Retirees support immigrant workers, fight nationalism

Washington, DC, 7/23 - Worker’s struggles have no borders! That was the sentiment that led members of NYC’s District Council 37 Retirees’ Association (including a Progressive Labor Party member) to bring a strong resolution of support for immigrants facing “racist, cruel and uncaring” policies to the nationwide retiree council of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). The world’s capitalists are ramping up racism and nationalism in preparation for more and bigger wars. Workers all around the world must sharpen our efforts to smash all borders with multiracial unity as we build a revolutionary movement for communism.

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U.S. state terrorism spawns individual terrorists

El Paso Dayton. Gilroy. Add these cities to the growing list of mass shootings that have occurred in the U.S. in 2019 alone. Of the 968 victims, 196 people have died. The shooting in El Paso, Texas on August 3 was among the deadliest attacks in the U.S. motivated by gutter racism. It happened as the greatest terrorist of all, U.S. imperialism, is declining around the world and is rotting internally. The answer is multiracial working-class unity and comradeship as we fight against racism and sexism now and for an egalitarian, communist world in the future.

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200th anniversary of Peterloo Massacre

The Peterloo Massacre is a snapshot in the history of class struggle around the world that is largely hidden from workers by the rulers. Though this was not a revolutionary struggle but rather one for electoral rights, it does show the determination of workers to fight back against the intolerable conditions that capitalism imposes on our class.

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Sudan caught in imperialist crossfire

After months of mass demonstrations against a military coup and crackdown that killed over 100 protesters in June, Sudan’s governing generals, the Transitional Military Council (TMC), are negotiating a power-sharing agreement with liberal capitalists in the political opposition, the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC). But the main contradiction in Sudan, the tension that generated the current crisis, is the same one shaping events around the world: inter-imperialist rivalry between a rising China and a declining U.S. as they head toward the next world war.

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Smash racist deportations— Workers have no nations!

Chicago, July 13—Thousands of workers poured into downtown Chicago this weekend to protest against the racist attacks on undocumented workers. This multiracial, multi-gendered and multi-generational crowd showed the power of a united working class. As a youth marching with our Progressive Labor Party (PLP) contingent said, “If we don’t get it, shut it down!”

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The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact: lies and truth

August 23 marks the 80th anniversary of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (also known as the Hitler-Stalin Pact) between the then-socialist Soviet Union and Hitler’s Nazi Germany, on the eve of  World War II. This was a non-aggression treaty, not an alliance, as the anti-communist capitalist historians want us to believe. The Soviets needed to buy time to build up their military and industrial capabilities before they could take on the German fascists. Not only did the Soviet Red Army take on the Nazis, they smashed them, driving  them all the way back to Berlin. 80 percent of German casualties in World War II were at the hands of the Soviet forces. But this victory came at a political cost as the communists promoted the nationalist idea of “defending the motherland” instead of inspiring and organizing workers everywhere to rise up against the Nazis and all capitalists.

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Trump and de Blasio agree: set killer kkkop free

NEW YORK CITY, July 24—When Eric Garner fought for his life five years ago, saying “I can’t breathe” 11 times before dying in a chokehold captured on video, outrage at this racist cop murder exploded in an outpouring of militant multiracial demonstrations that shut cities down.
Eric Holder, Obama’s do-nothing attorney general, refused to pursue a federal civil rights charge against Daniel Pantaleo, Garner’s killer. This has now resulted in no punishment for this fiend. Meanwhile liberal mayor Bill de Blasio refuses to meet the Garner family’s demand to fire Pantaleo.

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Sinai workers fight to unionize; needs communism

CHICAGO, July 17 – Workers from Mount Sinai Hospital continue to sharpen the class struggle against their racist and sexist bosses. Today, a multiracial delegation of workers, including comrades from Progressive Labor Party (PLP), marched in the building to interrupt the hospital bosses’ phony “town hall” meeting.
By taking the offensive and regularly engaging in bold direct actions, we are collectively deepening our understanding of our power as a united working class. Those of us in PLP are proud to be giving and receiving leadership from our class sisters and brothers in this struggle for an improved worker and patient environment.

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2019 Summer Project: ‘Inspired to be a better communist’

The following letters are from the Summer Project in Texas organized about the Mexico-U.S. border and anti-immigrant racism (see CHALLENGE, 7/24).
This year marks the fifth summer project I attended, and it was by far the most sobering, transformative, and politically enriching one yet. I had both the misfortune and opportunity of being an eyewitness to the bosses’ monstrous border crisis, and the suffering they’ve inflictied on our working class brothers and sisters, when I volunteered at  a migrant shelter. I was awestruck and inspired by the resilience of my fellow workers who made the incredibly dangerous and arduous journey from all corners of the continent, from Haiti, Guatemala, Honduras, and  Venezuela.
It was a crash course in becoming a better communist and developing leadership. I got to see the dangers of liberalism’s push for rainbow fascism up close and personal at a rally at Carrizo Springs. Selling CHALLENGE in Laredo, just steps away from the border, was a reminder of the importance of our work for CHALLENGE newspaper, not only a weapon against the bosses’ toxic ideology but as  a tool for sharpening ourselves, as we struggle for the best political line that puts forth the truest reflection of the working class. The eagerness from workers to receive our message reaffirmed this, and helped me overcome my cynicism and further built my confidence in the working class.
Best of all, the time I spent with my comrades growing, singing, laughing, learning, and sharing our ideas and visions for a communist future These moments were glimmers of hope for me, and provided a much needed contrast to the tragedies I witnessed in Texas. This trip taught me that only workers armed with communist politics and values have the power to turn the dark nights we’re currently living in into brighter days. Long live communism!

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A fight for licenses, drive towards fascism

TRENTON, NJ—When members and friends of Progressive Labor Party and Cosecha arrived at the state capitol building, about 100 people on the left side of the courtyard were holding signs in support of driving licenses for undocumented workers.

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