LETTERS of July 06

PLP Active in El Salvador May Day

We’re starting to see the results from our political work here, having recruited new CHALLENGE readers and developing a base amongst Salvadorian workers. 

We’ve been discussing PLP’s politics in comparison with the FMLN (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front) which negotiated and handed over the struggle of super-exploited Salvadorian workers to the bosses. Our struggle has been to hoist high our communist PLP flags and not abandon our revolutionary ideology as did the old communist movement in Russia and China where the workers had power and were betrayed by phony revisionists who allied with the bosses.   

On this May Day, we workers in El Salvador commemorated the 125th anniversary of the courageous battle of Chicago’s workers out of which May Day was born. PLP members were part of the demonstration, distributing more than 1,500 of our Party’s fliers, in which we exposed the atrocities of the capitalist system and the need for a communist revolution.   

We also called on workers to unite with us to build an international communist Party that can deepen the organization of the world’s working class. For this CHALLENGE is essential.

It’s necessary for PLP to participate in the class battles of workers against bosses, to motivate the workers to take on the struggle with strength and courage towards a global communist revolution. 

Comrade from El Salvador

FMLN: The Guardian of Capitalism

This May Day workers, farmers, students, teachers and their unions were present in the principal streets of San Salvador to celebrate the heroism of Chicago’s workers repressed by the capitalist system which tries to still the voices of oppressed people. But their struggle broke the chains the bosses put on the workers. That’s how the 8-hour work-day was achieved.

Thousands chanted “Long Live the Workers of the World”; and “The Workers, United, Will Never be Defeated.” PLP’s 1,500 fliers called upon the workers to organize ourselves to fight against capitalism and build a society based on social equality.

We mocked the security forces of FMLN and the state which tried to control the demonstration. They didn’t want us to bring our message to the May Day marchers, which was the opposite of their’s. While we are small, our consistent work will win recruits among soldiers, workers, students, farmers and future generations to the PLP. We also distributed CHALLENGES and made various contacts, especially among veterans of the FMLN.

Comrade from El Salvador 

LA PLP Plans Summer Project; Expose Union ‘Deal’

Here in Los Angeles, we are closing out the school year and getting ready for summer. As such, we are doing some activities to try to build towards the Summer Project, to build student leadership and to strengthen our ties to the young people we have been working with all year. Last weekend, we had a study-action group. A student selected our reading and led the discussion. He chose the CHALLENGE letter about the situation in the Inglewood school district.

This led us to discuss the new “deal” that the teachers union made with the L.A. Unified School District. The union accepted almost 2,000 layoffs and four to six unpaid furlough days. Teachers at all of our schools thought this action was a sell-out of the younger teachers. The union however did not allow much discussion; it pushed the deal to a vote one day after it was announced. At one of our schools, there was a quick lunch-time meeting where a comrade was able to raise the need to reject the deal and fight for working-class unity, no layoffs, no pay-cuts. At another school, the union did not even have a meeting, just the vote.

The discussion then transitioned to how to get out our ideas, especially through CHALLENGE. Since we were going to a CHALLENGE sale afterwards, we talked about how to distribute the paper and how to encourage workers to read and contribute to their paper. There was even a short role-play. Afterward, we went to a neighborhood supermarket and talked with the workers there, who were mainly Latino. We were able to get out 76 papers and raise about $10.

Our student-leader was able to overcome some hesitancy and got out CHALLENGE to newcomers. He found that workers are interested in PLP’s ideas and willing to talk to communists. This was a good beginning in our transition to summer work but we hope to build on it and win more students to an upcoming “Summer Project Orientation.”

Teacher in Los Angeles