PAKISTAN, March 8—The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) spread revolutionary communist politics while participating in the rallies on International Working Women’s Day this past month in Pakistan.
This was partly because of the increasing misleadership of liberal and nongovernmental organization-led groups in the mass movement, who are disconnected from the social, political and economic conditions of working-class women. This year there were fewer women workers compared to last year. The low participation was also because of threats given by fascist religious clerics. These liberal misleaders were not interested in talking about the racism, poverty, exploitation, illiteracy, domestic violence, and special type of religious oppression against working women.
PLP, however, participated in the marches and brought radical communist slogans and speeches, exposing both the liberals and fascists as agents of the same capitalist class. We related the issues women are facing in their everyday life with capitalist greed and exploitation, calling for working class unity to destroy this capitalist system which is designed to divide and rule. PL’ers and friends also struggled to change the liberal chants and slogans into revolutionary slogans to distinguish ourselves from the liberal groups.
Working class women and men both are being pitted against each other through sexism and exploited and deprived of basic human needs. But talking against cultural injustices and sexist practices once a year is pathetic! We have to struggle constantly for a political system which meets the needs of working class women and men because it is run by them — communism.
Build working class antisexist struggle
Masses of workers in Pakistan strive for a society based on equality and justice. Poor workers are always being used by the right-wing political parties in the name of some religious sect, ethnicity and nationalism to prevent the workers from unifying against their exploitation, poverty and illiteracy. But the reality is most workers desperately want to get rid of this and religious extremism and are open to communist ideas. So-called left parties are not capable of influencing masses of workers because of their false social analysis, poor political strategies and other internal weaknesses. These so-called left parties are misleading the working class through their incorrect ideology.
However, PLP is fighting to give communist leadership to the working class of Pakistan by taking part in many different small and big struggles. We organize for better conditions at our workplaces, better transit, health and education facilities, dignity and respect for women. But ultimately real victory can only be achieved by a constant struggle of working-class people under the red flag of the international communist Progressive Labor Party. Working class men and women both are exploited, and both must fight against the bosses to get rid of this barbaric system.
Communism vs. liberal, fascist misleaders
Women cannot achieve liberation from these conditions through feminism, which blames men for their oppression, but only through joining hands as revolutionary communists striving to establish a communist society. Capitalist culture, not men, create these sick customs which oppress women and support and reinforce their super-exploitation.
Feminism and liberal misleaders, as a whole, work hand-in-hand with this sexist capitalist culture to prevent women from uniting with men in the working class struggle against sexism. Struggling to free the working class from sexist ideas and building communist PLP-led fightback has the potential for impact on the entire international working class.
Sharpening sexism and imperialism
It's no coincidence that openly fascist, religious sexist attacks on women are rising at the same time that liberal feminist politics are becoming more visible. Both are poisons pushed by the bosses to intensify working class exploitation as inter-imperialist rivalry sharpens between the U.S., Russia and China. China’s new $400 billion, 25-year trade deal (see editorial, page 2) with neighboring Iran has enormous significance for Pakistan through building the Chinese, imperialist-led “Pakistan-China-Iran Trilateral Cooperation.” (Institute for Strategic Studies Islamabad, 2019)
Bringing the fascist rulers of Iran and Pakistan into closer political, economic and military collaboration with China will pressure Afghanistan’s fascist Taliban rulers to cooperate as the U.S. withdraws, and pull the rest of Central Asia closer into China’s imperialist orbit. Whether they succeed or not, Pakistan’s working class is a key piece of Chinese imperialism’s Belt and Road Initiative as conditions sharpen for workers.
While the U.S. bosses are busy propping up the fascist Indian bosses to contain Chinese imperialism’s accelerating rise, neither imperialist power holds any hope for the workers of Pakistan or for the international working class. Neither do their fascist religious or liberal feminist politics.
The struggles we lead against sexism here to unite women and men workers, on the job and in the streets, are the key to winning communism, and the struggle continues. Happy International Working Women’s Day!

On March 28, in Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico, Victoria Salazar, a working-class woman from El Salvador was murdered by police. Victoria committed the capitalist crime of being a worker, a woman and a migrant in a system that only serves the ruling class. Capitalism uses sexism, nationalism and racism as the ideological pillars to keep the working class divided and to perpetuate its system of exploitation and oppression. Without fighting for a communist society, we will never bring down these deadly pillars.
Victoria was a worker with a visa that allowed her to reside permanently in the country for humanitarian reasons. Four police officers subdued Victoria, but one officer, Veronica N., kept her lying face down and did not release her, although she screamed that she could not breathe. Minutes later she lost consciousness and during her transfer to the Civil Protection unit she was declared dead. Her autopsy states that her death was the product of the "fracture in the upper part of the spinal column, produced by the rupture of the first and second vertebrae" but it is more accurate to declare that her death was the product of capitalism. That same day in the afternoon a group of 100 people demonstrated in front of the police facilities to protest her murder (La Jornada 03/29).
Women workers under attack!
The similarity between the murder of Victoria in Tulum and the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis is no coincidence. Under capitalism, the police serve the ruling class by terrorizing and subjugating the working class to the needs of the bosses. It is also no coincidence that on the same day as Victoria's murder, the severed body of a woman, Karla, was found on Holbox Island, a tourist area in the state of Quintana Roo, where women and girls are seen as disposable sexual objects for the use of tourists and often suffer violence at the hands of partners who reproduce the sexist culture of capitalism. The fact that one of the police officers who murdered Victoria was a woman only proves that capitalist power is lethal for the working class, no matter who wields it.
 In recent years, murders of women in Mexico have doubled. During 2015, 1,634 women were murdered in 22 states of the country though only 450 murders were investigated as sexist murders. In 2017, 1,583 women were murdered in 18 states and only 479 murders were investigated as sexist murders (OCNF, 2018). During 2020, exacerbated by the pandemic and lockdown measures, Mexico recorded 969 murders of women (Aristegui, 1/25) and an increase in calls to 911 to report domestic violence to more than 13 million (Infobae, 03/30). In 2021, in less than three months, 240 murders have been recorded. Of these, 67 were committed during the month of January. The vast majority of the targets of sexist violence are working class women forced into super-exploitation by capitalism.
Workers fight back!
The dozens of workers who protested on the afternoon of Victoria's murder and the thousands who will surely come out to express our rage over this murder are proof that no matter how strong the chains of capitalism appear, our class will never stop resisting and fighting for a world where workers’ lives are valued over profits and borders. It is in these actions that Progressive Labor Party builds its unwavering confidence in the workers of the world. Victoria was the mother of two girls, who were left homeless and for whom the future as undocumented orphans is already written under capitalism. We join the pain and anger over the death of Victoria and we will turn that pain and anger into dedication and organization to end this criminal system. We will not allow the bosses to treat us as disposable. If under capitalism we mean nothing, for the working class and a communist future, we mean everything.

The following articles cover some topics discussed at the International Working Women’s Day celebration. To view, click here
March 28 – Dozens of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members and friends gathered virtually today for a bilingual panel celebrating the International Working Women’s Day  and communist anti-sexism. Across at least four countries, workers shared personal experiences, reflected on historical movements, and discussed political theory as key pillars in advancing the fight against capitalism’s sexist culture and exploitation.
Sexism is one of the most powerful tools in the bosses’ arsenal to divide and attack our class. Due to their experience against capitalism’s sexist and racist attacks, we have throughout our history fought to have women workers—particularly Black, Latin, and Asian women workers—give communist leadership in the Party and in the class struggle.
The fight against sexism necessitates workers of all races, genders, ages, and backgrounds unite in an international struggle to eradicate it materially and ideologically through revolution.
Events like this panel are essential in growing our revolutionary unity and struggle. We learn to reject the bosses’ poisonous ideas within the mass movement and embrace the Party as the weapon through which we will create an antisexist, antiracist world.
Abolish the foundation of sexism: class society
The sexist organization of advanced capitalist society has had a profoundly negative impact on the way workers and others think about themselves in relation to the social system. On the one hand, housework and childcare were necessary for the reproduction of the workforce; that is, it is relevant to take care of the daily needs of workers and raise the next generation of workers.
But these activities do not produce surplus value for the bosses, so, in capitalist terms, they are not "productive labor", since capitalists consider "productive" only labor that produces profit for them. As such, their essential nature to our survival is constantly degraded under this system.
Under a communist society, having abolished production based on profit, the entire working class together would work to share labor inside and outside of the home. The distinctions between domestic work and all other labor will be eliminated and will be performed collectively. The responsibility to provide the needs of our class will be the responsibility of all workers.
In sharp contrast to dehumanizing capitalist culture, workers would use media such as movies, music, and art, along with meetings and other activities to promote antisexist imagery that stresses equality among all workers.
A powerful struggle will continue after we smash the bosses and seize state power to win the entire working class away from sexist ideologies and practices.
Capitalist identity politics fail workers
Maintaining aspects of sexism in a society where we are trying to destroy capitalism would be like maintaining racial segregation, or separate nations, or wages. It would mean keeping elements of capitalism, which would create the basis for its restoration. So, it is important that we understand the particularities of sexism in today's capitalist society. Fighting against these particularities, our movement creates the foundation to destroy sexism once we take power.
Theories of identity politics are bourgeois political debates, the possibility of struggle is bourgeois. Identity politics reproduces the appearance of an alienated individual under capitalism; hence its struggle takes the form of equality of oppression between groups or individuals.
Identity politics is the classic nationalism wrapped in a new bow. We will fight for a classless, collective society that allows us to express ourselves freely in all our multifaceted activities.
An antisexist world worth fighting for
The necessity to overthrow this sexist, racist capitalist system becomes more urgent by the minute. Throughout the pandemic, it is women workers who have been among the hardest hit within our class.
According to the bosses’ own statistics, official women’s unemployment in the U.S. stood at 6.3 percent, rising to 8.4 percent for Black women workers, 9.1 percent for Latin, and 11.4 percent for women workers with disabilities (ABC 7, 1/20).
In Latin American countries, domestic violence against women workers has skyrocketed, increasing by 94 percent in Colombia in the first months of lockdown (nautilus.com).
In contrast to feminism, we don’t just want a select few women to advance to get a “seat at the table” and become exploiters and apologists of an inherently sexist system. We want to smash the “table” entirely, and liberate the entire international working class through revolution.
International, multiracial, and anti-sexist panels and events are a representation of the egalitarian communist world we are fighting for. Onward to revolution with PLP!

As of March 30, over 60 countries had not received a single dose of vaccine, and many are not on track to be fully vaccinated before 2024 (New York Times, 3/30). Even as thousands of workers die daily from coronavirus, capitalism sees the vaccine as another vehicle for racist profits and a weapon in inter-imperialist rivalry between the U.S. and Chinese imperialists.
In wealthy countries, vaccine apartheid is apparent. The U.S. has vaccinated white people  at 2.5 times the rate for Latin and 2 times that of Black workers (KFF.org, 3/17). Israel has fully vaccinated over 50 percent of the Jewish population and is denying vaccines to the 4.5 million Palestinians under its military occupation. Capitalism will always see the lives of the working class as expendable. We must fight for communist revolution to build a society that serves the needs of the working class.
Vaccines for profit let workers die
UNICEF estimates that the world has the capacity to produce up to 20 billion doses of vaccine, and half of this capacity is in poorer countries. However, new vaccines are protected by patent laws that prevent manufacturing of the available vaccines without the permission of the pharmaceutical companies that own the patents (The Conversation, 2/18). Although there is worldwide pressure to suspend these intellectual property barriers, five wealthy countries, including the U.S. and Britain, have refused to do so. They are determined to guarantee the profits of big pharma, despite the fact that vaccine makers received about $20 billion dollars in public support.
“Residents of wealthy and middle-income countries have received about 90 percent of the nearly 400 million vaccines delivered so far. Under current projections, many of the rest [of the countries] will have to wait years” (NY Times, 3/21). Pfizer is demanding unprecedented liability protection from foreign countries in order to sell them vaccines, demanding it not be held responsible for rare adverse effects or for its own acts of negligence, fraud or malice. They are requiring that South American bosses put up huge assets, such as federal bank reserves, embassy buildings and military bases, as insurance against the cost of any future legal cases.
Although nine countries have been forced to agree to this sort of deal, five—Uruguay, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Cuba—have yet to receive a single dose of a foreign vaccine (nakedcapitalism.com, 3/21).
Vaccines become the new blood money
China’s bosses are winning the vaccine war as they have become the main sources of vaccines to Africa, Asia and South America, increasing their ever-growing imperialist influence in these areas. They are forcing the smaller capitalists to do their bidding along the way. The Brazilian ruling class was forced to accept the Chinese bosses Huawei as their 5G developer in order to get vaccines and the working class in Paraguay has been denied the vaccine even as deaths rise because the Paraguayan bosses are in bed with the Taiwanese capitalists.
China is extorting poor countries as workers die, while the U.S. ruling class is battling itself over how to respond. Torn between outright greed and giving up some of their profits to keep up with the Chinese imperialists, the U.S. ruling class has mostly been paralyzed. Though, in a horrifically racist use of the vaccine, Joe Biden offered 1.5 million doses to the Mexican ruling class in exchange for the Mexican bosses sending troops to the border with Guatemala to stop workers from Central America headed to the U.S. (NY Times, 3/18). The perversion of the vaccine being used to pay for troops to attack workers risking their lives to get poverty wage jobs in the U.S. is a damning example of the utter inability of capitalism to serve the needs of our class.
In a communist world, vaccines would be produced, manufactured and distributed collaboratively by the world’s scientists and factories. There would also be far fewer pandemics if production and mining were designed to prevent infection by wild viruses. Workers’ health would be a priority, so that we would also be better able to survive those infectious illnesses that do occur. Only such a revolutionary transition of society with the death of the profit motive can truly protect the working class.