Letter from Kurdish communists: Bury bosses under rubble of their racist system

Recently, a Kurdish comrade from Turkey came to our Progressive Labor Party (PLP) club meeting to report on the devastating earthquake that has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions of Turkish, Kurdish and Syrian workers, youth and children. He is a member of the CUNY Professional Staff Congress, the National Writers Union, and the Labor Party of Turkey (EMEP). On February 6th, back-to-back 7.7 and 7.6 earthquakes hit eleven provinces, home to 13.5 million people. Thousands of buildings collapsed. As of February 24, the official death toll is more than 44,000, and this only reflects reports from hospital morgues. Thousands of people are still missing, and authorities say that more than two million people have been displaced.

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RED EYE ON THE NEWS . . . March 29, 2023

Chinese imperialists work on empire building New York Times, 3/11–Finally, there is a peace deal of sorts in the Middle East…between Saudi Arabia and Iran…brokered...by China…Alliances and rivalries that have governed diplomacy for generations have…been upended. The Americans, who have been the central actors in the Middle East for the past three-quarters of a century, almost always the ones in the room where it happened, now find themselves on the sidelines during a moment of significant change. The Chinese, who for years played only a secondary role in the region, have suddenly transformed themselves into the new power player. And the Israelis, who have been courting the Saudis against their mutual adversaries in Tehran, now wonder where it leaves them. “There is no way around it — this is a big deal,” said Amy Hawthorne, deputy director for research at the Project on Middle East Democracy, a nonprofit group in Washington.

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Letters ... March 29, 2023

The fight for Hadi, a nail on the bosses’ coffin Last summer a teenager, Hadi Abuatelah of the Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn, was riding in a car stopped by the kkkops who said they smelled marijuana. Hadi ran in fear of the cop who tackled him and beat him around the head and body very severely. As a result, he had a brain bleed and injuries to his body. To this date, Hadi still has difficulty walking. Watching the video, it is amazing that he survived this vicious attack! Initially, the three cops involved were going to get off. Since last summer, a multiracial group of dozens of workers and youth have attended the monthly Oak Lawn police and fire board meetings to demand the cops be brought up on charges. Finally, only one of the three cops has been charged.

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From Turkey to Ohio Capitalism Kills

Millions of workers have been devastated by earthquakes in Turkey and Syria and a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio–and most of all, by capitalism. These tragic events were not “natural” disasters or accidents. Corrupt building practices and neglected infrastructure are part and parcel of  a system that’s based on the ruthless drive for maximum profit.
On February 6,  the mass collapse of flimsy buildings in Turkey and Syria killed 50,000 workers and displaced millions. Three days earlier, an oversized Norfolk Southern train with inadequate brakes burst into flames. Fifty cars derailed, spewing toxic chemicals into the air, killing thousands of fish in nearby waterways and potentially contaminating the area’s drinking water (Newsweek, 2/17).

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The 500th Fight for West—No Justice under kkkapitalim

BALTIMORE, February 22—For the 500th time, we decried racism. A successful protest caravan, stretching 22 vehicles long, boldly wound through the city’s streets. The demand was accountability for the police murder of Tyrone West, and for all victims of police brutality. Tyrone’s life was stolen in July of 2013 by 17 racist cops, in the same way George Floyd and Tyre Nichols were murdered by capitalist thugs in blue. These 500 protests prove there is no justice under this capitalist system. As we demand accountability, we must also organize the fight for a world run by the working class - that’s communism.

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Forum: fighting to learn Lessons of multiracial unity

Brooklyn, February 11—More than 40 antiracists participated in a multigenerational and multiracial forum on the necessity of multiracial unity in the fight against racism. Participants included high school students, college students, teachers, and other young workers. This gathering was so inspiring that one person joined the Party! That’s another nail in the bosses’ coffin. Fighting to understand how we, workers all over the world, can and must unite to overthrow this racist system of capitalism requires urgency, especially as the bosses continue to torpedo towards world war.
Fighting racism and preparing to turn the capitalists’ imperialist war into a class war for communism. That’s our task as communists. Only a communist society, one run by and for the international working class, can rid this planet of all the inequities and injustice we face day in and day out.
Fight for working-class unity, not multicultural capitalism
After a few icebreakers to help everyone get to know each other a bit more, we began our study on racism as a tool of the capitalists. We used a number of political cartoons to demonstrate how the ruling class uses racism to divide workers and prevent us from fighting back. By paying white workers more than Black and Latin workers, the bosses create a culture of violent competition and pit workers against one another. The bosses’ media pushes racist narratives to make workers see other workers as the enemy. But communism means workers uniting to fight back against a common enemy: the capitalist ruling class. Fighting for a society where everyone works to benefit the international working class - that’s communism.
And multiracial fightback is working class history. As recently as 2020, after the murder of George Floyd by the kkkops, the United States saw the biggest multiracial uprisings against racism in the country’s history. Hundreds of thousands marched in cities large and small, with antiracist solidarity demonstrations occurring all over the world. The protests included the countries of Nigeria, Argentina, Lithuania, South Africa, Ireland, Brazil, Mexico, Italy, Austria, Japan, South Korea, Poland, Norway, India, Tunisia, Pakistan, South Africa, Sweden, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Brazil, Syria, the United Kingdom, Senegal, and more.
We also used photographs and cartoons from around the world, from Colombia to Alabama, to show how workers fight back against racism in strikes and on the street, despite all the racist lies we are bombarded with. These cartoons demonstrated the power workers have when they reject the ruling class’s murderous lies and unite with other workers. One such cartoon showed workers resisting the phony messages of politician misleaders and fighting back against the bosses’ KKKop army to climb a mountain of justice.
After discussing the images and political cartoons, we broke out into small groups to discuss the history of racism. We debunked the myth that “racism has always been around” and discussed the ruling class’s intentional use of state power and violence to separate and define “Black” and “white'' as a way to prevent multiracial working class rebellion in the 1600s and 1700s in colonial America. For example, the ruling class of Virginia passed a law in 1661 that stated that “in case any English servant shall run away in company of any Negroes,” the servant would have to work extra years for the Black person’s master. Also, in 1691, Virginia provided for the banishment of any "white man or woman being free who shall intermarry with a negro, mulatto, or Indian man or woman bond or free." The bosses’ have always feared multi-racial unity and antiracist fightback.
Only communism can end racism
Capitalist misleaders try to fool us by putting multiracial faces in high places. We cannot be fooled into thinking electing Black mayors like Eric Adams and Lori Lightfoot or so-called progressives like AOC’s Squad are going to spare the working class from capitalist exploitation. Nor can we be swept up in false hope from the elections of indigenous presidents in Peru or “left” ones in Colombia. These liberal fascists are the greatest danger for the working class. We cannot smash racism by voting in a rainbow of politicians committed to the same mass murder, deportation, and exploitation of workers as their white counterparts or by diversifying police forces who will continue gunning down youth like Tyre Nichols.
We need to fight for communist revolution, which will never be on the ballot. Capitalists need racism, workers don’t. Communism means workers run everything. Only through communism can we end racism.
You too can join the fight to smash this racist, capitalist system and build a communist future. Join us on May Day! Join Progressive Labor Party!

Black workers key to communism

CHICAGO, February 26 – Around 50 Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members and friends gathered on the city’s south side today to celebrate our fifth annual Black and Red event. The multiracial, multi-generational and international crowd in attendance engaged in an interactive program that highlighted the invaluable leadership and contributions of Black communists in past, present, and future revolutionary struggles.
Our local collective began organizing this event five years ago as a response to the many anti-communist distortions and outright lies by the bosses that falsely claim communism to be a political movement limited to white workers. The truth is that Black workers have always given key leadership to the fight for communist revolution, correctly understanding it as the only force to destroy the racism, sexism, and exploitation inherent in the capitalist profit system.

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DC: Fight imperialist warmongers

WASHINGTON, DC, February 19—As the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion approached, over 2,000 people rallied against the war at the iconic Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Workers from Russia to the U.S. must push back against nationalism and imperialist war.  Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members attended the march with a flyer headlined, “The only good imperialist is a dead imperialist.” The PLP flyer declared that to end bloody wars that turn workers into cannon fodder for profit,  the entire imperialist system has to be destroyed with a communist revolution. All major wars today are battles over profit and empire. The global working class has no dog in these inter-imperialist fights. We say, No War But Class War, to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat—workers power! By distributing over 200 flyers and 100 CHALLENGE newspapers, we reached many earnest anti-war forces who attended, contacting several who will help build an anti-imperialist movement.

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1930s: Langston Hughes, poet of the communist movement

The last issue of CHALLENGE (3/1/23) remembered Langston Hughes as a writer sharply critical of Jim Crow segregation during World War II and as a poet for the working class of the U.S.—particularly Black workers.  Now we’ll flash back to the 1920s and 1930s, the period when Hughes became an advocate for multiracial, anti-capitalist revolution.  A tradition of anti-racist activism ran deep in Hughes’ family history. In 1858, his maternal grandmother, Mary Langston, married Lewis Leary, an abolitionist who died in John Brown’s 1859 raid in Harper’s Ferry. Her second husband, Charles Howard Langston, was an educator and ardent abolitionist.  

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Carolyn, antiracist & communist till the end

Carolyn Eubanks, longtime Progressive Labor Party (PLP) member, died in her home in the Bronx at the age of 80. Despite her advanced age, Carolyn was brimming with life. A tireless antiracist fighter and communist leader till the end, Carolyn spent the last week of her life volunteering at La Morada’s mutual aid soup kitchen,  showing up at the courthouse to support the family of Raymond Chaluisant, a  young worker murdered by a NYC  corrections kkkop, and attending a political event at the CUNY graduate center.

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