CHICAGO, July 19—Chants rang out from working-class tenants and their supporters: “People’s needs over landlords’ greed!” Seventy-five pro-housing fighters gathered in front of their south side apartment protesting their eviction notice by the new owners, a property management company by the name of LeVav. Copies of CHALLENGE were distributed to arm our class with communist ideas to counter this racist attack against the mostly Black senior residents of the building.
In a communist society, housing will no longer be a commodity, something to be bought and sold, it will be guaranteed for all working-class people. The notion of rent will be abolished completely. When we in Progressive Labor Party (PLP) say, “Fight for communism,” we mean an egalitarian society where housing justice is guaranteed!
Fight alongside workers, reject liberal Big Fascists’ poison
PLP joined with a coalition of tenants’ rights groups to support this struggle against LeVav and other real estate bosses. LeVav has bought several buildings with the goal of evicting workers, so they can charge new workers moving in up to 50 percent more in rent (Chicago Tribune, 7/24). Naturally, this has been pushed through without any say from the current tenants.
In the demonstration and rally, speakers stated that they want a chance to talk with LeVav, to try and negotiate a settlement with these capitalist robbers. The speakers included liberal Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez of the Pilsen neighborhood on the city’s west side. He noted that there are currently sixty thousand unhoused workers in Chicago, and that new legislation is needed to fight these few predatory companies who destabilize entire neighborhoods. He followed up this statement with “leftist sounding” rhetoric: “eviction is a violent process, and 82-year-olds shouldn’t be worried about where they’re going to live.”
This same alderman – quite the progressive celebrity Big Fascist politician (supporter of billionaire finance capitalists) – is also the chairperson of the Chicago City Council Housing Committee. Sigcho-Lopez and the City Council do not oppose the interests of the landlords. They get money for their campaigns to find the best deals for capitalists, no matter what they say. If the City Council wanted to outlaw the predatory and violent reality of evictions, they could pass laws right away to do it. But most workers know on which side the city government is on -- the landlords’ side. It is on us as communists in PLP to give the organizational leadership and political vision to win workers over to the fight for a worker-run society and housing for all.
Sigcho-Lopez failed to point out that these racist and violent displacements and evictions are not a new occurrence. In fact, the district that he represents has been going through gentrification for years. Because of the fundamental racist segregation and inequality of the capitalist profit system, evictions are mainly carried out in Black and Latin working-class neighborhoods.
In every major city, we are witnessing on a mass scale the displacement of workers in favor of higher income individuals and families. This is done under the logic of the capitalist system to maximize profits and increase property tax revenues.
Profit system is a menace, organize communist revolution
Don’t be fooled by slick Big Fascist politicians like Alderman Lopez; they know what side their bread is buttered on. They use progressive language and identity politics to gain the support of the working masses, disarming our class politically and setting us up for the inevitable attacks of racist state violence like evictions or police murder. They pretend to be on our side but stab us right in the back.
There are thousands of families evicted each year in Chicago, because under capitalism, profits always come first. The profit system is deadly for the working class – let’s organize a mass PLP and communist revolution to destroy capitalism forever!