‘Identity politics workshop: ‘very enlightening’
I have been interested in learning more about Progressive Labor Party and had heard from my friend that her sister is involved in a communist discussion group. I contacted her sister and she informed me of an education workshop that was taking place over zoom about communism in the classroom. I was intrigued, and decided to attend. I also just want to state that I am a queer, white woman and a recent STEM college graduate. Around 55 people attended the forum, which was surprising to me. An opening speech was given about how, through communism,U.S. workers can defeat capitalism and the  negative effects (racism, sexism, etc.) it has on our society. I ended up attending one workshop about identity politics. It was very enlightening because I honestly wasn’t too familiar with identity politics before this. I consider myself a huge feminist and am part of the LGBTQ+ community.
It was interesting to learn that it’s better not to identify with people who are similar to you in terms of race or gender or sexuality, but rather with class. I’ve always automatically aligned myself with people that are within those two categories I mentioned above. I was actually also surprised to hear that racism can affect everyone in the workforce who isn’t on the top, not just nonwhite workers.
While I didn’t actively participate in the forum because I felt I was too uneducated, I enjoyed listening to what people had to say and learned a lot. This event has inspired the activist within me and I want to push through my comfort zone to do more.
I want to take action and do my part to fight capitalism. Thank you for the educational forum!
*****
Angela Davis, not a communist
The otherwise excellent article, “Only Communism Can Eradicate Sexism” (CHALLENGE, 3/17), was marred by some confusion over communist history and what it means to be a revolutionary.
Exhibit A: While Angela Davis was a longtime member and leader of the Communist Party USA, it would be incorrect to call her a “Black communist.” In the 1930s, a time when workers still held state power in the Soviet Union, the CPUSA was part of the vanguard of the international revolutionary communist movement. The party had political weaknesses, notably in joining an anti-fascist “popular front” with liberal Democrats.
But as the Langston Hughes article in the same issue of CHALLENGE pointed out, the CPUSA took a leading role in the most militant working-class and anti-racist struggles of the day, including leading the defense of the Scottsboro Boys.
With the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, the Soviet Union accelerated its decay into state capitalism. Under the leadership of arch-revisionists (fake leftists) Earl Browder and then Gus Hall, the CPUSA followed the USSR’s tragic lead, abandoned revolution, and dove into reformist trade unionism. In 1962, the founders of Progressive Labor Party (then the Progressive Labor Movement) were kicked out—a badge of honor. By 1980, when Angela Davis ran for U.S. vice president on the CPUSA ticket with Gus Hall, she’d become another sell-out, lesser-evil capitalist reformer, no more and no less.
In 2019, in a statement celebrating the 100th anniversary of the CPUSA, this self-proclaimed socialist feminist wrote: “At the very least we must defeat the Trump administration in 2020!” Davis openly backed Joe Biden, the chief architect of racist mass incarceration. She said the choice of Top Cop Kamala Harris as Biden’s running mate made the ticket “more palatable”—a corrupt nod to reactionary, lesser-evil identity politics.
Davis was right about one thing, however. Biden and Harris are indeed “the very least” the working class could get.
*****
Overcome liberal illusions
We must beware of liberal police reforms that might lull us into thinking the police state we live in can be reformed. Perhaps the biggest response – by liberal politicians – to our summer of sharp struggle, has been in Ithaca, New York. Mayor Myrick’s new proposal would replace the city’s existing police department with a “Department of Community Solutions and Public Safety.” Some tasks that don’t necessitate armed cops are slated to be turned over to unarmed “community solution workers” who will report to a civilian director of public safety, instead of a police chief. Perhaps that will save upstate capitalists some city payroll money.
However, armed “public safety workers” will also exist, as before. Undoubtedly, those cops will remain prepared to carry out organized violence in a determined effort to suppress any workers’ strikes; suppress any large-scale, bold student protests fighting for progressive demands; and suppress any powerful movements which seriously challenge the racial inequities that lie at the heart of capitalism.
The capitalist rulers need racist police brutality, intimidation, and terror to maintain their power over us. The system works just like it has been developed to do. So instead of begging the rulers to change their ways, we must overthrow them.
To do this, we need to build a revolutionary, antiracist, working class party that takes aim at the entire structure and system of capitalism. A broad movement led by such a party can make a revolution to replace the existing racist capitalist system with a communist system of working class equality, antisexism and antiracism. Then we can creatively work to meet our class’s needs rather than slaving to make big profits for capitalists. Overcoming liberal illusions about the capitalist system, by millions of workers and youth, can open the way for a better future!
*****
Where are you, Joe?
I was listening to a talk show about jobless Washington hotel workers seeking help and not getting it from their union. At the beginning of the show the moderator called for comments from people, “ with union experience like Joe” (I had been on the show a few times already). I called in to comment but was on hold. With five minutes to the program’s end, the moderator said, “Joe, where are you? Are you out there?” and suddenly my phone was connected to the show.
With only a minute to go I said the problem was that the labor movement had become business unionism and labor leaders had become capitalists with six figure salaries. I said when communists were in the unions, the leaders received only the average pay of union workers and reluctant leaders were instantly replaced.
Later I tried to understand why the moderator had called on me and I recalled previous shows like one on union organizing where I said that before communists were barred from union leadership, there were lunch-time discussions on world events and local strikes that workers could join after work. On another show I related the recent New York City Teamsters strike to the 1964 Transit workers strike that won because bosses said, “You’ve got a gun to our heads” which revealed the power of a united working class.
All these recollections made me realize that the moderator was calling for on the job, working-class tactics and strategies to fight capitalist oppression even when they are communist ideas.
Our Party needs to use every opportunity to relate our historical and current struggle experiences with workers to help them realize that communism is them running society in their interests.
*****

BALTIMORE, March 6—Two days before the trial of Derek Chavin for robbing the life of George Floyd, antiracists and six families whose loved ones were murdered by the kkkops here  rallied to denounce capitalist state terrorism. The West Coalition, with Progressive Labor Party (PLP), organized a demonstration for the prosecution of killer-kkkop Derek Chauvin, the reopening of all local cases of murder-by-police, and the jailing of those cops too! As the masses here fight racist police terror and demand more accountability, it’s becoming more common to hear—even if the speaker is not a member of PLP—that communist revolution is the only solution!
‘They are killing us’
Since the murder of Tyrone West in July 2013, antiracists protested in what became the West Wednesday rallies every week, which since the pandemic have been live-streamed to between 150 and 600 viewers. In fact, the 400th protest will be held as this issue of CHALLENGE goes to press.
Today, about 20 cars, decorated with antiracist posters, caravanned down Greenmount Avenue for two-and-a-half miles. Lyrics of our throbbing music trumpeted the need to stand up against racist police.
The whole way, Tawanda Jones, sister of Tyrone, stood up through the car's moonroof. Her fist was in the air, inspiring enthusiastic onlookers on the sidewalks.
Arriving at City Hall for a high energy, two-hour rally, joining the West family were women and men, representing five more families, each of whom had a loved one murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in blue.
“I imagine what my brother was screaming,” sister Tawanda Jones grieved, referring to when her brother Tyrone West was repeatedly tased, maced, and beaten to death by 11 to 15 cops.
She went on to say, about the early days of the struggle for accountability, “Everyone thought my family was crazy. Now you see! They are killing us!”
‘They brought the war to me’
Jarrel Gray’s uncle performed a spoken-word poem, condemning the criminal in-justice system, in which he tells of his nephew’s death, caused by the electric noose of 50,000 volts from repeated tasings.
Many reformers tout tasers as a reasonable weapon for law enforcement. However, we know that more than 1,000 people in the U.S. have died, during the last two decades, after police shocked them with tasers. The stun gun was ruled to be a cause, or contributing factor, in 153 of those deaths. Nine in ten who died after being tased were unarmed (Reuters).
Leonard Shand’s sister, Tracy, boldly condemned the imperialist roots of U.S. history. Then, Nicole Pettiford spoke. Her family was doubly terrorized, having her father-in-law, Anthony Anderson, and 16-year-old-daughter fall to police and police-instigated violence. In response to cop killings, committed with no consequences, she warned, “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander!”
Now raising their four children on her own, Marah O’Neal spoke about the horrendous police killing of her former husband, Jamaal Taylor. She explained, “They brought the war to me. They’re going to stop killing our Black men… our children… our Black women… our Latino people… our white people too. Trust and believe they’re going to get this work. It’s all of us versus them!”
‘We need a revolution’
A speaker for Progressive Labor Party unwaveringly declared, “We need a revolution. We need to destroy this capitalist system, and create a brotherly and sisterly world of equality,” a point greeted with enthusiastic cheers, though of course not from everyone.
The Party speaker also explained that fellow workers on the job taught him how racism really works: “It’s a trick by the capitalist class to divide and conquer the working class.”
During applause in response, another speaker shouted out, “Say it again!”
The multiracial crowd of about 50 hissed at the mention of Maryland’s Law Enforcement Officer’s Bill of (Killer) Rights, and roared “Shame!” at cops nearby when they were pointed out.
Antiracist learn from LA struggle
Leading up to this event, ever since November of 2018, Progressive Labor Party has led a late-evening CHALLENGE discussion group, once a month, for interested antiracist in the West Wednesday struggle. The affectionate name for this gathering is C-DAWWG, meaning CHALLENGE Discussion After West Wednesday Group. In those sessions, we recently completed the third and final discussion about lessons to be learned from a great report by comrades in Los Angeles (see struggle, page 1).
It tells the exciting story of their bold organizing work: in the fight against police brutality, against evictions, to widely share the important understanding that communism is the only solution, and to recruit new members, thereby expanding the strength of PLP. As communists do, the LA comrades also honestly discussed strengths and weaknesses in their work, and we learned from that too.
Antiracist struggle bears communist fruit
PLP here also recently launched a new study group for folks who are seriously thinking about joining PLP. Our expectation is that this new collective will likely morph into a Party club, which is the basic local organizational unit of Progressive Labor Party.
At this caravan and rally, however, no CHALLENGE newspapers could be distributed, because they were already gone, having all been taken by participants at the rally in Annapolis, two days earlier. We will increase our numbers.
So even if Chauvin’s trial leads to a cellblock, tiny specks of justice will not easily quench the flame towards greater action.
The victory here is antiracist fighters seeing the need and having the commitment to begin the long fight towards building a new society without racist police terror. That system is communism. By growing the Party in numbers and strength, communist influence and leadership can reach more of the working class until one day we are powerful enough to seize state power with communist revolution.

WORCESTER, MA, March 16— St Vincent's Hospital workers are on strike for safe patient staffing. The hospital is owned by Tenet Healthcare, which made $478 million in the last quarter alone. PLP is supporting this strike. The nurses won't give up!
Capitalism means understaffing, cutbacks and systemic, racist, sexist healthcare! Whenever there is a scarcity of a commodity under capitalism (e.g. healthcare, covid vaccines), racism, sexism, and poverty determines who gets left behind.
As long as we have this profit system, human life will be cheap and we will continue to be commodities, tossed aside and discarded when no longer useful to the bosses. Support the striking nurses as they fight for safe patient ratios and their livelihood!
Only a multiracial, antiracist workforce that fights racism and is grounded in the old communist adage: “an injury to one is an injury to all,” can lead and fight for real change. Politicians can’t do that. Union leaders can’t do that. Only the working class with communist leadership can achieve a need-based system because we are the cure. Full story next issue!

One hundred fifty years ago this week, in 1871, armed workers ran the French bosses out of Paris and established the Paris Commune. France was a world superpower. Germany had a growing industrial base and its own super-power ambitions. "We, the members of the International Working Men's Association, know of no frontiers," declared the communists. But competition between French and German capitalists led to war in 1870. The French army was soon routed.
The Parisian masses, though sympathetic to communism, were still swayed by nationalism. They demanded arms to defend the city from the besieging German army. The bourgeois government organized most adult males into its National Guard. However, these Guard units, made up of the working class, organized their own leadership committees in each district and a workers' Central Committee to unite them.
On March 17, 1871, the government gave in to the German army and fled to suburban Versailles. When troops returned the next day to fetch arms they had left behind, angry workers confronted them. The troops refused orders to shoot into the crowd. They handed their weapons to the workers.
The next day, March 18, 1871, the Central Committee of the National Guard took over City Hall and ran up the Red Flag of workers' revolution. For the first time in the history of class society, the working class had taken power.
Building equality
The Central Committee called for new elections. "The men who will serve you best are those whom you choose from amongst yourselves," it urged the workers. Red flags were everywhere.
The Commune kept the bourgeois form of elections, but the victorious workers did not simply take over the bourgeois state machine. They smashed it and began to build something brand new: the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
The masses were the real masters of the Commune. Twenty thousand activists attended small club meetings daily to offer criticisms and make suggestions. Elected officials considered all proposals and usually acted on them. Officials who disregarded the masses were subject to immediate recall.
The workers' government disbanded the bourgeois Guard units. It suspended all decrees of the old government. Workers pulled down the Victory Column, symbol of French imperialism. They elected a Hungarian-German communist to their governing body, declaring that the Commune represented workers everywhere.
The workers' government wiped out state support of religion and took over church property. It capped officials' salaries so that none made more than a worker's wage. It took away bosses' rights to fine workers. It took over workshops that had been closed because of the economic depression and turned them over to workers' cooperatives.
This working-class dictatorship was the necessary prerequisite to abolishing the wage-slavery of capitalism. The Commune held power for ten short weeks. It proved for all time that the working class can, must, and will rule society.
Why did the workers lose in 1871?
The French bourgeoisie used tax money taken from the workers' sweat to pay off the German government to release French prisoners of war. In May, after a bloody civil war in the streets, these soldiers re-took Paris for the bosses. The communist movement was quick to draw some lessons from this heroic and historic struggle. Other lessons we only recognized a century later.
 Workers need to smash the bosses' state. But the Commune did not go far enough. It was lenient with counter-revolutionaries and renegades. It allowed the French bourgeoisie to regroup, instead of organizing a Red Army to hunt it down. The bourgeoisie was not lenient at all after it crushed the Commune, murdering 100,000 workers (including children). The Commune was not able to link up with Communes in Lyons, Marseilles, and other cities. The working class dictatorship needs to arm and organize the masses, but it also needs a Red Army.
The Commune organized workers into political clubs, but not into a communist party. There was plenty of democracy (discussion of policy) but not much centralism (united action). The political form of bourgeois democracy undermined the working-class goals of the Commune.
The Commune did not move quickly enough to abolish capitalism. Had it expropriated the Bank of France, the French bourgeoisie would have had a much harder time raising a counter-revolutionary army.
The Commune recognized the need for equality among workers and revolutionary cadre. But we can see now that equalizing wages was no substitute for abolishing the wage system altogether.
As we march for communism on May Day this year and every year, the Progressive Labor Party will carry forward the spirit of the Paris Commune.
For more on the Paris Commune and the lessons communists drew from it, read Karl Marx's book, The Civil War In France; Frederick Engels, The Great Lessons of the Paris Commune.