March 8 is celebrated as International Women’s Day all over the world. Many people are unaware of the working class origins of this day.
The Second International was the international organization of the socialist movement. Before the First World War, this movement contained some progressive elements. In 1910 the Second Women’s Conference of the Second International established International Women’s Day. Clara Zetkin, who later became a communist leader in Germany, proposed the following resolution:
In agreement with the class-conscious, political and trade union organizations of the proletariat...the socialist women of all countries will hold each year a Women’s Day, whose foremost purpose it must be to aid the attainment of women’s suffrage. This demand must be handled in conjunction with the entire women’s question according to socialist precepts. The Women’s Day must have an international character and is to be prepared carefully.
The date of March 8 was chosen because on that date in 1908 there was a mass demonstration of socialist-led women workers from the needle (textile) trades in New York City. The demonstration demanded the vote and mass organizing of women in the needle trades.
In 1914 in Russia Aleksandra Kollontai, Nadezhda Krupskaya, and other Bolshevik women published Rabotnitsa, a Bolshevik journal for working-class women. The first issue was published on March 8. On March 8, 1917, a bold strike of women textile workers was supported by mas demonstrations that led to the overthrow of the Tsar.
After the Bolshevik Revolution, International Women’s Day was established as an official celebration every year in the Soviet Union.
International Women’s Day became a symbol of resistance to the oppression of women workers all over the world. On March 8, 1923, the communist-led Trade Union Educational League (TUEL) began a campaign in the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU, now called Unite) and other needle trade unions to rebuild militancy and fight for unions controlled by their rank-and-file members.
On March 8, 1927, in Uzbekistan, a republic in the Soviet Union, the Communist Party (Bolshevik) began a mass campaign against the religious custom of forcing women to wear the veil (paranja or burqa). This was really a robe that covered the whole face and body. It was extremely hot and uncomfortable, and hindered a woman’s movement. The paranja symbolized the most oppressive aspects of the oppression of women. It had to go.
Finally, with the political work done, the time for action came. There was a mass burning of paranjas amid the playing of The Internationale, the communist anthem.
On that day ... tens of thousands of women, huddled in paranjas and chachvans poured like a menacing avalanche through the narrow choked streets, squares and bazaars of the ancient Central Asian cities...The vast multitude, including a number of men and children, gathered round the Lenin monument, which was likewise decked with red banners and native carpets, and the women waited breathlessly for what was to come....All the bands struck up the Internationale. ... The real proceedings began. ... They [the paranjas] were flung aloft into the quivering air, timidly at first, but then with ever wilder and more frenzied speed, these symbols of slavery that the women cast off, paranjas, chachvans and chadras. They were piled in rapidly growing heaps, drenched with paraffin, and soon the dark clouds of smoke from the burning common abjuration of a thousand year old convention, now become unbearable, flared up into the bright sky of the spring day. .. (Hewlett Johnson, The Socialist Sixth of the World)
Although we in Progressive Labor Party understand that winning the right to vote for any worker only helps to keep the capitalists in power by making them look more “democratic”, we also recognize the revolutionary side of the history of International Women’s Day.
We fight against sexism because it means the super-exploitation of women, and because it divides the working class. It is crucial to attack sexist practices, and to celebrate the vital role played by women communist leaders, as seen in our own Party. We use the name International Working Women’s Day in order to help show the interrelationship between capitalism and sexism.

WEST VIRGINIA, March 7—33,000 education workers shut down schools in a two-week strike, shaking the entire state, and inspiring workers nationwide to gear up for a similar fight.
In a period when strikes are at a historic low, and class anger has been steered towards the bosses’ Democratic Party or participating in passive marches, the education workers in West Virginia flexed their workers’ power and set an example for their 270,00 students.
This mainly-women workers’ rebellion have not only combatted the state politicians and defied their laws (striking and collective bargaining is illegal in the state), but they have also defied their union misleaders who tried to put a quick end to the strike.
The state conceded to a five-percent raise and a hold on raising health insurance costs.
Workers, students, parents, and communists in Progressive Labor Party should use this momentum to build multiracial unity. We can point to the student-parent-teacher unity as a germ of collectivity. We can win people to the communist idea that the working class doesn’t need the bosses, union leaders, or politicians to run society.
Poor working conditions mainly hurt students
Students stood in solidarity with education workers and organized under the hashtag #SecureOurFuture. Many bus drivers refused to go to work, forcing schools to cancel classes. State Senate President Mitch Carmichael tried to shame workers when she said teachers were “leaving the students out in the cold.”
One striker said, “There is nothing that we don’t do for our kids here if they need. So, to insult us that we don’t care about our kids is way over the line.”
The working conditions in schools are students’ learning conditions. By rebelling against the bosses’ state, workers are teaching students a profound lesson: accepting capitalism’s retched conditions cannot be an option. We must fight back.
While the demands and outlook for the strike are for basic reforms, the militancy and leadership among the strikers show us the potential the working class has in truly becoming a revolutionary force in the class struggle.
Despicable conditions for mainly white workers
West Virginia is a “Right to Work” state, which means workers can refuse to be a union member. The state, 93 percent white, has one of the lowest standards of living in the country. At a starting salary of $31,000/year, education workers here are among the lowest paid. After deducting health care costs, many teachers make less than $15 an hour. “I worry constantly about how I am going to afford my medicine,” said a teacher with 20 years on the job. This goes to show that white workers are no exception to the rule of exploitation. It is in our class interest to fight with multiracial unity.
Rank and file defies union misleaders
Shortly after the strike began, union misleaders from the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) tried to stop the strike based on a “promise” by Governor Jim Justice. The workers weren’t having it.
“Initially we thought we won…And then the union leaders…talked to us and we realized really quickly we did not win anything. The crowd turned very angry very quickly,” one teacher said. Rank and file members, defied their union leaders and continued to strike.
Learning from miners
West Virginia was the site of the largest labor uprising in U.S. history— the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921. Some 1,000 armed miners battled strikebreakers and private cops. The president sent in the army. Class struggle is nothing new to workers here.  
One teacher said, “The union wars, they originated [here] in…Mingo County. We believe we’re following in their footsteps.”
The Coal Wars saw thousands of coal miners engage in armed struggle against federal troops and strike breakers just to win a union. They wore red neckerchiefs, the original “red necks.”
Clearly, winning a union is not enough, important as that may be. As long as the bosses hold power, no victory is ever secure. It will take communist revolution to end the profit system that thrives on war, racism, and poverty.
Strike fever
It appears that “Strike Fever” may be spreading. 1,400 Frontier Communications workers, members of the Communications Workers of America, went on strike on March 4 in West Virginia and Virginia, after ten months of failed contract negotiations. Since Frontier acquired Verizon’s landlines in West Virginia in 2010, the company has cut over 500 jobs.
Teachers in New Jersey and Oklahoma have authorized their union leader to call a strike and have begun making plans. Arizona and Kentucky teachers are also feeling the urge to fight back. The bosses had hoped to keep workers focused on elections in November. A multiracial workers’ strike across the country would strike fear into the hearts of this imperialist ruling class.  
It is true that many striking workers are thinking about raising their standard of living, not about the potential political might of workers. However, this strike does show the potential of our class to become leaders. Workers will rise to the occasion. With an infusion of communist politics into the struggle, these rebellions can become schools for communism that win more workers to smash capitalism.
Workers will strike again, and every PLP area should be ready to fight in solidarity. We can help connect the dots on the need to build the revolutionary PLP.

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Interview with Parent Reveals Worker-Parent Unity

The following report is from an interview on March 5 with a West Virginia parent involved in the strike.
Thousands of the state’s striking teachers who massed at the State Capitol today were on line for three hours trying to get into the building and ringed it with a human chain. By noon nearly 9,000 had managed to rally inside. Some stayed over Sunday night to be able to enter today. They are demanding a living wage and fully paid health insurance. A special education teacher with a Master’s Degree and 15 years seniority is paid $45,000 a year. Meanwhile, the state legislators draw the seventh highest salary of all state legislators in the country.
In Cabell County, whose teachers were the first to go out and have been on strike for eight days, over 50 percent of children live below the poverty line. Middle School teachers have traditionally organized food and clothing pantries, and on Fridays send those kids home with ready-to-heat meals to eat on weekends. Many of them are served breakfasts at the start of the school day. Meanwhile, teachers gather leftover untouched meals in the backpacks of low-income students. Teachers deliver meals on school bus routes year round.
In Cabell County, teachers spread out on street corners with signs to give parents and other teachers the latest news on the progress of the walkout. Initially the strike started in this county when the local communications director sent messages via phone to teachers and parents about a “work stoppage,” alerting them that the schools would be closed until the government agreed to the teachers’ demands.
Teachers, parents, and children are all struggling here, where a large number of schools are in rural areas. This is the first time they all have experienced such a strike.

No matter how “woke” a film seems, we can’t rely on the cesspool known as Hollywood to be a voice of freedom. Hollywood, controlled by the ruling class, re-writes history, generates racist and sexist stereotypes to shape mass ideas, and broadcasts ideology that supports U.S. imperialism.
Black Panther—which has already grossed $909.8+ million—is no exception.
Protagonist King T’Challa rules the fictional African country Wakanda. It poses as poor but it’s the wealthiest and most technologically advanced society in the world—with an isolationist policy. Wakanda possesses the most valuable resource, vibranium.
T’Challa’s leadership is tested against the U.S. Black villain Erik Killmonger, who starts off as a bitter antiracist and is determined to replace Western imperialism with his own.
Many antiracists are drawn to this depiction of Black empowerment. After decades of endless racist depictions of the continent of Africa and Black workers in general, finally a movie that shows Black actors at the center of their own narrative. However, representation is not power for the working class.
How to respond to racism?
The examples of anti-Black racism are endless: slavery, lynchings, Jim Crow, mass incarceration, police terror, unequal pay, education, housing, and so on. The U.S. rulers not only mastered racism, but they also exported it worldwide.
But, for every racist attack, there has been a counterattack. This fightback has varied from movements for Black capitalism to organizing multiracial unity to overthrow capitalism.
Black Panther highlights two paths to responding to a racist world. One path is nationalist isolationism, which then morphs into reformism, led by the ruling-class T’Challa. The other path recognizes a need to change the system, promoted by working-class Killmonger.
Rebellion still causes fear in the hearts of rulers—Ferguson and Baltimore are prime examples. The potential for these rebellions to be infused with communist ideology and multiracial unity is the ruling class’s ultimate fear.
Wakandan foreign policy
Wakandan society is a Pan-African collective of different ethnic groups. The viewer is drawn to the powerful Black women on screen—warriors, engineers, scientists, agents, and mostly all royalty—whose role are all purposed for nation building. #Wakandaforver. But at the end of the day, they all serve the king in this theocratic monarchy.
T’Challa initially wants to preserve Wakandan rightwing isolationist policy while engaging in secret trade with the world. This position is, “foreigners will ruin Wakanda.”
Antiracist turned imperialist
Killmonger offers the sharpest criticisms of racism. Rather than an enlightened revolutionary, this Black man from Oakland is rendered as a dangerous psychopath. His name Killmonger says it all.
Killmonger’s father N’Jobu was part of the royal Wakandan family. N’Jobu, sent to Oakland to spy on the world it refuses to engage with, quickly learns of the systematic racism Black workers face. The then-King murders N’Jobu for trying to use vibranium technology to foment and arm an antiracist rebellion in the U.S.
One of Killmonger’s best lines is, “Two billion people all over the world who look like us, whose lives are much harder, and Wakanda has the tools to liberate them all. Where was Wakanda?” He reveals the hypocrisy of the Wakandan ruling class who, despite having the power to take action, ignored slavery, colonialism, and worldwide racism in the name of self-preservation.
He wants to use vibranium to execute an all-Black revolution where he is the ruler. His agenda turns out to be a revenge fantasy. Killmonger becomes King and threatens to kill anyone who defies him. This reinforces the myth that being revolutionary leads to a power-hungry brutal dictatorship. His grand strategy of fighting global racism is borrowed from British imperialism’s playbook when he states, “the sun will never set on the Wakandan Empire.”
New global order
After T’Challa kills Killmonger, T’Challa is won to reversing the isolationist policy. His solution is in line with Nakia, a special forces agent and his love interest.
Nakia understands the impossibility of isolationism in a world shaped by inequality. She argues, “Wakanda is strong enough to help others and protect itself.” Nakia’s views of global reform prevail.
T’Challa’s monologue at the UN (of course) concludes the film: “Wakanda will no longer watch from the shadows…More connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis, the wise build bridges while the foolish build barriers.”
They also go to Oakland to open a community center for Black youth. This is the “solution” —Black elites need to provide resources and misleadership to the working class.
The main wing of the U.S. ruling class needs more Black leadership—to save capitalism. The Brookings Institute, an imperialist think tank, wrote a review of Black Panther. In addition to calling out “Hollywood, it’s about time,” they wrote:

“Black Panther” has unequivocally become one of many recent inflection points for the African American community, especially following the success of extraordinary black voter turnout in tough southern elections…[S]ince the end of the historic and groundbreaking Obama presidency, black people have been searching for a superhero, or a “yes we can” leader like T’Challa. For two hours, he becomes more than a comic-book superhero. He transforms into a symbol of hope for African Americans, much like President Obama was during the previous eight years (2/26).

Even before the hot mess that is president Trump, the U.S. bosses have been desperate to win back allegiance to this kill-mongering system. They need T’Challas, Michelles, and Baracks. This is the ultimate message.
Masses, not a superhero, will save the day
Neither T’Challa nor Killmonger are the solutions for the working class.
The working class needs Black, especially Black women, leadership—for communism. Black workers have a long history of fightback. From the slave revolts, rebellions in the workplace and military, to Ferguson and Baltimore, Black workers continue to be the key to worldwide communist revolution and the ultimate liberation of all working people.
Marvel’s Black Panther appeals to the anti-racism that many of us share, but co-opts the anger of Black workers and pushes a reformist, Black capitalist agenda. To defeat the real super villain, capitalism, we need a mass communist revolution and millions of working-class heroes.

NEW YORK CITY, February 12—Eight Chinese tenants, mainly women and seniors, went on a hunger strike after a forceful eviction from their homes. For five days, they camped outside the city’s racist Housing and Preservation Development (HPD), battling freezing temperatures, rain, and hunger to demand the city government repair their building’s staircase, and overturn a cruel vacate order that will leave multiple families homeless.
These workers, whose ages range from 50-70, broke their fast healthy, and with a temporary reform, thanks to the collective organizing of nearly 200 multiracial, multi-generational workers. Progressive Labor Party members joined organizing efforts to further unmask the city’s racist agenda.
Beat back slumlord Betesh
The strikers, some tenants displaced from 83-85 Bowery, fought slumlord Joseph Betesh for years inside and outside of housing court. The tenants resisted his attempt to bulldoze the buildings, and convert them into luxury glass boxes for the rich.
“Betesh, who owns the Dr. Jay’s clothing store chain, acquired the two buildings in 2013, paying $62 million for eleven properties along the Bowery. He soon began trying to evict tenants” (The Village Voice, 1/4). Betesh used every crooked scheme possible—from lying about rent-stabilization and purposely letting the building fall into disrepair. He also offered $15,000 buyouts to tenants. They refused.
He tried evicting one of his tenants in 2015, arguing their apartment wasn’t rent stabilized, and he didn’t have to renew their lease. That tenant fought back, refusing a settlement and mobilized a tenants’ association to get Betesh to address nearly 200 building violations he’d neglected for years. Betesh then sued the tenants in state Supreme Court.
These fighters also rejected a 99-year lease that Betesh offered as a settlement, which would’ve forced them to leave for repairs and prevented them from further pursuing rent stabilization.
Last December, after two years of battling Betesh in court, the Division of Housing & Community Renewal (DHCR) deemed the building rent-stabilized. This victory was temporary.
Govt works hand in glove with landlord
In mid-January, the city bosses’ agency, the Department of Buildings (DOB), colluded with Betesh to forcibly displace 75 workers from the 85 Bowery building. In under two hours, the fire department and kkkops evicted whole families—including infants and the elderly. They were funneled into a shelter. On January 24, just before the two-week repair deadline given in the evacuate order, tenants and the Coalition to Protect Chinatown and Lower East Side organized a press conference to demand HPD take up repairs.
PL’ers attended the militant rally, and joined chants shaming HPD. One PL’er led the chant, “Workers united will never be defeated!” The next step is to discuss CHALLENGE with the fighters and involve their friends in this struggle.
At one point the tenants stormed through the barricade, pushing through an HPD officer to deliver a letter to the HPD commissioner, demanding they take over repairs and prosecute Betesh. Of course, that went unanswered. After two weeks of enduring cramped conditions, with no end near, tenants announced the hunger strike on Feb 2.
Workers win an inch, bosses take a mile
Despite efforts from supporters to get them to stop, the strikers never relented. Police attack dogs tried harassing and intimidating them throughout the strike.
Police Commissioner James O’ Neil ordered the strikers to remove tarps tied to the barricades his minions placed. That apparently violated “criminal law.” The tarps kept the strikers warm in the freezing weather.
Only under an exploitative system do robbers get off scot-free and workers who fight back are criminalized. Clearly, the bosses and their protectors care about private property, not working-class lives.
The hunger strike is over, for now; the city made an agreement for management to complete staircase repairs and allow tenants to return home by March 28. But we know these capitalist promises are untrustworthy. Tenants plan to resume striking should they not return home by that date.  
A hunger strike relies on the oppressor to feel guilt for oppressing. Rather than appealing to the enemy’s morality through self-harm, workers can expose and threaten the bosses’ state power through militant multiracial unity. If we are to ever abolish racist housing and evictions, workers need all their energy for the continuous organizing needed to defeat capitalism.
Racist rezoning punishes workers
Wealth for capitalists always means utter devastation for workers. The land that is the modern-day U.S. was taken through war and genocide of indigenous people. Today, real estate bosses dispossess working-class families in their pursuit of luxury rentals, made possible by the capitalist government and its politicians.
With mayor Bill de Blasio’s blessing, the City Council in 2008 approved a rezoning plan for 111 blocks near Lower Manhattan. This racist plan protected the mostly white, Lower East Side and East Village neighborhoods from high-rise, high-rent housing, while excluding most of Chinatown. This allowed tycoons like Betesh to buy out buildings on the cheap.
Along with the government housing authorities, mayor de Blasio, the cops, and landlord Betesh, Chinatown councilwoman Margaret Chin is also guilty of racism. Democrat Chin colluded with luxury developers, leaving working-class housing, including public housing areas, vulnerable. This hurts mainly Black, Latin, and Asian tenants. Chin received $230,000 of campaign donations from the Real Estate Board of New York. Chin, former affordable housing activist, was the first Asian person to represent Chinatown. Clearly, representation byrace does not mean power for workers.
Long-haul fight
This fightback is a blow to sexism and racism. The years-long multiracial fightback of tenants is an inspiration. The tenants may get their homes back, but the fight against racist housing is far from over. Racist property owners citywide will continue displacing working-class families. The only permanent way to end privatization is to build a world where property is owned collectively by and for the working class: a communist world.

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A City of Segregation

Beginning in World War I, Black workers were forced to migrate into the cities due to labor shortages and war production.
Housing was divided along the color line and the resulting “white flight” to the suburbs in the post-World War II U.S. created cities with segregation and devastating living conditions.
NYC was largely shaped by the arch-racist Robert Moses. He, alongside billionaires and politician, built a city of segregation. “Moses’ transgressions [include] acres of sterile public housing towers, parks and playgrounds for the rich and comfortable, and highways that sundered working-class neighborhoods and dispossessed a quarter of a million people” (NYT, 5/6/2007).
As parks commissioner, all except one of the 255 playgrounds were placed out of reach of our class. The one pool in East Harlem was kept at a “deliberately icy” temperature. He designed low bridges to keep buses, carrying inner-city Black and Latin families, away from Jones Beach. To build the highways, 250,000 families were thrown out of their homes and the streets were overrun by vehicles.
Today, fifty years after the federal Fair Housing Act made redlining practices and discrimination in housing illegal, New York City neighborhoods remain acutely segregated.
What the bosses call the melting pot is actually a deep segregation of housing—in some case, over 90 percent isolation of one race from another. Black and white families are the most isolated from other races (NYT, 4/15/15). “Latin families are isolated in Corona and Inwood; Asians are most isolated in Chinatown.”
As antiracists, like those in Park Slope, tackle segregation in schools, a byproduct of housing segregation, we must continue to fight racism in our neighborhoods.
The bosses offer us two toxic “choices”: deeply segregated housing as in the case of Chinatown, or gentrification, which results in mass racist displacement of working-class families and segregation just the same.
Choose integration and join the fight for communism.