Letters of July 16

Working-Class Pride Over Individual Pride
The June Gay Pride parade is organized as a tribute to the fightback against the abuse suffered by gay people at the hands of the police, restaurant and bar owners and landlords in New York City. The parade encourages pride, freedom and self-expression. The rulers are in favor of this “freedom” as long as it is not an expression of resistance against their class.
The ruling class would like us to believe that the oppression of gay people is totally separate from the oppression experienced by others in the working class. Gay pride is often encouraged by the rulers, who exploit it to win workers to their policies and encourage them to vote for one set of politicians. They sell workers the idea that the bosses “care” about issues of discrimination. In fact, it is the ruling class that is responsible for the sexist and racist ideologies that lead to unbearable conditions for the whole working class.

While seemingly harmless, identity politics such as gay pride, or black or Latin pride, isolate workers by emphasizing differences. The differences are not as important as our similarities. For instance, the working-class gay community is hurt by sexism as much as working-class straight women and men. This is a strategy of our enemy — the capitalist ruling class — that wants us to feel separate from one another, instead of uniting to fight them.
People should be proud of their accomplishments, but capitalist culture encourages people to be proud of their sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, or where they were born — things that occur by chance, that require no action. Oppressed groups have been urged to seek liberation in isolation from others and from the class struggle. They organize around issues for “their people,” thinking this will lead to a more equal society. But by excluding themselves from class war, these groups must rely on the paternalism of the bosses. History tells us that the rulers take back whatever “rights” they were forced to grant as soon as it serves their interests to do so.
Identity politics emphasizes the unity of a self-identified group, regardless of political ideology or class. The truth of the matter is that we are in class warfare. We cannot win the fight against our oppressors if we are divided. Only through a unified, international working-class struggle will we be able to truly overthrow the bosses and celebrate the one true culture: working-class culture.   
Fighting Sexism through Class Struggle
 

Socialism Essentially Flawed
In CHALLENGE (July 2), Saguaro Rojo very correctly writes that human nature is not inherently selfish and that a corrupt leadership in China “forced conditions to deteriorate back to capitalist competition and individualism” in the late 1960s. But I think that he underestimates the continuation of capitalism after the 1949 revolution.
As early as 1926, in his Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society, Mao wrote that “as for the vacillating middle bourgeoisie, their right-wing may become our enemy and their left-wing may become our friend.” This was the theoretical basis for the continuation of capitalism under socialism.
In his 1953 book Clefs Pour la Chine, Claude Roy writes:
No, the united front of four classes is not a decorative façade in China. No, the role confided to the bourgeoisie by the proletariat is not a rhetorical formula.
And he quotes Lee Feng, a big businessman he met in Shanghai, who told him:
The class struggle can be carried on even in the government committees. Who says that the presence of representatives of the national bourgeoisie, of Chinese capitalism in the people’s councils, is not useful…? (303).
Lee Feng went on to say:
Let me talk to you as a businessman. Take a fact: the agrarian reform. What consequences did it have for us industrialists and merchants? First, it opened up an immense domestic market for us. We can satisfy this national market thanks to government aid. Work contracts and the status of private industry relations with the trade unions and workers have been established. The government provides us with loans and raw materials, orients production and stimulates it with a system of orders. … Private industry [in the Mukden region] grew by 30.2% between 1949 and 1950. … One day, all these companies will melt into the socialist economy and will change their character. OK. But until then, there’s work and money to be made for everybody in China (304).
In her 1965 book A Chacun Sa Chine, Catherine Van Moppès describes a member of the bourgeoisie who tried to pick her up in a Shanghai restaurant:
This seductive gentleman … is wearing a red carnation, a plaid waistcoat with a matching hat, and a blue-and-yellow striped suit. He is carrying a cane with a silver pomme (261).
Van Moppès continues:
He used to own ‘his’ business. Now, ‘they’ have taken everything, but ‘they’ give him a private income, an annual interest on his former capital, and he doesn’t seem to be living poorly at all.
While Saguaro Rojo is right about the gains in conditions made by hundreds of millions of Chinese workers and peasants under socialism, it is important to see that the return to full-blown capitalism was facilitated because the worm was in the apple from the beginning.
A friend in France

Memoirs of Antiracist Struggle

The following two letters have been written by a comrade, a longtime member of PLP.
It is part of a memoir of struggles on the shop floor, against the fascists, and in building
 PLP’s fight for communism.

How to Greet A Racist: A Fist to the Face
In October 1999, the Ku Klux Klan came to demonstrate on a Saturday in Foley Square, New York City.  Mayor Rudolph Guiliani gave them the okay to march, but not with their hoods on. Thousands of outraged people came out that day to protest the racists. More than 100 Progressive Labor Party members were in the crowd, selling CHALLENGE and trying to move the barriers aside to enable a large attack. Since my two friends and I realized it was unlikely people would be able to break through the barriers and rush the Klan, we tried to find a more creative way to complete our mission.
We had to find out which part of Foley Square the Klan would come from. As we scouted around, it became clear they would be led from behind one of the courthouses. We went back to an area where no one was gathered.  Pretending to be workmen, we walked down the middle of the street. On one side were barriers to contain thousands of anti-Klan demonstrators. On the other side, where the Klan members would enter, there were three lines of barricades. Police were inside two of them. The Klan was to demonstrate inside the third set.  
The three of us approached the corner and told the police we were there to support the Klan, and that the mayor had announced over the news media that anyone who wanted to support the Klan could come to demonstrate with them. The police didn’t want to listen, but we refused to leave the spot. When they told us to go back with the crowd, we said we supported the Klan and were afraid the crowd would beat us up.
There was a five-minute wait while the five-star commander, who was 50 yards from us, spoke on the phone — probably to the mayor — to get the okay to let us inside the perimeter. They let us in — we could hardly believe it! We were nervous, excited, and very determined to carry out the attack. The cops escorted us through the first barrier, and then the second barrier. The news media began taking pictures of us as Klan supporters. We felt committed to carry out our plan, no matter what.
As we passed inside the third barrier, two skinheads — fellow Klan “supporters” — came out to shake our hands.  It was hard for us to resist punching these racists out, but we had bigger fish to fry. So we swallowed our revulsion and shook these vermin’s hands. Sometimes it’s necessary to use working-class guile.  
Just then the police escorted the Klan directly into our pen, straight toward us. Wasting no time, we started punching the Klan leader, then his fellow-racist.
The newscast of our attack on the Klan was literally a shot heard around the world. The BBC and CNN, among other networks, beamed it worldwide. The three of us had been friends and comrades for a long time. We trusted each other. What we had to do was difficult and we did it together. We were united to make sure this scum would not demonstrate in this multi-racial city without paying a price.
The Polishook Factory
This story started when I had worked in the Polishook jewelry factory in New York, doing mass production. During my six years there a strong base was built. There were 40 factory workers and 10 office workers. I was a shop steward. Many struggles happened during the 6 years. In February of 1969 our union was involved in a bitter, five week strike during which the people in the factory became tight friends. After the strike the workers realized that the increase was too small.
We decided on the job that we would demand that the union ask for an additional 10-cents-per-hour raise. Eighteen of us went to the union office and asked the executive board to reopen the contract for an additional 10 cents. The union polled the shop stewards, who agreed that we needed the money. Within a few weeks, it was agreed to by management. The whole trade got a ten-cent raise, which was a significant amount of money then. Then an article was printed in the union newsletter to say that our shop was the spearhead group.
At the time I was getting out 17 CHALLENGES every issue, bringing some people to demonstrations and Party cultural events, and had close family relationships with some of the workers, and two workers had joined the Party. We had a study group going at work with attendance between one and six people weekly. We also considered ourselves to be a union within the union, a caucus. When Martin Luther King was killed in 1968, we refused to work and the whole factory walked out for a day.
Many of us looked for a demonstration, supposedly in Central Park. We didn’t find it, and spent the day talking revolution. We were not paid for the day. We didn’t care. One of the things we discussed was that the union newsletter should have something about the struggle of black workers for equality. A few days after King’s death, 20 of us went to the union office and demanded they publish a full-page anti-racist article, and they did.
December 7, 1971 was the start of a major struggle. There were always layoffs, but usually after the Christmas holiday. Joaquin, one of the polishers, was laid off four weeks before Christmas. This meant he wouldn’t get his Christmas bonus. This incident led to a wildcat sit-down strike in the factory. That night I was fired and told not to report to work on Monday. I asked my club for advice, and they suggested a picket line. My family came and set up a picket line on Monday. The workers walked on the line for us – knowingly supporting a communist.
The union leaders came down to tell everyone (except me) to go back to work. The Latin leader talked to the Latin workers, the black leader talked to the black workers, and the Jewish leader spoke to the Italians, Jews, and other white workers. The workers eventually went in. That day five additional workers were fired. By this time we were a tough team. The following day, the six of us who had been fired held a sit-in at the union headquarters demanding the union fight for all of our jobs. A group of us from work picketed the boss’s home in Dobbs Ferry, singing him Christmas carols, especially “The Working Class is Coming to Town.” We leafleted the town to let people know he was a “scrooge”.
We petitioned jewelry workers at other factories throughout New York City, and leafleted and talked at union meetings. Some of us sold Challenge wherever we went. The ongoing developments often appeared in Challenge. All the workers got our jobs back through the union’s lawyer. After all this, the executive board of the union voted me out of the union. They attacked me as “a trouble-maker” and “a communist”.
The motion to throw me out had to be brought to the  membership for a vote. We kept leafleting, selling CHALLENGE, and some of my friends spoke on the floor of the union. I lost the vote to stay in the union by a very narrow margin after an exciting fight on the union floor. I had to walk out of the union meeting. My brother and sister workers walked out with me. It was a very difficult moment.
An election for union officers soon followed. Our caucus ran a slate of candidates against the leadership. I couldn’t run or vote because I was out of the union. We got about 20 percent of the vote. When I was expelled from the union, PLP got me a lawyer who wanted to take the case on pro bono because he said it would fill a gap in the law on workers’ defenses on the job. Eventually, after a year of putting pressure on the union by continuing to leaflet and petition union shops, a member of the caucus stood up on the union floor and stated, “We should bring him back. He’s never going to give in.”  
Through the support of my union comrades, my lawyer won the case in April 1973, thus setting a legal precedent which has been used in many cases since. The union leadership never appealed this decision because there was too much pressure on them. This battle was fought not only in the courts, but also in the streets, the factories, and the union hall. This is what basebuilding can do. It is our best and strongest defense, along with winning people to see that the only really effective way to fight the bosses is to join the Progressive Labor Party.