NEW YORK CITY, July 18— A mix of caravans and protests organized against the impending racist cuts to City University of New York (CUNY) that hurt Black, Latin, and immigrant students the most. The workers and students at CUNY are not taking these attacks lying down. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and friends participated, bringing CHALLENGE and the message that workers and students will only be able to create an educational system free from racism, sexism, individualism and idealism if we smash capitalism and build a communist world.
The racist administrators of CUNY have joined with bosses across the world in attempting to solve their pandemic-driven financial crisis on the backs of workers and students. Last week, they announced the layoffs of nearly 3,000 adjunct (part-time) instructors, amounting to nearly 10 percent of the unionized faculty and staff at CUNY. A simultaneous announcement of larger class sizes in the Fall semester, and their despicable silence about a pending $320 increase in tuition and fees, shows their racist contempt for the majority Black and Latin students at CUNY.
PLP pointed out the racist nature of the attack, for CUNY has exposed themselves as uninterested in their students, of whom 71 percent are Black, Latin, and Asian and 63 percent are women (CUNY Office of Institutional Research and Assessment, 11/12/2019). The bosses would rather prepare them for a world of fascist discipline and world war. It is worth noting that these racist attacks against students are taking place at one of the most liberal cities in the U.S., thus revealing that both Democrats and Republicans are enemies of the working class.
Bronx College, a site of growing fightback
A couple days prior, a multiracial and multi-generational group of 50 faculty, staff and students gathered in front of the gates of Bronx Community College to protest the callous and disgusting firing of 36 long-term adjuncts. Some of these instructors have been at the college for more than 15 years, but because they were the highest-paid, they were the first to be offloaded by a racist administration that is only concerned with balancing the budget.
Worker-student solidarity is key
Two of the laid-off instructors spoke passionately about their love for teaching BCC students. Even as they were facing the loss of a significant chunk of their livelihood, they recognized that the primary target for this racist attack was the students, who will be crammed into larger classes with fewer resources. They also both spoke about the need for militant fight back to be the primary way forward. There was no mention of politicians or voting, indicating that the bosses’ illusions about elections were secondary.
These moments present a tremendous opportunity for the injection of communist politics and friends.Comrades present attempted this in speeches and in conversations with coworkers and students. We made sure that every participant left with a copy of CHALLENGE.
There was a tremendous student turn-out, including two students who have been active in a PLP study group. They, and others, spoke about how CUNY’s racist policies in general, and these layoffs in particular, hurt both students and faculty and the need for unity in order to have any hope of defeating the attacks. The unity of students and teachers is the greatest fear of college administrators, because they will ultimately resort to portraying the faculty as selfish and greedy should a strike or other work action be organized. For this reason, having such significant student support is key.
The demonstration finished with a march, showing workers in the neighborhood that there is a multiracial, worker-student alliance that is ready to take the fight to a higher level. A PL’er led most of the chants, and so the sounds of “Shut it Down!” and “The Workers United Will Never Be Defeated!” were taken up by the marchers.
Driving the fightback
Nearly 200 cars, including some driven by PLP members, participated in caravans in four of the five NYC boroughs, organized by the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), the union representing CUNY faculty and staff. A simultaneous Zoom online meeting expanded the action to another 800 PSC members, and in addition 2,000 more people watched the livestream on Facebook, many of them from other unions and other colleges around the country.
One caravan ended with a rally of participants proud of having brought this off and feeling closer to our co-workers. It was a gathering of force for the hard battles to come. For example, if the PSC calls a strike in the Fall, lessons learned from these first caravans can teach us how to organize a picket on wheels, or roving flying squads of bikes and cars going from campus to campus. There is agitation within the union for a strike to be called. But whether or not the union leadership takes this up, they cannot provide a solution that benefits students and education workers both.
What is victory?
One of the main victories of actions like these is workers’ and students’ growing sense of our own collective power and the confidence to wield that power. The recent rebellions against police terror are an inspiration for CUNY workers and students to beat back this racist attack.
In these and future events, PLP will bring students and workers into study groups and into the Party where they can work for communism together with and under the leadership of the Black and Latin youth they teach. We will be present at future demonstrations, increasing confidence in our ability to lead a communist revolution and secure a communist future.

BROOKLYN, July 16—A small group of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members joined a rally calling for an hour of “Black vulnerability.” The crowd that gathered was multiracial and multi-generational. Before the speeches began, the PL’ers walked through the crowd, distributed CHALLENGE, and had conversations with many workers.
But what do you mean by revolution?
In the first hour of an open mic, it was announced that only Black speakers should come up. This is an unfortunate theme within the Black Lives Matter uprising. While capitalism super-exploits Black workers, all workers are under attack by the system. A better world can only be won through multi-racial unity, and falling for capitalism’s ideology of dividing the working class and that some workers can only be involved in minimal ways, is a fast way to kill the movement.
The first several speakers gave passionate speeches about the oppression faced by Black workers under capitalism and by the bosses’ thugs, the kkkops. One speaker spoke of the failures of the system and said we need to be ready for a revolution—but what kind of revolution?
The only kind of revolution the workers need is a communist one. Capitalism needs to be smashed and communism is the way forward for workers. That’s where PL’ers must sharpen the fight.
Black nationalism: been there, done that
The dead-end path of identity politics and Black nationalism will inevitably lead workers into the capitalist bosses’ camp. From Haiti to South Africa, nationalism has derailed workers’ revolts and led them to death and exploitation by a new set of bosses. When these ideas take power within the working class, the oppressors win.
By dividing us, nationalism conquers us. There is another choice for all workers: multiracial unity.
Multiracial unity is non-negotiable
Unity of the international working class is the only force that can end racism and ultimately smash capitalism with communist revolution. Progressive Labor Party is taking that path. For over 55 years, PLP has built a multiracial movement and fought racism and sexism in the streets, in factories and hospitals, in schools and colleges. Struggle has taught us that there are no good bosses, regardless of color, gender, or nationalist identification.
The latest wave of rebellion keeps teaching us that multiracial unity is indispensable and non-negotiable. The only way forward is together.
On the road to communist revolution
A Black PL’er went up to speak and make these points. To break the idea of only Black people at the mic, a white comrade went up with her. Her speech was powerful, as she spoke about the failures of the system in her school and in her family’s healthcare. She broke down the reasons why multiracial fightback is essential, and why as we continue to join the fight for various reforms we have to always be in fact fighting for a communist revolution as the end goal.
At every key point she made, she made it clear, for example: “We can fight to abolish police, but only on the road to communist revolution.” With that repeated refrain, the protesters were energized and applauded. This shows that workers can be won to the most left ideas.
Anti-capitalist ideas are spreading, and this is inspiring and invigorating! But until workers own the idea that there is a whole alternative to this rotten system, we will be continuously roped back into the electoral system, being convinced that finally picking just the right politician will “fix” this. It is the job of communists to show that there is no end to the working class’ oppression and misery until a workers’ world, communism, is won. Keep on fighting!

Capitalist agricultural practices have led to devastating diseases caused by global virus outbreaks that have been occurring with increasing frequency: AIDS (1981), SARS (2002), Ebola (2014), and now Covid-19. Putting profit before people has increased the number and impact of zoonotic (traced to wild animals) viruses.
As long as capitalism continues to ravish the earth, humanity will suffer from more and more of these diseases. Communism, a system that works to meet people’s needs instead of for private profits, is the only viable alternative to capitalist death and destruction.
Capitalism has brought exotic animals side by side with traditional livestock in Wuhan markets, and elsewhere. Sellers of this food cut deep into forests for their goods, and the animals they find, full of previously unknown pathogens, are brought into the cities.
At least 60 percent of new (novel) human viruses and bacteria come from these wild animals. Novel viruses are a problem because no one has immunity to them.
The return of China to capitalism after 1976 laid the basis for the exotic food markets. After communism ended there, the Chinese government took a first step towards capitalism by redistributing what had been collective farmland to individual households. These “smallholder” farmers were later replaced in the 1990s by industrial food production conglomerates. This pushed the smallholders to look for other ways to make a living, and some turned to wild animal breeding.
The so-called Spanish Flu of 1918 was spread during  World War I. A war fought so that the United States, German, French and other capitalists could divide the world among themselves for colonial exploitation. This century’s deadly viruses are spread through international capitalist markets and supply chains, which bring with them international travel and exchange of goods.
When the driving force behind decision-making is profit instead of working-class necessity, there is a 100 percent chance that decision will harm the working class of the world. Even when their own research proves conditions are ripe for the spread of disease, the profit motive overrides safety. A system that knowingly puts the working-class and the world at risk does not deserve to exist.
The right conditions for disease
As capitalist food production invades most of the world, small farmers are pushed off their lands and into the cities. These cities and their surroundings become overcrowded, filled with poor workers who barely eke out a living, and have little to no health care or clean water. Combine that with deforestation, and you have viruses formerly controlled by the complexities of the tropical forest making their way to big cities in only a few days. Viruses whose impact would once have been confined to villages on the edge of the forest now spread across the world through travel and trade.
Another way capitalist agriculture creates pandemics is by growing food, both plant crops and animals, with nearly identical sets of genes. Berkshire swine, for example, “are known for fast and efficient growth, reproductive efficiency, cleanness and meat flavor and value.” These genetically similar animals allow viruses, as they mutate, to eventually “hit the jackpot” and infect the whole population. In a genetically diverse animal population, the virus would likely only infect some of the herds. The capitalists, however, base their decisions on profitability, not human disease prevention.
The capitalists also find it more profitable to keep animals confined to a small space, so they can produce more meat per acre. This facilitates greater transmission of viruses and other pathogens. Because these animals are grown for profitability, their conditions are unsanitary, which weakens their immune systems. Overcrowding helps the pathogens spread quickly through the factory farms. Global animal exports give viruses new opportunities to spread. Antibiotics are routinely fed to animals in confinement on factory farms. The widespread heavy use of antibiotics—not to treat sick animals, but as a growth “promoter”— has led to the development of bacteria resistance to multiple antibiotics.
Diseases, just a cost of business
The profiteers see the occasional disease outbreaks as part of the cost of doing business. The U.S. government, and others around the world, play diminishing roles in regulating factory farms and processing plants. Governmental support for practices that contribute to outbreaks of disease have resulted in greater numbers of people infected by foodborne outbreaks.
Capitalist agriculture, globalization, and farming methods that destroy natural barriers to pathogens all allowed Covid-19 and other deadly diseases to invade the world. Profiteers have travelled the globe, destroying anything (including millions of human lives) that gets in the way of their quest for riches, and laying the basis for new viruses that sicken and kill.
A better world is possible
Progressive Labor Party (PLP) breaks it down this way: these bloodsucking profiteers will never give up their capitalist system peacefully. An armed working class, under the leadership of PLP communists, must smash the system. We will build communism, a system that unites the working class to build a sustainable life for all of us. We fight for communism, a system free of racism, sexism, and other capitalist divisions. We will grow plants and animals to provide people with healthy, nutritious food to eat, not for profit. We will promote science and teach science to everyone, so that we can collectively remake the world the capitalists are destroying. Join us.

The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) has a long history of fighting racism in the Bronx, Queens, and New Jersey. When Black workers are under racist attack, all workers have to stand up and fight back.
On June 21, 2020, and again on July 5, 2020, the New York Times ran a story with a short video about an attack in the summer of 1975 by some racist white residents on a group of Black teenagers as they  were riding their bikes through residential Rosedale, Queens (New York City). The racists waved an American flag, chanted “Civil Rights for Whites,” and threw rocks and hurled racist insults at the Black teens that happened to be passing by. One racist was  even seen on the news video saying they wanted the teens out “because they’re Black!” Much like today, this was a time when the main wing of the U.S. ruling class was trying to distance themselves from gutter racism that had served them well in previous eras.
In 1975, PLP organized quickly against this racist upsurge. We marched, demonstrated, leafletted the area, confronted, and smashed the racist group that had been formed in the New York City-Rosedale area. We still have to do more – to build our Party, to win workers and others to PL’s anti-racist, anti-sexist, internationalist line so that racist attacks by kkkiller kops and racist vigilantes can be stomped out by workers united around the world for good.
Racist ROAR
In 1975, racists in New York and New Jersey were inspired by the racist group ROAR in Boston. ROAR, which stood for “Restore Our Alienated Rights,” opposed busing to end segregation in Boston’s public schools. The letters “R.O.A.R.” were pasted on the windows of the Boston municipal building. Another ROAR leader was on the Boston School Commission, leading the fight against integrating the public schools. With ROAR leaders on the Boston City Council and a mass base following them, this strategic, gutter racist attack on Black workers was a rapid fascist movement that needed to be smashed by communist fightback.
In May 1975, ROAR held a racist convention in the large Hines auditorium in Boston. PLP members signed up and infiltrated it. We heard ROAR workshop leaders tell us “Blacks have no history.” At day’s end, we held a press conference and denounced ROAR and racism in front of TV cameras and newspaper reporters. Knowing that ROAR goons would attack as soon as they heard about it, we ended the conference after 20 minutes.
Ten minutes later, the ROAR goons arrived but found no one and nothing there.
They were stopped in the Bronx
After their convention, ROAR expanded into New York and New Jersey. The “Morris Park Association” paid for a racist ad in the Bronx Home News. It opposed busing and said that Black workers  were getting favored treatment over white workers.
We in PLP organized a march of over a thousand in the Morris Park section of the Bronx. Hundreds of residents lined the streets to watch our march – there hadn’t been any communist marches in the Bronx for decades. We handed out antiracist flyers, sold CHALLENGE, and talked to many residents.
On September 8, the opening day of school, the racists tried to organize a boycott by white students of Columbus High School, where non-white students were being bussed. A multiracial PLP committee welcomed the bused students and the racist boycott flopped.
Stopped in Rosedale
That summer of ‘75, a small but noisy mob of white residents attacked the Black teens in Rosedale, Queens’ segregated area in response to a few Black families moving in. ROAR had inspired at least one bombing as well. Our response? We in PLP organized a march. We picketed the home of Jerry Scala, leader of the new ROAR chapter and few racists showed up.
Stopped in Montclair, New Jersey
ROAR expanded to a small suburb in Northern NJ and founded a small group. Montclair had started busing for school integration in the 1940s – one of the first towns in the country to do so. Still, a ROAR member ran for the school board. Northern NJ PLP leafletted against her and gutter racism. Her campaign went nowhere.
PLP played a key role in plucking racists' base building from the root before they could even grow throughout New York and New Jersey. By 1976, ROAR was on the decline in Boston too.  
Today when Black workers are still being attacked by gutter racists, these historical examples remind us what antiracist fightback under PLP’s leadership looks like. Racists have to be confronted and shut down, lest their toxic ideas are able to take root. Racism, like capitalism which spawned it, thrives on exploitation and division.To smash racism, we have to fight for communism! Join a PLP chapter near you and continue  the fight today.