The following is an excerpt from Left Front, a journal put out during the early 1930s by the Chicago John Reed Club, a communist Party-led organization of radical writers and artists.
This article focuses on the CP's militant opposition to evictions, an opposition that rapidly gained for the communists a massive working-class base.
Since May Day, the holiday of the international working class, is less two months away, readers of CHALLENGE may be interested in taking a lesson from the boldness of the 1930s conununists in confronting (and returning) the violence of the police. Note the multiracial unity of workers, and the dead-end politics of the Black nationalists.
Note: any comments placed between brackets [ ] are interjections intended to refer places and events to the present day.
“The South Side Sees Red”
The funeral of two of the Negroes slain in the August 3rd Eviction Battle, Abe Grey and John O’Neil, was one of the largest and most impressive demon strations ever held in Chicago. Forty thousand Negroes marched in the funeral procession with twenty five thousand white workers—and a hundred thousand more, both white and black, flanked them on the line of march! The police did all in their power to break up the parade, to route street cars between the marchers, and to intimidate the spectators. But at each police tactic the marchers closed ranks, and the procession went on. From open windows and crowded fire escapes, from every available vantage point came shouts and wild applause as the line of march broke into song—The Internationale.
Following the August 3rd massacre hundreds of Negroes joined the Communist party, whilethousands entered the Unemployed Councils. Butthis apparent success was in reality a serious defeat. For the Party and the Councils did not yet have the firm organizational foundation needed before large numbers of new elements could be taken in. The new members, through their low level of political development, and the opportunistic attitude of some of them, weakened the organizations, leading to the later setbacks.
The Unemployed Councils also were to suffer later for a lack of proper direction at this crucial moment. They were fighting the charities, forcing them to give relief. They were fighting evictions. But the unemployed workers were given nothing else to fight. If the struggle of the unemployed had been tied up with their former jobs, they might have been united in mutual struggles with those who still had jobs.
But for the moment the Communist movement received a tremendous stimulus. Dearborn and Federal Streets, in the neighborhood of the massacre, became the “Red Wedding’’ of Chicago. In one block near 40th Street and Dearborn there were two Com munist Party units, a Women’s Club, an I.L.D. [International Labor Defense] branch, and an Unemployed Council. Posters announcing demonstrations and meetings covered every wall. The membership ofUn employed Council No.4 grew tobetween nine and ten thousand. [This is where the north end of Robert Taylor Homes, a huge post World War II housing project. What would PLP do if we had such a poilitical base there today!] A crew of five hundred workers roamed the streets, singing Solidarity, and looking for evictions.
The period after August 3rd, 1931, was unquestionably a new high point in the growth of the Communist movement on the South Side.
Police Try to Kill Movement Through Violence
For several months the Police kept their distance. Then, in January, 1932, the Unemployed Councils called a demonstration at the Abraham Lincoln Center Relief Station on Oakwood Boulevard.
A committee had been selected to present demands. But the police refused to let them enter the building. The leaders had expected this and had for mulated a clever plan. Before the demonstration a white member of the committee, Madden, had entered the station as a client. When he heard the militant songs of the crowd, he walked into the super visor’s office and laid the aemands on her desk. Immediately he was arrested.
Word of the arrest reached the comrades on the street. Their leaders... began speaking to the crowd, telling them of the arrest and announcing that they would rescue Madden unless he was released in ten minutes. While they were talking the police with drew into the lobby of Lincoln Center, barricading themselves behind the six large doors.
Jackson, watch in hand, said “Time’s up!”
The crowd surged forward. The police opened the doors just enough to swing at the workers with their clubs. One Negro took the club away from a police captain. The other workers beat the captain with his own club until he was groggy, when they pulled him through the door and into the middle of the crowd where he was soundly thrashed.
The captain bellowed for help. Brown Squire says then the fight started. The women and kids dashed into the alleys and dug up bricks, milk bottles and rocks, then brought them to the comrades to throw. Many workers and police were slugged. Lots of us were arrested when the riot squad got there and began shooting.
Among th comrades was Edith Miller, a white member of the Young Communist League, who was chased into a doorway, then beaten so badly that she had to be taken to the Bridewell Hospital with a fractured skull. A Negro with a cork leg was knocked unconscious during the melee at the door, but was rescued by a comrade who knocked down the policeman dragging him to a patrol wagon.
[That night thirty police with machine guns terrorized homes of suspected Party members on the South Side. At one they apprehended four youths.]
These included “Thomas, a Negro member of the Young Communist League, who had been arrested and warned before, two Jewish comrades who happened to be present, and Tony Grenot, a Negro with a light skin and curly hair whom they mistook for a Jew.
Calling the Jews filthy names and shouting, “We’ll teach you to hang around with ni**ers,” they lined the four boys up with their faces against the wall and their arms stretched above their heads.
“Then,” says Joe Jackson, “They hit ’em across the back of the head with blackjacks and butted their faces against the wall. After that they smashed the furniture into kindling wood, even tearing down the partitions. Finally they Jet the women and children go and loaded sixteen men and boys into patrol wagons.
“In the Wabash Avenue Station, that night all the police and plain clothes men in the district were called in. Then they brought the prisoners out of their cells. The officers lined up about two to three feet apart. Tony Grenot and the two white comrades were forced down the line and beaten unconscious with police clubs, while the other comrades watched. Their faces looked like bloody beef. Tony was put into the same cell with me, but by morning we had persuaded the turnkey to send him to Bridewell Hospital.”
The next day a demonstration was held at the police station to protest against the attack on the council. No one was allowed within four blocks of the station. All whites were arrested and beaten half to death [by the police]. A salesman, in the neighborhood on business, was among those beaten.
[The article goes on to show that this sort of police repression only strengthened the resolve of the Communist-led movement against racism. The movement expanded to address many issues beyond evictions and relief, and it built multiracial unity in many ways.]
Workers, Black and White, Fight Back
In January, the Negroes took a prominent part in the famous demonstration at the Japanese consulate, Tribune Tower—many were beaten by police or trampled by horses. In March an important meeting was called by the American Consolidated Trades Council, a federation of Negro unions, to lay plans for combating the open Jim Crowism of construction workers on the new Jim Crow Provident Hospital at 51st and Vincennes Avenue.
On April 27, three thousand unemployed participated in the first Stock Yards Hunger March. On May 5, two hundred Negro and white ex-service men left on the first bonus march. Hundreds of workers went with them to 119 Street, and they were presented with truckloads of food, gathered from all parts of the city. In the National Nominating Convention of the Communist Party in May, the Negro groups took a leading part. Herbert Newton of the League of Struggle for Negro Rights opened the convention.
In June 1932, a mass picket of the Provident Hospital was held under the direction of Edward L. Doty of the American Consolidated Trades Council, in protest against the Jim Crow policy of the A. F. of L. in the construction of this Jim Crow hospital.
Again, in July, another mass picket won concessions in pay and recognition of the Negro Electrical Wrokers’ Union. This picketing was supported by Negro tinsmiths, lathers, plumbers and steamfitters who were not admitted by the A.F. of L.
During the spring and summer several demonstrations were held at relief stations to demand better treatment for unemployed Negroes. During one demonstration at Lincoln Center news was brought that a family was being evicted at 37th and Indiana Avenue. Five thousand Negroes began to march to the scene of the eviction. As they passed Wendell Phillips High School some hoodlums tore a Democratic election sign from a truck. A henchman ran out of the Democratic headquarters, and began firing into the workers, shooting Madden in the shoulder. The police as usual arrested the leaders of the demonstration: Squire, Poindexter, and James Ross. Madden was rushed to the hospital at 38 and Wabash Avenue. In a short time Murphy of the Red Squad arrived and demanded that he be alowed to take Madden to the Bridewell Hospital, but the doctor refused to release the patient.
The Struggle Against Nationalism
[The article-goes on to describe a clash between communists and Garveyites (black nationalists), who competed for the attention and allegiance of workers at the open Forum in Washington Park, where hundreds of black workers would gather daily to discuss politics.]
At the Forum, trouble was brewing between the communists and the Garveyites. A back-to-Africa movement which, some years before, had for a short time won a tremendous following. One Sunday in August the Garveyites marched on the Forum, dressed in gaudy uniforms and led by a bellowing brass band. Three times they marched around the Forum, as Joshua did at Jericho. Then they demanded that the Forum be turned over to them.
[News then came in of an eviction being carried on at] a house owned by a woman Garveyite at 41st and St. Lawrence Avenue. The family and neighbors appealed to the Unemployed Council for aid in replacing the furniture. When the Council arrived, they armed resistance from Garveyites, stationed with revolvers in the house and adjoining and backed up by the police. [Note. whose side these nationalists were on!] Afterwards it was found that hundreds of Garveyites had come in trucks and cars from Indiana for this battle.
That night 1,200 workers were mobilized at the Forum. Many wanted to go right out, then and there, and mop up the Garveyites, but the communist leaders knew that such a fight would result in a massacre of workers. They suggested instead a demonstration the next day at the scene of the eviction. A steering committee was elected....A few brave workers were assigned to guard the furniture during the night.
At nine the next morning a tremendous aggregation of from 15,000 to 20,000 people gathered at 41 Street and St. Lawrence.... [A committee was elected on the spot; it carried the demonstration’s demands to the local relief station, where a new home-was secured for the evicted family, and the rent was paid by the relief agency.]
Victorious, the committee returned to the demonstration. Following their report, [members of the Council] spoke, pointing out the role of the Unemployed Council and explaining how mass pressure had gained this victory. Then the furniture was loaded on the truck and moved to the new home.
[We can clearly see that the workers of Chicago have a long history of multiracial unity. But capitalist schools ignore this history. The school bosses don’t want youth to Jearn how to fight back from our forefathers. It’s up to PLP teachers and students to bring this history to workers and youth.]J
President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration, banning travel to the U.S. from seven mainly Muslim countries, has endangered and torn apart thousands of workers’ lives. A four-month-old baby from Iran was denied life-saving heart surgery. A breastfeeding Sudanese mother was separated from her 11-month-old child while both were detained at a Dallas airport. Countless refugees were trapped in life-threatening situations. Entry was denied to an Iraqi translator who’d risked his life for U.S. imperialism in the bosses’ war in Iraq; to an Iranian biologist working on a cure for tuberculosis at Harvard; to countless other scientists, doctors, researchers, and students.
While the U.S. bosses wage imperialist war, devastating millions of workers, they are also working overtime to prevent workers from escaping their death sentence (see box). No matter how the U.S. judicial process plays out, this racist policy serves only the needs of the capitalist ruling class. Sharpening imperialist rivalries—conflicts between bosses of different countries—are pushing the world closer to a wider global war. Whatever their internal differences, the U.S. rulers are using Trump’s anti-Muslim ban and “America First” nationalism to win the U.S. working class to their cause: the fight for U.S. capitalism and the bosses’ oil profits.
The difference between Trump and Barack Obama is less about ideology and more about political strategy. Obama deported record numbers but veiled his racist policies with lip service to religious and racial tolerance—a tactic to deceive and pacify the working class. Trump has taken an openly racist tack to mobilize his racist base. The good news is that anti-racist workers have responded en masse and fought back. Within hours of Trump’s signing his executive order, thousands of workers--Black, Latino, Asian, and white, men and women, young and old—rushed to join protests at numerous airports and dozens of cities throughout the U.S. and the world, from London and Paris to Manila and Jakarta. Workers set aside religious differences and joined in multiracial unity. This unity is essential for the working class to win a world free of racist borders, sexism, war and poverty, a communist world run by and for the international working class.
Ban: Nothing New
for U.S. Racism
These attacks on workers are nothing new. Trump’s racist fear-mongering comes on the heels of eight years of Deporter-in-Chief Obama’s racist immigration policies. (Between 2009 and 2014, Obama deported 2.5 million workers.) Trump’s “new” policy, in fact, is born out of Obama’s 2015 Terror Prevention Act, which listed the seven countries in question. Obama’s act, in turn, was a “turbocharged” version of President George W. Bush’s immigration policy (Nation, 6/27/16).
Fortified national borders—the better to divide and exploit the working class--are essential to capitalism. In the 1930s, under liberal Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the U.S. bosses deported hundreds of thousands of workers to Mexico. During World War II, they turned away mainly Jewish refugees, sending them straight to the Nazis’ death camps. More recently, the bosses have used anti-Muslim racism to justify countless invasions, pillaging, and destruction in the Middle East (see box). For workers, crossing the border between the U.S. and Mexico has become more and more deadly for workers. During the Obama administration, children sent by their parents as a last effort to flee conflict in Central America were sent back—even though it was effectively a death sentence for some (New York Times, 7/16/16).
Trump’s immigration ban was significant as well for the countries it excluded—most notably Saudi Arabia, the leading source of cheaply extracted oil and a source of huge profits for ExxonMobil, where U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was CEO until last December: “In his order...Trump invoked the Sept. 11 attacks three times. Yet Saudi Arabia... home to 15 of the 19 attackers, was not included on the list of countries...[This] reflects the deep economic and security ties between the United States and Saudi Arabia” (NYT, 1/30).
The Courts and
Liberals Won’t Save Us
So what does it mean when the courts and many politicians—both Democrats and Republicans—are denouncing Trump? It reflects the rulers’ disarray as they try to get their capitalist class in line and protect the faltering U.S. empire. To that end, they will not blink at killing millions of workers around the world. Although Trump is less predictable and perhaps less easily controlled than other recent presidents, he will either deliver the pro-war movement the bosses need or they will find another racist politician to take his place. The judges temporarily blocking Trump’s order are the same forces that target Black workers for racist mass incarceration. Meanwhile, the real criminals on Wall Street are stealing billions from our class.
We cannot vote or petition our way out of capitalist oppression. The only way for the working class to get what we need is through mass revolutionary violence and the seizure of state power. To win the world, the international working class, organized by Progressive Labor Party, will have to take it! Only communist revolution, led by PLP, can smash exploitation and mass imperialist murder for all time.
Smash All Borders
The thousands of anti-racists who have taken to the streets and the airports send an important signal of resistance to the bosses’ attempts to divide the working class. They show the potential of multiracial unity to fight back. But fighting for a “fairer” immigration policy is a losing battle for the working class. Borders are created by capitalism; they serve only the bosses. Meanwhile, capital flows freely from one country to the next. The international working class has no need for these artificial lines. Smashing nationalist borders and building a revolutionary mass working-class movement is the only way forward.
Every time the bosses attack, we, the international working class, must be organized to fight back and confront them with multiracial unity. On Friday, February 3, more than a thousand New York City bodega owners went on strike against Trump’s ban and in solidarity with the detainees. Marchers protesting the racist police murder of Ramarley Graham in the Bronx joined the bodega protesters. To move this unity to the next level, we must turn reform battles into a fight for communism. The international working class deserves a better world--a communist world, led by PLP!
*****
The bosses’ media has used anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism to paint war in the Middle East as part of an endless conflict between Muslim sects. But the real cause of the horrors inflicted upon our class is inter-imperialist rivalry, as can be seen in the seven countries targeted by Trump.
In Iran:
U.S. bosses remain locked in a struggle with China and Russia, the main backers of the Iranian regime, for control over the Middle East’s vast energy wealth, an increasingly deadly struggle for the working class.
What US bosses fear most is the encirclement and isolation of Saudi Arabia and its oil fields, the grand prize for U.S. imperialism, by Iran and its regional allies.
In Iraq:
The U.S. has a long history of attacks on the Iraqi working class, most recently killing more than one million in the second Iraq War.
Iraq is emerging once again as a focal point for U.S. rulers. U.S. bosses remain locked into Iraq’s petroleum-soaked politics.
ExxonMobil’s vast and growing operations in the country are aimed at controlling Iraqi oil sources, which are of growing importance to rival Chinese bosses.
In Syria:
For millions of workers, the horror of wider war is already a reality. The U.S. proxy war with Russia has left cities demolished, displaced millions of refugees, and slaughtered hundreds of thousands workers.
Trump’s order includes a total and indefinite ban on Syrian refugees.
In Libya:
Using the phony “responsibility to protect” excuse for waging wider wars, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton engineered a U.S. invasion in 2011. Bombing and missile raids by the U.S. were supposedly aimed at saving Libya’s citizens from dictator Muammar Qaddafi. In reality, however, the invasion was designed to consolidate oil deals the imperialist powers had made with the unreliable Qaddafi and each other.
In Sudan:
China first supported the Sudanese government in Khartoum fighting against separatist rebels in the south, who were funded by the U.S. But when the rebels succeeded in freeing their oil-rich province from control of the Khartoum regime, the Chinese skillfully switched sides to sustain their gas and oil projects.
China helped develop the South Sudan oil industry, which now exports 80 percent of its oil to China.
Chinese troops are part of a UN “peacekeeping force” that protects the oil wells and pipelines.
In Yemen:
Yemen is being torn apart in a proxy war between the Iran-backed Houthi rebels and the pro-Saudi/U.S. regime. A Saudi-led coalition has conducted indiscriminate air strikes across the country, killing thousands of workers. The finance capitalists fear any threat to U.S. control over the world’s foremost profit center in neighboring Saudi Arabia.
In Somalia:
The working class is caught in the crossfire of the imperialists’ fight to control Middle East oil. Over the last several months, the U.S.’s rampage has increased to six raids a month (Telesurtv, 10/16). Obama folded these raids into the perpetual war waged under the “Authorization for Use of Military Force,” the Congressional legislation signed into law one week after 9-11.
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U.S. and Chinese Imperialism: Already At War in Africa
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- 10 February 2017 33 hits
Africa is emerging as a massive battlefield between U.S. and Chinese imperialism, who covet total control over the continent’s enormous resources, labor, and emerging markets. The multilingual, multiethnic working class is caught in between this rivalry, having already endured centuries of pillaging and underdevelopment by European imperialism, with nothing but more violence, bloodshed and devastation from either bosses’ side.
While U.S. imperialism tries to regroup militarily from the devastating defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan, the rate of U.S. military involvement in Africa has been ramping up quickly. U.S. Special Forces units are now conducting operations in 33 countries in Africa, or two-thirds of the continent. “’It’s the land of tremendous opportunity, but the land where, if the perfect storm brews, a lot of negative things could happen,’ said Major General Joseph Harrington, commanding general of U.S. Army Africa. (Defense Times 10/2/2016)
While Obama frequently claimed humanitarian reasons for sending troops to Africa, “The majority of African governments that hosted deployments of U.S. commandos in 2016 have seen their own security forces cited for human rights abuses by the U.S. State Department, including Algeria, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, and Tanzania, among others. Elite U.S. troops are also deployed to Sudan, one of three nations, along with Iran and Syria, cited by the U.S. as “state sponsors of terrorism” “(The Intercept 12/31/16).
The military operations aid in propping up governments that support U.S. imperialism, kicking out governments that don’t, and conducting “proxy wars.” Proxy wars are provoked by major imperialists, but are not fought by them directly. In Africa, proxy wars secure the U.S. bosses’ access to those natural resources, emerging markets and sources of cheap labor without which capitalist production cannot function without.
China’s Bosses Gain at U.S. Imperialism’s Expense
Chinese and U.S. imperialism are already in direct economic confrontation in Africa, where the U.S. is being “crushed” (CNN Money, 6/30/16).
The Democratic Republic of Congo is just one example. It is Africa’s second largest country and, with 80 million workers, is the largest French-speaking country in the world. Its potential as an emerging capitalist market is rivaled only by its richness in natural resources. The DR Congo contains the world’s largest supplies of fresh water, as well as the world’s largest deposits of oil, copper, diamonds, gold, uranium, and coltan. Nearly every cellular phone in the world, for example, uses coltan and cobalt, likely mined by working class children as young as seven (Reuters, 1/19/16).
The situation of women workers is extreme, with the UN blasting the DR Congo’s government for routinely permitting and using rape as a tactic to terrorize politically active women workers.
Only when China’s bosses started coming out on top of the mass slaughter of the Congo Wars, in 2002, did reports about “human rights” become a concern to the U.S. bosses. “Since 2000, China has emerged as Africa’s largest trading partner and a major source of investment finance as well. Large numbers of Chinese workers have moved to Africa in recent years…as high as one million” (Brookings.edu, 7/11/16). In addition, China has added Africa to its $8 trillion “One Belt One Road” (OBOR) project, building strategic deep-water ports and railway networks (The Duran, 6/7/16).
While the imperialist powers fight it out behind the scenes, workers everywhere else in Africa are bearing the brunt of the attacks carried out by warring militias, leading to massive casualties as well as starvation and homelessness and the forced enlistment of child soldiers. “Chad’s forces just a few years ago were involved in a report from Amnesty International about a massive recruitment of child soldiers. …this is one of the U.S.’s main proxy forces [in Africa]” (In These Times 8/17/2015).
Workers Fight Back!
The working class of Africa has produced masses of women and men leaders who have led tremendous fightbacks against imperialism. The masses continue to organize and fight! In 2011, demonstrations against unemployment in Tunisia transformed into rebellions that brought down the government. Repeated general strikes in 2016 in the DR Congo, (Reuters, 2/16/16) brought entire sectors of the mining-based economy to a screeching halt. Miners, students and workers have rocked South Africa with rebellions for years.
The workers are bravely fighting, amidst lethal danger, under the leadership of liberal misleaders and reformist ideas. The history of mass communist-led fightback and anti-imperialist struggle, however, is in the fabric of working class history. Our work to earn the leadership of the masses is cut out for us, and we continue building the communist Progressive Labor Party across Africa.
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5 Years Later, No Justice for Stephon Watts under Capitalism
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- 10 February 2017 50 hits
CALUMET CITY, Feb 1—Today’s rally marked another year no justice served for the racist murder of Stephon Watts.
Five years ago, on the morning of February 1, 2012, Calumet City kkkops William Coffey and Robert Hynek forcibly entered the home of 15-year-old Stephon Watts and shot him dead in his basement. The Watts family still struggles with the pain of losing their loved one, and the fact that his racist murderers are still free to terrorize other working-class youth and their families. PLP was active in planning the rally that marked the fifth anniversary of his murder, continuing the fight for justice for Stephon and for all other victims of capitalist state violence.
Shot and Killed for being Black with a Butter Knife
To those who knew him best, Stephon is remembered as a vibrant child who loved working with computers. He was diagnosed at an early age with Asperger’s syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism. On the morning he was murdered, his father had called 911, as instructed by medical professionals, to deal with an outburst Stephon was having before school.
The two kkkops, both of whom were familiar with Stephon’s condition, pushed their way into the house although Stephon’s father insisted that the situation was under control by that point. Upon seeing Stephon with a butter knife in his hands at the bottom of the stairs, the racist thugs opened fire, killing the youth instantly.
Despite the outrage and tireless fightback of family, workers, and students, the racist courts soon declared the murder justified and threw the case out. While supporting the family in their struggle, the comrades involved have consistently put forward the communist analysis of the class role of the police and the courts under capitalism. The kkkops are the cutting edge of fascism for the capitalist class, who need racist and sexist terror in order to divide and oppress workers and protect their profit system. In the instance that the racist bosses or their kkkops are put on trial, the courts work hand-in-hand with them to ensure that they receive no real punishment for their crimes.
Working-Class Anger Prevails
Two scores of fighters showed up in support of the 5th anniversary rally, the result of extensive planning work of the family, PLP, and various other community organizations. Stephon’s sister kicked off the event by speaking on the memory of her brother and the need to continue the fight on his behalf.
Two kkkops from the Calumet City department had the gall to walk up to Stephon’s mother and offer their “services” for the demonstration. She quickly shouted them down for their racist crimes. The cops scattered off.
After the crowd was fired up, we took to the streets to march on the Calumet City Police Department. PL’ers sharpened the political tone with chants of “White cop, Black cop, all the same! Racist terror is the name of the game!” and “Racism means, we got to fight back! Sexism means, we got to fight back!”
The majority of those present received a copy of Challenge, and we made some new contacts.
Once arriving in front of the police station, different speakers took to the microphone. A teenager with autism gave a moving speech about the daily struggle of living with special needs under capitalism. Two other mothers of Black youth murdered by the kkkops told their stories and echoed the demand for justice. A number of comrades spoke on the bullhorn about the need to reject the latest reform scheme and instead to help organize the fight for revolution. It was empowering for everyone involved to participate in a direct action blasting the racist brutality of the system.
Justice for Stephon means Communism
As communists, we must never hold any illusions about the plans the capitalist bosses have for our youth. The bosses will only offer the majority of us more fascist police terror and racist wars, because that’s what their system needs to survive. Our goal remains to win more and more workers and students to communism, a world where racism will be outlawed and police terror will only be a nightmare of the past. Justice for Stephon! Justice for the international working class!
For more information on Stephon Watts and ways to contribute to the struggle, please visit justiceforstephonwatts.com.
BERKELEY, February 1—Thousands of people took to the streets to protest the fascist, racist Milo Yiannopoulos who was supposed to speak at the University of California Berkeley campus. The protest ultimately ended in a direct action that shut him down! Although our communist PLP contingent only included seven, it remains vital that we continue to put the line on the line as these anti-fascist fightbacks continue to pop up. From San Francisco to India to Mexico, the Progressive Labor Party will turn out to ensure that there is no free speech for fascists!
Racist Speech Leads to Racist Violence
In the weeks leading up to the event, there had been debates on campus about free speech versus the need for direct action to stop this fascist, sexist, racist, Trump-inspired movement. Yiannopoulos makes a living spewing hateful ideas. He is a senior editor at Breitbart News, a Zionist rightwing company. He has been part of Trump’s movement and often spews sexism anti-Muslim racism. This public figure supports the Muslim ban and talks about how Muslim people are violent and rapists. Most who turned out were convinced to shut it down, especially after the UC administration allowed the event to go forward in the “name of free speech.” Under capitalism, “free speech” is used an excuse to spew racist, sexist hate-speech. More importantly, racist speech translates to racist actions. People like Yiannopoulos embolden racists to attack workers, even if he doesn’t directly tell people to do it. So, PLP says no free speech for racists!
Parts of the crowd used the police barricades to trash the building and attacked the cops who were trying to protect the space where Milo was supposed to speak. Some Trump supporters were present, one of whom got decked.
These actions had a mass character and sympathy from many who were there or watched it live-stream. The actions also left some young people wondering what they should do in a confrontation. Other lay students were there to see “what’s up.” Some Berkeley High School students proudly told us about the walkouts against Trump following the election.
Mass Protest Creates Opportunity for Communists
Such mass actions are opportunities in PLP’s fight for communism. Our responsibility to spread communist ideas and practice increases. When we have personal or organizational ties with young people, we can move them towards a life-long commitment to fight for an egalitarian, communist world when we involve them in these actions.
PLP members and some friends came out together. Our poster with the CD headlines “This capitalist system, Shut it down” (see photo) caught many people’s attention. This allowed us to distribute CHALLENGE and a flyer and gave us opportunities to have deeper discussions about the way capitalism is leading to growing fascism and the need for a communist movement. The interest of workers that we were able to engage with was evidenced by their eagerness to share contact information, and one woman even asked if we had any upcoming events that we were organizing.
Debate has ranged after this event as the mass media tries to lead people to passivism in the face of attack. The debate is wide open for communist to be involved. It will take mass, organized violence to overthrow this system.
No Free Speech for Sexism and Racism: Milo Yiannopoulos is a court jester dancing on the stage set by the biggest capitalist players (Republican Democrats politicians, Goldman Sachs finance capitals, Breitbart open white nationalists/racists & sexist attackers) Milo‘s hate speech clearly has ties to the highest levels of State Power- He performed at the Republican Nominating convention, Young Republicans are sponsoring a tour of the US campuses, his jokes and attacks echo Breitbart/Bannon and Trump tweeted to stop Funds for UC Berkeley since he could not speak.
Shut Down Alt-Reality: The role of the bosses’ state in defending fascism is illustrated when the University argues for “free speech” to give “safe space” for organizing a movement to attack workers and students worldwide. Part of fascism is the “alt reality” that Milo and Trump promote: “There is no real racism or sexism in society—it’s all the heads of those who fight back” Spreading of such “alt-reality” is part of the growth of fascist culture and thinking. It is a revolt against science disguised as “alternative” facts (read: lies).