NEW YORK STATE, July 18— “Shut this racist system down. If we don’t get it, SHUT IT DOWN!” A rally and march of about 150 workers and youth in the Hudson Valley region outside New York City demonstrated the extent to which the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless others, have angered and roused the masses. A multiracial group of women and men, student and faculty comrades and friends of the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) turned up at the rally to advocate for communist revolution. Among the PL’ers was a student with years of history and several contacts in the area.
Red ideas greeted by youth at antiracist rally
The rally was organized by a local group called Chester United, a social justice organization with Christian influences with a multiracial political base in the area and led mostly by young Black workers. Speakers from their organization included local politicians and others offering various dead-end ideas for fighting racism: voting, buying only from Black capitalist-owned businesses, increased dialogue with the local kkkops, fighting for Black “representation” in the bosses’ government, etc. When they opened the floor to everyone, however, Black youth with more militant politics stepped up to share their views.
While some of the group’s misleaders advocated reconciliation and “conversations” with the police, the rally itself began late. The reason? Prior to the rally, local kkkops shut down the roads leading to the rally site, so very few arrived on time– the kkkops claimed it was for “traffic safety” for the rally!
So much for reconciliation. Kkkops defend the capitalist state, and the capitalists know a mass multiracial antiracist movement with communist ideas is the end of them. A PL’er spoke about her experiences growing up there and emphasized how imperialist war and racist police terror are essential to capitalism. She also emphasized how Black workers are key to smashing capitalism and directly attacked liberalism and identity politics. More Black capitalists or “representation” in the bosses’ system isn’t better for ANY workers, Black or white.
Connecting the Hudson Valley antiracist struggles with current PLP antiracist struggles in CUNY, she cited the intensifying racist super-exploitation of Black-majority custodial workers at Kingsborough Community College, which has a Black woman president — and the key importance of communist-led multiracial unity in fighting back.
After inviting the crowd to join the international PLP, the majority of the crowd and especially the multiracial youth present applauded. More than 150 CHALLENGEs were sold, and some approached PL’ers with extra donations and for discussions afterward.
‘To be attacked is good…’
We then marched through the area neighborhoods, and the chants gained intensity and militancy. The youth marching in front picked up PLP chants attacking this racist system. When a racist heckled the march with a U.S. flag shouting “all lives matter,” he was militantly drowned out. By the end, many contacts were made. Some had ties to the Bronx and New Jersey, and ideas for collaborating and connecting the city and tri-state area were shared.
Later, PL’ers discovered on social media that PLP and CHALLENGE were attacked by name by Chester United’s liberal misleadership. These pathetic attacks show that when desperate for influence, liberal misleaders expose their capitalist and kkkop allegiance with anticommunism. They even attacked PL’ers as “outside agitators,” despite some being from the area!
Turn the tide for communist revolution
For the sake of our class, we must continue to have a presence in these mass movements and agitate for revolution. While we made more contacts upstate where the chokehold of liberalism seems weaker, the masses at both actions (see box) were receptive to our politics. This demonstrates the importance of being bold with communist politics, because the masses are eager to hear revolutionary ideas. JOIN OUR FIGHT!
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Solidarity with Portland
The following Saturday, student and faculty PL’ers and friends attended another mass action in response to the fascist intimidation tactics by the Small Fascist-led Trump administration (see back page). Almost 500 CHALLENGEs were sold to the thousands attending in solidarity with workers in Portland, Oregon who have been abducted by secret federal police and held for weeks without charge.
Liberal misleaders once again took the stage attempting to funnel mass outrage into electoral politics for the Big Fascist-led Democrats. One speaker from Movement 4 Black Lives opened his speech with anticommunist messages , stating “Take a look at Eastern European history if you wanna know how bad secret police are” and urged workers to vote, ignoring the masses of Latin migrant workers kidnapped, terrorized and deported under liberal Obama. Our chants calling for international working class solidarity were applauded and picked up and when one of the organizers attempted to drown us out with a mobile wireless speaker, we confronted him, telling him to get lost.