Transit workers not scared by bosses’ tactics
At an early morning rally in front of a transit repair shop in Chicago, a railcar repair worker called for workers to fight back against the bosses. His words rang out as the workers cheered him on with encouragement, honking horns and smiles. "The bosses have tried to divide us, pit us against each other and disrespect us with low wages and poor working conditions."

A militant shop steward organized and spoke at the rally. A coworker told him how one of the low level bosses has been breaking the contract, giving overtime to his friends, and trying to micro-manage the workers. This big-boss wannabe had an opportunity to do the right thing - but he refused. He instead drove past our rally and called us some names, and said he would kick our butts.

The coworker who wanted to resolve issues with him was threatened with physical harm by another coworker! But our brave friend said he wanted to come to another rally and speak on the bullhorn!
The threats of this stooge rang hollow as one worker remarked, "We have been through life, and we have been through death (already) with Covid!"

The working class is in a life and death battle with capitalism every day. From the pandemic to floods from climate change to starvation, homelessness and increased gun violence against each other - it is capitalism that has created the conditions for all of these deadly things to keep on happening!

The ruling class in Chicago is intensifying their efforts to win workers to support fascism in the form of more police on buses and trains. But as communists, we say there will be no justice and no safety for the working class under capitalism!

The members of the Chicago Transit Justice Coalition will increase our efforts to organize the workers to fight back against the bosses, the sellout union officials and their rotten contracts. We are having discussions and debates about the role of the police. Members of the Progressive Labor Party will continue to distribute CHALLENGE to the workers and struggle to get more readers to spread the ideas of communist revolution.
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Death to royals,  power to the working class
“Our hearts are broken” is the message of the bourgeois British media to the world on the death of Queen Elizabeth who is the symbol of 400 years of slavery, colonialism, genocide, racism and imperialism that has caused millions of horrible deaths and billions suffering lives of poverty and misery worldwide.

The contradiction of a 96 year old queen, one of the richest women in the world, living in one of her castles attended by the best medical care and servants and the daily worldwide pictures of babies with only skulls with bulging eyes for heads and just ribs and sticks for bodies and legs dying by the millions from malnutrition and lack of medical care in Somalia, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Yemen and worldwide breaks my worker’s heart. Workers worldwide must recommit to end this murderous capitalist profit system from the British Empire to the U.S Empire and nascent Chinese and Russian empires. Fight for communism!
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PL’ers at Labor Day
In the U.S., Labor Day is celebrated every first Monday of September. This date is a federal holiday. This year we found out that a community group that fights for workers’ rights and is led by liberal politicians was invited. We activated some PLP comrades who already participate in this mass organization. But this organization, together with other primarily Latin organizations that are now a coalition, was in charge of “opening the march.” The slogan of this march was to seek support for the Coalition of Excluded Workers and Unemployed Workers. Along the way, we handed out 100 CHALLENGEs and several hundred Party leaflets where we declared that we welcome fellow immigrants and families sent from Texas to New York City (see page 4).

As several comrades have already been working in this mass organization, there were several PL’ers helping in this event. One young PL’er arrived early to help with materials, transportation, food, and giving leadership, while the other PL’ers distributed CHALLENGE, Party leaflets, and had conversations with the workers. The young PL’er was also in charge of writing several signs for the march. While the liberal leaders of the organization marched with slogans like “Say yes to unions and yes you can,” the young PLer sharpened the struggle with slogans like “Workers united will never be defeated.” The PL’er also noticed how some participants had liberal slogans written on their masks, so the young PL’er decided to write on his mask “Eat the rich!—F*ck taxes!” Several participants seemed to appreciate it.

We also talked with some attendees. We came to the conclusion that this date does not have the warmth of MayDay: International Workers’ Day and it is absurd to try to forget the Strike in Chicago that originated this unforgettable conquest of the eight hours of work in the world. The number of attendees and the joy of the participants was remarkable. It is important for  communists to participate in these mass organizations, not only to lead, but also to sharpen the struggle with our communist politics and ideas. WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!
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Amid a deepening recession, a sharp decline in U.S. dominance, a ruling class in turmoil, and an accelerating trend toward fascism and global war, President Joe Biden has finally unveiled his college loan forgiveness plan. Designed to erase $10,000 to $20,000 of student debt, the plan is being hailed as a big win for the working class. In reality, it’s a desperate effort to paper over the capitalist bosses’ broken college model.

In previous generations, a college education provided some workers with more financial security. Today, it both fails to deliver the elusive American middle-class dream and traps millions of students in capitalist debt slavery. Given Biden’s track record of opposing reforms to reduce debt or to make college free, the new plan is designed to buy young workers’ loyalty, encourage them to vote in dead-end elections, and hold them hostage to this miserable profit system. Though even partial debt forgiveness may be a temporary lifeline for many, the truth is that for young workers, capitalist education is a lifelong burden with a diminishing return.

We urge young workers to reject the Democratic Party’s liberal fascists and their bribes and to keep fighting back on the campuses and in the streets. Join Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and fight for communism, where education will be used to build the world our class deserves.

U.S. college crisis: symbol of capitalist disarray
The college crisis is a snapshot of the crisis of capitalism in the U.S. More than 45 million former students together owe $1.6 trillion, more than all other debts or private loans combined,excluding mortages (cfr.org, 04/13/21). In 2020, the average debt for private college students was $32,029; for those who went to public colleges, $26,627 (U.S. News, 6/8). Even worse off were graduates of often fraudulent for-profit colleges, who borrowed an average of nearly $40,000 (studentloanhero.com).

All in all, this is a big problem for Biden and the liberal Big Fascists, the imperialist main wing of the U.S. ruling class that controls global finance capital. Young workers shackled by student debt are unable to buy homes or start their own small businesses, a further drag on the bosses’ economy. Without more meaningful government interventions, ex-students will stay caught indefinitely in a spiral of debt. Moreover, Biden’s plan does nothing to slow the out-of-control escalation of college sticker prices. Nor does it compensate for the anti-worker, anti-student laws he pushed for during his long career as a U.S. senator. Jim Crow Joe was more than the architect of racist mass incarceration. He wrote legislation to block students from seeking bankruptcy protections after graduation, and championed a bill that made it impossible for student borrowers to reduce their debt burden (The Intercept, 1/7/2020).

In the heyday of U.S. imperialism, when the capitalists could afford to hand a few crumbs to the working class, the liberal rulers passed reforms like the racist G.I. Bill, the National Defense Education Act, and the Higher Education Act of 1965, which expanded college access for young workers at low cost. The bosses’ goal was to build U.S. patriotism by marketing the “American Dream.” By contrast, Biden’s forgiveness plan is a weak attempt to restore faith in a floundering system and win workers to sacrifice themselves to save a flailing empire.

Of course, if they so choose, the rulers could wipe out all college debt, a move that might prop up their struggling economy at least a little while longer. But to do so they’d have to raise taxes on corporations and the super-rich. The Big Fascists are too weak and divided to make that happen, an ominous sign for expensive war preparations against China and Russia.

The racist debt trap of higher ed
Though many students living below the poverty line will see their student loans vanish, Biden’s plan is a drop in the bucket for millions of Black students who on average owe $52,726 four years after graduation–almost double the amount owed on average by white students (Guardian, 2/19/21).

Compounding this racist disaster is the fact that Black and Latin students are more likely to get diminishing returns on their education, spending more time to complete a degree and earning less in wages or salaries after they graduate. They also are more likely to attend chronically underfunded schools with weak support services and poor living conditions, and to be taught by grossly underpaid and overworked adjuncts (Center for American Progress, 1/23/20). The enduring racist legacy of the capitalist education system is another major obstacle for the Big Fascists, who are desperately trying to pacify Black and Latin workers and buy their allegiance in the run-up to WWIII.

Communist education for true liberation
In the profit system rat race, education is a sorting machine for the capitalist hierarchy. Elite private institutions train the bosses of the future to exploit the working class. Other students are groomed to oppress our class as executives, lawyers, and politicians. Meanwhile, public institutions train middle managers, bureaucrats, teachers, and social workers—if they get the support they need to graduate. College degrees are held up as a prerequisite for escaping low-wage, dead-end jobs. But capitalist education will always be a racist failure, a lottery where young workers must make enormous financial sacrifices for a shot at a decent life. And if they  default on their loans or fail to land a good job, the bosses tell them they have only themselves to blame.

At the same time, colleges have been an arena for generations of international, working-class fightbacks, putting young workers on the front lines of militant class struggle. From the 1968 student rebellions in Mexico and France to the ‘70s-era strikes against the Vietnam War to the 2020 fightbacks against racist murders by the kkkops, young people have repeatedly taken to the streets while turning their campuses into schools for antiracism and anti-imperialism. In many cases, young people across the U.S. and globally have taken leadership from Black and Latin workers.

Under communism, education will be accessible to all, based on the needs of the international working class. Learning will not be confined to classrooms, nor will it pit students against one another in competition. Collectively we will study dialectical materialism, science, and medicine. Together we’ll learn the manual skills we need to build the communist world we wish to live in.

Contrary to the miseducation at capitalist colleges, history shows us what workers achieved under communist leadership. Early on, the Soviet Union made education free and accessible to all. Its universities waged struggles against racism and sexism and accomplished remarkable technological and scientific feats. The Chinese Cultural Revolution opened opportunities for higher education to the poorest families, and sent young urban workers to the countryside to teach and to learn from rural workers.

Progressive Labor Party’s message to Arab, Asian, Black, Indigenous, Latin, and white students is to unite with fellow workers of all trades and generations. Together we can apply the valuable lessons we learn from each fightback to ultimately smash this racist capitalist system, and to build a communist world where education will be free and liberating for all.

CHICAGO, September 7—When real estate gentrifiers at Lincoln Property Company bought out the parking lot of Weiss Memorial Hospital in the Uptown neighborhood with plans to turn it into a luxury high rise development, a coalition of workers and organizers fought back and the international communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) was there providing supplies and communist  leadership to the struggle.

Organizers quickly formed an encampment out of tents, tarps, and tables, collectivizing the resources provided by the coalition, formally called #RiseUptown. Motivated by the belief that housing should be affordable, if not free, this anti-gentrification coalition camped out in the former parking lot and Covid testing center for 11 days.

Comrades have joined marches and led chants, gave speeches, and participated in workshops. The Party's contributions were very much appreciated. One worker even said, “Had it not been for [PL’ers] it would have been much harder for this encampment to run smoothly these past few days.”

When workers celebrate the presence of communists  and offer praise to our contributions to struggle, it is important to remember that our most important contribution is our revolutionary politics. While the reform struggle may provide temporary relief from capitalist-caused displacement, ultimately it will take the worker-run society of communism to end production for profit and meet our collective housing needs.

Workers resolve dispute, no kkkops needed
Actively participating within #RiseUptown has provided many opportunities to oppose the bosses, such as pro-gentrification liberal Alderman James Cappleman, as well as grow ties with the historically immigrant worker population of the neighborhood. But it also has provided opportunities to understand how to struggle with one another in a principled way within the mass movement.

On the night of the eighth day of the encampment, a local walked into the space with a six-pack of beer in hand and an agenda to be disruptive. He picked fights with several people and was eventually removed. However his presence compromised the safety of the camp and because the organizers in Uptown had been faced with a new challenge of keeping people safe without calling the police, many people were demoralized and unsure how to move forward.

The following day a meeting was held where we offered a solution to the group's safety concerns which relied on collective action and discipline within the community. The plan was that the next time there was a local disruptor causing a commotion in the encampment, everyone who was available at the time but no less than five people, would escort the person to the exit and close the gate behind them. Thanks to the community working together and standing in solidarity, one external threat was kept to a minimum. This was a small glimpse of how workers would handle such conflicts under communism.

Developers, politicians, nonprofits, capitalist partners
Capitalist housing is a hydra of trusts, hedge funds, banks, corporations, and even non-profits with interlocking personal and professional relationships between the key players. A holding company, Pipeline Health, purchased Weiss Hospital and two suburban hospitals in 2019. They immediately shuttered one of the suburban hospitals in nearby Melrose Park as soon as they purchased it causing the town to sue the corporation.

After holding onto their land deal for two years, Pipeline sold Weiss this May to a non-profit called Resilience Healthcare. However the same buyer, Lincoln Property, still retains the rights to the parking lot, even though they purchased this lot from an entirely different capitalist ostensibly in the healthcare business. Resilience was paid a $12 million rebate to deliver the lot to Lincoln Property. Pipeline paid Resilience for the already sold parking lot in order to ensure their bedfellow real estate developers’ bread stayed buttered.

The Big Fascists (see glossary on page 6) in the Chicago city government ensure the continuity of capitalist domination of the housing (and all other) market(s) as well. Cappleman hid behind the opaque and unelected city “Department of Plans” in a statement released in response to demands that he block construction, claiming “No elected official can deny building permits.”

Meanwhile, local non-profit Sarah’s Circle received a $14 million “anonymous grant” and $3.1 million direct donation from Lincoln Property to build 34 units of “affordable” housing. This “in-lieu” fee allows Lincoln Property to avoid putting affordable units in the same building as their luxury development. While non-profits like these are pushed as “solutions” to offset the crises of capitalism, we see that they only end up reinforcing the profit system at the end of the day.

Although #RiseUptown has been ultimately displaced and forced to retreat into the nearby park by the capitalist bosses’ henchmen -- the racist Chicago Police Department -- the encampment regrouped and is currently holding space while continuing the struggle against gentrification. Workers from many different backgrounds noted that the struggle in Chicago to resist gentrification was a problem that workers are facing globally.

Community members expressed frustration that #RiseUptown did not have the numbers to resist police occupation; however, even if the Coalition had 1,000 people, it would still not be enough to effectively combat the bosses’ hold on state power. In order for workers to challenge the capitalist bosses and their lackeys, it will take an organized mass Party of millions armed with communist ideology and motivated to end the capitalist plague on humanity.

The Uptown struggle is yet another front in which we must fight to build a communist future where housing, food, clothing, and dignity are guaranteed. Embrace the struggle to secure this future. Join PLP! Metro Access Transit Workers Win Improvements but the Struggle Continues!

The career of Paul Robeson, in both life and death, is an inspiring story of antiracist struggle and revolutionary communist class-consciousness and fightback: his life remains a model for the entire international working class. It’s also a story that makes crystal clear the racist hypocrisy of the U.S. ruling class, and the treachery of the bourgeois Black misleaders. They attempted to appropriate his memory after his death—while during his life, did everything they could to repress and tarnish him.

Scholar, athlete, singer, actor, antiracist, communist
Robeson won an academic scholarship to Rutgers University in 1915. He was only the third Black person ever to have attended Rutgers, and one of only two Black youth at Rutgers during his entire four years on campus. At college he was both an academic and athletic leader, making Phi Beta Kappa (an academic honorary society), as well as being an All-American football player, and starring in several other sports. And even though Robeson had a beautiful and powerful singing voice, he was barred from the Rutgers Glee Club because of racism at the school's social functions.

Robeson developed a career as a concert singing artist. He had appeared in a singing role in the Broadway musical, “Show Boat” in 1928, and would repeat the role in a film version seven years later. But he was cast in a racist stereotype, and Robeson hoped that through concerts he could side-step the racist pressures involved in dramatic productions and films.

Throughout this period his political consciousness was being developed in the Communist Party. Their influence began to give him the insight that racism was not an isolated phenomenon, but was an intrinsic and necessary part of capitalism, and would never be defeated until the capitalist system itself was destroyed.

‘In Soviet Union, I am not a Negro, but a human being’
Robeson’s trips to the then-communist-led Soviet Union in 1934 and 1936 had an enormous effect on him, where he stated for the first time in his life, he felt like a human being, walking in full human dignity. During the Spanish Civil War, moved by the energy, selflessness, and antiracist struggle, he appeared at rallies and concerts to raise money. He also visited Spain to give concerts for the communist-led International Brigades fighting the Spanish, German, and Italian fascists, including a performance on the front lines.

Robeson also supported the anti-lynching efforts of the militant National Negro Congress. Being outside the control of the bourgeois leadership of the NAACP and the Urban League, Robeson became a loathed target of bourgeois Black misleaders, especially the NAACP.

During World War II, Robeson crisscrossed the U.S. appearing at rallies, concerts and other causes in support of the anti-fascist war effort. He drew enormous crowds, raising enthusiasm and hundreds of thousands of dollars from Black and white working class audiences.

Unapologetic amidst capitalist attacks, liberal betrayal
In 1943, he appeared in another very successful production of Othello on Broadway. He was at the peak of his popularity as an antiracist, an actor, a singer, and a fighter against fascism. By 1943, J. Edgar Hoover, head of the F.B.I., already had him tagged for “preventive detention” in the event of some “crisis.”

The end of World War II saw a great increase in racist lynchings throughout the U.S. South, and a rise in racist oppression in the rest of the country. Robeson connected sharpening racist attacks with U.S. imperialism in the post-World War II Cold War era. In April 1949, he attended a Paris meeting of the World
Partisans of Peace, where he attacked imperialist plans for a new war against the Soviet Union and the emerging communist-led China. As anticommunism ran rampant, he was denounced by the entire Black bourgeois misleadership—Walter  White, Roy Wilkins, Bayard Rustin, A. Philip Randolph, et al., the AFL, and bosses in the entertainment industry.

Peekskill: kkkops and racists riot
The bosses’ hatred of Robeson culminated in a fascist attack which succeeded in breaking up a scheduled concert where Robeson was to sing near Peekskill, NY on Saturday, August 27, 1949. The concert was rescheduled for Sunday, September 4. Several thousand guards of Black and white workers and veterans, communists, and supporters protected Robeson and the 20,000 concert-goers, while Robeson sang in the face of rifles aimed at him (Duberman, Paul Robeson 1988).

After the concert, state troopers forced departing vehicles with families with small children to pass through a gauntlet of rock-throwing fascists. One hundred and fifty concertgoers were injured but overall, the day remained a victory for Robeson and the antiracists, showing that determination, organization, and courage could defeat racism even in the face of brutal attacks.

Blacklisted, interrogated for being a communist
In the aftermath, Robeson was blacklisted. Bookings in the U.S. disappeared, and the government revoked his passport in 1950, thus depriving him of the ability to tour abroad. Nevertheless, during this period, he remained politically active, singing and marching to support the Rosenbergs as they were sentenced to death by the U.S. government for fighting against capitalism, speaking at May Day rallies, appearing at benefit concerts for the Labor Youth League and the World Youth Festivals, speaking out against racism and imperialism.

In 1956, he was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), where he was an unrelentingly hostile witness. Throughout this entire period the bourgeois Black misleaders didn't lift a finger to support him. This exposes how Black nationalism is a pro-ruling class idea and a dead end for Black workers.

With the restoration of his passport and the upsurge in the Black civil-rights movement in the late 1950s, Robeson's career saw a mild resurgence. He was able to tour both in the U.S. and abroad until illness overtook him in the mid-1960s. He died on January 23 in 1976.

After his death, the bourgeoisie, both Black and white, engaged in a hypocritical orgy of adulation, naming schools, college centers, and libraries after a man they hated, despised, and feared. All the while hiding and distorting what he really stood for: multiracial unity and a world run by and for working people—a communist world.

A person's life is a process and there was only one Paul Robeson. He was a communist, he belonged to the international working class and the international communist movement. He was a militant supporter of both.