Actions speak louder than words at education caucus

SEPTEMBER 11— On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, more than 65 faculty, academic workers, and graduate students gathered in a virtual forum sponsored by the Radical Caucus of the Modern Language Association (MLA) to analyze “New Keywords of Our Struggle.” Setting a key theme of the conference—“capitalism continues to kill us, as it is intended to do”—the keynote speaker, an adjunct, quoted Karl Marx’s statement that the original accumulation of capital in Europe was a story written “in letters of blood and fire.” He urged “communism” and “the dictatorship of the proletariat” as the keywords needed to end climate catastrophe, pandemic mass death, and racist killer cops.
He said that he looked forward to the day when words like “race”, “exploitation”, “property”, and “wages” joined “the lexicon of archaic terms.” Six speakers and a vigorous open discussion followed, demonstrating the sharpening of Progressive Labor Party’s (PLP) work among academics and emphasizing the need for current organizing to be guided by a revolutionary outlook and party.
The politics of words
Speakers highlighted how certain “keywords” either open doors for more radical organizing or obscure or discourage such organizing. A Black professor criticized the new keyword “intersectionality”, arguing how it can also cover up campus policies better described by an old keyword, “exploitation.”A university union leader analyzed the term “union” as itself a contradiction: workers are weaker facing the boss without a union, which makes more unified struggle against capitalist exploitation possible; however, the union itself, narrowly focused only on its own members, becomes a barrier to wider working-class consciousness.  
A recent Black college grad, now an elementary school teacher, described how she is pushed by her bosses to use the keyword “professionalism,” even with her very young students, which she criticized as a way to obscure the exploitation of teachers and fill young students with self-blame.
Other speakers, like one organizer from Colombia, highlighted the need to bring words in other languages and struggles in other countries into the political awareness of people in the Global North. She explained the power of terms like “la primera línea”(the frontline, youth brigades who protect marchers) and “la minga” (collective decisions in popular assemblies) to building anti-capitalist and revolutionary consciousness. A speaker from Afghanistan, now teaching in CUNY, interrogated the keyword of “the state,” noting how imperialists have used the capitalist concepts of modernization, human rights, and women’s rights to obscure the aims of the U.S. invasions and occupations.
The final speaker sharpened the discussion of keywords by introducing the concept of joining a communist party, specifically PLP. Only by building a mass communist party can we actually abolish the death trap of capitalism. He contrasted communism with socialism, which at best only moderates capitalist exploitation. Social Democrats (liberal fascists) like Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez or Bernie Sanders want to give workers a few crumbs while they lead us into dead end electoral politics. Communists know we have to destroy the bosses’ state and smash their ability to exploit our labor.
 PLP’s line made clear
Vigorous debates followed, including sharp questions about the contradiction between communist revolution and national liberation. PLP’s line against nationalism was made clear. Participants concluded the conference urging the Radical Caucus to hold future keywords discussions focusing on individual or juxtaposed words: “communism” or even “communism vs. socialism” or “communism vs. climate collapse. “Having a member of PLP speak openly about the need to build not only a communist movement but also a communist party like PLP reflected the growing awareness of the inability of capitalism to meet the needs of the world’s workers. It also reflected the crucial role of PLP’s long-term organizing and relationships established in the CUNY Professional Staff Congress (union), the Marxist Literary Group, and the Radical Caucus.
Since the January 2021 MLA Convention, we have worked closely in the Radical Caucus to build friendships and political ties with faculty and students, organizing an April 30 Conference on “Class Struggles in Higher Education,” three “Keywords” Reading Groups leading up to the Sept. 11 Forum, and panels for the upcoming MLA Convention in January 2022. Given the anti-communism in fake-left circles, having a long term approach to base building, communist organizing and Party building is crucial to making the discussion of communism and the need for a communist party front and center.