This month, on September 2nd, 1921 — 105 years ago — the Battle of Blair Mountain came to an end. It was the largest armed labor uprising in U.S. history since the Civil War and a striking example of multiracial solidarity between Black and white coal miners.

Ten thousand armed coal miners marched from Charleston, West Virginia, 70 miles south to Blair Mountain, Logan County, West Virginia, to destroy the unjust system that had taken their health, their homes, and many of their lives. During the battle, striking white workers, partly inspired by the new workers’ state, the Soviet Union, joined with Black and immigrant workers. While the immigrant workers were originally sent to break the strike, the multiracial miners foiled the bosses’ plans by organizing these workers and turning the strike into a worker’s army.

The U.S. bosses, determined to crush armed insurrection, deployed bombers armed with gas and bombs left over from World War I, some of which were captured by the workers’ army. The workers faced the U.S. army, 3,000 local deputies, police, gunmen and the State Militia.

This march was the miners’ immediate reaction to the August 21, 1921, murder of two of their own by the coal bosses’ hired gunmen on the steps of the McDowell County courthouse. These killings had followed years of unionizing attempts and guerrilla warfare in the West Virginia coal fields the previous winter.

Within 72 hours, 7,000 armed miners assembled outside Charleston and told the State government that they were going to “open up” Logan County for unionization and “blow it away.” On August 24, the miners’ multiracial army, white and Black, citizen and immigrant, began the 70-mile march to Logan.

As the miners made their way from town to town, their ranks swelled. By the time they reached Blair Mountain, they were 10,000 strong. The miners were a “fully-trained, highly disciplined army ... All the officers were World War I veterans  ..."
They taught the miners troop movements [and] flank formations. They formed squadrons."

The original...rednecks

The white workers, indicating their pro-working class politics over the bosses’ racism, wore red bandanas around their necks, earning the insult “redneck” by the capitalist media (Appalachian Magazine, 5/23/16).

In the bosses’ attempts to rewrite history and erase multiracial unity , it was after Blair Mountain that the “redneck” term became, in dictionaries and media, obscured and synonymous with “cracker” (originally, a child of a convict) and “hillbilly” (originally, extremely poor, often interracial, whites living in the Appalachian mountains and outside the norms of southern society).

This multiracial workers’ army were the original “rednecks.” Perhaps in the future we should refer to racists in the South the same way we describe them anywhere in the world, simply as “racists.”

Matewan

The events that led up to the outbreak of this strike and the battle are depicted in the 1987 film “Matewan.” The film shows the miners fighting the bosses’ goons from the Baldwin-Felts detective agency and killing some of them.

The key political struggle Kenehan [union organizer]wages in the first part of the movie is the one against racism. He attacks the racism of some of the miners and calls for organizing the Black and Italian workers into the union. ‘Few Clothes’ John, leader of the Black miners, also has an anti-racist position. There is a great showdown at the mine entrance, under the guns of the company thugs, as the miners stand all together, Blacks, white, and Italian. They march and sing ‘Avanti Popolo’(CHALLENGE, 10/21/87).

The miners lose in the end, as they did in real life. They have no communist party to build for a revolutionary overthrow of the bosses. In the film, as in reality, the bosses, the goons, and the courts defeat the miners in the end.

Progressive Labor Party (PLP) fights to be the heir of this legacy of multiracial unity. With the sharpening attacks on the international working class and growing threat of all out inter-imperialist wars looming, our understanding of history is more important than ever, as workers from every part of the working class seek out answers that only a new international communist movement can provide. 

The quotes in this article are drawn from a video production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, entitled Even the Heavens Weep—The West Virginia Mine Wars.

Haiti: elections control people

In modern times, elections have remained one of the strongest weapons in the hands of the bourgeoisie to try to fool us into believing that people participate in democracy or choose their own leaders. But in reality this process is a form of indirect imposition of class rule by the elites, who give you the same coin with different faces so you can choose what kind of domination you want and who will dominate you.  

The election farce in Haiti has not been able or willing to meet the voters’ aspirations. Besides, what does this so-called democracy even mean when every two or four or six years politicians come to you asking for your vote, and then those very same politicians become your worst enemy to defend their own interests as well as the interests of the bourgeoisie and imperialist powers? 

The post-dictatorship experience in Haiti since ’86 (when the Duvalier dictatorship was ousted by a mass uprising) clearly shows that this choice was, and still is, against the real class interests of the working class. Look at the massacres of the 1980s against the people and the following elections that gave power to Lavalas (the party of Jean Bertrand Aristide, who began on the left and betrayed the interests of the Haitian workers and students). Lavalas greatly contributed to the programs of liberalization of the Haitian economy, to the structural adjustment programs that led to the destruction of public institutions, leading in turn to a wave of employee dismissals so as to meet the demands of the World Bank and the IMF, the two leading international financial institutions run by the major western imperialists, especially the U.S. 

The experiences of the 2000s were not so different, when there was a seeming struggle between Lavalas and PHTK (Parti Haitien Tèt Kale, the party of Michel Martelly, Duvalier acolyte who became president after the devastating 2010 earthquake, handpicked by the U.S. imperialists), which resulted in another great misfortune for the working class. During this period the country experienced more instability, more moments of massive immiseration, and the re-establishment of corruption and violence as a political model of power. Martelly called himself a “legal bandit.” 

So now we were dealing with another Duvalier-style gangocracy in power. During this period, the fundamental rights of the workers almost completely disappeared. Even the primary right to protest, to speak out against patently illegal acts, has virtually disappeared. The rise of gangs, the arrival of mercenaries in the country to kill people in order to stop the masses from making demands to merely reform their lives, tells you a lot about these things. And the establishment of gangs in working class neighborhoods to prevent uprisings raises questions about what elections really bring to the people. Revolt, say no to bourgeois elections! 

The primary task of all workers is to revolt against any system of exploitation, repression, and subjugation. So we continue to say no to bourgeois elections, whether or not they are organized in the context of state insecurity or in so-called times of peace. We know who benefits from these elections: those who control the gangs, along with a parasitic, reactionary, backward bourgeoisie. There is only one way to save our class: Get outraged!!! Revolt!!! Only a communist revolution can truly liberate our working class brothers and sisters from capitalist and imperialist domination.
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Cookies and Communism

I recently gathered with comrades to distribute CHALLENGE along the parade route for the annual West Indian Day Parade in Brooklyn, along Eastern Parkway. One comrade brought out members from her base collective, which is actively fighting ICE’s fascism in NYC, to leaflet to the community about what to do if encountering those gutter, knuckle dragging racists in the streets.

We managed to distribute close to 200 papers! As a bonus, we even ran into a float criticising the racist attacks on our Haitian brothers and sisters with the removal of Temporary Protected Status (TPS). The salivating sounds of Caribbean flavor kept our energy up en route to a comrade couple’s house for their yearly Labor Day get together. It’s an opportunity to gather our base for a fun, unofficial sendoff to summer. 
But what we realized is that it was also another opportunity to mix some sweet treats with the paper for a winning combination!

Before everyone left for the evening (as the next day was a regular workday), we decided to bring down the remaining cookies to share with the paradegoers passing by. In that time, it made sense to bundle up the remaining CHALLENGES as well…and it worked to near perfection. Young Black workers were eager to take the cookies and curious to take our literature along with it. One worker even wanted to come to an online study group we are holding later this month! He mentioned his social work and wanted to learn more about PLP.

It’s not often that such a grassroots campaign, formed on a whim and forged with sugary goodness and antiracist politics, gains such traction. But I thought about it, and came up with the name “Cookies and Communism.” It was said jokingly, but the comrade noted it had a ring to it and encouraged me to write about it. This just may become an annual PLP tradition here in New York City! We shall see.
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Reds at the West Indian Day Parade

During the colorful and massive parade of Caribbean communities on Eastern Parkway, a community organization set up a table alongside members of our Progressive Labor Party. While they distributed flyers and Know your Rights cards in English, Spanish, and Haitian creole to inform the crowd marching through the streets about their rights and how they could confront ICE’s increasing activities in our communities, a comrade and I stood nearby distributing CHALLENGE newspapers. We made and posted signs that said smash racist borders and urged solidarity with our Haitian siblings in Haitian creole. The colorful signs grabbed the attention of passersby giving us the opportunity to interact especially with many workers from Haiti, thousands of whom participated in this event that unites the Caribbean community in our area and showcases its cultural traditions, music, and food.

Later on we decided to wrap up tabling and walk through the parade route. Because of how quickly people were distracted by the festive atmosphere or passing by, many didn’t grab CHALLENGE, but when we showed them the last page—which discussed the Haitian Revolution—they immediately took it, especially the young people who may have heard of it but surely don’t know in depth the facts that led Haiti to become the first Black republic.

It was very heartening for us to be involved in this activity—on the one hand, because we were able to enjoy the vibrant colors, the infectious music, and the joy of the Caribbean community, and on the other hand,  because we know that the struggle against capitalism must be waged everywhere and in every possible way, especially during a time when our class brothers and sisters are being murdered.

Afterward, we went to the apartment of some friends who live near the avenue where the parade was taking place, where a group of members and friends gathered to share delicious desserts, and we stayed there for a while. I left early because I was very tired from all the walking after the young comrade who was with me kindly called me a taxi—which she paid for out of her own pocket—and another young comrade who was also with us walked me to the street where I was to board the taxi, which was a few blocks away, since most of the surrounding streets were closed.  I was deeply moved because the camaraderie and solidarity that always exist among PLP members are ever-present. Later, I learned that those who stayed at the apartment—members and friends—went out to distribute more flyers. In total we managed to hand out close to 300 newspapers as the parade drew to a close. 

I believe that our mission as members of the PLP, with the help of our friends, is to be present at every activity where our class siblings, especially Black and migrant workers who are seriously under attack gather—whether they are celebrating their roots and cultures, participating in protests, and above all, in organizations, workplaces, schools, unions, churches, etc.—to introduce them to our newspaper and let them know that they need the Party. This is the only way our Party can become a mass party capable of leading the communist revolution to seize power for the working class.
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Getting CHALLENGE in workers’ hands

There were almost too many take-aways to count from the summer project in Chicago, but I think what stuck with me the most was the support that the more experienced comrades gave to those like myself who struggled on knowing how to get CHALLENGE into workers’ hands. This was something I had been very nervous about and struggled to do effectively the day prior.

One of our sales was in the South Side of Chicago during the Bud Billiken parade. Before arriving on location, a comrade explained how the history of the parade reflected the historic struggle of Black workers against racist oppression and how these racist attacks continue today. The comrade additionally described how through the defunding of schools in the south and west sides of Chicago, and the racist attacks against Black and Brown youth for enjoying the downtown and beach areas, methods of segregation were still in effect.

Our Party’s line, which prioritizes fighting back against racism, was well received. I shadowed a comrade for a while, and they helped me to fine-tune my approach and my pitch. Afterwards, my comrades and I got several armfuls of CHALLENGE out to interested workers enjoying the parade.
*****

Nazis gain electoral power in Germany

France24, 9/12–Tens of thousands of protesters took part in demonstrations across Germany on Saturday against the far-right AfD, after the party scored a crushing victory in a state election last week. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) topped the vote in the eastern region of Saxony-Anhalt, and is now seeking to form the first extreme-right state government in Germany since World War II…They waved signs emblazoned with slogans that read “Ban the AfD now,” …But…Chancellor Friedrich Merz, of the centre-right CDU party, remains sceptical about taking such an approach…

Israeli bosses clamp down on occupied Lebanon

Al Jazeera, 9/13–More than six months after Israel intensified its war on Lebanon, a displacement crisis is slowly solidifying. At its highest point in April, more than 1.2 million people were displaced by Israeli attacks on Lebanon…Israel then intensified its air attacks on Lebanon, while also reinvading southern Lebanon for the second time in less than two years. It currently occupies more than 50 villages. The offensive has killed more than 4,380 people and driven hundreds of thousands from their homes…Multiple videos have gone viral in recent weeks showing Israeli demolitions in southern villages, with dust shooting into the sky as explosions go off. 

U.S. oil bosses work with Trump to consolidate capture of Venezuelan oil

EnergyNow, 9/1–U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday that ExxonMobil, the largest U.S. oil major, was among a group of companies planning to do business in Venezuela…The oil producer operates the prolific Stabroek Block in next-door Guyana, which currently produces more than 900,000 barrels of oil a day…“We’re making a fortune, and they’re making a fortune. They’re starting to make real money,” Trump continued, referring to American efforts to kick-start oil production in the country after U.S. forces captured and removed former President Nicolas Maduro from power in January…Venezuelan and American officials are expected to sign a deal that would grant the U.S. access to a fifth of Venezuela’s crude reserves later this week in Caracas. 

ICE policies result in death of young man in Ohio

CNN, 9/4–Pierre Damas Bel was an avid soccer player at his high school in Springfield, Ohio…And friends and family say he headed to college planning to study neuroscience and was excited about the future. But as the 20-year-old Haitian immigrant began his freshman year at Wright State University, his loved ones say he became increasingly depressed over the ankle monitor he was issued in late July by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The device…prompted bullying from some of his classmates. Bel was among a growing number of Haitians in Ohio outfitted with the ankle monitors after the Trump administration ended Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, which allowed them to work legally in the US…

U.N. chief upset that world’s bosses are indifferent to lives of workers in DR Congo

UN.org–8/27–“The challenge is immense,” he said, noting 500 new cases are being reported every week while the humanitarian response remains only 48 per cent funded…“but we must also overcome another virus: the virus of indifference.” “Without additional funding, vital operations will run out of money at the very moment they need to ramp up,” he warned…Ebola is spreading in a region where decades of conflict have displaced entire populations and weakened health infrastructure. In Ituri province alone, one million people have been displaced, and more than 12 million people in the region are in need of humanitarian aid and protection.

As expected, Trump’s policies used to attack workers

The Guardian, 9/7–...Trump has repeatedly vowed to champion US workers...the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) cut workplace inspections by 20% … delayed implementation of a rule to limit silica dust, which has afflicted and killed many coal miners with black lung…prices…have risen faster than wages over the past year, helping fuel the affordability crisis…Trump…has proposed eliminating federal minimum wage and overtime protections for 3 million often low-paid homecare workers who take care of seniors and the disabled…Trump has pushed aggressively ahead…to strip 1 million federal employees of their ability to bargain collectively…

Desperate to maintain a slipping grip on world dominance, the U.S. ruling class has pushed the crews and equipment of two aircraft carriers — the USS Gerald Ford in May, and now the USS Abraham Lincoln — past their breaking points.  This removal of two aircraft carriers under duress in a span of three months is a signal of disarray and decline for the US imperialist war machine. The war on Iran is shaping up to join Iraq and Afghanistan in a string of major twenty-first century defeats in the US empire's bid to control the oil-rich Middle East.  Mere months into the conflict the arch-imperialist Brookings Institution pronounced “The U.S. and Israel fought Iran, and China won.” (Brookings, 6/8).  

From trade wars to arms buildup, regional wars and normalization of genocide, 2026 has seen the trend toward World War III gather momentum. But during both World Wars I and II millions of working class soldiers turned their guns on their ruling classes, joining mass movements for communist revolution.Our task is to learn from the errors that reversed their revolutions and finish the job of defeating the capitalists, their exploitation and their wars once and for all. The Progressive Labor Party remains steadfast in an outlook of revolutionary optimism: the working class, with determined leadership from communists, remains up to this task.  Join us!

U.S. rulers’ weary weaponry vs emboldened rivals

The USS Gerald Ford was deployed in June 2025 and participated in attacks on both Venezuela and Iran, remaining at sea for 325 days (NPR, 6/26).  Its plumbing system failed and may also have been sabotaged by sailors frustrated with the extended duty associated with the Iran war.  In March, a 30-hour laundry fire, also of unknown origins, finally forced the entire ship out of the war. The second carrier deployed to the Iran War, the USS Lincoln, was kept an extra two months at sea and left the Persian Gulf this month after two sailors jumped overboard, with more attempted suicides reported (Navy Times, 8/11)

In June 2026 a US Navy guided missile destroyer USS Benfold drifted for four days without power, propulsion or air conditioning in the hotly contested South China Sea following an unknown “engineering error” (ABC, 8/17).  Now the USS George Washington, the last U.S. carrier in the Pacific Ocean, steams away from Japan toward Iran to replace the Lincoln and Chinese ships off the U.S.- allied Philippines’ coast ram and skirmish with Filipino sailors to occupy strategic islands for future military bases (Reuters 8/19). 
Chinese imperialism’s drive to project naval power is backed by shipbuilding capacity now 200 times that of the U.S. and the world’s largest navy in total warships (CSIS, 6/24). As US naval forces massed in the Caribbean preparing to invade Venezuela, the Chinese ruling class rehearsed blockade formations in the seas between Japan and Taiwan displaying a ‘dual-use’ quality of hundreds of vessels in its fishing fleet in the event of regional war (Asia Times, 2/25). 

Desperation mounts for US imperialism in 2026: unable to assist Ukraine and produce victory over Russia, defeated, for now, by Iran, attached to fascist pariah state Israel, impotent in threats to ‘take’ Greenland and weakened in East Asia by shifting forces to the mideast the US ruling class is pivoting increasingly to the Western hemisphere as an imperial fall-back position.  The Cuban working class remains in the cross-hairs of US imperialism, Canada is threatened with a massive trade war, fishermen are bombed to bits off the coast of South America and kidnapped Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro sits in a Brooklyn jail.  These developments do not mean peace, rather they signal an increasingly intolerable situation for the US ruling class.  Confronting its main rivals Russia and China will force it to introduce, at some point and perhaps in new more ‘progressive’ form, a military draft.

Soldiers, sailors and marines: Smash the imperialist war machine!

To boost fall re-enlistments commanders of the Army’s most decorated Third Infantry Division have resorted to offering troops a four-day holiday in November timed to coincide with the release of a popular video game, Grand Theft Auto VI. "The idea was to have a unique incentives program that connects to what Soldiers are interested in," Lt. Col. Angel Tomko, a spokesperson for the 3rd Infantry Division, said in a statement. So far twenty have signed up to re-enlist to this division that spearheaded the 2003 invasion of Iraq.  (CBS News 8/19).

No faction of the U.S. ruling class— represented either by Trump or whoever the Democrats run for president in 2028 —have been able to solve this problem.  Trump threatens an economic D-Day for Iran precisely because the ruling class lacks commitment from the ground forces for the real thing.  This type of thin commitment to US imperialism explains why the USS Ford and USS Lincoln fell short of the tasks set forth for them by their erratic commander.   Communists seek a thick commitment from soldiers, one that wins soldiers not to a simple end to fighting, but to transform their fighting capacity into a tool of a working class waging revolutionary warfare (see article on page 3).

Lessons of the Vietnam Era

In 1972 alone, the Navy high command documented “seventy-four instances of sabotage, none of them attributable to enemy action.” (Guttridge, Mutiny, 1992).   By 1972 a mass international anti-imperialist movement of youth and workers was active in the San Francisco and San Diego areas where Vietnam-bound naval vessels were based.  

It’s no coincidence the hottest fires of these 1972 rebellions burned with the leadership of Black sailors revolting against racist conditions aboard the USS Kitty Hawk and USS Constellation. As PLP sees Black workers being key to revolution, so Black soldiers remain key in defeating US imperialism and leading soldiers worldwide to turn the guns on the capitalist class in a global communist revolution.  Revolutionary anti-racism must smash the bosses war plans in whatever form they present themselves, from the white nationalism of the Trump clique to the feminist-friendly multicultural imperialism that the Democrats and their DSA hangers-on seek to peddle.  

The bosses’ worst nightmare is symbolized by sailors in revolt - of the Russian navy, who under communist leadership - turned their ship’s mighty guns of their battleships on the capitalists and turned the meaningless carnage of World War I into a workers’ revolution in October, 1917. From the U.S. to China, let the bosses laying the basis for World War III once again tremble at a communist revolution that will end imperialism once and for all: JOIN US!