Comrade Milt Rosen, 1926-2011 Founding Chairperson of PLP, Great 20th Century Revolutionary

In the fall of 1961, Milt Rosen convened a small collective that would soon leave the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) to form the Progressive Labor Movement. Four years later, Comrade Milt became the founding chair of the Progressive Labor Party. He served our organization and the working class in that capacity until 1995.

On July 13, Milt died of Parkinson’s Disease at the age of 85. He is survived by family, friends, and thousands of comrades — and by a revolutionary communist party deeply rooted in the international working class.

Since PL’s birth half a century ago, many left organizations have withered and died. Others have decayed into the living death of electoral politics or a fake Marxism which allies with “progressive” sections of the ruling class. PL is the exception because it never stopped evolving. Milt grasped the essence of dialectical materialism, the philosophy of communism: that the objective world is ever-changing, and that the Party must continue to learn from its own experience and those of the courageous but flawed workers’ movements that preceded it. He was staunchly principled, but never rigid.

Sparked by Milt early on, PL exposed both counter-revolutionary revisionism and “revolutionary” nationalism as death traps of worker-boss unity. It indicted the state capitalists of the Soviet Union as far back as 1966, and then broke with the ones ruling the People’s Republic of China. Those failed revolutions led PL to advance beyond Marx’s two-stage theory that socialism was a first step toward communism; history had shown that socialism inevitably led back to the exploitation of capitalism. And unlike any other group on the landscape, the Party emphasized the importance of the fight against racism as a basic communist principle, not a mere tactic. It understood that all struggles are essentially anti-racist struggles. Most important, it saw that capitalism cannot survive without racism dividing groups of workers, and that racism injures and exploits the entire working class. 

PL stayed vital and relevant because Milt and other comrades refused to shrink from struggle or to compromise our communist politics to make expedient alliances. The Party stood apart from others parading as “left” groups; Milt called that separation “glorious.” He knew that our unity, first and last, must be with the working class.

Over decades of action and analysis, the Party was built by Milt and by people he directly influenced and developed. They steered PL to its early growth amid the opportunities of mass movements and the threats of government attacks. Then they kept us on course through the “dark night” of rising fascism. As Milt noted in “Jailbreak,” his down-to-earth booklet on dialectics, “We must be able to combine urgency with patience.”

The Progressive Labor Party is now growing on five continents. It continues to sharpen its practice and its political line to overthrow capitalism and build a communist future. That struggle endures today. It is PL’s living history, and Milt’s legacy to all of us.

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Draft on the Way: Obama’s War Budget Makes Workers Pay

The U.S. ruling class’s “debate” over raising the debt limit above $14 trillion and cutting the budget is all a cover to hide the goal of forcing the working class to foot the bill for U.S. imperialism’s global wars that are slaughtering workers internationally.

Wars for control of Mid-East oil and gas and for strategic footholds against China and Russia cost U.S. imperialists a fortune — $3.7 trillion so far in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. But, as battlefields widen to Libya, Yemen, Somalia and beyond, the current depression leaves U.S. rulers with inadequate ready cash. So Obama and the major capitalists he serves are pushing a budget plan that shoves even more war burden onto the backs of workers.

Obama’s proposal for 2012-2020 slashes $655 billion from the Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits workers have earned. (White House Budget, published in 2010) This includes lowering Social Security benefits and gradually raising full retirement benefits from age 65 to past 66 and eventually to age 69. Consequently, millions more workers will die on the job before they can retire.

Meanwhile, the needs of struggling U.S. imperialism belie his promise to curb the military budget by 7%. In fact, the imperialists themselves demand a whopping 67% boost. (See CFR’s Sebastian Mallaby quote below.) The only significant “cost-cutting” move likely at the Pentagon, one now pushed by the highest brass, is restoring the draft. Most draftees, unlike career enlistees, get rock-bottom pay and no pension.

Lying Obama Promises Tea Partiers Pentagon Cuts; Bigger Bosses say ‘Forget about ‘em’

Obama’s phony Pentagon pruning aims solely at appeasing obstructionist, anti-tax Tea Party elements in Congress. The latter front for smaller domestically-minded U.S. capitalists who don’t directly benefit from the bigger bosses’ expensive and expanding war agenda. But the main U.S. imperialists, whose profits depend on war, and who bankrolled Obama into office and fill his cabinet, reveal the intentional hollowness of his rhetoric.

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NYC Summer Project Youth Learn, Spread and Are Inspired by Communist Ideas

NEW YORK CITY, July 16 — “Fight Back!” could be heard ringing through the streets as Progressive Labor Party marched in Harlem to arouse the working class. We had a flyer that denounced Obama as a racist puppet of the U.S. ruling class. Our militancy, multiracial unity, and revolutionary politics won many workers to pump their fists, clap their hands, and chant along with us. This final march of the Summer Project illustrated our success and power to win workers to PL’s communist ideas.

The NYC Project began with an orientation that included over 50 young people —  teachers, workers, soldiers, students, parents; women and men; black, Latino, Asian, and white — the backbone of our Party and its friends. We discussed why PLP was having the Project.

A group of largely undocumented workers spoke in Spanish about unemployment; a PL soldier outlined the role of imperialism. Racist health care was analyzed as well as PLP’s organizing among transit and hospital workers (see CHALLENGE 7/20). PL brought young people together from all over the U.S. — Chicago, LA, Baltimore, and beyond — to both recognize that we’re fighting the same enemy and that the working class is facing similar conditions everywhere.

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Racism In S.F. Transit, Driven By Capitalism; Muni Workers Fight Back

SAN FRANCISCO, July 16 — Once again, the San Francisco mass transit (Muni) drivers are leading Bay area workers in class war.  For a second time they rejected a give-back contract with a resounding two-to-one vote, 994 to 488.  These NO votes show the potential for Muni drivers to stick together and act in their class interest, a terrifying possibility for corporate San Francisco.

Drivers’ vote defied the combined forces of the city’s labor leaders, the Democratic political elite, and San Francisco’s downtown big business interests. Labor leaders publicly denounced the drivers. Meanwhile, local billionaires campaigned against city worker pensions (Fortune Magazine, 6/13).

Corporate money passed a City Charter amendment, Proposition G, which specifically attacked the drivers’ salary formula as the way to “fix Muni.” Muni management boasted that it would save $41 million from union concessions.  Corporate-controlled media promoted vicious, anti-working-class lies, many of them coded against black and immigrant drivers. All of these forces joined the standard fascist chorus: “We need shared sacrifice.”

Pushing the fraudulent ideology of all-class unity, the leadership of Transit Workers Union (TWU) Local 250A had recommended the contract package as a “win-win.” Here is what the workers are slated to “win”: a pay freeze, big cuts in full-time jobs and transit service, reintroduction of part-time work, and the weakening of worker rights to allow speedy firing.

On June 13, an “independent” arbitrator used Proposition G to shove the rejected contract down the drivers’ throats. The arbitrator had the full backing from the union leadership, which worked to sabotage any real strike preparations.

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Parents Resist Demolition of Community Library

“It’s disgusting,” said a Whittier mother of the Chicago Public Schools’ (CPS) latest attempt to demolish the community center and library known as “La Casita.” Last fall, the Whittier parents kept the building open with a heroic and grueling 43-day sit-in. After following all CPS stipulations on how to keep the center open, La Casita parents were surprised when demolition workers showed up with permits. This shows that no matter how hard workers fight, the bosses will lie, cheat and steal to get what they want. Regardless, the parents quickly jumped into action to stop the CPS demolition.

The next day, with the demolition crew scheduled to arrive at 6 AM., the Whittier parents, with support from the community, mobilized 60 workers, teachers and students to begin a new sit-in. Only one demolition worker showed up at 6:30 AM, scouting the area to check on the protest. A PLP member and a La Casita mother attempted to win this worker’s support. He refused. With true working-class solidarity, the Whittier mother gave the worker her phone number, saying that while the bosses aren’t coming for your neighborhood now, they will be soon, and we can help.

At 7:45 AM, the Chicago KKKops blocked off all roads leading into La Casita. In response to this fascist attack, PLP members and allies went door-to-door in the neighborhood informing residents about the situation, trying to get them involved in the fight-back. This made many sit-in’ers feel more confident that no matter what CPS and the KKKops did, we would respond.

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Client-Worker Unity Vital Step Towards Revolution

East Orange, NJ, July 12 — “Can’t you see what they are doing to us? Listen to these people we need to start fighting back,” yelled an angry black worker standing in line to collect his monthly welfare check.  He was one of hundreds exposed to PLP’s ideas as we organized over 30 students and workers to rally in front of the Essex County Development Center. 

Racist Cutbacks and Unemployment

As the ruling class continues to spend more money on imperialist wars across the globe, the working class is facing more and more cuts.   A recent study by Brown University put the cost of  “post 9/11” wars at around $4 trillion.^[1]  Meanwhile 300 General Assistance (GA) clients lost their Emergency Assistance benefits.  Thousands had their “benefits” suspended without notice (while still eligible) pending state review. Even those that do get GA get only $140 a month!

While the bosses talk about unemployment being at 9.5% in NJ, that number is at least doubled for the mostly black and Latino workers of Essex County.  In Newark it is over 20%.  This is why PLP calls it racist unemployment.  While it hurts all workers, it is always worse for black, latin and immigrant workers.

Meanwhile, the Democrat controlled State Legislature voted to force thousands of public employees to pay huge increases in their pension and health care coverage contributions. 

While the workers and their clients real interests are to unite against the bosses’ tremendous attacks, many are motivated by a lack of class-consciousness and see the person on the other side of the glass as the enemy rather than the bosses who profit.  This is not a coincidence.  The capitalists spend billions promoting racist, anti-working class ideology so that workers don’t see who their real allies are. 

Workers welcome CHALLENGE and PLP

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PLP Builds Class Consciousness Call for Strike to Battle D.C. Bosses, Union Hacks

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The battle against the Metro transit bosses and sellout union leaders is heating up.  PLP members at Metro used a union-called town hall meeting for workers and riders “to get input” to expose the sellouts and have radical conversations with fellow workers about the need for communist revolution.

 Party members testified that a strike at Metro would help all D.C. area workers, including Metro riders, resist today’s racist offensive against workers. Those statements from both Metro workers and riders got the loudest applause of the meeting, and helped build an attitude of rebellion that opens the door for building the PLP at Metro and throughout the community.

Although support for a strike to resolve our contract dispute is wide spread among riders and drivers, the union leadership is strongly opposed to any work action by members of ATU (Amalgamated Transit Union) Local 689.

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Hospital Workers’ Class Hatred Rages vs. Racist, Sexist Cuts

NEW YORK CITY, NY, June 26 — “What do we want?! BENEFITS! If we don’t get it? SHUT’EM DOWN!”

Hundreds of black and Latino hospital workers militantly chanted, sang and danced in a picket line surrounding Brookdale Hospital CEO Bruce Flanz’s house in this rich, mostly white town, about an hour north of the hospital’s site in the Bronx. The picket was organized by Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a local representing over 260,000 mostly black and Latino hospital and home healthcare workers in New York City. The workers were responding to Brookdale’s violation of its labor contract, which has forced the 3,500 hospital workers onto a more expensive health insurance plan in a racist, sexist campaign to break worker militancy and, ultimately, decertify 1199.

When Progressive Labor Party members spoke with Brookdale workers as they arrived to board the buses that morning, we met with very positive reactions. Almost every worker took a CHALLENGE, and we came away with more than a half dozen contacts. Since then we have followed up with them to plan meetings. As some of our new friends later told us, several Brookdale workers took stacks of papers on the buses with them, distributed them all, and held discussions about the Brookdale article (CHALLENGE 6/6) on the bus trip there and back.

The picket around the CEO’s house was highly militant. At the sight of the CEO’s sprawling house, the racist contrast between the living conditions of Brookdale workers and the bosses was blatantly obvious. One disgusted worker, her young daughter with her, yelled, “We’re fighting just for this [contract] when these people live like this?” Another woman worker began spreading a chant to burn down the boss’s house, before being discouraged by union marshals. The loudest and most popular chant, quoted at the top, was a call-and-response for the hospital to shut down.

Scabs Watch Out!

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IMF, FBI Circuses Try to Mislead Workers into Rulers’ Wars

To combat a growing host of global warring enemies, U.S. rulers increasingly require loyalty, both from international allies and from the masses at home. This wartime need underlies the rotating episodes of two ongoing “true-crime” sagas: the cases of Dominique Strauss-Khan, the ousted head of the International Monetary Fund, and Whitey Bulger, the Boston gangster recently captured after 16 years on the lam.

In both cases, the capitalist media boasted of “proof” that U.S. courts protect the downtrodden from the mighty and inexorably punish the guilty. But make no mistake. The bosses aren’t merely distracting workers with media circuses here. These cases have implications far worse than these two criminals’ misdeeds.

Manhattan D.A. Vance Uses Strauss-Khan Assault to Serve U.S. Imperialism’s Class Interests

On May 14, IMF boss Strauss-Khan was arrested for sexually assaulting a New York hotel housekeeping worker, a story that grabbed headlines around the world.

But on July 1, New York District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. declared there were “too many inconsistencies” in the hotel worker’s testimony. Saying he now “had no case” against Strauss-Kahn, Vance freed him from house arrest and returned his bail money.

But Vance’s flip-flopping had accomplished U.S. rulers’ goal: It forced Strauss-Kahn’s resignation as head of the IMF. Why? Strauss-Kahn’s original sin was pushing for a new currency to replace the dollar as the IMF instrument for indebting poor nations. This proposed “basket money,” originally designed as a combination of the dollar, the British pound, the euro, and the Japanese yen, would now expand to include China’s yuan. Beyond devaluing the U.S. dollar (by enabling countries to buy the new currency instead of U.S. Treasury bonds) and thereby threatening the dominance of the U.S. ruling class, the new currency would also enhance the influence of China, the United States’ chief economic rival.

Vance is no Johnny-come-lately. He’s a chip off the old, imperialist block; his father, Cyrus Vance, Sr., was the Secretary of State who helped President Jimmy Carter draft the “Carter Doctrine” in 1980. This policy declared Mideast energy a “vital U.S. interest” to be defended by military force, laying the groundwork for U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While there’s no evidence that Strauss-Kahn was a victim of a sting, his inability to keep his pants up — following a long line of similar “indiscretions” — was a gift that U.S. bosses used to eject him from the IMF, check his assaults on the U.S. dollar, and damage his chances to become the next president of France.

French President Sarkozy Cozies to U.S. War-makers, Arms Libya Rebels Following Strauss-Kahn Flap

Now U.S. rulers have sharpened their focus on “coalition-building.” Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner blessed the choice of French economist Christine Lagarde, a member of Sarkozy’s pro-U.S. Union for a Popular Movement party (UMP), to run the IMF. Lagarde had for years headed the law firm of Baker & McKenzie, a leading U.S. imperialist force in the Middle East and North Africa.

Steve Dunaway, of the Exxon Mobil/JP Morgan Chase-controlled Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) think-tank, spelled out Lagarde’s latest pro-U.S. duties: “She has to demonstrate that the IMF will not automatically rubberstamp European decisions and be a convenient piggy bank to help Europe finance the debt crisis in some euro-area countries” (CFR website, 6/29/11). Sarkozy called the selection of this U.S. stooge “a victory for France.”

Immediately following Lagarde’s coronation, Sarkozy began flying arms to the anti-Qaddafi, U.S.-leaning Libyan rebels. These shipments go beyond the UN’s resolution on Libya but delight Obama and the Pentagon.

Freeing Strauss-Kahn supposedly humiliated Vance and allowed French rulers to save face in the eyes of the world. No longer would superpower U.S. bosses hold the 2012 French presidential elections hostage. But despite having to reverse himself, Vance’s push for a premature indictment will help war-bent U.S. imperialists at the French polls. It has clearly weakened the Socialist Party’s challenge to Sarkozy, whoever their candidate may be. “Strauss-Kahn’s possible return has thrown the Socialist party’s primary race into disarray” (Guardian, UK, 7/3/11).

The critical back story is that Strauss-Kahn’s Socialists oppose French integration into NATO’s U.S.-dominated military command. Incumbent president Sarkozy had rejoined this coalition in 2009, also to the delight of Obama and the Pentagon. By arresting Strauss-Kahn and then releasing him, DA Vance did maximum damage to Sarkozy’s Socialist Party adversaries without making Strauss-Kahn a martyr, which might have drawn anti-U.S. (and anti-Sarkozy) forces out to vote.

What gets lost amid the sensational headlines is how Strauss-Kahn’s sexism exemplifies the pervasive attacks on women under this system.  The IMF is a huge force for the oppression of working-class women worldwide; women are doubly affected by the austerity measures forced upon the most exploited countries. These women are super-exploited by the lowest incomes and murderous medical “care.” They are victimized by mass rapes in imperialist-inspired wars over diamonds in central Africa.

Regardless of Strauss-Kahn’s future, or which ruling-class faction calls the tune at the IMF, this is the hard law of capitalism: maximum exploitation for maximum profit.

To Energize Patriotic Police State: Rulers Dump Racist Thug Bulger, FBI ‘Agent’

While the Strauss-Kahn circus has played out on a worldwide stage, U.S. rulers have pitched the Bulger drama to a domestic audience. On June 22, the FBI at long last collared fugitive gangster and “rogue” FBI collaborator Whitey Bulger. Bulger had served as an FBI informant and was protected by his handlers even as he was accused of 19 murders, a fact that has given this police-state agency a black eye for two decades.

On one level, the hype over Whitey’s capture forms part of a ruling-class effort to publicly rehabilitate the bungling, corrupt FBI and win greater support for the burgeoning wartime U.S. police state.

On a deeper level, busting Bulger represents a profound shift from the ideology of the 1970s. While U.S. capitalists still rely on racist big-city police departments, and still protect KKK-Nazi groups to mislead white workers, they’ve needed to shift their emphasis from locally-oriented gutter racism to massive, patriotic, national racism and global genocide, often under the leadership of black politicians like Obama and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick.

Whitey and his “legit” politician brother, Billy, reached the height of their power at the end of the Vietnam War era. As part of a Defense Department shutdown after the war, the main Rockefeller-led liberal bosses wiped out thousands of better-paying jobs in redundant shipyards in South Boston, Charlestown, East Boston, and Quincy.

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