Multiracial Rebellion Terrorizes Rulers

FERGUSON, MO — The capitalist ruling class has been rocked by the protests that have gone on for over two months since the racist police murder of our working-class brother Mike Brown. The rebels have shown creativity in fighting back against police terror, including interrupting baseball games and a symphony performance to keep attention on Ferguson.  A group of PLP comrades went to the St. Louis area for the recent protests and are all going back to their areas with new energy and a better political understanding of why the rulers are terrified by this rebellion.
The bosses are using two main tactics to stop the movement: outright fascism, and liberal co-optation. These reflect both a tactical split but also a strategic unity in the ruling class. With the first tactic, fascist terror, the rulers and their police thought they could just beat the fight out of the workers and students in St. Louis County. After weeks of daily protests, they had underestimated the resolve of the protesters who refused to give in to fear and terror, images of which were seen around the world.
Our Party contingent experienced this in a very direct way. On Friday, October 10, riot police with heavy armored vehicles confronted about 150 protesters in St. Louis during a march for another black youth who was recently shot eight times by an off-duty cop after purchasing a sandwich at a convenience store.
After being harassed by police at a march on the following day who demanded our literature and to know why we were there, we were again stopped by St. Louis County police when we entered a predominately black apartment complex in Ferguson to talk to residents. They told us that since the Brown shooting this harassment has stepped up, with St. Louis County police joining the Ferguson police in patrolling the largely black working-class neighborhoods.
Contrary to our assumption that Ferguson residents would be reluctant or even tired of talking to us, the workers and students in the apartments were enthusiastic about talking to us about communism and taking CHALLENGE, with some even giving small donations.
Complementing outright fascist terror, the liberal wing of the ruling class has a more sophisticated – and dangerous — tactic to stop these spontaneous rebellions from turning into a more organized working-class movement: to co-opt the protests and portray themselves as the protectors of the black residents against the racist/fascist police and openly racist white politicians.
After the rulers figured out they could not terrorize the rebels and crush the rebellion with violence alone, they unleashed hordes of liberal misleaders on the protesters, aggressively promoting U.S. nationalism and racial identity politics, particularl, the anti-working class ideas of “white privilege” and
“black power.” These ideas are an ideological attack on working-class consciousness by dividing our class for the rulers who will need more boots on the ground for larger imperialist wars brewing.  
The demand for the indictment of racist cop Darren Wilson is being promoted by the liberal wing of the ruling class in order to diffuse the class anger and prevent a larger rebellion. They want the protesters to settle for a resolution to the situation through the rulers fake injustice system and in doing so restore faith in that system- the same system that murdered Mike Brown.
They especially don’t want the young black protesters to believe that the ruling class is all about maintaining super-profits for a few billionaires by exploiting the entire working class.That the rebellion has been so multiracial and has drawn in Asian, Latin, black, and white workers and students from all over, terrifying for the rulers because they see the potential unravelling of their race-based system of rule. Liberal rulers have had some success in promoting the idea to the protesters that only black, Latin, and Asian are beaten, oppressed and killed by the police.
Even as blacks are killed far more in proportion to their population, a plurality of workers shot by the police are white. From 2003 to 2009, there were 1,529 blacks and 949 Latinos killed by the police in the U.S., and 2,036 whites in this same period (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2011). Liberal misleaders like those at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice want to reform the police only so the racial disparities don’t look as blatant, and so legitimize police violence. Black workers are disproportionately terrorized in apartheid neighborhoods at the same time many working-class whites are also oppressed, but invisibly to the media because their job is to carry on the racist lies of the bosses. Communists don’t want equality in police shootings — we want to smash all police terror!
We militantly opposed the liberals through our bold presence at each demonstration, and through our interactions with the other protestors and workers. We approached them sincerely and looked for points of unity in their political understanding in order to move them toward communist ideas.
Crucial to our success was our organization and discipline in discussing and criticizing our efforts in a democratic centralist manner, and applying our lessons to future plans. In spite of battling exhaustion and sickness. This infused our group with tremendous energy.
We held two large discussions, one with interested college students and another with a group of contacts we had made and wanted to discuss our ideas, which led to new friendships, and furthered understanding of our fight.
Our multiracial, immigrant and native-born PLP contingent was itself a visible statement of internationalism. We proclaimed loudly that is impossible to get true justice through this murderous system and only a communist revolution, which overthrows the entire ruling class and their state, can bring true justice. Through our new friends and contacts with the workers and students there, and through our internal experiences organizing and practicing bringing our line to thousands of workers and students, we’re closer to that day.