Last month’s Seattle teachers’ strike, the first in the city’s schools in 30 years, marked a qualitative advance in efforts to build militant anti-racism in a 5,000-member union. Years of struggle by the Social Equality Educators (SEE) caucus paid off in making the five-day work stoppage more politically effective—and a foundation for building a fighting, anti-racist organization for years to come.
In Seattle as elsewhere, public schools have been under sustained attack. Billionaires are raiding what remains in the public coffers as the capitalist ruling class attempts to centralize control of education. In Washington state, the fiasco of school funding was laid bare by a state Supreme Court ruling that held the Legislature in contempt for failing to fully fund basic education. Educators reached their breaking point, and the strike was the result.
But as subsequent events made clear, reform politics in the current period is a game rigged by the capitalist bosses and their allies in union leadership. Despite a unanimous strike vote by the rank and file, the union’s executive board and representative assembly were authorized to suspend the strike on their own, with the general membership having no real say.
Nonetheless, we achieved some success. A 40-member bargaining team fought for guaranteed recess time, the requirement of “Race and Equity Teams” at each school, and the removal of test scores from teacher evaluations. These demands generated broad public support. We strengthened our position by defying union leadership and organizing 200 educators in our zone to march five miles to the district headquarters. The march pressured the union leadership and sent a message to the bargaining team to hold the line and stop submitting weak counter-proposals. This action built unprecedented solidarity in our ranks, and a tentative agreement was reached that night.
In the end, we won 30 minutes per day of guaranteed recess for all schools—a rebuff to administrators in low-income, majority Black and Latin neighborhoods, where recess had been cut to as little as 15 minutes in a fool’s errand to increase test scores. We won the establishment of Race and Equity Teams in 30 percent of schools, a wedge for teachers to expose racism and build anti-racist practices. While we’ll never get rid of racism in the schools under capitalism, we can use these teams to develop more people into anti-racist fighters. Finally, we won the fight to eliminate test scores from teacher evaluations, a major blow to the capitalists’ national education reform movement.
Capitalist Schools Bound to Fail
These concrete achievements are important. But we should be clear that the strike’s main victory was to- develop consciousness among educators as participants in class struggle, however unevenly. Of course, illusions persist. As many see it, the next step in this struggle is to force the hand of the State Legislature, possibly through statewide strikes, to reform the tax structure for education funding. This strategy fails to address the reality that capitalist education will never serve the needs of the working class. Even if the state “fully” funds education, by the bosses’ standards, we will still be stuck with the general crisis of global capitalism and the particular crisis of U.S. imperialism. We will still face attacks from a ruling class demanding that workers do more for less. Our students will still face a future of racist police terror, mass unemployment, and forced recruitment into the next global imperialist war.
But to the extent that we can continue to develop working-class consciousness and workers’ confidence in their collective power, we will have taken another step forward. Now we have to mount more mass struggles to demonstrate that capitalism is not a system that can be reformed. It must be replaced by communism, a system that will transform education to meet the needs of all students—and the anti-racist, anti-sexist society they will help to build.
CHICAGO, October 3 — “This is what a communist society will look like!” remarked one comrade after observing our international and multi-generational, working-class gathering. The occasion was our city collective’s second annual October Revolution Celebration Dinner, hosted at a banquet hall on Chicago’s south side. More than fifty comrades and friends, hailing from Oakland, Guyana, Mexico and the Philippines, came together.
After everyone had eaten their fill of international cuisine, the program kicked off with a fiery speech from a comrade who blasted the racist and sexist failures of capitalism and emphasized the need to organize for communist revolution. Next came an interactive, bilingual presentation that summarized the history of the first days of the Russian Revolution, and also highlighted past and present struggles of Progressive Labor Party’s first fifty years. Communist songs were sung, and the evening wrapped up with dancing.
Having a DJ made the event livelier, but a number of comrades were upset that some of the songs played contained openly sexist language. This underlined the importance of infusing culture with communist, egalitarian ideas and replacing abusive and degrading themes with powerful, pro-working-class messages. Cultural events are just some of the many steps needed to build the class struggle to the level achieved by the Russian and Chinese revolutionaries. They wielded working-class culture as a powerful weapon in the fight to violently overthrow the rotten capitalist class and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. We’re committed to making this event twice as big next year, and to win more workers to the Party and the fight for a communist world!
BALTIMORE, October 7—A multiracial group of more than 40 protesters rallied against racist police brutality in front of Central Booking in downtown Baltimore today. This was the 115th consecutive “West Wednesday” decrying the 2013 murder of Tyrone West by Baltimore cops after a routine traffic stop. One young activist, seasoned by the rebellion sparked by Freddie Gray’s murder here in April, gave a stirring speech about the need to organize against police terror.
Even as darkness fell, passing drivers kept honking their horns in support of demonstrators’ signs. Twenty copies of CHALLENGE, including coverage of previous “West Wednesday” rallies and the Freddie Gray rebellion, were distributed to protesters. The Progressive Labor Party is advancing our analysis that abuse by authorities is a necessary part of capitalism. Police brutality intimidates workers in general. In particular, it discourages Black workers, the most militant section of the working class, from fighting back against this racist, oppressive system built on exploitation and imperialist war.
Today’s rally marked an expansion of the struggle, with two more recently victimized families joining the protest. The family of Darrell Murray, who died suspiciously in a Cumberland, Maryland jail, called for continued vocal opposition against police brutality and condemned the failure of the district attorney to prosecute brutal officers and guards. Darrell’s sister Shawna, an activist with Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, noted that deaths inside jails routinely go unreported. She called for independent investigations of these deaths, not the standard prison cover-ups. She also noted that correctional officers in the Western Maryland facilities are known to belong to racist groups and target Black and Latin inmates. Darrell Murray had a reputation for calling out guards when they abused inmates’ rights. He had told his family that he feared for his life because he refused to keep quiet. His fear was evidently justified.
Kelly Holsey, the girlfriend of Keith Davis—chased by police into a garage and barraged with bullets despite being unarmed—spoke poignantly of his fight for life. Just three minutes away from a hospital, Davis was left bleeding on the ground for more than 40 minutes. After undergoing several operations to repair the bullet damage, he remains in jail, where guards keep him in line by depriving him of his medicine. Kelly told the crowd that Davis’s shooting was a wake-up call. She said she would no longer remain silent about the murder of Freddie Gray, Keith’s unwarranted shooting, and the scourge of police brutality. Chants calling for justice for all victims of cop violence brutality rang out as the rally ended and planning began for the next action.
The following Saturday, October 10, PL’ers continued to spread the word about the West Wednesday struggles at the “Justice or Else!” rally in DC on the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March. We distributed hundreds of flyers and CHALLENGEs with stories about this ongoing battle. We challenged people to think about what “justice” means within a system of equality and state terror, and what the Black capitalist Nation of Islam means by “or else.” Justice is not possible under capitalism. Whenever kkkops murder someone, they are simply doing their job: serving the capitalist class by intimidating workers. Even on those rare occasions when a cop is indicted, justice cannot be served; there will inevitably be more racism, killings and mass poverty. Only a communist revolution can eliminate profits and exploitation, the basis for brutality and racism. Only a revolution can deliver justice to victims of police brutality, their families, and the international working class.
With an election set for October 25, Tanzania is in the throes of electing its fifth president. The naked corruption of national politics shows how quickly the bosses can steal back whatever crumbs they’ve thrown at the working class. The working class of Tanzania could meet all of its needs—if it weren’t for capitalism.
Since Tanzania’s multi-party system was established in 1992, the ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM, or “Party of the Revolution”), has stood openly for capitalism. The CCM descends from the incorrect line of the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU), whose platform called for “ujamaa,” or “African socialism.” For all these years, workers voted the CCM in, believing that their leadership would benefit the masses. But throughout the government, politicians have enriched themselves at the expense of the working class.
For decades, leaders from opposition parties appealed to the masses by exposing the corruption of CCM. Events leading up to this year’s election, however, show clearly that electoral politics and allying with the bosses is a lose-lose scenario for workers.
Opposition Parties Are Still Capitalist PartiesFour opposition parties (Chadema, Civic United Front, NCCR-Mageuzi and National League for Democracy) have agreed to get behind one candidate in the hope of defeating CCM. This united front chose former Tanzanian Prime Minister Edward Ngoyai Lowassa as their candidate. In 2008, Lowassa was forced to resign from his position due to the “Richmond Scandal.” During his time as
prime minister, he contracted with a fake company to provide electricity to Tanzania at the outrageous price of $72,380 per day! After convincing Parliament to bless the deal, Lowassa became an extremely wealthy man from the kickbacks. Meanwhile, the vast majority of households and schools lack electricity to this day.
Other “honorable” politicians (the title placed before the name of Tanzanian government officials as a mark of “ethical and credible behavior”), including current President Jakaya Kikwete, were also implicated in the scandal. All of these capitalist servants have contributed mightily to the misery of the masses who earn less than one dollar a day.
Last July, even though Lowassa’s crimes against the working class had been exposed for all to see, the new coalition of four opposition parties (UKAWA) chose him to run against the ruling party. Then CCM declared John Magafuli, the party’s former minister for public works, as their choice. He, too, has committed crimes against the working class. He privatized the nation’s public housing and sold buildings to his friends at low prices, even giving one to his fiancée as a gift! Within days of CCM’s announcement, Lowassa switched over to the opposition coalition and bought or coerced his way to become its candidate. The bosses’ elections are a farce!
PLP: Revolution in Actions and Words
Workers have long been seeking a true revolutionary movement. They have been sharply posing questions like: “What is revolution?” “Why revolution?” “Are the opposition parties capable of fighting for revolution?” “Can corrupt leaders grow to be wise, change sides, and fight for the working class?”
Chadema, one of the opposition parties, has captured the interest of Tanzania’s youth, who are angry and disaffected by government corruption, poor education and lack of jobs. But with Lowassa running for the opposition, many youth and workers are coming to understand that the electoral system cannot lead to meaningful change.
The only way for workers in Tanzania, and worldwide, to move in a revolutionary direction is to reject the idea that “leadership” comes from anywhere but themselves. The working class must reject the entire capitalist system, as well as its election circuses, and join the Progressive Labor Party to fight for communist revolution. The working class, not the capitalist politicians or other ruling-class stooges, will lead the way to create communal ownership of the world’s resources and production. PLP fights for a communist world, where the working class collectively rules to abolish sexism, racism, borders, inequalities, and all forms of exploitation and classes worldwide.
Dear brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers of the world! It is quite true that corruption, sexism, racism and class divisions are the products of the capitalist ruling system. The only way to end this state of affairs is to build a mass international PLP and make a world communist revolution.
Let the working masses join hands together to build a fair and classless world through communist revolution!
MEXICO CITY, October 14—The liberal capitalist bosses and their capitalist-controlled media have been spreading their version of last year’s disappearance of the 43 activist students in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, blaming the “incompetence” of the government of president Enrique Peña Nieto.
But this outrage is not about official incompetence or the brazen corruption of the “justice” institutions. The lack of punishment for the guilty in Ayotzinapa is evidence of the rise of fascism in México. Fascism is reflected in the capitalists’ intensification of racist and sexist violence against the working class. The disappearance of these youth is a racist crime, showing nothing but contempt for the lives of oppressed youth across Mexico!
Why don’t the judicial system, the president and the Mexican Congress give us any answers? Because they need to contain and criminalize workers’ protests, which are in response to our super-exploitation. This criminalization coerces the working class into accepting fascist conditions during this period of capitalist crisis.
Liberal Bosses Pave Road to Fascism
The main weapon the bosses in Mexico are using to contain working-class anger is liberalism. Liberal bosses are capitalists who pretend to be pro-working class. They are calling for citizens to participate within the framework of institutions based on capitalist ideology, like the National Commission on Human Rights (CNDH) or the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH). As a result of being won to trust in these institutions, the working class organizes itself in a “well-behaved” way that doesn’t fundamentally threaten capitalism. Liberal capitalist bosses and the institutions around them serve an important role in capitalism. They lead the working class away from international class consciousness and from questioning the profit system that lies at the root of the disappearances in Ayotzinapa.
The liberal bosses won’t acknowledge that the 43 students were murdered by capitalist violence. Along with racism and extreme mass poverty, state terror is a clear sign of the rise of fascism here.
The poverty generated by the capitalist system provides the rulers with young people who have no choice but to work under conditions of legalized super-exploitation. Other young people, who lack access to these terrible jobs, are pushed into “illegal” capitalist industries of drug trafficking and organized crime. The students of Ayotzinapa refused to be used by this brutal and fascist capitalist system, and that’s why they were disappeared.
Avenge by Smashing the Bosses and Their Ideas
In the capitalist system under which we live, there’s no justice for workers. The laws and the entire “justice” system are designed to protect private property and the capitalists’ profits. The right of the bosses to enrich themselves requires that the working class—and especially the youth—be controlled both ideologically and through force. In Ayotzinapa, the bosses’ state acted according to the interests it serves. Workers cannot rely on this state to resolve our problems.
The anger and pain of the parents of the disappeared, and of all of us who have stood by them in México and around the world, must not be pacified by the bosses’ institutions. Instead, it must be transformed into political consciousness and organization to bring an end to this criminal capitalist system! Such a system doesn’t deserve to exist! The revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party stands in solidarity with the students of Ayotzinapa, their families and all workers who support this struggle. We call on them to fight for communism, a system organized and run by the working class, where exploitation and anti-worker violence will be punished as crimes. Our victory will be the students’ vengeance! Destroy the capitalist system that exploits, disappears and murders our youth!
Fight for communism, a society of equality!
Ayotzinapa, communism is your fight!
¡Ayotzinapa escucha, el comunismo es tu lucha!
