Carry the torch to burn capitalism

The world is seemingly becoming a bleaker place. Our fellow workers in Gaza and the West Bank continue to be slaughtered by the fascist ethnostate of Israel, all with the unbridled support from the U.S. empire and its European lackeys. 

The vicious and deliberate US blockade/embargo on Cuba has been cranked up to the max, leading to massive fuel shortages for Cuban workers, making life on the island more tumultuous. And now we have the blatantly naked attack on Iran, launched by the mass murder duo of the U.S and Israel. To top it off, the misleader nation of China, often purported as an alternative for the working class, sells its weaponry to the United Arab Emirates (basically Arab Israel) who in turn distributes those weapons to the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan, the current paramilitary group that is committing mass atrocities towards Sudanese workers, causing millions to be displaced. 

For many workers not just here in the States, but across the world, we are witnessing the deterioration of our material conditions. Everywhere we turn, it seems like bosses have absolute control, and our fates have no other path but to be sacrificed at the altar of capitalism. But if our history has taught us anything, it is in these dark nights that we must draw strength from struggles of comrades of the past and today. Time and time again, workers were faced with conditions that seemed impossible to overcome.

Slavery in Haiti was simply the way of life, until Haitian workers decided it wasn’t. Feudal misery was the only way of being for masses in Russia, until the Tsarist empire was overthrown, a new material reality was born under the leader of Russian communists. Despite almost a century of French colonial domination and twenty years of scorched earth bombardment of the U.S, our Vietnamese brethren defeated two empires and won their freedom from colonial oppression. Despite Israel committing unimaginable levels of carnage and destruction towards every facet of Palestinian life, workers in Palestine refused to leave their homes, and have refused to buckle to AI powered death machines. 

Even now, the women of Sudan have organized committees to protect and advocate for themselves and not leave their future to be decided by corrupt Sudanese elites or warlords. The history of our class indeed has profound and revolutionary moments that paved a different reality for workers. But we must also recognize that these valiant struggles didn’t just happen miraculously. Regular people like you and I build towards these luminous moments. From emancipation to tenant protection laws to crafting of an entire worker controlled nation, so many workers, ones we recognize and ones we may never will, understood one thing. Everyone plays a part. 

The deep conversation between family and friends about a communist vision for the future, the daily agitation for a more worker controlled workplace, providing a dialectical material analysis for your classmates who are subjected to capitalist orthodoxy - at first these actions and processes seem miniscule. But it is through these small actions where knowledge is passed, perseverance is inspired, parties are formed, and revolutions are materialized. Workers of the past not only fought to enhance conditions for the working class of their time but understood that their actions were “passing the torch.” Many workers never saw the liberation they dreamed of, but they had the commitment to ensure the next generation was one step closer to freedom. 

We see Progressive Labor Party as the culmination of all this history, struggle, sacrifice, revolutionary spirit, and continuous process - a process where many of us may not see a world where racism, sexism, and capitalism is completely stamped out. But we certainly will make sure future comrades around the world have the tools they need to finally abolish the dark night of capitalism with the flaming torch of communism. 
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1 lesson: need community to build communism

I have to start off by saying that I enjoyed being at the 1 Day School and learned a lot about communism and fascism. All of the presentations were very informative and I appreciated all of the links/readings on the schedule paper because I can share them with friends. I knew vaguely about fascism before, but I got a more thorough definition and examples from history which helped strengthen my understanding. I also benefited from the workshops after each presentation to stop and discuss what we learned. I learned the most from these workshops and got answers to more of my questions. However, the biggest thing I took away from the 1 Day School was the importance of community in the fight against fascism. I got to meet so many new people who were more experienced and more knowledgeable than me who I can learn from. With everything going on right now and how isolated many people have become after the pandemic, events like the 1 Day School could help a lot of people.
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A+ for communist school

I attended The Progressive Labor Party school day to get a better understanding of communism. I waned to learn how communism analyzes class, labor, and inequality and compare it to how the political system we have now does it. 
Attending this school day allowed me to gain knowledge on social justice and workers’ rights. I also made new relationships and enjoyed the school setting. Having this school day allowed myself and others to break out into groups and have questions and have a better and personal understanding. We engaged in open discussions as well.
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