New York, October 4—The streets of Northern Manhattan were resounding today with the militant bilingual chants of multiracial, multigenerational workers’ unity, as several hundred marchers took to the streets to denounce ICE raids and deportations, racist federal budget cuts, and to unite this largely immigrant-Dominican neighborhood as one working class.  Multiple chant leaders, led by the Progressive Labor Party (PLP), brought forth chants to unite and inspire not only the marchers, but the many hundreds of people who lined the streets to listen to us and cheer us on:

“Racism means, WE GOT TO FIGHT BACK! Deportations mean, WE GOT TO FIGHT BACK! Fascism means, WE GOT TO FIGHT BACK! To unite the Heights, WE GOT TO FIGHT BACK!”

PLP chants unify and empower workers

The march itself was a beacon of potential for local workers. By responding to the needs of the moment, we were able to deftly move back and forth from Spanish to English to involve the entire march in action from start to finish, continually reminding workers that we are part of a larger, international struggle. “The fight of the workers, it has no racist borders!”

We also made sure to shout out to our local street vendors, who we are involved with in a related struggle against the local KKKops who racially profile and harass them as they try to sell their wares to survive (proving once again, it’s not just Trump, it’s capitalism!).
Over the course of the march, PLP also distributed 600 CHALLENGE newspapers (many before the march even began!) and about 550 PLP leaflets written for the occasion.

More poison from liberal reformism, nationalism, & religion

As reported in previous articles, liberal reformist politics and nationalism continue to poison the workers’ struggle and dull the potential of our recently-formed uptown coalition of Dominican political parties and community organizations that put together this march. Despite weeks of planning and struggle, the speeches at the beginning of the march were all in Spanish, leaving about half of the march in the dark as to our political outlook and plans. And unfortunately, our planned Haitian speaker was unable to attend at the last minute, so even in Spanish, marchers were left with no understanding of the larger forces that are shaping the sharp increase of fascism in the U.S. and worldwide. In addition, coalition organizers added another foe—religion—to further confuse and dampen our struggle. An opening “invocation” appealed to God, “higher powers,” and Jesus to liberate the working class. You could feel these losing strategies suck the power and energy from the crowd. 

Despite these obstacles, the main memory of the march is not the phony speeches before and after, but the powerful collective voice of workers marching uptown united and fighting against ICE raids, deportations, and budget cuts and for multiracial workers’ unity. Today we lived it!

What is winning?

And because of our strategic outlook of immersing ourselves inside multiple uptown mass organizations, PLP is winning! Even as several leading coalition leaders push their brand of nationalism or Democratic Party loyalty, we continue to win workers closer to our revolutionary communist outlook and—we are struggling with them—to join our Party. Because of our base, in coalition meetings leading up to the march, we were able to stave off the most reactionary positions (such as trying to ban support for Haitian workers in their struggle against the Dominican ruling class’s racist assaults in the Dominican Republic, or restricting our fight to only ICE and deportations and ignoring more systemic demands against imperialist war in places like Palestine).

At the march itself, our PLP contingent was once again a magnet for the most militant workers, both younger and older. PLP members also brought out members of our base, who are seeing us in action as not only the most devoted fighters, but the only ones with a revolutionary line that can actually change material conditions for the working class by overthrowing once and for all the capitalist system responsible for causing this gigantic mess the capitalists have made of our world.

At the end of the march, a particularly bitter and cynical speaker once again tried to destroy the powerful unity we had just created. In a long, meandering speech in Spanish (again excluding half the marchers), she criticized the Spanish-speaking marchers for not bringing more people, which is not in and of itself a bad thing, but her tone was condescending and demeaning. Her only words in English addressed the many non-Spanish speakers as foreign-sounding “North Americans,” and said they themselves had to bring more Latin workers because they were the ones affected by President Donald Trump’s attacks, ignoring the many recent attacks that have targeted the entire working class. After a rare and precious victory unifying our entire neighborhood in militant struggle, this divisive message was exactly what we didn’t need. 

Luckily, once again we were able to counter this dead-end nationalist divisiveness by closing the day with the powerful international fight song “Bella Ciao” (currently being sung in Gaza against the Israeli fascists!). Although we sang the Spanish version, we were able to explain its meaning to all and get everyone together to sing along its mighty refrain: “We are fighters, all our lives, and we’ll be fighters—communists—until we die.” There is much struggle ahead, and we are ready for it.

Free Dylan Lopez-Contreras!

At the end of the march, we called on Uptown to join the fight to support freedom for Dylan López-Contreras, a NYC high school student who ICE detained this past spring, and who—as reported last issue—just had his asylum case denied, once again demonstrating that the courts serve the bosses’ capitalist system. 

In what seems like a coordinated series of events, local politicians have held two press conferences in our area, both passive affairs dominated by droning speeches that criticize Donald Trump’s immigration policies, but are mainly designed to steer people into the arms of the Democratic Party, advocating voting as the solution. The Democrats have betrayed workers time and time again because they support the same capitalist system as the Republicans, and—despite their slightly different tactics—exploit immigrant labor just the same as Republicans. 

Once again, PLP was there with our communist paper and our unrelenting message: We don’t need press conferences or capitalist politicians; we need a mass multiracial workers’ movement and revolutionary communist party—PLP!