Working with “progressive” people against the Palestine genocide, we realized that we saw many misleaders of these groups trying to win people to the importance of elections. When we raised questions, these "leaders" responded with their version of history, citing several historical examples to make the case for how voting makes change. In this article we are challenging their version of  history which is essentially capitalist with a working class understanding of what actually happened.

Capitalist Revisionist History  101: Elections help the working class

Working Class History: Capitalists' fears of revolt and revolution is what helps win  reforms for workers—not elections. And of course, reforms disappear-- frequently and  violently.

Myth 1: Franklin Delano Roosevelt “gave” the working class Social Security in 1935.

What really happened: 

Communist led workers in the 1930s were fighting, often violently, to organize unions and against the ravages of the Great Depression. Workers were being shot at and also shooting back. Workers saw the still socialist Soviet Union as a beacon of hope, but capitalists feared the real possibility of communist revolution spreading to the U.S. and in China workers seized power led by communists.

For  the rulers one frightening example was International Unemployment Day (March 6, 1930). Hundreds of thousands of people in major cities around the world took to the streets to protest mass unemployment associated with the Great Depression. In June of 1932, nearly 20,000 World War I veterans from across the country marched on the United States Capitol to request early payment of cash bonuses. President Herbert Hoover had to order out the U.S. Army to disperse them and their families.

Because of these and similar actions then, we do have Social Security now - a Social Security that does not provide a comfortable retirement for workers. The average Social Security benefit is about $1900 dollars a month. The average rent in the U.S. is $1700 a month. 
Like all social systems capitalism is not forever. The future is communism where the working class rules all aspects of society with no racism, no sexism, no inequality and no money.

MYTH 2: Lyndon Johnson gave us the Civil Right Act because Martin Luther King backed him.

What really happened:

At the beginning of the 1960s, antiracists were marching, boycotting, sitting-in and picketing against police and white supremacist violence. Starting in 1964 in NY and led by Progressive Labor Party comrades, there were over 250 rebellions against both police brutality and protests against countless evictions which were forcing poor workers into the streets.

The Civil Rights Act was in response to these angry demonstrations. While it might have temporarily improved the lot of Black workers, most of these changes have disappeared.

Today, the working class, particularly Black and Latin workers, is worse off. The number of Black and Latin prisoners in the U.S. grew tremendously over the years. Today, 25 percent of all the prisoners in the world are in the United States! The U.S. has only 5 percent of the world’s population. Voting protections are gone in many states. Racism is alive and thriving. When workers take power, that’s communism, we will eliminate racism once and for all.

MYTH 3: A wider Vietnam War was avoided by electing Lyndon Johnson as President over “extremist” Goldwater. 

What really happened:

No wider war was one of Johnson’s statements prior to the election. The Vietnam War went from 23,000 troops to 536,100 troops under Johnson. Vietnamese were herded into fortified “hamlets” with promises that were never met. They found concentration camp like living conditions. Many villages were burned by U.S. troops because they were suspected of harboring the Vietcong. In the village of My Lai, U.S. troops were photographed murdering elders, women and children. This also happened in many of these hamlets.

Agent Orange, containing dioxin, was used extensively resulting in over 400,000 Vietnamese people dying from exposure. Over 300,000 U.S. soldiers also died from exposure. Though it was stopped in 1971, dioxin still persists in soils, water, sediment, fish, aquatic species, and the food supply,

Black soldiers, thrust by racism into front line units, were killed and wounded at a much higher rate than white soldiers in Vietnam. Black soldiers led and organized with white soldiers to oppose the Vietnam War even in the Army.

Today profiteering nationalist wars span the globe and world war is closer than ever. Our goal in the Progressive Labor Party is to turn imperialist world war into a class war of workers against the capitalists. Power to the working class.

Myth  4: Nelson Mandela was elected President of South Africa on April 27, 1994, signaling the official ending of apartheid in that nation. Mandela was a "hero", imprisoned for years, and leader of the African National Congress party (ANC). 

What really happened:

Mandela made a deal with South Africa's white capitalist rulers, who were feeling the economic effects of external sanctions and internal pressures. In return for his freedom, ending the ban on the ANC, repealing apartheid legislation, and granting free elections, the ANC would cease their agitation and guerilla activity, and capitalism and the capitalists would continue. There were thousands of soldiers ready to fight massing in Botswana at the time.

As a result of this deal, the ANC has been the ruling party in South Africa until this year. What has that meant for most of the majority Black population? Nearly half the adult population of South Africa lives in poverty, with women and those living in rural areas, overwhelmingly Black, most affected. Because of the AIDS denying, and money-saving beliefs of Black millionaire Thabo Mbeki, South Africa's President from 1999 to 2008, South Africans suffered an unnecessary 330,000 AIDS deaths. Today, whether in terms of wages, wealth, or consumption, South Africa places among the world's most unequal countries. Many of the corporations are still owned by the same white capitalists.

The lesson: whether racist white capitalists or Black nationalist capitalists, they are all murderers. The only solution is communist revolution -- no bosses, no money, everyone sharing both scarcity and plenty. This is what Progressive Labor Party is fighting for. Join us!