NEW YORK, November 12 — This Veteran’s Day, twenty members and friends of Progressive Labor Party rallied against racist tuition hikes at Medgar Evers College (MEC), a Brooklyn branch of the City University of New York (CUNY). As we confronted campus cops and attacked racist police terror, we explained how imperialism is leading to world war. Most important, we raised the banner of communist revolution.
The next day, at Hunter College in Manhattan, PL’ers attended the much bigger Million Student March. Although if failed to point the way to revolution, three women PL’ers stepped up and provided a communist spark.
Defy the Bosses
At the MEC rally, CHALLENGE practically flew out of our hands; we distributed more than 350 papers before running out. Many student friends came to join us, with two providing strategic leadership. PLP declared that the best way to honor veterans is to fight U.S. imperialism and rally in solidarity with our working-class sisters and brothers in the Middle East.
After an hour-long outdoor demonstration, students made the bold decision to rally inside the MEC cafeteria, though we knew the campus kkkops would give us a hard time. Some students recognized us from our CHALLENGE sales and asked how they might get involved and come to our study groups. Others clapped and chanted with us. When the administration yelled at us to leave, we chanted, “When they say exit, we say fight back!”
With every rally at MEC, we meet more antiracist students. The struggle for a better world will continue as we fight to smash this racist system and replace it with communism!
Three Women Leaders, One Fierce Line
The Million Student March was called to demand tuition-free public college, cancellation of all student debt and a $15 minimum wage for campus workers. With nothing more than a bullhorn, a few signs, and determination, three women comrades again raised the banner of communism.
As we approached the rally, we heard an unamplified chanting with no class content: “CUNY for the people!” But the schools we have today will never be for working people. “Higher education” is an instrument of the ruling class to poison the next generation with racist, sexist ideas, and to justify capitalist inequalities. Colleges and universities foster research that attacks the working class, from military studies to racist pseudo-science on human intelligence. Under communism, after a mass working class seizes state power with a communist revolution, all workers will participate in lifelong education that serves the needs of our class.
At Hunter College, more than 150 protesters marched to Chancellor James B. Milliken’s house to demand an end to tuition hikes. Despite our strength in numbers, the march organizers called for everyone to follow the cops’ orders. These misleaders led chants like “There is only one solution, intifada revolution” while herding people onto the sidewalk! To be serious about revolution, you have to start training now. You take the streets, you use a bullhorn, and within the limits of the period and situation you defy the cops. You must have confidence in the working class, and you need a revolutionary communist party to lead.
On the march back to Hunter, we chanted, “Tuition hikes mean we got to fight back!” and “If we don’t get it, shut it down!” We linked tuition hikes to racist murders by cops; both are attacks on working-class youth. Soon all 150 people were chanting with us.
As we shared the bullhorn with others, the speeches became more militant, more anti-racist and anti-sexist, more class-based, and more international. It was inspiring to see what three women could do with a bullhorn and a sharp line. With just a little boldness, we were able to shift the politics sharply to the left.
Our struggle will be long and hard, but it makes for a life worth living. As we chanted as the rally, “The only solution is communist revolution!”
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CUNY, like all schools, serves the needs of the bosses. Capitalist education funnels us into the bosses’ system of competition and individualism. It tries to brainwash us into believing in the bosses’ sham of democracy and the myth of equal opportunity.
Since 2011, CUNY tuition has increased $300 per year, and more hikes for the city’four-year colleges are planned. Where is this money going? Not to improve education for these mainly Black, Latin, Asian, and immigrant students! In fact, our professors, staff, and campus workers haven’t seen a raise in six years. Many live in poverty. Rather, these tuition hikes are funding the bosses’ oil war plans.
In 2013, the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) was restored at CUNY. The capitalist rulers are intensifying recruitment of Black, Latin, and immigrant youth as U.S. imperialism moves toward broader global wars. The students now under-served at CUNY (and at public colleges throughout the U.S.) are the ones who will be drafted and sent to fight these wars.
When soldiers rebelled against the Vietnam War, Black soldiers led the way. Recently, in Ferguson and Baltimore, Black workers again led the fightback against racist murders by police. Students and workers have no stake in the bosses’ bloody conflicts. Only communism, a system run by and for workers, can create a world without tuition, poverty, and war.