CHICAGO, August 2 – “Hitler rose, Hitler fell – Fascist scum, go to hell!” With this bold antifascist chant, a comrade kicked off a rally at a busy west side intersection today. Local members of the international communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) organized this CHALLENGE distribution/rally as a direct response to disgusting fascist graffiti that was found on the office door of a non-profit group as well as on a Palestine solidarity mural in the neighborhood. In the span of little over an hour, we distributed close to 200 copies of CHALLENGE, made new contacts, and received small donations.

As capitalism spirals worldwide into a deeper economic and political crisis, the bosses are going to be forced to resort to more open fascist attacks to discipline not only the working class but also other factions of bosses. This is not mainly a voluntary “choice” made by specific politicians such as Donald Trump, but is a necessary stage of capitalism when international competition between countries becomes so severe that the bosses of different regions are forced to tighten the noose to prepare for wider war.

Building the mass international PLP and fighting for communist revolution is the only way to stop fascism and imperialist war dead in their tracks. In the inevitable struggles and revolutions to come, the international working class will again defeat fascism and finally destroy the deadly capitalist system it grows out of. What we do today plants the seeds for a future worker-run society free of racism, exploitation, and war.

Fascism more than an individual – it’s capitalism in crisis

Many workers across Chicago were enraged to wake up on July 20 to learn of the fascist graffiti spray painted on the buildings (Block Club Chicago, 7/20). The racist filth was especially jarring considering the higher concentrations of Black and Latin workers who live and work around this neighborhood. As if dealing with threats of state violence in the form of ICE raids or kkkop terror weren’t enough, it’s unacceptable to have to deal with such sickening imagery put on by local gutter racists.

The pathetic racist goon who was responsible for the vandalism was eventually arrested about a week later and charged with felonies, but as communists and antiracist fighters, we were hardly satisfied with that outcome. Emboldened by our experiences in the recent PLP summer project in Boston as well as PLP members and friends in the state of Kentucky recently beating down the fascist Proud Boys (see CHALLENGE, 7/30), we knew we needed a militant response in the face of this attack.

During today’s rally, speeches were given in both Spanish and English denouncing the growing fascist attacks against workers and calling on our class to fight back with multiracial unity. A comrade on the bullhorn explained how fascist ideas and violence are rearing their ugly heads not just in the attitudes and actions of individuals but more broadly how fascism reflects the needs of the capitalist profit system and its rulers to terrorize and subdue our class as we fight back against our worsening living and work conditions.

The comrade pointed out that although liberal bosses (like those who have run Chicago for decades) on their surface pay lip service to “tolerance” and inclusivity, they have proven more willing and better prepared to unleash fascism on our class than Trump and his white nationalist allies. For proof, we need to look no further than the deportation records of both Barack Obama and Joe Biden, whose numbers Trump still has yet to match (Washington Post, 7/18). Their ability to mislead and deceive genuine antiracist workers while raining misery on us is why the Party identifies liberals as the main danger to our class.

Many workers walked up to us to directly thank us for being out and sharing our messages, while more drove past honking their horns and raising their fists out the window in support. Our antiracist revolutionary messaging was registering loud and clear!

Up with communist revolution!

An essential takeaway from today’s action was the importance of being bold and confronting racism and fascism head on. The international working class is the only force that is capable of radically transforming society for the better, and we can never rely on the bosses or their laws to defeat or even slow down fascism, especially as the same bosses are using fascism to try and save their profit system.

Actions like today, even when small, show the way the working class and its mass PLP advance towards the egalitarian world we need and deserve. We are ready to build this fight with our working-class siblings in Chicago and everywhere else! Down with fascism, up with communist revolution!