Pakistan: workers caught between multiple crises of capitalism

The working class in Pakistan is under attack. Inflation is rising out of control. The May inflation rate was officially over 13 percent and unofficially prices on key staples are rising at five to ten times that rate. Capitalism is utterly failing the working class, the crisis in Pakistan cannot be fixed, more war and fascism are on the horizon and the only way to combat it is by building the fight for communist revolution.We in Progressive Labor Party (PLP) are trying to give the working class leadership and courage to fight against all these evils that hold back the struggle for an international communist revolution.

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Tupelo, 1976 Fight racism like a red

To many who remember the Civil Rights movements of the 1960s, Mississippi symbolizes the most extreme racism, the most brutal murders of Black workers and antiracists, and the stronghold of the Ku Klux Klan.
For Progressive Labor Party, Mississippi signified a base for revolution among Black and white workers, spreading the ideas of multiracial unity and the fight for communist ideas in the South. Today, we celebrate the heroic struggle of the Tupelo Summer Project of ’79. About 100 communists and friends—Black, Latin, Asian, and white—took part in this struggle.

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Letters of July 6

Fired for being a good teacher
This letter is to support a fellow comrade. A wonderful, bilingual, antiracist, high school teacher who has just been fired, not for doing his job poorly, but for doing his job extremely well!
The conditions that he teaches in are deplorable, racist and dangerous - made even worse since Covid-19.
• The school is severely understaffed.
Since September his rosters have changed like a revolving door, making consistency difficult, but he worked to create continuity by making home visits to make sure his students were OK.
During the pandemic, this caring communist teacher - a resident of Newark, and an immigrant, ORGANIZED his co-worker

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Part 8 of Black communists in Spanish Civil War: Frank Alexander, a red leader for life

Frank Alexander was born of a white and indigenous mother and a Black father on the Omaha Sioux reservation on February 8, 1911. The indigenous people welcomed mixed marriages, which were illegal in most of the United States. He first moved in with his younger brother, Herschel, who was in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and lived in the home of the famous communist leader Mother Ella Reeves Bloor. 

A proud Black communist

Frank moved to Los Angeles, where he became active with the Communist Party, which he joined in 1931, at the age of 20. He said:

See, in those days, the Communist Party, and the YCL [Young Communist League], was a very popular body, especially in the Black communities. And so

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Summit of the Americas, flashpoint of inter-imperialist rivalry

Mexico’s president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) announced he is boycotting this week’s Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles and half a dozen other heads of state are either threatening to do the same or barred from coming. The meeting is only the latest fiasco for host Jim Crow Joe Biden but significantly shows the crumbling of  U.S. imperialism. As capitalist bosses in China and Russia expand their economic and military presence in Latin America and the Caribbean, the old U.S. bosses’ “backyard” is becoming a flashpoint for inter-imperialist competition and the next world war.   

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Rodwell-Spivey Anniversary Smash kkkops with communism!

NEWARK June 1- One year after the racist kkkop attack on the Rodwell-Spivey family, Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and the family joined to hold a spirited rally in front of their house, where the attack took place. The year before, undercover officers in Newark targeted and attacked two of the Rodwell-Spivey brothers as they looked at clothes in a van on the dead-end street. The killer kkkops claim they were searching for another Black man wearing a white t-shirt with dreads, but nothing under this capitalist system is coincidental or a mistake when Black workers worldwide are super-exploited and jailed on a mass scale. The phony reform to end cash bail reform in New Jersey is not working in New Jersey. Justin Rodwell, one of the brothers that came to defend their younger ones from police, is still being detained as he awaits trial in Essex County Jail.

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Protect abortion, abort capitalism!

NEW YORK CITY, MAY 14— A contingent of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members and friends led chants of “No justice in a capitalist system” and “these sexist courts–shut it down!” at the march against the U.S. Supreme Court leaked draft to criminalize abortion. As the U.S. capitalist healthcare system continues to crumble, leaving millions of workers dead from Covid-19, and countless others ill and uncared for, the U.S. Supreme Court is preparing to hand down another unjust decision that will attack millions of women

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58 years Red: ‘I remember the first issue of CHALLENGE’

The first issue of CHALLENGE (Vol. 1, No 1) came out on June 15,1964. When we sold that first issue  most of us had no idea how significant it was AND the role that CHALLENGE would soon play in the fight against capitalism. The headline on page one was prophetic: Police War on Harlem. Barely four weeks later, the Harlem Rebellion started after racist KKKop Thomas Gilligan of the New York Police Department (NYPD) shot and killed young James Powell who, with his friends, was trying to cool off from the July heat by spraying on themselves and a bystander who complained about it and eventually called the police. This killing was the last straw in a long series of racist oppression. The news media called the rebellion a "riot" but it was most definitely a rebellion! Most of the stores that were attacked were pawnshops that had been looting the residents of Harlem for decades!

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CUNY May Day organizing grows PL’s potential

BROOKLYN and QUEENS, NY––As Progressive Labor Party (PLP) led hundreds of members and friends on Flatbush Avenue this May Day, our multiracial Brooklyn and Queens City University of New York (CUNY) club had our highest turnout ever that resulted in new members joining  PLP! The success we had is a direct result of struggling to be bold  in organizing to fight racism and rebuilding PLP’s presence among a completely new cohort of students.
By the numbers, in addition to new recruits we have: a total regular hand-to-hand CHALLENGE distribution of 25; more than 70 staff and faculty contacts we plan to give the paper to; three upcoming student-planned and led Party events; and new CHALLENGE sales coming at nearby CUNY campuses and transit depots to support our transit work. With organizing for upcoming events underway before the Summer Project, we have a long, hot summer ahead of class struggle and raising hell for the racist kkkops and bosses!

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Love for the working class, lifelong communist

Vaughn Costine Love was born in Dayton, TN in 1907. After three years of college on a football scholarship, he was injured and moved to New York.
Moving to New York led Love on a path toward political struggle. There he became involved with the Federal Theater Project, the International Labor Defense, which provided legal defense for Black struggles in the South, the League of Struggle for Negro Rights, the Southern Labor Committee, and the International Workers Order.  

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