INDIANA, July 23—In a show of antiracist defiance against a pro-cop parade, a multiracial group of working-class fighters along with Progressive Labor Party held a mock funeral procession followed by a “die-in” and a rally against police terror.
The pro-cop parade had been planned in response to the growing movement against racist capitalist violence. The organizer told the press that he wanted to support cops since they were “under stress” from being challenged by the antiracist movement.
Through endless indoctrination—from neighborhood cop events to cop TV shows and more—the capitalist bosses have convinced many workers that cops are our protectors. In fact, the police of today descend from slave patrols and strikebreakers, and they continue to serve the role of armed enforcers for the bosses to terrorize and stifle the revolutionary potential of Black workers. Through doing so, they keep the entire working class intimidated and divided.
After years of workers struggling to reform them, cops in the U.S. still kill over a thousand people each year. Only a communist revolution, organized  and led by the international working class through PLP, can crush capitalism and abolish police terror once and for all.
Raining on cops racist parade
PLP members  joined the action with local groups to push back against kkkop propaganda. Dozens of cars lined the street, displaying Black Lives Matter flags and signs with the names of Black workers killed by cops. We drove past the cop parade, honking our horns, facing both hecklers and a few supporters. Our procession, a bold demonstration of antiracist solidarity, ended at the police station. A die-in was held for eight minutes and 46 seconds to symbolize the length of time that a killer cop held his knee on George Floyd’s neck, while a list of names of those killed by police was read aloud.
PL’ers and friends gave speeches at the rally. One speaker in a local antiracist organization spoke about their experience organizing a march in her small town, explaining that she knew it was not easy. Her group was threatened by local racists who posted online that they would run them over with their cars.
One PL’er took the mic, speaking for her mass organization and spoke about how antiracist rallies happen in this area more often than people think they do. She said some people needed to see the video of George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis cops to get out and fight, but some have been fighting for a long time. She told the crowd, “If you weren’t here before, I am glad you are here now.”
She named Rashad Cunningham, Melvin Bouler and others who were murdered by local cops. She spoke about how Black cops terrorize and kill Black workers the same way white cops do. That’s why in PLP we often lead with the chant, “White cop, Black cop, all the same – Racist murder is the name of the game!”
Linking the fights against capitalism
One PL’er spoke for her mass organization, whose focus has been protesting deportations out of a local airport. She described visiting a migrant shelter and encountering many Black immigrants who would go on to be profiled in the U.S. She explained that the struggles against police terror and deportations are connected, and that members in her organization had fought to expand their group’s focus to systemic racism.
Another PL’er spoke about her experience fighting alongside workers in Minneapolis and being attacked by the klan-in-blue. She spoke about how capitalism needs racism, sexism and ableism to keep the working class divided so that we do not join in our strength to fight the ruling class. The crowd cheered as she said, “I am talking about communist revolution.”
After her speech, every person at the rally took a copy of CHALLENGE and some asked how they could get involved with the Party.
Committed to communist revolution
The working class, whether in big cities or small towns, is excited to hear PLP’s communist politics against racism and capitalism. Our work in local organizations helps spread our politics. At this event, several speakers were Party comrades and every one spoke about the need to destroy this capitalist system and replace it with a worker-run communist society.
As we saw protests spread across the world following the murder of George Floyd, northwest Indiana had dozens of protests. PLP was there and we made connections and established relationships with antiracist workers with whom we continue to build. When workers see us show up time and again and see us fight against this racist capitalist system, they want to join our fight. The only way we can end police terror and the terrorization of the working class is through communist revolution. Join PLP today!

BROOKLYN, NY, July 21 — On the seventh anniversary of the murder of Kyam Livingston, a militant, multiracial, antiracist car caravan rolled down the streets of the Flatbush and East Flatbush neighborhoods of Brooklyn, chanting and indicting this entire racist capitalist system. This system rains murder disproportionately on young Black and Latin women and men like Kyam at the hands of kkkops year after year, and the call to fight back for justice was greeted with cheers and support throughout the route.
 The revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) joined the caravan saying that the working class must overthrow this entire capitalist system, and replace it with a communist system that outlaws racism, sexism, imperialism, nationalism, fascism and all the “-isms” that keep  capitalism afloat!
Black women lead the fight for justice
The route of the caravan was planned in honor of the memory of Kyam, and also to continue to link her death to two other victims of racist police murder, Shantel Davis and Kimani “Kiki” Gray, who lived nearby. Hundreds of leaflets linking the anniversary of Kyam’s murder to the recent antiracist rebellions against the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others were distributed, as well as 150 CHALLENGE newspapers.
Members of the Livingston and Davis families, a mom and a sister, both strong women, helped lead today’s action. They gave leadership side by side with PL'ers who have been strong supporters of these families ever since the racist murders of their loved ones.
Seven years of antiracist struggle
It has been seven years fighting for justice for Kyam. On July 21, 2013, 37 year-old Kyam Livingston was being held in a cell in the kkkops’ Brooklyn Central Booking. As she called out in pain for medical attention, the kkkops ignored her and the others in the cell who began calling out to help her as well. Kyam was murdered by the racist kkkops who ignored her pleas for help, by the racist NYPD who covered it up and suppressed evidence, and by capitalism’s utter indifference for working class lives, especially Black working class women.
Masses of workers in the U.S. and around the world, Black and white, already know “liberty and justice for all” is a sick racist joke. The Black women leaders in this car caravan indicted both the killer kkkops and this racist capitalist system – and they show us a glimpse of the key role of Black women workers’ leadership in taking the fight for justice all the way: for armed communist revolution.
Smash racist police terror with multiracial unity
Capitalism is utterly dependent on racism both politically, to divide and conquer the entire working class, and also economically: to reap untold billions of dollars in racist super-profits. In 1866, militant abolitionist Frederick Douglass wrote a scathing open letter attacking the racist U.S. government: “the hostility between the poor whites and blacks…was incited on both sides by the cunning of the slave masters. Those masters secured their ascendancy over both. They divided both to conquer each.” Racism hurts all workers, and racist oppression exists to support and enhance this racist super-exploitation – and one of the principal means of oppression is racist police terror.
Modern U.S. police were formed out of slave patrols post-Civil War, and today they murder us at a rate of 1,000 workers per year. While, kkkops murder more white workers every year, Black and Latin workers are killed at a disproportionately higher rate. Black workers are murdered more than double the rate of white workers, as well as indigenous workers, given their relatively smaller population following centuries of capitalist genocide.
 Racist police terror keeps the entire working class terrorized and intimidated from uniting and rebelling. The fight against racist police terror and the fight for justice for Kyam, like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, is the fight of ALL workers Black, Asian, Latin and white. The capitalist bosses holding the leashes of their vicious kkkop attack dogs while planning deadlier imperialist wars fear communist-led multiracial working class unity the most, and that is precisely what PLP is fighting to build internationally.
Fight for justice for Kyam and revolution!
The fight for justice for Kyam and for revolution grows with every mass action like this car caravan and by bringing CHALLENGE to more and more workers each issue. The seven-year struggle for justice is far from over because the future of the international working class is bright: workers along our caravan route raised their fists and cheered on our efforts; drivers honked their horns and waved as we passed. Neighborhoods, job sites and schools we passed that have been sites of PL's struggles over the years are today’s fertile ground where we yield recruits, fighters and supporters in our fight for communist revolution!

NEW YORK STATE, July 18— “Shut this racist system down. If we don’t get it, SHUT IT DOWN!” A rally and march of about 150 workers and youth in the Hudson Valley region outside New York City demonstrated the extent to which the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless others, have angered and roused the masses. A multiracial group of women and men, student and faculty comrades and friends of the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) turned up at the rally to advocate for communist revolution. Among the PL’ers was a student with years of history and several contacts in the area.

Red ideas greeted by youth at antiracist rally

The rally was organized by a local group called Chester United, a social justice organization with Christian influences with a multiracial political base in the area and led mostly by young Black workers. Speakers from their organization included local politicians and others offering various dead-end ideas for fighting racism: voting, buying only from Black capitalist-owned businesses, increased dialogue with the local kkkops, fighting for Black “representation” in the bosses’ government, etc. When they opened the floor to everyone, however, Black youth with more militant politics stepped up to share their views.

While some of the group’s misleaders advocated reconciliation and “conversations” with the police, the rally itself began late. The reason? Prior to the rally, local kkkops shut down the roads leading to the rally site, so very few arrived on time– the kkkops claimed it was for “traffic safety” for the rally!
So much for reconciliation. Kkkops defend the capitalist state, and the capitalists know a mass multiracial antiracist movement with communist ideas is the end of them. A PL’er spoke about her experiences growing up there and emphasized how imperialist war and racist police terror are essential to capitalism. She also emphasized how Black workers are key to smashing capitalism and directly attacked liberalism and identity politics. More Black capitalists or “representation” in the bosses’ system isn’t better for ANY workers, Black or white.
Connecting the Hudson Valley antiracist struggles with current PLP antiracist struggles in CUNY, she cited the intensifying racist super-exploitation of Black-majority custodial workers at Kingsborough Community College, which has a Black woman president — and the key importance of communist-led multiracial unity in fighting back.
After inviting the crowd to join the international PLP, the majority of the crowd and especially the multiracial youth present applauded. More than 150 CHALLENGEs were sold, and some approached PL’ers with extra donations and for discussions afterward.
‘To be attacked is good…’
We then marched through the area neighborhoods, and the chants gained intensity and militancy. The youth marching in front picked up PLP chants attacking this racist system. When a racist heckled the march with a U.S. flag shouting “all lives matter,” he was militantly drowned out. By the end, many contacts were made. Some had ties to the Bronx and New Jersey, and ideas for collaborating and connecting the city and tri-state area were shared.
Later, PL’ers discovered on social media that PLP and CHALLENGE were attacked by name by Chester United’s liberal misleadership. These pathetic attacks show that when desperate for influence, liberal misleaders expose their capitalist and kkkop allegiance with anticommunism. They even attacked PL’ers as “outside agitators,” despite some being from the area!
Turn the tide for communist revolution
For the sake of our class, we must continue to have a presence in these mass movements and agitate for revolution. While we made more contacts upstate where the chokehold of liberalism seems weaker, the masses at both actions (see box) were receptive to our politics. This demonstrates the importance of being bold with communist politics, because the masses are eager to hear revolutionary ideas. JOIN OUR FIGHT!

*****

Solidarity with Portland
The following Saturday, student and faculty PL’ers and friends attended another mass action in response to the fascist intimidation tactics by the Small Fascist-led Trump administration (see back page). Almost 500 CHALLENGEs were sold to the thousands attending in solidarity with workers in Portland, Oregon who have been abducted by secret federal police and held for weeks without charge.
Liberal misleaders once again took the stage attempting to funnel mass outrage into electoral politics for the Big Fascist-led Democrats. One speaker from Movement 4 Black Lives opened his speech with anticommunist messages , stating “Take a look at Eastern European history if you wanna know how bad secret police are” and urged workers to vote, ignoring the masses of Latin migrant workers kidnapped, terrorized and deported under liberal Obama. Our chants calling for international working class solidarity were applauded and picked up and when one of the organizers attempted to drown us out with a mobile wireless speaker, we confronted him, telling him to get lost.

Seventy-five years ago on  August 6, in a monstrous genocidal attack, the U.S. military dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan [and two days later on Nagasaki], slaughtering more than 300,000 innocent civilians in the two cities, plus untold tens of thousands who would die later or suffer the poisonous effects from the radiation unleashed by the two bombs.  
The racist U.S. rulers, murdered masses of people in Japan to intimidate their rival, the then socialist Soviet Union.  The then floated the lie that the A-Bomb attacks were necessary to “force Japan’s surrender and avoid a U.S. land invasion of Japan involving 1,000,000 U.S. casualties.” All while the U.S. bosses knew full well Japan’s rulers were ready to surrender BEFORE the atomic bombings.
Atomic bombings not necessary to end the war
  The United States Strategic Bombing Survey reported that, “Certainly …in all probability prior to November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bomb had not been dropped…and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated. (trumanlibrary.gov, Japan’s Struggle to End the War)
 General (later president) Eisenhower said it was his “belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary…and no longer mandatory to save American lives.”(Mandate for Change”; 1963)
 General Douglas MacArthur, U.S. Pacific commander, believed the dropping of the bombs was “completely unnecessary from a military point of view.”(The Years of MacArthur; Vol. II)
 The LA Times reported in “The Myths of Hiroshima” (8/5/05) that, “The hard truth is that the atomic bombings were unnecessary. A million lives were not saved. Indeed, McGeorge Bundy, the man who popularized this figure, later confessed that he had pulled it out of the air to justify the bombings in a 1947 Harper’s Magazine essay that he had ghostwritten for Secretary of War Henry Stimson.”
 On March 9, “100,000 to 200,000 men, women and children died when the U.S. Air Force doused Tokyo with jellied gasoline….In the months before Hiroshima [conventional] bombs killed up to 500,000 in Japanese cities and left 13 million homeless.”(U.S. News & World Report, 7/13/95)
By the Spring of 1945, Japan’s entire industrial and military machine had ground to a halt, severing its military’s lifeline.
By June, U.S. Air Force General LeMay complained that there was nothing left to bomb in Japanese cities except “garbage can targets.” [In fact, Truman’s Secretary  of War Stimson told Truman that he was “fearful” that before the A-Bomb was delivered, the U.S. Air Force would have Japan “so bombed out” that the A-Bomb “would not have a fair background to show its strength.”]
So, if not necessary to end the war, why was the bomb dropped?
In May 1945, Soviet leader Josef Stalin had promised U.S. president Truman at the Yalta Conference that the Red Army would enter the war against Japan within three months after the Nazi surrender in Europe, which occurred on May 8, 1945. On August 8, the Soviets swept into Manchuria and were preparing an invasion of Japan. “It was the Soviet Union’s entry into the Pacific war on Aug. 8, two days after the Hiroshima bombing that provided the final ‘shock’ that led to Japan’s capitulation.” (LA Times 8/5/05)
The U.S. ruling class not only wanted to prevent any Soviet participation in peace settlements with Japan but also to use the bombings as a display of U.S. military might, a political warning to the Soviet Union of what awaited it in the post-war world.
Rather than the last act of World War II, the atomic bombings signaled the U.S. launching of the Cold War.
The U.S. ruling class aims for the driver’s seat vs. the Soviets in post-war world
Truman’s War Secretary . Stimson, in referring to the Bomb as a “master card,” said, “Let our actions speak for words. The Russians will understand them better than anything else….We have to regain the lead…in a pretty rough and realistic way….We have coming into action a weapon which will be unique.” (Stimson Diary)
 Atomic bomb scientist Leo Szilard, in a meeting with Truman’s Secretary of State James Byrnes, said: “Mr. Byrnes did not argue that it was necessary to use the bomb…in order to win the war….Mr. Byrnes’s view [was] that our possessing and demonstrating the bomb would make Russia more manageable in Europe.” (Szilard: A Personal History of the Atomic Bomb”; 1949)
Truman and Byrnes quite plainly used the Bomb primarily to prevent the Soviets from sharing in the occupation of Japan. As Churchill had said about the Bomb, “We now had something in our hands that would redress the balance with the Russians.” (LA Times 8/5/05)In what amounted to an indictment of the liberal Democrat Truman administration, atomic scientist Szilard stated that, “If the Germans had dropped atomic bombs on cities…we would have defined [it]…as a war crime, and we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremburg and hanged them.” (Szilard: A Personal History of the Atomic Bomb”; 1949)
It remains the historic task of the international working class to smash the most murderous war criminals the world has ever known.