BALTIMORE, June 21—Members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) have been attending the annual Marxist Literary Group Summer Institute (MLG-ICS) for more than 25 years, presenting our communist analyses at panels we organize, speaking up in other sessions, and sharing our newspaper and building personal ties with others. At this year’s conference at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in June, organized around the theme of “Marx and the Rightward Turn,” we upped our game to a new level.

Capitalist issues need communist fightback!

Ten members and longtime friends of the Party presented papers on four different panels addressing important contemporary themes, including: fascism/anti-fascism and its connections with liberalism; the consideration of the Party as a necessary form for revolutionary organization, the value of contemporary literature that shows the value of fighting racism and sexism; an analysis of the accomplishments and shortcomings of the role of the Communist Party’s work in India, and a final panel on how the Party has actively been organizing against the rightward turn of liberals on our campuses and in our communities. Our contingent also reflected the multiracial and intergenerational composition of our Party and the strong leadership role played by women.

For years, raising the politics of our Party has mainly been done one-on-one or in small groups, with friends and scholars we have come to know at the MLG Summer Institute. In part, this was a response to the unspoken notion that participants should leave any party affiliations “at the door.” However, in recent years, new and younger generations of scholars have been less inculcated with these politics, and there has been more interest and discussion of the potential positive role and need for a party. In recent years, we have also raised our Party more openly in discussions at the MLG sessions, put copies of CHALLENGE on the MLG literature table, and distributed our literature in a more mass way. In the opening panel on fascism/anti-fascism, a comrade explored the similarities and differences between liberalism and fascism and another friend provided a case study of the contradictions — achievements and shortcomings — of the communist movement’s role within the massive farmers’ movement.

Developing plans and being bold with our politics

The power of this openness was particularly evident this year in the panel that concluded the conference, made up of four comrades and a friend to the Party focusing on  political repression on campus and beyond, asking “What is to be Done?” In this panel, we discussed the practical strategies and lessons we’ve gained from our campus and community organizing. Each member recognized themselves as a member of PLP, something that—according to what our comrade experienced in the MLG—was traditionally not encouraged.

Our comrade from Newark exposed the hypocrisy of Mayor Ras Baraka’s protesting the detention of targeted workers by ICE this year after being silent in 2010 when Deporter-in-Chief Barack Obama built the ICE detention center there.    Another comrade discussed organizing in Baltimore during the slow-down of the anti-genocide movement against Israel. Practice—distributing CHALLENGE, political conversations, study groups, and protesting in the streets— helping young comrades overcome their fears, illustrating the long-term process required in party-building. 

Workers become radicalized, the bosses exert more control

Two panelists – activists in the Radical Caucus of the Modern Language Association (MLA) and the American Public Health Association (APHA)—outlined the long history of the “rightward turn” of those two organizations. When APHA and MLA members—increasingly outraged by the genocide in Gaza—overwhelmingly passed motions or resolutions  against the genocide in Gaza in 2024, the leaders of both organizations refused to take action, and the following year they refused to consider any proposed resolutions. Furthermore, the MLA  even changed its constitutions to make it increasingly difficult for any meaningful actions to be taken. 

The APHA speaker, a recent Ph.D. graduate who now works as a union organizer, asked how many people in the audience were activists, which elicited a wide show of hands, indicating that while most of the MLG panels focus primarily on issues of theory and literature and culture, participants also see themselves as activists as well as scholars..

For members and friends of the Party this year’s summer institute was inspiring, reflecting both the increased urgency felt by many of the “rightward turn” being witnessed in the U.S., but also recognition of the increased potential for organizing and the urgency of sharpening our discussion of politics to include the need to discuss the importance of building a revolutionary movement and recruiting more friends to join the PLP.