Migrant workers and all deserve the best: communism
I attended a rally this past in defense of migrants against Trump’s racist deportations plan. Though we were small we were a mighty group of multiracial PL’ers. In addition to handing out hundreds CHALLENGES we distributed a leaflet we made explaining our politics as well as the flyers we’ve been using to solicit donations for a mutual aid effort I’ve been leading in my community at a local migrant shelter with the help of our PLP club. We handed out all the copies we had. Self critically we could have printed out more but we didn’t anticipate such a huge turnout. We figured threats by emboldened Trump supporters would would scare workers, but I was happy that this was not the case. Workers bravely took to the streets and many people were enthusiastic about our mutual aid work, and were interested in joining our efforts.
The DSA members joined the march and had many signs reading. Socialism is better than Fascism. I asked one of them, ‘You know what’s better than socialism?’ No, what? ‘Communism.’ Not surprisingly the response was, ‘You are kidding.’
These DSA are yearning to achieve capitalism with wool mittens by voting. They are not seeking a revolutionary alternative - and those who are have not made the historical analysis that socialism reverts to capitalism. On a more positive note a worker for NY state health care said that the teachers’ union’s rejection of MediCareAdvantage benefitted all workers’ struggles for decent, affordable health care. He gladly took the CHALLENGE and thanked PLP for challenging the ‘Unity’ caucus leadership role in the UFT.
Overall it was a spirited and militant march and we learned valuable political lessons. The first is to have confidence in the working class and working class bravery is a shining beacon that will lead the way. Let’s focus our efforts on building the world we really want to pass on to future generations. Fight for communism!
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CHALLENGE in the streets on election day
On election day, four comrades and I organized a CHALLENGE sale by a polling station in a mainly Black Caribbean neighborhood. Here’s how it went.
Nearby, a street vendor sold t-shirts and hats. She had equal amounts of merch of both the klansman Donald Trump and the genocider Kamala Harris. The woman worker lamented that she didn’t print enough Trump merch, for those sold out while many Harris shirts stayed unsold.
I used the backpage of CHALLENGE as a poster. The headline read, “Voting, the Big Con.” To draw attention, I called out generic slogans like,
“Trump and Harris are no friends of the working class!” and “We can’t vote our way to liberation—we need communism!”
This drew some attention. A Black woman took CHALLENGE, and she bemoaned the price of groceries and high inflation. “It’s especially because of these illegal immigrants.”
“I was an illegal immigrant…”
“Oh, well…not you,” she backpedaled. The conversation continued about jobs and the economy. She felt the ever-growing pressure of a system in crisis, and essentially chose a “me first” mindset, which pitted one section of the working class against another. The anti-immigrant racism that people feel compelled to conform to is a reflection of how badly the Democratic Party has failed the working class (see editorial on page 2).
Class consciousness appears low, but because I know it was not always this way, I can trust that it will not always be this way. The period we are in requires patience with the people around us, but it also requires a sense of urgency and boldness. Self-critically, the five of us had a bullhorn, yet only one spoke. We distributed nearly 100 papers, half of what was anticipated.
Next time, I will come prepared with some points to make on the mic. Canvassing the streets is uncomfortable, but the only way to get better is to do it.
These next four years will provide us with many chances to respond to attacks with urgency. Let’s stay ready!
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Deport Trump, welcome international solidarity
On November 9th at Noon, workers gathered to protest Trump, and his plans to deport millions of migrants once in office. Trumpsters were said to gather as a counter protest. PL’ers said not without us! Nearly a dozen PL’ers joined the hundreds to show no fear, and to fight back against the racist ideology Trump and his cronies represent.
Together we were loud and high spirited. With loud drums marching down 59th Street and Park Ave while chanting ,”No Trump, no kkk, no fascist usa!” We distributed nearly 100 issues of CHALLLENGE and engaging In interesting conversations. One conversation with a worker watching the march said, “He remembers communism in the Soviet Union but I told him communism was never achieved and it was socialism that reverted the Soviet Union back to a capitalist state. He then said, “I can’t wait until you achieve communism with everything they accomplished”. I feel like that was a form of sarcasm, which is the problem with doing a march in an upper class area like Columbus circle. Which is dominated by the rich and a tourist area.
However, it was great to shut down traffic on behalf of fighting racism.
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Fight racist displacement and anti-migrant nationalism
A comrade and I visited friends from past reform struggles we were involved in, in the predominantly Latin neighborhood of Pilsen. We learned the bosses are sowing division in the housing struggle in Pilsen as a result of a new proposal to expand the Tax Increment Financing program (TIF). TIF is associated with racist displacement. The TIF program collects money in a special fund to spend on so-called “blighted” areas. TIF and the money for the fund has come from the property taxes on home price increases. Those who are for TIF are duped by the bosses’ promises. The bosses promote the illusion that TIF would be a transfer from rich to poor, but the capitalist class is the ruling class that dominates the state and they use the TIF fund money for subsidies to Fortune 500 companies and luxury developments. When the capitalist class commands the state, reforms remain their tool.
Many neighbors oppose TIF and are fighting racist displacement, but some are also hostile to the newly arrived migrant workers, mostly from Venezuela who are victims of imperialist displacement. I struggled with them around these contradictions. They brought up the many material hardships they face despite being property owners and operating small businesses. They also pointed out that they have undocumented family members they care for with no assistance from the government. They want to fight with the migrants over a shrinking pile of crumbs. The bosses only deliver these few crumbs because their profit system relies on racist divisions.
It’s possible some of the TIF opponents can be won to our line. But we must counter their racist ideas by fighting alongside them in the struggle. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members and residents were able to do this when we mobilized a community defense brigade to watch for Trump’s promised immigration raids in 2020. Workers were won over to antiracist ideas through this struggle. As communists, we must continue to build class conscious communist fightback at the level of local politics by joining more fightbacks against racist and sexist policing.
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Check out these red books!
Several comrades are in a leftist book group, in which we’ve read and discussed non-fiction books like A People’s Guide to Capitalism by Hadas Thier, and What Is Anti-Racism and Why It Means Anti-Capitalism? by Arun Kundnani. We’ve just begun to readClass War: A Literary History by Mark Steven.
For our first meeting, we were asked to come with two books or plays that had a positive influence on moving us to the left. Eleven of us met today and recommended the titles below. We think that CHALLENGE readers would enjoy these books. Please send in other titles you think are worthwhile.
Howard Fast (Freedom Road, Spartacus, My Glorious Brothers), Jack London (The Iron Heel), Lorraine Hansbery (A Raisin in the Sun), Alice Walker (The Color Purple), Charles Johnson (The Middle Passage), William Pomeroy (The Forest), Thomas Hardy (Jude the Obscure, Tess of the d’Urbervilles), Truman Nelson (The Surveyor), Myra Page (Moscow Yankee), John dos Passos (USA Trilogy), John Steinbeck (The Grapes of Wrath), Upton Sinclair (The Jungle), Ursula Le Guin (The Dispossessed), Emile Zola (Germinal), Cecilia Bobrovskaya (Twenty Years in Underground Russia), Steve Yarbrough (The Oxygen Man), Ousmane Sembene (God’s Bits of Wood), Anna Seghers (The Seventh Cross), Albert Maltz (The Cross and the Arrow), Suzanne Collins (Hunger Games), Veronica Roth (Divergent).
God’s Bits of Wood was written by Ousmane Sembene, the great African novelist and film director. His home of Senegal was a French colony when Sembene was drafted into the French army during WWII. After the war he returned to Senegal and took part in a long railroad strike against French authorities that began in 1947 and ended in 1948. God’s Bits of Wood tells the exciting story of that strike.
This is what was said about one of these books:
“Stowing away on a ship, Sembene traveled back to France and worked first in an auto factory and then on the docks in Marseille, where he joined the French Communist Party and became a labor militant in the communist-led CGT union. His novel Black Docker is based on these experiences.”
“One of the most satisfying aspects of God’s Bits of Wood is the important role that women take on in resuscitating and leading the strike, reminiscent of the film Salt of the Earth. It really is a terrific novel.”
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