The following letters were written by PL’ers who participated in our annual summer project. 

Though this is only my first Progressive Labor Party (PLP) Summer Project, I  gained a lot of hope for the future through the strength of the Party’s line and through the strength of all our comrades. I initially thought we would just be working on political education and mass agitation, however we learned so much about camaraderie and other things not taught in a classroom or on the picket line. Moreover, because it was at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), I expected to be integrated in protests for Palestine. However, PLP led these protests with energetic chants that set forth our line, but more importantly the Party joined workers on the Westside of Chicago and nurses at the University of Illinois-Chicago campus  highlighting the Party’s working class character and commitment. 

Although the most inspiring strike was on the West Side, the nurse’s strike left the most profound impact upon me. Union misleaders remained hostile to our support for the picket which was an eye opening experience for me. Furthermore, despite the union leadership’s moderate stance, the nurses revealed the truth about working conditions and how the bosses cooperate with the courts and police in order to maintain exploitation.

Nurses confided to me how the bosses utilized a court injunction in order to force emergency nurses back to work without a deal. They also explained how the hospital tries cutting costs through ‘floater’ nurses meant to care for patients across different floors, therefore taking the jobs of multiple nurses. Near the end of the strike, after being pushed out by union leadership, I met a linen worker on their break. We agreed how it was crazy and unacceptable how the nurses who save lives have to be forced to strike, while the police, courts, and bosses never strike. She also mentioned how travel nurses are being brought in to break the will of the strike and earn more. Lastly, she left me with a piece of advice: no matter how hard you work or how well you get along with your coworkers, the company has no interest in your well being. 

The Summer Project left me thinking about how across the country and throughout the world, all workers face the same cruel capitalist exploitation. However, knowing that all my comrades remain committed to the fight and can plan such a project left me hopeful. Now that the regular fight resumes back home, I can think of all the new comrades I met, and all they taught me, and depend on each other to motivate ourselves in the long struggle towards communism.
*

The Summer Project inspired confidence in the working class and their potential. My Chicago comrade made the concise and insightful observation that if we had the same number of people year round it would be a game changer. We need to work harder to build our base to the point where we can operate with the intensity of the Summer Project in class struggle all year long.

I noticed that at all the marches we attended our large group of multiracial, multigenerational communists marching and chanting together in a disciplined way attracted positive attention and curiosity from bystanders. They joined our chants and took our newspaper, which advanced our line. 

This is my third summer project. The camaraderie of the Party is always very strong. It is not only inspiring to passersby; it is inspiring to all of us to be a part of the collectivity. We are all anxious to see our revolutionary theory and aspirations become a practical reality. The Democratic Party is also building their base with a false collectivity. We should have joined other protesters who were yelling at the Democrats as they left their events. We also should have engaged with jailed protestors to spread our line to other comrades who were impatient for revolution. 

During our mass work there were two important confrontations. One confrontation was with the union misleadership at a picket line we canvassed. A paid union organizer told us that we were making workers feel unsafe. Half of us were intimidated but half of us continued talking with the workers including one comrade who asked the workers what do you think about us building a base in the working class. Many workers had militant ideas. One even told me "there's more of us than there are of them," showing advanced class consciousness. Another confrontation was with the nationalists. They were leading chants, and a comrade gave a speech against nationalism. They became violently agitated and attempted to physically fight a comrade but it turned out they were only a handful of people and after they settled down there was no issue. I was intimidated during the confrontation but after it was over I realized it was the right thing to do. We should build base year round collectively so that we can obtain the numerical strength for the revolutionary practice necessary to make our theory a reality.
*

This past week I was able to attend the DNC Summer Project. Something that stuck out to me was meeting new comrades who were my age. I am a college student and my campus is very disconnected and nothing really happens here. I’ve tried to talk to people about communism but they ultimately do not care or have had bad experiences with other so called communist parties when they have visited my campus a handful of times. Even when the faculty was on strike, there was maybe one other student I saw at the strike, even though they were striking against our tuition hikes along with their raises. This experience on campus has been so disheartening because I felt like there was no one out there that was interested in what I was saying. 

This Summer Project however, completely got rid of that feeling for me. For the bulk of the project, I found myself talking to the younger comrades in attendance, most of them college students like me. Ideas and conversations came so naturally and it felt like we had been friends for years already. We formed circles of support while distributing CHALLENGE, we stuck together during marches, and our conversations came together to show us how similar all our struggles are even though we are all from different places. In the marches we went to, especially the last one, people were very receptive to our chants. Our flags caught the attention of many people and this encouraged me to fight harder back home to build a base. While this work will never be easy, it is insanely necessary and I am proud to be doing it alongside all of my comrades. The Party brings together so many different people from so many different backgrounds which highlights the fact that this truly is the Party of the workers. Regardless of age, race, gender, we all are here to fight for the same thing and that will unite and strengthen us for years to come. 
*

Having discovered the Party in an isolated part of California, there were many members I hadn’t met, and many protests that Progressive Labor Party (PLP) instigated/participated in that I hadn’t been a part of. The 2024 Summer Project changed that, and I saw a wonderful part of PLP’s work and struggle: protest. Protests alongside already existing groups, such as a nurses union from the largest hospital in Chicago, an organization fighting for reparations of previously incarcerated Black workers, and pro-Palestinian leftist organizations protesting against the Democrats at their convention. Our chants and our speeches were inspirational and hopeful, bringing together these crowds of diverse groups to see that we must fight for communism, to achieve all that these groups have been organizing and working for. The feeling of community in Chicago was exhilarating, but I understand it is also fleeting as we all retreat back to our home bases. I hold on to that feeling, though, to spread the message of communism here in my base, and awaken other workers struggling every day to a message: that the only true solution is a communist revolution.
*

One of my favorite moments from the DNC was when some of us comrades were heading to the first march and a group of pro-Palestine protesters boarded the same railcar. Without hesitation, they started up some of their chants and we joined in. We then added our chants to the mix, and went back and forth before one comrade said, “I have a real hook... The only solution is a communist revolution!” Enthusiastically, they repeated this chant, giving me confidence that many workers would be receptive to the Party’s message.

A few days later, however, we were met with some who weren’t so receptive. When joining a nurses’ strike, we were asked by one of the union leaders to not pass out literature. He even went as far as to say we were making the other nurses uncomfortable, which largely, was not the case.

Many took a CHALLENGE newspaper and were willing to have conversations with us. Later that day, we went back to the DNC and were faced with other leftist groups as well as nationalist groups that were trying to get their own points across. However, by the end of the night, we were the ones carrying the chants amongst the sea of groups marching along us. We denounced fascism (“They not like us!”), called for an international revolution, and even sang Bella Ciao. On the way back home, one comrade started a conversation with some curious transit workers that resulted in each of them taking a flier, a conversation as smooth as the chants we had voiced on the train a few days prior. Having gone full circle, I have a newfound appreciation for Chicago’s transit system and its abilities to unite our class. I’ve also learned to not be discouraged by naysayers because every worker knows that deep down they have more power than the bosses, and every worker needs Progressive Labor Party to foster that idea. 
*

The 2024 DNC Summer Project, organized by the Progressive Labor Party, reaffirmed my commitment to communist ideas , base building and pro-working class optimism. I witnessed a rising fifth grader’s clarity and sense of understanding of the phrase capitalist versus communist society in a study group. I saw a dozen or more fresh leaders of the international working class in their 20s. I saw the fight for our line that replacing one set of  bosses’ nationalism for another is a dead end. My commitment grew from the study groups, to the Israelism movie discussion, to the Thursday DNC protest march.

Encouraging each other to do the difficult but urgent work of struggling with workers around us to choose communism instead of voting in the upcoming elections for global war vs civil war. Staying with eight other comrades from 19 to 60 years old. Asian, Latin, Black, and white, living together for a week. Traveling from different places. Brimming with communist hope, sweetness, so much wisdom, and a lot, a lot of laughter as we shared our hardships, cooked, invented sandwiches, watched the Minions movie and made ice cream from scratch. The political peak was at the DNC protest march on Thursday. Early on, when the march hadn’t gone for too long, a comrade on a blow horn started chanting “Death! Death! Death to the Bosses! Power! Power! Power to the Workers!” It felt like it wired comrades and masses of workers around us alike. I felt like PLP was getting at how I and others around me felt and thought about capitalism and its horrendous bosses. Eventually, so many communists were unleashed. Gliding between taking on the weight of the multiple megaphones, to switching up the responsibility of leading the chants through the mic and giving spontaneous speeches, to the countless comrades who took multiple CHALLENGE newspapers and PLP leaflets and started weaving through the crowds of hundreds to the front, left, right, and back of us to distribute our literature. At some point we burst out into singing Bella Ciao as a drumline behind us joined.

After listening to other reflections during the closing barbecue of the summer project I was left with the following thoughts: Feelings, such as the communist affirming ones I felt during the summer project are great but fleeting. Continuously steeling ourselves with communist fightback and base building is necessary to grow those feelings. Capitalism takes a lot from us, but the one thing we get to choose that the bosses cannot take away, is choosing to fight for communism. Now, I have come back to my part of the world, recommitted to igniting the communist sparks in more of the workers around me. I specifically make the commitment to help run or start a student club to extend what the PLP makes me feel about myself to others and honor my commitment. I encourage others to join and inspire us in finding more ways to commit to the lifelong fight for communist revolution!

During our summer project fighting the bosses’ liberal stooges at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), Progressive Labor Party (PLP) comrades participated in a march for reparations. While reformist in nature, the group that organized the march is open to communist ideas. After the march, one comrade spoke on what reparations could look like for Black workers (and all workers) under an egalitarian world, beyond extra crumbs the ruling class is willing to give to quell fightback. Some phrases are bolded to emphasize they were call and response.

I am here from Brooklyn, New York.  I was born in Chicago and I’m here today with the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party.  

I am going to ask one more time, what are we here for?
(Reparations!)

We are here for reparations.

I am going to speak to reparations from a communist vantage point and try to inject some revolutionary hope into this situation.
Because, everything you see around here, every brick, every mortar, every automobile, every wheel you see turning on every bus and every plane that flies overhead, it was all built through our labor, the labor of our class, the working class.

And so, a communist vision of reparations says - 
And this comes back to me from after George Floyd was killed by the fascist murderous cops, and after George Floyd was killed by the fascist murderous cops, it was Tim Walz who was the governor of Minnesota who brought in the National Guard to smash the antiracist protesters of Minneapolis so never be fooled about what’s going on just a mile or two from here right now, and who’s coming to power.  It is the enemy that is coming to power.

Workers will take it all!  

That’s why I’m so happy to be here with y’all today.

I marched around the DNC the other day.  This was a better march.  This is where the power is at.  Places like the West Side of Chicago.  
And if you’ll allow me to, I’d like to speak to borders today, I’d like to speak to forced migrations, and I’d like to speak to a hated institution of Chicago’s West Side, an institution my family knows and hates - the Cook County Jail.

Because a communist understanding of reparations says this - 

We made it all,
(WE’LL TAKE IT ALL!)

When we were marching down Broadway, through the heart of the business district in New York City, every single store was locked, boarded up with plywood because they were scared, afraid that we would take their property.

And when we raise that chant there, people take it up, it makes sense to people.
And that’s reparations.

Now the ruling class that causes the pain that this sister just conveyed to us, of not being able to go home, of crossing a border and never being able to go back, these borders that they have now, I’ll go back a little while, I’m a history teacher, and I admire the history teacher who spoke before.  So many important things have been said today by so many people.  I’ll go back to the origins of capitalism - when Cortez reached the shores of what we now call Mexico, were they worried about a border when they went in for the conquest and massacre of the Aztec people?

(NO!)

When they went to the  coast of West Africa and dragged our people out of the continent, were they thinking about borders then?

(NO!)

Their system was built on snatching people from their homes and putting us into forced migrations and forced labor across the globe.  
And now they want us to fight for their borders and look at people who are migrants and have come here, when their profit system is in terminal decline.

Working class struggles are united worldwide

These same rulers want to turn us against migrants some of whom have walked here from as far as Venezuela.

Walked here.

And to this a class conscious worker shouts NO!  

We are one international working class,
We shall not be divided,
We shall not be turned against our class brothers and sisters, 
We shall have the kind of unity that this brother over here was speaking to,
And our awakening to that truth is their greatest fear.

That’s why they called on their brutal police to attack the encampments of young people on the college campuses.

Because they are afraid that we identify with the entrapped, imprisoned, forcibly removed people of Gaza, forcibly removed not so differently than our ancestors who were forcibly removed from the shores of Africa hundreds of years ago, not so different from our people who have been forcibly removed from Latin America through U.S. imperialism decimating their economies, they have been forcibly removed.

And in Cook County Jail what we have today are the descendants of the forcibly removed.  Forcibly removed from Africa, forcibly removed from the Jim Crow south, like my father’s family who had to flee the KKK, we are the descendants of the forcibly removed.  Our Latin brothers and sisters share a similar history.  And listen here, these workers today that we call white, hundreds of years ago they were forcibly driven out of Europe by this same capitalist system  which left them nothing.  They were peasants who got on boats and came here.  This history of forced removal is something that the workers of the world have in common.  

And these brothers and sisters in Cook County Jail, there are about five thousand of them now.  At it’s 2013 peak that jail contained 11,000 individuals.  Every month hundreds are released having stayed 26 days, on average, released with no charges.  Having done nothing, totally innocent, trapped, languishing.

11,000 spots?  Give me 11,000 spots.  We have room for the generals, we have room for the Congressmen, we have room for the CEO’s who are funding and carrying out genocide and we gather all the worst organizers of the capitalist assault on our natural world and we lock them all up, right there in Cook County Jail, 11,000 we would have a safer world.  

And the brothers and sisters languishing there now,
Set them free!

Smashing capitalism is the ultimate reparation!

Because if we explain to each and every incarcerated individual in that jail why we need their bunk because we have to lock up Jamie Dimond, we have to lock up Elon Musk, we have to lock up the capitalists who are driving us into war, genocide and climate catastrophe, we need your cell and bed to lock up our class enemy.  And then we take these brothers and bring them back to the community, and we surround them with love, and hope and importance, and meaning,

Then we will have safety.

Who keeps us safe? 
We keep us safe! 

And when I think about this communist future,
I believe that we will win!

Working with “progressive” people against the Palestine genocide, we realized that we saw many misleaders of these groups trying to win people to the importance of elections. When we raised questions, these "leaders" responded with their version of history, citing several historical examples to make the case for how voting makes change. In this article we are challenging their version of  history which is essentially capitalist with a working class understanding of what actually happened.

Capitalist Revisionist History  101: Elections help the working class

Working Class History: Capitalists' fears of revolt and revolution is what helps win  reforms for workers—not elections. And of course, reforms disappear-- frequently and  violently.

Myth 1: Franklin Delano Roosevelt “gave” the working class Social Security in 1935.

What really happened: 

Communist led workers in the 1930s were fighting, often violently, to organize unions and against the ravages of the Great Depression. Workers were being shot at and also shooting back. Workers saw the still socialist Soviet Union as a beacon of hope, but capitalists feared the real possibility of communist revolution spreading to the U.S. and in China workers seized power led by communists.

For  the rulers one frightening example was International Unemployment Day (March 6, 1930). Hundreds of thousands of people in major cities around the world took to the streets to protest mass unemployment associated with the Great Depression. In June of 1932, nearly 20,000 World War I veterans from across the country marched on the United States Capitol to request early payment of cash bonuses. President Herbert Hoover had to order out the U.S. Army to disperse them and their families.

Because of these and similar actions then, we do have Social Security now - a Social Security that does not provide a comfortable retirement for workers. The average Social Security benefit is about $1900 dollars a month. The average rent in the U.S. is $1700 a month. 
Like all social systems capitalism is not forever. The future is communism where the working class rules all aspects of society with no racism, no sexism, no inequality and no money.

MYTH 2: Lyndon Johnson gave us the Civil Right Act because Martin Luther King backed him.

What really happened:

At the beginning of the 1960s, antiracists were marching, boycotting, sitting-in and picketing against police and white supremacist violence. Starting in 1964 in NY and led by Progressive Labor Party comrades, there were over 250 rebellions against both police brutality and protests against countless evictions which were forcing poor workers into the streets.

The Civil Rights Act was in response to these angry demonstrations. While it might have temporarily improved the lot of Black workers, most of these changes have disappeared.

Today, the working class, particularly Black and Latin workers, is worse off. The number of Black and Latin prisoners in the U.S. grew tremendously over the years. Today, 25 percent of all the prisoners in the world are in the United States! The U.S. has only 5 percent of the world’s population. Voting protections are gone in many states. Racism is alive and thriving. When workers take power, that’s communism, we will eliminate racism once and for all.

MYTH 3: A wider Vietnam War was avoided by electing Lyndon Johnson as President over “extremist” Goldwater. 

What really happened:

No wider war was one of Johnson’s statements prior to the election. The Vietnam War went from 23,000 troops to 536,100 troops under Johnson. Vietnamese were herded into fortified “hamlets” with promises that were never met. They found concentration camp like living conditions. Many villages were burned by U.S. troops because they were suspected of harboring the Vietcong. In the village of My Lai, U.S. troops were photographed murdering elders, women and children. This also happened in many of these hamlets.

Agent Orange, containing dioxin, was used extensively resulting in over 400,000 Vietnamese people dying from exposure. Over 300,000 U.S. soldiers also died from exposure. Though it was stopped in 1971, dioxin still persists in soils, water, sediment, fish, aquatic species, and the food supply,

Black soldiers, thrust by racism into front line units, were killed and wounded at a much higher rate than white soldiers in Vietnam. Black soldiers led and organized with white soldiers to oppose the Vietnam War even in the Army.

Today profiteering nationalist wars span the globe and world war is closer than ever. Our goal in the Progressive Labor Party is to turn imperialist world war into a class war of workers against the capitalists. Power to the working class.

Myth  4: Nelson Mandela was elected President of South Africa on April 27, 1994, signaling the official ending of apartheid in that nation. Mandela was a "hero", imprisoned for years, and leader of the African National Congress party (ANC). 

What really happened:

Mandela made a deal with South Africa's white capitalist rulers, who were feeling the economic effects of external sanctions and internal pressures. In return for his freedom, ending the ban on the ANC, repealing apartheid legislation, and granting free elections, the ANC would cease their agitation and guerilla activity, and capitalism and the capitalists would continue. There were thousands of soldiers ready to fight massing in Botswana at the time.

As a result of this deal, the ANC has been the ruling party in South Africa until this year. What has that meant for most of the majority Black population? Nearly half the adult population of South Africa lives in poverty, with women and those living in rural areas, overwhelmingly Black, most affected. Because of the AIDS denying, and money-saving beliefs of Black millionaire Thabo Mbeki, South Africa's President from 1999 to 2008, South Africans suffered an unnecessary 330,000 AIDS deaths. Today, whether in terms of wages, wealth, or consumption, South Africa places among the world's most unequal countries. Many of the corporations are still owned by the same white capitalists.

The lesson: whether racist white capitalists or Black nationalist capitalists, they are all murderers. The only solution is communist revolution -- no bosses, no money, everyone sharing both scarcity and plenty. This is what Progressive Labor Party is fighting for. Join us!

In August  we held our annual Progressive Labor Party (PLP) BBQ! Even though it was muggy and hot - it was upbeat and well attended! Long time supporters and friend—along with those who we have recently met—enjoyed the delicious grilled food along with potluck items generously contributed! Workers of all ages, races and nationalities shared in friendly political discussion! Children played and enjoyed the play structure and bouncy house!  

Sharing stories of struggle

Four comrades involved in organizing the BBQ spoke to the group.
The first comrade welcomed everyone - He explained that we are a party for communist revolution. We don’t vote, we organize! We fight to unite workers of all races and nationalities in one party that believes in an egalitarian society in which the wealth is shared! He welcomed the speakers! 

The second comrade spoke about his experience coming to the U.S. as a teen with his family and meeting the PLP. Then when his family faced a harrowing racist attack, PLP helped them fight back. He spoke about the need to support and welcome refugees and immigrants who are enduring great adversity. He went on to describe the role of the U.S. and other imperialist powers in creating the conditions that lead to global migration. 

Another speaker, a school nurse, spoke about the struggle of fighting for safe staffing in the health office and classroom as a union member. And the difficult struggle of organizing for reforms while at the same time fighting for a communist society.

Finally we bring you the inspiring speech of a comrade who recently joined the Progressive Labor Party:

“Four years ago, I began questioning why we had two options for the next President of the United States and I had to make a choice based on which of these candidates was less evil. Not even "good enough", not even "ok", but literally LESS EVIL. That question led me on a whole journey of discovery of both learning and unlearning our history, the forces that drive change, and what my role as a working class person can be.
Capitalism is evil and it's infected us globally. Where there is profit, there is exploitation. Where there is exploitation there is suffering.

My grandfather worked his whole life in a factory making minimum wage, as a gas station attendant, and as a Sears salesman. He worked these three jobs at times simultaneously. The people who say you just have to work hard enough to be "blessed" by wealth are lying - this reminds me of the George Carlin line: "we call it the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it." My grandfather worked incredibly hard. At the end of his life my grandfather said "I wish I had never been born" in regards to how hard his life was. And it was hard for what? So the factory owners, the top few people at Sears could live a life of leisure and luxury?

Join PLP, organize, and fight for communism

Right now capitalism is the air we breathe and the water we swim in. It's hard to see it for how common it is. But people created capitalism and we can destroy it. I’m not going to vote - I am going to organize. My vote means nothing to capitalists who throw millions of dollars to the person who best represents their interests – not ours.  No liberals have ever just given the working class something. It was only after massive rebellions and strikes and civil unrest that they tried to pacify us with reform. And they do this because they are scared of us. And they should be.

That is why I joined the Progressive Labor Party – an international party. A party that is uniting workers all over the world. We want to see a world that is not run by the capitalists, that is not driven by profits at the expense of the lives of the rest of us - the working class. As a mom with young children I want to see a world where we are all surviving, we are all equal, we are all able to enjoy the one life we have to live.
I’m going to help organize a movement where workers can unite and resist. I’m going to help educate others just like me through discussion and study groups (starting one too!). I will fight sexism, nationalism, and racism – the tools of oppression. I will resist the cynicism instilled by the capitalist class that we aren’t strong enough or capable or “good” enough to mobilize and fight back. And I hope to be a part of the largest global revolution in history. I hope you will consider joining me.

Thank you friends and comrades, for being here on our day of organizing and friendship!”