A few months ago, a community organization to which I belong to, along with other PL’ers, participated in a hunger strike, which lasted over 20 days. The struggle for social services for undocumented workers brought people closer to Progressive Labor Party and built class-consciousness.
One PL’er said these struggles were too pacifist. After discussing it, we decided that we would participate in order to stand shoulder to shoulder with our class. By struggling with our friends, we raise consciousness our class’ consciousness and learn how to fight back against the capitalist system.  
This strike was for undocumented workers who did not receive any social services related to the pandemic. The strike was fulfilled and in the end they managed to win. Unfortunately, the benefits were minimal and not for everyone. This is how capitalism works: they only give you painkillers or candy to stomach the struggles.
The hunger strike was light since we were housed in a church with small beds, heating, refrigerated water, a daily visits from a doctor. All fighters deserve our appreciation, respect and consideration, for the solidarity, responsibility and conscience shown in this fight. We had doubts about the strike since the organizers made this strike a “commercial” strike, in which all participants receieved a financial contribution for each day of fasting... can you imagine that?
Days after the pyrrhic “victory,” the community organization had their annual gala of recognition. The organization’s leaders asked the members to choose a striker to speak at the gala, and they chose a member of PLP. Majority participants are workers, loyal to a community organization that works under the rules of the liberal Democratic Party, from which they receive funds.
Fifteen years of organizing
But we have more than 15 years of work by a group of communist fighters, who in each meeting, in each protest, in each march, in one way or another, have led with the politics of our Party, speaking with the truth, exposing the capitalist system, which will never meet the needs of the working class.
We distributed countless newspapers over the years. We proposed and convened three worker conferences, with the participation of around 100 people in each one, among many other things, which have contributed to the growth of our group. Sometimes, two steps forward and one step back, but growing in our mission to increase the ranks of our international communist movement through PLP.
Workers respond to speech by joining PL study group
In the speech, the PL’er said the strike victory gave a crumb to essential undocumented workers, who were unemployed during that period of the pandemic and did not receive help of any kind, neither state nor federal, for not having a social security numbers.
In the speech, he referred to how workers are in similar struggles worldwide, in which thousands are repressed, massacred and imprisoned by the capitalist forces. This includes Colombia, Haiti, Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, Spain, France, and more.
He also mentioned how this struggle against the attack on undocumented workers built unity among the members. In addition, it showed that our working class is increasingly alert and that, organized and led by our PLP, the next step can be taken, towards a communist revolution, when they become aware of our power. And that capitalists’ control over workers can be smashed with the seizure of workers’ power.
The speech at the gala concluded with these chants: “Workers united, you will never be defeated! The workers fights have no borders! This fist is seen, the workers at power!”
They resounded in the venue and ended with an ovation.
Following the speech at the gala, 40 people on our study group list received the speech that was made. The response: 17 people attended the study group to discuss immigration reform. We will continue our work in the community organization, leading with, as always, our communist line. We will continue working with our friends, to attract new fighters.
The final victory will be when we abolish wage slavery and we are treated as workers who have realized their full power. This will be under a communist society. Join and lead this fight with PLP!J
CHALLENGE Responds:
Progressive Labor Party (PLP) does not view hunger strikes as a viable tactic, as its premise is that we can guilt our oppressors into submission. In reality, our lives do not matter to the ruling class.  If  liberation from exploitation and starvation is the goal, our strategy should be to smash our attackers and fight for communism. While we fundamentally disagree with resorting to hunger strikes as a form of protests, we do stand in solidarity with the class struggle in this dark night.

NEW YORK CITY, November 1—“I’m moving at a snail’s pace, but I’m getting stronger.” That’s how one comrade spoke for all of us as our Progressive Labor Party (PLP) club launched our new members’ class. Over the past 18 months, our club has recruited three new members, Black, Latin, and white, women and men, older and younger.
One is an unemployed worker, won out of an antiracist fightback around homelessness. Another is a staff member at a community college, and the third is a full-time professor at City University. Both are involved in our work in the CUNY staff and faculty union, PSC, and all three have been to May Day. They each have strong, long-term personal/political ties with one or more members of our collective.
We launched the class to strengthen our new comrades ideologically, make them more familiar with the main aspects of PLP’s outlook, and thereby strengthen our entire collective and our ability to build a communist world. We started by discussing the front-page CHALLENGE article on the girls’ volleyball team in a Brooklyn H.S. fighting racism (CHALLENGE, Oct.20).
One member quickly pointed out the unequal funding between sports teams that are mainly white students versus those that are mainly Black and Latin students, and how the bosses enforce racist inequality through their state power, in this case the New York City Department of Education. Another showed how this struggle reflected three of the 10 points in the PLP “Our Fight” column; anti-racism, anti-sexism, and collectivity over individualism. The third stressed how PLP’s involvement in mass activity, like the volleyball team or the annual Hoops for Justice event against police terror, allows the Party to raise our politics with a wide range of people in a very concrete way. Everyone focused on “What is winning,” and how struggles like this can literally be “schools for communism.”
We discussed base building, and how PLP has deep, long-standing ties with students, teachers, and parents at this school. The new members didn’t know this and thought that we should make that clear in future articles. They also wanted to know more about the discussions with students, teachers, and parents about PLP because they are trying to have similar conversations. What questions did people raise? How did we answer them?
Over the next few months, we will introduce dialectical materialism (Jailbreak!: Dialectical Materialism), how  PLP operates (On Democratic Centralism), Black workers as a key force for revolution, and why revolutionaries must fight nationalism. The first two texts mentioned can be found under ‘Key Documents’ on plp.org. We are open to suggestions and if there are similar classes, please share your experiences by writing a letter to CHALLENGE.

Laying the tracks for class struggle

I have been involved with a group of bus and rail transit workers for over a year. I am retired but part of this group of organizers. We have had rallies, demonstrations, virtual and now in-person meetings, confronted sellout union leadership, fliers, and participated in a YouTube radio show (twice) that has a growing following. Union members have led and organized these struggles!

At our most recent in-person meeting, we did have a struggle about the vaccine. Everyone there, except one person was vaccinated. A bus driver told us about her co-worker and friend who died of Covid-19 a few days before. She said she would try to win people to get the vaccine. A rail mechanic said we have to respect and care for others and that is one reason he got the vaccine - to protect the more vulnerable people in his life. Someone mentioned  that we have to respect the point of view of workers that are hesitant about the vaccine, while at the same time pointing  out the racist nature of the police union. We all agreed that the mandate would be used to punish workers. Yet police are being put forward by some members of our class as leaders that the anti-vaxxer union members should respect and follow.

It was hard for me to struggle against these ideas, which strengthen individualism and reject science and history. Workers in our base say they don’t want to  be  told what to do and or have their personal choice violated. Racism in medical care for Black and Latin workers has clearly contributed to many  of workers’ mistrust and fear. Yet, racism has guaranteed that Black and Latin workers are dying at higher rates than white workers. It’s apparent I have not struggled hard enough to win friends and union brothers and sisters to the Party’s line about the growth of fascism. 

There is a lot of work to be done! Selling CHALLENGE and discussing the articles, struggling over communist ideas - this is what we need to do!

**

‘I’m a communist, too!’

Despite the pandemic, students and workers have not stopped organizing. This fall I participated in two overnight events alone.  Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and friends can learn from these struggle opportunities. The first was a protest in Annapolis, Maryland with CASA calling on the Governor to extend the eviction moratorium. After the rally I spent the night with 50 tenants and supporters at a church parking lot. We met from 9 PM to midnight! At one point I said I was there because "I hate capitalism and am a communist!" This was different from people saying they were there because housing is a human right.Several people asked for CHALLENGE  after hearing my politics and three of them said "I'm a communist too," , I spent a cold, rainy night outside of the U.S. White House Covid Response Coordinator, Jeffrey Zients’ house with 20 young workers  and joined the 6 AM wake up call (see article). Each hour outside, we lit candles and read about workers from other countries who had died of COVID One particularly intense story was about the death of "Dr. Charles,"a revered OB-GYN doctor from Uganda that  fought for women's rights and died without ever making it into a hospital. There were a lot of political and social conversations throughout the night and capitalism was discussed much more than at the rally itself. It was great meeting the folks in person who I had been on Zoom with planning the event for weeks. I now plan to send CHALLENGE to several of these folks from as far away as Portland, Oregon. I did raise the Party’s line  in these conversations but both events would have been even better with more PLP members in attendance. Be on the lookout for opportunities like these and bring a good sleeping bag.

Inflamed: Inspiring but insufficient

The popular book Inflamed (2021), by Rupa Marya and Raj Patel, is both enlightening and enraging. While they expose the environment as a culprit for most diseases, their solution is backwards—as in go back to a pre-capitalist society. Marya and Patel suffer from anti-communism. 

Inflamed has several themes. One is that inflammation is behind most disease processes in all parts of our bodies, an idea more accepted by conventional medicine. The authors carry the idea farther, showing how the environment, both physical and social, is deeply entwined with inflammation. The second main theme is that modern medicine has detached bodily systems from each other and the body from the world it inhabits just as modern humans have fallen out of harmony with themselves and the world around them. They argue many indigenous cultures  are better synchronized with their environment. 

However, a solution is sorely lacking. They describe our environment as colonialism and as capitalist colonialism. The supposed remedy is to emulate non-industrial cultures by “walking backward into the future” (p. 351). But the authors do not address how, not to return to pre-capitalism but to consider what comes after capitalism and how to get there. 

The main problem with the book is anti-communism. If you don’t believe it is possible to construct a society run by and for the working class through organizing a Party, then your only option is to persuade capitalists to be nicer exploiters. These authors proclaim communism will always fail because of individualist human nature. Progressive Labor Party believes workers can run a society based on the common good.

The Role of Inflammation

Acute inflammation may result from an infection, injury or psychological stress and initiate healing mechanisms like fever, bacteria hunting macrophages, wound healing, and the fight or flight reflex. Stress is the body’s response to any threat, and it activates the nervous, endocrine and immune systems to produce inflammatory signaling proteins (cytokines) and hormones to respond in the short term.

Chronic stress, however, may generate a chronic reaction from which the body never heals, be it from ongoing pollution or the stress of racist and sexist inequality under capitalism. Chronic stress leads to chronic diseases: diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, osteoarthritis, chronic obstructive lung disease, and Alzheimer’s.Even aging is accelerated by chronic stress (p. 68).

The authors detail the ways our systems are affected by inflammation. Stress activates an axis from the brain that releases hormones like cortisol and adrenaline that in turn activate immune cells to release C-reactive protein and others. In the face of chronic stress this mechanism is disrupted, resulting in constant low-grade inflammation. 

The response to new threats is lessened and the body is less able to defend against infections, such as Covid-19 (p. 92).We know that chronic diseases like diabetes and chronic obstructive lung disease result both from inflammation and toxins like air pollution and are more prevalent among the urban working-class and non-white residents.

 Inflammatory racism

The Covid-19 pandemic explains how modern medicine both ignores the higher toll of disease on Black, Latin, indigenous, and Asian working-class people in particular and our class in general. Racism means that members of the super-exploited group have higher C-reactive protein, a marker of chronic inflammation. This is true of Black workers in the U.S., Muslim workers in Burma, Dalit workers in India and many more (p. 232).Compared to white workers, Black workers in the U.S. have higher rates of chronic diseases and have a shorter life expectancy—all conditions related to inflammation.

The authors give examples of how indigenous cultures have avoided high stress levels. However, when any of these societies were disrupted by colonization and the imposition of modern industrial agriculture and production for profit, disease and social disruption followed. The drive for profit hurts workers’ health. 

What is to be done

So how can we change that world? Although we can learn from indigenous societies, today’s conditions are different. We can’t recreate life from the past for the mass of the world’s population in a sustainable way. Communism, a society run by the world’s workers for the world’s workers, is the future we need.

The authors support the movement to abolish the police that target and kill mainly Black and Latin members of our class. The demand is to redirect police funds to housing, schools, job creation and other community resources (p. 258). The authors write, “Abolishing the modern private corporation doesn’t mean ending coordinated enterprise but rather holding it accountable to the people it serves''(p. 334). However, the authors’ own evaluation of the hunger for profits, the cruelty of capitalist exploitation, and the violence perpetrated in world conquest illustrates the illogic of this demand. Their anti-communism leads them to reject the logical conclusions of their own research.

A system based on the repression of the few by the many needs a repressive force to quell dissent. A system based on profits, capitalism, cannot sacrifice profits to benefit workers.

We need a movement to destroy capitalism. This will require a violent, massive, international struggle that will be built on the basis of reform struggles focusing on multiracial worker-led movements and not building illusions about reforming capitalism. 

This movement may also be inspired by the worsening cataclysms that capitalism will bring—climate disasters and world war. As a new worker-led society is constructed, many of the insights about medicine and the connection of the physical and social environments to our health will become clearer. But only then.