for a communist revolution that will sweep away capitalism
and its illusions of democracy. Join us!J
Midterms mask
liberal fascist agenda
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. www.plp.org PO Box 808, Brooklyn, NY 11202
December 14, 2022 • CHALLENGE • page 3
Boston, MA, November 30–Progressive Labor
Party (PLP) members and friends attended public
health conferences to present antiracist and communist
messages to thousands of public health
workers.
The pharmaceutical bosses and their genocidal
state once again chose to put their profit
over workers’ lives in the Covid-19 pandemic and
beyond, murdering millions of workers around the
world. Government officials, politicians, and pharmaceutical
companies have assaulted the public’s
health through racist “vaccine apartheid,” denying
lifesaving Covid-19 vaccines to millions around
the world–specifically South Africa, where several
doses were exported to Europe (New York Times
8/16/21)- refusing reproductive health services to
women in the U.S., and spending billions on the
war in Ukraine.
We are too used to this profiteering, moneygrubbing,
capitalist system. Under communism,
not only vaccines for all, but health care for all
would be implemented immediately. Millions of
lives saved virtually immediately. But capitalism
demands profits be put first. What a sick system!
Join the fight for communism.
The American Public Health Association (APHA)
includes 25,000 members. It proclaims to be the
voice of public health but maintains strong ties to
the Democratic Party, undermining this mission.
For 40 years, Party members have presented talks,
written policies, organized demonstrations, and
succeeded in winning passage of resolutions opposing
police brutality, racist research, and imperialist
wars, and marched against ICE (Immigration
Control Enforcement). These activities have raised
the profile of PLP in APHA while creating opportunities
to meet and collaborate with other members
and struggle with them to become revolutionaries.
At this year’s conference, we continued this activity
distributing hundreds of flyers against sexism and a
special APHA CHALLENGE pamphlet urging members
to join PLP.
Policy on global vaccines
and treatment for Covid-19
This year PLP led the campaign in the APHA
to pass a policy to provide Covid-19 vaccines, tests
and treatments to the world. Over a dozen Party
members and colleagues developed a policy statement
demanding free, universal vaccination. Currently,
the drug companies that produce the vaccines
in the U.S. refuse to allow other countries to
have the technology to produce their own, leaving
many countries unable to vaccinate more than 10
percent of their populations. This not only imposes
a death sentence on people in lower income countries,
but it also endangers everyone by generating
new forms (variants) of Covid-19 that are highly
transmissible and harmful. Limiting access to medications
like Paxlovid and monoclonal antibodies
also endangers the health of our class, the working
class and increases the risk of “long Covid-19,”
a syndrome that creates severe disabilities. Meanwhile,
the U.S. government has lifted life-saving
services like moratoriums on rent and mortgages
that allow people to stay housed. The policy, “Intellectual
Property and Profits Limit Global Vaccine
Access” was passed after nine months of work with
our comrades and led to opportunities to discuss
communism, socialize and plan for the future.
Communists sharpen discussion at
alternative public health conference
The APHA failed to provide Covid-19 safety
requirements this year, so dissident members
launched the virtual People's Public Health Program.
This program opened the door to many more
revolutionary and antiracist presentations that
were not acceptable to the APHA leadership. They
are now available on YouTube.
The PLP presentation “Covid-19 Protection
NOT WAR” opposed U.S./NATO and Russian imperialism
for killing workers for profit. The presentation
denounced Joe Biden’s capitalist strategy
of supporting the war in Ukraine with $65 billion
dollars instead of supporting the global prevention
and treatment of Covid-19. The speaker called on
attendees to join PLP and the revolutionary fight
for communism. Several attendees cheered this
radical presentation and one commented: “This is
a profound question.” Debates over strategies for
revolution ensued. In contrast, the APHA leadership
supported U.S. war aims by screening a photo
of a Ukrainian soldier with his gun in the opening
session of the meeting.
Members of PanEndIt, a disability group with
which PLP works presented on equitable education
for students with disabilities and the fight to amend
Section 504 of the 1973 Disability Act. Another PLP
member described the dangerous practices promoted
by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration)
and CDC (Center for Disease Control) and the labeling
of people as mentally ill when the anxiety and
depression many people experience are normal
reactions to capitalism. The capitalists recommend
screening adults for anxiety. We say, to improve
public health, destroy capitalism!J
PLP led discussion takes on racist inequality
APHA
Communist provide leadership for public health
Berkeley, CA, November, 14— Four union
locals of the University of California striking
workers (UAW) representing 48,000 Graduate
Student and Postdoctoral workers walked out of
the 10 campuses of the University of California
(UC). This is the largest student-worker strike
in U.S. history as it enters their third week. Progressive
Labor Party (PLP) members have joined
picket lines in Berkeley and Davis - passing out
leaflets, distributing copies of CHALLENGE. We
joined about 500 workers and students who militantly
marched over a mile from 1 ½ miles from
campus to the University President’s $6.5 million
mansion in a fancy Berkeley neighborhood.
In a communist society we won’t need capitalists
who perpetually squeeze us for more work
and less pay. We don’t need the market competition
that forces our living conditions down and
down. In a communist society we can work as human
beings to provide for one another’s needs –
not for a wage.
Over the last 50 years graduate students have
taken on more and more of the undergraduate
teaching responsibilities and research while being
paid as part-timers. There are fewer future tenure
track positions to look forward to - so workers are
fighting back. This need to strike reflects the growing
crisis of capitalism worldwide as inter-imperialist
rivalry intensifies. The capitalists' moves
toward war dictate the intensifying economic and
political control of key institutions like UC.
Graduate students now teach a larger percentage
of first- and second-year undergraduate classes
and low-paid instructors teach many upper-level
ones. Full Professors now teach one graduate
course, advise doctoral students and do research.
Some beginning Academic Student Employees
have a base pay of about $23,000 for what is technically
a 20-hour work week but with preparation
and grading it ends up being 40 hours/week or
more. Then they must find time for their own studies
and research. Some departments cover graduate
student tuition and fees - for domestic students
only - which raises compensation to $37K to $40K.
They are demanding to be paid a minimum living
wage of $54K with increases tied to the spiraling
cost of housing.
Wages are the same statewide, but housing
costs are nearly double in high rent urban
areas like Berkeley and Los Angeles than in
Merced. Not to mention capitalist development
is happening internationally while the
profit-driven system and infrastructure of the
old world crumbles. This turnout on the picket
lines and the support of undergraduate students
and professors shows tremendous working
class solidarity. This type of unity illustrates
the power of the working class which could be
used to overthrow capitalism and replace it with
a worker-owned, worker-controlled communist
society. There are demands for local transportation
passes and childcare subsidies. All student
workers are demanding more support for international
students whose tuition/fees are triple or
more than domestic students. There are 10 or more
picket lines at the Berkeley campus that are being
supported by workers all over the Bay Area. Garbage
truck drivers have stopped pick-ups and UPS
drivers stopped their deliveries.
These examples of class solidarity and fightback
is a glimpse into the egalitarian world that
workers can win if we continue to fight and build
for it! Only communist leadership and learning can
get us there! J
Capitalism fails 48K striking student-workers
Students and workers band together in solidarity
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. www.plp.org PO Box 808, Brooklyn, NY 11202
page 4 • CHALLENGE • December 14, 2022
CHICAGO, November 19—Over 50 multiracial
workers and youth gathered in a local fieldhouse
for our annual October Revolution celebration,
marking the monumental seizure of power by
the working class over a century ago. For years, our
collective has held a social event in which we honor
the communist Bolshevik Party and the millions
of workers and soldiers who overthrew the capitalist
bosses across the former Russian empire.
This year’s theme was “Commit to the Working
Class.” In this temporary period of low class
consciousness and struggle, rotten capitalist ideas
such as nationalism, racism, and individualism
still hold sway. Communists need to be at the forefront
of winning workers internationally to commit
to our class interests and to build Progressive Labor
Party (PLP) as the only way to win a communist
world without capitalism’s violence and exploitation.
In 1905, the Bolsheviks took heavy losses after a
revolutionary upswing gave way to widespread oppression
from the bosses’ state. Yet, by maintaining
their resolve and rebuilding their forces, were
in a position to lead the workers to take power in a
massive country twelve years later in 1917.
Even when our working-class forces are small,
the decisions and actions that we make today
count. Events like our October Revolution celebration
are small but necessary steps that the Party
and working class must take to prepare ourselves
and grow to the level where we’re in a position to
seize power once more.
Collectivity and commitment
to the working class
Behind every well-executed event there is always
plenty of collective effort and organization
behind the scenes. Our local events committee
planned for months to develop a program that was
educational and inspirational while also interactive
and fun. Red balloons, banners with communist
slogans, inspirational quotes and revolutionary
artwork decorated the room. We made
the political decisions to encourage masking and
Covid-19 protocols to promote safety for all workers
in attendance.
To kick the event off, a comrade emcee told
some jokes and gave context about just how influential
the October Revolution was. For the first
time in history, the working class held power and
collectively organized society! Workers in areas as
far away as Mexico, India, and Vietnam gathered
valuable lessons to apply to class struggle in those
regions.
Next came another comrade with a powerful
reading of communist poet Langston Hughes’
“Good Morning, Revolution,” a fiery poem with the
message of building revolution as the best way to
fight back. This was followed by a short film clip of
the period in Russia between 1905 and 1917, highlighting
the key moments where the Bolsheviks
and the working class were able to take advantage
of a capitalist system in crisis to build their movement.
After a rousing performance of the Italian antifascist
song “Bella Ciao,” a veteran comrade inspired
many in the crowd with the keynote speech.
Throughout, he reflected on his decades of experience
committed to the Party and the working class
and how revolution is a lifelong struggle:
Being embedded in and serving the working
class is the best thing you can do with your life. The
Bolsheviks knew that as does our Party. We will have
our ups and downs, our advances and retreats, but
if you are committed to the workers, they will teach
you to have confidence in them. They will strengthen
your resolve, maintain your revolutionary optimism,
and improve your morale (see page 7 for full
speech).
We switched things up right after with our own
version of a communist game show, “Who Wants to
Be a Revolutionary?” where workers at each table
in the fieldhouse discussed among themselves the
responses to trivia about the October Revolution.
Finally, we concluded our program with the singing
of the communist anthem “The Internationale”
in Spanish and English and ended the evening
sharing a bounty of delicious food and socializing.
Communist ideas are our weapons
The capitalist bosses are powerful, but they are
not invincible. The October Revolution will always
inspire our Party and workers around the world
because it proves that it is possible for our class to
defeat our enemies and run society.
In this period, our revolutionary communist
ideas, including CHALLENGE, are our weapons.
When we commit ourselves to the working class
and antiracist, antisexist culture takes hold, a communist
future is not far off.J
Workers and PLP gather to learn from October Revolution.
The New School
Student-workers on strike vs crisis-ridden system
Remembering The October Revolution:
Over a century of communist celebrations
NEW YORK CITY, November 23—Since November
14, the union for the Part-Time Faculty
(PTF) representing 2,600 teachers ( 87 percent of
the entire faculty of the New School) has been on
strike because the administration refused to meet
their simple reasonable demands for higher wages
and better benefits. Many full-time faculty and students
quickly joined the PTFs, canceling classes
and issuing statements opposing crossing picket
lines (physical and digital).”Progressive Labor Party
(PLP) members are joining these striking workers,
bringing a strategic revolutionary message of the
need to struggle for communism.
The City University of New York’s (CUNY’s)
30,000-strong Professional Staff Congress (PSC)
that includes PLP members issued a statement of
solidarity, stating that the PSC is proud to stand
with them and urges all CUNY adjuncts to sign the
No Scab pledge. The strike is happening just two
days after 48,000 academic workers of the University
of California system launched their own strike,
and about one year after the second strike called by
graduate student workers at Columbia University
in 2021 which lasted for ten weeks before the demands
by the union were met. Adjuncts are organizing
broadly. PTFs at Howard University in Washington
D.C. faced down the administration last year
and won gains with a strike threat.
Faculty and teachers are being driven into the
ranks of the oppressed working class by capitalism’s
multiple financial crises and are fighting back.
Full-time faculty are being replaced by untenured,
precarious and low-paid professors, while at the
same time tuition and student debt has risen, all
because the U.S. ruling class aims to lower spending
on higher education. The only way forward for
these and other workers is building a movement
to overthrow the profit-hungry capitalist system
which treats teachers, other workers and students
like expendable garbage.
The New School was founded a century ago
with a progressive, social justice mission, at least
on paper. Today’s administration has abandoned
even the pretense of this mission. The university’s
negotiation team walked away from the bargaining
table, leaving a so-called “last, best and final” offer
that included a seven percent raise this year and a
2.5 percent raise in the following eight years, which
could be translated into barely 1 percent raises per
year for the incoming 9 years, not even a negligible
improvement of the low-pay situations for PTFs
given the four-year wage freeze since 2018 and today’s
all-time high inflation. The same “final offer”
gives the university unlimited authority to hike outof-
pocket costs for the health plans and cut 1/10 of
the faculty at Mannes, its music conservatory, from
the health plan altogether. The university’s offer will
perpetuate and even worsen the precarious situations
many PTFs are facing.
Today’s wave of faculty strikes may well be a historic
moment when the intensifying class war includes
proletarianized academics en masse. Shut it
down, and shut it tight! Join workers globally on the
road to communist revolution.J
Workers and Students rally for better pay for teachers.
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. www.plp.org PO Box 808, Brooklyn, NY 11202
December 14, 2022 • CHALLENGE • page 5
The following is part four of a seven-part series reprinted
and lightly edited from the communist newspaper
Daily Worker in September-October, 1932, written
by famous communist Mike Gold.
Workers here are referred to as Black instead of the
original “Negro” to reflect our antiracist principles as
well as the linguistic shifts that occurred over decades
of antiracist class struggle.
Communists have a long history of fighting against
racist attacks on our class. One such fight was against
landlords and evictions. In the early 1930s, amid Jim
Crow segregation, a Great Depression with record unemployment
levels that sank the working class—particularly
Black workers living in the urban industrial
core—into deeper poverty and despair, the Communist
Party in the U.S. (CPUSA) was fighting for revolution
inside U.S. borders. This period was a golden age of
class-conscious fightback when communist ideas were
popular and gripped the imaginations of the working
class. Under the leadership of the CPUSA, workers
organized militant housing councils, tenant unions
that led bold actions that weakened the power of profit
gluttonous landlords.
Today our class is in a different period marked by
increasing volatility. We are choked by record-high inflation,
rent hikes, food price gouging compounded
by stagnant wages, high unemployment, and an eviction
crisis worsened by a still-raging global pandemic.
Though the CPUSA is a shell of its former self, decaying
into a toothless, reformist party, its history provides
valuable lessons for us today.
This series highlights this antiracist revolutionary
fightback and contains kernels of working-class wisdom.
In past issues “Reds vs. Evictions” covered the story
of Claude Lightfoot a communist activist and author
who, like so many communists before and after him,
was brutalized by the klan in blue for fighting against
racism. In this issue’s edition we look at how that same
police terror was hurled at working-class children.
Chicago PD, a bunch of racist thugs
The workers’ children in the Raymond Public
School were starving. Many fainted daily of hunger in
the classrooms. The nearby Unemployed Council decided
to organize a demonstration. October 13, last,
some 500 children of the ages of five to 10, assembled
before the Council, intending to parade before the
United Charities at 46 and Prairie, with banners demanding
food and clothing.
At 46 and Michigan three police cars drew up;
the cops rushed at the children, cursing, punching,
smashing their clubs into young frail bodies. Yes, cops
do such things!
Lightfoot and nine others, several Black and two
white comrades, were arrested and herded into the
Bull Pen, a room packed with 75 other prisoners,
the result of raids on gambling dives and speakeasies.
Here they were held for three days without being
booked.
“But we kept up a wonderful spirit during that
time, singing the old revolutionary songs all through
the nights, and improvising new ones.”
A dramatic trial
There was a dramatic trial. The state shrewdly
designated a Black assistant on the State’s Attorney
staff as prosecutor. “There will be bloodshed on our
streets this winter,” he orated, “if these Moscow agitators
are not locked in the Bridewell.”
Albert Goldman, the fearless attorney for the International
Labor Defense, made a most moving reply.
“Yes, there will be bloodshed, unless economic
conditions change, unless the naked are clothed,
the hungry fed, and police do not stop beating in
the heads of men who are only asking for the right to
live.” The Judge handed out the maximum sentence.
Lightfoot had no more than been taken from the
court of capitalist justice when Lieutenant Barker of
the Chicago police entered his cell, offering him again
his freedom if he would return to the fold.
“I am no damn traitor,” was the young Communist’s
brief answer.
Captain Stege of the police came in to add pathos
to the capitalist side of the argument.
“Young man,” he said, “I want you to promise me
sometime, to visit the fields of Gettysburg. There look
at the tomb of my grandfather who died that colored
people like you might be his equal.”
“Yes,” answered young Lightfoot, “if you will visit
Boston Common, to look at the statue of Crispus Attucks,
a man of my race. He was the first to fall in the
revolution. He died that your ancestors might be free
from England, while Black workers like us remained
in slavery.”
Black workers, like workers everywhere, have to
break through many crooked paths of illusion before
they reach the broad highway of revolutionary
thought.J
front gate. The students raised their voices and
told them off, and the campus police retreated.
We are organizing a defense and political counterattack
to build on our growing support, campus and
CUNY-wide, distributing dozens of CHALLENGES,
and we’re developing new young communist leaders
along the way.
As long as we live under the dictatorship of the capitalist
class, workers will be subject to racist and sexist
attacks. The bosses and especially their liberal lapdogs
preach the all-class unity garbage of “we’re all one
community” on one hand, while protecting racists on
the other and allowing military recruiters on campus
to enlist soldiers for widening imperialist wars. But ultimately,
it will take building a mass PLP —and a Red
Army — to destroy racism and capitalism once and for
all, which can happen only if all of us become mass
organizers and lead mass antiracist struggles. And this
struggle has the potential to become one!
A single spark can become a fire
Meanwhile, a four to one majority of delegates in
the union representing 29,000 CUNY faculty and staff,
the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), passed a resolution
supporting KCC’s students, declaring “an injury to
one is an injury to all.” While the resolution was being
debated, some self-proclaimed progressive KCC faculty
delegates issued ineffectual pleas for “more time
to investigate.” A Black delegate from another campus
responded from the floor “we’ve been ‘investigating’
this for 400 years, it’s time for action” and voted “yes”!
With each study group raising important questions,
our new comrades are recruiting even more
outstanding antiracist fighters and especially strong
Black and immigrant women into the struggle. They
are working through sharp political questions and
learning to manage sharp disagreements while under
increasing state attack. Under communism we will
immediately outlaw racism and attack racists with the
power of the Party. Despite these challenges, the dark
night of imperialism will have its end and these students
prove workers can run the world! Their experiences
today are planting the seeds of a movement of
millions of workers we have not yet met but share their
hatred of racism and life under capitalism. As more
students fight back and dare to envision a workers’
dictatorship and a bright communist future, the closer
the day is when they will lead us there. JOIN US!J
KCC students fight racist attacks
Continued from page 1
Reds vs. Eviction Part 4:
Working-class children bear racist brunt
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. www.plp.org PO Box 808, Brooklyn, NY 11202
page 6 • CHALLENGE • December 14, 2022
Glossary
Communist Terms LETTERS We encourage all CHALLENGE readers to send in letters and articles
about their experiences fighting the bosses worldwide.
Andor: Greater than the sum of
its parts?
I just finished watching the new Star
Wars series Andor on Disney Plus, and I have
to admit that I was pleasantly surprised. For
a science fiction franchise that usually leans
on the deeds of individuals with supernatural
powers to save the day, this new show
seemed surprisingly class-conscious.
It emphasized the collective and covert
methods of “ordinary” persons to organize
under fascism, often at great risk to their
safety. The cast is multiracial, and women
are seen giving courageous leadership in every
episode. To be honest, to watch the show
reminded me of reading about the inspiring
deeds of the Red Orchestra, the communistled
partisans that were organizing across
European cities when the continent was occupied
by the Nazis.
But then again, Andor was produced by
Disney, a bonafide capitalist “empire” if
there ever was one, so I kept asking myself:
what’s the catch? I think that answer lies in
showing some of the leadership making cold
and calculated decisions to sacrifice freedom
fighters to guarantee the growth of the young
Rebellion. In doing so, the writers lean into
anti-communist tropes that revolutionary
leaders are generally just as corrupt as their
capitalist counterparts and the best thing
that the working class could hope for is some
kind of vague “democratic” middle ground
between fascism and communism.
Only time will tell what kind of lessons
about revolutionary struggle get told in upcoming
seasons of the show, but I’ll definitely
plan on viewing it with a critical communist
lens. If other CHALLENGE readers
have seen this show, I’d be interested to hear
your opinion
Radiation IS harmful in low
doses
The letter in the November 16, 2022
CHALLENGE “Radiation, harmful only at
high doses,”accepts the ruling class view on
radiation. and says, “We live on a radioactive
planet” and that radiation is not harmful in
low doses. Not so!
This author fails to distinguish between
types of entry of radiation into the body.
External radiation poisoning can kill, as in
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or burn the body.
Internal radiation enters the body by inhalation
of irradiated dust doesn’t kill or injure
immediately but causes DNA and cellular
damage. External radiation injury involves
gamma rays. Internal radiation poisoning
causes much more cellular damage than can
be calculated from external exposure. Internal
radiation damage comes from alpha
and beta radiation. Alpha particles have 625
times more energy than gamma rays, and
beta rays also have more energy than gamma
rays. Since gamma radiation can leave the
body and alpha radiation can’t, the latter is
more damaging.
When the author says “we live on a radioactive
planet,” it’s true that Earth has
radon and that radiation naturally reaches
Earth from cosmic rays, but the body is built
to handle this radiation with robust repair
capacity. The body is NOT built to handle
the 1,400 new man-made radionuclides
from atom bombs, nuclear-powered ships
or plutonium factories. The Atomic Energy
Commission (now the U.S. Department of
Energy) and other authorities tell us that low
level radiation is safe. This is a lie! In fact,
nuclear submarine personnel have increased
rates of cancer; babies of X-Ray technicians
have increased birth defects, etc. The author
of the letter claims that after the meltdown
in Chernobyl, it was found that people had
doses of radiation “to the thyroid that were
a tiny fraction of the doses used in nuclear
medicine to save lives.” This is untrue! Chernobyl
fallout caused increased thyroid cancer
(Busby, 2022). Medical radiation also causes
cancer. There is a large literature on low dose
radiation causing cancer, birth defects and
other harm.
The research on radiation in both epidemiology,
invitro and in laboratory animals
indicates that radioactive agents inside the
body create damage to DNA and other adverse
cellular effects (Busby, 2022). Busby
presents evidence “that atmospheric nuclear
testing in 1959-63 caused the increased global
cancer epidemic that began some 20 years
after the fallout.” Internal adverse effects
from radionuclides inside our bodies are
not detected with the external dose devices.
Not surprisingly, all the research sponsored
by the International Atomic Energy Agency
and its fellow agencies in the countries using
nuclear technology have a vested interest in
confusing the public to force acceptance of
continued nuclear power plants, atomic powered
ships and atomic weapons.
Busby, Christopher. 2022. “Ionizing radiation
and cancer: The failure of the risk
model.” Cancer Treatment and Research
Communications 31: 100565.
Critical the cult of the individual
and voting
The article in the November 30th issue
of Challenge on Stalin was excellent
and timely given the renewed attempts by the
U.S. and European bosses to attack Stalin.
The article said so much with the line “The
reason the capitalists hate Stalin is because
he helped lead a revolution that threw them
out of power”.
What people do (or don’t do) does make
a big difference. As the article documents,
Stalin made an enormous contribution to the
working class. He gave leadership on how to
fight the bosses and have the will to win even
in the face of massive counter attacks and
setbacks. That leadership set the tone for the
communist movement.
There are two criticisms I have of the article
as well. First, when we write about the
old movement, particularly when we’re writing
about Stalin and Mao it’s important to
point out that they fostered the cult of the
individual. The cult of the individual ended
up being devastating to the movement as it
gave a backward idea about leadership and
when Stalin died it left many members paralyzed
and not trained to help develop the
line. It was then impossible at that point for
the members to correct the Party and get it
back on the path towards communism.
The second criticism is that in a couple
of places the article talks uncritically about
using voting to make decisions inside the
party. Voting is a bad way to make decisions.
We believe in communist centralism and the
idea of from the masses to the masses.
I was part of a group of 18 people who
turned out to confront racist KKKop/
Corrections Officer, murderer Dion Middleton,
on November 16, as he appeared
on murder charges for the racist killing
of 18-year-old Raymond Chaluisant and
then fleeing the scene this past July. The
bosses’ court showed how afraid they are
of working-class rebellion when court
officers surrounded the family and supporters
and warned us to stay away from
Middleton as they prepared to escort
him, flanked by armed bodyguards, into
and later out of the courtroom. We barely
contained our contempt.
We are working on an article for the
next issue of CHALLENGE with an updated
analysis of the case, but to provide
some perspective, I thought to share
some of my personal experience from a
life of confronting KKKops.
My first experience with racist police
terror came in 1986 in the middle of the
Eleanor Bumpurs case, an elderly disabled
Black woman who was gunned down
(with a shotgun!) by KKKops in her own
apartment. As a young man, I remember
being stunned by the viciousness of the
cops against a 67-year-old woman clearly
in emotional distress. In the days before
cell phone videos and social media, our
main weapons of publicizing these cases
were street protests, leaflets, and many
copies of CHALLENGE.
But it was in 1992 when racist police
terror became something personal.
I came to know a young mother, María
Salim, whose 14-year-old son, Eric Reyes,
had just been executed by an off-duty
KKKop William Proulx (I’ll never forget
that name) in East Hartford, CT. The
Salim family had moved there to attempt
to escape the violence of life in the city of
Hartford. Proulx stalked young Eric after
the boy ran away from a juvenile detention
center, executing him in a parking lot
with his personal gun, and let him bleed
to death on the ground.
I helped lead a yearlong campaign
to bring Proulx to justice and expose
the racist capitalist system that caused
it. Hundreds of Eric’s neighbors signed a
petition we distributed condemning the
murder, and our demonstrations exposed
the murder as an integral part of this racist
capitalist system. We also tried to provide
support, comfort, and friendship to
a family whose lives had been shattered.
When his mother sued the town, I witnessed
the bosses’ racist state kick into
high gear to stalk and torment Eric’s family.
They spread false pro-cop stories in
the major press, staked out the family’s
home, and followed his mother around
town, even arresting her on trumped up
charges. The capitalist state made life hell
for the family and left a lifelong trauma
that haunts them to this day.
20 years later I was personally involved
in another campaign against a
racist KKKop shooting when the 20-yearold
brother of the former student council
president at the school where I taught
was murdered by KKKop Ramysh Bangali
as he was fleeing an armed robbery in the
Bronx. Instead of protecting Reynaldo
from the criminals, police gunned down
the victim! We protested in front of the
police station every week, one for each
year of Eric’s life, but the cop was never
charged, and once again, a family was left
traumatized.
Black and Latin youth are the main
targets as the bosses’ system terrorizes
the working class to prevent rebellion
over the conditions they have created in
the name of their sick profit system.
Over the last 36 years, I estimate I’ve
directly participated in over 20 campaigns
against KKKops murdering Black
and Latin people. As a moving antiracist
song puts it, there are “Too Many Names.”
This is a lifelong struggle. Just as racist
terror is the front lines of the bosses’ rising
fascism, our fightback against these
crimes must be the frontline of our fight
for communism, to expose the bosses’
racist state. Hasta el final (Til the end)!
Fighting racist police terror: It’s a lifelong struggle
Fascism
Capitalism’s response to
a crisis of their system,
when the bosses can no
longer sustain the charade
of liberal democracy
and resort to more
direct control and state
terror instead. Fascism is
marked by the ruling capitalists
disciplining their
own ranks to serve the
urgent needs of the capitalist
state and weather
the crisis. To defend their
system from internal and
external threats, they use
all the means available
in their state apparatus,
including violence. To
build unity within their
class and loyalty from
workers, they rely on
nationalist politics and
calls for sacrifice. Their
strategy is to mislead
the working class to kill
our working class sisters
and brothers in the next
inter-imperialist war.
Big Fascists
The Big Fascists are the
dominant finance capitalist
faction of the U.S.
ruling class. They represent
the wealthiest and
most powerful bosses in
the U.S., including multinational
banks like Chase
and Citibank, multinational
oil companies like
ExxonMobil, the big automakers,
Boeing, Amazon,
and the major media
companies. As the dominant
grouping since World
War II, the Big Fascists
were the architects of the
liberal world order with
the U.S. bosses on top.
Their dominance rests on
U.S. financial and military
power and its strategic
control of the Middle East
and the flow of oil to Europe,
Asia, and Africa. To
sustain this dominance,
they need to rebuild a
huge, multiracial military
for inter-imperialist war,
most likely with China.
Small Fascists
The Small Fascists are a
group of domestically oriented
U.S. capitalists who
are challenging the Big
Fascists over the direction
of U.S. imperialism. Since
their interests are less tied
to controlling the flow of
oil, they are against heavy
taxation to keep troops
in the Middle East and in
general oppose costly military
bases and invasions.
They’re willing to rely on
a smaller, whiter army,
backed by nuclear weapons
and the Air Force. They
use open racism to build a
political following.
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. www.plp.org PO Box 808, Brooklyn, NY 11202
December 14, 2022 • CHALLENGE • page 7
Weapons production ramps up for a long,
cruel war
Foreign Policy, 11/16–As the war in Ukraine
shows little sign of abating, Kyiv’s Western partners
are grappling with how to maintain a supply of
arms and ammunition to Ukraine…without letting
their stockpiles dwindle to the point that it could
jeopardize their own readiness levels.
NATO is now discussing how to support members
if their stockpiles fall below the levels needed
to meet their defense obligations…But back in
Washington, some former officials are wishing that
the Biden administration and NATO allies had gotten
the message sooner, and they want defense
spending, which has boomed since Russia’s fullscale
invasion, to continue to spike for the foreseeable
future.
Behind the scenes, the United States and other
NATO powers have urged Western defense companies
to bump up production…“What they say is essentially
show me the money,” said Mark Cancian,
who served as chief of the Pentagon’s force structure
and investment division until 2015.
“Their fear is that the war will end and the orders
will end and they will end up with these expanded
factories that don’t have any orders to fill
them.”
As billionaires prosper, most U.S. workers
live paycheck to paycheck
Lending Club, June/July 2022–More than half
of the U.S. population — an estimated 150 million
adults — currently live paycheck to paycheck,
making it the most common financial lifestyle in
the United States…in May 2022, 58 percent of consumers
live paycheck to paycheck…Viewed over
the last year… this share has been on an upward
trend: The share of consumers living paycheck to
paycheck has increased four percentage points
from 54 percent in May 2021. Seventy-seven percent
of those earning less than $50,000 and 62 percent
of those earning $50,000 to $100,000 annually
were living paycheck to paycheck in May 2022, up
from 72 percent and 53 percent, respectively, in
May 2021 . Meanwhile, 36 percent of consumers
earning more than $100,000 per year reported living
paycheck to paycheck in May 2022.
Anti-Haitian racism now extends to all
Black workers
Bloomberg, 11/21–As the Dominican Republic
increases the deportation of Haitian nationals,
Black US citizens risk being caught up in the sweep,
the U.S. Embassy in Santo Domingo said. “Travelers
to the Dominican Republic have reported being
delayed, detained, or subject to heightened
questioning at ports of entry and in other encounters
with immigration officials based on their skin
color,” the embassy said in an alert published over
the weekend. The warning comes as the Dominican
Republic has been stepping up the deportation
of undocumented migrants from neighboring
Haiti, as that nation is mired in gang violence and
political instability.
China outdoes U.S. as capitalist paradise
NBC News, 4/9–Three years ago, American entrepreneur
Raj Oswal traveled to the Chinese city
of Shenzhen on behalf of a client. He was so impressed
that he stayed and started his own tech
company…The former fishing village, now a tech
hub known as China’s Silicon Valley, has joined Beijing
and Shanghai as the world’s top three cities for
billionaires, edging out New York for the first time
this year. According to the Hurun Global Rich List,
an annual ranking compiled by a private Shanghai-
based company, Beijing is home to the world’s
greatest number of billionaires at 144, followed by
Shanghai with 121. There are 113 billionaires in
Shenzhen, compared with 110 in New York, while
London came in fifth with 101.
Shenzhen’s rise began in 1980, when it was
named China’s first special economic zone as part
of the country’s “reform and opening up” under
then-leader Deng Xiaoping. That allowed the city
to experiment with market capitalism in an effort
to attract foreign investment.
N RED EYE ON THE NEWS . . .
The theme for tonight’s Great October Revolution
event is “commit to the working class.” the
Progressive Labor Party stands on the shoulders of
the great Bolshevik revolutionaries and we strive to
emulate their strengths and avoid their weaknesses.
The Bolshevik Party’s commitment to the working
class was strong: (1) they organized among rankand-
file soldiers to turn the guns around during the
First World War to make revolution. (2 )They armed
themselves and workers for insurrections following
strikes to battle for political power. (3) They used
their newspaper Iskra, as an organizing, propaganda,
and unifying tool amongst workers. And (4) they
fought against tactics that divided workers like racism,
sexism, and nationalism.
The Bolsheviks understood the violent nature
of the Tsarist and capitalist state. For example, after
the first Russian Revolution in 1905, the Tsarist government
brutally beat, tortured, jailed, and killed
many thousands of revolutionaries. The Party’s
membership decreased, yet their commitment to
revolution and the working class sustained them all
the way to eventual victory, 12 years later, in 1917.
They lived through the historical experience of
imperialist wars, first, in 1905 when Russia fought
and lost to Japan, and then when the First World
War broke out. In these mass slaughters of workers,
the Bolsheviks pushed internationalism and urged
soldiers to turn the guns around to make revolution.
Unlike their political enemies, the Social Democrats
throughout Europe, who had voted for war credits
and had sided with their own country’s imperialists.
These were the liberals of that era, just like the
Big Fascist liberals (the big finance capitalists and
Democrats), they will pretend to be our friends,
but they will always betray our interests to advance
their own imperialist aims.
Learning from the Bolsheviks, the Party sent me
and other young people into the military to recruit
other soldiers and to learn how to use the weapons
we needed for the revolution. This is vital work for
the Party, and we are working to reestablish and rebuild
it. Today, many Black and Latin workers facing
the never-ending racist economic crisis of capitalism
opt for the military as a job; we must be there
with them building the Party.
For the Bolsheviks their newspaper Iskra was a
collective propagandist, agitator, and organizer. It
collectively promoted its communist ideas, it rallied
the workers who read it, and it organized them into
battle and let the workers know what other workers
were doing to expand revolutionary organizing.
Similarly, we in PLP are trained to read, study, write
for and distribute our revolutionary newspaper
CHALLENGE.
The Bolsheviks like Joseph Stalin fought racism
among Armenian and Azeri workers in Baku and
organized against anti-Jewish pogroms (organized
massacres). They did this because these divisions
were used to weaken the workers’ movement. As
a young Latin man who had faced much racism
in the U.S., I wanted to understand where racism
came from and how to fight it. PLP instructed me
in the ways of anti-racism and internationalism.
We studied how racism is an essential aspect of the
capitalist system as a major source of extra profits
for the racist bosses. Also, we studied how nationalism
was never progressive and could never lead to
the liberation of the working class. As trained antiracists,
we demonstrated against racist police killings
on the West and South Sides of the city. We led
struggles against the Klan and other fascist groups
to shut them down.
The Bolsheviks saw the importance of smashing
sexism and to promote the leadership of women
comrades and workers. Krupskaya, a Bolshevik
leader, argued that if women were kept out of the
political process, half the working-class army would
be lost. Likewise, our Party fights sexism and seeks
to develop women leadership in all its collectives,
especially leadership collectives.
The Party has always asked its members to commit
to the working class and like the Bolsheviks to
embed ourselves in it.
Being embedded in and serving the working
class is the best thing you can do with your life. We
will have our ups and downs, our advances, and retreats,
but if you are committed to the workers, they
will teach you to have confidence in them. They will
strengthen your resolve, maintain your revolutionary
optimism, and improve your morale.
That’s why we call on all of you to commit yourselves
to the working class, or to recommit yourself
and to strengthen your resolve to fight the racist,
fascist, capitalist state and make communist revolution
to build the world we need…..COMMUNISM!
And like the Bolsheviks who were small, like us, follow
the path to working class victory! Long live the
international working class! Long live communism!
Power to the workers!
October Revolution Celebration: commit to the working class!
page 8 • CHALLENGE • December 14, 2022
P R O G R E S S I V E L A B O R P A R T Y • W W W. P L P. O R G
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Multi-billion dollar sneaker company, Adidas,
ended its nine-year relationship with Ye (formerly
known as Kanye West) after the rap mogul made repeated
anti-Jewish remarks. Ye praised Adolf Hitler
and the Nazis while spewing toxic anti-Jewish racism
during radio interviews and on his social media
accounts. Twitter and Instagram booted him from
their platforms, too.
The statements about breaking ties with Ye is
hypocritical at best. It also demonstrates the tactics
of the Big liberal Fascists: pretend to care about
racism to distract from their systemic racism and
exploitation, all while sewing division in the entire
working class.
Black and Latin students and workers are spot
on about Ye being reprimanded by a class of wealthy
capitalists. However, that class is not limited to Jewish,
white, or male; all shades and spectrums of the
ruling class must be attacked.
The main wing of the ruling class prioritizes
amassing finance capital internationally while trying
to buy workers into the illusion of fairer exploitation.
Ye’s racist volatility is too dangerous for this
section of the ruling class’s plans for global domination.
Instead, Big Fascist bosses prefer to work with
artists-turned-billionaires like Jay-Z (Shawn Corey
Carter).
Adidas, a Nazi-loving
company
Adidas cut ties with Ye not because they are any
less racist but because spewing anti-Jewish racism
is bad press and bad business. While the company
declared “Adidas does not tolerate antisemitism and
any other hate speech” (NYT, 10/22), the founding
brothers Adi and Rudolph Dassler were members
of the Nazi Party. They had joined around the same
time as Hitler’s ascension to power.
In 2020, at the height of George Floyd protests,
Adidas workers filed a 32-page report outlining the
racist culture at Adidas. "My existence at this brand
is praised as diversity and inclusion, but when I look
around, I see no one above or around that looks like
me," said one employee (Insider, 2020).
No one makes a billion looking out
for others
The Washington Post, a publication owned by
Amazon’s own exploiter-in-chief Jeff Bezos, announced
that he was interested in bidding on the
NFL Washington Commanders with Jay-Z (Washington
Post, 11/3).
In 2019, Jay-Z’s company Roc Nation struck a
deal with the NFL, to launch “Inspire Change '' to
allegedly combat social injustice and address the
issues that Black and Latin workers faced.
In reality, it was a disgusting public-relations
stunt to derail protests led by Colin Kapernick
and other football players protesting the murders
of Black workers and children during the national
anthem. Jay-Z responded to the backlash: “we’ve
moved past kneeling. It’s time to go into actionable
items” (Washington Post, 11/3).
Many Black and young workers took to Twitter
to express their defense of Jay-Z’s decision to
cross the picket line of Chateau Marmont workers
in their struggle against the racist capitalists there,
alluding to some super bargaining power Jay-Z has
that will surely result in some win for Black workers.
Faith in a billionaire or a liberal misleader like Jay-Z
is death for our class. Jay-Z is the same billionaire
celebrity that sold out workers in Brooklyn to build
the Barclays Center, an arena that’s displaced hundreds
of workers.
This is the same billionaire sponsoring classes
to teach workers in Marcy housing projects in the
Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood how to invest in
another failing faction of capitalism, cryptocurrency.
A local resident said, ``If you want to do something,
fix this place up,’” (The Guardian, 6/22).
Celebrity culture,
new opiate
Karl Marx said, “religion is the sigh of the oppressed
creature, the heart of a heartless world, the
soul of soulless conditions. It is the opiate of the
masses.” For many workers today, celebrity culture
has become that new drug.
Celebrities are pawns used by the ruling class
to perpetuate capitalist ideology. In the case of
Hip Hop, rappers are given deified status because
their lyrical content and ‘come-up’ stories appeal to
young Black and Latin audiences struggling to survive
under capitalism.
Like the religious opiate, hip-hop celebrities
like Ye and Jay-Z promise youth that if we just make
the right moves, we too can have all the riches and
pleasures. But there is a split between the Small Fascists
and the Big Fascists of the ruling class, which
is embodied by the difference between figures like
Ye and Jay-Z.
Ye and Jay-Z embody two sides of
fascism
Ye offers young people disillusioned with mainstream
liberal politics a way out and into the arms
of reactionary ideologies like nazism.
But the bigger threat lies with yet-to-be-cancelled
celebrities like Jay-Z, and their Big Fascist
bosses, who gaslight and diffuse the rightful frustrations
of the working class by pretending they are
fighting racism “the right way.”
Ye's reactionary politics expose the insincerity
of the Big Fascists and their celebrity stooges. Over
the last 50+ years, Ye and other rappers have been a
public voice for that disillusionment.
When Hurricane Katrina devastated New
Orleans and much of the southern states in the U.S.
in the early 2000s, Ye took advantage of LIVE television
to stand in solidarity with workers against
the racist neglect of former U.S. President, George
W. Bush, saying to the shock of his co-host, comedian
Mike Meyers, “George Bush doesn’t care about
Black people.” This kind of sharp political analysis
and tendency toward going off-script did not endear
Ye to the Big Fascists, who require disciplined,
liberal celebrities to placate the masses, not incite
them.
Many have dismissed Ye’s behavior as unchecked
mental illness. That may be true, but that
kind of analysis misses the political conditions
that determine the form mental illness can take.
Whatever personal issues plaguing the rapper, the
course forward from the Katrina moment is clear:
alienation drove Ye to the right, when it should have
driven him left.
This is the bribe Small Fascists like Trump in
America, Georgia Meloni in Italy, and Jair Bolsonaro
in Brazil continue to offer the masses.
Those following Ye lack the political guidance of
communism, which combats the alienating effects
of capitalist terror and neglect with collective action,
and proves that a free world is not nationalist,
racist, sexist, but an egalitarian one run by and for
and by the international working class.
It’s not just Kanye, Jay-Z, or
Jeff Bezos...it’s CAPITALISM!
Ye’s ideas belong to the ruling class. He is worth
close to a billion dollars, and nobody in possession
of that much is a friend of the working class.
Neither the gutter racist, domestically-oriented
Small Fascists nor the liberal, imperialism-oriented
Big Fascists are acting in the interest of workers.
However, PLP fights to win workers to the idea that
it is the Jay-Z’s of the world that’s the bigger danger.
The ruling class has demonstrated that they
dispose of celebrities like Ye when it suits them because
they are trying to win us to fight for them in
their brutal imperialist wars. Once upon a time, Ye
was right: most Black workers know Republicans
like George Bush don’t care about them; they know
enslaved workers escaping to the North were not
freed from extreme racism nor super exploitation,
and that corporations like Adidas are racist hypocrites.
But he is also unequivocally wrong: the enemy
of Black workers are not Jewish workers or any other
historical scapegoat of the ruling class.
Black workers won’t go to war for a gutter racist
like Trump or Bush or work until our feet bleed on a
Nazi-run Adidas factory floor. Still, Black and antiracist
workers are vulnerable to the rhetoric of the
Bidens and Jay-Z’s of this world.
Progressive Labor Party rejects both ruthless
factions of the ruling class. We have confidence that
with communist ideas in hand, the working class
will see through these lies and build a red army to
smash capitalism and its ideological tools once and
for all. Join us today!
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fighting for collectivity and against a cult of the
individual.
Big Fascists
discipline Ye