There is a children's story about a young boy that put his thumb in a bursting dike, thus preventing the flooding of an entire country: Holland. Our Party, The Progressive Labor Party (PLP), is like the boy and the dike. The U.S. ruling class is unleashing a gigantic flood of racism and economic oppression--fascism. This is accompanied by small and large profit wars around the globe
Our Party together with you and countless others must stop the flood of war and fascism. Our very lives, the lives of our friends, families and workmates are at stake in this relentless war against capitalism. Despite the rulers' cry that communism is dead, you can see for yourselves that it isn't. The rulers lie because only communist revolution, the fight for the dictatorship of the proletariat, threaten them. They "tremble" at the thought of the loss of profits and political power.
We can, we must win this war. The outcome must be a victorious outcome for the working class, and their vanguard communist party. Only communism can succeed in keeping the "barbarians" from our door, ending the death-dealing consequences of capitalism. It is true that our Party is small. The task seems impossible. But this is changing. Our Party is growing slowly. It can and will grow more quickly as many of you who are here today at this May Day, join PLP. Your joining will give the working class greater strength to recruit even faster, many more of those not here.
A stronger Party will give the working class time to regroup and ward off the bosses' fascist attacks. A bigger Party will allow the workers to reorganize and go on the offensive for communism. Your joining the Party will enable this to happen! Joining the Party is not just another act. Joining the Party gives the workers the strength and the confidence that they can march ahead. It's time to shed the dead-end reformist leadership that has allowed the bosses to roll over us. It is clear that our future under capitalism is worse than bleak. All around us we can see the racism, the unemployment, the lower wages the various cutbacks and the bursting jails. This is what capitalist reformist leadership has brought us to.
We must be able to unleash the flood of our revolutionary strength for political power. We can create a new society that produces for need not profits. A society that treasures life, not death. We need a society in which the individual flowers.
This can't happen in a society where selfishness and greed triumph.
The seeds of this future communist society exist in our Party today. Today we are fighting for a society that will the slavery of the wage system. No more will the bosses chain us to them with a paycheck.
We are fighting for a society that will smash the borders the capitalists have created to divide up the world and our class.
We are fighting for a society that will eliminate racism and the whole idea of race. We are fighting for a society organized as a Party of millions, based on the slogan, "From each according to commitment, to each according to need."
Just as inequality is the basis of capitalism, equality is the basis of communism. That is what our party fights for.
Capitalism is tottering. Each capitalist seeks alliances for profit and war. But capitalism will not die by itself. We must destroy capitalism before it wipes out millions more of us in its profit crusade.
The almighty buck is the flag of capitalism. We have to join together and fight under the red flag of revolution. If we are passive in the face of the bosses' assaults we will gain nothing. We will lose! Our future, the future of all workers lies with the PLP. Communism is the order of the day. Let us join together for the "final conquest" of capitalism. There are only two paths--communism or capitalism. The choice is yours: death under capitalism or life under communism. Join us now!
They shut down manufacturing plants here, just to reopen in third world countries. Then they bring their goods back here and expect us to buy their goods back here off our minimum wage salaries. Many people try and tell me that the Communist party is not the way to go. "They don't believe in God." My reply to them is what kind of God does capitalist believe in?
They preach love and practice hate. They speak equality and practice racism. They talk about truth and spread lies. The only God that they believe in is the Goddamn dollar! You can't believe a word they say, just ask the Native American who they screwed out of their land. Trust them. Yeah right!
When I was 19 or 20, studying in Guatemala, I had a teacher who was a communist and taught a course in the "National Reality." On the wall he drew a triangle with the rich on top, the middle class and working class in the middle, and the poor and farmworkers on the very bottom. He said that if the workers and the poor and farmworkers joined, they could turn the triangle upside down. He introduced us to Karl Marx and the Communist Manifesto. He and his ideas made a big impression on me. Some years later he was killed by the government. You can imagine how we felt.
I joined the Party mainly because I believe that no one should be more than someone else. The wealth, which is produced by the working class, has to be divided equally. The only system that will allow this is a communist system. Also, I see many injustices that the capitalists commit every day-on my job as a janitor in Los Angeles, and all over---- that's why I'm a communist.
Also, because of my experiences in Central America. I saw my dreams of a communist world frustrated, because there were those who were called communists who proved that they were not real communists. What I've seen today is that the only alternative is only one Party, only one line, and only one ideology, which is the PLP. That's what made me join the Party.
As long as we're living under capitalism, I see that the working class will never progress--, much less eliminate poverty, discrimination, imperialist wars, etc. I see that only by organizing can the working class get rid of the capitalist system that only exploits us. Since the only thing we have is our labor power which we have to sell to the bosses, they keep getting richer and every day more workers are poorer. When the capitalists talk about "progress," we can't pay any attention to them because their "progress" makes us hungrier while they get fatter. For example, affirmative action----this is progress for them, not us. An example is that the bosses in L.A. put a black man as police chief so the people would say that he is one of "us." But it doesn't matter if people in his position are black or latin. They are not part of our class. They're enemies.
If the capitalist system continues to exist, the future of the working class is obviously a future of sadness, a future of depression and bitterness. On the other hand, if we help make the working class into communist fighters, if we become multipliers of the Party, we'll take a different road, with direction and reason, to a just and noble cause----communist revolution. That's how communism will triumph. This will mean a future where there will be food, health and peace, where the wealth that we produce will be shared by all workers. That communist future isn't so far off. To get there, I invite all the readers of Challenge to join us.
"I joined PLP six years ago. Soon after, I told my father that I had become a communist and that I was going to help change the world. He said, "That's good. I hope you realize that you have picked the hardest job you possibly could."
My dad is a pretty smart guy. But he was only half right. He didn't tell me that this would be the best job I've ever had, too. Lately I've been thinking about what it means to be in the Party. Specifically, "What about my experience in joining the Party would be helpful to to recruiting new members?" Well, you decide.
I met the Party in a college class. I was about 30 years old, recently divorced and had just been fired from my job. Yeah, I was on a roll. But this philosophy class got me thinking. I realized there were problems outside the ones that I was experiencing. The teacher presented a communist analysis of the inequality that causes world hunger. He assigned us to write papers on what we would do about world hunger.
I thought about this essay essay a great deal. In the end I just couldn't figure out what to do about world hunger except share the wealth and the scarcity of the world equally--communism. This class introduced me to the idea that communism was possible. Yet I didn't join the Party right away. It was my It was my life experiences made me think that communism was necessary.
My older brother fought in the Vietnam war. He risked his life for U.S. imperialism. All he got for it was a drug problem. When I learned the role imperialism plays in causing world hunger, I became angry. I was angrier still when I thought about how my brother had been fired from several jobs because of his militancy. I thought about how capitalism hadn't ever done anything but subject my family to racism, sexism and unemployment.
The final straw came when I started thinking about solving these problems. I went to church for over 20 twenty years. I believed. I prayed. Nonetheless a couple of things were gnawing at me: One: (1) Why do black nationalist preachers criticize white people from the pulpit? Didn't white people insure ensure that enslaved Africans would "get Jesus"? If so, shouldn't they be thankful to whites for saving their damned souls? I just didn't go for the separatist or race pride talk; and two, . (2) Could I really change the world by praying? If so, are all the people who are praying around the world praying for the wrong things? Who is praying for equality?
Well, after going over these things in my mind. I agreed to see the May Day slide show. The teacher came to my home and showed it to me. After seeing it I agreed to go to the May Day March. I was asked to be a bus captain on the trip to Washington. I said yes. I thought, "Wow, this group really is interested in developing leadership among all of its members."
At May Day I saw a glimpse of the future I wanted for myself and my loved ones. I saw people of all colors united to fight for equality. I heard speeches simultaneously translated so that the barrier of language would not prevent workers from getting the communist message. On the way back from Washington, D.C., I joined PLP.
I joined because I saw a group of people committed to changing the world. These people extended the hand of friendship to me (that teacher is now among my best friends). Finally they asked me to join the Party, build it and make it mine. Now I get to spend the rest of my life doing the same thing. That's pretty good you know----lifetime security on the greatest job in the world. Join us; we have plenty of openings.
Born in Grenada, Mississippi, in 1937, Margaret came to Chicago's West Side at the age of nine "Everything seemed dirty, and the people seemed kinda mean after coming from a little country town." After graduating from Manley H.S., her first job was in a small factory at Kinzie and Damen Avenues making display cabinets, earning [how much](?) an hour. In 1965 she got a job as a housekeeper at Cook County Hospital.
For the next 29 years she mopped, swept and scrubbed the floors at County. She also saw that the difference between the haves and have-nots was more than just chance. "The workers were treated like dogs. They just didn't give a damn about us. If you were somebody `professional,' things always just worked out better for you. That's when I started to see that it's a class society, the poor and the rich."
Margaret first met the Party in 1972. "We were fighting with the governing commission who ran the hospital, and different communist organizations came around to support us. I wasn't a communist then, but I knew some." The first person she met from PLP was John, a County lab tech. "I always had a lot of respect for John because he was always fighting. The other communist groups were always saying `he's moving too fast.' He was always putting his job on the line and I really respected him for that."
The commitment of the PL'ers made a big impression. "In 1984 I met other Party members at the hospital through another housekeeper, Carmen. I started going to some meetings and then I ran into John and another woman, Karen, who I had also known from County. I thought to myself, `these people are still out here fighting, after these other groups had been gone for years. This organization must be all right.' " It was then that she joined.
The Party's fundamental belief in equality makes a lot of sense to a woman who's own family has been ravaged by capitalism. "The system has destroyed some of my kids with drugs and alcohol. I've got two sons who are in the prison system. I know what capitalism does to poor working people. In a system without wages, people wouldn't have to do crazy things. If people had the necessities of life they wouldn't be on the streets or in prison. The way it is now, people always end up on the shit end of the stick trying to survive."
What about the future? "Communism will win. I think it will be a hard fight, and maybe things will have to come down harder on some people before they're ready to join. But the system is kicking us around and people know it."
Dear Challenge:
For most of my life, I have lived a sheltered existence. My identity and opinions were shaped by my family. They were Democrats, so obviously I was one. They were prejudiced against whites, so I was too.
I never questioned their beliefs. I assumed they knew what they were talking about because they hadn't steered me wrong yet. Besides, it was easy to recite someone else's ideas. It was comfortable and uncomplicated. I didn't think I would have to be responsible for the effects these beliefs would have on others and myself. If my values were questioned, I could say, "This is how I was raised."
I believed that once I got my college degree and my dream career, I would come back to "invest" in my "people." After meeting some PLP comrades on my college campus, they helped me to see and understand that the thing between students and a degree is not simply the will to get a better life, but a lot of capitalist asses waiting to be kissed.
From socializing and working with PLP members, I know they aren't crazy for wanting to destroy this system. PLP understands the inherent corruption and inequality in the system. They want a better life for all, not just a few. Through every day struggles, with people like myself, PLP is working towards their goal. I joined PLP because I wanted to be a part of the struggle to attain a communist egalitarian society. I know that PLP won't compromise this goal.
CSU comrade
Dear Challenge,
Since September, our PLP high school club has been having C/D readers' groups every other week. Ranging from 15-20 youth, these meetings have Newark high school studentss coming together to discuss not just why capitalism is no good, but also how life would be better under a communist society.
One reason for these study groups is to better understand the main obstacles holding these youth back from joining the fight for communism. In my opinion the primary contradictions are individualism vs. collectivity, and doubt that a communist system is possible. But two particular recent study groups have begun to smash both of these contradictions and prove that communism is alive and growing fast.
When we discuss how life would be in a system where people receive what they need to live, and work according to commitment and ability, everyone agrees that it sounds great, but rarely do people believe it's possible. But at one meeting, six youth asked the PL youth why we weren't more open about communism and the Party. They felt we should be leafleting high schools throughout the city and encouraging everyone we know to be communist.
Now this came as quite a shock to us in the Party because our own anti-communist ideas convinced us that only a select group of youth cared to learn about communism, not hundreds. But at the end of the meeting, at least 10 youth agreed to sell or give C/D and our other pamphlets to their friends.
In a more recent study group, the meeting itself defeated the capitalist belief that only individualism could help each member of the working class, and showed that collectivity is the only way for individual workers to benefit. Many people were yelling, joking around, and being disruptive for the first hour and a half of the meeting. Everyone was so busy trying to get their own views across that no one wanted to listen to anyone else. But since there was such noise and disruption, no one managed to be heard. When communist leaders brought order to the meeting, it could proceed. When the study group began acting as a collective, and everyone worked together, every individual that had a point to make was finally heard.
Through these study groups, communism is becoming a big issue in Newark high schools. The reason why so many people are only concerned with themselves and their own lives is because they aren't convinced that collectivity and communist sharing are possible. And people therefore do not believe that communism is possible when capitalism only pushes individualist competition in the working class. Yet our study groups reflect not only that youth do want communism to become a mass fight, but also that this individualist way of life under capitalism only hurts us members of the working class.
In New Jersey, Seattle, New York, Chicago, and other cities around the world, communism is the issue of the day. This year's May Day will be an outstanding victory for the international working class, and a huge blow to this dying capitalism system.
--NJ PLP youth leader
The rulers exercise their dictatorship over the workers through violence, terror and illusions, and then more violence.
On Sunday, April 28, before thousands of surprised and angry soccer fans at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, the police brutally beat and arrested several fans, among them a brother and sister who came to see the game between the Galaxy and the San Jose Clash.
As the cops attacked people in the stands, this pair moved from their seats to protect some children from the melee. This was interpreted by these racist dogs as a threat to them.
The young woman was arrested trying to protect her brother. When they were taken down from the stands and through an exit tunnel, the brother saw and heard the cops insult his sister and pull her by the hair. When he protested, the cops, especially Valdivieso, a latin cop, hit the man's head against a stairway in the stadium, causing him to temporarily lose consciousness. This happened within sight of thousands of fans who protested the brutality of the cops. Many fans complained of being pushed and threatened in a racist way by the cops who called them "wetbacks".
There will be a demonstration in Pasadena next week against the cops and the racist system they protect. These incidents aren't isolated and are becoming more frequent. The anger of the working class is growing too and it wouldn't be a surprise if this was a long, hot summer in LA. Workers and youth need to join PLP to destroy the violent dictatorship of the racist bosses and replace it with workers' dictatorship where no racist cop or boss will be allowed.
Anti-working class terror and racism go with the badge, but some cops stand out because of their exceptional hatred. If you have a candidate for the Fuhrman award send it to us.
The source of these problems is capitalism. The rich people run it and they run it for their own benefit. Screw the rest of us. Their goal? Make as much profit as possible, no matter who gets pushed down or killed along the way. Racism is a favorite of the capitalists--it gives them billions of dollars from low wages. Their armies and police "serve and protect" their fortunes.
The time will come sooner than you think that millions will say "enough." We will be in the streets. We will take over the city halls, the police stations, the factories. We will organize a new society, without money and without racism. This will happen because a revolutionary communist party, the Progressive Labor Party (PLP), exists. PLP is organizing right now, around the world, to take power away from the ruling class.
You can be part of this historic accomplishment. This summer PLP will step up its organizing in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles factories, hospitals, schools, and neighborhoods. We will organize against police brutality. We will spread communist ideas to workers in the auto and steel plants and garment shops. We will involve hundreds, at many different levels, in learning about communism and fighting racist capitalism.
Developing a campaign that exposes the police as agents of the ruling class. Police brutality is no accident--it's part of the capitalists' plan for racist terror.
Organizing neighborhood activities including pancake breakfasts, drama, sports, music, and others.
Hosting meetings of your co-workers, friends, neighbors, and/or relatives.
Participating in rallies and marches.
Visiting people in their homes.
Afternoons. Evenings. Weekends.
Name ___________________________________________________________
Address _________________________________________________________
City and Zip Code _________________________________________________
Phone No. ___________________ Job or School _______________________
PROGRESSIVE LABOR PARTY
(312) 663-4138, 218 S. Wabash, Room 904, Chicago, Illinois 60604
On another front, the gang of killers who incinerated 500,000 Iraqis a few years ago are now making noise about cracking down on two-bit terrorists. Federal prosecution of the Unabomber and the Oklahoma bombers and the FBI's siege of the Montana Freemen go hand-in-hand with an "anti-terrorism" bill Clinton signed into law last week.
U.S. rulers are making moves to expand their ability to use violence and intimidation against workers. The new law will speed the deportation of "alien terrorists," limit appeals in many federal trials, provide federal and state cops an additional $1 billion in funding, and ban fundraising by "terrorist" organizations. The plan is to use the example of a few crackpots to classify as terrorist all who fight the fascists and then clamp down with an even more vicious police and court system.
It's only a matter of time before the Feds pin the label of terrorist on militant groups of workers. The media have already portrayed GM workers striking recently for job security in Dayton, Ohio as sabotaging the U.S. economy. Clinton's bill could easily target communist labor organizing, particularly if it involves workers across borders. The legislation has the fundamental, but unspoken, goal of blocking any movement toward communist revolution.
This has been done before by desperate rulers who will do anything to hang on to their power. Communists who were not prepared for the fascist schemes in Germany of 1933 were defeated by these fascists. However, the examples of Russia and China are proof that workers, who out-number the rulers and their cops, can win. It is up to us.
You guessed it: The Jackie Kennedy Onassis Auction.
Jackie died as she had lived, selling herself from beyond the grave to the highest bidder. A child of the U.S. ruling class (her grandfather was a founder of Standard Oil), she married into the Kennedy fortune. Then, shortly after JFK got bumped off in Dallas by rival bosses, she prostituted herself for a chunk of Aristotle Onassis' shipping billions. She understood capitalism's golden rule: Make More Money.
The auction was a tribute to her heroic selfishness. Everybody involved got something. The Sotheby auction house got a fat commission for raising fantastic bids of $34 million. Jackie's adoring kids, John-John and Caroline, got to split the post-commission pile. Jackie's favorite "charity," the JFK Library in Boston, got $2 million from catalogue sales. And the morons who opened their checkbooks to buy her crap got exactly what they deserved.
[ * A leg from a barstool of the East Boston saloon where young JFK and his brothers would provoke workers into fights and then be backed up outside by the Boston Police Department and the Harvard football team.
[ * Matching collection baskets donated by Cardinal Cushing, who turned over the entire haul from a Sunday collection in Boston's Catholic churches when JFK needed untraceable cash for the bungled Bay of Pigs invasion.
[ * The paper bag used by the Kennedy campaign in 1960 to hand over $1 million as a bribe to the Cook County (Chicago) election commission. The 100,000 votes the commission swung to JFK won him the presidency.
[ * A brochure, entitled: "Welcome to Dallas, a 1963 Visitor's Guide," autographed by Lyndon Johnson.
[ * $5 million in Saigon municipal bond certificates.
Jackie was a model of egotism and greed. But nobody's perfect. She could have done better, carrying her struggle through to the end. She could have willed her body to a taxidermist, to be stuffed, mounted, and put up for auction. Would it have fetched $50 million? $100 million? The lucky winner could have taken Jackie home as a permanent dinner guest.
In future issues, we will update readers on the rumored proposal to rename St. Patrick's Cathedral "Our Lady of Gross Self-Indulgence," in Jackie's honor. We will also keep tabs on the movement to canonize Saint Jackie the Shopper.
Isn't it obvious that communist rule will be better than rule by these parasites?
"The inequality of education is based more along class lines than racial."
"...talking about CSU (Chicago State University) using these exams to weed students out, that's all universities!"
These are just samplings of the discussions that our PL group had with students in building our protest around the English exit exam. The CSU administration requires that every student at this predominantly black school take the essay exam in order to graduate. Even after passing the required English class, many students fail the exam several times.
Today we set up a table in the cafeteria and invited students to join PLP if they wanted to fight back against the exit exam. We sold 30 Challenges (in addition to the 140 sold during the week), and passed out Road to
Revolution 4. Our PLP club also passed out certificates that said: "Congratulations! This certifies that this member of the working class is sufficiently educated to exit from capitalist inequality, and ready to enter into a brighter future under communism. March on May Day!"
The two weeks that we used to organize for the protest helped our Party club make communism a mass issue on the campus. We pointed out how the exam is used to justify many not graduating. Students fail and blame themselves like we're stupid. This kind of discussion was useful in explaining what communist society would mean for the working class. In a society based on the needs of people we wouldn't be divided up into the haves and have-nots. Throughout our discussion with students they had to question their support of capitalist inequality vs. communism.
This week the results of the exit exams are being posted, and the pass ratio is still miserable (one English instructor had nine students pass out of total of 57). A student called to let us know she just got the results back from her advisor. You guessed it--she didn't pass and this is her sixth time taking it. She vowed to march on May Day. CSU administration, watch out!
Between 1972 and 1976, he helped recruit many students to PLP. As a Party member, he was active in the fight for school integration and against the racist organization, BUSSTOP. He was denied tenure at UCLA because of his political activity.
In 1977, Humberto started working at County Hospital in the Dept. of Oncology. He fought the administration over racist treatment of latin women and publicly revealed that workers in the radiology dept. were over-exposed to radiation, including himself. As a result, he was fired and most probably he got his subsequent leukemia.
Humberto became inactive in PLP, but he remained a loyal friend. He continued to encourage his children to be active with the Party. He worked at industrial clinics, taking care of many workers, including phone-worker friends of his son. After 1990, when he found out he had leukemia, he got closer to the Party again. He came to all the May Day marches and had to fight Kaiser Hospital to finally get a bone marrow transplant. Unfortunately, it was too late. In 1995, at his last May Day March, he spoke on TV about the need to fight against fascism and for communism. He spoke as a Party member. He touched many people.
When he died, his family was gathered at his bedside, singing his favorite songs-- "Bella Ciao" and "The Internationale." Humberto died when he was still young. He was killed by capitalism, like so many others. His greatest gift to his family and friends was his desire to fight for a better world, free of exploitation, free of racism, a communist world. We will miss him.
With his characteristically quirky sense of humor, Jim took two John Birch Society bumper stickers and cut them apart, recombining them and sticking them on his front door. One of the resulting signs was "Support your local communist."
Jim was an active member of the PL-led fraction in the sharp struggles at UCLA against the Vietnam war and in support of campus workers. In the late seventies he helped lead an InCAR film collective which documented the PLP-led attack against the Ku Klux Klan in Oxnard, California. During that same period he wrote a doctoral dissertation titled "Communists and the Communist Issue in the American Labor Movement, 1920-1950."
In a period when Cold War anti-communists were the only historians writing about the role of communists in the U.S. labor movement, Prickett led the way studying the role of the Communist Party in the CIO as leading fighters in organizing the unions, and as the most active, militant, and democratic leaders of the trade union struggles. His conclusion was that "as unionists, they were excellent, but they were poor communists."
As we struggle to work in the unions to win workers to the Party, we are still learning how to be good communists rather than good unionists. Rereading Prickett's work is extremely helpful in understanding the pitfall of being "excellent unionists" at the expense of being good communists.
While disagreements separated him from us in the last 15 years, he maintained supportive, honest and principled relationships with many Party members. He taught the history of the Vietnam War and U.S. history at Santa Monica College and put forward a position which was very close to ours. He even recruited a student to the Party after he himself was no longer active with us. What each one of us does counts in building the movement to put an end to capitalism and its miseries. Jim's contributions to our understanding of the successes and failures of the communist movement will outlive him--and all of us.
Long live these comrades' memories and long live communism!
A week ago, at the N.F. Inc.garment factory, we showed the video, "Road to Revolution," to seven workers from the factory. Several workers said they liked the presentation but they thought that the people in the factory wouldn't join the struggle.. Another worker answered, "Two months ago we had a general work stoppage to stop the boss from lowering the piece rate, and everyone supported it. Remember?"
"It's true," said the others. And the worker continued, "Two years ago we had a strike for three days to stop the boss from lowering our wages and everyone supported it. The problem isn't whether or not the people join--the people always support the struggle. The problem is about what demands unite us. We could spend our whole life fighting for small things and our lives will never change. What we need is to unite to fight for communist revolution that will change the whole society."
Everyone said that they would like to keep participating in meetings. They said that they would come to the march and invite their friends, including some who took the video to show it in their homes.
We've shown the video, "Road to Revolution," to other workers in this factory. In one of these discussions a worker asked, "If latin workers vote in the elections, can't this help the undocumented immigrants?"
A worker from another factory said, "Elections are only a way to fool people. In Mexico the people vote, here the people vote, and things keep getting worse than before. Voting is only to decide which executioner will exploit us and hang us."
The worker continued to explain, "All these reformist organizations are pacifying people with the illusion that voting will change things. We have to expose them. The reformists defend capitalism. We communists are in a struggle to see who wins the workers. The workers will follow those who tell the truth and whose ideas correspond to reality. And we are showing the truth in practice. Capitalism cannot meet the workers' needs. Communism will! Because under communism, the workers will produce for our own needs, not for the bosses' profit. We have to have the confidence that we will win the people to our side."
Marx pointed out that the history of all human society (after the stage when we gathered and hunted wild food) is a history of class struggle. Our ancestors were all slaves at one time or place or another, but they never fought to reform slavery. They fought to get rid of it or escape it.
Let's look at slavery in the United States as an example. There were at least 200 recorded rebellions against slavery in the U.S. It took a hell of a lot of courage to rebel because all the cards were stacked against the slaves. It may seem obvious why slaves and their allies never fought to reform slavery, because, after all, who would want to make slavery better? You'd expect people just to want to overthrow it, or at the minimum, to try to escape from it. And that's what they did.
But there actually were movements to reform slavery--organized by the slave-owners. Some slave-owners lobbied for laws and practices that would make slavery less violently oppressive. For instance, they tried to pass laws that would make it illegal for a slave-owner to kill a slave. Some of them wanted to make it illegal to separate slave families. They had good reason to do this. They were scared to death of the slaves, and were worried about opposition from workers and other allies of the slaves. So some of the more forward looking slave-owners figured that a "kinder, gentler" slavery would have less opposition. In other words, they wanted to reform slavery so it would last longer.
Marx said something else we should remember: that workers are actually "wage slaves." The only freedom we have is the freedom to sell our labor. (If we don't sell our labor, we starve to death: some freedom!) Maybe the bosses can't buy and sell our bodies any more, but they still buy and sell our ability to work, they still rule us, so what's the big difference?
The reason I'm bringing this up about wage slavery is that capitalism has got a lot of us boondoggled. Where our ancestors could see that they had to fight to outright abolish the system that oppressed them, we modern day slaves often get caught up in doomed efforts to "improve" our slavery.
Reform movements in modern times serve the same purpose they did back then: to give the oppressors and their system more staying power. They mislead people into thinking that there actually can be a "kinder, gentler" form of capitalist exploitation.
Now, I'm not saying that slaves didn't do lots of things to fight back short of complete, open revolt. They fought the slave-owners at every turn, by slowdowns, breaking tools, pretending illness, poisoning their bosses, etc., etc., etc. But they never believed that by doing things like that, they could make slavery tolerable. We should take a lesson from their experience: fight our oppressors every day in every way, but not to try to reform capitalism. The only thing that can free us from wage slavery is to abolish capitalism, which means making a communist revolution.
Seattle had a successful May Day dinner! We enjoyed a wonderful meal and a speech by a comrade who had been on strike at Boeing for 69 days last year. He made very clear the necessity of fighting for true communism, not reform struggles, if we are going to see decent lives for ourselves, our children and their children.
A truck driver from Safeway had just gotten word a few hours earlier that many of their jobs were going to be offloaded to lower paid drivers. The answer to offloading is revolution.
The truck driver and his family and friends of the family all made it to the dinner despite time demands caused by hastily called union meetings. The struggle for communism must take precedence over the reform struggle. This comrade has led the way through this action, which will also make this point about what's important clearer to the drivers with whom he works.
The highlights of the evening were speeches by two students. One, who joined the Party during the Boeing strike, talked about why he had joined. He explained that he wanted to let his fellow students know how things needed to change. He said that when he looked to the future for people his age, he saw no jobs and much racism. He knew he needed to help lead the way to a better life, and that joining PLP was the way to do that.
The second student speaker, who lives in the former Soviet Union, said he was impressed by the discussions in his history class and that was why he came to the dinner. A comrade in this class, who also leads the youth work, has been leading discussions about what real communism is, versus the socialism (and more recently State Capitalism) of the USSR. These discussions showed the visiting student that what he had lived under was not really communism. He said he was also aware that capitalism could never fulfill the needs of the working class. He now realizes only true communism as espoused by PLP could do so.
We were all heartened by these speeches and the leadership and energy the youth can provide us. Two new Boeing workers are now meeting with our club as a result of our May Day activities. We are looking forward to bringing a contingent to May Day and having new comrades when we return home.
Seattle Comrade
Since September, our PLP high school club has been having Challenge Readers' Groups every other week. Ranging from 15-20 youth, these meetings have Newark high school students coming together to discuss not just why capitalism is no good, but also how life would be better in a communist society.
One reason for these study groups is to better understand the main obstacles holding youth back from joining the fight for communism. In my opinion the primary contradictions are individualism vs. collectivity, and doubt that a communist system is possible. But two particular recent study groups have begun to smash both of these contradictions and prove that communism is alive and growing fast.
When we discuss how life would be in a system where people receive what they need to live, and work according to commitment and ability, everyone agrees that it sounds great, but rarely do people believe it's possible. But at one meeting, six youth asked the PL youth why we weren't more open about communism and the Party. They felt we should be leafleting high schools throughout the city and encouraging everyone we know to be communist.
Now this came as quite a shock to us in the Party because our own anti-communist ideas convinced us that only a select group of youth cared to learn about communism, not hundreds. But at the end of the meeting, at least 10 youth agreed to sell or give Challenge-Desafío and our other pamphlets to their friends.
In a more recent study group, the meeting itself defeated the capitalist belief that only individualism could help each member of the working class, and showed that collectivity is the only way for individual workers to benefit. Many people were yelling, joking around, and being disruptive for the first hour and half of the meeting. Everyone was so busy trying to get their own views across that no one wanted to listen to anyone else. But since there was such noise and disruption, no one managed to be heard. When communist leaders brought order to the meeting, it could proceed. When the study group began acting as a collective, and everyone worked together, every individual that had a point to make was finally heard.
Through these study groups, communism is becoming a big issue in Newark high schools. The reason why so many people are only concerned with themselves and their own lives is because they aren't convinced that collectivity and communist sharing are possible. And people therefore do not believe that communism is possible when capitalism only pushes individualist competition in the working class. Yet our study groups reflect not only that youth do want communism to become a mass fight, but also that this individualist way of life under capitalism only hurts us members of the working class.
In New Jersey, Seattle, New York, Chicago, and other cities around the world, communism is the issue of the day. This year's May Day will be an outstanding victory for the international working class, and a huge blow to this dying capitalism system.
[ NJ PLP youth leader
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For years, PLP has been telling Haitian workers to have no illusions in the reforms promised by Aristide, and to build the PLP and the fight for communism. When Aristide was vying for power by kicking out the TonTons Macoute Junta, some Haitian workers, friends of PLP, here on the island of Quisqueya (shared by Haiti and the Dominican Rep.) told us to give him a chance. They also thought the same thing about Rene Preval, Aristide's friend and new president of Haiti.
Now some of our Haitian friends are beginning to see that Aristide and Preval are nothing but different sides of the capitalist/imperialist coin. These friends are telling PLP that they were deceived by Aristide/Preval, promising to fight the capitalists, and ending up making deals with them.
Although it was tragic that, after the world's workers have had so many deadly experiences with lesser-evil politicians, so many Haitian workers and youth still believed in a capitalist Messiah to save them from the ravages of capitalism and imperialism. We are now happy that so many are beginning to see that the PL position was correct and now are joining us.
PLP communist May Day activities in the Dominican Republic are also bringing the same message to workers and youth. We are telling them not to be taken in by the electoral game of the bosses. The rulers want us to believe that the solution to our problems is to elect Peña Gomez, Leonel Fernandez, or even vice-president Peynado, the presidential candidates in the May 16 elections. Some see in Peña Gomez, a social-democrat, as the solution to the blackouts, mass unemployment, crime and general misery caused by the corrupt government of octogenarian Joaquin Balaguer. Others see Leonel Fernandez, another liberal who is being supported by many former supporters of Balaguer because of racism (they call Peña Gomez a black Haitian).
But no election is going to change the situation suffered by workers and youth. All the candidates are proposing more or less the same neo-liberal free market capitalist programs such as privatizing state industries. . This has failed all over the world, from the former Soviet Union to Mexico. The only solution is to join the fight to smash capitalism and build a communist society based on production according to each person's needs.
Comrade, The Dominican Republic
In San Salvador, El Salvador, a university professor asked a student friend of mine to present a theme in class with social content. The student didn't know what to talk about and couldn't find material to use. He told me his probl