The following story has been reprinted from Wally Linder’s Life of Labor and Love.
In June 1964, the Progressive Labor Movement decided to print an eight-page weekly newspaper; CHALLENGE was born. Our search for a printer led us to an outfit in Trenton, N.J. After laying down a deposit, the printer looked at the first issue and told us that would be the last one he’d print.
We called up the Harris offset press manufacturer and asked for a list of newspaper printers to whom it had sold web offset presses. That’s how we found the Sun Publishing Co., located in the Chinese community on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. We showed our first issue to the owner, Mr. Chan, and he agreed to print our newspaper. His wife and kids helped with various tasks. Milt Rosen, PLM chairperson, and I packed the papers into boxes for pick-up.
As it happened, later that month the Harlem rebellion erupted, during which the rebels were holding the front page of CHALLENGE as their flag while marching. This prompted the NYPD Red Squad to visit Mr. Chan and warn him that if he continued to print our paper he would be in for trouble. Chan told them he was within his rights to print any newspaper brought to him. “What about freedom of the press?” he shot back at the cops’ threat. He was not about to abandon his only account. Years later, when Mr. Chan retired, our search for another printer led us to Brooklyn and Ballan Printing, a company that printed many small community and campus papers—and a huge number of pornographic ones that had sprung up since the 1960s. (The Mafia, in collusion with the owners, had coerced the workers into a local union it controlled.) But neither the owners nor the Mafia counted on the workers’ rebelliousness.
The workers read our paper and saw the various exposés we wrote about the lousy working conditions that profit-hungry bosses were pushing on workers throughout the country.
When we went to pick up the paper, the workers showed us the horrible condition of what passed for their bathroom and asked us to write about it. Our editor Luis Castro wrote an exposé for the next issue, which the workers read with enthusiastic approval. When the bosses saw the article, they went wild. They told us it was all lies and one-sided and challenged us to print their side, “the truth.” We told them that there was only one “truth,” the “workers’ truth,” which made them even crazier. From then on, they scrutinized every issue. Soon afterwards, the owners renovated the bathroom into a halfway decent condition. The workers attributed that improvement to the article we had written.
When a pre-May Day issue came out, we printed the words of the workers’ anthem, “The Internationale.” When we went to pick up that issue, a pressman suddenly leapt up the two flights of stairs to the top of the huge web press and in a clear, loud voice began singing “The Internationale.” As the strains of the final words, “the International working class shall be the human race,” drifted across the pressroom, the workers spontaneously burst into applause.
We never found out how this worker knew the song’s melody, but news of the performance soon traveled to the far reaches of Brooklyn. We are now in our 55th year of publishing CHALLENGE, and have never missed an issue.

*****

Don’t Undersell it!
Sometimes, we think that Progressive Labor Party’s modest size and modest distribution of our literature limits our influence to a few close friends.
  While it is true that PLP needs to grow tremendously to be in a position to take state power away from the ruling class in any area of the world, the mass character of the response to our May Day March in Flatbush, Brooklyn bears out our line on concentrating our forces and bodes well for the future.
  For quite a few years now, hundreds of people along the route of the march intently watch our march, honk in support, put thumbs up, dance to our chants, or otherwise show support for our march. Thousands take CHALLENGE newspaper. This year, near the end of the march, one comrade on the outside of the line of march told me she had seen exactly one negative response from those watching us.
  I drove in from New Jersey with a full car. As soon as the closing rally ended, I headed for my car so that I could come back and pick up my passengers. As I was about to reach my car, I noticed two young Black men on bikes riding in the street. They had obviously been observing the march because I distinctly heard one of them say to the other “The big problem with capitalism is that it keeps us all separate.” I marveled at the effect our communist march had on these young men, who probably just happened to be riding near Flatbush Avenue when we marched by.
No doubt the determination and perseverance of our Brooklyn comrades to expand the party and its ideas is being duplicated in other PLP concentrations all over the world. This is an important step on the road to communist revolution and workers’ power.

Mexico, May 1–This May Day, just over thirty enthusiastic friends and members of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) commemorated this international working class holiday with two marches, one in Mexico City and another in Oaxaca. We distributed 4,500 Challenge fliers, chanted slogans and sang communist songs. The presence of our modest contingents represents a small flame that, with dedication and work in organizing our class, will eventually become a conflagration that will reduce inequality, racism, sexism, exploitation, fascism and nationalism to ashes.
The working class must understand the real meaning of the Fourth Transformation (4T) that the current government is carrying out. It is really just another deceptive trick of the capitalist system. For centuries, capitalism has generated huge profits for the bosses at the cost of exploitation, misery and death for workers all over the world. The working class does not need more capitalism, what it needs is a system of social equality like communism.
Behind Andres Manuel López Obrador’s rhetoric, under the 4T’s plans the profit system remains intact, as well as the theft of the impoverished majority by the billionaire minority. For proof all we need to do is review the main policies that it promotes.
The labor law reforms that will take shape in the Senate in the coming days, tackle three main issues. For starters, it attacks the union structure. Even though this structure has not been the most revolutionary, it has been used by workers as a vehicle for class struggle. The reforms are also trying to impose direct voting for the union leaders, regulate their decision making process and make their pay more transparent. Under the pretext of eliminating the union leaders’ power, an important worker defense mechanism is being weakened.
Another proposal is to improve the mechanisms of labor flexibility, which will not reverse the weakening of labor contracts with subcontracting as its maximum expression. The bosses want to force women and young people to join the labor market with "training contracts."
A similar situation can be observed with the approval of education reform, which maintains its punitive and repressive character against teachers and opens the doors to the privatization of public education, so desired by the bourgeoisie.
Criminal violence continues to increase, the alternative of providing economic support for the vulnerable population will only serve to promote political and electoral patronage. Even worse, the approval of the so-called National Guard, will increase the police and military presence that will mainly ensure the realization of national and global capitalist projects such as the interoceanic corridor, the Mayan train, the Dos Bocas refinery, mining, oil, water and biodiversity exploitation.
These projects will face working class resistance, as is currently happening in several parts of the country. Workers have organized against mining projects, mainly, but also against the airport in Texcoco. In addition to the media and political coverage used to achieve these plans through rigged consultations, the presidency will use the discrediting of opponents as radicalized minorities, as it has done with teachers in Michoacán and Oaxaca, or with opponents of the thermoelectric plant in Puebla, which ended in the murder of one of its leaders.
After the "democratic" simulation and discrediting of opponents, the use of state violence through the National Guard and the army will be justified, to enforce the "rule of law" and the will of the majority. The projects of the 4T are the same as those of big local capitalists and the global imperialists.
At a global level capitalism is in crisis, the threat of a war between the main imperialists is increasing. Millions of workers have to migrate from their places of origin to escape violence and poverty; migration is growing rapidly in Mexico and Central America. Contrary to the promises made in the campaign, the current government has adopted a policy of control, repression and criminalization of migrants.
The working class in Mexico has been one of the most oppressed in the world in the last decade. It receives one of the lowest salaries, with fewer and fewer labor rights, with the longest working hours, it is disorganized and depoliticized and is facing levels of violence similar to a country at war.
For the ruling class it was fundamental that a politician like López Obrador came to power, to give an appearance of change and democracy. The new government has given a respite to the political and capitalist class in Mexico and the world, to realize their plans for exploitation and to advance fascism.
Faced with this panorama, the working class must have its own plans, to reorganize, to politicize, and to resist and fight to change the unequal capitalist system for a communist system of social equality. That is the plan of the Progressive Labor Party.
This May Day, we raise the flags of the international unity of the working class, we defend the struggle of the workers for our liberation from the yoke of capital through a communist revolution, we reject the electoral farce and we call on workers to organize themselves in action-study collectives to understand the capitalist reality and eventually change it.
Members and friends of PLP believe that changing the capitalist system will take several generations, but we are confident that our class historically has achieved the greatest social, cultural, political, technological, and scientific advances as occurred during the Russian and Chinese revolution and during all class struggle around the world.

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Haiti, May 27—“We have to destroy capitalism to make room for communism.” This was the most memorable sentence at the Progressive Labor Party’s May Day activities. To mark the International Workers’ Day, PLP participated in a number of militant activities in several locations.
Red discussions
One event was organized in a community of agricultural workers and their families where PLP has been active for a long time. A discussion was held under the Mapou tree on May 1 about the history and importance of May Day as a worldwide workers’ celebration of fights against the capitalism. “Today is really not a fête,” said one of our comrades. “It is a moment of reflection about how to organize ourselves noting the difference between May Day as a day of commemoration of struggle and not just the celebration of ‘agriculture and work’ as the Haitian capitalist class would have us believe.”
These ideas were greeted with smiles and applause. The comrade noted that Haitian workers and students have contributed to this worldwide movement in their fight against corruption, unemployment and all the misery that capitalism brings to workers and their families.
Mass mobilizations
In the capital city, Port-au-Prince, several participated in mass mobilizations of thousands of workers and students. They continue to build confidence inside the working class about the necessity to fight back under the communist leadership of the PLP. The current period is favorable to these ideas because there is a real lack of leadership among those engaged in spontaneous mobilizations against the Haitian and international bourgeoisie.  
The current economic, social and political context is an objective condition for the class struggle. The PLP takes the opportunity to raise awareness and organize masses for the class struggle.
Destroy this rotten system
On May 5, in the provincial town, we organized a full day of activities. A militant anti-capitalist professor and a PLP comrade hosted a talk about the ruling class’s mafia-like strategies. Workers, employed and unemployed, high school and university students all had the opportunity to struggle, with much animation, over the ideas about revolutionary communism. One of them underscored the conclusion: “We have to build the Party to destroy this rotten system, capitalism!”
A PL’er spoke about why May Day calls for ongoing reflection and organization. “Thanks to struggles of workers under communist leadership for almost two centuries, the working class has had many victories. Yet many of those victories have been reversed, such as the Bolshevik and Chinese revolutions. Unless we permanently bury the capitalists, they will always find a way back.”
The comrade used the labor code as an example of a legal maneuver used by the capitalist state to guarantee their rule. “Labor regulations are designed by the bosses and voted into law by their valets, the bought-and-paid-for politicians. A portion of the labor code states workers’ strikes must be announced in advance and cannot go on for more than two days! At this, one worker exclaimed, “We must put an end to all this, the politicians are not in favor of the masses, we must no longer vote!”
For his part, the professor criticized the imperialists’ savage exploitation of the natural resources and the labor force of the working class, particularly here. He highlighted the lies concocted by the rulers and their stooges to make workers believe that the investments made by the bourgeoisie will change their lives so that they passively accept the bondage imposed on them.
At the end of the day, we shared some tasty food prepared by the organizing collective, while the participants took the opportunity to express their satisfaction and confidence in our line. Indeed, our Party is getting stronger day by day.

Progressive Labor Party has been working in our small, multiracial church for 24 years now. We’ve had modest success this May Day March for Communism.  Every year, our numbers swell to an average of 30. This will only grow as we win more comrades and friends themselves to be May Day builders on a weekly basis starting in January.
There are at least two factors leading to our modest success:
 Always putting the Party first in the context of our anti-racist struggles
Deepening our ties, personal and political, with every comrade and friend we know and are getting to know.
Sooner than later
The goal is to introduce every new friend to CHALLENGE as soon as we know enough about them. The rule is “Sooner than Later.” And in every contact and at every meeting, some aspect of the Party’s politics is at the forefront of our discussions, and we always make sure CHALLENGE is available, and we try to make reference to an article or editorial that we find is relevant to the discussion at hand.
Beginning in January, the May Day date is announced at every gathering, and we explain the importance of this crucial event to the struggles we are engaged in—here and worldwide.
Eggcited for May Day!
Currently, we are building the campaign to stop the New York Police Department from murdering people undergoing a mental health crisis. We meet twice a month to plan. The morning of May Day, everyone was invited to the church for “Eggs for Encouragement.” Over breakfast we discussed how to make our participation most effective: Fourteen marchers volunteered to carry large posters, each with the name of a police victim. 
Two “Good Shepherds” volunteered to carry a large poster in Spanish, Creole, and English saying “Stop NYPD Killing People in Mental Crisis.” The “Shepherds” job was to keep our contingent together for maximum visiblity by our sisters and brothers along the route. 
Three “Evangelists” gave out flyers in three languages inviting participation in this struggle against racist police terror.Everyone, of course, understood that this was a communist PLP event.
One second-time marcher was so enthused that she sent out the list of our chants widely to others.Her only criticism was that we needed many more posters and banners making all chants fully visible to onlookers.
Celebrate the joy, share the sorrow, fight the good fight
Little of this would’ve been possible without ongoing organization—week in and week out, among our comrades, and with our friends, new and old. Celebrating the joy of anniversaries, birthdays, new births, and all other important life events cement ties, personal and political. 
But equally important is the mutual support we bring in times of pain, sorrow, loss and racist oppression.
Particularly, the horrid suffering endured by our Black and Latin members and friends calls forth both practical and emotional support and exploration of possible new fronts for struggle.
For example one comrade, a young single mother, has suffered continual deprivations from the NYC “Human Resources” Administration. We plan to mobilize for her next fair hearing, and involve her peer-friends in an anti-racist campaign that we hope to spread citywide.
After this excellent May Day, we are in a stronger position to advance all of this work. As we end every meeting, we continue to shout, “Fight the Good Fight!”

U.S. President Donald Trump has restored sanctions against Iran while sending four B-52 bombers and an aircraft carrier strike force to intimidate the Iranian capitalist bosses. Iran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz to oil traffic (Reuters, 4/26) and to attack U.S. assets in Iraq or Syria. As imperialists large and small threaten military strikes in the heart of the oil-rich Middle East, an increasingly volatile situation brings global war ever closer.
Workers have no interest in these bosses’ conflicts. We must organize for a communist revolution now to be ready to turn an inevitable inter-imperialist world war into class war for workers’ power. Then we can build an anti-racist, anti-sexist world where the working class runs all aspects of society.
Iran is contending for power in the Middle East. They are a regional imperialist competing mainly with U.S.-backed Saudi Arabian and Israeli imperialists. Now Trump has eliminated the sanction waivers that allowed eight countries, including China, to continue buying Iranian oil. The goal is to shut down Iranian oil sales, increasing the suffering of the working class to the point that the ruling Iranian regime will be destabilized. The Iranian bosses have responded by beginning to pull back from the 2015 nuclear deal that limited their ability to pursue the production of nuclear weapons.
Main-wing imperialist strategy
The nuclear agreement between Iran, the U.S., and five other countries, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was a major achievement of the Barack Obama administration. It was part of the imperialist strategy of the dominant, finance capital wing of the U.S. ruling class, which is straining to sustain its declining empire.
The main-wing strategy will eventually lead to fighting a world war—but not yet! The 2015 nuclear agreement allowed these Wall Street imperialists to work with their European allies in NATO against not only Iran, but also their Chinese and Russian imperialist rivals. It gave them time to try to mobilize the U.S. working class to fight in the next world war. Last but not least, the main-wing U.S. bosses need time to discipline their own class to prepare for war.
Trump: an erratic tool of domestic capitalists
Trump has thrown a wrench into the main wing’s plans. While unstable and impetuous, he has mostly done the bidding of the subordinate faction of the U.S. ruling class, the domestically oriented U. S. capitalists. Trump’s plan is to devastate the Iranian economy and cripple the Iranian rulers. His unilateral sanctions have unsettled the United States’ longstanding European allies, who were already nervous after Trump’s repeated atttacks on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and other multinational institutions. Both National Security Advisor John Bolton and Trump “are dismissive of the international architecture of treaties and alliances, which was largely constructed by the United States following World War II” (New Yorker, 5/6). If war breaks out with Iran, European Union support for the U.S. will be lukewarm at best.
For the workers of Iran, as for workers throughout the world, the future under capitalism holds only more suffering. Join us in the Progressive Labor Party in the long battle to organize workers and students everywhere to fight against our true enemy: the blood-sucking capitalist bosses!
China and Russia
Imperialist powers eventually resolve their rivalries through war. We can see this today from Yemen and Syria to Ukraine and Afghanistan. Under current world conditions, rivalry among the world’s three main imperialist powers are the primary driving force of events. Iran, which has built significant ties with Russian and Chinese imperialists,  could be the flashpoint for a much bigger war, even a world war.
In Syria, Iranian militias have been fighting side by side with Russian military forces to defend the ruthless dictator Bashar al-Assad. The Russians have gained a major regional foothold in Syria, with significant troops, military equipment, and military bases. How far will they go to protect their investment and support their Iranian ally against U.S. pressure?
Iran also has a significant presence in Iraq, where its militias are an extension of Iran’s military (New York Times, 5/8). Meanwhile, the Iraqi government is about to sign a $53 billion oil deal jointly with ExxonMobil and PetroChina (Reuters, 5/7). China, the main buyer of Iranian oil, has skirted U.S. sanctions by making its purchases outside the U.S. dollar-dominated financial system. It may be no coincidence that negotiations between the U. S. and China over tariffs and trade policy have broken down.
Both China and Russia have attacked the increased U. S. sanctions. On May 8, Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, met in Moscow with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who said: “The U.S. is to blame for the situation and it makes it difficult for both Iran to fulfill its obligations and ... for the general state of the nuclear non-proliferation regime.” Speaking for the Chinese foreign ministry, Geng Shuang said that China “resolutely opposes” the U. S. sanctions (Aljazeera, 5/8).
European Union must choose sides
The intensified U.S. sanctions to contain Iran puts added pressure on the European Union (EU), the junior partners in the U.S.-controlled, post-World War II liberal world order. U.S. dominance was already declining before Trump’s election, and now the EU is a shaky ally at best. They are trying to set their imperial ambitions independently of the U.S., which is not to the liking of the U.S. finance capitalists.
How long can the U.S. keep the EU in line as the U.S. declines as a world power? What will the EU do to prevent being bullied by the likes of Trump? The EU “cannot accept that the U.S. decided the regions with which the European companies can or cannot do business,” declared Belgian Prime Minster Charles Michel (Foreign Affairs, 10/10/2018).
The U.S. still runs the show today because the U.S. dollar is the world’s reserve currency for global trade. But the EU has plans to establish a so-called Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), a financial institution that is “technically not a bank” but will process payments between Iran and its international trading partners, thereby sidestepping the U.S. financial system.
In the calculations of any and all of these imperialists, the lives of working class people count for very little. When the bosses talk about protecting their “interests,” they mean protecting their profits, not workers’ lives. The working class has no stake in these bosses’ conflicts. Join PLP and fight for communism!