While “abolition” politics has become the trend among armchair intellectuals in the academic community, some PLP members working in the Marxist Literary Group this past year have engaged the political writings of two preeminent Marxist philosophers, Karl Marx and W.E.B.DuBois, alongside academic workers who can potentially join our party.  Struggling over the main political contributions put forward in Marx’s Capital, Vol. I (1867) and Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction (1935), our comrades in the MLG underscore Marx’s concept of “human labor pure and simple,” as a foundation for emphasizing PLP’s call for egalitarian communism.  PLP demonstrates how this concept was absorbed by Du Bois and became the foundation of his new theory of the post-Civil War Reconstruction Era in the US; namely, that it was an uprising of Black “human labor pure and simple” that radically challenged “the dictatorship of property” in the slaveholding Confederacy.  These ideas reinforce our current recognition that black workers are key to communist revolution at this moment in history.   

Lesson #1: Black Workers Were the Greatest Abolitionists of the Civil War
The two books have many points of contact. Capital is the definitive analysis of how capitalism works, the exploitation of workers’ labor-power through the wage-form. It was written before and during  the U.S. Civil War, which Marx called “a pro-slavery rebellion,” and published just as Reconstruction began in the U.S.. Marx’s own communist party, the International Workingmen’s Association, got going at the same time as Reconstruction, and corresponded with the new American labor movements, whose tragic flaw of racism was highlighted by Du Bois. A fierce abolitionist, Marx refers often to American slavery in Capital, including the famous  passage “Labor in a white skin cannot emancipate itself where it is branded in a black skin” (p.414). Chapter 10, “The Working Day,” with its horrific picture of mid-century factory work in England, often compares forms of workers’ enslavement in the factory or on the plantation (pp. 345, 377-8, 398, 414-5).

For his part, Du Bois wrote his history of Reconstruction in the Depression 1930s, when communist thinking was at its most influential in the U.S., and he was reading Capital as he wrote. Black Reconstruction is considered his most Marxist work. Several times, for example, he calls for an international “dictatorship of the proletariat,” most resoundingly at the end of Chapter XIV, “Counter-Revolution of Property.” Here in the depths of the Depression he sees the surge of Black revolt in Reconstruction pointing ahead to a global workers’ rebellion:

The exploiting group of New World masters…fought for trade and markets and materials and slaves all over the world until at last in 1914 the world flamed in war…. And the rebuilding, whether it comes now or a century later, will and must go back to the basic principles of Reconstruction in the United States during 1867-1876—Land, Light and Leading for slaves black, brown, yellow and white, under a dictatorship of the proletariat (p. 762).  Marx and Du Bois both understood that workers necessarily had to take state power by force, to abolish capitalist property, and to keep power in their hands to suppress the inevitable counter-revolution. Their radical understanding of workers’ power came from their belief that it is workers’ labor, “simple average labor,” which creates the world, and with capitalists out of the way it is simple average labor which will rebuild it.

LESSON #2: ORDINARY, ANTIRACIST WORKERS CAN AND MUST RULE THE WORLD
What was this core idea of Marx that so galvanized Du Bois, “equal or abstract human labor”?

Early in Chapter 1 Marx writes:
"Tailoring and weaving, although they are qualitatively different productive activities, are both a productive expenditure of human brains, muscles, nerves, hands, etc., and in this sense both human labor….More complex labor counts only as intensified or rather multiplied simple labor…all labor is an expenditure of human labor-power, in the physiological sense, and it is in this quality of being equal, or abstract, human labor that it forms the value of commodities (pp. 135-7)."

The political consequence of seeing labor this way, in both Marx and Du Bois, is to affirm the right and duty of ordinary workers to rule the world. That was the lesson Marx drew from labor in the capitalist system and Du Bois from the Black revolt against American slavery. Du Bois describes in Chapter IV how Black workers withdrew their labor from the slave regime by escape, sabotage, and armed struggle in the Union Army. He saw that massive upheaval by enslaved workers as a kind of “General Strike” of Black labor to abolish slavery. It was racist ideas, plain and simple, that prevented white workers from joining in the radical aim of “abolition democracy.” While the 1880s multiracial class struggle led by the Knights of Labor showed the power of workers from Louisiana to Chicago when they organized as a class, internal weaknesses in these groups and the labor movement overall left white workers—then and now-- handicapped in seeing fellow-proletarians in the enslaved or freed Black worker. Yet for Du Bois the defeat of Reconstruction merely invites us to re-see ourselves, and rebuild , as one.

Lesson #3: No Good Bosses in a Racist System
Just as the so-called abolitionist Northern capitalists, whose military presided over the entire process of Reconstruction, ultimately prevented that legal abolition from going further towards workers’ power, so too do the liberal fascist bosses of today stand to implement the most imperialistic, war-mongering, and anti-immigrant policies of the working class in the US.  Whether it is was the Obama-led oversight of crackdowns on antiracist protestors from Ferguson to Baltimore or the current Biden-led oversight of anti-immigrant concentration camps across the Mexican border, history shows that capitalism always makes good on its commitment to racism, and that the best ideas of Marx and DuBois remain more valid today as ever. Join us!

W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction & Other Writings, Library of America edition, 2021.
Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I (trans. Ben Fowkes), Penguin Classics edition, 1990.

 

Los Angeles, CA, January 20- Criminal KKKop Martin Ron was found guilty by an LA County civil jury today of “negligence” which caused the death of Cesar Rodriguez, a 23-year old Latin man. Cesar was accused of not paying his transit fare and taken off the METRO train by a racist fare inspector, who then handed him over to City of Long Beach cop Ron. Cesar was wrongly arrested and Ron then performed an “off-balance” full body search of Cesar within 2-3 feet of the edge of the subway platform. Cesar fell and, with Ron on top of him and his outstretched legs dangling over the edge, an oncoming train crushed and killed him.

Through our intense involvement in the movement against racist police violence in Southern California, Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members have met family after family whose loved ones were taken from them by these animals who wear uniforms, serve the capitalist class and protect their profits.

These continuing murders (at least three more workers’ lives were stolen by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) in the first two weeks of 2023) have only hardened our belief that no reform or lawsuit can stop the hemorrhaging of the blood of our class by the cops. Only the violent take-down of the capitalists and their government and the establishment of communist working-class rule can put an end to this slaughter. Gradually, more family members are coming to agree with our politics.

An integral part of capitalist infrastructure here, METRO is the largest landowner in Los Angeles County (act-la.org/). Its 2022-2023 budget is $8.8 billion, with a 12.5 percent increase in spending for “public safety”, i.e. cops, fare inspectors, etc. (LA Metro, 5/25/22). It has a $786 million multi-year contract with the LAPD, LASD (sheriff's department) and Long Beach cops. Its Board of Directors is dominated by Democratic Party politicians, including LA Mayor Karen Bass, four current or former LA County Supervisors, and Inglewood Mayor James Butts. METRO, a supposed paragon of public service, enforces systemic racism. “Despite making up only 18 percent of riders, Black riders have been issued 50 percent of citations and arrests by METRO’s contracted” KKKops (act-la.org/metro-as-a-sanctuary).

Racist cop terror and lies stir working class anger
Like many other families in the LA area, Cesar’s family, including his mother and three sisters, has waged a heroic campaign publicizing their son and brother’s murder and fighting for justice. This organizing ensured that, during jury selection and every day of the two-week trial, jurors saw a multi-racial group of supporters sitting in the courtroom, including other victimized families, PLP members and local organizers. Day after day, family members thanked PLP members for our unswerving commitment to all the families’ struggles.

Many supporters of Cesar’s family understand that capitalism is at the root of racist cop terror and murder. Ron was never charged with any crime during the administration of former Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna, who was recently elected Sheriff of LA County. In fact, he was promoted to Sergeant. As one of Cesar’s sisters said to the Telegraph Newspaper “No amount of money is going to bring Cesar back … This is not justice for us. It would be for (Ron) to be in jail.” By definition, the capitalist court system cannot stop the carnage reaped by a police force that the ruling class needs in order to stay in power.

With one exception, all of the witnesses for Ron were cops or wanna-be “fare inspector” cops.

Their racism was palpable - their lies vicious. In response to a question from the family’s lawyer, the inspector who pulled Cesar off the train said he appeared “not normal” and “dirty.”

Several cop witnesses claimed Cesar tried to escape and in doing so lunged towards the oncoming train. One other defense witness actually told the ludicrous story that Cesar tried to run across the tracks in front of the train and Ron tried to grab and save him!

Courts serve the bosses’ interests, not ours
After the jury rendered its negligence verdict against Ron and left the courtroom, along with the judge, court supporters got a lesson in which class the courts actually serve. Cesar’s mother collapsed, weeping. Within two minutes, a dozen LA County Sheriff’s officers invaded the courtroom.

The cops claimed they were there to render medical treatment to Cesar’s mother, an out and out lie since none of them was a medical person. Ron had apparently complained to one of the Court Clerks that he felt harassed or threatened. So the Clerk put in a call, and Ron’s fellow pigs came to his rescue. In the face of these fascist tactics by the cops, the mainly female supporters of the family stuck together and told the cops to their faces that their help was not needed or wanted. As the Sheriffs backed off, the supporters escorted family members out of the courtroom.

A positive sign was the obvious effect that years of struggle against racist police violence in the streets has had on public perceptions of the cops. In pre-trial questions designed to elicit “bias” of the 50 person jury pool, person after person related negative interactions with cops, either personal or involving a family member or friend. There was much  refusal to trust police testimony, and a desire to award the family monetary damages, even if the cop was found not responsible for Cesar’s death. One prospective juror said he could not be unbiased because the role of the police is as an arm of a government responsible for systematic oppression. Because of this wide-spread anti-cop sentiment, defense attorneys ran out of challenges to the jury makeup and were unable to keep off all of those who criticized the cops.

Only communism will end racism
Despite the jury’s $12.6 million verdict, it may be a long time before the family sees any of that money, if at all. Cop Ron’s attorneys will no doubt appeal. This battle has already gone on for five and a half years. However, the family will keep up the struggle. One of his sisters said that the cops’ lies about Cesar have just made her want to fight back harder. At the post-trial party celebrating this small taste of justice for the family, a PLP member pointed out that “our class still suffers daily at the hands of these attack dogs for the ruling class and only a communist revolution can change that.” We in PLP pledge an unending battle to bring that world about.

Imperialism and wars
PLP and friends organized against the imperialist wars in Iraq and Central Asia. Our resolutions exposed how the war in Iraq was a grab for oil profits. In the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. tried to secure a strategic geopolitical position to counter Russian and Taliban power. 

We marched militantly to the military booths at APHA meetings to oppose military recruitment for imperialist wars. We opposed booths with contraception disinformation and Nestle’s promotion of infant formula over breastfeeding.

At the 2022, People’s Public Health Conference we opposed the war in Ukraine. We contrasted the immense amount of funding the U.S. sent to Ukraine with the unmet funding needs to prevent and treat Covid-19. We advocated for soldiers and civilians to rebel and refuse to fight one another to end the war. We explained that this war was a fight between two imperialist powers competing for economic and political power that only a communist revolution against capitalism could stop. People listened with open minds about communism.

Vaccine equity
When Covid-19 hit, PLP members and colleagues joined forces with Justice Is Global and others to demand vaccines for the world. While the U.S. and European countries had vaccinated over 60 percent of their residents, poorer countries in Africa had vaccinated less than 12 percent; Haiti had even less protection. With many friends, we helped write and pass a successful resolution that attacked the trade and patent policies that prevented other countries from developing their own vaccines.

Joining forces with APHA’s International Section, we supported another resolution calling for debt cancellation and public funding of health and social services.

PLP members also attended demonstrations organized by Justice Is Global to demand that the pharmaceutical company Moderna help other countries produce Covid-19 vaccines. PLP members joined a large demonstration at Moderna’s headquarters in Boston, rallies at the White House, and a “sleepover” at the home of Biden’s Covid-19 advisor.

Liberation for workers in Palestine
A doctor in PLP joined three trips of health workers to Israel and the West Bank from 2004-2010, delivering health care and meeting with many Palestinian and Jewish political and health organizers. This doctor and another PLP member then led several trips of comrades and friends, revisiting these contacts, and recruiting a few workers from Israel to PLP.

In the U.S., a PLP member spoke at several forums to advocate for unity among workers from Israel and Palestine to establish a communist state. She emphasized that both Israel and the Occupied Territories are highly unequal capitalist societies with great internal health and wealth disparities.

Since 2014, a Party member has participated in Jewish Voice for Peace, a U.S. anti-Zionist organization, to promote JVP’s involvement in antiracist struggles in the U.S. as well as opposing U.S. support of the illegal and fascist Israeli occupation of Palestine. She also argues against uncritical support for Palestinian nationalism as opposed to building a working class antiracist alliance of Jews and Palestinians against an increasingly fascist Israeli occupation.

Immigration and Title 42
At the 2021 APHA meeting, PLP members and friends led a militant march to the ICE (Immigration and Control Enforcement) office to demand an end to Title 42 and the detention and deportation of migrants.

Title 42, implemented under Trump, allows the U.S. government to stop asylees from entering the U.S. because of a perceived health risk from Covid-19. Homeland Security returned tens of thousands of desperate people from Haiti and Latin America to countries where they faced arrest, death, and starvation. Public health and immigration organizers opposed Title 42 with demonstrations, petitions, and appeals to President Biden who deported more people than Trump.

The policy was scheduled to end in late December 2022 but has been extended.

Haiti
The Progressive Labor Party launched a summer project with medical workers and friends in Haiti. Doctors and nurses delivered supplies and medications to a large camp and campuses. We led a large rally around the hospital that was shown on Haitian TV.

After an earthquake in 2010, there was a huge outbreak of cholera brought by U.N. troops. The epidemic sickened 820,000 people, killing 10,000. In APHA, PLP worked with a nurse on a policy statement calling on the UN to pay compensation for the damage and develop a clean water system. The policy eventually passed despite the leadership’s concern about criticizing the U.N. The 2011 APHA meeting sponsored several special sessions about Haiti with the participation of local advocates.

PLP health organizers are currently raising funds for our comrades in Haiti who are providing mutual aid to workers suffering from the current upheaval while organizing study groups to involve more people to fight the exploitation from Haitian and U.S. rulers who maintain poverty and violence.

Lessons
As APHA members, we need to ensure there is action tied to these policies and recruitment to our Party. Most importantly, we need to convince our public health friends to go beyond pushing unlikely reforms and become communists to give workers the power to end war, health inequities, and wage slavery.

 

NEW JERSEY, January 31—As the class struggle in higher education intensifies and the echo of war drums gets louder every day, there is a desperate need for a class-conscious, anti-imperialist war movement on university campuses around the world. While the role of universities is to ideologically train the next generation of exploited workers, middle managers, and soldiers, reproducing the bosses’ racist and sexist divisions within capitalism, they are also an arena for class struggle fertile for planting revolutionary ideas, and winning students to communism.

Progressive Labor Party (PLP) has been working to build that movement through the Radical Caucus (RC) of the Modern Language Association (MLA), putting forth a revolutionary agenda that stresses the necessity of  building a revolutionary party to liberate workers and students alike from the chains of capitalism.

MLA: a fountain for communist ideas in academia
Founded in 1968 in the context of mass protests against the Vietnam War, the Radical Caucus insisted on viewing the war as imperialist, and not just a “tragic mistake.” Over the following decades, the RC sponsored sessions on antiracist, antisexist, and pro-working class literature. It brought before the Delegate Assembly resolutions defending immigrant students, graduate student and adjunct unionization, and student organizers fighting campus racism. Deeply involved in all these activities and struggles, PLP continually stressed the pitfalls of liberal reformism and the need for a revolutionary communist outlook.  No doubt because of the RC’s modest success in shifting leftward the outlook of the Association, several years ago the MLA leadership affected constitutional changes making it virtually impossible for resolutions to be passed through the membership.

The angered reactions of millions worldwide to the 2020 police murder of George Floyd led the RC to focus on ideological combat over the language shaping mass consciousness.  Responding to the need to understand and critically interrogate popular concepts such as “abolition” and “democracy,” “intersectionality” and “sustainability,” the RC organized the “Keywords Project.” Its first online mini-conference, called “New Keywords of Our Struggle,” was held in September 2021. More than 80 academic workers, students, and organizers showed up to discuss how to fight back against the higher education bosses. The RC organized three additional mini-conferences on timely topics (war, climate catastrophe, and reproductive justice).

Given the recent intensification of fascist developments worldwide—“Fascism” is now a keyword on the lips of many—PLP, working in the RC, has upped the ante on its activity in the MLA. At this year’s MLA convention in San Francisco, the RC hosted two sessions. The first addressed “The Situation since April 1st.” The speakers, predominantly insecurely employed professors, outlined how our class is under attack, with the mounting barriers to liveable working conditions and increasing political surveillance of our classrooms. Every year, far more money goes into war than into higher education—access to “public” colleges is increasingly a pipe dream for millions of working-class students—reminds us of the bosses’ priorities. The capitalists control “higher education” to develop military weaponry, develop products for profiteering corporations, and to brainwash workers into supporting their system. Using education to destroy poverty and exploitation is not a priority.

The second panel focused on “Radical Pedagogy in Precarious Times.” Better attended than the MLA’s well-publicized “presidential panel” on “working conditions” scheduled for the same time, the RC panel testified to a growing interest in intervening as opposed to wallowing in the higher education crisis. A PLP speaker discussed the ways in which popular terms like “intersectionality” reduce Marxist class analysis to “class reductionism,” opening the door to the anticommunism and identity politics at the ideological core of liberal fascism.

The Annual Meeting of the RC opened with a political discussion of both the need for an antiwar movement and an assessment of the union sell-out in the University of California strike—the largest strike in the history of higher education. A long-time PLP member spoke passionately about how both “sides” in the war in Ukraine are the losing one for workers. Although the recent surge in class-conscious unionizing in higher education offers opportunities for students to learn more about the nature of capitalism, the omnipresence of blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flags on U.S. and Canadian college campuses indicates that it will be hard work to bring anti-imperialist consciousness to current understandings of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

PLP members will continue to strive to keep the RC oriented towards a communist revolutionary horizon. It has been decided that the RC’s future mini-conferences will be less focused on ideological analysis—via Keywords—and more issue-oriented, posing and responding to the problems the RC will face as it seeks to build its anti-capitalist capacities. PLP is the solution for transforming these anti-capitalist capacities into revolutionary struggle.