ST. LOUIS, MO, October 13 — “If we don’t get it, shut it down; killer cops, shut it down; Ferguson, shut it Down!” chanted thousands of youth and workers who flocked to St. Louis for a Weekend of Resistance against racist police murders. A multiracial youth contingent from Progressive Labor Party (PLP) once again gained traction with these workers, making over 25 contacts and distributing more than 1,100 CHALLENGEs. WANTED posters of murderer Darren Wilson, the cop who executed Michael Brown, went like hot cakes.
In addition to leading chants, PL youth went door to door to talk with residents and held a study group with a group of students we met a few hours before about the need for a communist party and revolutionary violence. We marched and evaluated in a constantly changing situation. We learned how to think on our feet under pressure, dealing with cops and anti-communists.
PLP’s actions at the Ferguson October protest reaffirmed the young comrades’ confidence in workers’ potential to lead an international communist revolution.
Communists Come in All Shades
On Friday, October 10, the first march was to the district attorney’s office in Clayton. Killer cop Darren Wilson, Prosecutor Bob McCulloch, Mayor James Knowles, and Missouri Governor Jay Nixon were the targets of people’s anger. People gladly grabbed our WANTED posters and CHALLENGEs with photos of nationwide fightback against racist cops. Our banner — “Smash Racist Cops with Communist Revolution” — drew wide support. One woman was blown away by our multiracial group. She said, “Communists are white, and you’re mostly not white!”
Our collective was indeed a mix of black and white, migrants and native born, women and men, students and workers. PLP’s very presence sent the multiracial, internationalist message of fightback for all to see. This was no coincidence. PLP organizes in every sector of the working class, because it will take every sector to abolish capitalism.
PLP’s internationalism stems from the communist analysis that racism is the bloody cutting edge of capitalism. It imposes a racist division of workers to produce super-profits, compelling one sector to earn slave wages with the knife nine inches deep, while another sector is stabbed a few inches less. Black, Latin, Asian, and white workers — we all are dying, just at different paces. Capitalism needs racism to survive. Only multiracial fightback can seriously threaten the bosses.
Nighttime Rage
Lost Voices, a Ferguson rebel group that PLP met during our last visit in August, was happy to receive us. They are continuing to lead nightly demonstrations. A number of our chants — including “Black cop, white cop all the same, racist murder is the name of the game!” and “Killer cop, KKK, How many kids did you kill today?” — were angrily taken up at these protests. There are five chapters of the Ku Klux Klan in Missouri, one of which raised $150,000 for racist kkkop Darren Wilson. Whether the KKK is in police uniform or in white robes, they are protected by the capitalist state.
After Ferguson, we visited Shaw, St Louis, where black youth Vonderrit Myers was murdered on October 8 by the racist cops. Here they are also having nightly marches. We arrived at midnight, as over 150 youth formed a circle around Vonderrit’s memorial in a show of solidarity. We linked arms and marched down the dark streets, chanting, “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! These racist cops have got to go!”
 As we reached the intersection, police in riot gear lined up in front and behind us, penning us in. The cops began beating their batons against the ground to intimidate the crowd as their military armored vehicle appeared on the scene. Protestors stood in front of the vehicle and continued chanting, while others sat in its path. After letting them know we weren’t intimidated, we left on our own accord. The following night, cops arrested 17 protesters at a QuikTrip sit-in.
The main goal of our visit to Ferguson was to share our analysis that racism can only be defeated through multi-racial unity and communism. All the anti-racists in Ferguson are searching for answers. They need an organization that can explain the world situation and has a plan for how to build a new society. That’s PLP. From Ohio and Iowa to Florida and Massachusetts, youth took up our chants, our analysis, and our literature. They are eager to learn more about our Party. We have much to do to mobilize these youth to fight for a communist world. We accept the challenge.

Port-au-Prince, October 10 — When former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, close adviser to the plundering police state of Haiti President Michel Martelly, died October 4 of a heart attack, the working class had only one regret — that he died of natural causes.
Human rights organizations complain that Duvalier, ousted from power in 1986, was never tried or convicted in a court of law. But it is an illusion to believe in “justice” for dictators under capitalism. As journalist Marvel Dandin has noted, there were many reasons that the Duvalier regime was never held accountable for its crimes:

• Successive regimes followed the same trail of corruption and human rights violations;
• The Haitian capitalist oligarchy — basically an organized crime syndicate — never lost its dominance;
• Leaders who followed Duvalier were closely allied to the oligarchy and profited from smuggling and drug trafficking;
• Haiti’s public administration continues to protect racketeers and embezzlers;
• The judicial system is bought and sold by the rich;
• The big imperialist powers rely on corrupt regimes in places like Haiti to guarantee their financial and political interests.

Fascist Father, Fascist Son
Under the rule of Duvalier, known as “Baby Doc,” and his father, “Papa Doc,” workers in Haiti endured nearly three decades of horrific brutality, from 1957 to 1986. The Duvaliers were notorious for crimes against humanity, misappropriation of public funds, illegal arrests, torture, imprisonment, murder, and forced exile of opponents. According to historian Charles Dupuy, “Thousands of opponents were sentenced to prison and exile. At least 50,000 people died in Fort Dimanche prison in Port-au-Prince.”  They had the active support of the U.S. and other imperialists because they claimed to be the biggest anti-communists in the region. They are proof that we can speak of real justice only in a communist world. Under capitalism, it’s just bosses and criminals and their war against workers.
Duvalier was chased from Haiti after a decade of crises, including in 1978, ostensibly to deal with an epidemic of Swine Fever, all of Haiti’s native pigs, a mainstay of the rural economy, were killed. They were replaced by expensive U.S. pigs, which very few could afford, intensifying rural poverty.
In 1984, under U.S. President Ronald Reagan, the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) attempted to counter guerrilla movements in Nicaragua and El Salvador with trade perks to right-wing regimes in the region. In fact, the CBI led to widespread hunger and triggered months of mass demonstrations against Jean-Claude Duvalier and the Tonton Macoutes, his murderous paramilitary. Under a secret agreement between the governments of the U.S., France and Haiti, Duvalier received a police escort to a U.S. military plane. The second-generation dictator was finally dechouke (uprooted).
Rehabilitating a Mass Murderer
In January 2011, to general surprise, Duvalier was welcomed back to Haiti by Martelly after 25 years of exile and idleness in France, where he led the high life with the untold millions he’d stolen from the Haitian masses.
In the Duvalier tradition, Martelly recently told workers and students in Haiti that he was against communism. Martelly’s lawyer threatened that communists would not be given national or state funerals! But this is nothing new. The bosses attack communism ferociously because they fear it. In workers’ struggles against capitalist exploitation, racism, sexism and wars for profit, communist strategy and ideology are the main threats to the ruling class. Indeed, communists in Progressive Labor Party must challenge attacks by intensifying their work in Haiti. The working class in Haiti has suffered from the lack of communist-led struggle around the world. We must continue to organize students, peasants, and workers, and to build a base for communist revolution.
Martelly’s Turn
Even as the news of one tyrant’s death leaves the masses of Haitians cold, the current tyrant, a notorious criminal, goes on his merry way under the gleaming eyes of the imperialists! Now it’s Martelly who exploits the workers and takes bribes from the U.S. bosses to keep Haiti safe for capitalism. Martelly is known as “Tet Kale” for his bald head. But this Creole phrase also refers to the way pigs are shorn. The working class will not let Martelly and his gang off the hook so easily!

TEXAS, September 19 — “Racist administration, shut it down!” chanted 15 students marching through the courtyard of our community college here. Led by PLP, we crossed a major street and blocked traffic. We held this protest immediately after a PL-led panel discussion with students titled “Confronting 21st Century Racism” the racist connection between the police murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the attacks on immigrant workers at the U.S.-Mexico border. This was our college club’s way of bringing the fightback home, and we did just that!
Panel’s Message: Fight Back Like Ferguson Everywhere!
Building for the panel and the march wasn’t easy. Our campus has cracked down on organizing by requiring any leaflet distributed on campus to be approved first by the administration. As an unofficial campus organization, we organize as clandestinely as possible, even though the police caught and reprimanded one of our comrades for distributing unauthorized literature. Our college town has a long history of anti-immigrant racism and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) attacks. Many students responded to our leafleting for the panel with eagerness and relief.
The three-person panel had a multiracial audience of 25 students. It included an English professor who connected the prison construction company GEO and its billions of dollars of contracts for building prisons and its lobbying efforts in the U.S. Congress to pass tougher laws and pass stricter immigration laws to fill these prisons. The second panelist followed up the discussion with his experience as an immigration attorney and elaborated on the recent policy known as Criminal Alien Removal Initiative which allows ICE to become more aggressive in deportations.
The third panelist talked about her experiences in the Ferguson rebellion. She changed the nature of the panel by first asking a few questions to the audience, challenging the capitalist media’s labeling of the fightback in Ferguson a “riot.” After leading the audience in a call-and-response chant she had learned from the rebels of “Ferguson! SHUT IT DOWN!” She gave a powerful and moving account of the multiracial unity and resistance there.
The questions from the audience that followed were evidence of how sharp our panel’s political conclusions had been. A black student in the audience asked, “how do we build a revolution?” We responded that everyone in this room chanting with us was an example of a first step towards building a revolution. The second step is doing something — direct action. At this moment our MC who introduced the panel and another comrade unfurled a banner that read, “students and workers unite and fight against mass incarcerations and mass deportations.”
From Panel Discussion to Antiracist Marches!
We then invited everyone to overcome their fears by joining us in an anti-cop protest. Fifteen of the 25 students at the event joined us, and the black student who had asked the question about revolution was one of the march leaders, and led chants through the campus like “no justice no peace, no racist police!” and “Killer cops you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!”
An administrator ran outside and had a tantrum telling us we did not have permission to protest on campus. Without having to explain the revolutionary potential we have as students and workers that super-cedes the need for permission from a petty administrator, we continued chanting. Everyone understood that at this moment our words were our resistance. No one was going to stop us and we continued marching and chanting until some lost their voice. We made 20 contacts from interested passersby. Following the march, we invited everyone to join us the next day at another university. Three committed to the proposal!
The next day at the university, we were a smaller group, but just as loud and powerful. We unfurled our banner and passed out over 300 leaflets. As waves of students passed by and some began taking pictures. Many could not believe we were from the smaller community college nearby. We made five new contacts and were joined by at least two university students.
Overall the two days of fightback taught us a lot about our potential. We are not as weak as we often think and boldness pays! The reality is that our Party’s leadership and discipline turned kkkop and anti-immigrant racist terror into ammunition for the working class. We turned student anger into a school for communism. And building for communism means building an army of workers to challenge the bosses’ power. Black, Latin, Asian and White: to smash racism we must unite. All power to the workers!

BROOKLYN, September 21 — On the 21st of September between 300,000 and 400,000 people marched from Columbus Circle to 42nd Street in New York City. It was called The Peoples Climate March. Over 100 people from our church congregation took part as a group. Some marchers took leaflets about the Justice for Kyam Livingston demonstration in Brooklyn.  
That demonstration had a smaller turnout than usual because so many people went on the earlier march. But some went to both. One of the speakers who had been on the march in Manhattan pointed out that the demonstration for Kyam was one of fighting for justice and that both demonstrations were linked.
Progressive Labor Party had pointed out at the climate march that capitalism causes climate change and ruins the lives of workers in many more ways. At the Kyam demonstration a PL speaker concluded that a system which denies justice for families in Ferguson, Staten Island, the Middle East and Brooklyn should be destroyed.
This was the fourteenth month after the death of Kyam Livingston and many who spoke talked strongly about the disgrace that there is still no justice for a woman who died because she was refused medical care. Others pointed out that for black workers in this society there is very little help and much racist police terror and harassment.
Many of the people who stood on the corners listening to the demonstration took leaflets and CHALLENGEs. People stayed and listened intently, clearly affected by what they heard. Some came over and asked questions, paying no attention to the racist police who, as usual, were in evidence. The speakers came from different backgrounds, were of different ages, and were both men and women.
After the demonstration was over we discussed the obvious fact that it was smaller, but in some ways it was more important because people on the street were very involved in listening and asking questions. People were shocked and frustrated that 14 months after a death that was clearly negligent murder, little or nothing has been done. Our new mayor and his group have now been in power in this city for nine months and, in spite of the promises, the attitudes have not changed.  The new District Attorney has done nothing to help this family get the justice they deserve.  
Kyam’s mother spoke in her usual forceful manner about her child who died and that she would never forget. She thanked those who came, and those who always come for being there. We should make sure that the next demonstration is better attended and that we try to get in touch with  other groups, particularly after the recent struggles in Ferguson and in Staten Island where racist callousness towards black workers is so clearly evident. PL’ers in the struggle continue to point out that we would need to have communist revolution to get real justice.