WASHINGTON, DC, November 15— After a 34-day occupation that turned Howard University’s Blackburn Center into a “tent city,” Howard students forced the administration to “plan to find a resolution” to the campus’s horrid, racist living and learning conditions.
It remains to be seen if the administration will fulfill its promises. When one of the organizers returned to her dorm, she found  flooding from a broken pipe! Even in victory, reforms are limited under a nightmare system called capitalism! These deplorable conditions are “normal” because this system is built on profit, not working-class needs. At Howard, we have a Black President, Wayne A.I. Frederick, subjecting mainly Black students to deplorable housing conditions in a historically Black campus (HBCU).
Only communist revolution can create a society that meets the needs of workers and working class students.
Racist conditions at an HBCU
Students were fed up with mold, broken pipes, intermittent WIFI, and roaches in their dorms, and were also incensed at the administration’s indifference to their plight (see CHALLENGE, October 23). Just last month, the university’s own report listed 34 concerns related to “suspected fungal growth, across more than 5,050 beds-- 0.67% of all on-campus beds” (ABC News, 11/17).
The students demanded what would have never been an issue in the first place under a needs-based system—a) an in-person town hall with Howard's president, b) a meeting with university leaders about housing and legal, disciplinary and academic immunity for protesters, c) student voice in Howard's new housing plan, and more.
Support from faculty
Faculty and alumni rallied in support of the students during the occupation, which has come to be known as #BlackburnTakeover . On Friday, November 5, the adjunct faculty members organized in the SEIU union sponsored a support rally, linking their working conditions to the students’ learning conditions.
Tenured faculty also spoke, one noting that their participation in negotiations with the adjunct faculty union was summarily canceled when the administration hired a union-busting lawyer to represent the university in these negotiations instead.
A Progressive Labor Party (PLP) member spoke of the need for revolution against the entire capitalist system, since the horrendous conditions facing students are a trickle-down from the entire racist exploitative system of which Howard University is a part. Alumni speakers recounted their own negative experiences with the administration, and set up a tent to join the protesters in their 24/7 occupation and tent city.
What was the victory?
After 20 whole days of negotiations with the administration, students felt their concerns had been met, on paper. “We came, we saw, we declared, and we won,” claimed one of the organizers of the University’s Blackburn Center occupation. What was the victory?  What have we won? President  Frederick “plans to make improvements throughout the campus, and is committed to maintaining ‘safe and high-end housing’” (ABC News, 11/17). While they may make some improvements in housing, it remains locked in a process of gentrification as it sells off its properties to developers, forcing Black workers out of the city. There is no escaping the capitalist system, with profits primary, as long as we limit our vision to reforming our immediate circumstances.
Jesse Jackson and Ras Baraka visited the protesting students. The former is a historically Black misleader who functions as a pacifier against antiracist fightback. The latter is a leader of student rebellion at Howard in 1989 and current mayor of Newark responsible for racist policies! But these liberal reformers lead us to accept a system in decay. No matter how hard we try, we can’t expect a tree with rotten roots to bear fruit.
Real victory against rotten daily conditions, racism, and capitalism can only come with the building of a revolutionary organization. Step up to fight in the class struggle today to build the long-term struggle for communism, the abolition of all forms of exploitation, and join the PLP!

PAKISTAN, November 17—The working class is under severe attack in Pakistan. This crisis is a crisis of capitalism, a system that will not save our class, only communist revolution will.
The Pakistani bosses were sinking in 2019 as their profits from exports dropped because of competition from even lower wage countries (The Diplomat, 4/18/2019). They begged the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to save them. Now the Pakistani bosses are making the working class pay their debt.
The desperation is widespread. Fuel prices have increased 47 percent  in the last year as part of a deal the Pakistani bosses cut with the IMF to raise prices in exchange for a massive bailout of the Pakistani ruling class (DW.com, 11/15).
The gas price increase has driven up prices of basic food items as well as most necessities. The official inflation rate is twice what it was in 2018, but the actual rate is much higher as businesses are closing and wages for the poorest workers are less than they were in 1991 (Tribune.com.pk, 11/16).
Yet, the working class continues to fight back. People are on the streets chanting against the ruling class and the capitalist system. There have been large demonstrations against the deteriorating conditions. A dynamic contingent of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members have joined the fightback, countering dead-end electoral politics and nationalism with communist politics.
Capitalist crisis leads to rising fascism
As the crisis deepens, the ruling class is increasing fascist attacks against both their enemies from competing factions and against the working class. State oppression is the worst it’s been in the history of this country. Social media and the mainstream media are under tight control. People are being tortured, kidnapped and killed in various parts of the country if they speak out against state oppression or exploitation.
Communists or others with radical ideas against capitalism are declared to be enemies of the State. Talking against exploitation, inequality, injustice, fundamentalism and poverty is considered anti-state, which means many workers risk  imprisonment or disappearance. Truth has to be fought for and we are struggling to prevail. The Judiciary, Parliament and other institutions of the state are focused on jailing political organizers.
Pakistani bosses sell working class to IMF
Price hikes are making the lives of the working class miserable but bosses are giving a nonsense excuse that prices are going up all over the world because of Covid-19 and restrictions on air traffic. When capitalism is in crisis, it is workers that bear the brunt of exploitation. The annual inflation rate is at its highest this decade,  almost 20 percent, which results in  increased prices all over the country. The bosses’ political parties are not organizing demonstrations against these price hikes, but rather are just maneuvering to try to get themselves to the table with the IMF.
Political parties in Pakistan are led by capitalist lackeys,  so they are not concerned about inflation but they desperately want to get power by any means. Bourgeois parties are just talking about inflation and trying to mislead the masses by blaming only the party in power. These misleaders are hiding the fact that capitalism is to blame. These capitalist parties are not allowing workers  to participate in strikes or sit-ins organized by students and workers.
The official and self-proclaimed left wing in Pakistan  is just serving the bosses while praising  socialism. They pretend to be progressive but in fact they are not. They are reactionary and reformist. They use every backward idea i.e, tribalism, racism, ethnicity, sectarianism and nationalism to bring people close to them, just as we would expect from bosses.
The future is in fighting back and communist revolution
Workers, students, and professional organizations are demonstrating all over the country against inflation and ruling class lies and crimes. Comrades and friends of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) are participating in the demonstrations with anti-imperialist, pro-worker and communist chants and politics. Our comrades are condemning the capitalist system publicly by recounting its cruelties and holding the bosses accountable. Comrades are fighting for a  system based on "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.” That is communism! Our communist thoughts are being criticized  by so-called progressives as well as liberals and capitalists because they know that our line is a true threat to capitalist society.
We are involved in organizing protests, strikes and sit-ins against poverty, homelessness, exploitation and unemployment. Our young comrades are leading the demonstrations in  some places. Our comrades involved in professional organizations are trying to unite the struggle of the different segments of society against the capitalist evils. We are striving in difficult situations to bring more people under the red flag of our international revolutionary communist party—PLP!

CHICAGO, November 14– Progressive Labor Party (PLP) comrades have joined a working-class struggle against the racist closure of a local Aldi’s supermarket in Garfield Park. During a global pandemic that has further strained food access across the country, this disgusting and racist assault against mostly Black workers shows that the bosses will happily let our class suffer.
 Workers in the neighborhood and PLP, however, have banded together to ensure there is immediate action taken to care for our class brothers and sisters. We are also maintaining a long-term outlook that only a communist revolution will rid us of these capitalist cruelties.
Food deserts plague Black workers
Closing this store,  the only source of fresh food in the area,  creates yet another “food desert,” a location lacking healthy eating options. It also exacerbates medical problems such as high blood pressure and diabetes among workers in the neighborhood. According to some estimates, at least half a million workers in Chicago – the majority of whom are Black – currently live within areas considered food deserts (Chicago Sun-Times, 11/9).
But as the global worker fightbacks currently happening  show (see page 3), workers aren’t going down so quietly! Shortly after the closure, some non-profit groups and health advocacy organizations protested at the Aldi headquarters during which they rightfully blasted the attack.
Local workers and organizations  have also organized free distribution of fresh produce every Saturday in the parking lot for workers in the neighborhood. These actions should be applauded and they display that even in the darkest night confidence in the working class can never be overstated. These actions have presented a strong opening for an infusion of communist politics and leadership to ensure food insecurity forever becomes history for all workers.
When bosses starve us, workers provide
The closing of the Aldi store in Garfield Park came as a shock to practically everybody. It was literally open one day and closed the next. A PLP member who works in a nearby neighborhood got wind of the fightback and quickly advocated for our participation in the struggle. He volunteered at the produce distribution where he was able to make conversation with several workers as well as pass out some copies of CHALLENGE.
The following day, in our study-action group, we made a collective commitment to assist in the food distribution while connecting the struggle to other fights going on currently in the city, from Covid-19 breakouts in schools, to closing hospitals, to racist deportations and police terror. It’s essential to see all of these assaults as part and parcel of capitalism’s need to divide and exploit the working class.
Pandemic’s effects on hunger
It is no coincidence that this attack comes during a pandemic that has destroyed food stability worldwide. Almost 15 percent of U.S. households and 18 percent with children reported food insecurity early in the pandemic (Nutrition Journal, 8/31/20).  Nearly four in 10 Black and Latin homes with children have struggled to feed their families during the Covid-19 rampage. The percentages of families considered food insecure have surged among workers, already having surpassed the 2008-09 Great Recession numbers (Politico, 7/6/20).
The pandemic also caused a spike in global hunger, with 2.3 billion people now lacking year round access to adequate food (U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, 9/12). Just as the liberal rulers convened to stake out their hollow plans to tackle climate change in the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference this past week, at least four countries—including Yemen, Madagascar, South Sudan, and Ethiopia—are already experiencing famine-like conditions, with both Covid-19 and climate change compounding things, especially for Yemen (OXFAM, 8/4/20, see editorial). The ruling class not only enables this suffering, but tremendously profits from it (CBS News, 3/31).
Plant the seeds of communist revolution
Time and time again, we see the bosses and their capitalist system horrifically fail our class, but as workers we always step up to look out and provide for one another. With every capitalist-caused climate disaster or health epidemic, the selfless and inherently communist character of the working class rises to the forefront in solidarity.
But as noble as these actions may be, alone they will never bring about the world we need and deserve. In order to establish a world that puts the well-being of the international working class above all else, it’s necessary to violently seize state power from the bosses through revolution. The capitalists waste millions of tons of food every year while workers starve, only because they can’t make a profit off it, just like Aldi. Under communism, we will draw from science and the examples of past revolutions in Russia and China that collectivized food production and distribution in order to end malnutrition and starvation.
No capitalist-funded non-profit group will ever advocate for this! As we fight to feed ourselves today, let’s keep planting the seeds of a communist world that will one day ensure that no worker goes without.

Under capitalism, workers are a commodity whose only value is determined by the bosses, based on their ability to create wealth for capitalists. As a worker becomes seemingly less “profitable” to the ruling class their value dwindles in the eyes of capitalism, leaving many older workers unsupported. But Progressive Labor Party (PLP) “retirees” are fighting back! In the face of an insurance merger that is hanging working class folks out to dry, we are loudly calling out this racist, capitalist, for profit system and demanding healthcare the communist way: to each according to need!
In many parts of the world, working people get medical treatments only if they can pay for them. Older workers who no longer produce wealth for the bosses are left to die in poverty. Retired New York City (NYC) workers are currently facing these facts of capitalist exploitation as a new health insurance plan is in the works, promoted by the city and union bosses.
The new plan  “promises”  “cost savings” for the same or better care. Retirees are up in arms. They fear the exact opposite: higher costs and worsening care. Moreover, lower income retirees, mainly Black, Latin and women workers will  be the most severely affected. That’s capitalism. Profits for the capitalists off the backs of “savings” from the workers, with a large dose of racism. The whole capitalist system has to go.
The Municipal Labor Council, a coalition of city worker unions, and the city’s political bosses are contracting our health insurance coverage to a private, for profit, insurance company. This will mean higher premiums for those of us who want to continue with our current insurance. For those of us who accept the new plan there is the potential reduction of care and fewer choices of health care providers. Meanwhile, profits will be guaranteed to the new insurance monolith, a merger of Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield and Emblem Health.
Retirees are not giving in without a fight. When we found out about the deal that the Municipal Labor Council (MLC) and New York City were planning, all hell broke out. Retired PLP members, active in retiree groups, were part of the struggle from the beginning. Campaigns began to inform retirees of what was happening behind closed doors.
First, angry seniors circulated an online petition to stop the MLC from continuing its bargaining with the city. Over 27,000 signed on. Demonstrations were held at City Hall and at union headquarters. Politicians’ offices and union officials were bombarded by angry phone calls. A court case was filed to stop the change of medical coverage. Currently, there is a temporary order stopping the new coverage changeover. Thousands of those affected participated in online meetings to discuss the changes because we couldn’t meet in person.
All these actions reflected both the fighting spirit that persists  in these older workers but also the ideological hold that bosses’ ideas have on us. Some of us think that the union misleaders will win in court or that these hacks will convince New York’s liberal politicians to pass some laws helping city workers. But we already have up to six retirement “Tiers” for city workers. Each Tier has been worse than the previous one. Now the City is trying to do the same with our health insurance. Liberal politicians or union functionaries are agents of the racist, finance capitalist bosses who run New York City.
Communists on the other hand present a way forward for our class that will get us off the treadmill of constant struggle to survive this racist exploitative system. As we organize and fight back, we advance communist ideas by circulating, CHALLENGE, building study groups and recruiting to Progressive Labor Party. Building the communist movement is the main way we can guarantee the health of our class and it is a struggle that we continue to commit to year after year. Only under communism does a health care system put the health of the working class first and there are absolutely no profits to be made! Fight for communism!