On December 4, in New York City, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was murdered on his way into a shareholders’ meeting. No tears should be shed for Thompson. He was struck down by bullets engraved with the principles he lived by: to maximize his insurance company’s profits by delaying care, denying life saving treatments, and condemning untold thousands to needless suffering and death. Gut-wrenching stories of loved ones lost to insurance denials flooded social media. Doctors confirmed the company’s cruelty. A condolence post for Thompson received more than 70,000 laughing reactions. As one worker wrote: “Sorry, my sympathy is out of network.”

The capitalist media outrage at posts “devaluing” Thompson’s life rings hollow. It’s capitalism—and its accomplices in the healthcare industry—that have cheapened life. In 2023, UnitedHealth Group raked in $22 billion in profits (Forbes.com, 1/12/24). Thompson was richly rewarded for playing his part to ration healthcare, with an annual compensation package of more than $10 million. Under his leadership, his company denied as much as 49 percent of medically necessary care (Forbes.com, 12/6/24). The bosses call this good business; we call it mass murder.  

The overwhelming support for Thompson’s apparent shooter, Luigi Mangione, reflects the raw rage of millions of workers who navigate a healthcare system designed not to heal, but to profit. Globally, capitalism condemns countless people to early graves through racist and sexist inequality, hunger and poor nutrition, environmental poisons, and preventable disease. It kills countless more through healthcare systems that put the profits of hospital, pharmaceutical, and insurance capitalists over human lives. Workers’ fury at Thompson and his ilk is righteous anger.

But vigilante violence and assassinations are not solutions; the bosses can always find another ruthless executive to fill an open slot. What’s needed is organized revolutionary violence, rooted in communist politics. What the ruling class fears most is an international, multiracial, class-conscious working class led into battle by a revolutionary communist party. We need a mass communist movement that will smash all of the bloodsucking bosses and replace the nightmare profit system with a communist world that abolishes money and private property. Only then can our class build a society where good healthcare is a basic human right, not a product to be sold to those who can afford it. Join Progressive Labor Party, and fight for a world where our lives can be lived to their healthiest and fullest!

Capitalist healthcare: a racist, sexist, imperialist horror

The capitalist healthcare system is a death machine. It thrives on neglect, lack of access, and routinely terrible care to profit from workers’ suffering. Healthcare is a commodity, designed to keep workers alive just long enough for the bosses to extract their labor before discarding them. Despite being the richest imperialist nation, the U.S. has one of the lowest life expectancy rates among industrialized countries. Current life expectancy is estimated at barely 79 years—six years less than in Japan, five years less than in Italy and Spain, even less than in relatively poor countries like Barbados, Poland, or Estonia (macrotrends.net). 

Each year, more than 40,000 working-age people in the U.S. die from a lack of coverage, more than those who die from kidney disease (Physicians for a National Program, 9/17/2024). Racism and sexism fuel this death machine. Black workers have the highest rates of premature deaths from heart disease, cancer, Covid-19, and infant mortality (Peterson-KFF, 04/24/23). Black women are three to four times more likely to die during childbirth than white women (Centers for Disease Control, 4/8/2023). In predominantly Black Cleveland zip codes, life expectancy is up to 20 years shorter than for nearby white neighborhoods (Cleveland News, 12/19/2024). But while Black workers suffer most, the profit system is deadly for all workers. Life expectancy among non-college educated white men in the U.S., especially in rural poor areas, is declining due to “deaths of despair”: suicide, alcoholism, and opioid overdoses (Vox, 10/4/2023).

Capitalist healthcare is even deadlier in most places outside the U.S. The World Health Organization reports an 18-year life expectancy gap between the wealthiest and poorest countries (WHO, 04/04/2019). Infectious diseases like Mpox and Ebola are devastating the global working class from Africa and Asia to Latin America. Over 40 percent of child deaths under 5 are linked to preventable diseases (WHO, 06/29/2024).

Twenty-nine countries are reporting cholera outbreaks, with one billion workers and children at risk (UNOCHA, 1/15/24).  More than 1.2 million workers in the U.S., and nearly 15 million globally, have been needlessly killed by Covid-19 (Newsweek, 12/19/24).

Even in model countries with so-called “universal” healthcare, capitalist exploitation and inequality remains. In Denmark, patients must pay additional fees for mental health care and other services, the equivalent of three hours of labor for someone earning the minimum wage (DW, 03/10/21). While Europe provides broader access to healthcare than the U.S., it still puts profit over people.

Communism—the only solution!

Under capitalism, the bosses hold individuals responsible to change their lifestyles, prevent disease, and bear the burden of the cost of treatment and medicines. This ensures that healthcare remains a commodity and never a public good, while the working class shoulders the cost.

Communism, by contrast, is built on collective responsibility and makes the health of all a priority. After the great communist revolutions in the Soviet Union and China, when the working class briefly held state power, we saw what healthcare for people—instead of profit—can achieve. In the 1960s, the Communist Party of China launched campaigns to educate the masses and improve their health. It mobilized millions to improve public hygiene and eradicate diseases like schistosomiasis, which led to liver damage, kidney failure, bladder cancer, and infertility. Life expectancy soared, infectious diseases were eliminated, and safe abortions were made accessible. 

The return of capitalist rule in the Soviet Union and China has devastated the lives and health of the working class worldwide. Workers are now stuck in an era of rising fascism, racism, sexism, and weak class-consciousness. Disillusionment with failed reforms and dead-end electoral politics has left many more cynical about our collective power and vulnerable to the appeal of lone-wolf vigilante types.

But adventurist violence is far from revolutionary. In fact, it emboldens rulers to repress us even more. Vigilantism shows a lack of confidence in the working class as the essential gravediggers of capitalism. As Lenin wrote in Iskra: “Shots fired by the ‘elusive individuals’ who are losing faith in the possibility of marching in formation, working hand in hand with the masses, always end in smoke.” History proves that only the collective force of millions, led by a disciplined communist party, can crush the capitalist rulers and build a society that puts people first.

Communism—a society without money, exploitation, racism, or sexism—will be run by workers to meet the needs of the entire working class. We’ll need both revolutionary urgency and revolutionary patience to achieve this vision.

The killing of Brian Thompson exposes the brutality of the system he served. While we don’t condone such isolated acts, they point to the seething anger of our class—and to the opportunity before us. The Progressive Labor Party calls on workers to channel their rage into building a mass movement for communist revolution. Every picket line, protest, and direct action will help prepare us for the inevitable destruction of capitalism. Every worker that joins our Party is another nail in the bosses’ coffin. Together, we can build the world we deserve. Join us!

Staten Island, NY, January 1—Amazon workers at JFK8 warehouse on Staten Island and drivers at the DBK4 facility in Queens went on strike to fight for a contract on Friday, December 20th 2024 at midnight. PL’ers went out to support the strike on the picket lines before it started (see letters on page 6).The strike lasted for five days.

In 2022, JFK8 workers won the first union election in this country against Amazon. Organizers spent almost a year and hours and hours of their own time to win the election. Out of approximately 8,325 eligible voters, 4,785 votes were counted. There were 2,654 votes in favor of unionizing and 2,131 votes against it (CNN Business). Amazon appealed the election to the NLRB and lost. Amazon has refused to even start negotiations on a contract. 

Amazon has even filed a lawsuit to declare the National Labor Relations Board unconstitutional which would affect all union workers in the United States. While this  fightback is inspiring, workers at Amazon and beyond need more than reforms; they need to help lead the working class to a communist revolution under the Progressive Labor Party (PLP)! The fight is not over!

When capitalists attack,workers strike back!

Workers at Amazon still face forced mandatory overtime, being pushed to meet impossible quotas, and risking life altering injuries. Amazon has almost twice the accident rate for warehouse workers as other U.S. warehouses. 

Jeff Bezos, the head of Amazon, is now one of the richest capitalists in the world.  Amazon and all other companies need to profit from their workers labor. Amazon has made huge profits in the last few years: 15 billion dollars in the previous quarter.

Leaders in the Amazon Labor Union issued the following statement: "On 12/26, Amazon workers returned to work. They returned having inspired hundreds more workers to join them in their fight, bringing their struggle for union recognition and a contract to international attention, instilling fear into the hearts of Bezos and other evil capitalists, and building solidarity with all of you community supporters across movements who showed up strong to support our comrades and show Amazon that New York will not stand for the abuse & disposal of our community members."  
Under capitalism, labor power is a commodity. Workers cease to be human to the capitalists; they are treated as things. Capitalist exploitation exploits all workers by profiting from their labor.  Only an international communist Party can organize workers to act together across national boundaries. Only an international communist Party can enable the working class to defend itself against the capitalists, let alone defeat them (from Political Economy: A communist critique of the wage system at www.plp.org).

We in the PLP recognize that both sides of the ruling class, the liberal fascist Democrats and the open fascist Republicans are the same. The capitalist rulers use divide and conquer to control the working class. Racism, sexism, nationalism and anti-immigrant attitudes are used to divide workers and weaken their ability to fight back against the bosses.

Amazon workers stand against racism 

This Amazon strike is a blow against racism and sexism, as 32 percent of Amazon’s frontline workers are Black and 27 percent are Latin, with one out of six being Black women. All Amazon workers and their supporters must stand together. Amazon workers are going on strike for safe working conditions. adequate sick time, pay increases, and job security.   

The U.S. ruling class is in crisis. The U.S. is no longer the biggest industrial power in the world and must rely on its military. The U.S. is losing economically to state capitalist China. International competition of the big capitalists is resulting in more imperialist sponsored wars in Palestine, Ukraine, Yemen, the Sudan, and Ethiopia among other places. The Democratic and Republican parties directly support and arm these wars including the genocidal war in Palestine.

Progressive Labor Party organizes to overthrow this rotten system, the source of all our ills. We are building a movement to win a communist future, a society in which workers will control our own fates to make sure that we all get what we need for safe and healthy lives.

In the long run, we believe winning a contract will not be enough. As long as the bosses hold state power, anything won by workers can be taken back, as has happened in the past. The only permanent solution to workers’ problems is a communist revolution. PLP will fight alongside Amazon workers to try to win this strike and help them see the need to take the next step and fight for workers’ power.

Progressive Labor Party aims to become a mass revolutionary party, with hundreds of thousands of members leading millions of workers in a violent communist revolution. Yet today our Party is very small. This is a contradiction! Since we are a Leninist party, it is important to recall how the Bolsheviks faced this same contradiction. 

At the beginning of the 20th-century, workers in Russia suffered under harsh work discipline, unsafe conditions, and great poverty. Between 1890 and 1910, the populations of St. Petersburg and Moscow nearly doubled, resulting in overcrowding and poverty for a new class of industrial workers. The Crimean War and subsequent conflicts led to food shortages across the vast empire. One famine killed 400,000 workers (History.com).

In January 1905, a workers’ protest was met with gunfire, killing hundreds. This “Bloody Sunday Massacre” unleashed a revolt and country-wide strikes. The first workers “soviets” (Russian for “councils”) were formed. In response, the Tsar’s government promised reforms, including worker delegates in a “duma,” or parliament. While many of these reforms would soon be withdrawn, the working class learned a valuable lesson. The Bolshevik Party, led by Vladimir Lenin, was proven correct. Reforms were limited and temporary; the whole rotten system needed to be overthrown.

Leading up to the Bolshevik revolution of October 1917, there were three periods of upsurge in the class struggle: in 1905, from 1912 to 1914, and earlier in 1917. During each one, they became a mass party of tens of thousands of workers and channeled the upsurge into a revolutionary situation. Each upsurge was preceded and (except for the last one) followed by a period of repression, a lull in the class struggle, and political retreat. 

Despite arrests, police infiltration, and mass withdrawal from their party, the Bolsheviks preserved their illegal revolutionary work throughout these periods of retreat. As a result, they were prepared for the next period of upsurge. To see how they did this, we will examine these periods in turn. The present article deals with the years around 1905.

Founded in 1898, the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) began as a small group of intellectuals and a few workers in St. Petersburg (later Leningrad, now St. Petersburg again). Most of its leaders wanted to open it to everyone who “considered himself a member.” To attract the greatest number of militants and radicals, they argued, they needed a loosely organized party that focused on immediate reforms and downplayed the call for revolution. 

The RSDLP’s model was the German Social-Democratic Party (German abbreviation SPD). This was the largest of all the parties in the Second International, which had been founded in 1889. The SPD was based in legal trade unions and included many members from the petty bourgeoisie. 

Reformism and class betrayal

Despite its roots in revolutionary Marxism, the SPD worked for legal reforms. It abandoned the goal of revolution and proposed that capitalism could be voted out of existence or could gradually evolve into socialism, which was seen as an intermediate step toward communism. The Second International held an important debate over this question. The SPD’s political bankruptcy is portrayed in Jack London’s 1907 novel, The Iron Heel. 

When the First World War broke out in 1914, “socialist” parties like the SPD abandoned internationalism and supported their own ruling classes, sending their members off to kill their class brothers.  In 1918, SPD leaders worked with the German Army to kill the revolutionary leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karla Liebknecht, who had quit the sellout SPD and formed the Spartacus League. 

Lenin and a Party of professional revolutionaries 

Lenin insisted on an entirely different approach:

I assert 1) that no revolutionary movement can endure without a stable organization of leaders that maintains continuity; 2) that the wider the masses are spontaneously drawn into the struggle … the more urgent the need of such an organization, and the more solid this organization must be ... 3) that such an organization must consist chiefly of people professionally engaged in revolutionary activity... (What Is To Be Done, 1903)

Lenin believed that “opening the floodgates” of party membership would reinforce opportunism and reformism. Arguing that militancy must be led by revolutionary theory, he advocated for democratic centralism, the subordination of all party members to the general revolutionary line and to the party’s leading organs,composed of dedicated and experienced revolutionaries.

Lenin insisted that revolutionary activity was essentially illegal, regardless of what the laws said, and it was therefore essential to develop underground and secret work. Bolsheviks concentrated their efforts on organizing among the working class. The young Joseph Stalin spent years organizing workers in the Caucasus and publishing illegal Bolshevik materials, for which he was several times exiled to Siberia.

In 1903, the RSDLP split into Bolshevik and Menshevik factions. Despite their name (“Bolshevik” means “majority”), Lenin’s group was the smallest by far. In January 1905, there were at most 500 Bolsheviks in St. Petersburg, the center of Russia’s heavy industry, against 1,500 Mensheviks. The Bolsheviks were at least as outnumbered in the industrial Caucasus area.

The “Revolution of 1905”

In 1905, in a number of major cities, the workers set up “Councils (“soviets” in Russian) of Workers’ Deputies.”  In St. Petersburg, where the working class was the largest and most concentrated, the Mensheviks controlled the Soviet and cooperated with the liberal bourgeoisie. In Moscow, however, the Bolshevik-led Soviet went on the offensive, leading an armed insurrection in December 1905 that quickly spread to other cities before being crushed. During the same year, the RSDLP enrolled “tens of thousands of workers, students, intellectuals, and others” (Rigby) as class struggle mushroomed. 

By 1906, the Mensheviks, eager to work in the Tsar’s phony Duma (parliament), wanted to abolish all illegal revolutionary party work. Lenin, by contrast, insisted that this work was more vital than ever in a period of general retreat. In June 1907 came the “Stolypin reaction” and an end to liberalism. Most intellectuals quit the Party; many workers also left or were arrested. The Bolsheviks were left with “only a few thousand members” (though many were now factory workers), of whom only about 150 were seasoned cadres. But their discipline and struggle against all opportunism meant that the nucleus of future uprisings was preserved.

The experience of 1905 proved that a small but strictly disciplined party with a correct political line could turn an upsurge in class struggle into a revolutionary situation, recruiting thousands of workers and leading tens of thousands in armed struggle against capitalism. It also showed that opportunism can build a larger party  in the short run but eventually spells defeat for workers, even under favorable circumstances. The truth of this lesson would be hammered home again during the high tides of class struggle in 1912-14 and in 1917.

(Sources’ Rigby, T. H. Membership in the C.P.S.U.; McNeal, Bride of the Revolution; Lenin, What Is To Be Done? and other writings; History of the C.P.S.U.(b), Short Course)

New York City, December 16, 2024-On a cold, rainy and windy day, over 100 irate,  retired city workers demonstrated against plans by Mayor Adams and Municipal Labor Committee“leaders” to reduce healthcare coverage via a Medicare (dis) Advantage program  (New York Times, 4/28/22) while shifting costs of the healthcare onto  workers’ backs. Under capitalism bosses think that once workers retire their lives have no value. For more than three years, retirees here have been fighting back and have so far kept the city and the Municipal Labor Committee’s plan from going into effect!

Against a backdrop of widespread anger directed at the health insurance industry (BBC News, 12/3/24) the actions of workers led by retirees sharply contrasted with the individualism of Luigi Mangione. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members have been working with our fellow retirees to build a mass movement that unites current working union members with retirees fighting for healthcare that meets their needs. As much as we might detest all the CEOs of the world, killing individual CEOs won’t fix the capitalist healthcare system (SEE EDITORIAL ON PAGE 2). As one speaker said at the rally outside of District Council 37 headquarters, “the business of the health insurance companies is to make profits, not decent healthcare.” PLP members have urged all those angered by the Mayor and the so-called labor leaders to reject the system and its solutions in favor of joining us in a fight for communist revolution!

As we go to print, three additional parts of this fight are taking place.  First, New York State’s highest appellate court ruled that the city could not charge premiums for retirees who wanted to remain in traditional Medicare and keep city sponsored medigap coverage. Second, new copays will go into effect on January 1, 2025. This means that many low income retirees may have to choose between needed health care services and paying their rent, food and other necessities. Since low income retirees are disproportionately Black and Latin, this means that the copays are racist. Third, the NYC Council will be considering a potential new local law (intro 1096) that will guarantee retirees can’t be forced into medicare (dis)advantage.

For PLP members, we intend to keep our eyes on the prize. Keep building this mass movement and keep organizing for communist revolution!