BROOKLYN, June 7—Students, staff and faculty have been gaining plenty of experience in class struggle at Kingsborough Community College (KCC) this semester. With the leadership of a new student in the Progressive Labor Party and friends, our multiracial sanctuary committee has shifted gears from defending our working-class friends against racist attacks like those on our fellow cafeteria workers, to going on the offensive against an openly racist administrator.
‘No to racism, no to Goldstein’
Not long after May Day, it came to the attention of the students and faculty that KCC’s “Director of Communications and Public Relations,” Michael Goldstein, the public face of the college, was posting openly racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, and anti-Muslim statements on social media.
When some antiracist faculty obtained several screenshots, they turned them over to the larger group of students and faculty. Goldstein’s racism gave way to anger and determination to fight back. This was especially true for women and Muslim students, many from Yemen, which is suffering from intense U.S.-Saudi imperialist attacks. We decided that a leaflet must be written calling for Goldstein’s termination.
In less than a week, a leaflet was collectively discussed and produced involving two dozen students. Immigrant women and PL’ers have taken a lead role in distributing the leaflets and, as CHALLENGE goes to press, over 1,000 have been distributed around campus, just in time for final exams. About 20 percent of KCC’s roughly 10,000 students are Muslim, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.
There has been no official response from the administration, but the antiracists and PL’ers at KCC have continued meeting, sharing CHALLENGE, and discussing plans to escalate the struggle further. KCC is the only community college in Brooklyn. Since the summer semesters are as busy as the rest of the academic year, the racists are put on notice: get ready for a long, hot summer!
A single spark
The struggle against racist Goldstein directly follows the demonstration and march (CHALLENGE, 4/18) on the KCC President’s office in defense of the cafeteria workers’ jobs. Many students approached groups like the pro-immigrant KCC Sanctuary Committee to find out how to become more involved.
Thanks to regular distributions of CHALLENGE outside of the campus gates and PLP support of local struggles, this May Day also saw recruitment and new friendships among the students to PLP. Through study groups on topics like reform and revolution, PL’s student work began sharpening at the time that some students became interested in fighting back.
PLP fights for a communist ‘paradise’ on earth
The fightbacks of this past semester have presented serious struggles in gaining confidence in the working class. Many students and cafeteria workers, like masses of workers around the world, are depressed, cynical, and hopeless. Many are won over to different forms of individualism and escapism.
Some believe in Islam’s promise of a paradise after death. There are open communist atheists (and a pro-communist Christian) side-by-side with them in struggle who also break fasts and break bread together during this month of Ramadan. Together, they provide a glimpse that a communist “paradise on earth” is worth fighting for. Unlike a religious paradise, there will be many problems and struggles under communism, all to be solved in the interest of and by the world’s working class.
It’s revealing, this idea of communism—this simple idea that workers should run the world, without any racist borders. It’s an idea and optimism that capitalism can never kill. Recently, a PL’er was discussing politics with a new Muslim friend, unsure of how she would respond to CHALLENGE. When the PL’er opened the conversation talking about how Muslims and communists have a long history of fighting side by side, she responded “Yeah! Like in the Soviet Union.”
As the discussion continued, the young Muslim woman showed a clear understanding of how racism and imperialism functioned around the world. The PL’er asked how she knew all this. “Oh, these people have been giving out CHALLENGE newspaper in front of campus for awhile, I try to read each one and sometimes it has articles about history and politics. It’s an interesting paper.”
The “Dark Night” of imperialist war and devastation will have its end, in part, because this young woman, an antiracist fighter, is one of several more who are open to struggle, and are becoming nails in capitalism’s coffin. The struggle continues.

MEXICO, JUNE 4—The teachers went on strike! Again! They were joined by rebellious teachers from Chiapas, Guerrero, Michoacán, and other states throughout Mexicao. Again! They organized encampments in Oaxaca City and in Mexico City. Again! The capitalist state apparatus and media attacked them. Again!
 The battle for small victories for the working class is neverending. Only workers power through communist revolution can finally end capitalist exploitation.
The PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) government led by Alejandro Murat in Oaxaca and President Enrique Pedro Nieto thought they had Section 22 (Oaxaca Teacher’s Union) locked down in such a way that we wouldn’t be able to rise up and fight back.  The whole capitalist state apparatus was employed from June 2013 untill now to impose the labor attacks disguised as educational reforms.  In fact, these “reforms” are about privatizing education, cutbacks in educational funding, and firing teachers through punitive testing. They are also an attack on the teacher unions, especially the rebellious CNTE (National Coordinator of Educational Workers) and its’ Oaxaca local, Section 22. This militant Oaxaca local is also demanding more teacher jobs and the freeing of all political prisoners.
Part of the teacher’s strike action involves keeping a large encampment in the center of Oaxaca City while at the same time carrying out various actions in strategic locations.  Thousands of teachers blocked access to Oaxaca’s international airport, breaking the stranglehold of the state government and forcing them to the negotiation table to deal with the demands of the Section 22 leadership. After the government’s response, the striking workers will determine how the struggle should proceed.
Today, the struggle widened to other groups, as it is being joined by the national CNTE.  Nationwide 200,000 teachers are expected to participate, as well as 10,000 in Mexico City, to get rid of the educational reforms by taking advantage of the coming elections when the capitalists compete for political power. This struggle holds great importance at a time when the national capitalists and imperialists confront each other.
During the enormous march led by the CNTE on June 4th in Mexico City, PLP members and friends leafleted to show support for the teachers and called on them to organize in the communist Progressive Labor Party and reject the electoral farce.  In Oaxaca meanwhile, dozens of militant teachers who have been influenced by PLP’s communist ideas have remained active and are providing leadership to the protests.  The false promises of the presidential candidates have not placated the militancy of the teachers.  We have known through decades of experience that only through organizing and struggle can we defend ourselves against the shocks created by capitalism.  Our challenge is to advance upon this understanding toward revolutionary consciousness and actions that will overthrow the system of capitalist oppression and replace it with a society of communist equality.

NEW YORK CITY, June 10—The normally festive Puerto Rican Day Parade was noticeably different this year as participants waved black and gray flags and wore t-shirts commemorating those who died in the 2017 Hurricane Maria. Thousands turned out, including a contingent of Puerto Rican families who have been displaced by the hurricane.  At the same time, there was celebration and recognition of the resilience and grassroots organizing efforts of the working class on the island. While U.S. capitalists have plans to maintain Puerto Rico as a playground for investors, bitcoin businesses, and real estate developers, workers have a different idea. Collectives have formed all over the island to reopen the schools, fight mass evictions of farmers, occupy spaces, and develop communities that rely on solar power rather than electricity.
Katrina and Maria = genocide
According to Mercedes Martinez, president of the Teachers Federation of Puerto Rico, the immediate response to the hurricane was to close schools. She said,
Many people still don’t have electricity or water. Batteries are being stolen out of generators. People are tired and vulnerable—and the ruling class is taking advantage of this disaster to advance a corporate reform agenda. For all the public sector workers in our country, including in education, organizing now is very hard.
The Secretary of Education tried to shut down more schools after the hurricane, but our communities fought back and won. Teachers worked to fix up many of the schools even though the government didn’t want to reopen them. We had to protest with the communities, requesting that children be able to go back to school. She shut down 50 schools during the hurricane, and we were able to stop the closings of 30 of them. (Labor Notes, 5/14)
 It gave big real estate interests the ability to issue mass eviction notices to farmers and 55,000 foreclosures to families.
Following the model of New Orleans, the first response to the 2005 Hurricane Katrina, thousands were kicked out of public housing, which eventually became tourist areas and fancy condominiums. Public schools were closed, teachers were fired, the teachers union was crushed, and schools were privatized. Houses of working class people, mostly Black workers in the city’s Ninth Ward, were torn down as residents were forced to relocate to Houston and other cities.
As thousands of workers languished at the Superdome, reports came in about people dying there. Black workers waited for hours and days to be rescued on their rooftops. The most shocking episode during the aftermath of Katrina was the shootings of Black residents on the Danzinger bridge by New Orleans police as the residents were trying to get to safety.
The racism of the U.S. media was on full display as white residents were portrayed as “looking for food” while Black residents were “looting”.
U.S. capitalism & imperialism, the real hurricane
 Puerto Rico has been the richest colony in U.S. history.  As documented in Juan Gonzalez’s Harvest of Empire, Puerto Rico has been the home to huge drug companies (Big Pharma) and hundreds of Fortune 500 companies. Due to a tax loophole, U.S. owned firms escaped federal taxes. “Puerto Rico, in short, has become the primary offshore tax haven for the American drug industry” (p. 283). In 2008, nearly four out of every ten dollars made on the island ended up in U.S. firms (p. 284).
Gonzalez explains how the colonial status of the island turned Puerto Rico into a corporate bonanza unlike any other in the world, with duty-free trade, low wages, and tax loopholes. Seven members of a Management Board (known as La Junta) is charged with implementing cuts in pensions, public health and education to pay the debt created by the ruling class.
The struggle continues
Last March, a student led strike at the University of Puerto Rico shut down the campus in protest of austerity measures and the fiscal crisis. Solidarity marches were organized on campuses in the U.S. This year, workers and students rallied in the capital, San Juan on May Day  and faced tear gas and arrests. Immediately after the hurricane, community groups (Brigades) began organizing in many areas, collectively organizing to bring food and water to people. At the same time, as in Haiti after the earthquake, various well-funded groups have shown up on the scene, backed by Big Pharma and other capitalist interests. Their goal is to whitewash over what has been done to the working class in Puerto Rico and prevent rebellions and challenges to the system.
All roads lead to revolution. We salute the many who have been fighting back in every way possibl. The goal of an egalitarian society and workers power has never been more important. Whether we are fighting for the displaced Puerto Rican families living in NYC hotels, the students whose schools have closed, the college students whose tuition has increased, the workers whose pensions are in danger of being cut, the farmers whose land has been taken—we in PLP say always keep our ideas on the prize while in struggle—we have a world to win!

COLOMBIA, June 13—The Colombian ruling class finds itself in the middle of a historic election campaign between former member of leftwing rebel group and mayor of Bogota Gustavo Petro against Ivan Duque. Duque is “handpicked by ex-President Álvaro Uribe Vélez, a towering figure among the country’s conservatives for his staunch opposition to the peace deal signed between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrilla group” (The Nation, 4/18).
Colombia, the U.S.’s closest strategic ally in Latin America, is dealing with a fractured ruling class that risks upending the peace deal. Volatility in Colombia means uncertainty for imperialist rivals U.S., Russia, and China.
Petro is a liberal nationalist candidate who promises to tax wealthy landowners and stock investors. He also “favor[s] downgrading their country’s economic and military ties with Washington” (Foreign Affairs, 10/3/17). Duque’s patron Uribe, “whose political philosophy is known as “uribismo,” stands for military and paramilitary warfare against the insurgents, close ties with the United States and the ruthless eradication of drugs” (The Washington Post, 5/23).
Don’t fall for the electoral game
They try to deceive the masses with their corrupt electoral circus waving their flags of: lies, anti-communism, fake peace accords and false anti-corruption campaigns. They do this to paper over their state crisis and breathe new life into their discredited institutions of bourgeois dictatorship. They pacify the struggles between local bosses and consolidate their political, economic, and cultural power over the masses who suffer under the warlords that savage them with misery, hunger, and unemployment. They increase the destruction of the environment and invite more droughts, floods, avalanches, and even earthquakes.
The only true advance for the international working class is to unify the struggle to establish a new communist social order that provides for their needs, especially the basics such as: clean water and food, well-built housing, comfortable and flexible transportation, high schools and universities with excellent education and much more. All of this without counting money, profits, or borders.
For 208 years, Colombian capitalism has achieved its liberal-conservative dictatorships over the working class and unemployed. This has deepened the dependence on U.S. imperialism by robbing riches and natural resources. It is clear that it is really the IMF, World Bank, UN, OECD, the mafias, and the corporate monopolies that rule. Who and How?  They threaten workers to vote for Iván Duque (the “right-wing” candidate) or else they will be jobless because if Gustavo Petro (the “left-wing” candidate) wins, businesses will be expropriated and businessmen will flee the country creating another Venezuela, and so we must save our country from the clutches of communism. This fear mongering fabrication hides the fact that both liberals and conservatives are workers’ class enemies. The working class is clearly disillusioned by the electoral system: “All of the surveys, however, feature a high percentage of the population intends to abstain from the vote, cast blank ballots, or are undecided” (Telesur, 6/12).
Lefty ideas at ballot box is a dead end
The working class will never have power by following the electoral path. We can see this clearly.

• FMLN (The Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front) traitors in El Salvador,
• Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua
• Nelson Mandela in South Africa
• the metal worker Lula Da Silva who ruled Brazil for eight years
• union leader and former Bogota mayor Luis Eduardo Garzon the minister of labor
•  Michelle Bachelet who lived under the fascist dictatorship of Pinochet.

More recently, we see in Colombia how former guerillas and union leaders have become mayors and governors who oppress and jail their electorate. These elected officials have followed their bosses down the path of nationalism and class collaboration, demoralizing the revolutionary struggle and reinforcing the concept of bourgeois democracy.
Capitalists need elections to sell us on the myth that voting will help to reform the profit system and make it more responsive to the needs of workers. However, this is not the only reason. They also hope to find populist (fascist) candidates that can mislead and pacify the millions of workers who are not conforming to their plan. In either case, our class gains nothing by electing either one.
The bosses’ candidates will never liberate the working class. Only the destruction of the bourgeois state and its wage slavery with a communist revolution can liberate the working class from oppression, exploitation, racism, sexism, and imperialist war. We don’t need the bosses or their fake elections. With our newspaper DESAFIO we are present in marches, meetings, and electoral discussions; presenting to workers our ideas about the unity of struggle and organization. Many tell us that this sounds fine, but it is a long struggle, and what do we do in the meantime? We respond with class struggle and recruitment efforts to PLP.