Newark, May 30—The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and friends fought to share working class communist politics at two demonstrations and a march. The Mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, spoke under the guise of protesting against police brutality in the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, MN. He tried seducing masses away from revolutionary ideas of workers power and communist revolution. “We want to march to change the systemic issues...We want good officers to stand up. In Newark, we are fighting right now with the Supreme Court to have the strongest civilian complaint review board.”
However, there is no possible way for “good” cops to stand up because the role of the police under capitalism won’t allow it. Racism and sexism are the viruses of the profit system; it is the foundation of capitalism.
From Covid-19 to George Floyd
Kkkops murdered George Floyd for allegedly using a fake $20 bill. Working class rebellions in response to many murders like his are not unrelated to the way the ruling class has managed the crisis of Covid-19. Worldwide, bosses used their governments to attempt to build class unity between themselves and workers by promoting: “we’re all in this together”. Instead, class hatred of bosses’ disregard for the lives of workers has intensified, while multiracial fightback and anti-racism has grown among workers. Ruling-class imposed lockdowns have resulted in massive attacks on the international working class.
In Newark, the bosses keeping Baraka in charge were incapable of protecting every worker. Instead, Baraka intensified police intimidation in the most exploited and working-class neighborhoods. Thousands of undocumented families had no work or food. Bosses at Newark Beth Israel Hospital suspended a nurse for bringing in protective gear. Incarcerated workers were left to get sick. Many students received failing grades, with total disregard for growing hardships.
How many of us could have benefited from another $20, fake or not, in this time?
Liberal fascist Baraka disarms workers
Whenever the bosses can choose between using ideology or violence to weaken the working class, they will choose to use ideas to brainwash workers and develop misleaders. Now, capitalist ideas of reform and electoral politics have been rejected by workers across the U.S. The use of riot gear, tear gas, rubber bullets, sabotage and brutal physical violence against working class rebellions exposes the true nature of “liberal” misleaders. headOnly an armed revolution led by millions of communist workers committed to anti-racism, anti-sexism and internationalism can stop this racist terror.
Fake “radical” politician Baraka is supported by New Jersey’s corporate elite. His job is to hold down the militancy of workers in this mainly Black and Latin city. Rather than organize workers to fight capitalism and the capitalist class that forced workers to be poisoned with lead for years, Baraka and other liberal politicians advocate for passivity. Next year, Newark Public Schools, the state’s largest district will lose $36.4 million. According to an nj.com article, when Baraka started as Mayor he had 900 police officers. His goal - 1700 cops - nearly doubled since he took office (12/16/17). After centuries of racist terror, the working class in Newark, (and elsewhere,) know all too well that an increase in KKKiller cops is not to serve the community.
Workers hungry for communist leadership
5,000 multiracial, and multigenerational workers were ready and looking for a way to fight back. More than a 1,000 took copies of CHALLENGE. The headline of the latest CHALLENGE – “Communism Will End Racist Police Terror” – put our line right up front.
With a bullhorn, electrifying politics and chants, PLP energized about 500 workers. Many went off against capitalism:
“They are not only killing my brother and everyone else that has been killed by the police. You are killing a family. You killed our lack of trust in this system. We tried to get justice. What did they do in return? They promoted the cop stating it was robbery homicide...This is for my generation when I was growing up I didn't see no justice and nobody gave a damn. He was just another fallen statistic and it happened in our streets in Newark, New Jersey.”
“People are living better with unemployment then going to work...I’m tired of seeing my little nieces and nephews go to school and not learn a damn thing...I’m tired of going to the hospital and having to pay big ass bills for something small. How the hell can we afford to live...How the hell are we living under constant injustice and oppression but they expect us to keep calm. We are not going to keep calm. Another one is dead. So that means all of us are rising up.”
These rallies showed us two things. First, youth and workers are looking for revolutionary ideas. Second, the local ruling class in Newark, led by Mayor Ras Baraka, has maintained the anger of the working class by claiming to reform the cops so that they can work for them. Kkkops won't exist in a communist world because there wouldn't be a ruling class system of bosses and profits to protect. Workers internationally will provide for one another as a community making use of materials as needed. Capitalism is the disease and communism is the cure.
As workers take to the streets both protesting racist killer kkkops and being sent back to work as cities begin to reopen amidst the deadly Covid-19 pandemic, the bosses’ liberal misleaders continue to be the biggest threats to our working-class lives. Wolves in sheeps clothing, these murderous liars are the Big Fascist’s mouthpieces as they seek to pacify the masses. Progressive Labor Party rejects all of the bosses’ servants—regardless of their race, gender, or sexuality. We will not be fooled into following a multicultural dictatorship of the bosses. The following are a few ways these misleaders try to co-opt the movement or buy back allegiance to this system.
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual … It's very rare.
— Maria van Kerkhove, an infectious disease epidemiologist.
On Tuesday, Van Kerkhove had to “clear up” “misunderstandings” about her statements claiming “very few studies” had even attempted following asymptomatic cases.
NEW YORK
If those protestors had just gotten out of the way we wouldn’t be talking about this situation...Any protester that tries to take the humanity away from a police officer and devalue them just because they are a public servant is no better than the racists who devalue people of color and particularly black men in America.
— NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio
I believe the mayor underestimates the scope of the problem. I believe he underestimates the duration of the problem, and I don’t think they’ve used enough police to address the situation…
— Governor Andrew Cuomo
WASHINGTON D.C.
I don't think the slogan [DEFUND THE POLICE] represents what a lot of people are calling for. I think a lot of people are calling for reform. I think ‘reform police’ may have been a better slogan, and I think that there are probably a lot of departments across this country that need that focus.
— Mayor Muriel BowserCALIFORNIA
The black community is not responsible for what’s happening in this country — we are. People have lost patience for a reason
— Governor Gavin Newsom,
the same day he activated 4,500 National Guard members to “respond to protests if needed.
We have to figure out a way to humanize both sides of the barricades right now...First and foremost, to humanize black people in this country who have disproportionately been dehumanized. But it can’t ever be a one-way street to dehumanize a person who wears a badge. We need them to hear us, but we need to hear them or else we’re going to isolate them into islands that results in the sort of policing we don’t want to see.
— Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti
NATIONWIDE
Anybody who does not want cops, then do not ask for them; send them my way … Send them to Philadelphia, Wilmington, Trenton, the area I live in. And my daughter will be safer, my wife will be safer, my mother will be safer, and I will be safer. And I will be happy.
— Democratic Presidential Candidate,
Joe Biden
OAXACA, MX, June 8—Militant revolutionary greetings from the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) collective in Oaxaca. We offer our solidarity and support during your exemplary fight against the racist and fascist police forces who killed George Floyd. You are an example to the world.This racism is engendered by the capitalist system and carried out by the ruling class in the United States through its fascist police, who commit crimes against the working class on the streets, in the factories, stores, schools and especially against Black and Latin workers.
Racism is promoted by the capitalist class to divide and super exploit the working class. It is a political and ideological strategy the bosses use to boost their profits and preserve their criminal exploitation. Today, the anger and fed up feelings reached their limits, as many major cities in the U.S. saw workers hit the streets rebelling against the racist police.
Racism is running rampant throughout the world, promoted by the capitalist ruling classes. On June 4, Giovanni López Ramírez, a construction worker, was beaten to death by police in Ixtlahuacán de los Membrillos, Jalisco, México. The police say he had no face mask, (a measure against Covid-19) dictated by the governor of the state, Enrique Alfaro, member of the Partido Movimiento Ciudadano (MC), an arm of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), one of the main political parties in Mexico.
Workers took to the streets defying the zero-tolerance campaign in the state. The ruling class, as usual, responded with repression, using their criminal police, injuring and arresting dozens of rebels.Because of the problems caused by the criminal capitalist system, the fight against racism is key in our fight toward a communist world.
Fight on comrades, the communist future is ours!
BROOKLYN, May 31—“We were raised with the history of Haiti...that nonviolence gets you killed and people in America haven’t understood that yet. Everyone needs to learn about Haiti but the racist education system never teaches about it. People need to understand that this enemy won’t stop and it’s either we agree to slavery or they keep murdering us. Either we cut off their heads and burn down their houses or they murder us. That’s what this war is.”
Indeed, it will take a disciplined, organized, violent revolution to get rid of this racist, capitalist system and the killer kkkops that it breeds.
After hearing two inspiring communist speeches at the opening rally (see article above), we heard a militant young woman give this speech on Church and Bedford Avenues. It was her first demonstration. Our multiracial group of seven community college students, faculty and friends marched along with thousands of our working class sisters and brothers. We held up PLP’s CHALLENGE newspapers reading “COMMUNISM WILL END RACIST POLICE TERROR” as our banners, protesting against the most recent racist murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and countless others.
Working collectively: meeting during battle
With masses cheering the several calls for communist revolution, we marched down one of Brooklyn’s busiest streets, Flatbush Avenue. Bus drivers blared their horns and raised their fists as we chanted the names of Black youth murdered by the racist police, while marching past graffitied and smashed up NYPD police cars.
Then, the limits of liberal reformist and pacifist leadership quickly became apparent, and the strength of communist discipline became necessary. At the intersection of Bedford and Tilden Avenues, streams of riot police lined up along the sidewalks. A police helicopter dropped almost to the level of the streetlights and began spraying an unidentified liquid. Combining that with a lack of communist organizational leadership in the march, chaos broke out, and workers began running in different directions.
We interlocked arms to prevent separation. When we saw the riot police surrounding us, we had a brief discussion. Having a discussion while being surrounded by riot police might seem strange. But, when still led by communists in the 1940s, the Red Army in China figured out how to meet in the middle of battles. We checked in and resolved to stick together no matter what. We got out of the cop encirclement and decided to keep marching, but not long after, we were once again boxed in.
The cops were now effectively leading the march, because the march had no communist leadership to seize back the initiative from the cops. The cops split the march into different sections of hundreds of workers, marching up and down different blocks. As police set up more barricades, other cops lined up, periodically swinging their batons and then pulling back to the perimeter.
We reevaluated. The march was leaderless, and without any objective. Based on our strength and numbers, we collectively decided to leave. As we left, we discussed mass violence for communist revolution versus nonviolence, how capitalism needs racism, and Haitian history. We had distributed 100 CHALLENGEs.
Pacifists, nationalists, anarchists: deadly misleaders
Today we saw how pacifism only leads to a dead end for the working class. Whereas Black nationalism and identity politics divide and separate our class, pacifism and nonviolence pacify the working class to “cool off” and play by the bosses’ rules. Pacifist politics leave us unprepared to deal with the chaos the police instigate.
And when the bosses succeed in creating chaos, a working class without communist leadership responds with chaotic violence instead of disciplined, coordinated, militant fightback. The cops take advantage to beat and arrest while the bosses’ media point their cameras and blame the workers for “rioting.” Meanwhile, anarchist groups and other misleaders enter this vacuum to provoke individualist violence. Only with a mass PLP do workers stand a chance to fight and smash capitalist state power: with a workers’ dictatorship.
Overrun capitalism with communist revolution
The international working class indeed has much to learn from Haiti. The Haitian Revolution’s slogan about the French imperialists “koupe tèt, boule kay” (cut off their heads and burn down their houses) is a proud PLP chant every May Day.
We have much to learn from our militant new comrades and friends, who all agreed to join our Party study group and to distribute and discuss CHALLENGE. We hope these militant fighters will agree that the Progressive Labor Party is worthy of their commitment and membership, and help lead the international communist revolution all the way.
From Port-au-Prince to Minneapolis to Aden to Beijing, the working class shall overrun this racist, sexist, imperialist capitalist system once and for all. For George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and too many other names, our victory will be their vengeance.
Brooklyn, May 31—As outrage over George Floyd’s cold-blooded killing spilled out onto the streets, members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) converged on a huge protest in Flatbush, Brooklyn. It was to begin where our May Day march has ended for several years. At this very spot our sound truck has been a platform for sisters and mothers of Black workers and youth killed by police in Brooklyn and Baltimore.
These women have helped to lead the working class in calls to shut this racist system down with communist revolution! They have taught PL’ers precious lessons about what it means to be strong fighters, no matter what. For the families of Shantel Davis, Kyam Livingston, Kimani Gray and Tyrone West justice means a world where nobody else has to face the loss that they have suffered. They have seen this justice denied by mayors and prosecutors both Black and white, by police chiefs and city councils composed of women and men, Republican and Democrat.
These brave women understand better than any of us that the capitalist system means injustice. And they agree to some extent that only a communist world can bring the justice they seek. This hard-won unity flowing from principled political struggle over a long period of time became transformed into a source of tremendous confidence on the part of 20 or so PL’ers and friends at this massive rally on the morning after a vicious police riot just over a mile away on Flatbush Avenue.
Communism: threat to
racist rulers
Widely shared images of this police riot the night before did not prevent thousands from showing up the next day. Their determination to march was matched by the determination of the PL’ers and friends to guarantee that communist politics remained prominent at a rally called by a local anti-racist housing rights organization. Our bullhorn was loud, reaching over half the crowd. The anti-communism of a local leader who cynically, privately and for the first time ever claimed to be a communist himself in order to draw us away from our bold call for communist revolution failed.
After a speech celebrating the bravery and multiracial character of all the antiracist fighters present, the first PLP speaker closed with the sharp rebuke that in this fight for justice ‘there can never be too many communists!’ and the crowd, distinctly, responded with cheers!
The second speaker was a high school student who has seen the Party grow amid the 2018 youth movement against gun violence and saw the Party weather anti-communist investigations at her school in 2016. She spoke with passion, giving a speech she had a chance to practice the day before at a protest outside a federal detention center. The crowd urged her on as she laid out why this government can never bring justice. She nailed Democrat racist Amy KKKlobuchar who set killer kkkop Chauvin free to kill again as typical of the dangerous liberal misleaders we must beware of.
Her alternative, the multiracial unity of the working class fighting for revolution and communism, was wildly cheered by a huge number of protesters! Many also cheered when a later speaker called for filling out census forms and voting, but not one elected official spoke.
When communism is about as popular as the census and voting in a crowd of thousands of politically engaged and highly motivated young people, the ruling class is starting to have a different kind of problem on its hands, and even more importantly the working class is starting to see its way toward justice apart from the capitalist system. Onward!
