LA Communist School: Study & Collectivity Build Morale

Los Angeles, CA—Members of Progressive Labor Party, with our coworkers and friends, spent the weekend at a cadre school with the theme, “It’s Not Just Trump, It’s Capitalism!” (see letters, page 6).
The weekend kicked off with a rich discussion of political economy. We analyzed the inner workings of capitalist exploitation by examining our own current and previous jobs. The diversity of our stories as workers helped us to understand that all workers create surplus value (profits) for the ruling class. We also saw how racism and sexism are used to maximize these profits.
In the afternoon we focused on the Russian Revolution and a time where one-sixth of the world was able to eliminate some of the ills of capitalism. We read essays from Langston Hughes’ book Good Morning Revolution. We learned that when a society is not driven by profit, the need for racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination dissipate. For example, the Soviet Union enforced strict policies and rules that outlawed racism. As a result, within 15 years, threre was significant progress in eliminating racial discrimination against Jewish people and other minority groups.
On the second day we focused on the need for a revolutionary communist party to bring about revolutionary change. We watched a part of the movie, The Square, which told the story of the 2011 Arab Spring in Egypt. There were serious weaknesses in te movement, such as having the illusion that the army had sided with the workers, and the absence of a mass communist party that could lead the workers to power.
The discussion about the weaknesses of the Arab Spring led us to look for how we could organize ourselves in a different way. We heard reports about organizing struggles and building PLP in mass organizations and we armed ourselves with dialectical materialism (our working-class philosophy). We concluded that revolutionary change cannot occur without the leadership of a mass PLP.
In one workshop, someone raised the idea of having a society based on barter. Under communism, we ask from each according to commitment, to each according to need. Trading or bartering can be halted on a whim simply because someone doesn’t want to conduct trade anymore. Under communism, no single individual will be able to make such a decision and the masses would be involved with everything including the production and distribution of all necessities.  
While the workshops discussed the theory of communism and how it could be implemented, the rest of the weekend showed small glimmers of communism in practice. Cooking, cleaning and other responsibilities were tackled collectively, as they would be in a communist society. Duties changed night to night. One night, the dinner prep team ran into some trouble, but it was quickly resolved when someone else stepped in and helped out. Hooray for collectivity!
The high point of the weekend came when a comrade that was with us in Sacramento to battle the racist Nazis, stood up and joined the Party! We welcomed him with orange juice toasts, thunderous applause and with everyone singing Bella Ciao. Another nail was added to capitalism’s coffin. The fight for a communist world continues!