CHICAGO, February 26 – Around 50 Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members and friends gathered on the city’s south side today to celebrate our fifth annual Black and Red event. The multiracial, multi-generational and international crowd in attendance engaged in an interactive program that highlighted the invaluable leadership and contributions of Black communists in past, present, and future revolutionary struggles.
Our local collective began organizing this event five years ago as a response to the many anti-communist distortions and outright lies by the bosses that falsely claim communism to be a political movement limited to white workers. The truth is that Black workers have always given key leadership to the fight for communist revolution, correctly understanding it as the only force to destroy the racism, sexism, and exploitation inherent in the capitalist profit system.
In contrast to the bosses’ Black History Month celebrations, which emphasize the need for more Black-owned businesses and individual success, PLP emphasizes the importance of Black workers leading the Party with comrades all over the world to put an end to racist capitalism once and for all. To be Black and red is to be an antiracist revolutionary!
Working-class Black history is communist history
We began our day at the DuSable Black History Museum, a south side landmark for over 50 years. The museum was founded by Margaret Taylor-Burroughs and her husband Charles, two Black organizers with well-known communist affiliations. PLP members made a list of scavenger hunt questions for our group to engage with the different exhibits and highlight the more radical history of various freedom movements.
We next headed to the local fieldhouse for lunch, socializing, and an event program. After dining on some delicious West African dishes, a new comrade kicked festivities off with an impassioned reading of “Good Morning, Revolution” by Black communist poet Langston Hughes. Although modern sources prefer to ignore or minimize Hughes’ embrace of communist internationalism, any serious analysis of his works such as this poem demonstrate his commitment to revolution.
Another veteran PLP member then took the mic to give some historical context to the violent mass struggle to end chattel slavery and the influence that struggle had on the theories of the communist Karl Marx. Through his work as a journalist reporting on the Civil War in the United States, Marx was able to better develop his understanding of how racism is essential to the profits of capitalism and how one could not be seriously fought without fighting the other.
We next watched a short video also highlighting the influence of communist theory and practice on countless antiracist mass movements in the 20th century, including the defense of the Scottsboro Nine against legalized lynching during the Great Depression and the struggle against the brutal apartheid regime in South Africa. Far from being confined to the history books, the lessons learned from these brave struggles continue to inform our fight in the present day.
Lastly, to give the keynote speech, another veteran comrade drew on her decades of experience as a Black communist in PLP and how that has guided her fightback against racism and sexism in profound ways:

“The earliest comrades of our Party realized that the people who had this generational commitment to fighting the capitalist power structure had to lead this revolutionary movement for it to ultimately win.
Along with this leadership being mandatory for this Party to win, multiracial working-class unity also had to be a defining factor. Our Party views antiracism as more than just a ‘good feeling.’ It is dedicated fighting action in just about every way imaginable.”

Black workers are key revolutionary force
In the fight to destroy capitalism, the international working class must rely on the leadership of those workers most exploited and oppressed by this rotten racist system to truly win an egalitarian communist world. We salute our Black comrades and fellow workers for their ongoing role as an indispensable revolutionary force.

Millions of workers have been devastated by earthquakes in Turkey and Syria and a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio–and most of all, by capitalism. These tragic events were not “natural” disasters or accidents. Corrupt building practices and neglected infrastructure are part and parcel of  a system that’s based on the ruthless drive for maximum profit.
On February 6,  the mass collapse of flimsy buildings in Turkey and Syria killed 50,000 workers and displaced millions. Three days earlier, an oversized Norfolk Southern train with inadequate brakes burst into flames. Fifty cars derailed, spewing toxic chemicals into the air, killing thousands of fish in nearby waterways and potentially contaminating the area’s drinking water (Newsweek, 2/17).
As imperialist rulers hoard resources to prepare for their next global conflict, more corners will be cut at the expense of workers’ health and safety. To get workers to passively accept these disasters and then agree to fight in World War III, the capitalist bosses will need increasing fascist repression.  ‘Lesser evilism,” the idea that some bosses are less racist, less sexist, or less profit-driven than others, will be a literal “dead end.”.  
Under the leadership of Progressive Labor Party, the international working class must turn the guns around and seize state power. Only then can we guarantee that the construction industry, the railroads,  the chemical plants, and the water treatment facilities serve workers’ needs. The only solution is communist revolution!
Turkey’s bosses: profits over workers
Instead of going all out to save and help workers after the earthquakes, the Turkish ruling class went all out to prepare for their regional oil wars with neighboring bosses in Syria and Iraq. Because of decades of racist displacement by the Turkish rulers, the Kurdish and Syrian populations were hardest hit by the disaster.  Predictably, Turkish President Recep Erdogan dodged all responsibility: “What happens, happens, this is part of fate’s plan” (The Guardian, 2/09). Days later, Turkey resumed its bombing of Kurdish forces in Syria and resumed its pursuit of a $20 billion deal  for F-16 fighter jets from the U.S. (Associated Press, 2/20). As the U.S. bosses square off against Russian imperialism in their proxy war in Ukraine, they’re doing all they can to strengthen NATO and consolidate its relationship with the Turkish ruling class. But Turkey has become an unreliable regional ally, as evidenced by its purchase of $2.5 billion in Russian missiles in 2017.
Like all capitalist rulers, Turkey’s bosses have long placed profits over people. To deflect the masses’ rage after a previous earthquake killed over 18,000 people due to faulty construction,  Erdoğan promised tighter building safety codes. But in 2019, he boasted of granting zoning “amnesties” to contractors,  40,000 of them in the hard-hit city of Gaziantep alone (NPA Syria, 2/23). Warnings from disaster specialists were ignored (Birgun, 2/06). After the most recent earthquakes, Erdoğan’s regime moved quickly to funneling relief efforts into the corrupt Disaster and Emergency Management Authority, which is notorious for rewarding patronage jobs to Erdogan supporters.
U.S. infrastructure strategy a train wreck
President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Plan focused on the U.S. infrastructure crisis over  helping workers survive the bosses’ latest economic crisis. As the U.S. rulers drive toward more full-blown fascism, they are calling for workers’ “sacrifice” and funneling more resources toward war preparations.One big problem for the bosses is the lack of discipline within their own class, including the railroad bosses. A core principle of Precision Scheduled Railroading, the operating standard for major railways in the U.S. is to eliminate “unnecessary” costs. In practice, this translates to fewer workers per train line, fewer safety measures, and less inspection time. Fronting for the dominant finance capital wing of the U.S. ruling class, Biden is squeezed between  the railroad bosses’ push for maximum short-term profits and the rulers’ broader need for reliable transportation infrastructure for the coming global war, most likely with  China. Regardless of how the bosses’ internal struggle plays out, workers stand to lose. Last December, cheered on by union misleaders, Biden signed legislation designed to kill a potential strike of over 100,000 railroad workers (CNBC, 12/12/22). Once again, we saw that workers’ allegiance to liberal capitalist politicians leads only to the betrayal of our own class interestsThe only thing that can save us from the rot of capitalism and the bloodbath of imperialist war is to fight back against all bosses and to build PLP.
A related example: Every two days, the bosses’ chemical companies have accidents.  When workers fail to fight back, it’s more profitable for the capitalists to absorb the cost of these accidents than to pay for rigorous safety measures (CNN, 2/22). The bosses at Norfolk Southern are well aware that their accident rate has increased each of the last four years (NS Corp, 1/25). From 2016 to 2021, there were 13,000 violations relating to hazardous materials, or triple the number in the previous five years–a clear reflection of weak federal oversight (NYT 2/17). With over 12,000 chemical facilities across the country, many nearby residents have reason to live in fear. The predominantly white working class population of East Palestine and the surrounding area have been, systematically segregated from their Black and Latin class sisters and brothers. They are chronically unemployed, under-employed, and underpaid. Capitalism’s racist system hurts the entire working class.
For safety, workers need communist revolution
Over and again, we see workers saving workers. In Pakistan, workers risked their lives by wading through toxic, deadly flood waters to distribute vital donations. In Haiti, workers are funding and running community kitchens, and providing clothing and shelter for striking garment workers.. In Turkey and Syria,  thousands of workers and youth are breaking through the border to help other workers after the earthquakes.All of these efforts are courageous and essential.  But ultimately, they will be futile if we fail to understand that we can save ourselves and our class only by smashing capitalism, the root of all these problems.  
Earthquakes will keep happening under communism. But when the working class gains state power, and enforces strict rules for development and building safety, the human toll of these disasters will be far less. Transportation accidents will also occur under communism, though there will surely be fewer of them when workers are empowered to oversee the production and maintenance of these systems. When the means of production are owned by and for the working class, rather than by private individuals and corporations, a strong and resilient infrastructure will be viewed as a social necessity.  By working together and sharing resources, liberated from the divisions of private property and wage slavery, workers will create a safer, freer world. Join us! Build Progressive Labor Party!

BALTIMORE, February 22—For the 500th time, we decried racism. A successful protest caravan, stretching 22 vehicles long, boldly wound through the city’s streets. The demand was accountability for the police murder of Tyrone West, and for all victims of police brutality. Tyrone’s life was stolen in July of 2013 by 17 racist cops, in the same way George Floyd and Tyre Nichols were murdered by capitalist thugs in blue. These 500 protests prove there is no justice under this capitalist system. As we demand accountability, we must also organize the fight for a world run by the working class - that’s communism.
Importance of a long-range outlook
Every Wednesday, for nine-and-a-half years, without fail, a street rally or a livestream event has been organized as a central part of carrying on this struggle.
Progressive Labor Party (PLP) has done its best to help strengthen this important anti-racist work. And PLP has simultaneously strived to share its vision of the future, a communist world with no more racism of any type, and no more police brutality.
Seven Party members from the DC area also participated in the caravan, adding strength and additional logistical capability that proved particularly helpful after the lead car was disabled.
New generation of fighters
A young comrade, who has made regular contributions to West Wednesday for some years, spoke at the final rally. He began, “No more police terrorism! I’m a member of the Progressive Labor Party, and my belief is in a revolutionary society where we go beyond this system.”
He went on to say the purpose of police under capitalism is to divide us racially, create fear, and suppress the whole working class. He ended with words that earned applause: “It’s good that we’ve come together as a…multiracial coalition.” Another young PL’er from DC also spoke, sharing that only with revolution can we end police terror.
Some tears and some comfort
The night before the caravan, at the final planning meeting, one topic was how everyone felt after so many years of struggle. A member of Tyrone’s family became tearful, talking about all of these 500 weeks, while Tyrone’s main killers remain on the police force, with promotions. But she also spoke about how vital the support has been for her, and about specific contributions by particular freedom fighters in the West Coalition.
In the case of a PLP member, she said he has given her comfort that helps when things are rough, based on an understanding he has shared that there is always a solution.
When it was this comrade’s turn to speak, he explained that dialectical materialism (the philosophy at the heart of communism) teaches that all things exist in paired opposites. Therefore, the existence of a problem implies the existence of its solution. Or, to put it another way, history poses no problem for which the solution doesn’t already exist. It was one of those moments when the positive role of communists, in an anti-racist mass movement, was clear, helpful, and heart-warming.
Working women leaders in the movement
During this evening’s caravan, Tyrone’s sister stood tall through a moonroof, speaking and chanting powerfully to everyone in the long train of vehicles and to passersby.
Things were well-organized, with the front and rear cars in steady communication. Flyers had been prepared for handing out at mini-rallies along the route.
However, before even reaching the site of the first mini-rally, the lead car, with flashers on, made the route’s planned turn onto a major street. That lead car was suddenly and severely rear-ended – and probably totaled – by a driver who turned, much too fast, onto the same street, from a different direction. The speeding driver may have been careless and distracted, or sent by police.
Three people were in the caravan’s lead car. Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt, but their car was forcefully thrust off the street, across a sidewalk, and onto a home’s front yard, barely missing a major collision with a large tree.
Led by the women in the West Coalition, the caravan stayed in place, allowing time to deal with the situation. Then they re-organized a new lead car and rear car. Considering the time that had been lost, they wisely led the caravan directly to the final rally at City Hall.
Other volunteers had previously set up a huge grill at City Hall so that, after the final rally, delicious hot meals were ready for everyone. In addition, twenty-eight people took copies of CHALLENGE.
It was clear that racism is the weak spot of capitalism. Just like when the horrific murder of George Floyd sparked twenty million people to hit the streets for months of forceful protest, the horrors of racism, including the horrendous murder of Tyrone West, continually lead to mass movements within which new leaders step forward. The future is bright. Never give up in the fight for communism!

ATLANTA, GA, February 15–Rejecting much of the bosses’ liberalism over the past year, the working class has taken direct action against the building of Cop City, destroying vehicles, damaging banks, and erecting a tent city to try to stop the construction of this urban warfare  training center. Within the context of 19 protesters being arrested and charged with terrorism,  the Atlanta Police Department (APD) murdered Latin worker Manuel “Tortugita'' Teran during a raid to clear the encampment.

After weeks of militant multiracial fightback led by Black and Latin workers, the APD released body camera footage of the killing. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Atlanta’s killer kkkops, and politicians claim that Tort shot cops first, and thus, “deserved” to die. However, Tort’s family in Panama and friends in Atlanta called it: the police shot each other first and used it as ammunition to shoot at workers occupying the forest and killed Tort with 13 shots in the crossfire.
For the last two years, working-class fighters have occupied the Atlanta forest in protest of what fighters call ‘Cop City,’ a 85-acre $90 million police training facility through an Atlanta forest. Police forces from Atlanta to Israel will learn how to squelch working-class rebellion, especially any fightback led by communist fighters like Progressive Labor Party (PLP).
With bosses in the U.S, China, and Russia ramping up for World War III, and the U.S. bosses sinking deeper into crisis the last thing they need is militant multiracial working class rebellion in the urban centers.
The desperate rulers will need fascism to discipline the working class and will need to build more kkkop cities to keep workers in check as they spend trillions oiling their war machine while workers are pushed into starvation and homelessness. Black liberal mayors across the U.S. are proving they are the best candidates for the job.
Black-led city attacks Black workers
Georgia is a key state in the battle to win workers to pledge allegiance to the U.S. The bosses plan to build Cop City in “South River Forest,” called the Weelaunee Forest, “one of Atlanta’s largest remaining green spaces, a prime example of environmental racism. The forest encompasses a three-hundred-acre, city-owned tract of land that sits in a poor and predominantly Black” part of Atlanta (New Yorker, 8/3/22).
After the police murder of George Floyd in 2020, Atlanta workers responded with mass antiracist protest, marching toward and smashing the headquarters of U.S. liberal news media– the CNN building.
Keisha Lance Bottoms— former mayor of Atlanta and now part of  the Jim Crow Biden administration—supports Cop City and openly shamed the protestors’ militancy and left her position to make way for liberal misleaders like Mayor Andre Dickens, Senator Reverend Warnock and Stacey Abrams.
“Most of the residents in neighborhoods around the forest are Black and municipal planning has neglected the area for decades. The plans to preserve the forest and make it a historic public amenity were adopted in 2017 as part of Atlanta’s city charter, or constitution. But the Atlanta city council wound up approving the training center anyway…” (The Guardian, 1/23)
The bosses want to ensure that they have a militarized and functioning force to attack the working class. The U.S. ruling class and bosses all over the world want to be prepared for the international uprisings that will spring up in the wake racist police murders.
Liberal politics and police murder
PLP stands with the protests against Cop City. With Cop City now being green-lighted, it is more urgent than ever that PLers connect the struggle to what’s happening locally and internationally. Antiracist leaders are calling protests the week of February 19-26.
For our class to smash racist police terror, workers around the world must commit to building a Party that will organize and shape struggle, galvanize it and focus it, and push for communist revolution.