Red school: ‘Fight to learn, learn to fight’

We want to make it clear that we can win to a [communist] perspective 99 percent of the forces who hold nationalist ideas.

NEW YORK, January 14—Over the long weekend, 25 members and friends of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) participated in a cadre school that exposed nationalism and advanced the need for an internationalist communist movement organized by the PLP. Our collective discussions will help us better understand the world, steel ourselves to fight back and grow PLP to liberate our class from capitalism. Our conclusion: we need communism to do so.

Participants included recent college graduates, a high school student, and workers with several different occupations (teachers, fitness trainers, a paraprofessional, a construction worker, a journalist, a lash tech, a social worker, a stay-at-home dad, and a retired doctor, just to name a few). The cadre school was multi-racial and multi-gendered, with leadership provided by younger members, several of whom are Black workers.

1. Where we are at
In the first workshop of the weekend, we discussed the state of the world. We read how 2023 was chock full of tragedies and capitalist horrors for the international working class, yet it was also brimming with fightback and brought with it more opportunities to build PLP and a working-class movement to smash this genocidal system.

We discussed how hard it can be to combat the cynicism and apathy that many workers and youth feel with the capitalist world as it is. Still, to not fight back is to resign ourselves to defeat. By building a communist movement with a long-term outlook, we know that one day we will turn these tragedies into their opposite. One worker shared how despite being one of the few Latino workers on his job, he is committed to fighting racist ideas and ignorance around him. This commitment to fighting back is exactly the sort of resistance with a long-term outlook the cadre school aimed to foster.

2. What we need to fight
In our second workshop, we discussed the dangers of all forms of nationalism, even so-called revolutionary nationalism. We read about specific case studies in Ukraine, Palestine, the Horn of Africa, and Israel to see how nationalism hurts workers in those regions of the world. We broke into smaller groups to focus on these case studies and then shared what we learned with one another.

As the Israeli ruling class carries out a genocide against workers in Palestine, Palestinian bosses have nothing to offer our class siblings but profiteering and pipedreams. The Palestinian ruling class, which only consists of a handful of rich families, has historically fled to neighboring nations to invest in new commercial ventures and rebuild their businesses.

In the Horn of Africa, imperialists and their lackeys have driven workers to famine through ongoing wars and power struggles. In Ukraine, the construction of a national identity and state has done nothing but give workers the option to die allying themselves with bloodsoaked US imperialists over bloodsoaked Russian imperialists.
One youth expressed his desire to join the army to defend workers in Ukraine against Russian imperialism. This prompted one of the most lively discussions of the weekend. While some friends thought it important to warn of the dangers of war, several PL’ers chimed in to explain that no imperialist war would benefit workers. If we are enlisting in the military, it must be to help turn soldiers’ guns around. The only war the working class needs is class war!

3. Where we are going
To finish out the weekend, our final workshop discussed the need for communism and critiqued the rise of identity politics. We discussed the ways that Black capitalists, women capitalists, and queer capitalists have only continued the racism and exploitation of workers around the world. We highlighted PLP’s line that we can and must move directly from capitalism to communism and asked the group whether such dramatic change is indeed possible.

In response, one PL’er shared her family’s history of fighting in wars in Eritrea. Although the struggle was ultimately nationalist despite having some Marxist-Leninist elements, her point was about how much can change in 30 years. If we fight for communism, rather than a nationalist revolution, and build our Party, imagine the amount of real change workers can achieve in even a short time!

Confidence in the working class
The cadre school showed glimmers of what is possible with communist leadership and the type of society we hope to build after a revolution. All of us took turns cooking and cleaning up after meals, and participants took turns with childcare. One member pointed out how exhausting capitalism can be and raised the need to “give one another grace” as we fight to learn and learn to fight.

One veteran comrade called this “the most united cadre school” he has been a part of. It was an example of how we can win millions to a communist understanding of the world through study and struggle. As one participant said, “ordinary people can do extraordinary things.” We have a better world to win. Join us.