This past spring, we celebrated the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP). As we pause the historic 1975 Boston Summer Project—one of the most defining struggles in PLP’s history—we do so to inject an awareness of the broader historical context that shaped and continues to guide our Party. From its beginnings with barely two dozen members of the old U.S. communist movement, PLP has grown into an international organization with active chapters in 27 countries.

The following is a reprint of an article originally published a decade ago to commemorate the Party’s 60th anniversary. Amid devastating racist and sexist attacks on our class—and as a decaying capitalist system slides ever closer to fascism—the Party’s analysis, history, and enduring presence stand as a beacon of light in a dark night and remain more urgent than ever

It all started April 17th 1965...

Over our first half-century, PLP has propelled the march to communism — first by leading anti-racist, working-class struggle, and through that struggle advancing communist ideas. This two-pronged strategy — practice and theory — is the basis for winning masses of workers to fight for communism.

Why communism? In our vision, the working class will determine the future of society. It will destroy the capitalist world and its brutal exploitation. It will smash a system that drives us into constant unemployment and poverty. It will stop the racism and sexism that drags down all workers. It will smash the racist cops who break our strikes and kill our Black, Latin, Asian and immigrant sisters and brothers. And it will put an end to the imperialist wars that send our youth to kill their class brothers and sisters worldwide, all for the bosses’ profits.

A communist world

Here is our vision for a communist world:

A society run by workers and for workers. After all, the working class produces everything of value and should rightfully receive the benefits of our labor. Collectively, we can determine how to share what we produce, according to need.

Abolition of the exploitative wage system and the money that runs it. We have no need for the parasitic bosses who steal most of the value of our labor through wage slavery.

Multi-racial unity with women and men workers and an end to the racism and sexism that divides the working class. Racism and sexism is rooted in capitalism; the bosses rely on it to steal trillions in super-profits worldwide.

Elimination of all borders, artificial lines drawn by the bosses to make even more profits from workers they call “foreigners.” Nationalism is an antiworker ideology that enables the imperialist rulers to exploit natural resources and cheap labor. It also enables them to make war on other workers. Communists are internationalists because the working class is one international class, with a common class interest, under one red flag.
This is the world the PLP has fought for from the start. We will continue to fight until our class prevails. We invite all workers to join this struggle — for ourselves, and for our children and grandchildren.

Struggle and theory

From its earliest beginnings in the 1960s, PLP has fought tooth and nail against attacks by the ruling class. We have organized and supported Ford workers and striking teachers in Mexico; wildcatting miners in Hazard, Kentucky; longshore workers in New York City; jute workers in India; miners in Britain; garment workers in Los Angeles; bank workers in Colombia; transit workers in Washington, DC; Chrysler sit-down strikers at Detroit’s Mack Avenue plant; farm workers in California, and bakery workers at Stella D’Oro in the Bronx. We have stood with evicted workers in Palestine-Israel, earthquake victims in Pakistan, and hurricane victims in Haiti, New Orleans, and New York City. We have led anti-imperialist struggles against the UN in Haiti. This is by no means an exhaustive list.

Antiracism is a hallmark of PLP. We backed Black workers and youth in the 1964 Harlem Rebellion, and fought off racist school segregationists in Boston in 1975. In 1976, we integrated Chicago’s Marquette Park. Throughout our existence, we have led more than a hundred thousand protesters against the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis across the United States. We have mobilized against racist killer cops from Brooklyn, New York, to Los Angeles, to Chicago, to Ferguson, Missouri.

PLP has stood in the forefront of opposition to the bosses’ wars. In the 1960s, we were the first to organize mass demonstrations for the U.S. to “Get Out of Vietnam!” We formed the Worker-Student Alliance in the anti-war Students for A Democratic Society. PLP broke the U.S. travel ban to Cuba and undermined the rulers’ House Un-American Activities Committee to the point of collapse. More recently, working both within the military and on the streets, we exposed the U.S. rulers’ invasions of Iraq as a murderous oil grab.

None of these developments came out of thin air. They grew out of our Party’s analysis of past class struggles and the achievements of millions of workers. PLP studied the strengths and weaknesses of the communist movement led by — among many others — Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong. In 1917, this movement created a revolution in Russia; In 1949, a revolution in China. It defeated the Nazis in Europe and the fascists in Japan in World War II. It reached its highest point in China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which attempted to push back a growing elitism in the party leadership and put the masses in charge of society.

PLP is the only group to point out what went wrong in the Soviet Union and China. We are the only organization to analyze how socialism in those countries led back to the unvarnished profit system, where all workers are now mired.

A communist society will have no bosses or profits. It will be led by the working class through its Progressive Labor Party.

Marxism: an evolving idea

The history of the Progressive Labor Party began in 1962. A small group of communists left the Communist Party USA and organized the Progressive Labor Movement (PLM). They rejected the CPUSA’s capitulation to capitalism and its abandonment of the open advocacy of communist revolution. The old communist movement proposed that the bosses would peacefully relinquish control of society and allow what the CP called “socialism” to be “voted into existence.” The communists who formed PLM refused to mislead workers and broke away from the old guard.

In the course of PLP’s history, we have rejected some traditional Marxist concepts and advanced a number of new ones, all based on our practice and our examination of world events and the decay of the old communist movement. These new principles are expressed in a series of documents, including Road to Revolution I, II, III and IV; Revolution Not Reform; and “Dark Night Shall Have Its End.” (These are all available on plp.org or in pamphlet form.)

Above all, Progressive Labor Party stands for the principle that the working class must fight directly for communism rather than moving first through a transitional phase of socialism. We reject this two-stage theory because events have shown that socialism inevitably leads back to full-blown capitalism. In both Russia and China, socialism preserved capitalist features such as money and the wage system, leading to inequalities that divided the working class. In both of these countries, the communist party became a new ruling class where privileges were attained through party membership. We believe the working class can and will be won before the revolution to fight directly for communism — to abolish the wage system, the cult of the individual and other capitalist relics.

Core principles

PLP’s main principles are:

Internationalism, under the slogan “Smash All Borders,” where workers’ class unity is represented by a single mass, international Party;

The fight against racism, a strategic necessity in the struggle to overthrow capitalism;

The fight against the special oppression of women — sexism — another critical component in uniting the working class, a prerequisite for revolution;

A concentration among industrial workers, who produce the capitalists’ profits and the weapons for the bosses’ imperialist wars;
Workers’ power through armed struggle, since the rulers constantly use their armed state power to violently suppress the working class.

Throughout its existence, PLP has fought for these principles in unceasing class struggle. We have learned that building the Party is the first order of business for communists. Capitalism cannot be reformed. Whatever gains workers make in reform struggles are limited and temporary; sooner or later, the bosses always use their state power to take them back. Communists strive to turn reform struggles into schools for communism, into vehicles for building the Party. Winning workers to the PLP is the one and only victory the ruling class can never take back. We therefore urge all workers and youth to join us now for the next half-century in this historic task: to organize a communist revolution.

Washington D.C., August 26–As Head Racist- in-Chief Donald Trump sends the National Guard to Washington,  D.C. for a so-called crime “crackdown,” the  Progressive Labor Party (PLP) is on hand to make it clear that fascism isn’t welcome here (or anywhere else, for that matter)! (Read our editorial on page 2). On a recent Wednesday at Columbia Heights, five comrades distributed 90 CHALLENGEs in 90 minutes.

We have shared 200 communist flyers that include the attacks in L.A., as well as D.C., and another that calls for the transit system to stop advertising for the Border Patrol. 

On Saturday at a rally in the same neighborhood, 300 demonstrators loudly cheered when a Party member called for communism as the only solution to the fascist attacks being launched by the Trump Administration. As a result we got 10 contacts who were interested in the Party, as well as distributing over 100 CHALLENGEs. The fight for a workers’ run world is indeed heating up!

Fascism in real time

As U.S. bosses are losing their control on the working class among sharpening interimperialist rivalry with Russia and China, they are forced to lose the liberal masks of “diplomacy”and clamp down with more aggressive tactics. Ballot boxes and “democracy” are traded in for assault rifles and tanks. The bosses’ attacks are costing them four times as much daily as it would cost to house every homeless person in D.C. (Common Dreams, 8/22). Hence we have fascism, which is playing out in Washington’s streets.

Workers fight back!

These militarized forces are facing multiple organizations and residents who are fighting back. “Free DC” is on everyone’s lips. The attack is on Black youth and workers, as well as immigrant workers, in restaurants, day labor sites and checkpoints where vehicles are stopped and searched. But when Black workers in a neighborhood were being questioned, they chanted “Am I free to go?” until the fascists left. 

At the subway stop in Columbia Heights the Homeland Security forces arrested a resident for fare evasion. Of course transportation should be free, as the only fair fare is free fare! Over a hundred residents confronted the group of cops and ICE agents, and they left with their tails between their legs. The checkpoints have become a target for rapid response networks to redirect traffic and warn drivers to change their route.

On the D.C. border one group of checkpoint fascists just gave up and went off, probably to another site. Meanwhile, daily rallies, GoGo music, Black Joy and many other events are popping up on multiple sites. Our Party has been active in all these activities and covered in some interviews. 

The only crime is capitalism

Trump has claimed there is a crime crisis in D.C. to justify martial law and the National Guard. Other cities are on his radar with threats aimed at Chicago and Baltimore next. He has attacked the District of Columbia’s policy of “No Cash Bail”, and his prosecutor here wants to try youth as adults. Home detention for teenagers along with already existing curfews is another racist strategy. Stop and Frisk is back in force and targeting young Black residents as before. This is not a ”distraction” from the Epstein files, but one of many tools in the fascist playbook. Mayor Muriel Bowser has gone along with all of this with her police chief leading the way. Liberal politicians set the stage and cave under even the slightest threat. 

Years of efforts to reform the criminal injustice system have disappeared. This opens the door to talking to residents about revolution and communism. Capitalism has pulled back the curtain of liberal democracy to reveal its vicious oppression of the working class with its racist mantra and terrorism towards all parts of the working class, including federal workers, professors, and students. 

Keeping the momentum going

The Party’s task going forward is to share CHALLENGE with our neighbors in rapid response groups, reach out to National Guard members to resist attacks on residents, and prepare for the American Public Health Association meetings which will be in Washington, DC in November. 

Above all we must talk to everyone we have contact with about how necessary it is to learn about Progressive Labor Party and seriously consider joining a study group or ongoing meeting with us in some form or fashion. This is a life and death struggle. A friend of the Party said to us in January, “This is your time!” Although she doesn’t want to be a communist, she knows PLP has to step up its game now or we will lose this opportunity to grow. The only future for the working class is to overthrow capitalism and organize for communism. PLP is the only group to do this. JOIN US!

Pakistan August 25, 2025-The eruption of strikes and protests across Pakistan—by textile workers in Faisalabad, Karachi dockers, PIA (airline) engineers, railway crews, teachers, nurses, and the militant All Government Employees Grand Alliance (AGEGA)—after the announcement of the 2025–26 national budget is not just a reaction to a bad fiscal document. It is the inevitable product of a capitalist economy run by a fascist state machine that shields the ruling elite.

The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) argues that no budget under capitalism—no matter how “worker-friendly” it pretends to be—can genuinely serve the working class. The capitalist state exists to extract surplus from labor, privatize public goods, and maintain control through fascist repression. PL’ers and workers are fighting back and fighting to win workers to the understanding that only communism can meet our needs!

Capitalism leaves racist conditions for worker

At a panel discussion organized by a trade union that PLP is working in, labor leaders from the Railway Workers Union, Karachi Port Trust Union, and the Punjab Teachers Association highlighted the glaring absence of labor rights from the budget. The federal minimum wage remains frozen at Rs 37,000/month, far below survival levels. Over 90 percent of the workforce in the informal sector—rickshaw drivers, domestic workers, daily wagers, sanitary workers, street vendors—remains unregistered and denied even basic protections.
Union density is at a historic low—only 1–2 percent of workers are organized—because the capitalist state deliberately suppresses unionization through intimidation, legal hurdles, and targeted dismissals.

The All-Pakistan Clerks Association (APCA) and AGEGA, where we are actively involved, denounced the 10 percent salary increase as “a cruel joke” in the face of record food inflation. The budget’s new pension rules—limiting widow benefits to just 10 years—were branded an outright attack on the most vulnerable. The message from the capitalist ruling class is clear: work until you drop, and then die quickly so the state can save money.

While the government’s spin-doctors trumpet “tax relief,” the Salaried Class Alliance of Pakistan (SCAP) revealed that annual savings for middle-income earners amount to only Rs 7,000—pocket change in the face of skyrocketing transport fares, utility bills, and food costs.

Fighting the bosses head on!

Students are no better off: the Democratic Students Federation, National Students Federation, Pakhtoon Students Federation, and progressive campus collectives are protesting tuition fee hikes, collapsing hostel facilities, and shrinking job markets—direct consequences of capitalist austerity and privatization.

Some trade unions marched in Karachi to the railway workers’ sit-ins in Lahore demanding a Rs 60,000 minimum wage (about 210 USD). From AGEGA’s protest camps in Islamabad to the Punjab Professors and Teachers Union threatening a province-wide shutdown, the anger is palpable. Young doctors’ associations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, nurses in Sindh, and municipal workers in Quetta have all issued strike notices. Yet history teaches us that within capitalism, even the hardest-fought victories are temporary—quickly rolled back when the balance of forces shifts.

Tinkering with tax brackets or slightly raising wages in this system is like bailing water from a sinking ship—it does not change the fact that the hull is rotten. The strike wave after the 2025–26 budget is not just a protest against inflation—it is a symptom of the deeper disease: capitalism and its fascist guardians in Pakistan. Fighting for wage hikes or pension rights is necessary, but the ultimate struggle is for state power in the hands of the working class.

PLP is striving for an international communist revolution which means abolishing private ownership of industry, land, and resources. Organizing workers, students, and peasants into a unified revolutionary front. Replacing capitalist parliaments with democratically run workers’ councils and building international solidarity to smash capitalism globally.

As the PLP says, equality and freedom won’t come through budgets – it requires a struggle for communism.

Richmond, KY—Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members at a local University held a series of events before and during the first week of classes. On the Saturday before classes started, PLP members and other local comrades held a sign-making party in the public plaza of the university. We invited our base members to join us, and we also gained visibility by making our signs publicly. Many students walking by joined in when they saw us. Some students couldn’t join but were interested in what we were doing when they saw our anti-ICE, anti-Zionist signs. We explained the protest to them and identified ourselves as the PLP. Almost all of the students who joined us in making signs came to our protest the next day. Almost all of them said this was their first protest! They asked us what protests on campus were like. We told them that actually protests have not been very common here, but we hope to change that with the leadership of the PLP. In fact, one former EKU student walking through the plaza stopped to talk to us because he said when he went here no groups were organizing, and it was great to see a group of people coming together!

Bringing left politics to Kentucky workers!

The next day, Sunday, August 17, we had a protest. We organized the protest alongside another local group, RichmondKY4Palestine. The local United Campus Workers also participated. We had students, faculty members, and Richmond locals come out. We started out with about 20, but later more students joined us as they walked by. We started by practicing chants, handing out CHALLENGE, and promoting our planned cadre school. We marched to the same plaza while chanting, “15,000 child lives, this ain’t war, it’s genocide!”, “ICE out of Kentucky now!”, as well as classic PLP chants like “Asian, Latin, Black, and White, Workers of the World Unite!” 

We then started with speeches. Several attendees gave their own speeches alongside organizers. One attendee, from a small town in eastern KY, gave a speech detailing how his political positions have changed over time due to seeing mass unemployment, poverty, and a rising wealth gap. “I used to only listen to what my parents said–I would call people ‘pinko commies,’ but now I realize, I’m one of them.”

Why everything is connected

PLP members gave speeches explaining why the issues of Palestine and ICE are tied together, and why revolution is the only solution to both of these issues. We identified communism as the only viable path. One member’s speech read: “From Palestinian refugees, to immigrants here in the U.S., everywhere, refugees are fleeing the consequences of imperialism, war, famine, sanctions, as in, the consequences of capitalism. The migrant crisis in both the U.S.A. and western Europe is a result of capitalist imperialist policies… join the revolutionary Progressive Labor Party and fight for all workers around the world!”

As we were handing out CHALLENGE to some students, one saw “Worcester, MA” on the front cover and said “This is my hometown!” We told him how our Party actually protested there over the summer. This is why it is so important that the newspaper showcases fightback in areas all over the country and the world. Party members are encouraged to pay attention to and even participate in things that are happening not only in their local region, but nationally and internationally. This helps us make personal connections like this one!
Organizing and educating 

That Saturday, August 23rd, we held an educational event in the campus library on the topics of imperialism, nationalism, and why class war is the only solution. We watched videos, read PLP documents, and went over a series of questions on each topic. At the end, we handed out a pamphlet explaining what it means to join the PLP and to be a communist. Two new comrades joined the Party and more hope to fight back with us in the future. We will continue organizing students and training the new generation of communists to overthrow this racist, sexist, capitalist system!