Fifty members and friends of Progressive Labor Party from around the U.S. and Mexico, across borders, are participating in a Summer Project in Mexico. The PLP has planted the seeds of communism in Mexico, the U.S., and many other areas worldwide. We’re cultivating these seeds, a long-term process with many ups and downs, which will prepare the international working class for its role in making communist revolution.
This process involves many inter-connected elements, all of which are evident at the Project in Mexico:
The working class requires international unity, which we put into practice by building ties between comrades and friends across borders and by supporting workers’ and students’ struggles in all areas of the world. In building an international Party, we are overcoming capitalist divisions caused by racism, nationalism and sexism, as well as obstacles like different languages and cultural backgrounds.
Communists organize the working class and give leadership in the class struggle while introducing and fighting for PLP’s communist ideas in the struggle.
We understand the importance of raising the political consciousness of the working class and making communist ideas mass ideas. In the process of revolution for communism and consolidation of the new communist society this ideology is a powerful weapon.
We learn how to answer workers’ questions about the strengths and weaknesses of the old communist movement, how communism works in practice and overcoming capitalist individualism and anti-communist lies.
We are building a base among workers and students in order to organize Party study-action groups and Party clubs (collectives of members).
We are developing new leadership, especially among youth and women.
Spread PLP Literature
In all areas, the PLP in Mexico is advancing. During the Summer Project, we organized study groups to understand the Party’s line: “What We Fight For.” Workers and youth in Party concentrations in factories, communities and schools agreed to join the study groups. One dynamic young woman, active at her university, joined PLP.
In the first week of the Project, we distributed hundreds of CHALLENGES written and printed in Mexico. We also distributed 3,000 flyers about a community fighting back against government plans to cause flooding. They want to form reservoirs where water will be sent to purification plants and sold at prices working-class families can’t afford. Whole neighborhoods risk losing their homes so the government can continue to provide abundant water to wealthy citizens and irrigate large farms owned by capitalists inside and outside Mexico. Meanwhile, water is turned off in poor workers’ homes for many hours at a time.
Anger and fear are mixed as neighbors in this community organize to fight back with communist leadership and growing consciousness about the necessity to organize for communist revolution.
Capitalism offers scarcity, poverty and exploitation to the working class, from Mexico to India! The Party will organize international support for this struggle. (More details in an upcoming article.)
The Project so far has been well-organized and strongly led by a team of workers and students, including five women leaders from Mexico and the U.S. Capitalism uses sexism, like racism and nationalism, to divide workers and keep our class weak. Communists reject the idea that women and men should have separate roles in society. We need to pay more attention to winning and developing women in order to build unity and strengthen the Party and the working class.
Workers and youth from Mexico and the U.S. are organizing together, cooking and cleaning collectively, and overcoming the language barrier. Onward to week two!
(More articles and letters will follow about communist organizing among workers and youth and in the communities, among teachers and students, and evaluation and experiences of Project volunteers.)