MEXICO CITY, August 8—A multiracial, multi-generational group of Progressive Labor Party comrades intensified the contradictions at a mass youth conference for the Summer Project here. We struggled with people to break away from venomous identity politics with the antidotes of internationalism and multi-racial unity.
The conference was advertised as anti-imperialist, anti-fascist, and democratic. PLP met young workers and students from across the world. Participants included delegations from Mexico, the U.S., El Salvador, Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina, Turkey, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and more. Each day the conference featured a central panel discussion on various topics such as fascism, imperialism, democracy, women’s liberation, self-determination and education.
PLP stood out from the rest of the groups, sharing the revolutionary idea that poisonous identity politics such as nationalism and feminism only serve the bosses.
Education under capitalism serves capitalism
PLP members presented our communist analysis to the conference as a whole and various groups facilitated workshops and panels. During the education panel, we stated that all education serves the bosses under this capitalist system, so long as we are taught racist, sexist, and nationalist ideas that prepare the working class for war. For those youth who are too broken by capitalism, there is a school to prison pipeline so the ruling class can find another way to profit off the backs of the working class, since jobs can never be guaranteed under capitalism.
Our words were well received, and we were able to distribute over 500 DESAFÍOs, leaflets, and Road to Revolution IV (Progressive Labor Party’s manifesto). We could have distributed more, but we ran out! This reflects the long term work that the Party once had on the host campus.
Project participants also met up with a group of friends from Puerto Rico that we met during a summer project on the island (see letter below).
No need to settle for socialism
During a workshop on “Capitalism in Crisis,” a debate arose on the topic of socialism as a necessary stage to go through before advancing to communism.
During that discussion, we realized that many of these “left” organizations attending the conference do not have confidence in the working class. They argued that the workers of the world were not capable of going directly to communism because they are so backwards after living under capitalism for so long.
PLP members argued that all workers can understand communist ideology and use the science of dialectical materialism and political economy to destroy capitalism and create a true workers’ state under communism, without a cult of personality or a vanguard.
Though many disagreed with our comrades, there were some who agreed that what we were saying was the correct analysis of what went wrong in the old communist movement.
Confidence in the working class
Bilingual PLP-led study groups on dialectical materialism and political economy with friends of the Party provided a sharp contrast to the conference workshops. At the conference, “experts” presented at length, leaving little time for people to speak on their experience, to debate, and to ask questions.
In contrast, Party study groups were facilitated in circles, where each participant was encouraged to speak and share their experiences. That is the difference when facilitators believe that the working class can truly lead society.
We simultaneously translated for a Black comrade from the U.S. who came because PLP is serious about one international working class, one party and one world. Simultaneous translation is difficult, but PLP members and our base were up to the task in breaking the language barriers caused by the bosses (see letter, page 6). Under communism, workers around the world will not be barred from communicating with each other. We will break the bosses’ racist borders and their divisive languages.
PLP has confidence in the working class that we can learn dialectical materialism, no matter where we are in the world, as opposed to revisionists who believe only a vanguard elite can learn the science of communism. Workers are smart enough to produce what society needs so we can also learn the science we need in order to arm us with ideas that will help us take our world back from the bosses’ death grip.
Struggling to break down gender roles
At the first study group, we were welcomed with delicious home cooked food made by several women. Two of the male comrades offered to contribute in the kitchen. The women refused, indicative of how prevlaent sexism is in this bosses-led world.
In the evening we traveled to another house where we studied political economy while eating delicious pastries and drinking coffee to fuel our discussion. The studygroups were held in two different houses with different workers. Intense as it was, it was met with enthusiatic participation.
In both studygroups, workers from Mexico and the U.S. discussed struggles we were involved in, from uniting teachers and students in Oaxaca, Mexico City, LA, and NY, to organizing on the job and in our neighborhoods.
Internationalism
Participants discussed the horrible working conditions that our class suffers around the world, including slavery in many parts of the world. We discussed attacks on our class, from the bosses ideas to the systematic murder of our working class sisters and brothers. We discussed communism as the only salvation for the workers of the world, where we will run society for the benefit of the many, not the few elites.
Exhausted & hungry, we all ended the night with pizza for dinner. A comrade indicated how important these study groups are, because the entire working class needs to break with capitalist ideology and free themselves with communist ideas in order to have a revolution.
We all felt honored to participate in the project, and hope to get together again soon. Smash racist borders! Fight for communism!
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Friends from Puerto Rico debate PL politics
The friends that Progressive Labor Party made in Puerto Rico (see CHALLENGE 8//8) joined the Mexico project. They are a strong young group of fighters trying to improve the quality of education on their campus, as well as the living conditions in their community.
We met them for lunch at a local diner where we discussed the party’s line. They said they agreed with most of our politics.
The diner was closing so we went back to the college campus where we sat on the ground, underneath a tent to continue our discussion. It seemed that we were having a disagreement on feminism. We made the point that feminism, like Black nationalism, is dependent on unity across classes—that means the oppressor and oppressed workers and bosses. We must never make this mistake because the ruling class by the nature of this system must exploit and oppress the working class to function. Some agreed with this while others explained that feminism doesn’t have the same meaning in Puerto Rico as it does in the U.S., that it wasn’t a unity with the bosses. They’re may have been some traces of nationalist ideas.
The friends said they are very new to these ideas and has yet to become consolidated as a group. They also disagreed among themselves about feminism and nationalism. As a whole, the group looks promising because they practice criticism and self-criticism.
All members of the working class must struggle through these ideas. Because they choose to struggle, they have earned our respect. They expressed that they would like to collaborate because they recognized similar struggles the working class is facing in the U.S., Mexico, and Puerto Rico.
This is inspiring and a small leap for the international communist movement. We concluded our discussion with hugs and promises to link up soon. We look forward to continue the process of struggle and growth with these new comrades.
