The following two novels by U.S. communist writer Howard Fast analyze and promote working-class class solidarity. Freedom Road (1944) dramatizes the fight against racism in the South after the Civil War, the promise of multiracial solidarity between Black and white farmers during Reconstruction, and its defeat in 1877. The Proud and the Free (1950) is about the Rebellion of the Pennsylvania Brigades of the Revolutionary Army in January, 1780, against brutal treatment by their own officers.
These novels can stimulate students’ interest in the U.S. history that we have been denied. These books connect the class struggles of the past century and of today, the fight against racism and for working-class liberation with the main, though hidden, currents of life.  
Freedom Road
Freedom Road (which went on to be a movie with Muhammad Ali as the lead) is an antiracist novel with a class analysis – exactly what is needed in this time, as class analysis of racism, when not denied outright, is indirectly denied through the liberal theories of white privilege and intersectionality.
Fast’s protagonist is Gideon Jackson, a former enslaved worker, who escaped, joined the Union Army, and has returned to South Carolina. He understands the necessity of uniting with white workers, and is elected to the State Legislature. He and other formerly enslaved workers join with working class white farmers to build Carwell, a multiracial farming community.
The former enslavers, still the landowners, engineer the compromise of 1876, the end of Reconstruction, and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the South. Then they organize and incite the Ku Klux Klan terrorists. The Klan besieges and destroys Carwell, killing everyone.
Fast’s novel is very clear: relying on “voting” is as futile and self-defeating after the Civil War as it was before. Only violence can defeat the class of former enslavers, who now form a landed aristocracy. They depend on keeping Black labor cheap and passive through terrorism, and by disarming their natural allies,white workers, through the false ideology of “white supremacy.”
The most class-conscious personage in the novel is the former enslaver and aristocrat Stephan Holmes. Holmes tells his fellow landowners that their racist prejudice against Black people has blinded them to the abilities and intelligence of the Black formerly enslaved people and of their allies, the poor whites. Holmes uses “race” to disguise “class.”
Fast’s main source is the book Reconstruction: the Battle for Democracy 1865-1876, by James Allen, a historian and member of the Communist Party USA. Allen edited the communist paper The Southern Worker, which had to be produced in secrecy since the Party’s organizing efforts in the South were subject to fascist attack by the Klan and the F.B.I.
The Proud and the Free
The book is narrated by Jamie Stuart, who, as a 22-year-old orphaned son of indentured servants, joined the American Revolutionary Army in the “Foreign Brigade” of Pennsylvania.
The enlisted men live in slum-like housing near Morristown, New Jersey with little food, clothing or money. By contrast, the officers, led by the Continental Army’s General Anthony Wayne, enjoy gourmet food, fine wine, well-tailored clothes, and servants.
The rank-and-file soldiers—Protestants, Jewish, Black, Irish, atheist, and Roman Catholic workers—recognize their fundamental interests in unity on the basis of class, seeing their officers, the gentry, and especially the British, as their common enemy.
Led by a Committee of Sergeants the brigades, through surprise and organization, present a fait accompli to their officers. They form a new, free fighting force. Ultimately the soldiers agree to return to Wayne’s army as long as (1) there are no reprisals; and (2) those who are owed a bounty be paid, and (3) those whose term of enlistment had expired are discharged.
Stuart returns to York, PA, and his fiancée, Molly Bracken. But, drawn by loyalty to his comrades in arms, Stuart rejoins the brigade. Then the officers take their revenge.
After the war, Stuart lives a long life. When his beloved Molly dies, he feels lost. Then an escaped enslaved person comes to his home. Stuart realizes that the new Abolitionist movement has goals like those for which he and his comrades had fought in the Revolution but which were never achieved—the liberation of the working people. He joins the Underground Railroad.
Further readings
Fast based this book on Mutiny in January (Viking, 1943) by Carl Van Doren, the only full-length study of this rebellion and still a good read today. Auxiliary readings that have proven successful in class include: Sterling North’s negative review in the World Telegram & Sun (1950) accusing Fast of “treason” for daring to write about class conflict during the American Revolution, and Fast’s “Reply to Critics” from Masses & Mainstream (1950). Both are available online.
These novels are inspiring because they present a class analysis, something rare in literature. They advocate for multiracial solidarity within the working class. We need challenge readers to apply the lessons of these novels to the class problems of 2020.
(For digital copies of the materials named in this article, write to CHALLENGE).

The assassination of the Iranian bosses’ top military and intelligence leader, Major General Qassim Suleimani, is a big setback for the U.S. finance capitalists and their already weakened position in the oil-rich Middle East. While what may happen next is unpredictable, it’s clear that the world is more unstable today than it was before the New Year. As inter-imperialist competition intensifies, a global conflict over Iran seems more likely than ever—and with it, a looming threat to millions of workers’ lives.
Workers need to draw our own “red line” against all wars for profit, and against all the rulers who wage them. We must organize on the job and in the street to resist the bosses’ fascist, nationalist campaigns—to fight for a new world based on workers’ needs. A united international working class can turn imperialist war for profit into a revolutionary war for communism!
Setting off the powder keg
On January 3, Suleimani was killed by a drone strike at Baghdad International Airport, authorized by U.S. President Donald Trump. Suleimani, responsible for workers’ deaths on both sides of the imperialist fault line, “[was] instrumental to the steady spreading of Iran’s clout in the Middle East, which the United States and Tehran’s regional foes Saudi Arabia and Israel have struggled to keep in check”(NYTimes, 1/3).
 The assasination came after days of attacks and counterattacks between the U.S. and Iran. Tensions began building on December 27, when an Iranian rocket killed a U.S. military contractor near the Iraqi city of Kirkuk. Two days later, U.S. airstrikes targeted Iran-backed militia bases in both Iraq and Syria, killing dozens. In retaliation, pro-Iranian militias, plausibly directed by Suleimani, attacked the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad, the wartorn Iraqi capital. Then the U.S. drone killed Suleimani and at least four associates, including Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a top Iraqi militia leader.
Five days after the assassination, Iran responded with more than a dozen missile strikes aimed at two U.S. military bases in Iraq. Though there were no reported casualties, it seems unlikely that the new wave of hostilities will end there. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s top capitalist boss, is calling for U.S. expulsion from the region. “At minimum, Iran will take a significant step toward enriching weapons-grade uranium…[but] perhaps the most provocative thing Iran could do is carry out a terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland or attempt to kill a senior U.S. official of Suleimani’s stature” (Foreign Affairs 1/3).
Meanwhile, Trump has threatened to counter Iranian retaliation with attacks on 52 sites in Iran, one for each of the U.S. hostages seized by Iran in 1979.
Trump defies both wings
Trump’s decision to murder Suleimani appears to be a high-risk tactic masquerading as political strategy. On its face, the move put Trump at odds with both wings of the U.S. ruling class: the Big Fascist imperialists, controlled by finance capital, and the Small Fascist, more domestically oriented bosses, spearheaded by the Koch family.
The Big Fascists know they’ll ultimately need a devastating ground war to protect their profits in the Middle East (and elsewhere) against rivals China and Russia, but aren’t nearly prepared for World War III at this time. The Council on Foreign Relations, the main wing’s leading think tank, took Trump to task for his “reckless” Iran policy:
Trump has been adamant about his lack of interest in starting a new war in the Middle East—and yet, here we are at the precipice….[E]ven if he shows uncharacteristic self-restraint in the coming weeks, the desire for revenge in Iran, and the political momentum that desire is already beginning to generate, may inevitably draw the United States and Iran into a major conflict (Foreign Affairs, 1/3).
To curtail this major conflict, the main wing is responding through the House of Representatives. As CHALLENGE goes to press, the House is expected to vote on a resolution to halt military actions against Iran unless approved by Congress. The Small Fascists are fine with quick-and-dirty air strikes, and over the last three years have consolidated an opportunistic alliance with Trump on most issues. But they view a globally deployed military—and any future investment in millions of boots on the ground—as a waste of their money. The Charles Koch Institute reacted with audible alarm to the hit on Suleimani: “President Trump should heed the mistakes of his predecessors and avoid getting sucked into another unnecessary war in the Middle East. The escalatory spiral we are now in with Iran risks such an imprudent and costly conflict” (1/3).
Trump’s latest mess shows just how much the Big Fascists’ surprise defeat in the 2016 presidential elections has cost them. The Terrorist in Chief may have thought he was one-upping Barack Obama’s 2011 assassination of Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader. But the New York Times, the main wing’s most reliable mouthpiece, pointed out a critical distinction: “General Suleimani was a senior official of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and openly targeting him was a sharp escalation in the conflict between the United States and Iran, all but taunting Iran to strike back. And that by a president who had previously demonstrated strong aversion to American involvement in the Middle East, contempt for intelligence from the region and occasional reluctance to order the use of military forces” (1/3).
U.S. imperialists have the most to lose
On January 5, Iraqi lawmakers voted to expel U.S. troops from the country. If the U.S. is ousted from Iraq (a huge setback for U.S. imperialism), the world’s second-largest oil producer, Iran will likely gain even more influence there. The U.S. bosses may not leave Iraq willingly, but it looks like they must fight to stay.
Not even Trump’s closest allies are standing by an increasingly isolated United States. Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, reportedly angered by the drone strike, is slated to meet with Germany and France in coming days. “Secretary of State Mike Pompeo complained that … ‘the Europeans haven’t been as helpful as I wish they could be.’” (NYT, 1/5). Europe’s bosses are no doubt worried about the critical transit chokepoint at the Strait of Hormuz, a passage for 20 percent of the world’s oil trade. Iran has intermittently threatened to close the Strait even before the current crisis (NYT, 1/5).
China-Russia-Iran alliance fills void
The U.S’ declining power, and the volatility that accompanies it, is emboldening China and Russia’s role in the Middle East. Since December, Iran, China, and Russia have been running joint naval drills in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Oman, adjacent to the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian admirals characterized the exercise as a demonstration of ‘’lasting security through cooperation and unity … [I]ts result will be to show that Iran cannot be isolated” (Reuters, 12/27).
As Asia Times (1/5) noted:
China “is the largest buyer of Iranian oil, China is Iran’s largest trading partner, and Iran is a key geographic node for the BRI [Belt and Road Initiative]….Should a US-Iran war break out and the Iranian government [be] overthrown, it would be devastating for China’s regional interests… With US hostility and ‘maximum pressure’ toward Beijing, Moscow and Tehran (all under US sanctions), Washington is driving all three to coalesce.”
Workers unite!
As geopolitical tensions in the Middle East heighten, U.S. workers must prepare to fight anti-Muslim racism and fascist campaigns against “terrorism” by the most deadly bosses in the world: the state terrorists of U.S. imperialism.  As the superpowers scramble to protect their oil reserves, trade routes, and profits, what’s most at stake are the lives of the international working class. Whenever the bosses are in conflict, whether its proxy or direct war, the burden always falls on our class. There are no good sides in this conflict. However one thing is certain: From Iran to the U.S. it is imperative that workers unite against the imperialist war mongerers who are ready to sacrifice our class in the name of maintaining their lethal empire.
It is the job of communists to be vigilant in fighting anti-Muslim racism and U.S. nationalism, as well as cynicism. Only a united working class can survive the coming crisis. Only a mass revolutionary communist party can smash the profit system and end inter-imperialist war for all time. Fight for communism! Join Progressive Labor Party!

From U.S. President Donald Trump’s impeachment to massive protests against austerity reforms in Chile and France, the international capitalist system is in crisis. Nowhere is this clearer than in India. Once paraded by the capitalist bosses as “the world’s largest democracy” and a shining example of economic growth, India continues to be plagued by racism, nationalism, and massive poverty and inequality.
Indian Prime Minster Narendra Modi has responded to workers’ frustrations over economic stagnation by scapegoating Muslim workers and forcing through a wave of anti-immigrant laws. Hundreds of thousands of workers are pushing back against these racist crackdowns, flooding the streets of major cities and battling with police and government forces.
While these countrywide protests showcase some of the boldness and solidarity that will be needed to defeat capitalism, their narrow reform content is a trap for workers. Settling for anything less than communist revolution will only strengthen the bosses. The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) stands with the working class of India as it fights against fascist anti-Muslim policies. But ultimately, only international communist revolution led by a mass PLP will smash Modi and the racist profit system that puts him and other capitalist stooges in power.
Modi Operandi: Fascism grows in India
Since winning re-election and a majority in the Indian parliament last May, Modi and his Hindu hyper-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have been emboldened to ramp up racist, anti-worker attacks across the country. In August 2019, in a brazen land grab, Modi’s government canceled the “autonomous” status of the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir. It flooded the region with troops, shut down the internet, and jailed opposition leaders.
Next the BJP established a National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the eastern state of Assam, forcing workers to prove that they’d arrived in India before the mid-1970s. Since most workers lack the required documentation, over two million people, mostly Muslims, have been stripped of their citizenship. They now face placement in detention centers or deportation to neighboring Bangladesh (Time, 12/20/19).
To ramp up anti-immigrant racism and further divide the working class, Modi and the BJP fascists moved to extend the NRC to all of India. To protect their majority Hindu power base, they drafted a Citizenship Amendment Bill for fast-tracked citizenship—except for Muslim workers, who were excluded (The Guardian, 12/19/19). These fascist measures have prompted mass protests of millions of workers.
India’s rulers are trying desperately to use racism to distract workers from an economic slump that has seen annual growth drop from nearly nine percent to less than five percent in 2019 (Times of India, 1/5). For decades, the Indian bosses diverted billions of dollars of foreign investment into the hands of a few finance capitalists. As a result, for the 12 million workers entering the job market each year, job prospects are slim and highly competitive (LiveMint, 11/19/19). To deflect attention from the profit system’s failures, the bosses are forced to resort to more intensive racist scapegoating, hand in glove with intense nationalism.
Caught between rival imperialists
Despite its worsening economic and political crisis, the importance of India on the world stage should not be understated. India’s geopolitical importance, massive workforce, and wealth of natural resources ensure that the world’s top imperialist powers will keep competing for a dominant influence in the country.
For decades, the U.S. ruling class has viewed India as a critical counterbalance to the growth of rival imperialist China in the Asia-Pacific region (Foreign Affairs, October 2019). To avoid alienating their ally, Trump and the U.S. bosses have turned a blind eye to the Modi government’s racist treatment of Muslim workers (Washington Post, 12/19/19).
Meanwhile, the Chinese imperialist bosses have maintained a strong if uneven relationship with the Indian ruling class. Chinese economic and political support for Pakistan, India’s top regional rival, certainly creates friction. Territorial disputes in Kashmir, partly governed by China, have strained the relationship, as have clashes near the Himalayan mountains. But striving to keep U.S. imperialism at bay, the Chinese bosses continue to engage the Indian rulers with  negotiations and summits (The Diplomat, 1/4).
Not to be overlooked are the Russian capitalist bosses, who are projecting political power in the region through big defense contracts with the Indian government, including a $5.4 billion deal for advanced missile systems (Business Standard, 9/4/19).
For now, the opportunistic Indian ruling class appears content to hedge its bets—at least until a global conflict breaks out, when they may be forced to choose a side.
Smash nationalism and fight for communism!
In response to the government’s racist bill and fascist crackdown, thousands of Hindu workers and students have stood side-by-side in solidarity with Muslim workers. Demonstrators have been killed and beaten, but the movement has not been deterred. Women have given strong and essential leadership to the protests.
While this working-class fightback is inspirational, it is being co-opted by liberal misleaders who are calling for the restoration of “secular democracy”—a meaningless term under the capitalist dictatorship of the bosses. In the southern state of Kerala, politicians like Pinarayi Vijayan are leading workers astray by exploiting the protests to gain support for himself and other opposition leaders (Aljazeera, 1/4).
Though it’s a promising glimpse of class struggle, the movement to repeal the Citizenship Amendment Bill won’t stop attacks on Muslim workers. It won’t stop capitalism from destroying our lives. With the capitalist system in crisis internationally, the bosses are using fascism to safeguard themselves with anti-Black racism and attacks on immigrants. From Europe’s anti-immigrant movements to the United States’ bipartisan assault on workers from Latin America, capitalism is showing its true colors. Only the struggle for communist revolution can liberate the working class by smashing the bosses and their nationalist borders once and for all. That struggle can’t wait. Join PLP and fight for communism!

Los Angeles, CA,—There is a deep hatred of the kkkops by the family and community of Alex Flores, who was murdered by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) on November 11th, 2019. The family, along with our small Progressive Labor Party (PLP) contingent and base have marched nearly every day for 30 days, taking a short break for the funeral services. This murder is becoming a mass issue in the neighborhood where Alex lived, and we are pushing to introduce communist ideas as we participate in the fightback. Together, we have taken to the streets, blocked intersections, and shut down the front entrance of the fascist “Shootin” Newton police station, all while leading Party chants and distributing CHALLENGE and PLP leaflets. We have received mass support from the community and passersby. Whenever a cop car came close or a cop approached us, the family countered the cops with militant chants like, “Alex Flores/racism means…We got to fight back!” or “Killer Cops, Killer Cops!” “How do you spell racist/murderer? L-A-P-D!”
Anti-sexist leadership in action   
The political leadership of these marches is largely led by the women of Alex’s family.   Often, they bring their children, some as young as two years old. On several instances, our marches were kicked off by a four year old girl (Alex’s niece) who led us in chants like “la policia, cochina, racista y asesina” (the police, pigs, racists and killers) for over 30 minutes inspiring the whole crowd.
During the smaller marches, many of the husbands would stay home and take care of the children while the women led the demonstrations, highlighting the role of women and a certain level of anti-sexism within their family.
The women leaders and family in general have largely led with our chants and have slowly been coming around to our message regarding Black workers killed by the cops.  In addition, we have been describing how racism is part and parcel to capitalism, and the family has taken up our chants like “When the working class is under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!” and “Capitalism means, we got to fight back!”
It’s not just LAPD, it’s capitalism
The largest demonstration happened on December 5th, the night before the funeral service, with more than 50 family and community members, accompanied by 10 to 15 cars. We shut the area down for nearly three hours. Their militant fight back, in the face of such vicious police terror, shows the power of the working class and our Party to shape the politics of a struggle.
When the group returned to the police station, a PLP comrade made a speech, connecting Alex’s murder to thousands more–particularly Black workers–murdered by the kkkops and the role of the police under a racist capitalist system that can’t provide decent jobs, schools or housing for workers.
From the police station, you can see the luxury housing, corporate offices and the towering U.S. Bank building, and our comrade pointed out how the cops are part of a viciously racist capitalist system that needs terror in order to keep the bankers and billionaires on top and the working class oppressed. Alex’s sister translated the speech and thanked us for our support. We also heard her explain to pedestrians asking about the rally that capitalism is the problem.
In addition, we have been struggling with the family to understand that the racist system that stole their beloved family member is the same racist system that attacks their fellow Black class sisters and brothers every day as well.
Now, whenever we call out the names in chants like, “Shantel Davis/Sandra Bland/Ezell Ford/Mike Brown means?” they reply loudly, “We got to fight back!”
Having said that, so far, nearly everyone that has come with the family to the march, with the exception of one Black worker, who was a friend of Alex, is Latin. That’s another key aspect of what we as PLP in Los Angeles have contributed, along with our base– our ability to integrate and build multi-racial unity in the fight back.
The long term fight for communist revolution
The family has now decided to shift to weekly marches, so we have shifted gears to building for “Flores Fridays” and continue to organize in our schools, clinics, churches, libraries and other mass organizations to broaden this struggle. At the end of the month we will be having a screening of a documentary on racist police violence at one of our members’ workspaces that the family will attend and speak at. We will continue to widen our base, sharpen the political struggle and deepen ties with the family with the aim of building for May Day and growing our Party. The struggle continues!
LAPD, city bosses, racist to the core
The family and community are not fooled by the reforms the LAPD has undertaken over the last 25 years. In fact, this so-called sanctuary city, run by liberal Democrats, often boasts about the LAPD’S “transformation.” It is considered one of the most ethnically diverse police institutions in the U.S. closely mirroring the demographics of Los Angeles.  Yet we know that these reforms can’t stop (and haven’t stopped) the inherent racist nature of the police state and the need of the capitalist class to control and terrorize Black and Latin working-class communities.
Indeed, in a recent LA Times Homicide Report, 33 workers were killed by these “ethnically diverse” kkkops during 2019, and despite this the vast majority of those murdered by killer cops were Black or Latin (LA Times, 12/2019). This was up from the 21 workers killed in the year 2015, in which the LAPD “killed more people than any other law enforcement agency in the United States” (www.scpr.org, 6/1/15).
Not one of these racist murderers has been charged, let alone prosecuted by the Black District Attorney, Jackie Lacey. In addition, we now know the cop who murdered Alex is a Latin kkkop named Steven Ruiz. As the chant goes, “White cop, Latin cop all the same, racist terror is the name of their game!”