NEW YORK CITY, January 3 — The recent Obama Nobel Peace Prize award and widespread budget cuts have opened the door to build the Party at our school. Our goal as communists in PLP is to link the cuts to the bosses’ massive war budget for Afghanistan and Iraq, to expose the inter-imperialist wars and rivalries dominating the world and to expose the nature of the cuts as racist, an attack on the overwhelmingly black and Latino student population.
A PL teacher had already planned to teach a unit on Afghanistan as part of the World Literature curriculum. As soon as he heard that Obama was sending even more troops, he seized the opportunity to discuss it in the classroom.
The comrade discussed the pipeline (see CHALLENGE, 12/23/09) and explained that capitalism is little more than organized crime — whoever controls the product, controls the streets. When the class was asked what product was being fought over, they shot back “oil to control the world.”
The students were informed that they would soon be watching the film “Afghan Women” and that a comrade who had served in Iraq would be visiting the classroom to discuss the war. Integrating Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize with the current escalation of the pipeline war, combined with proper classroom planning, created the opportunity to build closer ties with the students and raise class struggle and consciousness.
That same day, the school’s union chapter was meeting to discuss the budget cuts, the fact that the bosses want to remove tenure and fire teachers after ten years as well as other attacks on the working class. PL teachers and students in the school had already decided at an earlier PLP club meeting to call for a demonstration in front of the school. So at the union meeting PL’ers raised the need to fight back through a rally. The chapter leader liked the idea so it was agreed that a union action would be set for the following Tuesday. PL’ers envisaged bringing students since only by building
worker-student unity can the Party and the fight for communism be advanced.
One teacher who has previously participated with the Party took leadership, made the flier and posted it for the event on Monday. The event could not have happened without her help and initiative.
The PL teacher didn’t do enough to build for it, but at 5:30 AM the alarm rang and he showed up alone, in the cold, to be met by other teachers. Several others showed support, and one asked to join the action committee to help plan larger future events. Several students walking by joined the rally. Within ten minutes, a group of four teachers and ten students were rallying outside the school chanting, “Budget cuts mean, we gotta fight back.” One teacher in particular was impressed and inspired as she did not believe the students would be so loud.
Though the rally was small, it raised spirits at the school. Now people there want to hold another one. Aspects of the Party’s politics were clearly present as workers and students united under communist leadership to fight for our class. Years of patient CHALLENGE distribution and struggles inside the classroom as well as hours spent afterwards at local taverns bore fruit when the opportunity presented itself.
Though the chapter leader had the best of intentions, she wanted to postpone the rally until the media could be called. This could have been disastrous since it might have re-enforced the ideology of “we can’t do anything.” This thinking of “let’s not do anything until every ‘t’ is crossed” and “let’s rely on the media” are bad ideas. They hold us back from struggle and make us dependent on part of our enemy — the bosses’-owned and -controlled media.
We must constantly do everything we can, within the limits of our circumstances, to motivate our co-workers towards increased struggle and understanding of communist ideas.
Many students who later heard about the rally were excited about it and wanted to participate in another one. Two signs that the students made were posted in the hallway adjacent to a classroom and many students read them with pride. This will be the first of many actions we will organize, becoming schools for communism to bring down the system.
The following Thursday the union chapter leader noted that a recently-closed school had just organized a large rally, saying we should do one in solidarity with them. She said that since the Tuesday rally went so well, we should have a larger one in front of the school, invite students and parents and notify the media. This action clearly illustrates how the working class leads the way and that we have much to learn from them.
(Continued next issue; stay tuned)