NEW JERSEY, April 2—Our Progressive Labor Party (PLP) group had a recent social event to build for May Day and to support the Anaheim protesters arrested for fighting back against the Ku Klux Klan in California. Members and friends discussed many issues from raising revolution while fighting for a reform to the role of violence in the revolutionary struggle. One comrade was encouraged to invite everyone in her organization to come to May Day. Another comrade was motivated to contact several students, and one came with her boyfriend. She was inspired to reach out to even more students in the future.
Stop the Klan With Mass, Militant, Multi-racial Action!
The Anaheim struggle sparked an important discussion about the role of “violence” in building a multi-racial, international mass working-class movement against racism and capitalism, especially given Trump’s encouragement of racist violence. Debates over the use of “violence” are timely today as protests against Trump grow. Both the mainstream media and anti-Trump liberals praise “free speech” and “peaceful protest” and are vocally critical of “troublemaking” protestors for their use of  “violence.” So violence in the class struggle becomes a hot button issue for our members and friends. Students are particularly torn between wanting to stop racists but unsure about the ethics of using force. While communists oppose individualistic, terroristic violence, revolution is not a tea party. The ruling class has shown that they will murder millions to stay in power and keep their profits flowing. Mass revolutionary violence will be necessary to get rid of this capitalist scum.
Describing the Anaheim action, one comrade explained that the party organizes carefully and thoughtfully to stop racist groups. We are not anarchists. In the recent Anaheim case, a group of anarchists attacked the Klan without first organizing in the community. PLP members and friends who were there fought back when attacked by the Klan. When the police entered the fray, they attacked only the anti-racists. The kkkops did not arrest any Klan members, only three anti-racists. The lesson of Anaheim is clear: anti-racists cannot rely on the kkkops or the government. We must organize a mass, multiracial, anti-racist movement first to support the Anaheim 3, and eventually to get rid of this racist, sexist capitalist system, once and for all.
No Free Speech For Racists
Another anti-racist action further illustrated the political necessity of “using force” to build a mass anti-racist movement: Middlebury College students – led by a small but determined group of students of color – prevented racist academic Charles Murray (The Bell Curve) from speaking. Murray’s writings reflect ruling class efforts to revive “academic scientific racism,” not by promoting theories of “biological inferiority” but by arguing that the culture of poverty, unemployment, and crime resulting from decades of racism make people of color a threat to society (generating fear among “whites”). The militant students who shouted down Murray gave a signal to everyone that there should be no “free speech” for racists.
ICE and KKKops Off Campus; No Deportation!
After these discussions, a fairly new PLer, an immigrant, reported on her efforts to organize a Rapid Response Network (RRN) to fight against increased ICE deportations. The RRN began as an initiative of a new community organization in Newark that wanted to build an electoral response to Trump’s immigration policy. But the RRN organizers wanted a more direct action approach. To build anti-racist consciousness, the RRN proposed starting with a hotline open to non-citizens facing detainment by local police or ICE. Education/legal/political training would follow to address how all racism (anti-immigrant, anti-Black, anti-Muslim etc.) hurts the entire working class. The training would also expose the crucial role that the police, ICE, and even the military play in exploiting the working class. One Newark teacher suggested the RRN expand its base further by becoming part of the sanctuary movement being built by Newark teachers, who call for “police out of the schools” in Newark.
March on May Day
All these discussions lead us to May Day and the revolutionary communist struggle for a better world. One comrade said that EVERYTHING we demand in reform struggles is a compromise. We might win a few crumbs, but capitalist inequality, exploitation and imperialist wars continue. The working class needs an end to capitalism and a communist society in which workers make decisions and where all the resources go toward the needs of the people, not to profits. Let’s get the new RRN recruits to come to May Day and to share with them our larger goals: getting rid of capitalism and of establishing an anti-racist, anti-sexist communist society.
So comrades and friends, march on May Day. Get inspired for another year of struggle. Bring your friends so they can get inspired. From Haiti to Mexico, from Afghanistan to the United States, let’s give the working class a taste of communism!