COLOMBIA, December 4—Latin America is on fire. There have been national strikes in Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia, and now Colombia. More than 10 million workers launched a national strike began on November 21 against the  austerity attacks the Colombian government plans to launch at workers. The Progressive Labor Party  (PLP) has joined these militant protests, peppering them with communist politics.
PLP was part of these marches, giving leadership to some with our chants of “To Struggle, to win, workers take power”, “Capitalism is the abyss”. We have been participating in local “cacerolazos” (protests where workers bang on pots and pans) and student and community assemblies. In addition, we support the marches, seizures and blockades, while trying to win the workers in struggle to strengthen our party as the leading force of the proletariat.
Workers snatch DESAFIOs
PLP distributed leaflets and we didn’t have enough DESAFIOs. Workers were snatching them from our hands. At times we felt like we were millions. We were inspired  and we could see the potential for revolution.
A positive development in this moment is the mass participation and combativeness of young students and of rural and urban workers. They represent our hope and their struggles influence our revolutionary program.
President Duque
President Ivan Duque intends to implement his regressive measures to benefit the big financial bosses at the head of the International Monetary Fund, OECD, politicians, exploitative employers such as Luis Carlos Sarmiento Angulo, Santodomingo group, Antioqueño commercial group and others.
The government want to do away with pensions for future generations. They want to change collective bargaining, especially on hourly pay, vacations, health, sick pay, holiday pay, etc–  in other words, end all the benefits won by the working class through generations of bloodied struggles.  
The strike was massive, with workers, students, unemployed and home workers participating. They struck from the Carribbean coast to the Pacific. Five of the major cities were on strike, including Medellin, Bogata, and Cali.
The strike was organized by the big union federations, environmental activists, representatives of peasant and indigenous groups, student organizations, neighborhood associations and opposition political parties.
The strikes were full of anger, anger because there have been 800 leaders murdered, people are hungry, they have no access to education, health or jobs. It is tiring.  We can’t take it any more; neither can we take the extreme exploitation and repression of the capitalist system that can’t solve any of our problems.   
Liberals are our enemies
 Liberal and nationalist opportunists crawled out of their holes asking for calm to save Colombia. They proposed to recycle some leaders and put an end to corruption. PLP was present in many demonstrations distributing CHALLENGE, talking and debating with workers and offering them a communist solution. We also tackled the pillars that maintain capitalism: racism, sexism, individualism, wage slavery and imperialist war.
The struggle continues, but the fake leftists are a danger. At some point we had to confront them because they were saying that the president shouldn’t resign, that we needed a dialogue amongst all the organizations on the “reforms.” What we, in the Party, are saying is that there are no lesser evil capitalists, that they can’t solve the existing problems. Only through a communist revolution, only when the workers take power, will we be able work out all our problems.  Talking about solving our problems by voting for another political party is not going to solve the capitalist crisis. We have to make a communist revolution.  
Infiltration during the marches
The paramilitary, who are still organized to repress the working class, along with the police organized in small armed groups, went to different headquaters of social organizations, and homes of some social leaders, whom they already had inteligence on. They destroyed everything and killed anyone who was there. There are hundreds of videos showing the police attacking demostrations, police paying homeless people to break windows, or paying Venezuelans up to 50,000 pesos to ransack store fronts. With that they added to the racism aganist Venezuelans, blaming them for our problems.  The media did their job creating fear amongst the population, emphasizing all the “terrible things happening” and reminding us of the curfew.
Govt seizes pots and pans
About the looters the police did nothing. But the protesters were violently repressed with killings, beatings and imprisonments. All of this for demanding rights that had been won previously. This shows that capitalist bosses fear when workers unite and fight to politically oppose their dictatorship. The bosses would rather kill us before giving us any rights.
 A funny thing happened one night. Some people decided to go home and others decided to create the “cacerolazo” by banging pans to which the government responded by seizing the pans!  Yes, it is funny, and it happened.   
There were instances when masses of people would seize a cop’s motocycle and destroy it, showing us that our strength, defense and future  are with the masses.
There were times when the fake left asked the students to be peaceful, peaceful while the police were hitting them with their batons.  We were organized to attack, and we were able to pull a student away from the police during a struggle. It sounds like a small feat but to us it was wonderful. We were able to do something!
The struggle continues
As CHALLENGE goes to press, the strike rages on, and students of the main universities are calling for a continuation of the strike.  
We communists do not believe that the murderous capitalist system can be reformed to serve the needs of our class. It’s very important and inspiring to be active in these mass demonstrations. These struggles and discussions help us build class consciousness and the relationships necessary to understand that the international proletariat can truly destroy capitalism.
We in PLP see the opportunity; we have everything to win. We will continue on the streets, fighting arm in arm with students and workers. We will fight until the day of the workers’ dictatorship, until we build a communist system, where all workers will have everything we need. Join us!
Long live the strike. Long live communism. Long live the struggle. Fight to win workers’ power!

New York, November 23–Hope for a communist future was in the air as a multiracial, multigenerational group celebrated the anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution with the Progressive Labor Party (PLP). This year we celebrated this annual event with songs, poetry, and dancing to honor the heroic events that led to workers taking state power in Russia. The Bolsheviks freed 1/6 of the world’s surface from the disease known as capitalism.
The events of the night explained the achievements of the Bolsheviks, while also acknowledging the weaknesses and mistakes they made. Progressive Labor Party’s history of learning from both the Bolsheviks’ mistakes and our own was also a theme of the evening. Through decades of struggle against the bosses and inside our party we have advanced our own political understanding.
Communist education
The program began with a PL’er speaking to an audience of over a hundred about joining workers in a call to action, asking everyone to join the fightback against the racist attacks on our brothers and sisters in Colombia (See article below for more details) and the role of the U.S. in this attack on our class. If we are to take ourselves seriously in taking state power, we must take action against all attacks by the bosses.
The program moved forward with a speech from a multiracial duo about the victories and achievements of the Bolshevik revolution. The Bolsheviks established the first worker-run state. They eliminated hunger and illiteracy. They fought racism and elevated women to many positions of leadership. They inspired workers around the world to fight against capitalism, and during World War II they almost single-handedly defeated the Nazis. The Bolsheviks also broke ties with capitalist elections, teaching the working class that the liberals were the same, if not worse, than the conservative parties, and that workers can only trust communists to fight for our interests. Today, as we learn from both their successes and failures, the Progressive Labor Party stands on the shoulders of these giants.
The speech then explained how PLP has advanced our political line. We have moved away from any cult of personality and we have abandoned all forms of nationalism. For over fifty years since our founding, PLP has concluded we must fight directly for communism and not fight for the stage of socialism first, because socialism inevitably leads back to capitalism. In our long history of being embedded in antiracist class struggle with workers, the Party has grown more international and more politically sharp. The speech ended with a call for the audience to join the fight.
Communist art
The tables and walls were decorated with art posters from the Sovet Union. The artwork helped  inspire and remind workers that we can take state power again if we fight for a communist world. We also sold shirts and stickers with “comunist revolution isn’t on the ballot”.
We also had a performance of the Langston Hughes poem “Good Morning Revolution” by a multiracial group of five young students, predominantly female-led. They are leading the fight against racism at their schools. Langston Hughes was a known communist who wrote many poems about how workers needed communism. In “Good Morning Revolution” he writes how the bosses tried to keep workers away from a communist revolution, and how the workers everywhere have a shared interest  and responsiblity in smashing this system and should declare themselves communist organizers in every country.
The program ended with a song/rap about how workers are trained through the bosses’ media that we should be pacifists. The song continued to explain that many workers tried to come in peace but the capitalist rulers have killed and arrested many of our leaders, leaving us with no other choice but to fight back. Then everyone sang the “Internationale” to emphasize that the workers of the world must unite and fight for communism.
The fight continues
This event was a true collective experience. Many different workers took turns in serving food, while others took turns helping with childcare. It’s only at events like these that various capitalist ideologies are left at the door, from sexism to individualism to racism. Through this event we start to envision a world without capitalism, without the profit system, without racism, where workers control all aspects of society; a true egalitarian world, made possible by a communist revolution.

THE BRONX, December 3—Fifty students protested against racist budget cuts at Bronx Community College (BCC). These students, along with education workers, gave notice that we won’t simply accept larger class size, reduced course offerings and fewer custodians, to name just a few of the cuts, that the BCC administration is planning.
Student after student gave testimonies of how the budget cuts directly affect them— delaying graduation, reducing their access to their professors, forcing them to use dirty bathrooms, and more.
A member of Progressive Labor Party brought a message of solidarity and communist analysis. The fight at BCC is part of the global fight against capitalism. Only by fighting for a communist system with workers in power can we ensure that all students get the education we deserve.
Working class under attack
The student population at BCC is 98 percent Black and Latin, largely immigrant, and suffering from rampant food insecurity and racist unemployment. The BCC administration is putting the students under even greater pressure. The racist plans include:

• Developing a “more resilient staffing model” in order to respond to future shifts in enrollment numbers. This means hiring more part-time faculty and staff that can be laid off whenever the administration needs to.

• Increasing class size.
• Reduction of approximately 225 sections. Fewer classes means it will be harder for students to enroll in classes that they need to graduate.
• Decrease in departmental budgets.
• Increase fees that students and faculty pay for services like technology and parking

When the working class is under attack, what do we do?  We must stand up and fight back. In doing so, we expose the limits of what’s possible under capitalism. By the looks of it, capitalism can’t provide the most basic necessities for working-class students.
Taxing the rich is no solution
As PLP members have been involved in this and future demonstrations, we have raised the idea that it’s not enough to just tax billionaires. It’s not enough to increase funding for BCC. Even in the best of times, education under capitalism is about reinforcing racism and individualism.
College under capitalism is about deceiving us into thinking we can escape the working class, that we can “get ahead” (by exploiting other workers) and that we can avoid the misery of this racist, sexist system.
The international working class will never be liberated through capitalist education. The bosses don’t want to educate us all, and even if they did, it wouldn’t end exploitation and racism.
More fightback and Party-building ahead
We have another demonstration planned next week, where we will confront the administration directly over these budget cuts. The boldness of the united students and education workers will be on display, as we take small steps and train ourselves to challenge the rulers on campus. Bringing CHALLENGE to these protests is crucial to building the fightback spirit and class-consciousness of the students and workers.
As we organize more students to get involved and as the ideas of communism and PLP become ideas grasped by masses of students and faculty, these small steps will be transformed into leaps toward a communist future. Onward!

During meetings of a workers’ committee in a community organization, where some Progressive Labor Party (PLP) comrades do political work, reports are included in the agenda which analyze the world situation, especially everything related to the struggles of workers worldwide.   
During past meetings, we have talked about Ecuador, Chile, and Bolivia. This time, we called to show solidarity with workers in Colombia, who organized themselves together with the peasants and young people in an unprecedented challenge in history. The workers are rebelling against the neoliberal policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that have forced “economic adjustments:” fascist measures that greatly affect the lives of working people already caught in poverty and misery.
For many years, the bosses have murdered hundreds of social and union leaders in Colombia. This time it was the turn of the workers, who lost their fear of all the oppression and fascism and threw themselves into the streets in massive protests in several cities and towns.
The protests became violent, due to the brutal response of the army, police and special riot forces trained by United States advisors. They shot at protesters, and used tear gas and water jets with chemicals, which caused many deaths and wounded, even though the government and the bosses’ press say there were only three.
 One of the workers murdered was a young student from the capital Bogotá, which provoked an even greater anger from the protesters. In their fury the workers destroyed numerous shops, large supermarkets, banks, and government offices. Many of the businesses were “looted” by workers who came down from impoverished and marginalized areas after so many years of abandonment under the bosses’ profit system.
For this, they were called vandals, but the true vandals in the country have been the corrupt, liberal, and repressive capitalist governments.
Workers take the streets over bosses’ cuts
These massive protests were convened mainly by trade union leaders and other sectors of the working class, who are tired of their living situation. They are fighting impending fascist reforms that Ivan Duque, an ally of the U.S government, plans to present to the National Congress. These reforms, among other things, would reduce pensions to retired workers and reduce wages to young workers. But this fascist government did not expect that workers, peasants and young people were going to organize and take to the streets!  
With the working class at the forefront, arm in arm with the peasants and youth, a massive wave of protests  was generated throughout the country and continued for several days.
Imperialist war, and
international communist
revolution through PLP
At the end of the discussion our PLP member summed up that these events were taking place within the framework of the power struggle between the imperialists of the United States, China and Russia for the control of  other countries and their wealth, especially oil and minerals like lithium. Lithium can be considered the “white gold” of these times given its widespread use in profitable products like electric cars. The largest reserves of lithium are in Latin American countries, especially in Bolivia which has recently experienced a racist and fascist coup d’etat. Despite the bosses’ violent repression there, many indigenous workers are maintaining a brave fight against the new fascist liberal government.
In the end, everyone present agreed that we must be supportive of the workers in Colombia and worldwide who are facing fascist neoliberalism that is advancing strongly across the planet.
As members of PLP we must raise the consciousness of the working class and prepare for the only way to overcome this capitalist hell: mass violent communist revolution. We have to take initiative during this wave of popular uprisings of workers and young people around the world, to direct the workers to the goals of seizure of state power from the capitalists and the construction of communism.
To work toward this goal, it is important for us in the Party to stress the importance of internationalism and working-class power, wherever we are. Confidence in the international working class, communist politics, and our Party is our only way forward.