In Kenosha, Wisconsin, a 17-year-old Nazi killed two antiracists protesting the kkkcops’ attempted murder of Jacob Blake. In Lacey, Washington, an anti-fascist was assassinated by a federal government death squad after being targeted for the killing of a racist linked to Patriot Prayer, a group of armed white nationalists. With an upsurge of mass antiracist struggle since the May 25 lynching of George Floyd in Minneapolis, mounting political violence reflects a capitalist system that is falling apart before our eyes.
The U.S. is becoming a failed state. In the era of Covid-19 and the disastrous Donald Trump presidency, we are witnessing an unprecedented collapse of the economic, medical, scientific, infrastructural, education, and media systems of U.S. capitalism. As liberal electoral “democracy” is exposed as a fraud and catastrophe, the finance capital wing of the U.S. ruling class has realized that it can no longer govern in the traditional way. It is turning to Plan B—to fascism, the state of capitalism in crisis.
As full-blown fascist China rises in wealth and imperialist power, the days of the U.S. empire and its 20th-century “liberal world order” appear to be numbered. Global conflict seems more inevitable by the day. History teaches us that periods of fascism and inter-imperialist war present both great dangers and great opportunities for the workers of the world. World War I triggered the communist revolution in the Soviet Union; World War II did the same in China. Whenever World War III arrives at our doorstep, the international working class will have the potential to seize state power and smash capitalism once and for all. But this won’t happen automatically. It requires the leadership of a mass communist party, and the consciousness of workers to reject the bosses’ deadly ideas of racism and nationalism—and the lie that capitalism can be reformed to serve workers’ needs.
The myth of liberal democracy
With political and social order disintegrating with the approach of the U.S. presidential elections,  the rulers’ crisis is compounded by internal division and the accelerating erosion of the U.S. position around the globe. The Small Fascists, a band of isolationist, anti-tax billionaires clustered around the likes of the Koch, DeVos and Mercer family fortunes, have mounted an openly racist takeover of the Republican Party, a siege that paid off with the Trump presidency. They have irrevocably broken with the big-spending, war-mongering, finance capital Big Fascists, the liberal racists led by multinational businesses like ExxonMobil and JPMorgan Chase.  
Amid the chaos of the Covid-19 pandemic and the barrage of antiracist uprisings, and with the federal government under the Small Fascists’ thumb, the Big Fascists are being forced to rely on governors, state attorneys general, and state legislatures to regain control in the fall elections. Local fights could swiftly turn bitter and violent, and there is no guarantee that either side will accept the other’s electoral victory. A “peaceful transfer of power” is no longer a sure thing. When capitalist elections can no longer function, the legitimacy of liberal democracy will be in peril.
Crackdown on Small Fascists looms
The Big Fascists are committed to preserving a fading American empire and preparing for World War III with China and possibly Russia. To do so, they must discipline U.S. society—beginning with their own class. The scorched-earth drive to defeat Trump in November is directed at the Small Fascist bosses whose interests he represents.  
The prospect of mass conversion to the openly racist, anti-government, and anti-science Small Fascist program, backed up by a hard core willingness to engage in armed insurrection, is a huge threat to the Big Fascist political program of a revamped multicultural U.S. imperialism. In this highly combustible situation, a serious crackdown on “free speech” and “civil liberties” is in the works. Two cases in point: the July Congressional hearings to serve notice on Big Tech, and Facebook’s concession to ban new political ads in the run-up to the November elections, a move that figures to hurt Trump’s re-election chances.  For now, at least, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is obeying his marching orders from finance capital (New York Times, 9/3).  
For the Big Fascists, the stakes for winning back the White House and the U.S. Senate are at an all-time high.  Pressure to regain control of these institutions will force them to act with urgency between now and November. This will in turn inflame the Small Fascists and their base, and likely tip their dogfight further into armed violence, if not civil war between the two wings of the ruling class.  
No matter who wins, November’s election won’t restore the dominance of U.S. imperialism. is more, elections can’t fix racism. As Gerald Holmes, a Black forklift operator in Kenosha said, “What good is it to go out there and [vote]?  It isn’t going to make any difference” (NYT, 6/1).
Let us take our cue from the hard-earned wisdom of Black workers like Gerald. Workers and youth have not forgotten that Joe Biden, the Democrats’ great liberal hope for president, authored the infamous 1994 crime bill that led to the mass incarceration state and destroyed generations of Black and Latin families.
Warning: liberal fascism ahead
When protesting in the streets, anti-racists are far more likely to be attacked by liberal-run police departments than white nationalist vigilantes.  Biden's vehement rejection of “violence” is a one-way street; killer cops still get the green light to attack protesters.  The Big Fascists’ viciousness in repressing anti-racist demonstrations exposes the true nature of liberalism, in line with the historic ruling-class strategy to keep a monopoly on legitimate violence.  In July alone, police departments intervened in 170 demonstrations, using force 54 percent of the time (ACLED report, 9/5). From May 24 to August 22, local cops and other authorities intervened against demonstrators, often with tear gas, batons, rubber bullets, and more, 725 times (U.S. Crisis Monitor).  Repressive violence is Big Fascism in action, and it’s all the more dangerous  because it mostly goes unnoticed. Big Fascist Biden's platform expands spending on police by $300 million (NYT, 9/2) while fake leftist Bernie Sanders wants to pay police more, not defund them (New Yorker, 6/9).   
Only communism can smash fascism
The road to fascism is being paved in real time. We face the prospect of continued vigilante attacks, including some with Small Fascist state-level collusion, on the reformist left wing of the Democratic Party. But while these right-wing assaults may seem to echo the Cold War attacks by U.S. bosses against communists in the 1950s, the most dangerous choice for workers today would be to ally ourselves with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Elizabeth Warren and their ilk. Through hard experience, workers know that the vast majority of racist police killings, where cops get off scot-free, occur in cities with liberal Democratic mayors. We cannot fall into the trap of defending one set of oppressors from another, or siding with Biden’s Big Fascists in their crackdown on Trump’s Small Fascists. For workers, only communism can free us from the murderous oppression of capitalism.

Los Angeles, CA – While the bosses just finished parading Joe Biden and Kamala Harris at the Democratic National Convention, hoping to win workers back to capitalism, women from nine different families testified to the brutality that this system perpetrates on workers daily. Initially LA City Council member Curren Price, a leading Black politician of the Democratic party, promised to have a Zoom forum where people could speak to the trauma the “Shootin’ Newton” police station has caused them over the years. But liberal misleader Price reneged, as all politicians are only interested in protecting the capitalist system.
So the workers took over. A family member proclaimed, “If he doesn’t want to help us, we will make our own community forum!” This was a call to action! For nine months, members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) have deepened our ties with three families who themselves have numerous ties to other families in the fight against racist police brutality. After spending months organizing with communists, the families are skeptical of the promises politicians make. It has also become clearer to many that communist revolution is the long-term solution to ending racist police murders. Today we organize caravans and forums. In the future the working class will run the world.
Families unite to organize against racist kop killings
Members of three different families of victims of police violence met with PLP to plan our big event. Everyone took on various roles: organizing security, developing the program with MCs, musicians, poets and street artists.  We pushed each other to do more and supported each other in both  growth and development. Most of the key leaders of this committee are women.
For the action, we arrived early to take one lane of traffic and the entire city block that the Newton Police Station sits on. We covered an open area with street art, posters, altars of their lost loved ones, a children’s play tent, and a recovery station. Even though it was 95 degrees, 200 people joined the four-hour speak-out that included 10 speakers, three musical performers, and a poet. The anger was palpable. The unity was fierce! Fists in the air, speaker after speaker echoed a similar sentiment; while police may have stolen their family members, they did not steal their fighting spirit! When the MC shouted, “If we don’t get it”, the crowd screamed back with fists raised, “shut it down!”
No justice from racist system – commit to a lifelong fight
One mother acknowledged that she will never get justice from a racist system, but committed every breath in her body to what she recognized is a lifelong fight. The crowd demanded an end to racist police murders. But the question remained, “HOW?”  A Party member spoke next. Most other organizations call for justice and maybe to defund the police. Only PLP calls for getting rid of capitalism. Our comrade connected his political development to a PLP-led Summer Project in Los Angeles organizing with garment workers, workers in maquiladoras in Tijuana, Mexico and responding to a two-day rebellion following the murder of 14-year old Jose Gutierrez in 1995.  Police terror is part of an exploitative system where the police try to control the most oppressed, mainly Black, Latin and immigrant workers. Jim Crow Joe Biden, architect of racist mass incarceration, and Top Cop Kamala Harris are the best the liberals have to offer our class. Whether they use language like “Defund” or “Dismantle” they will never abolish their armed, racist protectors of capitalism.  Our comrade called on those present to read CHALLENGE and consider joining Progressive Labor Party as we fight shoulder to shoulder in this struggle.
Following the speak-out, we led a caravan to the Southeast police station that killed David Flores, father of two.  We met his sister while distributing literature and a petition about Alex.  Months later, we met David’s mother at a protest for Andres Guardado who was killed by the LA Sheriff’s on June 18, 2020.  Since then, the families of Alex Flores and the Party have become close and the mother has joined the committee.  When we caravanned slowly through South Central, the mostly Black, Latin and immigrant workers came out of their homes, cars and raised fists and chants in support.  Some even joined our caravan.  It was clear that the police have no support from these workers. As we organize and expand the base of PLP, the cops’ days will surely be numbered.
The movement against racism expands
This event also brought us closer to other families whose loved ones were murdered by the KKKops.  One of the families approached us to provide sound and lead chants at their event the following weekend to commemorate the three-year “angel-versary” of their loved one, Cesar Rodriguez. He was brutally killed by the Long Beach PD after being thrown in front of a moving train on August 29, 2017.  We were honored to do so!  Now we are building with them, hoping to include them in our committee.  
After LA Sheriff’s murdered 29-year-old Black worker, Dijon Kizzie, the Alex Flores family came with the Party that night to join the hundreds protesting.  At another march, the mother of David Flores joined in support of Dijon Kizzie.  It is becoming more and more evident that many workers no longer view these killings as isolated incidents, but reflective of this whole racist system.  But like the Italian communist, anti-fascist saying goes, “They killed us and killed us until there were millions of us!”  The Party here in LA has done our best to deepen our ties with the families and community, while also connecting this fight back to our jobs and mass organizations.  As we organize at our jobs, we can increase our presence at these protests against the most vulgar and overt forms of racist terror on Black and Latin workers. We  do this while distinguishing ourselves from reform leaders and opportunists-in-struggle, providing  a vision of communism  run by the working class!

KENOSHA–The brutal shooting of Black worker Jacob Blake, on camera, by kkkop Rusten Sheskey last month once again cast a spotlight on capitalism’s racist and sexist hatred for working-class lives. Already pummeled by a deadly pandemic, widespread unemployment, and mounting evictions, it can seem as though there is no limit to the violence that the capitalist bosses can rain upon our class.
Now likely paralyzed for the rest of his life, Jacob speaks truth from his hospital bed when he says that “we can stick together” and change the situation that faces the international working class. The militant, multiracial and worker-led rebellions that rocked his home city after his shooting are a symbol of our collective power and therefore strike fear directly into the hearts of the ruling-class capitalists.
It was with this understanding that members of the communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) traveled to Kenosha to extend solidarity and share revolutionary politics with rebels there. In doing so, we hope to create connections between our many anti-racist struggles and develop the relationships necessary to build an international mass Party capable of destroying this profit system, the root of our misery. Freedom from racist police terror, pandemics, unemployment and war comes with the death of capitalism and the construction of an egalitarian communist world.
Antiracism knows no borders
The first trip we PL’ers organized came three days after Jacob’s shooting, and the very next day after fascist vigilante teenager Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed (with kkkop complicity) multiple antiracist fighters. To be sure, there was a heightened sense of awareness and even a certain degree of fear of what to expect when we entered the city.
It didn’t take long after entering the downtown area (the epicenter of the rebellion) that we were able to link up with antiracist marchers. It was in this context that we were reminded exactly where security for the working class lies: within the mass movement and under collective action. Refusing to be intimidated by the state-endorsed violence that occurred the night before, our multi-racial group marched for miles through various neighborhoods and shut down multiple intersections.
Local Black workers led the march, leading chants and successfully repelling any would-be instigators who tried to heckle and infiltrate. PL’ers helped to lead chants, distributed dozens of a Party flier written about Jacob and the rebellion, and made conversation and contacts.
Our presence and politics were well-received, debunking the false idea that “outsiders” aren’t welcome in these rebellions. In fact, many other antiracist fighters there had come from across the region and around the country to support. The fight against racist capitalism knows no boundaries or borders!
Building connections, rejecting liberal capitalism
The following week the Party organized another solidarity trip to Kenosha, with a larger contingent of members and a close friend. Coincidentally it was the same day that gutter racist U.S. President Donald Trump made a visit to the city, in an open appeal to his pro-cop voting base. There was a general expectation that his appearance would inflame tensions between the antiracist and racist forces in the area.
But the working class is smart, and wasn’t about to play into the Racist-in-Chief’s hand. Instead of open clashes, PL’ers came upon a community block party organized by friends and family of Jacob in front of the apartments where he was shot. Food was provided free of charge, games were set up for youth, and medical services were offered.
Speeches were given by workers and activists, including Jacob’s uncle who put it brilliantly when he stated, “The movement isn’t about the money; it’s about the relationships we build.”
However, there were weaker messages as well. Appeals were made to register to vote and to support Democratic politicians, and to set up a separate Black infrastructure of businesses and police departments.
As communists, we struggle with other workers to reject these bosses’ traps that have done nothing to advance our collective liberation. Some of the worst attacks, including mass incarceration, deportations, and police terror, have occurred with liberals in power. Voting and buying into the system will never lead to the world we need and deserve – only mass fightback and communist revolution can do that.
Boldness on the rise
After the block party, we made our way back to the downtown area to connect with other rebels. We distributed dozens of CHALLENGE newspapers, and made even more contacts. One pro-Trump supporter was foolish enough to enter the crowd and run his racist mouth, but was swiftly beat down and ran from the area. Antiracists then gleefully lit his Make America Great Again (MAGA) hat on fire.
The commotion immediately drew the attention of the police, who pulled up in an attempt to seal off the area and intimidate. Their move in fact had the opposite effect, as the antiracists then turned our attention to them in order to shout them down and run them off the scene.
One veteran PL’er noted that such a bold move noted a qualitative change in the character of the movement. He commented that while maybe five or 10  years ago the protest would have shut down, there is a boldness is blossoming among many working-class youth. As capitalism descends further into crisis mode and fascist attacks increase, this commitment to continue fighting, no matter what, is a positive sign for the international working class.
A lifetime of revolution
In this summer of rebellion, it is essential to recognize that we have likely stimulated more change in the streets than we can ever hope to accomplish in the voting booth. PLP is proud to support and fight alongside our class, with the goal of winning the masses to the next necessary step: joining the Party and the lifelong fight for a communist revolution.

LOS ANGELES, September 8 –When high school students organize and lead a Social Justice Day on day three of a school year that is steeped in instability for our class, we can lay claim to the potential of a bright future ahead of us. Sixteen students and 10  staff members (organized by a teacher member of PLP) met and planned through the summer to pull together the day’s activities. When the school’s administration tried to push it back again claiming there was not enough time to “do it right”, students and staff said NO! We demanded that the nonsense they were calling Fall Bridge be condensed so that instead our fight for an antiracist school, community, and world could take center stage.
The momentum for this event was driven by an emboldened group of students, alumni, and staff to confront the racism on our school campus and within the charter network. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, students and alumni called out school administration and the broader school district for being complicit in racist policies and practices. They were swiftly supported by two thirds of the school’s staff. But the foundation for this fight back has been laid by the struggle over communist ideas and politics for the last five years.
Workers learn through struggle
It is in the day-to-day struggle over ideas, combined with the push for class struggle and action, that lead to leaps in political development during surges of the mass movement. As communist teachers, we fight to make our schools student-centered and for the struggles they face to be our struggles.
Under capitalism, workers are alienated from their labor. For teachers, this means we are alienated from the students and families we serve. The struggle against that is difficult. For school staff who do not understand how capitalism ravages working class families, it is easy to blame students and their families for the problems observed in schools. The communist voice in the school must constantly find new ways to demonstrate capitalism as the root of all the problems we are struggling to solve in the education system.
In this school, over the last five years, that has looked like things as large as an organization wide fight against a racist mandated English curriculum, to as small as the push for teachers to not use zeros in their grade book. It has encompassed a battle to shift from a detention/suspension system to a more restorative justice approach. It has  also meant an organized effort by staff to provide education and services after schools shut down when the school district left families for weeks with nothing. It has also included a fight to improve learning conditions for students, whether for smaller class sizes or for the decades old AC system to be repaired, and the fight against gentrification in the surrounding community.
It is in these fights, and so many more, where communist educators can expose that capitalism has nothing to offer the working class. This will not be an easy battle though. Just as the main wing of the ruling class – Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and the rest of the liberal Democrats – attempt to fool our class, the so-called “progressive” charter networks are appropriating the language of the left while maintaining the same racist, oppressive systems that exist across the education system. PLP members have not shied away from the struggle with our base that liberals are the main danger to our class, and this has led to many breakthroughs in political development.
Cadre schools un-teach capitalist lies
With the groundwork laid, we were able to present to 600 students and 40 staff members three workshops – “Race is Not Real”, “Racism is Real”, and “What Are We Going to Do About It?”. The content was created and presented by student leaders. Through the workshop development process, the Party teacher was able to struggle for our line on racism to be the basis of the content. Each workshop was followed by breakout discussion groups, many of which were also guided by student leaders. The workshops and discussion groups presented many aspects of the Party’s line, including the importance of multi-racial unity, how racism hurts all workers, and that the working class has power to change society.
It became clear to some students very quickly that not all staff members were on the same page. Like all schools, there is a wide array of political beliefs among the staff. While the administration likes to use the phrase “antiracist practitioners” to describe our staff, they have done nothing to confront the ideas that some staff members, including themselves, hold which contradict that title. Knowing our staff very well, the teacher leaders of Social Justice Day paired the strongest student leaders with the staff members whose politics did not align with our agenda. We also asked staff members to allow students to take the lead.
This did not stop two teachers from spewing their garbage in breakout groups or grade level discussions. As students in one break out room discussed police brutality, the teacher interjected to say racism was not that bad – in the workshop entitled “Racism is Real”! Students held their ground and called this teacher out in the grade level session at the end of the day. The administration stayed silent. Like all other enemies of our class, the administration showed their true colors in that moment. The Party teacher thanked the students for being brave enough to call out their teacher in front of everyone and made it clear to everyone in attendance that we must follow the example of these students and interrupt racist ideas at every turn.
Capitalism for profit, communism for workers’ lives
In another grade level discussion, students suggested one call to action could be following BLM on social media and joining their fightback when possible. A teacher responded “playing devil’s advocate” by saying that BLM is a bunch of Marxists, their protests have only further divided the country, and the riots they caused have destroyed small businesses. Thankfully, a teacher organizer who is in the base of the Party jumped in and demanded that he stop comparing the loss of human life to the loss of property. Again, the silence of the administration exposed where they really stand in the fight against racism.
The battle over ideas will continue. But the main way we can change people’s ideology is through action! Students and staff left Social Justice Day with a call to action – “An Injustice to One is An Injustice to All!” To make that a reality, we have asked staff and students to get involved with the Justice for Alex Flores fight back and some have stepped up. Two teachers and a student attended the recent speak out and one teacher is regularly meeting in a study group. We are also tying the work at the school with the Social Justice Club to broader education work in a larger mass organization in LA. Lastly, we are building a connection to a local tenant’s union to connect families with a way to fight evictions and gentrification in the community.
We still have a long way to go for the masses to turn these ideas into action and to turn action into a fight for a communist world. But anytime we can put the Common Core State Standards of “learning” to the side and present education centered on working class consciousness, we are making a small step in the fight for communism. The struggle continues!