The following is part three of a seven-part series reprinted and lightly edited from the communist newspaper Daily Worker in September-October, 1932, written by famous communist Mike Gold.

Workers here are referred to as Black instead of the original “Negro” to reflect our antiracist principles as well as the linguistic shifts that occurred over decades of antiracist class struggle.

Communists have a long history of fighting against racist attacks on our class. One such fight was against landlords and evictions. In the early 1930s, amid Jim Crow segregation, a Great Depression with record unemployment levels that sank the working class—particularly Black workers living in the urban industrial core—into deeper poverty and despair, the Communist Party in the U.S. (CPUSA) was fighting for revolution inside U.S. borders. This period was a golden age of class-conscious fightback when communist ideas were popular and gripped the imaginations of the working class. Under the leadership of the CPUSA, workers organized militant housing councils, tenant unions that led bold actions that weakened the power of profit gluttonous landlords.

Today our class is in a different period marked by increasing volatility. We are choked by record-high inflation, rent hikes, food price gouging compounded by stagnant wages, high unemployment, and an eviction crisis worsened by a still-raging global pandemic. Though the CPUSA is a shell of its former self, decaying into a toothless, reformist party, their history is just as valuable as they were in 1932. This series highlights this antiracist revolutionary fightback and contains kernels of working-class wisdom.

In this article, the popularity of communist ideas and struggles among Black workers is described by Gold, emphasizing an important aspect of our line that Black workers play a key role in organizing for communist revolution. Another important political aspect highlighted by Gold’s piece is the role of churches in misleading Black workers, winning them away from communist ideas.  . During this time, Black workers were won over to the idea that they had much more in common with fellow workers than with the bosses and their corrupt misleaders. A generation of Black workers gave militant leadership to the movement.

There was the funeral of an old Black woman. She had died of hunger; the doctor’s certificate called it “malnutrition.” The councils arranged a mass funeral; they rented a large lot for such services. The great procession marched through the streets, carrying hundreds of banners and slogans telling the story. Ah, from all the sidewalks and tenement windows, what groans, wails, sobs, what shrieks of pity and anger! This mourning was real; these workers knew what the funeral said: they knew they might be next to die of – “Malnutrition.”

All the revolutionary slogans that well-fed liberals sneer at as clichés, the South Side takes to its heart. They are life. “Fight Against Hunger” is a literal command; it has helped to many victories.

On the south side, the old slavish spirituals are being rewritten. The deep yearning that once turned to a mythical heaven for freedom, now fights for a real and wonderful future on this earth.

“That New Communist Spirit”
“Gimme That Old Time Religion, it’s good enough for me,” they used to sing at their prayer meetings. Now I heard them sing it fervently:
      Gimme that new Communist spirit
     Gimme that new Communist spirit
     Gimme that new Communist spirit
     That’s good enough for me.
     “It was good for Comrade Lenin,
     And it’s good enough for me.
     “It’s against the labor fakers.
     And it’s good enough for me.
     “It has built the Soviet Union,
     And it’s good enough for me,
     “It’ll free the world of sorrow,
     And it’s good enough for me …”
     (and so on, dozens of verses)

Many such new songs and singers. At mass meetings, their religious past becomes transmuted into a Communist present. They follow every word of the speaker with real emotion; they encourage him, as at a prayer meeting with cries, “Yes, yes, comrade” and often there is an involuntary and heartfelt “Amen!”

The Chicago politicians are alarmed by this local revolution. Pork-jowled pimps and bootleggers sometimes come to the forums and begin their harangues with the salutation, “Comrades!” The workers laugh at them. They hooted and laughed down Big Bill Thompson, ex-gangster mayor of Chicago when he came to Washington Park and pulled this new “Comrade” gag.

It’s hard to fool them any more. They read, study, think. They have built up the best unemployment movement in America, a model to the white comrades, in the seat of their own minds and bodies. They have developed their own leaders.

Claude Lightfoot
Of the hundreds of leaders let me give one typical biography:

Claude Lightfoot, a brilliant youth of 21 developed as a speaker at a Washington Park forum. He was a Garveyite, an American patriot, and won a large following among the young Black  workers.

Democratic and Republican politicians came to him and offered him hundred dollar a week jobs to campaign for them. But he was honest, the questions fired at him by Communist hecklers made him think.

The work of the unemployment councils interested him. The fact that white workers fought and shed their blood in defense of Black workers, gave Lightfoot a new vision of the race question.

He Is Arrested
He read, studied, argued, he wrestled with his own mind. During this transition period, he happened, by accident, to be arrested in one of the eviction fights.

He was beaten, stripped, thrown into a dark unheated small stone cell on bread and water.

He personally knew the capitalist politicians who were prosecuting him. In the very prison, they came to him, and offered him his release and a good job if he would surrender his new ideas. He told them to go to hell. He was given the maximum sentence in the Bridewell, that ancient hell of stone and hate.

When he came out he joined the Communist Party. He has been an active force ever since. Read the next issue for an episode out of his new life of struggle!

Anti-Jewish racism and attacks are on the rise across the U.S. Most recently Ye (formerly Kanye West) and Kyrie Irving threw fuel on the fire by launching anti-Jewish racist attacks on Twitter. Both Ye and Irving are spewing a particular toxic ideology of the Black Hebrew Israelites that reflects a reactionary, nationalist, and anti-class outlook. The Black Hebrew Israelites are a group of sects that espouse that Black people are the original Hebrews and were supplanted by modern day Jewish people. Many, if not all, of the groups push anti-Jewish racism in a twist on the replacement theory of the Trump racists by claiming they have been replaced from their rightful place by modern Jewish people.

The Black Israelites continue a long history of the bosses’ anti-Jewish racism being used to divide the working class. From Hitler to now, anti-Jewish racism has particularly been used to divert the working class’s anger away from the bosses and point it towards an imaginary Jewish cabal that is blamed for everything. The anti-Jewish racism of Ye and Irving gains a toe hold because of the righteous anger that Black workers share under capitalism. But with celebrities and anti-intellectual media moguls leading the charge, it leads to the pacification of Black workers who are diverted away from the true enemy that is capitalism and plays into the bosses’ hands by dividing and disarming the working class.

Attack racism from all sides
We must take on racism in all its forms. This particular attack by Ye and Irving, which was then amplified by Dave Chapelle on NBC’s Saturday Night Live, is particularly dangerous because it is being used to divert the anger of Black workers away from capitalism and the ruling class, but back toward a general Jewish body. Meanwhile, many Jewish workers have an antiracist history and do not benefit from the racism inflicted by ruling class bosses.

While the Black Israelites pose as a group that is against the system, the racism they espouse is repackaged from the bosses’ ideologies. Henry Ford and Hitler are prominent in their sources. Many are fooled by this anti-Jewish racism posing as being for Black workers. A big reason for the acceptance of anti-Jewish racism from Black superstars is the racist history of Israel. The U.S. and Israeli ruling classes have defended Israeli racist apartheid and attacks on workers in Palestine by calling anyone who opposes the Israeli bosses anti-Jewish.

Workers unite in anti-racist rebellion
The bosses have encouraged the spread of Black nationalist anti-Jewish racism. Young Black workers have rebelled in recent years in Ferguson, Baltimore and across the country after the murder of George Floyd. These antiracist rebellions inspired millions of people in multi-racial fight back to take to the streets. This mass action against the bosses’ cops terrified the ruling class. No wonder the bosses encourage the spread of anti-Jewish racism.

Many people are also taken in by seeing corporations and media who do nothing in the face of massive racist attacks on Black workers come out and attack Ye and Irving. But that doesn’t excuse or justify anti-Jewish attacks. Also, make no mistake: Ye and Irving don’t share the same class politics that Black workers, or any worker, do.

Any potential win that Ye or Irving could receive from Adidas or the NBA would never extend to our class. But this public debacle does intensify racist divisions among workers. As communist leaders, it is our role to use these moments as an opportunity to call out to smash these divisions and build working-class unity.

One thing the U.S., Israel and Black Israelites have in common is a fear of the powerful history of Black and Jewish workers joining together to fight racism. From the movement to free the Scottsboro Boys to the sit-ins across the south and the fight to integrate, Black and Jewish workers have marched together, fought together and been beaten together in the fight against racism. The bosses can try to bury the true antiracist history of the working class but they will never stop us.

Turkey demands Sweden and Finland sell out Kurds as price for joining NATO
France24, 11/4–Turkey will not formally approve Finland and Sweden's membership of NATO until the two countries take the necessary "steps" Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg Friday. Ankara has accused the two Nordic nations of providing a safe haven for outlawed Kurdish militants it deems "terrorists" and held back on ratifying their NATO membership despite an agreement in June.

Finland and Sweden dropped decades of military non-alignment and scrambled to become NATO members in May, after Russia invaded Ukraine. But Erdogan threatened to block their bids and sought concessions, leading to a deal in June between Turkey, Finland and Sweden that included provisions on extraditions and sharing information. All 30 NATO member states except Turkey and Hungary have ratified the accession of Sweden and Finland. New members to the alliance require unanimous approval.

European capitalists have no choice but to turn to Gulf states for survival
Der Spiegel, 11/11–Three-and-a-half trillion dollars, an unfathomable sum, are set to flow into the coffers of the six Gulf states in the next five years should the prices for oil and gas remain as high as they are today – a gift from Vladimir Putin. Because Europe is no longer interested in importing energy from Russia, oil from Saudi Arabia and natural gas from Qatar have become the focus, no matter how high the price.

At a time when the West is suffering and China is showing economic vulnerability, the economies on the Gulf see nothing but a bright future and their optimism is boundless.

Qatar and Iran are sitting on the largest natural gas repositories on the planet, while Saudi Arabia is home to the second-largest oil reserves. And it doesn’t end with oil and gas. The energy source of the future is hydrogen, produced with solar and wind. The deserts of the Arabian Peninsula offer perfect conditions for such renewable energy sources. Ultimately, more hydrogen may be exported from the Emirates and Saudi Arabia in the future than oil is today. Germany promises to be a primary destination.

Israel moves closer to becoming an officially fascist state
New York Times, 11/13–The Jewish settlement in the city of Hebron, in the occupied West Bank, where a few hundred Orthodox Jews live amid some 200,000 Palestinians, has long been seen as a bastion of the far-right settler movement — on the fringes of Israeli society. But after the Israeli election this month, an alliance of far-right parties, led by the Religious Zionism party reflecting the views of radical settlers, became the third-largest political force in Israel. The alliance, which also included the ultranationalist Jewish Power party, garnered more than 88 percent of the votes from the settlers in Hebron. The alliance is now poised to become a key pillar of the coalition being put together by the right-wing prime minister-designate, Benjamin Netanyahu… Religious Zionism’s supporters hope the alliance will use its leverage to [apply]…Jewish sovereignty in parts of the West Bank, a territory the Palestinians claim for a future state and that Religious Zionism considers to be part of Greater Israel and refers to by the biblical names of Judea and Samaria.

Religious Zionists have reached the top ranks of the security establishment and the police have made up a disproportionate number of the graduates of the military’s officers’ school…and have developed an increasingly influential voice in the Israeli news media and culture.

U.S. deploying B-52s to encircle China
Reuters, 10/31–The United States is planning to deploy up to six nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to an air base in northern Australia, a source familiar with the matter said on Monday, amid heightened tensions with China. Dedicated facilities for the bombers will be set up at the Royal Australian Air Force's remote Tindal base…Last year, the United States, Britain and Australia created a security deal that will provide Australia with the technology to deploy nuclear-powered submarines, riling China…This year, the U.S. deployed four B-52s to its Andersen Air Force base in Guam, a U.S. island territory in the Western Pacific.

Profit system treats children as dispensable
Several Progressive Labor Party (PLP) comrades joined a coalition of housing groups on November 3 to protest child homelessness in NYC. More than 104,000 public school children in NYC are homeless, 55,000 of whom are without shelter.

As we gathered in a primary schoolyard we saw a teacher explaining to her students why we were there. Young people led the rally and one speaker reported that while she’s not homeless herself she was protesting in solidarity with her peers who are homeless. Black, Latin, Asian and white united as we marched in the community chanting, “Tenants united will never be defeated,” “Tax the rich, house the poor,” and “What do we want? Housing! If we don’t get it, shut it down!”

PL’ers connected with old and new friends distributing 18 CHALLENGEs as we emphasized the militant housing fight back in Chicago on the front page. A comrade sent a comment to the members of the housing group she’s in saying the march was good, but we need to put antiracism up front. The majority of homeless children and adults in NYC are Black and Latin. She received two thumbs up responses.

PL’ers have been involved in a community organization for many years. We raise PLP’s ideas, have recruited new members and organized an ongoing study group. Recently comrades have been distributing fight homelessness leaflets and CHALLENGE in the streets of our community of concentration.

As we stand up and fight back inside the community organization we want to continue the Party’s presence in the street. Let’s seize the opportunities to lead class struggle and boldly win the working class to revolutionary communist ideas!

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Inspired by struggle against identity politics
Though retired for a few years now, recently I’ve been helping to organize for Progressive Labor Party on college campuses. So I’ve attended the yearly college conference for the last several years. They were all very positive, but this year’s conference was amazing. I was not just encouraged; I was inspired. And it was the new, young leaders that were so very impressive. By young I mean some that were in the Party for a year or two, while others were on the verge of joining.
During the opening session a comrade raised the issue of identity politics. A veteran comrade made the case against identity politics, but the issue was really left sort of hanging in the air. But not for long. It came up in several workshops with some new members being supportive of identity politics. And these were fighters who believed in multiracial unity and had been in struggles against racism from their college campus to Haiti. These were young working class fighters and organizers trying to learn and be stronger antiracists and communists.

But what really impressed and inspired me was the response of two young Black women leaders. In one workshop they patiently tore apart identity politics. They explained how it was a recent, higher education invention and how it divided the working class. How there was no such thing as white privilege; it was racism. How these divisive ideas originated and are being promoted on college campuses and did not have that great an influence in working class communities. I was so impressed with the quiet confidence, knowledge and sharpness of these young Black women leaders.
I briefly spoke to one of these women after the workshops and congratulated her on her leadership role. She mumbled a thank you and then added, but I think I spoke too much. That immediate self-criticism impressed me even more. The future of our Party is in good hands.

*****
Who should dictate: capitalists or workers?
At a Senior Center discussion group about abortion, I said communists were the first society that legalized abortion. A woman replied, “But communism is a dictatorship”, so I asked the following.

Who dictates…
      If women get life saving or needed abortions?
      If women and children suffer poverty, homelessness, poor health and starvation?
      If women suffer sexism, especially cultural oppression that promotes inequality?
      If women are forced to support and die in endless profit wars?

I replied that today it’s the worldwide capitalist class dictatorship’s greed for profits and privileges that determines and promotes sexist, divisive inequality and oppression within the working class.
Women in Iran and worldwide don’t need to just cut their hair; they need to cut their connections to their capitalist dictatorships and create their own communist society that can dictate their right to equality, abortions, education, housing, jobs and an end to sexism, racism, profits, classes, nationalism, endless capitalist wars and religious persecution.

I’ve had these discussions before with the workers thinking about it and the discussions will continue.

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Workers still fighting covid and capitalism
Capitalists have weaponized this disease against workers, using it to cull the less “productive” workers–the elderly and the ill, especially Black communities in the U.S. and Black and Brown countries worldwide.  This is genocide and marks the growing tide of fascism.  In the wake of the 1918 Influenza pandemic, Nazis rose to power in part by targeting the disabled and ill.  

Meanwhile, capitalists continue to reap obscene profits off the pandemic, creating a global wave of inflation that has wreaked havoc on low income workers.  The Big Fascists like Joe Biden and Goldman Sachs parrot concern while overseeing draconian economic measures to create mass unemployment and poverty worldwide in the name of fighting inflation. The imperialist U.S. and Russian bosses have started a war that threatens our entire planet with nuclear apocalypse when all workers want is peace to be able to recover from the pandemic.

When will we learn that capitalism can NEVER solve our problems? It only brings workers misery and death. Communism is the only practical solution at this point in human history.  Let’s never forget the genocide that these filthy capitalists have waged against the working class as we rise up and put the bosses in their graves!

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