As Colombia’s “Democratic Center” ruling party and its liberal opposition intensify their capitalist dogfight to control the paltry $250 million (U.S.) from the World Bank to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, millions of workers and their families have been left infected, jobless, and hungry. The masses lack access to the most basic medical services to detect and treat the coronavirus.  Nor are they getting the economic aid supposedly set aside for sickened workers. Instead, the money is stolen by organized crime organizations that terrorize the country with deadly violence against workers.
To protect the bosses’ profits, the government led by President Ivan Duque has ordered the reopening of production to stimulate the rulers’ economy. Meanwhile, the liberal and fake-left opposition backs the five-month, ineffective nationwide quarantine, demanding that people stay home while ignoring a growing wave of starvation. As workers hang red distress flags and rags from their windows, the government does nothing to solve “the food crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic” (Revista Semana, 4/13).
Against this panorama of corruption, neglect, brutality, and bald-faced lies, the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) is fighting alongside the working class in Colombia. We are constantly looking for ways to attack racism and sexism, hunger and slave labor, individualism and reformism—to eradicate the pandemic of capitalism. As the inter-imperialist rivalry for markets, natural resources, and cheap labor intensifies, the worldwide Covid-19 crisis is also an opportunity for the international working class to advance its struggle to organize a mass revolutionary communist movement, smash the bosses’ system, and establish an egalitarian society run by and for workers.
Vaccine, imperialism and cardboard coffins
According to official statistics, the pandemic has killed more than 18,000 people in Colombia, with more than 10,000 new cases reported each day (worldometers.info). Given the extreme shortage of testing, the real death toll is doubtless much higher. Funeral homes are so overwhelmed that a team of Colombian designers developed a cardboard hospital bed that converts into a coffin (guardian.com, 5/27). Many of the dead are migrant workers, who are even more vulnerable to the pandemic after losing their jobs. They are evicted and end up living in the streets, with no physical distancing, adequate nourishment, electricity, medicine, or even drinkable water.
 Despite the collapse of the country’s healthcare system, the U.S.-leaning government has rejected a Cuban medical mission, healthcare supplies from China, and the possibility of a future vaccine from Russia.  As the race to create a vaccine and control its distribution has created a new inter-imperialist battleground between the U.S., Britain, China, and Russia, deadly nationalism is moving the world closer to the next global conflict. As always under capitalism, there will be winners and losers. Poorer, super-exploited workers from poorer countries in Latin America and Africa will likely be left to fend for themselves. Since public health is a global proposition, and viruses know no borders, as Bollyky & Bown noted in The Tragedy of Vaccine Nationalism (2020), the competition “is not only morally and ethically reprehensible, but also contrary to every country’s economic, strategic, and health interests.” As long as capitalist science is an instrument for profit, the biggest losers in this race will be the workers of the world.
Liberals unleash killer cops
 The Colombian bosses’ knives are out—for each other as well as for the working class. On August 4, ex-President Alvaro Uribe, the Democratic Center party founder, was placed under house arrest for bribing witnesses in a case involving fascist paramilitary death squads (npr.org, 8/5). Uribe’s former right-wing allies, who defend the racist politics of U.S. President Donald Trump, are pushing the renewed militarization that recently killed more than 30 people in rural Colombia (El Tiempo). The latest atrocities echo the 50-year, U.S.-backed, anti-communist massacre of more than 220,000 people, most of them civilians (National Center for Historical Memory).
The opposition liberals, who call themselves the new “political center,” favor reformist environmentalism, empty rhetoric on human rights, and the European-style social democracy promoted by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the U.S. They’ve shown their true colors in the capital city of Bogota, where Mayor Claudia Lopez, the open lesbian liberal who may be the second most powerful politician in the country, campaigned to put more killer cops on the streets (bbc.com, 10/28/19). Lopez has unleashed the paramilitary ESMAD, the notoriously lethal “riot” police, to attack hundreds of workers and students rebelling against the government’s mismanagement of the pandemic.
As in the U.S. and elsewhere, the most dangerous enemies of the working class are the Big Fascist liberals, with their phony promises to create a more just and equal society—an impossibility in a capitalist system driven by maximum profit. In Colombia, the liberals’ alliance with reformist environmentalists, feminists, and LGBTQ+ groups serves to discourage and mislead workers from fighting for communism—the only solution to their misery under capitalism. The fake left, represented by the central unions and parties like the MOIR (Independent and Revolutionary Workers Movement), are aligned with the capitalist bosses in China and Russia. Their focus is not to fight capitalism but to gain more influence—and a license to steal—within the government.
A world to win
In Colombia, in our collectives and in daily struggles with industrial workers, farmers, and students, we talk about the bosses’ traps to deceive us and dissuade us from fighting for the dictatorship of the proletariat. We are organizing in the streets, the factories, and the homes to achieve the violent overthrow of the rotten capitalist system. Though the challenges are many, we have a world to win. Fight for communism! Join PLP!

After the experience last spring, students, parents, and teachers know that remote learning is a degraded and degrading replacement for in-person instruction. Students learn less. At the same time, the stubborn push by both wings of the U.S. ruling class to reopen schools is driven by their reckless drive for profits and need for social control. In New York City, the United Federation of Teachers, a union born in racism and anti-communism (see CHALLENGE, 3/27/14) has begun strike preparations while making no provisions to care for student instruction or counseling. It’s clear that the remote vs. in-person debate is a racist, lose-lose proposition for the working class.
Capitalist schooling trains us to treat the working class as expendable. We are taught that it is inevitable that some workers and youth will be homeless, unemployed, or incarcerated. Education workers are habituated to accept some dropouts, suspensions, and failure as unavoidable. As much as capitalist schools teach expendability, they also strive to teach patriotism and build loyalty to U.S. imperialism. If millions of youth are left without the grip of social control while the facade of stability crumbles around us, imperialists will have a harder time winning workers to fight a war with China.
That’s why we fight for communism, where no worker or child will be treated as expendable because we will eliminate the profit motive that drives all aspects of this society.
A divided U.S. ruling class is united in contempt for workers’ lives
We can see the capitalists’ “doctrine of worker expendability” in full view within both wings of the divided U.S. ruling class. For Trump and his gang of domestically-oriented bosses, orders to “reopen the schools now!” means more short-term profits, maintaining credibility with an anti-science base, and advancing their openly racist, nationalist “America-First” re-election campaign, all while adding fuel to the flame for fascist ideas like “the survival of the fittest.”
The stakes to reopen the schools and economy are much higher for the dominant, imperialist wing of the ruling class, represented in New York City by Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor  Bill de Blasio. Despite crumbling infrastructure, the imperialist wing bosses are scrambling to reopen schools in finance-capital’s home base of New York in hopes of restoring a sense of legitimacy to U.S. capitalism, both globally and domestically. They will need to win workers to fight yet another imperialist war.
A “lost generation” disillusioned and unfit for this task will hinder their ability to wage such a war. Liberals’ phony, silver-tongued appeals to workers that “we are all in this together” and empty assurances that “we are ready” show that the liberal wing is the main danger to the working class. They are just as ready as ever to have workers die from both Covid-19 and World War III for their long-term profits.
The blatant disregard for workers’ lives shown by both wings of the U.S. ruling class is a hallmark of rising fascism. Capitalists of any stripe are workers’ enemies.
Dangers of remote learning
Opening schools with few safety resources and protocols will prove deadly to workers and students, but remote learning has its own dangers—especially for those that cannot afford to have an adult in the home every day. Not to mention the added trauma for students in temporary housing or shelters! Real collaboration, social interaction, and hands-on learning are nonexistent. We cannot simply reflexively accept the disastrous and racist choice to have young minds rot at home.
Remote learning runs the risk of piling on another layer of normalized neglect to the already-callous and racist culture of capitalist schooling. Black, Latin, and immigrant working-class students face the brunt of this attack, whether it is due to limited, inconsistent or lack of computer and Internet access, the need to work to support their families, or in a home with no quiet space to do schoolwork. So too do students with special needs and language needs. Assuming students have the personal organization and technological skills to learn remotely, this extensive screen time is linked to altered sleep cycles and affects students’ physical and mental health (Johns Hopkins Newsletter, 4/20). Not to mention how profoundly isolating the experience is for developing minds and bodies.
Lives are not expendable, and neither are minds.
Reopening school
Capitalists hold state power, for now. They will reopen their schools, sooner or later. Vaccination, once safe and effective, will reduce but not eliminate risk. There is no possibility of returning to “safe schools.” Poor ventilation, budget cuts and massive layoffs that hurt working-class schools hardest, inadequate disinfection, and insufficient physical distancing and PPE measures all mean no safe schools. The families who need schools the most will send their kids in first,and love their kids no less than anyone else. More than learning, schools provide health services, lunch, physical therapy, language, counseling and other related services. Calling to keep schools closed “until they’re safe” without recognizing this reality, and without genuine planning for student needs, undermines the cause of building working-class solidarity.
Despite examples of parent-teacher-student unity during this current crisis, there remains a possibility that the working class—students, parents, and teachers—could emerge from this crisis even more fractured. This potential for  division may be the greatest danger of all. Education workers must fight back alongside their students against the bosses’ system, which has set our class up to fail in what will certainly be a tougher school year. Every rotten aspect of capitalist schools reinforces the same lesson for us: a system that can’t educate and care for its youth does not deserve to exist, and we must learn together what it will take to smash it. Join Progressive Labor Party!
No ‘lost generations’ for communists
Communists and many anti-racist education workers refuse to accept that Covid-19 will result in a “lost generation.” We know that the working class is full of fighters, and that whether remote or in-person, education workers and students must use the sharp study of math, science, history and language to explore how Covid-19 reveals the racist poison of capitalism and the need for a new, communist society. In the event of a strike, we must organize outdoor “Freedom Schools” where we relate schoolwork to survival of this pandemic. We must conduct home visits for absent students. Parents and students must be invited to picket lines where
education workers can teach students while parents work or run essential errands. As during the recent anti-police rebellions, life’s greatest lessons are learned in the class struggle. Each connection between workers is one seed of a communist future, when tended by a growing Progressive Labor Party.
Every worker can contribute to the fight for a better world. Both coronavirus and recent international anti-racist uprisings have led many youth to criticize and reject this political and economic system. These shifts in consciousness present an exciting opportunity, and we must ensure that the alienation felt by so many students is turned into class struggle, rather than nihilism and cynicism. We know that students can learn more from a single protest against police brutality than in a whole year of capitalist history curriculum. A better world is possible, and we need the power of the entire working class to create it!

These are letters submitted by participants from the New Jersey Summer Project (see article).

I was amazed that this existed

I learned about the Progressive Labor Party from a member who I met during a rally against the murder of George Floyd in Patterson, New Jersey. We first met in a signal chat that consisted of various organizers and activists so I did not know what organization this person was from, if any. I remember listening to the progressive politician Larry Hamm speak at the protest about how the police were out of control and there needed to be better relations between the community and police. I didn’t know Hamm too well but remarked to the person I came with that he seemed like a pretty good guy. They shrugged and responded that he was a politician and therefore trying to diffuse the anger in the community and push people toward using the electoral process as a solution for the police murdering black people in America. I was impressed and wasn’t expecting such an answer from someone whose politics I didn’t really know. I considered myself a communist already but didn’t really share that too much because I find it can be alienating, even in “leftist” circles. I was happy to find out this person was a communist too. It was during this discussion that I learned about PLP.

I have been organizing with the DSA for a few years t but I was curious about this local communist party and eventually reached out to PLP to see what it took to become a member. Soon a member reached out to me, surprisingly another person I had already met in organizer circles, and I learned about a reading group the PLP was holding in a Newark park. I went and it was a small group, but they were all communists and discussing the party’s political line. I was amazed that this kind of thing existed in Newark; I had no idea. It was there that I learned about the summer project the Newark PLP members were organizing. The reading group was interesting so I was enthusiastic to learn more about this group.

When I went to the summer project’s opening study group I was not disappointed. I met many more members of many ages, backgrounds, and professions. I learned about the party’s history which was far longer and more storied than I would have guessed. Long-time members spoke to the issues the country was facing from an anticapitalist framework, discussed revisionism, and recalled rallying against and fighting against Nazis, among many other topics. We ended with an impromptu Challenge sale at a basketball game in the park where the local community had gathered to watch. People like myself who were just checking PLP out were encouraged to get out and talk to people in the community and hand out communist literature on their very first meeting. This showed me what PLP was about.

The two-week summer project continued in this vein. I met more members, including some from New York City where the party originated. I helped distribute Challenge to workers outside a member’s workplace, participated in a motorcade where we blasted homemade communist chants over popular songs, and participated in several more study groups where I learned more about the party’s line. It was so energizing and reassuring to know that a principled group of communists that really combined theory with praxis was right in the city I lived in and had members who were so active. I met many amazing people, made new friends and comrades, and learned much about organizing and theory. I don’t necessarily agree with everything in the party’s line. For example I don’t necessarily accept that existing socialist countries were wrong to preserve the use of money and wages. I don’t feel qualified to weigh in on that issue, among many others. But I don’t have to agree with everything in PLP’s line to know that this is an organization I want to be a part of. I look forward to studying, struggling and organizing with the amazing comrades I met during the summer project. I hear that it was one of very few summer projects in the country. I hope that changes next year and many more chapters hold summer projects because it made me a proud member and I think more summer projects would get many other workers on board with the party too. And that’s what needs to happen if we are to eventually see a revolution against this inhumane capitalist empire. Props and solidarity to the Newark PLP chapter; thanks for organizing such a great summer project. 

*****

Smash all borders!

During the New Jersey summer project, members of PLP hosted a study group about immigration.  We read the document “Migration Crisis: A Window into the Oppressive Capitalist System” from PL Magazine.  Although the article is two years old, the system has not changed for migrants.  Capitalist will never stop using racism, nationalism, and artificial borders to divide the working class in order to super exploit migrants.  They will continue to use agricultural imperialism, wars, and corruption to push people from their homes to countries were they are forced to work for long hours, receiving meager wages, in exchange for promised safety and prosperity that never arrives.  Capitalism will never provide for the working class, only a dictatorship of the proletariat under Communism will protect workers.  

The study group was a combination of online and in person participants and was held in both English and Spanish.  Three PLP members worked together prior to the study group to come up with guiding questions that were used to keep the discussion focused.  Another PLP member served as moderator of the discussion.  The entire process was a collective work.  During the discussion, several participants served as interpreters.  Members of our party and our base shared their immigrant experiences.  One young woman shared how the United States was sold as the land of opportunity.  Her mother sold all their belongings to move to the U.S. fleeing from gangs and poverty and in search of new possibilities for her children.  Once here, she was faced with the harsh realities of the capitalist, racist U.S. system where she works all day for minimum wage but can barely provide for her children.  She questions whether she made a mistake but fears it is too late to return.    

The multigenerational, multi-ethnic makeup of the group made for great conversation where non-English speakers participated as robustly as anyone else.  This should be a given in any conversation, but we see time and time again how immigrants are exiled to the back of the room and made to feel like they don’t belong.  Not in PLP.  

However, we do have to make more progress in spreading the politics of no borders. Every member of PLP must be confident in saying that we don’t want the immigration reform of liberal bosses, we want to do away with racist borders.

*****

The workers inspired me

I joined the PLP members on the streets of Newark, where I handed out issues of Challenge with a headline about a nurses' strike. I was inspired by a few workers actually reading them in front of me. Several people were intrigued, thanking me for the information or asking questions about communism. This community engagement invigorated my perception of communism from academic philosophy to activist reality.

That day, I also attended an open study group focused on abolishing borders and nationalism. Every single word was translated, which communicated a sense of urgency to ensure everyone understood the information being discussed.

While I am too young to have been there in person, I have watched videos of the activist group called ACT UP, which mobilized workers to action against the spread of AIDS. My experience in the study group last week made me think of ACT UP in its diversity, unrelenting commitment to globalism, and the feeling of determination in the face of a deathly foe. I am excited to come back to PLP study groups and continue to promulgate the Challenger. Please continue with this important work.

*****

Healthcare worker fed up

I am a communist speaking out against the atrocity’s workers face under this capitalist health care regime. Workers know if they are not fully exploited by a corporation, they will not gain the perks of having insurance to treat an illness.  That insurance or copayment from the wage slave savings though exploitation, is then used to care for a worker in a healthcare institution.  The hospital where I work has a “We Care” motto.  This facility says, “We care for 120 patients.” Each shift is supposed to have 9 nurses, 14 Certified nurse’s aides, 4 housekeepers, 6 dietary aides.  On the contrary here, there is only 1 nurse taking care of new admissions and 30 patients at $21.96 per hour.  There are also only 2 Certified nurse’s aides working a floor of 45 patients at a rate of $11.40 per hour.  There is only 1 housekeeper on the floor to make 30 beds and only 3 dietary aides to serve food to all 120 patients for $9 per hour.  THAT IS SUPER EXPLOITATION!!

Many experiences have destroyed my trust of the capitalist health care system.  I did doubles and even triple shifts for pennies while being the only Certified Nurse’s Aide taking care of 45 patients.  The orders that are given to me by the head nurse in charge “I don't care if the patients are soiled just make sure that they are alive and there are no falls on my shift.” This shows the workers how much the bosses care.  All of this exploitation for a $20 gift card and $17 overtime.  Another example is when we workers asked for more Hoyer lifts. These devices allow us to transfer patients from their beds and to wheelchairs without hurting our backs. Even though there are three lifts in the facility, only one is in working condition. The administration’s answer to our demand to fix the other two is that this single one works!  This means we must suffer through back-breaking Olympics risk injuring patients with the antiquated sliding board.  When we workers are injured, we are replaced, and the hospital fails to pay for sick leave.

This super exploitation of cheap labor oppresses the workers and allows the bosses to profit anywhere from $15,000 -$30,000 per patient per month.  The bosses use allocation of resources to make sure the corporation stays afloat; by dipping into the savings accounts of the patients and by not paying the full amount on a check to workers. The union 1199 is the glue to keep the workers' mouths shut.  The union handbook states, it's illegal to strike or interfere with the operation of the employer as a partner of the union!   

Another capitalist lie for control is: you work at the bottom so you can reach the top through hard work, time management, and perseverance. This competitive attitude allows the bosses to profit.  Racist, sexist ideology furthers individualist division. Bosses have always known that we the workers have power when we break down these capitalist barriers.  They know that united we will win, separated we will lose!   Whether it be anti-immigrant ideas or liberal lies from Obama or Biden, all bosses try to keep us separate.

Internationally the working class has been suffering police murder, poverty, lynching’s and disease.  But many of our brothers and sisters believe that if we just get respect, then we might become the next CEO, administrator, or even a liberal politician. Then we believe we have the power to reform the capitalist system. But no matter which individuals are in power, the ruling class conquers us through nationalism, false barriers of race privilege and favoritism among workers.   They want to keep us full of illusions, passivity and cynicism as class war rages in the streets.  Meanwhile our brothers and sisters die in emergency rooms everywhere.

Attention Workers! If you want to end the oppression of this capitalist system it is time to stand up, organize together and join the Communist Progressive Labor Party!  Unite in the Working Class fight back to overthrow the capitalist system internationally! 

Our greatest weapon to combat capitalism is communist revolution for the working-class ultimate power.  Our biggest lesson from working class history is that we can conquer the disease of capitalism with communist revolution! Only through communism will workers be able to experience the long and productive life we deserve.

Capitalism is the disease; only communism is the cure! 

 *****

My experience at the Summer Project

For the first time, Challenge Sales were distributed in Stephen Crane Village, a low-income housing complex where the residents are predominantly Black and Latino. Stephen Crane lies on the border of Belleville, NJ near the Clara Maass medical center. A few comrades stood in front of Pat’s Deli, where workers from the hospital often visited during their lunch hour, while other comrades went door to door with their papers, speaking with the residents, encouraging them to inquire further if they were interested.

I live in Stephen Crane village and I initially had been cynical about reaching out to residents due to me projecting my own individualist thinking onto them. But I was surprised that my neighbors turned out to be more receptive than I’d believed. My neighbors are affected by COVID and discriminatory housing practice just as I am, and those who are employed are most likely essential workers, so they feel angry and discouraged too. They listened to what we had to say and seemed interested in learning more. I myself reached out to them and told them that if they had any questions, they could contact me.

   I would love for distribution to become a more regular thing in Stephen Crane, because the residents’ voices matter too. It’s a predominantly Black and Latino complex, but majority of these people are elderly, disabled, and rely on fixed income. Their needs, and concerns often go unheard of by the directors, who are selective about who needs help first.  This is a cheaper and more accessible way for them to be informed.

I was a bit apprehensive about distributing by the hospital because Belleville is a town with a decent number of residents who support the police force. However, that was not the case and was pleased to know that those were receptive to our fellow comrade.

Motorcade & Protest

The Motorcade went well. I looked all around, passersby were honking their horns in solidarity, they were cheering us on, they took the newspapers and nodded their heads in agreement at our chants. I saw many people raising their fists in approval when we drove past. This was especially evident when we entered the Shop Rite parking lot. We handed out the Challenge paper to those on foot.

  The protest in Kearny went well, the reception was largely warm, a few comrades passed out Challenge Papers to those driving past. I felt energized standing alongside my fellow comrades as we chanted and railed against the capitalist system, even as the police cars kept driving back and forth trying to intimidate us. The speeches that were given during the protest were heartfelt and compassionate, calling on people to fight back against the evils of capitalism; One comrade spoke about how capitalism prioritizes profit over workers and patients alike in hospitals which has been highlighted through this whole COVID pandemic. Despite a brief encounter with the police, it was a great experience.

Study Groups

The study groups were interesting because it bought together the seasoned comrades with the younger inexperienced comrades, we learned from one another. The media will have you believed that the older generation looks down on the younger generation, but I saw none of that. People of different ethnicities, sexualities, religions were engaging each other, and honestly, that is what solidarity looks like in that setting. I learned from the older comrades, and I hope that they learned something from the younger comrades. Out of the study groups I attended, I loved the What is Communism? and Sexism group discussions the most, because I got a lot of insight about how sexism isn’t gender exclusive, but capitalism would have us believe it is, because they exploit sexism (just like they do with racism) to maintain profit and power and keep workers from developing class consciousness. I went into the discussion thinking that men benefitted from sexism, but it hurts them just as much as it hurts women, only they don’t realize it. As for Communism group, I’m glad we had it, because I grew up with misconceptions about Communism and only had knowledge based on the heavily biased American news networks. All I knew about Communism was through Fidel Castro, and I was programmed to believe that Fidel Castro was a horrible person because he was a Communist. Being in this party, as well as having the discussion on Communism shattered my beliefs about the Communist movement, and I didn’t know that there were so many black people who were a part of a Communist movement.

We constantly critique capitalism and I never realized how deeply embedded it was in our belief systems and ideology, even through the art and music we consume. Which is why I opted to lead the discussion in ideology and culture myself. I never realized how capitalism shaped and molded my beliefs. I used to talk about wanting to be rich enough to support my family and use it to help people. I realize that while my intentions were good, it still wouldn’t be enough under a capitalist society, because there would still be inequality, poverty, and oppression. I meant well, but I couldn’t see how that was individualist in nature.

Overall, the Summer Camp Project was a great success, and I look forward to the next one.

****

CHALLENGE was my highlight

One highlight of the Newark Summer Project was the distribution of our Challenge newspaper. I estimated we got out a total of 1500. Additionally, it’s my practice to divide hundreds of papers so that we have separate English and Spanish. That makes every issue go twice as far!

Many new faces came out to distribute; we had a minimum of 5 and max of 10 people at every place we went. We went to large housing projects in Newark, Belleville and Kearny, a hospital, and the entire length of a motorcade through Newark and Kearny. We emphasized our workplaces, neighborhoods where several of us live and locations where we have distributed for decades and where we will continue to concentrate. At least two hours were spent at each location in the midst of the heat wave. 

We found that at each place new to us, we encountered people from our jobs or who we had known in years past. One location in Kearny has several friends from our long-term activities in a large Latin organization.

A criticism I had was that the papers were distributed and not sold. It used to be a principle of mine to never “give out the paper for free”. But my understanding is that we will focus on neighborhoods in future years where the emphasis will be on deepening ties, and then the contributions as well as new members will come around.

 *****

To defeat sexism, fight for communism

Can there be a communist revolution if we don’t fight sexism? Can we do away with sexism without a communist revolution?

Participants in the study group on sexism that was part of the New Jersey PLP 2020 Summer Project answered both questions with a resounding “No!”

Sexism—oppression and exploitation based upon gender—is everywhere around us.  Demeaning representations of women in popular culture; domestic violence against women and children; women’s substantially lower pay; the trillions of dollars’ worth of unpaid labor (usually women’s) performed in the home; brutalization of sexually nonconforming people; the commonly shared belief that gender difference involves inequality: all these ways of seeing and being are so much a part of everyday experience that it is easy to detach them from capitalism and see them as just reflections of “human nature.” Yet, especially when conjoined with racism, sexist ideologies and practices are immensely destructive, dividing and disempowering the working class around the world.

Marxist class analysis enables us to root these beliefs, behaviors, and practices—sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly—in the political economy of capitalism.  We asked everyone to consider: (1) What is sexism, and how have you experienced it?  (2) How have your ideas about gender and sexuality been shaped by the broader culture?  (3) Do the majority of men benefit from sexism?  (4) What is the difference between oppression and exploitation?  (5) How does sexism profit the capitalist class?  (6) Is nonconforming sexual identity intrinsically radical?  In preparation, people were invited to study the article about fighting sexism in the August 7, 2020 issue of Challenge-Desafio (/challenge/2020/8/7/working-class-women-organize-against-racist-cops.html); the PLP pamphlet on sexism (file:///C:/Users/BARBAR~1/AppData/Local/Temp/strugglevssexism.pdf); a video containing interviews with various Party members talking about fighting sexism (https://www.dropbox.com/s/7t461d8lhnnak6z/Winning%20the%20Fight%20Against%20Sexism.mp4?dl=0); videos featuring Queen Latifah ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8cHxydDb7o, Missy Elliot (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UvBX3REqSY, and Ru Paul https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD3-3FPNd0c; as well as excerpts from Friedrich Engels’s On the Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State and Lise Vogel’s Marxism and the Oppression of Women.  We sought to link key concepts in Marxist theory with familiar pieces of popular culture.

Here are a few highlights from our discussion:

-- While there are biological differences between men and women, sexist differentials in class society are rooted in the rise of private property (see Engels). Sexism not a "natural" outcome of biology, but a historical consequence of relations of property ownership.

-- Sexist ideology both reflects and justifies a social division of labor that coerces women into unpaid work in the home, lowers their wages, and depresses the living standards of women and men alike.  Sexism contributes enormously to the bosses’ ability to extract surplus value.

-- Dominant sexist ideologies and practices can warp male workers' notions of "gender-appropriate" behavior, leading them to embrace toxic hyper-masculine ideas and behaviors that greatly restrict the range of human emotions they allow themselves to experience—e.g., “Boys don’t cry.”

-- Women too can internalize sexist ideas—about beauty, about how women should act around men—that end up making them complicit in their own oppression.  

--Identity politics and intersectionality—ideas having widespread influence these days—caricature class analysis as “class reductionism,” direct attention away from capitalism as the source of inequality, and foster division rather than unity among the world’s workers.

We came away from the study group on sexism with increased appreciation of the importance of linking our political practice—as communists and friends of communists—with a theoretical understanding grounded in key Marxist analytical concepts, such as historical materialism, exploitation, and ideology.

Sexism greatly impedes the working class’s struggle for self-emancipation. At a time when lies and mystification abound, and women and men, straight and nonconforming, need to unify around our common class interests, we must struggle to arm ourselves, in theory and practice, for current battles and battles to come.

NEW JERSEY, August 25—This year’s twin pandemic of Covid-19 and police terror shed a light on the decline of the U.S. ruling class and proved yet again that capitalism fails our class. It is in this context of rising fascism that Progressive Labor Party (PLP) organized the annual Summer Project. The purpose of the Summer Project was to educate newer members about communism, learn about organizing in their places of work, school, and neighborhoods, strengthen relationships, and further develop our budding young leaders. The fact that PLP was able to execute the Project exemplifies the young leaders’ commitment to building communist leaders.
In the span of two hot summer weeks, the red (communist) Project reached 50 multiracial and multigenerational women and men. Through the distribution of CHALLENGE, 1,500 people were exposed to communist literature. At its closing, four participants joined or recommitted to the Party, including Black and white students and teachers. Overall, a success in moving towards winning workers and students closer to a communist outlook! The Party has a bright future.
Learn to fight, fight to learn
 The Summer Project, in Newark, NJ for the first time, consisted of a series of group discussions held physically distant and virtual, CHALLENGE distributions in Newark and nearby towns, and a few rallies.
Veteran PL’ers opened the Project with an introduction and history of PLP, an international party building an antiracist and antisexist movement for communism and advancing communist politics for 55 years.
In the wake of Covid-19, rising mass unemployment, along with the murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and countless others, it was important to analyze the ways the ruling class weaponizes identity politics to profit off the divisions of the working class. The study group discussions included the topics of capitalist ideology in media and hip-hop, communism, sexism, and immigration (see letters, page 6).
PLP aims to treat participants with the highest respect and encourage the highest commitment. We fight to learn and learn to fight. Everyone, regardless of experience was encouraged to advance the conversation with their unique perspectives.
During the discussion on communism, participants made the distinction between communism and socialism, the former being a society based on workers’ power and elimination of the basis of all inequity while the latter is a halfway system that still tolerates inequities and other capitalist practices.
Another discussion explored how liberal misleaders like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez learn to posture progressiveness on the road to build a nation ready for bigger wars. More importantly, how communism means that the exploiting class will be eliminated, which is the root of racist and sexist divisions. Workers would control all aspects of society.
CHALLENGE: door to door
Putting the theoretical into practice, PL’ers distributed CHALLENGE in Newark’s Ivy Hill neighborhood, Bloomfield Ave, and, for the first time, in Stephen Crane Village, a working-class housing complex where the residents are predominantly Black and Latin. For years, residents have been subjected to decrepit housing conditions, and mismanagement from corrupt and indifferent slumlords. Stephen Crane lies on the border of Belleville, NJ near the Clara Maass Medical Center. A few PL’ers stood in front of Pat’s Deli, where workers from the hospital often visited during their lunch hour, while others went door to door in the housing complex with CHALLENGE, speaking with the residents, encouraging them to inquire further if they were interested. PL’ers received a warm reception!

Caravan for communism: ‘it was fire’
A caravan against capitalism invigorated participants and residents alike. About twelve cars drove through the streets of Newark with signs such as “Capitalism is the disease, Communism is the Cure” taped on both sides. Every car sported a red flag. Chants alternated between Spanish and English over instrumentals.
We chanted, “Asian, Latin, Black and white—Workers of the world unite” to the beat of Megan Thee Stallion’s “Savage.”
Such creativity and vigor was met with pedestrians raising their fist in solidarity and drivers honking in support.
The height of the caravan was the loud response at a supermarket parking lot; people cheered, clapped, and inquired. Some didn’t wait for CHALLENGE sellers to approach them; they took a copy themselves. As one PL’er described it, “it was fire.”
The caravan ended in Kearny, NJ, a town known for being notoriously racist but with a growing Latin population. PL’ers rallied in front of a small apartment complex, chanting for communist revolution in English and Spanish before giving speeches.
An essential worker spoke out against the deplorable conditions of the nursing home where they worked, speaking on the lack of protection, and the horrible treatment the patients experience.
Another comrade spoke out against capitalism, stating that reforms or electing a “progressive” politician won’t do any good when it is the system that needs to be destroyed.
The residents stayed, listened, and some took CHALLENGE. The local police kept driving up and down the street a few times, but we were not intimidated; we continued chanting.
The future is bright
The Summer Project closed with a barbecue and reflections. A healthcare worker opened the program by discussing his journey to joining the Party (see letter, page 6).  Another young worker who organizes undocumented migrant workers gave a talk about the contradictions of reform and revolution. A PL’er discussed the role of elections and why the Party slogan is “don’t vote, organize!” Identity politics still remain a barrier to applying a class analysis to world events. Liberal misleaders are the main danger in the fight for a communist world, since they funnel working-class anger into allegiance to nationalism, fascism, and eventual war.
An undocumented student said, “I didn’t know what capitalism was” before her introduction to PLP. She talked with her teacher, researched it independently, and participated in study groups. In fighting to learn, she realized how important it was to understand what it means to live under capitalism. This student wants to keep learning and fighting with PLP.
With students like her, the future is bright and red.