Letters of April 27

I’m excited for May Day!
I was excited to see the announcement for May Day in the April 13 issue of the paper and hear workers’ voices extolling  its importance to them.
I went to my first May Day march in 1986. I was 22 years old. It was my first real political demonstration and it blew my mind. Never before had I seen people from so many different backgrounds united in common struggle. We marched as one force: militant, resolute, enthusiastic! It was thrilling and invigorating, a taste of workers’ power.
I met people who came from many different countries, spoke different languages and had different customs, but who all realized that our world is gripped by a system that has utterly failed, and were unafraid to say, “Capitalism’s gotta go!”

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Bosses’ propaganda on Ukraine: The three big lies

 Whether in Russia, China or the U.S., the capitalist bosses use the media to oppress, mislead, and manipulate the working class. In wartime, in particular, the media’s job is to sell the bosses’ lies and hide the ugly truth about imperialism. The historic task for Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and the international working class is to turn inter-imperialist war into communist revolution for workers’ power. Workers have the capacity to do just that, but only if we reject the bosses’ fictions and are clear headed about what is really happening in the world.
In vilifying Putin and beating the drum for the victims of Russia’s invasion, the U.S. media isn’t helping the working class in Ukraine or anywhere else. In fact, it is just the opposite. Although the U.S. bosses are saying—for now—they want to prevent World War III, their goal is to build mass support for wider warfare to protect their profits against their imperialist rivals. While they may seem to have less formal control over television or newspapers or social media than in Russia or China, the liberal big fascists who own and run the mass media (with the exception of Fox) share the same class interests as ExxonMobil or JPMorgan Chase. Their phony claim of “objectivity”—an impossibility in class society—makes U.S. media more deceptive and even more dangerous. When push comes to shove—in Kuwait in 1991, in Iraq in 2003, in Ukraine in 2022—they guarantee that their “news” coverage serves the interests of finance capital.
Let’s look at three big lies the U.S. bosses’ media are spreading in their efforts to mobilize our class to die in their next global conflict.
Lie #1: The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a war crime and moral atrocity, far worse than the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan or the U.S.-backed devastation of Yemen.
The U.S. ruling class media is

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MAY DAY IS COMING! Celebrate the international working class

Voices from May Day

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On May Day, we smash borders
Comrades, workers all over the world are all experiencing similar difficulties. But, in Haiti as elsewhere, Progressive Labor Party (PLP) must continue to organize workers, students and soldiers with a view to building a true international mass Party, capable of leading the class-struggle that will destroy capitalism and put an end to all its inequalities. We will build a society that serves the interests of the working class.  – A communist worker in Haiti (2021)
We organize and lead the struggle to defend our class brothers and sisters, to try to build up our ranks with our literature and win workers to our revolutionary message. We fight to make our presence known in political, worker and student meetings. Dark night will have its end, with a new and glorious communist dawn.  – a communist in Colombia (2019)

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NJ: No good mayors in a racist system

March 15, NEWARK, NJ - “No good mayors in a racist system,” shouted members of Progressive Labor Party  (PLP) alongside the family and friends of Justin Rodwell as we rallied for over an hour outside of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) at Newark Mayor Ras Baraka's annual State of the City.' This multiracial group of roughly two dozen people of all ages gathered in front of a line of snickering policemen to bravely demand the prison release of Justin, a young Black man whose family local cops targeted in June 2021. PLP and the Rodwell-Spivey Defense Committee (RSDC) refuse to abandon the “Free Justin Now” campaign, using this crisis to expose the danger that supposed cultural symbol Baraka represents for workers of color as the city ramps up for local elections. Workers in cities from Los Angeles to Guangzhou, Johannesburg to Chicago, and Newark are experiencing the intensification of capitalist displacement and gentrification which always requires government-backed force, the latter manifesting in police repression and harassment in the Rodwell-Spivey case. . As ruling class tensions all over the world increase the drive toward world war, political managers of capitalism like Baraka invariably utilize fascist measures for maintaining control over our class, and PLP is committed now more than ever to condemning capitalist politicians of every stripe and party.  

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Uncovering Ukrainian nationalism and fascism

Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the formation of a Ukrainian nation, Ukraine has been a battleground in the rivalry between the U.S. and Russian imperialists. And Ukrainian nationalists have tried to win the workers of Ukraine to support one or the other of these imperialist powers. Now workers are killing each other as imperialist powers and Ukrainian capitalists fight over Ukraine’s riches.
Under Viktor Yushchenko, president of Ukraine from 2005 to 2010 and a leader of the pro U.S. so-called Orange Revolution, fascist lies began to be accepted as the official truth, taught in Ukrainian schools and promoted by Ukrainian academics, all meant to promote Ukrainian nationalism and anti-communism.
Historic lies as a means to rationalize war, violence against our class, or as a way to build trust in the “State” are not unique to Ukraine or Russia. It is a practice we see imposed by international ruling classes from the U.S. to China and yes, today in Ukraine (see Editorial, page 2).

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Class consciousness on the production line—Shut down Amazon! Build up workers’ power!

Queens and Staten Island, NYC — At two different Amazon locations in New York City (NYC) Black and white workers staged walkouts in solidarity with each other and with fellow workers internationally. The same day, Amazon workers also walked out in Maryland and marched in New Jersey. The class-consciousness that these workers understand exemplifies that under capitalism, control of the means of production = power. So when the working class stops churning the gears, the bosses’ profit machine slows down!
“When we stop production, only then, is when they listen to us.”
“What we did today falls under the same legacy of workers fighting for their power.”
Workers from the Woodside facility walked out to support the workers who walked out at the Long Island City warehouse, chanting,” workers united will never be defeated!” Home-made picket signs read, “We Make Amazon's Profit,” and “This Ain't Just Amazon, This is Capital!”

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Black students lead fight vs. racist education system

GARY, IN—The brave actions of working-class youth in the majority-Black city of Gary have sharpened the struggle against racist capitalist attacks in education. The students of Westside Leadership Academy showed everyone the power of active fightback against the profit system’s injustice and racist neglect by staging a protest walkout on March 3. They have since been supported on a weekly basis by antiracist fighters demonstrating outside the school.

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Black communists in the Spanish Civil War Eluard Luchelle McDaniels, working-class hero

Eluard Luchelle McDaniels was born in Mississippi in 1912. Escaping an abusive household, he left home and headed west to California to complete high school there and later study art at San Francisco State College. The social connections that McDaniels was able to develop with politicized artists soon led him to the labor movement and the Communist Party, which he joined in 1930.

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Letters of April 13

Less screens, more fightback!
Just recently I had an interesting conversation with a co-worker that ended with an opportunity to introduce CHALLENGE.
We were discussing all the different ways in which we can get glued to our phones and computer screens. For her, she was admitting how an addictive flash game was sucking her in so much that she felt the need to eventually delete the app from her phone. I commiserated, stating that it wasn’t so much video games that ate up a lot of time for me,

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War in Ukraine: Smash imperialists, nationalism, & democracy!

“The first casualty of war is truth.”

With Ukraine on fire and Russia and NATO flexing their military forces within a handful of miles of one another, the capitalist bosses of the world are accelerating their momentum toward global war. None of the top imperialist powers—the United States, Russia, and China—are in total control over what happens next in Ukraine. Their

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