I Will Marry When I Want (1970) dramatizes the problems facing the working class and peasants in post-colonial Africa, and shows how these problems are essentially the same throughout the world. The play takes on the issues of sexism, religious idealism, and capitalist land ownership and makes the effort to demonstrate that factory-peasant unity in class struggle is the only form of true empowerment for the masses. While the play falls short of demonstrating that nationalism is the most tricky and difficult to overcome in the capitalist ideology of our time, members and friends of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) can find it useful in reinforcing the fact that only full-scale communist revolution can end the struggles for our class.
Ngugi, the playwright, was imprisoned without trial in Kenya in the late 1970s because he was using this play in exactly this way (he now lives in exile in the U.S.). Because we are bombarded daily with capitalist, fascist, and defeatist art, we ought to be more than eager to read, study, and discuss the literature that is the product of the communist movement.
Kiguunda (Kigu-unda) and his wife Wangeci (Wangesi) are poor farmers, who are troubled when they think that their rich neighbor, and Kiguunda’s boss, Kioi, wants his son, John, to marry their daughter, Gathoni. Kiguunda remembers the days when he fought the British imperialists in the Mau Mau rebellion (1950-56), and the better life this period seemed to promise. He is suspicious of the rich exploiters. However, Kiguunda thinks Kioi’s interest in his family is their chance for material comfort, and so they do as he wants. When Kioi betrays them, grabbing their land to boot, they understand that capitalism holds nothing for misery, and revolution is the answer.
Kioi, and his wife Jezebel, represent the small class of African capitalists who have become the new ruling class of Kenya after independence from colonialism in 1962. They are rich from buying up land, as well as from being the “watchdogs,” as they call themselves, for capitalists from the imperialist countries who continue to exploit Kenya for cheap labor and resources. They steal Kiguunda’s farm to resell it to foreign investors as a site for a pesticide plant.
Gicaamba and his wife, Njooki, former Mau Mau, are factory workers. They are class-conscious and warn Kiguunda and Wangeci never to trust the rich. They tell Kiguunda that class struggle is the only solution. In the end, the farmer – now landless – and the worker unite to call for revolution, similar to, and yet different from, the Mau Mau rebellion of their youth, for this time it will be for the workers and the poor.
Tie fight vs imperialism with sexism
Gicaamba, the worker, stresses the importance of combining the fight for equality with the fight against sexist oppression. He recalls the sexism of the traditional African societies as well as during colonial times and the present. He discusses the contribution of women to the household and the anti-imperialist struggle against the British:

Gathoni is not to blame …
We the parents have not put much effort in the education of our girls.
Even before colonialism,
We oppressed women.
Giving ourselves numerous justifications …
Do you think it was only the men
Who fought for Kenya’s independence?
How many women died in the forests? (104-105)

Without equality between men and women, the workers’ and farmers’ struggles cannot win.

The role of religion
The role of religions as an oppressive ideology against the poor is a major issue in the play. Kiguunda and Wangeci are proud of their traditional wedding, but deeply suspicious of the religiosity of Kioi. Kioi and Jezebel want Kiguunda and Wangeci to join their Christian church, which they do despite their misgivings. Religion is clearly depicted as an ideological tool of the exploiters, whether the British imperialists in the recent past or the African exploiters of the present.
Kiguunda remembers the anti-imperialist Mau Mau rebellion as a time of national unity. (Another play co-authored by Ngugi, The Trial of Dedan Kimathi, exposes how shallow this unity was). Gicaamba makes it clear that the African rich have replaced the imperialists as the new exploiters, every bit as bad as the old ones. Kioi provides an African cover that allows the old imperialist powers to continue to exploit Kenyan workers.
Although the play does a wonderful job of critiquing idealism, sexism and individualism, the  playwright does not have the political understanding of the limitations of nationalism as a tool in overturning capitalist inequality. While many anti-colonialists of the post-WWII period felt that nationalism could be “good” if it represented the interests of poor, marginalized workers who are discriminated against by corrupt capitalists, in no situation did this actually succeed. In each case, including Kenya, the so-called revolutionaries became the new national capitalist forces.
The issue of nationalism vs class-consciousness is muddy. In places, nationalism is portrayed as positive in a way which contradicts the sharply anti-nationalist line set forward elsewhere in the play. This political weakness in the play could lead to very fruitful discussion. Religion, sexism and nationalism are barriers for workers everywhere. The play could also be assigned by teachers, and used by students for reports and papers, as a forum in which to raise revolutionary, antiracist, antisexist ideas.

The Russian capitalist bosses have invaded Ukraine. It’s impossible to know how this war will ultimately play out, but we do know that small wars can lead to larger wars, particularly in volatile times. The war in the Ukraine is a nightmare brought about by the rivalry among the U.S., Russian, and Chinese capitalist rulers. There are no good sides among these imperialist butchers. Our class, the working class, must take on all bosses. We must turn the imperialists’ wars for profit into war to liberate our class with communist revolution.
As the old liberal world order disintegrates, capitalism has come to be defined by constant invasions and wars--from the Middle East, where the big imperialists have fought to control the region’s oil, to Africa, where capitalists big and small compete for control of vital resources.
U.S. and Russian bosses murder the working class
The racism of the U.S. and European bosses focuses the world on the war in Ukraine. U.S. and European reporters visibly express concern for people in Ukraine while the daily death rained down by U.S. imperialism on the working class in the Middle East is normalized and blamed on the victims (LA Times, 3/1). But on the scale of workers murdered for bosses’ power, the invasion of Ukraine is more the same than different from the invasions of Iraq or Afghanistan by the U.S. bosses. Putin is no different than the Bushes, Barack Obama or Bill Clinton in his willingness to slaughter workers for their billionaire masters.  While the cluster bombing of civilians in Ukraine exposes the Russian bosses (once again) as war criminals, the U.S. is unmatched for the callous slaughter of workers and children.
 Since 2001, the U.S. bosses have dropped 326,000 bombs and missiles on the working class in the Middle East. (Australian National Review, 2/28). Clinton’s Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, infamously stated that the killing of 500,000 Iraqi children by U.S. sanctions “was worth it”(Salon, 5/11/16).
Over 500,000 people have been killed directly by weapons in the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. The number of deaths from starvation, illness and lack of medical care is far greater than that. (U.S. News, 9/10/21). All this brings the holocaust of workers in Iraq and Afghanistan committed by the U.S. bosses to over 1.5 million people.  If Putin is supposed to be “unhinged” (Business Insider, 2/28) what does that make  Clinton or Albright or Obama?  
 Smash imperialism with communist revolution
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was triggered by the U.S. bosses’ expanding NATO to Russia’s front door. Seeing the U.S. empire declining, the Russian bosses are pushing back.  The U.S. bosses, while weakening, are not without power. They have gotten the European bosses to join with them in economic sanctions against Russia that is sharpening the conflict. The result is a situation where direct war between the imperialists is becoming more likely. Since both sides have nuclear weapons, nuclear war becomes a possibility as well.
Beyond the U.S and Europe, the Chinese bosses, having given tacit approval to Russia’s invasion, are also getting ready for bigger war. One possible outcome is that Russia is economically and militarily pushed even closer to China. That would give the Chinese ruling class an advantage as they prepare for war with the U.S.
This is the nature of inter-imperialist rivalry. Nation states and capitalism are killing our class. We must get rid of capitalism and a society based on nations. We are one class around the globe; it only benefits the bosses when we are divided. We must not be misled or deceived by the capitalists’ calls for “freedom” or “democracy.” Whether “democracies” or “autocracies,” all countries in the world today are capitalist dictatorships. The current government of Ukraine, being hailed by the U.S press as a bastion of democracy, came to power by the U.S overthrowing a democratically elected pro-Russian government. In that coup the U.S. bosses partnered with pro-U.S. avowed Ukranian Nazis(Guardian, 4/30/14). That’s why the current Ukrainian military has openly Nazi units(OpIndia, 2/28). The racism of the Ukrainian ruling class was on full display as Black students trying to leave the country were beaten by Ukrainian soldiers and not allowed on trains(NY Times,  3/2).
In this period, where capitalism is descending into a new level of hell, it is imperative for our class and our Progressive Labor Party to forge a new way forward by smashing the rotten profit system with communist revolution. While changing the course of imperialist war is a monumental task, it is something our class has done before. We must attack head-on the nationalism and racism being spread among our class by the bosses. The working class in Russia is showing bravery by protesting the latest inter-imperialist conflict in the streets. The same cannot be said for our class in the United States and Europe, where large numbers have fallen in line with U.S. imperialism and the U.S. rulers’ slogans supporting the Ukrainian bosses. To protest the Russian bosses’ war in Ukraine without attacking and exposing U.S. imperialism is a racist denial of the mass murder in the Middle East and around the world. Most dangerous of all, it misleads workers to support the U.S. bosses’ attempts to prepare for the next world war. In everything we do, we must be clear that the only way out of this nightmare is to build a revolutionary communist movement of the working class that smashes capitalism with workers’ power.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ move to roust homeless people from the subways while slashing $615 million from services for their care is a declaration of state terror against the working class. Each time ex-cop Adams dons his New York Police Department (NYPD) gear to announce another new policy, he exposes his allegiance to the same racist system that used police to brutalize him as a Black teenager in the 1970s, dropped a bomb on Black workers in Philadelphia in the ‘80s, and has assaulted countless Black workers and youth in the decades since. CHALLENGE has repeatedly pointed out that liberal capitalist bosses and their stooges are the greatest dangers to the international working class. Given the current wave of identity politics, class traitors like Adams may be the most dangerous of all.
In response to a recent surge of antiracist protests against global police terror and to reformist calls to “Defund the Police,” the capitalist rulers are using Black mayors like Adams, Chicago’s Lori Lightfoot, and Newark's Ras Baraka to whip workers back in line. Like U.S. President Joe Biden, Lightfoot has called for more funding for the cops. In his first budget, Adams cut most city departments by three percent but maintained funding for New York’s police and promised to “redeploy” more cops on the street. He also promised to reinstate the plainclothes units that were dissolved in 2020 after instigating “a disproportionate number” of fatal police shootings in Black and Latin neighborhoods (New York Times, 6/15). One of the units’ members was the racist monster Daniel Pantaleo, who murdered Eric Garner in Staten Island in 2014.
Adams’ role is to turn militant fighters into passive voters, to funnel rebellious Black and Latin youth into the school-to-prison pipeline, and to help build a multicultural patriotic movement for the bosses’ next big war. The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) says that multiracial faces in high places are a dead end for our class! To improve workers’ lives and build a society without racism, sexism, or imperialist slaughter, we must organize a mass communist movement through antiracist class struggle. The only solution is a communist revolution!
Liberal fascism rises with inter-imperialist rivalry
Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a clear sign of sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry. As the crisis of capitalism deepens and China, Russia, and the U.S. head closer to global conflict, the U.S. bosses know they must build fascism to coerce workers into following their plans for war.
In their drive to build a multiracial imperialist machine, the Big finance capital Fascists use both the carrot and the stick. The carrot is the myth that a “democratic” capitalist system has workers’ best interests at heart, even if certain sections of the working class must be sacrificed along the way. The stick—the criminal injustice system, the bosses’ kkkops and kkkourts—works to criminalize Black, Latin, and immigrant workers and youth. In places like Eric Adams’ New York, it’s also used to bludgeon the homeless.
Unfortunately, many workers have been won to an anti-working class perspective and support these attacks. They have failed to learn history’s lesson: Fascist policies that target the most vulnerable and super-exploited among us are ultimately used against the entire working class. In fact, the biggest criminals—by far—are the capitalist bosses. The most dangerous gangs are the cops, who kill more than one thousand workers each year (Washington Post, 3/22).
 Once a cop, always a cop
Upon declaring his candidacy for mayor, Adams became the darling of the liberal bosses, with an endorsement from billionaire former Mayor Michael Bloomberg and donations from the Rockefeller family and major landlords and real estate developers (NYT, 11/2/21). Three weeks after he was sworn in, Adams seized on a relatively minor rise in street crime to put out his “Blueprint to End Gun Violence.” More than 230 leaders of the Big Fascist camp—including Chase Bank CEO Jamie Dimon, Columbia University President Lee Bollinger, and Tony Utano, president of Transit Workers Union Local 100—were quick to sign a letter of support (nyc.gov, 1/31).
Designed to stoke fears that divide workers, Adams’ blueprint calls for rolling back bail reforms and allowing judges to determine a defendant’s “dangerousness” in deciding whether to grant bail. Given the racism that infects the court system, studies say this measure will push thousands of Black youth through the prison doors (Slate, 1/28). The mayor’s plan also calls for expanding the use of fascist surveillance technology, including facial recognition software - a racist tool that consistently generates disproportionate numbers of false positives for Black workers, and particularly for Black women (MIT Technology Review, December 2020).
Last year, when disgraced former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo used the Covid-19 pandemic to terrorize the homeless, the Urban Justice Center pointed out: "The rules are not about 'safeguarding public health' and ensuring that essential workers are 'able to maintain social distancing,' but rather are about permanently excluding homeless persons from the subway system" (Gothamist, 2/21). In a city notorious for its lack of affordable housing or safe shelters, the liberal bosses are endorsing Adams’ use of health care workers to crack down on homeless workers, most of whom are Black. According to the Coalition for the Homeless, “the large majority of unsheltered homeless New Yorkers are people living with mental illness or other severe health problems.” Adams is taking a page from the German Nazis, who targeted workers with mental and physical illnesses for sterilization and extermination.
Only communist revolution will keep us safe
In the summer of 2020, Progressive Labor Party proudly joined the millions of workers who protested the police lynching of George Floyd. As we fought side by side with many friends, we also struggled with them to see the limits of reforms under capitalism. Body cameras and “redeployments” won’t put an end to racist police terror. The bosses need police terror to intimidate and divide the working class and hold on to state power. Racist terror will end only when the working class seizes state power through communist revolution and creates a society without money or profits. Only then can we do away with cops and their murderous brutality, once and for all.  
In Road to Life, A.S. Makarenko documents how the Soviet working class set up schools for homeless students who’d joined gangs. The book shows how through collective struggle, these young workers were developed into leaders of the Soviet Union. This is just one example of what workers can accomplish after taking state power. Building the Party through all of our struggles will bring us closer to that reality.

Click here for the latest magazine article on sexism, "Only Communist Revolution Can End Sexism."

March 8 is International Working Women’s Day. The capitalist media stripped this holiday from its communist roots in order to push feminism, an ideology that blames men, instead of capitalism, for sexism.
In the U.S., March 8 is used to prop up women politicians and women profiteers. As of last year, women make up just over a quarter of all members of the 117th Congress, “the highest percentage in U.S. history” (Pew Research Center, 01/21). Meanwhile, Black, Latin, and immigrant working class women continue to suffer the most under the extreme sexist conditions of this system– in all aspects of life. And Texas legislators are trying to outlaw abortion. What good is more representation in a system that that profits off of, depends on, and perpetuates sexism?
Born from class society, the sexist division of workers is a pillar in both maintaining and justifying this capitalist system. Like racism and nationalism, sexism keeps the capitalist bosses in power by dividing workers—in this case, by driving a wedge between working-class women and men. This generates superprofits for the bosses and society then assumes women will freely provide daily and generational reproduction of labor power.
Capitalist ideology reinforces the special oppression and exploitation of women. Capitalism teaches us that society is naturally unequal, that women are intrinsically nurturing. Communist history and leadership celebrates International WORKING Women’s Day instead, highlighting the international efforts of working-class women leading fights to improve the material conditions of women and our class as a whole. Only working-class solidarity can build a movement against sexism.
Confront the dangers of feminism
Like all identity politics, the women’s movement is a dead—and deadly—end for workers. It obscures the fact that capitalist society is driven by a fundamental conflict between the class that owns the means of production and the class that creates everything of value—between bosses and workers.
Feminism misleads women workers, in particular, by recruiting sell-out stooges like Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, and the late (and unlamented!) Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Black women workers key in the class struggle
Women workers are still leading present day fights against sexist terror. The thousands of garment workers in Port Au Prince, Haiti are a case in point that offers leadership across borders for all workers. The mainly-women textile workers are calling for a minimum wage increase– $ 15 a day– from the power-hungry companies Nike, Levi Strauss, and Gap. Even if companies like Nike, with a net worth of $30.44 billion (statistica.com)pay workers in Haiti the $15 per hour rate that  many U.S. workers demand, it would still be crumbs for the working class, and a drop in the bucket for garment bosses.
The women were met with police repression from fascist acting-Prime Minister Ariel Henry. Henry is in the pocket of U.S. imperialist bosses and pushed to squelch the workers' act of resistance immediately, no doubt knowing what a threat a victory for the workers would be to his capitalist regime.
However, this did not stop the working-class women from fighting back. Women workers who make up the majority of the workforce in the garment industry have the understanding that the imperialist bosses will never remove their racist boots off our necks and the only way to remove them is by force. The workers met again the next day, where violence intensified, injuring several, including one pregnant woman. This sexist, violent attack demonstrated that women are forced to work in dire conditions while pregnant and simultaneously being expected to perform unpaid labor as mothers. In a communist society, women, as all workers, will no longer be alienated from their labor or subject to the racist, sexist violence engendered by this system. We will smash the material basis for sexism: capitalism.
In a system designed to prioritize profits over people, imperialist corporations exploit with absolute impunity one section of workers in Haiti more severely than they do in the U.S.
Similar to these women workers in Haiti, communist women in Progressive Labor Party (PLP)  lend us the tools of how to fight. Women workers—who lead fights against police terror, exploitative landlords, and bosses—are the ones that should be celebrated during International Women’s Day, not commercialized petty increases in wages or the election of women to a government who will in turn uphold the super exploitation of international working class women. Reformist solutions, such as closing the gender wage gap, will not suffice to end sexism. Under capitalism, they will only create more incentives for individuals to strive in their own self-interest. Only by eliminating the wage system can we bring an end to sexism. Only then will the profit system’s dogma—“Every man or woman for themselves”—be replaced by the communist principle, “To each according to need.” Only then will collective behavior overcome the selfish me-first thinking enshrined by capitalism.
A world led by PLP
Progressive Labor Party’s deep commitment to seeing a world beyond the shallow gaze of identity politics is one of the tenets of our Party’s line. Working women’s power will be self-evident in a communist world, as they will be giving leadership in the fight against sexism. In a world led by millions of communists in the PLP, we have the basis to live an egalitarian life free from capitalist chains.

Click here for the latest magazine article on sexism, "Only Communist Revolution Can End Sexism."