The proletariat seeks to transform the world according to its own world outlook, and so does the bourgeoisie…What is correct develops in the course of struggle with what is wrong.
– Mao Zedong
The mass antiracist rebellion sparked by the murder of George Floyd has brought to the light what Black and Latin workers have always known, the role of the police is to terrorize the working class, particularly Black workers. The police cannot be reformed because in killing Black workers they are doing their job to maintain capitalism.
“Defund the Police” has become a mass slogan of the rebellion. Millions of young people around the world are demanding a world with no cops. The capitalists will never do this. Capitalism is based on the bosses exploiting the working class for profit. The bosses use both racism and the police to maintain this system. Racism is used to justify low wages and keep the working class divided. The police enforce racism and the laws that protect exploitation. People are not equal before the eyes of the law because the law is there to maintain inequality. The bosses steal billions every day, it’s called business. The laws are there to protect them. Capitalism and equality are incompatible.
The whole history of the police is one of defending the bosses’ interests by attacking the working class. Capturing escaped slaves, terrorizing Black neighborhoods, portraying Black and Latin workers as dangerous, breaking strikes of all workers and protecting what the bosses have stolen from us are why the police exist. The bosses need the cops to protect them and their racist system like fish need water.
The bosses build racism, mistrust and fear among our class to divide us and turn us towards the police. The bosses' racism and anti-working-class ideology help keep us oppressed. But our class does have experience liberating ourselves. The struggle of the working class in China shows we can build a society based on trusting the working class. The working class in China under the leadership of the communist party built a society without cops. This was not some small experiment, but a massive transformation of a society that involved 600 million people.
No exploitation – No need for cops
From the 1940’s to 60’s the world was inspired by the working class in China fighting for communism, even as the capitalists re-established themselves in the Soviet Union. The Progressive Labor Party came out of this struggle and today we fight for communism even as capitalism has returned to China. The revolutionary war against the Chinese capitalists lasted from 1946 to 1949. During this period the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) established liberated zones of workers’ power under the leadership of the CCP. The zones were bases for the working class led by the CCP to both build a workers state and direct the ongoing war against the capitalists for state power across the whole of China. In these zones the capitalist legal structure was eliminated and replaced with a political system that relied on the working class. This system of collective working-class society carried over into the period after the revolution and was maintained at some level until the return of capitalism in the 1970’s.
The CCP replaced the complex system of laws that protected exploitation with a straightforward code of comradely behavior based on serving the people. The police and courts were replaced by workers’ meetings led by the CCP where problems between ordinary people were worked out. Guidelines, such as put the needs of the people before your own, treat people in a comradely way, be honest with your comrades and work to build a socialist society, could be applied by groups of workers to look at any situation that arose.
The CCP “system relied heavily on education and persuasion rather than force and upon the use of social pressure rather than governmental power. [It] stressed the importance of internalizing how to be part of society and pointed out the ineffectiveness of using fear of punishment.” Each individual was deeply involved in dealing with problems and enforcing the solutions. There were no police or formal courts. (China Quarterly, a British journal of research on China, Oct – Dec 1970)
On resolving contradictions among the people: "unity-criticism-unity" CCP slogan
The revolution in China did not eliminate selfish thinking and other problems between people. Undoing exploitation and building a collective society allowed problems like stealing, fights and disputes to be handled constructively.
Daily life was organized into collectives and people dealt with problems. Communist “cadre [or leaders] organized the meetings. These cadre were instructed to rely on the masses. Any individual could air grievances and have the group take up the problem by appealing directly to the [Party] collectives.” (China Quarterly Oct – Dec 1970) The ideology was based on confidence in workers to build and strengthen society through collective struggle based on criticism and self-criticism. The goal in resolving the dispute was to strengthen the comrades and strengthen society.
In the book Fanshen, about the building of socialism in China, a man attacked someone in his town after a heated argument. The man was tackled and held by people in the town until a meeting was organized. At the meeting the man was confronted by his comrades who criticized him. In the meeting it came out that he had been encouraged in the attack by the leaders of the local Catholic Church whose land had been distributed to the workers in the town. The meeting decided that the bigger problem was the church and the attacker could be a productive member of the town and assigned him to work for 15 days on the land of a soldier who was on the front lines.
Under capitalism people try to create alternatives to the police. These efforts help combat the racist lies pushed by the bosses and build unity and confidence in our class. In Minneapolis a Native American group, AIM started neighborhood patrols to document police violence against indigenous workers. It grew into looking out for people in the neighborhood in a broader way. The group started by “walking the streets deterring both police and intra-community violence by intervening or simply bearing witness…[the organization] has expanded the definition of patrol duties to include cooking hot breakfasts for the unhoused and checking on overlooked neighbors” (Mother Jones, 6/13/20)
The limits of these situations is that capitalism requires cops. Until we unite under a revolutionary communist strategy, the bosses will succeed in finding ways to undermine people’s confidence in each other through the elevation of racism and real or instigated disputes. This is why the CHOP (Capitol Hill Organized Protest) in Seattle, another example of the working-class rejecting police oppression, can only be temporary. The working class needs to be organized as a communist party. To end police attacks requires ending exploitation.
Make revolution and keep working on it
The bad ideas of capitalism, racism, sexism, selfishness, individualism etc. are deeply ingrained in all of us. Even under a working-class communist society undoing 500 years of capitalism will take a long time and a lot of struggle. The reason communism can tackle these problems is because it is a society based on the needs of the working class. Our class has a profound interest in unity and ending exploitation. Racist terror is essential to capitalism. The police are the front-line forces of the bosses in carrying out that terror.J
NEWARK, NJ, June 12—“Asian, Latin, Black, and white—workers of the world unite!” For the first time in decades, a multiracial group of workers chanted Progressive Labor Party’s (PLP) line down Clinton Avenue in Newark, a predominantly Black, working-class neighborhood with strong ties to the Mayor. Along the march, workers and students were attacked and blocked by Black city officials that work for Big Fascist Mayor Ras Baraka while marching down the hill to protest outside the 5th Pigs Precinct. Big Fascists are members of the liberal, imperialist ruling class, who pretend to be on the side of workers.
Nevertheless, this march affirmed PLP’s line that liberal rulers are the main danger to the working class. It is our responsibility as communists to tear down the veil and challenge both nationalism and identity politics while pushing for a multiracial, internationalist, communist, working-class leadership under PLP.
The system is violent, we will not be silent
Mayors and politicians around the world are weaponizing their identities as Black, Latin, lesbian, gay and women alike while manipulating the worldwide fightback inspired by workers in Minneapolis in response to the murder of George Floyd. Peaceful protests that show solidarity between the liberal politicians and workers are a cover up to push a Big Fascist agenda towards a war on the international working class. The same workers that politicians recruit to become *insert identity here* cops, judges, and military officials will become pawns to crush the revolutionary fightback of the working class.
Mayor Ras Baraka, son of the late Black nationalist poet Amiri Baraka, is using his community ties in Newark to attack workers and students that challenge his complicity in racism, sexism and anti-working class leadership. Since the ‘protest’ in May led by NJ Senate candidate Larry Hamm’s camp (People Organizing for Progress), Newark has been hailed by the New York Times as a city that has remained “relatively calm” (NYT, 6/1).
The mainstream media has always used the theme of “peaceful protest” to “calm” the potential of organized revolutionary anger and tactically directed violence against the bosses and their cronies. To win people away from the dead end of politicians and voting to a more revolutionary approach, we MUST build a larger base.
Base building for communism
Leaders of the Newark Water Coalition (NWC), a multiracial group of workers and students organizing for clean water in Newark have been brave enough to identify and speak out against Mayor Ras’ politricks. However, the extent of their critique stopped there. While we also had criticisms of Baraka, PLP's goal is to win workers to understand that the capitalist system fails workers, no matter what politician is in place. To do that we build with the working class and win them to understanding the limits of reform work under capitalism.
When NJ comrades and friends asked what we should do as a response to workers of the world uniting to fight against police terror and racism, the first thing we did was build with some of the dedicated fighters in the reform movement. Two weeks prior to the Mutual Aid March we had a plan to lead a NJ wide protest but realized we had gone about the organizing incorrectly. Veteran comrades of PLP warned newer members that marching down Clinton Ave could leave everyone vulnerable to being physically attacked by the cops and the Mayor’s thugs. We needed to be prepared with a plan and to be accountable for everyone. We also realized that we had not checked in with other friends and PL’ers. Back to the drawing board. We shared this same warning with the Newark Water Coalition that we could very likely be attacked, not just because we were marching toward a police precinct but because Ras Baraka and his family had been base building in the area for the last 50 years and have won workers over ideologically. In the end, they decided to march in that area.
No good mayors in a racist system
From the start of the march, workers from the neighborhood yelled “you know don’t nobody want you here, go somewhere else, we have political power in our city.” When workers who were part of the march tried to hand them water, vegetables and diapers that friends of the Newark Water Coalition donated, many refused. Still, PL’ers pushed the politics further and chanted, “When Black workers are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!” to remind workers on the sidewalks and on their rooftops that no matter what we identify as, we are all a part of one international working class.
Chants were used as a tool to push forward and boost the morale of the march when friends of Baraka antagonized us. While some of us chanted, other PL’ers distributed CHALLENGE. About 20 store owners and workers accepted CHALLENGE. Before the march, we made it our goal to push our line with chants and CHALLENGE sales. The final chant was “No good MAYORS in a racist system.”
Baraka shut down the march. By doing so, he sent two messages that protesters must remember
To the workers: don’t come into our neighborhood until you have built a base amongst the working class and are ready to fight.To Prudential, Goldman Sachs, Audible, and the rest of the capitalist class in Newark: stick with us as your political representatives because we can control the working class for you better than anyone.
It is impossible to support the exploiters and the exploited at the same time. Some friends from the Newark Water Coalition are running for local office. This is the same framework that politicians like Baraka, former president Barack Obama and congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez used to become Big Fascist leaders.
How do you build strength and power in the working class? By standing in COMPLETE solidarity with workers and fighting for a communist revolution where workers around the world lead. Anything short of that is a tool to crush working-class power and potential. History and lessons from workers around the world teach us that. Find a study group near you and join PLP today!
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Letter: From Alex Flores to George Floyd, hell yeah! We’ll unite and fight!
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- 27 June 2020 428 hits
For the last seven months, we have been involved in the fight for justice for Alex Flores, killed by LAPD on November 19, 2019. For six weeks, we protested every night in front of the “Shootin’ Newton” police station. After Alex was buried, we moved to Friday nights and have not missed a Friday yet.
As we continued to get ignored by the police, the DA, the politicians, and pretty much everyone who makes decisions about Alex’s case, anger grew. We surrounded police cars leaving the station. We took over street intersections. The community began to know us through our regular presence and canvassing. More recently, many joined us. When the politicians wanted everyone to stay home, we fought to make protesting this system “essential business”.
George Floyd was killed on a Monday and within days, protests erupted in every U.S. state. On that Thursday, our friends from the Progressive Labor Party called us and asked if we wanted to travel with them to Minneapolis. Our answer was “Hell yeah!”
Two days later, we were on a plane heading into battle, which our seven months of fighting prepared us for. We did not know yet that this would be “the best worst experience” of our lives.
Arriving on the ground, we went directly to the 5th precinct where thousands were gathered. Across the street from the station was a Wells Fargo bank burned to the ground. That hit us because we never saw anything like that before. It was covered in graffiti saying, “You Don’t Own Us” and “F*ck Capitalism”. It clearly represented the intense hatred workers in that city had for this racist system. By this time, the fires that started in Minneapolis had already spread around the globe. It felt great to be a part of that worldwide struggle.
As we looked around the crowd, anyone and everyone was there. It was somewhat surprising because we never saw anything like that before, but also incredibly inspiring. Even though likely no one there personally knew George Floyd, they were still fighting for justice, not just for George, but for all workers. There were men, women, transgender and gender non-conforming workers. There were Muslim, Asian, Latin, Black and white workers. There were young and old. And everyone was hungry; hungry for answers; hungry for fightback; hungry for change. When we started a bullhorn rally, hundreds gathered to listen as we explained that police murder and racism will always exist under capitalism, so we need communist revolution. Workers grabbed for CHALLENGE like they were starving, and it was the only food in sight. Workers screamed our chants, fists in the air. Many asked if the Party had a chapter in Minneapolis.
The sun started to set; curfew was upon us. Hundreds around us chanted, “F*ck your curfew. We’re not going anywhere.” Minutes later a march of about 300, mainly young people, moved quickly down the main street. We jumped in the middle and started to lead chants. We were nervous about what might happen. Would the cops beat us up? Would we be arrested? But we kept going because we had confidence in the people around us and the members of the Party we came with to take care of us. There was so much solidarity around us. People passed food, water, hand sanitizer, goggles to protect from tear gas. And the Party has experience in these kinds of movements, so we continued and left our fears behind us.
The police did not disappoint. They upheld their history of brutality against those who stand against the system and attacked our march with tear gas. We also heard stories that were later verified (NPR) that the police slashed the tires of cars parked near protest meet-up locations. We were not deterred though. That stand-off with the police, while scary, reminded us of the system we are living under and why we so desperately need to overthrow it. Being on this trip made it clear how many of the things we struggle with in our day-to-day lives are caused by capitalism.
In the short two days we were there, a kinship developed. With the unity we saw, we feel like if we continue to fight back, there is no way we cannot make changes to this system. We brought the story of Alex Flores to Minneapolis and they embraced it like he was their family. Alex’s story even ended up live on the Monday morning news in Australia!
Workers of the world unite! During this trip one of us decided to join the PLP and make the commitment to fighting for communism. The other one of us wants to learn more through staying involved. But for both of us, one thing is clear: if the opportunity to take another trip like this comes up again, we will both say again “Hell yeah!”
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Book Review: What communism in China achieved in public health
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- 27 June 2020 495 hits
For a shorter version, see CHALLENGE pdf issue (7/8/20) http://www.plp.org/storage/challenge-archives/2020/C070820-WEB.pdf
A Review of Away with all Pests: An English Surgeon in People's China Dr. Joshua S. Horn 1954-1969. (London: 1969.)
In March of this year, CNN reported this about the connection between America’s awful health record regarding the Covid-19 pandemic: “The US is the only developed nation without universal health care. Nearly 28 million non-elderly Americans, or 10.4%, were uninsured in 2018, according to the most recent Census Bureau data available. This is an improvement from what it was before the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010. That year, 46.5 million non-elderly people -- or 17.8% -- lacked coverage. But the uninsured rate has started ticking up again over the past two years. The uninsured largely depend on a patchwork of community clinics and hospital emergency rooms for care. This means they often wait until their conditions become serious before seeking medical help -- which could lead to their infecting many others during viral outbreaks like coronavirus. ‘Addressing coronavirus with tens of millions of people without health insurance or with inadequate insurance will be a uniquely American challenge among developed countries,’ tweeted Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at Kaiser. ‘It will take money to treat people and address uncompensated care absorbed by providers.’" In other words, a run-for-profit healthcare system—the way capitalism runs everything from public health, housing, the prison system, and education—guarantees that the well-being of the vast majority of Americans, let alone undocumented workers (10.5 to 12 million), inmates (2.3 million, more people per capita than any other nation), and the homeless (as many as 3.5 million Americans are homeless, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development), will be defenseless when they get ill. It is instructive, therefore, to see how communism in China in the 1950s and early 1960s—one of the world’s poorest countries when it declared its independence in October, 1949, addressed its own terrible epidemics and its nearly non-existent healthcare system. One startling fact is that between the time the Communist Party took control in 1949 and 1975, life expectancy in China more than doubled, from about 28 to 65 years. By the early 1970s, infant mortality rates in Shanghai were lower than in New York City. Away with All Pests (1969) by Doctor Joshua Horn is a perfect place to start to understand how politics, an economic system, and a philosophic commitment to (or a disregard for) the public good determine the well being of people. “In 1954, we [my family and I] uprooted ourselves and went to China. Apart from a few home visits we have lived in China ever since. I will not go into the numerous reasons behind our decision to go to China ■ Foremost among them was the political reason. I had glimpsed the old China I knew that in 1949 the Communist armies had finally liberated the whole mainland and that now the Chinese people were engaged in the construction of the modern Socialist state on the ruins of one that was colonial. I was on China’s side. I ardently wished to contribute what little skill I had to an heroic undertaking which would change the face of China and of the world.” “Poverty and ignorance were reflected in a complete lack of sanitation as a result of which fly and water-borne diseases such as typhoid, cholera, dysentery, took a heavy toll. Worm infestation was practically universal, for untreated people lived on the fringe of starvation and this so lowered their resistance to disease that epidemics carried off thousands every year. The average life expectancy in China was stated to be about twenty-eight years. Reliable health statistics for pre-Liberation China are hard to come by but conservative estimates put the crude death rate in time of peace at between thirty and forty per thousand and the infantile mortality rate at between 160 and 170 per thousand live births. The plight of the women and children was bad beyond description. The men had to have what grain there was, to give them strength to work in the fields. The women, especially those who stayed at home to look after the children, ate only thin gruel, grass and leaves. They were so ill-nourished that by the time they reached middle age, they were toothless and decrepit. Many adolescent girls, lacking calcium and vitamin D, developed softening and narrowing of the pelvic bones, so that normal childbirth became either impossible or so dangerous that six to eight per cent of all deaths among women were due to childbirth. Babies were breast-fed for three or four years, and also resulted in child malnutrition and such vitamin deficiency diseases as rickets and scurvy. There were no preventive inoculations against infectious diseases, and from time to time epidemics of smallpox, diphtheria, whooping cough and meningitis swept through the countryside with devastating results. Lice and poverty went hand in hand, and with them louse-borne diseases such as typhus fever. Military occupation and the licentiousness of the landlords and local gentry spread venereal diseases among the people and no treatment was available. The prevalence of tuberculosis can be gaged from the fact that in 1946 sixty per cent of all applicants for student visas for study abroad were found to be suffering from this disease.” The Communist revolution had been victorious in 1948, and one of its principal tasks was providing healthcare, once reserved only for the wealthy, to China’s poor, especially in the countryside. Before 1948 the vast majority of those living in China’s countryside, almost a quarter of the world’s population, lacked access to any healthcare at all. Bringing healthcare to almost a quarter of the world’s population was one of the great achievements of Chinese communism. Millions of Chinese workers and peasants gained access to healthcare. Life expectancy was doubled. Infant mortality greatly reduced. So how did the Communist Party of China build from scratch a public health system to eradicate these epidemics that more than rivalled in lethality our current coronavirus pandemic? The starting point of this herculean effort was to mobilize thousands of ordinary people, together with medical personnel, to go into the countryside-- where 80% of the total population lived-- to provide health-care education, prevention, and treatment to millions of peasants and workers. It was necessary to minimize the social gap between the destitute peasants in the countryside and the relatively better off workers and educated in towns and cities. One way that this was accomplished was through the health teams. To break down the distinction between town and countryside, and as part of the effort to bring care to the sick, mobile medical teams were organized and sent to the countryside. At the onset of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, Horn reported that one third of the hospital staff at his Beijing hospital was stationed in the countryside as part of a team on a rotation basis. Mobile teams were sent out to the poorest areas. The doctors and other health providers sought out the patients, not the other way around. The team that Horn referred to was made up of 80,000 people who worked among twelve people’s communes in the countryside. These teams were divided into smaller brigades which maintained health clinics. Doctors and medical personnel were sent out from these clinics into the local areas and remote villages to administer healthcare. Different kinds of groups were sent where they were needed most. Some focused on dental and birth control. Others that specialized in one disease were sent to areas affected by that affliction, including very remote areas, sometimes travelling on foot or by riding donkeys. A distinctive feature of how the Chinese communists delivered medical care was that the medical personnel usually either lived together in peasant cottages or they lived with the peasants in their homes in the villages. Healthcare was no longer a luxury afforded only by the wealthy. Doctors and their patients lived and worked side by side. These health care providers came to be called “barefoot doctors.” Young people who were motivated by this new infusion of public-oriented, cooperative spirit, were given a kind of abbreviated training in basic medicine, training in the most common ailments and diseases encountered in the countryside. Periodically, they would return for greater formal medical training. Mobil teams also trained sanitary workers and midwives to be sent to the rural community. The intention was not merely to impart medical knowledge to young people, but to promote the communist ideology of egalitarianism, in which rural health workers would retain close links with the peasants and who would remain permanently in the countryside. Overall, the barefoot doctor movement was an example of the Chinese Communist Party’s belief that collectively people, not extravagant personal wealth, are the most important resource in determining a nation’s wellbeing. Horn witnessed the success of this approach first hand. Concretely, this trust in the potential of working people was demonstrated by the campaign against schistosomiasis or “snail fever.” At the time that Horn was writing, it affected 250 million people, almost all in the poorest countries. As late as 1955, there were 50 million victims in China alone. Remarkably, in China, which was still dominated by communist politics in the 1950s and 60s, snail fever was all but eliminated. The Communists claimed an 85% to 95% cure rate among afflicted people. The disease was all but wiped out in areas that had been previously afflicted on an epidemic scale. The Communist Party declared, wrote Dr. Horn, that it could “cure what the powers above [probably the European imperial powers] have failed to do.” How was this done? To mobilize the peasantry against the snails, medical workers explain the nature of the illness which has plagued them for so long with lectures, films, posters, and radio-talks. When the peasants came to understand the nature of the disease, they worked out methods to eradicate it. Twice a year, in March and August, the entire population in county after county, supplemented by soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army, students, teachers and office workers, drained the rivers and ditches, dug away and buried their banks. Here is an excerpt from the book where Horn describes in details how doctors and other medical workers connected their lives with that of the peasants whom they served in combating schistosomiasis and other health issues: “At least once a week, and more often during the busy farming seasons, the medical workers join the peasants in manual labour in the fields. The usual period of service with the mobile team is one year, all its members are volunteers and a balance is maintained between new graduates and experienced doctors and between the different specialities. Whatever their original speciality, while they are in the countryside, doctors are expected to undertake any kind of medical work. To equip them for their new life and new work, they receive a preparatory course of training before leaving the city. They get eight days home leave every two months with free transportation and they are paid their normal Peking hospital salaries while in the countryside. Many of them apply to extend their tours of duty but usually this is not possible since their colleagues in Peking are anxious to replace them. Some volunteer to settle down permanently in the countryside; twelve doctors from my hospital have done so since the scheme started eighteen months ago. In addition to general mobile medical teams, there are also specialized teams according to local needs and resources. In this area, for example, there is a mobile eye, ear, nose, throat and dental team which spends a month in each People’s Commune in turn. There is also a birth control team. Smallpox, typhoid, diphtheria, infantile paralysis and whooping cough have now practically disappeared from this area and recently Chinese medical scientists have developed a method of active immunization against measles which has greatly reduced its incidence and severity. All children receive oral medicine against tuberculosis and during epidemics, injections are given against cephalitis and infectious meningitis.” As of this writing, May 18, 2020, the coronavirus pandemic has infected over 4 million people worldwide and killed over 300,00 people. The USA, supposedly the most advanced and wealthiest capitalist country, is leading the world in the wrong way as usual. It has the most deaths—91,000 plus, and the most cases, 1.5 million. It also has, ironically, the costliest health care system in the world.
Dr. Horn was a British trained surgeon, who served as a military surgeon during the Second World War. Before he went to China, he had been a dedicated Marxist in England. He and his family lived in China from 1954-1969 during the years of the Great Leap Forward, the period beginning in 1958 of the collectivization of agricultural production in China. The book is extremely valuable insofar as it details how a very poor, newly organized communist state went about eradicating some of the world’s worst diseases, plagues that had killed millions of Chinese over hundreds of years. During the nearly fifteen years he was in the people’s Republic, Horn saw firsthand how an entire nation built an effective and free public health system
When the Communist Party took power in 1949 China had been devasted by foreign imperialism and by its own misrule by various warlords. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, much of China had been dominated by European, Japanese, and American imperialists. The PRC suffered a war with Japan from 1937 to 1945 and then by a civil war with the Chinese Nationalists under General Chiang Kai-Shek. Approximately 25 million Chinese were killed or died from malnutrition between 1937 and the end of the war. Only the USSR suffered more total casualties.
By the time the communists took power in 1949, 80% of the population of over a billion were illiterate. Teachers, engineers, doctors and skilled labor were in very short supply; for instance there were only fifteen doctors in the whole of the vast province of Xinjiang. Industrial output had been decimated by war. Subsistence agriculture was carried out over much of the country with famine an ever-present fear. In Shanghai it was estimated that 20,000 people died on the streets each year from disease and starvation.
This is how, in his book, Dr. Horn explains his reasons for going to China just six years after Mao Zedong declared China a communist nation—the People’s Republic of China—on October 1, 1949:
The following description is what Horn discovered in a vast country that for generations had been exploited and ravaged by various European countries, as well by its own ruling warlords and of course by Japan in World War Two:
The main diseases that Horn discovered in China were epidemic diseases, syphilis, leprosy, and schistosomiasis. Schistosomiasis is and has been one of the world’s great plagues. In 2015, for example, it affected about 252 million people worldwide. An estimated 4,400 to 200,000 people die from it each year. Around 700 million people, in more than 70 countries, live in areas where the disease is common. In tropical countries, schistosomiasis is second only to malaria among parasitic diseases with the greatest social and economic impact.
Horn ends his book Away with All Pests by repeatedly emphasizing the primacy of communist ideology in restoring social and medical health to a countryside of over 800 million peasants, a population which had for over a century been the victims of war, poverty, foreign invasions, and feudalism.
Antioch, CA, June 21—Recently graduated Antioch High School students organized a protest in support of abolishing and defunding the police. An integrated group of students, former students, and parents were greeted by the community with honking horns and closed fist salutes. Sparked by the racist murder of George Floyd, workers and students are rising up all over the world to stand against racism and often against the capitalist system that breeds racism. The Progressive Labor Party applauds the young workers and students of Antioch. We invite them to join us in the long struggle to destroy racism with communist revolution.
Community members shared water, snacks, and free masks. Students marched to the police station, accompanied by comrades in vehicles with signs attacking the racist system. People waved and cheered the march on. The people of Antioch are fed up with police violence.
At the police station, victims of police terror and their family members spoke. A mother described how an Antioch cop had pulled her son out of a car and attacked him in a way similar to the murder of George Floyd. The mother was wearing a sign that included a photo of smirking Antioch cop Calley kneeling on her son’s neck. She expressed concern over the attack on her son and spoke about her nephew Rakeem Rucks who was killed by Antioch Police in 2015 (Antioch Police paid $475,000 to the Rucks family in 2020).
Police terror protects racist system
A female student gave a powerful speech urging people to use the phrase “police terror” instead of “police brutality” because “police terror” is the intended effect. It’s a public display of force that’s meant to make the community fear the racist system. She then called for the abolishment of the police, which caused the crowd to erupt into cheers. But let’s be clear. The rich and powerful capitalists and their puppet politicians need the cops to protect them (see back page). The police will only be abolished through a working class revolution for communism.
Next, a man who was attacked by police spoke. The police knocked on his door claiming that the music was too loud and demanded to search the house, claiming to smell marijuana. He refused, so they pulled him out of his home, beat him badly, assaulted his friends, arrested him and charged him with assaulting the police. At the county jail, he was beaten again. More than a year later, all charges were dropped as a police video was produced proving no assault on the police.
Another female student addressed the crowd and said, “Cops are the armed assassins of a capitalist system which must use force to control the working class, especially super-exploited Black and Latin workers. Rebellion is not enough. This racist terror can only be smashed with a systemic advancement. Capitalism must be overcome and replaced with a new system where people, not profits are valued”. Reform struggles are important but limited. She finished by explaining why we need to organize for a new government system. In the Progressive Labor Party we fight for that new government system. It’s called communism.
The protestors had a range of outlooks. Some called for the “8 Can't Wait” reforms, some called for the defunding of the police, and others called for the abolishment of the police. Everyone called for an end to a system driven by racism and defended by police terror. CHALLENGE newspapers were distributed. Information about Antioch’s bloated police budget was distributed along with instructions on how to tell the city council that the police should be defunded in favor of programs that fit the needs of the people.
Protestors demanded the immediate firing of a killer cop named Michael Mellone who was hired by the Antioch Police after killing a homeless worker from Mexico named Luis-Gongora Pat while a cop in San Francisco. They demanded justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rakeem Rucks, and the countless other victims of police terror.
After rallying at the police station, the student-led group marched back to their school. Along the way, they took over an intersection and knelt for eight minutes where they chanted and were again greeted by supportive passersby.
The mayor of the city and the council are under increasing pressure from the young people of Antioch. Recently the mayor announced an investigation into the killer cop Mellone. The protestors are under no delusions that getting one cop fired will cause a lasting change. The young people of Antioch are leading, and discovering their power through practice. They are a force for a better world. We invite them to join the Progressive Labor Party and fight for communism.
