The Los Angeles ‘Shifters’: Homegrown communist fightback

LOS ANGELES, February 2—The fight to defend a working-class family and their home against the housing profiteers reveals the seeds of  communism.
The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) has always said that the seeds of communism, the egalitarian society that we are fighting for, and that humanity deserves, are already present in everyday life. It is PLP’s historical role to nourish the growth of those seeds. We must prepare our new comrades for a lifetime of struggle. We will construct unbreakable political and personal bonds that will withstand all the blows from our class enemy and lead the international working class to victory in that fight. In the midst of multiple crises of capitalism, we in PLP are seeing small but important signs of this revolutionary potential for our class.
At the beginning of the campaign to reclaim the home of a working class family in Inglewood, most of the “shifters”, the scores of people who have kept up a 24/7 security watch over the family and their home, thought they would be keeping watch for only a day or two. We were sure the cops would come in almost immediately to raid the home and, for a second time, drag the family out of the house they had lived in for 14 years. But the “shifters”, including several PLP members, were wrong – we have now completed our sixth  week of vigilance.
We have learned some valuable lessons and seen some encouraging and uplifting signs during this campaign.  The “shifters” are a group of young, committed organizers.  Some call themselves socialists, some anarchists, some are attracted to communism. Some just want to fight back against yet another atrocity of capitalism. The gatherings at the house have afforded us the opportunity to have countless, long political discussions with our fellow “shifters”, who are hungry for alternatives to what they already recognize to be a deadly, dehumanizing entity – capitalism.
Many ways to win people to communism
We have learned that the Party’s line can be brought forward in many creative ways while working in a mass organization – even in the middle of a worldwide pandemic. The co-sponsoring groups, a local non-profit and a tenants’ union, organized a virtual forum on Covid-19. From this, we developed a list of “community agreements” aimed at keeping ourselves and the family safe from the virus. The presenter at that forum, a PLP health care worker, put forward a class analysis of the racist, capitalist health care system, which continues to fail workers affected by the pandemic and its terrible consequences.
We also had an open mic night, at which “shifters”, including two Party members, read poetry, played instruments and sang political songs. The artistic presentations gave us another opportunity to put forward the idea that capitalism can never provide housing for everyone. But communism means exactly that: housing for all.
Additionally, there was a forum on how to deal with anxiety in the middle of the pandemic. Everyone understood this has been made worse than necessary by the ravages of capitalism.  There were forums on topics as wide-spread as gardening, including growing one’s own vegetables, to self-defense. An upcoming forum will discuss the history of tenants and homeowners militantly fighting back against evictions under communist leadership.
Whatever the outcome of the campaign, we have seen a glimmer of the possibility of life under communism. The “shifters”, few of whom knew each other before the December 18 reclamation of the house, have developed strong bonds of friendship and support over these last weeks. They see themselves as a community of people, each looking out for the needs of the other and working together to keep each other safe. Invariably a call goes out on the campaign’s thread from “shifters” coming on duty as to whether the people already there need anything, be it firewood to keep warm, food, water or other supplies.
Plans to sharpen the struggle
Members of the campaign see this struggle as larger than just saving a single home for a single working-class family. Future actions are planned regardless of whether or not “ownership” of the house is returned to the family. A key one will be an anti-gentrification car caravan through the Inglewood neighborhood, culminating at the SoFi stadium, a concrete symbol of capitalism’s voracious appetite for profits over people’s needs.
Party members involved in the campaign have openly discussed communism with other “shifters” and have distributed copies of CHALLENGE to both the family and several “shifters”. We feel confident that we will soon be able to organize a study group with a number of people in the campaign.  
The fight for a communist revolution will be long and hard, but this campaign has shown us that ingredients for the growth of that fight already lie within many of our working class brothers and sisters. We have nothing to lose but our chains. We have a world to win.