Build unity door to door! 

On a recent Saturday, a couple of comrades and I joined a canvassing training for Janeese Lewis George outside the Highlands Grill in Ward 7. George is the latest D.C. mayoral candidate who uses progressive rhetoric to mislead our class. In total, about 30 volunteers came from across the city. There were high‑school students, professors, bartenders, college students, and community organizers. Most were Black. The lead organizers wore purple shirts and gave us a quick “talk‑to‑your‑neighbors” exercise so we could reach our across‑the‑river neighbors.

The event was undeniably well‑organized. The training emphasized a listening‑first approach: ask each person about what issue matters to them most, then gradually steer the conversation toward the candidate, her positions, and how to vote.

Yet, as I stood beside the volunteers, I felt a growing dissonance between the mechanics of the campaign and the material realities of our class. The promise that electing a progressive candidate will “fix” systemic oppression rests on the lie that a new face will fundamentally redistribute wealth and power. History shows that even well‑intentioned officials quickly become custodians of the same racist and sexist structures that exploit workers everywhere.

With George specifically, she proudly called for defunding the Maryland Police Department during her 2020 Ward 4 council campaign. After winning, she quickly flipped the script, pledging to raise the police budget to the maximum statutory amount. Politicians can and will do the bidding of the ruling class and try to keep us in the dark. We, the grassroots volunteers, never know what conversations are happening behind closed doors with corporate backers.

Ultimately, only a dictatorship of our class can bring the change we so desperately need. My conviction is that our collective power lies not in handing a ballot to a lying candidate who will escape accountability, but in organizing ourselves to meet our own material needs. Providing mutual aid, educating our neighbors, engaging in mass organizations, and organizing our co-workers. When we prioritize those struggles, we build a resilient community that can demand, not just hope for, real change.

That being said, the canvassing effort does offer a useful foothold. It gives a legitimate excuse to walk door‑to‑door, sit on stoops, and hear directly from neighbors (especially when confronting a media machine that wants us to stay divided based on gender, race, nationality, and sexuality!). These conversations are crucial for strategizing where Progressive Labor Party members should focus locally. So, I intend to return next week, not to sell a candidate, but to listen. I will ask my neighbors what they need today and use those answers to shape my club’s work as we take steps toward revolution. Propaganda has led workers to believe that one new face can be our savior. But the truth is simple: our power lives in solidarity, not in any individual champion. The workers, united, can never be defeated!
Building confidence to build a base

When I was preparing for the one day Progressive Labor Party (PLP)  school, one of the texts I read was the PLP “Build a Base” document from the 1960s. Many interesting points were raised in the document, but because it was clearly written for more experienced PLP members, it made me feel a bit overwhelmed. Many thoughts were going through my mind after reading it: am I cut out for basebuilding? If I were to basebuild, what would it look like in practice? Would I find a method that feels natural to who I am? 

During my discussions with my workshop group, I was able to find a lot of clarity. I became more certain of the necessity for communism—so of course I am cut out for basebuilding! We all are. We all have to be! And as I figure out how basebuilding will take shape in my life, our conversations gave me confidence that I can build off of the skills and relationships I already have, or will have in the future. I’m a student and a tutor, so that gives me lots of opportunities to connect with other young people who recognize that capitalism is destroying the world. If we were to develop a friendship, I have no doubt that would lead to more concrete conversations about PL’s work. (In fact, I’ve already experienced this)! At the root of my basebuilding trepidation, however, is a fear of rejection, something common to newer communists like myself. Overcoming this will take work, since it mostly stems from anti-communist indoctrination and my belief that others received the same conditioning.  

However, I would like to leave you all with something wise one of my group members said: There are strategic reasons you should be upfront about being a communist, as being dishonest makes it harder to basebuild. But also, by withholding your communism from people in your life, you are pretending an important part of yourself does not exist. This has inspired me to be more honest with my friends, relying on the not-so-blind-faith that our love will challenge anti-communist rhetoric, leading to fruitful conversations and, more importantly, action!
HHHHH

Neighbor: Hey, can I get your number?

“Hey, can I get your number?” I asked my parking neighbor during August of last year when the racist slumlords of our apartment complex towed her car through no fault of her own. Building management  failed to communicate with the towing company that her parking pass was paid for, costing my neighbor hundreds of dollars in towing fees. In the face of typical parasitic behavior amongst the property owners, extracting every penny they can from the working class, forming connections was the answer. 

We exchanged numbers in order to have each other’s backs in case of future mishaps with the slumlords. This small act eventually blossomed into a beautiful connection between my parking neighbor and me. 

Months later, she reached out to me to express her frustrations with her new parking neighbor. Serendipitously, comrades and I from Progressive Labor Party were planning a game night to build a foundation for a tenant’s union around the same time she called. This granted us the opportunity to take our connection to a higher level by inviting her and her son to the game night and connecting her with other neighbors. 

This game night turned out to be a huge success, enabling us to practice our line of forming multiracial unity amongst the working class by bringing a racially diverse group of neighbors together and challenging the isolation that prevents us from fighting the bosses. 

When I invited my car neighbor to the game night, she immediately shouted, “Oh my goodness this is exactly what we’ve been wanting for such a long time! This apartment complex never organizes any community events for us!” Statements like these are a reminder of how important the Party’s leadership is in building a base in the working class by any means necessary. 
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Town hall: Ed workers vs failing conditions

Two days ago, while walking near the Zócalo in Oaxaca City, I came across hundreds of people gathered in the town square awaiting the return of their representatives from a meeting with the state governor. After speaking with several participants, it became clear that they were primary and secondary school teachers, along with physical education instructors.

The issues under dispute include unpaid wages dating back to January, deteriorating working conditions in the schools, and the increasingly difficult circumstances faced by students. Some teachers also raised concerns about growing violence from outside groups affecting their communities.

Each year in Oaxaca, negotiations between the government and the teachers’ union center on salaries and working conditions, reflecting ongoing structural tensions that remain unresolved. Local newspapers have begun covering the struggle in greater detail, and it would be valuable for comrades closer to the struggle to report more fully on these developments in CHALLENGE. 

This struggle is part of a broader pattern of attacks facing educators and the working class more generally. The situation bears close attention, and solidarity with these teachers is essential. The fight continues — la lucha continúa.
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One battle after another: bosses’ fever dream

Recently, our club and friends had a “movie afternoon” to watch the award-winning One Battle After Another film that depicts a ruling class fever dream of revolution. It was directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Teyana Taylor, Sean Penn, and Chase Infiniti. This sounds like a sterling cast and director and should have been great. But our group begged to differ. One comrade wrote the following letter to express his critique:

Under the current fascist Trump Regime, bourgeois artists and directors need a way to distract and co-opt the energy of the people into idle debate instead of organizing. The contradictions of U.S. capitalism and “democracy” have resulted in blatant fascist violence by ICE to preserve the racist divisive status quo. Director Paul Thomas Anderson’s understanding that there is no hiding from the violence that has always been present in Black and brown communities has been twisted in this movie to portray working class revolutionary energy into indiscriminate fetishism and violence.

Anderson reflects the “othering” of blackness by portraying a perverse version of Black women’s supposed insatiable sexuality. Throughout history, the bodies of the marginalized have been trivialized in the pursuit of resources for the capitalist class.  From the bombardment of Venezuela for oil to the rape of Congo for rubber, Black and brown people have always been objects to viciously attack in the eyes of the capitalist. Teyanna Taylor’s character represents the same psychopathic objectification forced on the women of marginalized communities. The female body is used as an excuse for violence of the pigs eating at the troughs of the bourgeois. It’s a disgusting use of Black actors and paints the women, usually the main contributors of the liberation movement, as distractions.

The idealized use of violence in the film, paying implicit homage to the Weather Underground, also paints a sexy picture of violence rather than showing the tedious, but actually impactful, work of organizing in one’s community. The “French 75” underground in this movie is hailed as revolutionary “heroes,” but they didn’t change the material conditions for anyone ravaged by the capitalist state as they simply blew up buildings. 

Their violence only led to the movement being targeted and swiftly crushed by the state due to the romantic tactics of the organization, thus conveying depressing defeatism to the audience. 

There are no romantic heroes in the fight for a better future. Willing participants ready to fight day in and day out for a better tomorrow is what is required. A movie showing our current reality of capitalist crisis while presenting workers and community members as passive actors will not lead us to revolution. It is obvious that we need to organize together for future generations if we want to see a better world, not focus on phony ideas of revolution. May we organize for a better future, not sit around and sedate our lives, like the bumbling petit bourgeois revolutionary “Bob” played by Leonardo DiCaprio!
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