NEW YORK CITY, August 16 — Thirty comrades from Progressive Labor Party, including members from other countries, went from the 2015 PLP convention to join more than one hundred professors, students, and other workers of the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) to turn up the heat on the South African consulate. We rallied in solidarity with the 20,000 South African workers who gathered on that same day in the northern town of Marikana to protest the brutal slaughter of striking workers there three years earlier. In August, 2012, platinum miners were on a wildcat strike against Lonmin, the British-owned mining giant, demanding a living wage and an end to intolerable housing conditions. On August 16, in a planned attack, the police opened fire on a large crowd, killing thirty-four miners and wounding eighty. The Marikana Massacre is the worst since sixty-nine demonstrators were slaughtered by the apartheid regime at Sharpeville in 1960.
The International Committee of the PSC, the union of faculty and staff at the City University of New York, organized the demonstration, whose members are in the midst of a difficult five-year battle to obtain a labor contract in the face of the insistence by Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo’s (close ally of NYC’s business elite) that all state workers accept concessionary agreements. As in Greece and South Africa, CUNY faculty, staff and students have been hit with tuition hikes and are experiencing the harsh reality that politicians serve the ruling class. Several PSC members and union leaders gave speeches drawing these connections, after which the crowd enthusiastically chanted:
Hey hey, ho ho, the murder of strikers has got to go! economic apartheid’s got to go!
Same struggle, same fight, South African & U.S. workers unite!
Same struggle, same fight, workers North & South unite!
One of our PLP comrades spoke of his experiences in Ferguson, Missouri, where Michael Brown was murdered and Black workers are fighting back. He compared Ferguson to the racist conditions in South Africa, which exist because the ouster of the apartheid government left capitalism in place. Although South Africa has tremendous mineral, manufacturing and agricultural wealth, it has enriched only the capitalists, while the actual producers – the working class – have been left impoverished. Our comrade told the gathering that if we want to defeat racist oppression here and in South Africa we must first identify the root cause – capitalism – and commit ourselves to overthrowing it.
A long-time PSC activist read a letter from protest organizer Trevor Ngwane, who blasted the African National Congress (ANC) government for working hand-in-glove with capital and making a mockery of the “freedom” millions fought for under apartheid. Another speaker, representing workers in New Jersey, noted that South African workers have a proud history of international labor solidarity. In 1986, for example, workers in Freehold, NJ were fighting the 3M corporation’s plan to close their plant. In support of U.S. employees, the 3M workers in South Africa went on strike. Imagine how much stronger the working class would be if concrete acts of worker solidarity like this became commonplace!
Revolution, not Reform
The decades-long, bitter struggle against apartheid was marked by tremendous personal sacrifices, and workers all over the world protested and were jailed supporting the anti-apartheid struggle. The ANC fought hard to liberate people from the iron heel of apartheid. But as the past two decades of ANC rule have shown, we must also topple the racist economic order that is its foundation: capitalism. Because that wasn’t done, life for Black workers in South Africa is even harsher today than it was under apartheid – more poverty and greater inequality. The only thing that’s changed is that a few ANC top officials – like Cyril Ramaphosa, the former president of the miners union who now sits on the board of directors of Lonmin – have become millionaires. Maintaining capitalism turns former “liberators” into exploiters, whether in South Africa, Mozambique, El Salvador, Vietnam or anywhere
The Progressive Labor Party has members in Africa, and we extend an invitation to workers in South Africa to join our party and organize for communist revolution throughout the continent. This time let’s nail the coffin shut on hundreds of years of colonialism, imperialism, and apartheid by smashing capitalism!

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina sideswiped the city of New Orleans. The capitalist class and its politicians turned this unnatural disaster into a genocide of more than 1,400 mostly Black workers. The racist displacement of tens of thousands of Black families was the largest refugee crisis in U.S. history (New York Times, 9/11/05).
Katrina exposed the face of fascism to workers worldwide. One hundred thousand mostly Black workers were left to die and then forced into concentration camps by the National Guard. For half a century, the capitalists knew that New Orleans was vulnerable to storms. They knew that a direct hit would devastate the city and could wipe out poor Black neighborhoods like the Lower Ninth Ward. These areas were especially vulnerable because of canal dredging and the destruction of natural woodlands to promote commercial development and the bosses’ profits. Even so, levees could have been reinforced and protected. Tens of thousands of mostly Black families could have been evacuated in plenty of time. But under capitalism, maximum profits and imperialist wars trump workers’ lives. Ten years later, the working class of New Orleans is still under attack and still fighting back!
Workers in New Orleans displayed mass heroism in the fightback against the bosses’ attack in Katrina’s aftermath. Progressive Labor Party responded with solidarity actions on the job and in the streets. We connected the genocide there with the genocide of the U.S. invasion and sanctions in Iraq by attacking capitalism as their common source and proclaiming armed communist revolution as our goal. In this way we moved many workers into this anti-racist battle.
Workers Square Off Against Fascism
For weeks following Katrina, there was a news blackout in the area. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) took control, kept hundreds of rescue buses and helicopters at nearby bases idle, and hired private Blackwater mercenaries to protect ruling-class property. Reporters were barred from much of the city, including the Superdome, which housed over 26,000 refugees. Soldiers under racist FEMA’s authority barred an armada of 500 civilian fishing boats from conducting rescues, turned back a convoy of volunteer Houston firefighters at gunpoint, and burned food sent from workers around the world at an incinerator in Georgia, among countless other crimes.
Under the false pretext that they were looting, workers found outside after curfew or attempting to travel on the few usable roads were threatened and shot. Katrina exposed the racist foundation of this system.
In spite of this massive repression, workers within and around New Orleans organized their own rescues and evacuations. Other workers attempting to barter goods in exchange for food or evacuation also braved being shot.
Throughout the winter of 2006, the rulers called for a larger military occupation. Liberal politicians like current Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called for expanding FEMA’s powers and withdrawing troops from Iraq for deployment in New Orleans. Outside the U.S., the Progressive Labor Party organized in their unions and mass organizations for solidarity with the workers of New Orleans, and sent messages of support. Within the U.S., PLP organized relief and spread communist politics among refugees in Texas and the Midwest. In major U.S. cities, we mobilized hundreds of workers to attack the liberal bosses’ plan to expand the military occupation, under the slogan: “From New Orleans to Iraq, the working class must fight back!”
PLP Learns and Fights in Summer Project
Our organizing activities culminated in the 2006 New Orleans Summer Project. This summer-long project was led entirely by young, multiracial comrades, women and men. Comrades and friends joined local organizations to assist with the cleanup. We got to know residents, learning from their experiences and introducing them to communist politics.
The city was still under military occupation. Local organizations attacked PLP and anyone who supported multiracial, working-class unity. Years later, a founder of one of these organizations revealed he was an FBI informant.
For comrades new to PLP, and even many veterans, operating in this hostile environment was a steep learning curve. Yet our comrades built relationships with many anti-racist students and workers. Black workers of the Lower Ninth Ward warmly welcomed our Party’s efforts and were open to our goal of communism. Some National Guard soldiers were receptive to our presence, as well. We guaranteed regular CHALLENGE distributions to new friends and thousands of workers there.
The Meaning of New Orleans
Fighting back after Katrina was not the first time the working class of New Orleans led the way forward. Over five days in November, 1892, Black and white workers paralyzed the city with a general strike for a ten-hour workday—the first general strike in a major U.S. city. Despite the racist filth printed in the bosses’ media and their backing of KKK-style racism to split the working class, Black and white workers united with such disciplined multiracial unity that capitalists in neighboring states feared this “virus” might spread.
Today, New Orleans is more unequal than ever. According to Census data, there were 100,000 fewer Black residents in 2013 than in 2000, compared with an overall decrease of 11,000 white residents in the same period. Hundreds of billions of dollars in “aid” went to banks, insurance companies and other capitalists. Many who were relocated could not return for lack of assistance. The child poverty rate is about 40 percent, and the city’s incarceration rate is twice the national average. The median income of Black workers is 54 percent less than white workers, the second largest gap in the country behind Atlanta, Georgia.
Nature may create storms like Katrina, but capitalism—a system by and for the bosses—creates the disasters. Barely one month after Katrina, capitalism struck again in South Asia. On October 8, 2005, a massive earthquake occurred in the Kashmir region of Pakistan. An estimated 87,000 workers were massacred in Pakistan and India. Despite the fact that Kashmir was in an earthquake zone, the capitalists of both countries invested their research in weapons for war as they compete for control of the region’s land, resources and workers. Under capitalism, whether in East Asia or Haiti or Nepal or the U.S., workers’ lives are disposable.
Multiracial unity is essential to the fight for communism, a system where workers run society to meet workers’ needs. As in 1892, the working class of New Orleans is teaching the workers of the world how to fight back and organize amid the never-ending disasters of capitalism. New Orleans is yet another example of Black workers playing the lead role in our fight toward a worldwide communist revolution.
Ten years on, PLP still fights and learns with the working class in New Orleans. We invite workers worldwide to join us in organizing an international PLP to smash this capitalist house of horrors once and for all!

BROOKLYN, August 13 — Snippets of conversations in English, Spanish, Hebrew, and Mandarin. Keys tapping away. Pens scribbling furiously. Some arguments and laughter over an article. This is the sound of the Challenge Summer Project. This August, comrades and friends from around the world came to New York City before our Convention to participate in the production, distribution, and strengthening of CHALLENGE, the communist newspaper of PLP.
After kicking the project off with the Hoops for Justice basketball tournament (see CHALLENGE 9/2), 50 people worked together to produce the most collective edition of CHALLENGE to date. We began with a study group on capitalist propaganda versus communist propaganda.
Red vs. Expert
Some people wrote articles while others chose graphics to accompany them. Some crafted snappy headlines, while a large group of people edited the articles to make sure they had a strong political line. Another posted on PLP’s social media sites: twitter, Facebook, and our blog. Still others translated the articles in English and Spanish. Nearly everyone was new to producing CHALLENGE.
The result? A paper for the masses by the masses. This edition of the paper (9/2) reflected the large collective that helped produce it. Many comrades gained an insight into the work that goes into creating it. Some raised concern about the quality of translations and the topics covered in the paper. CHALLENGE is only as good as the collective that produces it, and the only way for it to capture all the fightback stories and ideas of the working class is for a large number of workers and students to contribute.
Many commented that producing CHALLENGE is indeed more challenging than they initially thought and that they understand why writing regularly for CHALLENGE is important. To produce and distribute a paper of even higher quality, we must be part of the process.
Throughout the summer project, we also sold hundreds of CHALLENGEs at rallies throughout Brooklyn. For many, it was their first sale, first time on the bullhorn, first time leading a rally. Overall, we gave out so many CHALLENGEs that we ran out of the latest issue and had to go back three issues! We also got quite a few contacts and collected many donations for CHALLENGE. One of the goals of this CHALLENGE project was to show that anyone can be a communist leader: whether it be in the streets rallying and representing the Party or in front of a computer writing or translating stories of class struggle.
CHALLENGE, for and by the Collective
 Workers must not only learn to fight, but also fight to learn. Many participants discussed the paralysis that comes along with having to write for CHALLENGE, saying that writing articles feels more like filling in a formula. Capitalist culture dictates that writing is an individualist process, meant for academics and ruling-class thinkers. On the contrary, as we learned during this summer project, creativity is a collective process. Our experience in the working class is far more important to CHALLENGE than “technical training.” When writing an article or making a speech, if we must worry, worry about how workers and youth will respond to the communist ideas we express.
As a transition into PLP’s 50th anniversary convention (see page 8), we concluded the Summer Project with a picnic and discussion of the convention workshop materials. Comrades not only struggled with each other over the politics and participation in CHALLENGE, but also built and strengthened ties!
We invite all our readers to write for CHALLENGE, distribute it among friends and co-workers, and use CHALLENGE as a tool for organizing a communist revolution!

On August 23, each year since 2008, the European Union marks the “European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism.” The EU’s rulers want to spread the big lie that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany—Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler, in particular—were equally evil, while the capitalist imperialists stand for all things good.
The world’s capitalist ruling classes all agree that “communism is dead.” Yet each year their slanders of Stalin and the Soviet Union of his day get wilder and more extreme.
Why so much anti-Stalinism and anticommunism? Because communism remains the biggest threat to capitalism. And the period of Stalin’s leadership in the USSR coincided with the era when the world communist movement achieved so much good for the international working class.
The real meaning of this commemoration is that the Soviet workers beat the fascists in World War II despite the capitalists’ collaboration with Hitler.  But you won’t hear that from the world’s capitalist bosses!
History of M-R Pact
On August 23, 1939, Stalin’s Soviet Union signed a non-aggression treaty with Hitler’s Germany. It’s often called the Molotov-Ribbentrop (M-R) Pact, after the Soviet and German foreign ministers of the day. Anticommunists claim the two countries effectively agreed to divide Europe between themselves. This is a lie.
In fact, the treaty’s great significance was in defining Eastern Poland as lying within the “Soviet sphere of influence.” This meant that if the German army beat the Polish Army, it would still have to stay hundreds of miles away from the pre-1939 Soviet border. In addition, Poland would remain in existence, potentially to ally with the USSR against Hitler.
The USSR had been trying to get Poland, Britain and France to agree to declare war on Germany when Hitler attacked Poland. But the British ruling class was willing to let Hitler have Poland if he would continue East and attack the USSR.
In September 1939, the Germans whipped the Polish army in a few days. The Polish government fled the country to Rumania. Hitler was ready to allow a pro-Nazi Ukrainian state in the former Eastern Poland. So the Soviets had no choice but to occupy Eastern Poland — a region that wasn’t really “Polish,” since imperialist Poland had seized it from Soviet Russia in 1921.
The M-R Pact helped to save Europe from Hitler’s domination. In October 1941, the German army advanced within sight of Moscow before the Soviet forces stopped them. If they had been able to launch their attack 300 miles closer, the Nazi hordes likely would have taken Moscow. If Hitler had conquered the USSR, he would used its immense resources against England.
Two More Soviet Moves vs. Nazism
The M-R Pact was one of three critical moves by the Stalin-led Soviet government to save the USSR and Europe from Nazism. The other two were the Soviet-Finnish War and the defeat of the “Tukhachevsky Affair.”
1. The Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-1940. The border of Finland, an ally of Nazi Germany, was very close to the major Soviet industrial city of Leningrad. To create a broader buffer zone, the Stalin government demanded that Finland give up land close to Leningrad in exchange for other Soviet land. (“Since we cannot move Leningrad,” Stalin said, “we must move the border.”) When the Finnish government refused, the Red Army defeated the Finnish army and took that land.
Without this redrawing of the border, Leningrad would have been captured by the Finnish army and allied with Hitler’s forces. Millions more Soviet civilians would have died. The Nazis would have used Leningrad’s manufacturing and port facilities to intensify their attack on the rest of the USSR and on England
2. The defeat of the 1937 military conspiracy, also called the “Tukhachevsky Affair.” Some high-level Red Army commanders were plotting to seize power in the USSR, either by arresting and shooting Stalin and his government or by opening the front to a German and Japanese invasion. These former Tsarist officers were conspiring with anti-communist Leon Trotsky. In May and June of 1937, Soviet police arrested the ringleaders, who were tried, convicted, and shot.
Long Live Communism, Death to Anticommunist Lies
Each of these three events proved decisive in defeating fascism and saving the lives of millions of working people worldwide, and in preserving and strengthening the world communist movement. Which is precisely why the capitalists attack them.
The Soviets of Stalin’s day did marvelous things. They also made errors, some of which led to the return of capitalism to Russia today. We must study and learn from their mistakes, but also from their victories.
All communists and all working people everywhere should defend the M-R Pact, the Soviet-Finnish War, and the defeat of the “Tukhachevsky Affair” conspirators. We should expose the anticommunist lies that are promoted on August 23—and on every other day of the year.