This celebratory column is in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution and the world communist movement of the 20th century. We mainly examine its triumphs. We welcome your comments and criticisms, and encourage all readers to discuss this period of history with their friends, classmates, co-workers, family, and comrades.

One hundred years ago The Messenger, a Black U.S. socialist monthly, editorialized:
Soviet government proceeds apace. It bids fair to sweep over the whole world! The sooner the better. On with the dance!
U.S. Socialist labor leader Eugene V. Debs declared:

The common people of Russia came into power, the peasants, the toilers, the soldiers, and they proceeded as best they could to establish a government of the people. It may be that the much-despised Bolsheviks may fail at last, but let me say to you that they have written a chapter of glorious history. It will stand to their eternal credit.

These words are more important today than ever. We hear everywhere that “communism is dead,” and it is true that the Soviet Union and its allies in Eastern Europe abandoned the goal of communism and are openly capitalist market economies.
Soviet revolutionaries and the communist movement more broadly made mistakes that led to the restoration of capitalism. Workers everywhere must learn from these mistakes—as well as from the many victories of the Bolshevik revolution and the world communist movement—in order to move forward. In the future, we must build a fully egalitarian society. It is necessary to reorganize society along the communist principle “from each according to ability, to each according to need.” The PLP has come to realize that nationalism, racism, sexism, and acceptance of inequality of any sort are fatal to the working class movement. “On with the dance!”
Communist revolutionaries fight sexism
You can learn a lot about a society by looking at the position of its women. V. I. Lenin, Alexandra Kollontai, Nadezhda Krupskaya, Elena Stasova, and many, many other Soviet leaders had long recognized that the active participation of women, especially working-class women, was absolutely necessary to the success of their movement.
Lenin wrote:

Unless women are brought to take an independent part not only in political life generally, but also in daily and universal public service, it is no use talking about full and stable democracy, let alone socialism.

Kollontai wrote:

Without the participation of women the October Revolution could not have brought the Red Flag to victory.

The Bolsheviks recognized that to win over large numbers of women they would have to do two things: (a) educate them politically in the principles and practical work of communist revolution; and (2) fight for reform demands that would attack the profoundly and viciously sexist social system that ground down women workers (especially among the Asian minorities) even more harshly than their brothers.
They did both. The Bolshevik Party program of 1902 already demanded “full equality for all citizens, irrespective of sex, religion, or race.” And when the government of workers, peasants, and soldiers took power in November, 1917, it quickly moved to make this a reality.
Antisexist accomplishments
Among the accomplishments of the first few years of the Russian Revolution were:

• A large-scale system of crèches (nurseries) and “children’s palaces” was begun to provide for a “social upbringing” for the children and to free women to participate fully in political and factory work;
• Guaranteed maternity leave and special safeguards of working conditions;
• Divorce easily available on demand of either spouse, freeing women from the tyranny of abusive husbands and fathers;
• In January, 1918, in response to demands of women workers and peasants, lying-in hospitals (special hospitals for childbirth) were reorganized to guarantee the best available care for all women, regardless of ability to pay, “thereby ending,” as Kollontai put it, “the inequality between poor and prosperous expectant and nursing mothers”;
• Improved midwifery training and new regulations were implemented to protect women “against a view which saw them as ‘sacrifices to science’ on whom unskilled midwives and young medical students gained practice”;
• Abortion was legalized;
• A mass campaign was organized in 1918 to draw women workers into politics. Three hundred delegates were expected at the first congress of women workers, held in November 1918—but 1,147 came! They formulated a plan to turn “women workers and peasants into conscious and active communists” on a large scale;
• Women were active with the Red Army, often serving at the front. The women workers of Petrograd (later renamed Leningrad) served by the thousands in machine-gun companies, in medical and communications units, and in constructing fortifications.

Soviet women continued to advance throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Increasing numbers of women became scientists, engineers, skilled workers and political leaders. One of the most spectacular accomplishments of workers’ power was the freeing of Central Asian women from the suffocating veils that had for centuries symbolized their virtual enslavement.
Need working women in leadership
But serious mistakes were made too. For one, the communist movement consistently underestimated the importance of a sharp ideological struggle for equality, in this case the fight against sexism within the ranks of the working class. This was a mistake. As late as 1921, only 10 percent of the Party members were women, and women occupied only a tiny minority of leadership positions throughout the socialist period.
And while the Soviet woman was increasingly visible in public life, her “natural obligation” was still said in 1946 to be “that of bringing up her children and mistress of her home.”
Still, the Bolshevik Revolution of November, 1917, was, as Debs put it, “a chapter of glorious history” for women as well as for male workers. “To have failed to see the hope in the Russian Revolution,” wrote The San Francisco Bulletin war correspondent Bessie Beatty a century ago, “is to be as a blind man looking at a sun rise.”
Her words are still true today. The sky may be cloudy, but the struggle for communism continues. And the working class will win!

WASHINGTON, DC, March 21—After a multi-year, mass struggle against racist criminal background checks at WMATA, the Washington D.C. Metro transit system, the bosses at Metro recently settled a class-action lawsuit for $6.5 million in December. This reform victory shows how necessary it is to organize among Black workers and develop a mass base.
Though some workers will benefit from the settlement, there is more fightback to come. The bosses throw reformist crumbs to our class here and there to stifle our fightback. “Winning” some settlements will never liberate workers from this capitalist hell. But the militancy workers showed here is a harbinger of their revolutionary potential.
Change in hiring
WMATA changed its relatively liberal hiring policy in late 2011 to one excluding applicants for Metro jobs based on a rigid list of prior misdemeanors and felonies. This policy kept many Black workers in the city, victims of the ruling class’s racist “War on Drugs”, from  working in most parts of the transit system. Prior convictions kept workers from driving a bus, being a mechanic, or working on the rail. Metro management did new background checks on newly hired workers. They also began applying the rules to workers who were out of work for more than 90 days (due to illness or injury). As a result, several workers with decades of time in at Metro were fired, even though they had revealed their previous criminal record to Metro management when they were originally hired.  
Progressive Labor Party (PLP) workers at Metro and PL’ers who are members of the Metropolitan Washington Public Health Association (MWPHA) joined with community members, public health workers and previously-incarcerated workers to fight back against the policy. From 2012-2015, we led rallies, attended board hearings and forced the D.C. City Council to have a special hearing on this egregious hiring policy.  We met returning workers who told their grim stories, connected with lawyers, and collected over 1,000 signatures on a petition to demand an end to the policy.
In July 2014, the Washington Lawyers for Civil Rights, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the private law firm of Arnold and Porter brought a class action suit against Metro for its racist hiring policy.  It is estimated that 1,000 workers are eligible for some payment from the settlement. As a result of the settlement, Metro has agreed to use a more flexible case-by-case review of applicants, which will give previously-incarcerated workers a chance to be hired.
All struggle centered around Black transit workers
Because PLP takes on antiracist struggles and has a base in D.C.’s working class communities, as well as Metro, the Party quickly realized this was a necessary fight. In our public health work we learned from the community that the housing and employment situation for residents returning from prison was dire. From our comrades at Metro we learned of the new policy and quickly joined forces in a campaign that lasted over two years. The campaign exposed the misleaders of the transit workers’ unions (ATU 689 and 1764), who refused to fight against the racist hiring policy. These misleaders have feared workers going on strike against Metro’s racist actions, and continue to be scared to break the bosses’ laws when only such action will lead to progress. As Mike Quill, legendary leader of NY transit workers in the 1950s and 60s once said, “If you’re going to be a union leader, you have to be ready to go to jail”. Not so for today’s transit union sellouts!
The attack on transit workers continues to reach fever pitch. Last year, Metro General Manager Paul Wiedefeld called for privatizing system services. Privatization would erase benefits for these workers and weaken the union. But the sellout unions and fake-proletarian Democrats have also supported this racist push.
Meanwhile, local developers and other capitalists take home millions in increased value from real estate near their stations driven by the value added from access to the transit system. The bosses have rewarded the Metro managers with bloated salaries running in the hundred of thousands of dollars (General Manager Paul Wiedefeld makes over $400,000 per year), while slandering regular workers as overpaid. The average salary a worker needs to afford a two-bedroom apartment in D.C. is $103,543. (Curbed, 7/14/2017) Yet the rank and file workers can barely make rent:
“The median salary at WMATA is $68,544. About 7,500 (mostly union-represented) workers earn base salaries of $50,000 to $80,000, far from eye-popping amounts in a region known from strong employment rates and high housing costs.” (WAMU, 2/17/2017)
Workers here and worldwide must continue to fight institutional racism against the many Black workers who have been incarcerated and targeted in the War on Drugs. Programs in D.C. like the “jump outs” or “Stop and Frisk” in New York have created arrests and convictions that will keep workers from employment, housing and other programs. Similar background check policies limit job opportunities in hospitals, school systems, retail and construction as well as transit.
Sharp anti-racist struggles like this one lead to discussions about the need for revolution against capitalism and the fight for communism and have brought new workers into the PLP’s orbit. These struggles also lay the basis for a more militant union, willing to become “strike ready” and defy the bosses and their laws. Marching on May Day in New York City under communist leadership is a critical next step for the circle of workers preparing to strike against the D.C. transit bosses.

CHICAGO, March 19—On Monday, March 12, PL’ers joined a group of other anti-racists rallying in front of the county building to demand bail for Tyrone Williams, a Black worker arrested for expressing his outrage at the courtroom injustice of the fascist judge in the pretend trial of killer cop Jason Van Dyke. A speech by a Progressive Labor Party member, who had been arrested for similar reasons, explained the racist nature of the entire capitalist system and its courts.
From the rally we proceeded to the offices of the chief Cook County judge, who refused to meet with us. Nevertheless, before leaving we expressed our demands -- drop the charges or at least set bond for Tyrone and release him. A few days later Tyrone was indeed released on $3,000 bond, but only after a week in jail.
With many other anti-racist fighters we have been packing the courtroom in our sustained attempts to prevent Van Dyke’s exoneration for killing Black teenager LaQuan McDonald in 2014 at point blank range, with no fewer than sixteen bullets. Throughout the entire struggle, we PL’ers have proclaimed our communist understanding that there can be no justice for workers under the capitalist system, but only through revolution for a system that puts workers’ needs first.
PLP has been active in the movement against police terror in Chicago, terror that is always directed against the working class – primarily against Black but also against white members of our class.
Racist judge and courts strike again
The U.S. court system was set up by the slave-owning founders to dispense injustice for the working class. But Judge Vincent Gaughan, the fascist goon put in charge of Van Dyke’s fake trial (with its predetermined exoneration), has ruled with a level of viciousness beyond even the usual. He has held a number of anti-racist fighters in contempt of court, including the comrade who spoke at the rally, who had the nerve to snap his fingers in the courtroom last June.
On March 8, Gaughan had Norman Hall, a Black worker, arrested for holding his hand up to ask a question. It was then that Tyrone, a member of the police reform movement, was also arrested when, in his fury at Norman’s arrest, he simply blurted out, “What?” Just like that, two more Black workers were dragged deep into the bosses’ criminal injustice system and held in county jail without bond.
Through such travesties does the capitalist class wield their state power over us. While the system lets a racist killer-cop roam free on bond for two and a half years, the judge imprisons two Black workers for the “crime” of being justifiably infuriated. Norman and Tyrone now face devastating consequences: loss of freedom, loss of jobs, legal fees, fines, possible probation, and the strong possibility of never being able to find work again. Meanwhile, the legal system tries to figure out how to absolve the murdering cop without incurring mass rebellion, as in Ferguson, Missouri.
Workers organize fighting response
We salute our fellow anti-racist fighters and those workers everywhere committed to organizing our class in the face of fascist terror. The bosses’ ability to build the fascism they need, to mobilize the working class as soldiers in their inter-imperialist rivalry, will only be limited by the size and political leadership of the mass anti-fascist international movement. Actions such as our packing the courtrooms will develop into bigger and bolder ways to sharpen the struggle and build class consciousness. Each action we take now is part of our march toward a worldwide mass revolution for a working-class led communist society that will sweep all racist trash into the dustbin of history.
A communist society can and will smash all forms of racism, because it will have destroyed the root of oppression and exploitation on which racism rests: the capitalist profit system. In the revolutionary Soviet Union, communist leaders and the working class outlawed racism in all its forms—not just in written laws but in actual practice! Similarly, a communist society led by PLP will create a world where racist killers and crimes will be crushed quickly and severely.

TEL AVIV, March 9—“Residents and refugees refuse to be enemies!” “No to deportation, yes to rehabilitation!” These were among the chants of 700 multiracial women and men workers who marched through southern Tel-Aviv on International Working Women’s Day. They demanded an end to the racist, sexist deportations of 40,000 African workers seeking Israeli asylum.
The marchers came from a multitude of organizations, from liberals to phony lefists to the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party. The women-worker-led, multiracial character of the demonstration showed the Israeli government that the workers who actually live in southern Tel-Aviv do not buy the government’s lies. The workers here welcome the asylum seekers as neighbors, friends, and comrades, contrary to what the bosses’ propaganda claims!
A few fascists organized a counter-demonstration, parroting the most virulent lies of anti-Black racism. They got a boost from the government, because it now repeats similar claims. The aim of the regime and its goons is to lock up asylum seekers in the Holot (officially called a “Residential Facility,” but actually a prison camp) in the Negev desert, in horrid conditions - which particularly harm women and children. The Israeli government pressures them into what they call “voluntarily consent” to being deported to Rwanda and other countries like Eritrea and Sudan.
Inter-imperialist rivalry creates refugee crisis
Many African workers understand that signing the “voluntary consent” to deportation means sealing their and their families’ fate of certain danger, and even death. These workers escaped Eritrea because of its murderous fascist government, and Sudan because of the wars between U.S. and Chinese imperialist-backed proxy armies vying to project one or the other imperialist’s power over this strategically important region of Africa.
According to the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish pro-migrant group HIAS, “many of those who were relocated by Israel to third countries in Africa indicate that they did not find durable protection…Some have drowned at sea en route to Europe, while others were reportedly detained, tortured and extorted by human traffickers” since, once deported to the countries they initially escaped, migrant workers are forced to move yet again (The Atlantic, 1/30).
Fascist Israeli bosses
Asylum seekers, particularly women, and especially single mothers, are super-exploited by Israeli bosses and face daily supression. Many are undocumented, and thus the employer can pay less than the minimum wage wihtout any benefits. Single women asylum seekers must work long hours to feed their children; sometimes they can only afford horrid makeshift daycare—nicknamed “children warehouses”—where their children live in misery while the mothers toil for some boss’s profits.
The exploitation and oppression of migrant African workers goes hand in hand with imperialist rivalry. As one of U.S. imperialism’s most important pillars of control in the Middle East, and a regional imperialist in its own right, Israel’s growing regional rivalry with Iran has spurred fascism to climb to new heights. This week, the Israeli prosecutors offered a plea deal to racists who lynched and murdered Abtum Zarhum, an African asylum seeker, in 2016. They will only some short “community service” sentences rather than pay for their crimes. Zarhum happened to be around the Beersheba central bus station when a terrorist attack totally unrelated to him occurred. Fascist forces suspected him to be the terrorist, and shot and injured him. While he was bleeding on the ground, a lynch mob of Israelis came and beat him to death, included off-duty cops. These lynch mob fascists will now walk free.
Israeli and migrant worker unity resists fascism
The workers of south Tel-Aviv shows us a glimpse of resistance. This International Working Women’s Day showed that it’s women workers taking the lead of this anti-fascist fightback.
For these reasons the resident and migrant unity of southern Tel-Aviv is all the more powerful, inspiring, and vital for all workers to know about and support. As dark as the fascist night is in Israel, and as the threats of wider regional and world wars grow, the working-class fightback here show the potential of PLP’s communist ideas of internationalism, women leadership, multiracial unity and militant antiracist fightback taking root.
One of the women speakers at the demonstration connected the growing displacement of Israeli workers with the growing movement of Israeli citizens and rabbis who commit to hiding refugees in their homes: “The deportation of asylum seekers is just one step before they deport us, long-term residents of southern Tel Aviv, in favor of the tycoons [capitalists]” (972mag.com, 3/9).
Capitalism breeds racism and sexism. Along with imperialism these are the legs upon which this rotten profit system walks. PLP fights alongside the struggle in southern Tel-Aviv and will continue to fight back while raising our ideas of and revolution. Join PLP and expel the bosses.