Reds ‘showed horror, provided hope’
The following is a letter from a comrade who attended the kickoff of our annual summer project on July 4th. For more details on the summer project, read Page 8.
A historian, a tenant, and a community member were some of the people who spoke with erudition and experience about the reality of  living under capitalism and continuously striving for something better in spite of a system designed to exploit and repress.
They showed the horror and yet provided hope from their experiences and knowledge. It was a beautifully powerful example of what communism is and how easy we can make it happen. Even though we have mountains of oppression to overcome, the fire of community shines bright.
*****
Tupelo ‘79: projects teach communist lessons for life
I was one of the participants in the 1979 Tupelo Summer Project described in the July 7 issue of CHALLENGE.
There are so many lessons to draw from any summer project. Here are two that were pivotal in my development as a communist. When Floyd Banks, the leader of our security team, was arrested, he was held on a very high bail. Worse, the judge used the excuse that he was from Texas not Mississippi to order that local residents of Tupelo must post the deed to their homes as bail instead of cash. Having one of the few Black workers in our base who even owned a home take such a risk in the midst of the intense racist and anti-racist struggle that summer required an amazing act of courage.
Robert was a young Black worker who had been drawn to our Project from the very beginning. He was on the march that was attacked. I’ll never forget driving with him to his grandmother’s house to ask her to post the bond. An elderly woman in a wheelchair due to “sugar” (diabetes) she had never met any of us. Robert knelt by her chair asking her to trust him and us. She did it and signed over her home.  Their courage taught me the importance of base building and the absolute trust we must earn in the working class.
The other lesson was about the internal development of new leaders that arises in the course of intense class struggle. There were at least 24 members of the Project living in two one-bedroom apartments in Tupelo. We were working intensely, always on the go. But there were stresses developing. A meeting of the Project was called to examine how to correct our work. A quiet college student pointed out that in our busy schedule we had failed to meet in party clubs. We had buried the fight for communism in the reform struggle. That weakness comes through in the article from the Project in CD. Club leaders were selected and they rose to the occasion. Some of those club leaders are still in the Party today!
The lessons of these Summer Projects remain with us in all our future work.
*****
Red on radio: need for working-class history
I have had some success in explaining communist politics on radio talk shows without being cut short because, I believe,I try to be relevant to the discussion while challenging capitalist politics.
My method of participating is absorbing past comments and ideas and writing down how they relate to present workers’ struggles and communist ideas, much as our comrades do when selling CHALLENGE or talking on the job with workers. This tactic can help us to be prepared with ideas in future discussions.
A recent show featured a history teacher’s discussion about education and I said I’d like to discuss subjects not being taught in history classes. For instance for most of human history people lived in collective, egalitarian communities where everyone was needed and cared for regardless of ability. Why only in the last 10,000 years, in ruling class and capitalist societies, were workers used as slaves, serfs, commodities, exploiters and killers? And was the U.S. Constitution’s main purpose to forever deny any chance of working class power and was racism invented to keep workers divided? Also was the Tulsa Massacre part of a worldwide capitalist attack on revolutionary workers, led by communists during the 1920’s and 30’s?
I concluded that working people need to organize with communists to destroy capitalism and the profit system to create an egalitarian society free of racism, sexism and wars.
*****

Top imperialist gangsters recently gathered at their annual Group of 7 (G7) summit in Cornwall, England in hopes of reasserting the declining U.S.-led liberal world order. The U.S. Big Fascist servant Joe Biden scrambled to slow the rise of arch imperialist rival China.
When the world’s greatest thieves make future plans, workers must remain vigilant. The G7 global gangsters’ planning meeting is a small window into the savage nature of global imperialists. When the U.S. rulers advertise their toxic reunion as an effort to defend “democracy” and “renewed cooperation” to “solving the world’s problems,” they are negotiating war plans. That is the only way exploiters can resolve their imperialist contradictions.
They will use workers to fight and die for the bosses’ profit system. When we organize as a class for ourselves, through the international Progressive Labor Party, we can turn the guns around on this rotten system and smash it once and for all. With that power, we can build a communist society to meet our class needs.
U.S. empire in decline
Against the backdrop of the G7, capitalism is festering in its decay—nauseatingly high Covid-19 deaths; global vaccine apartheid; for-profit wars in Ethiopia, Palestine and Syria; and cyber attacks from Russia. The G7 is a bloc of capitalist countries—the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom—that formed in 1975 to counter the OPEC oil embargo. In its prime, during the late years of the Cold War, the G7 leveraged its members’ economic power against the already capitalist Soviet Union. The group is run by finance capital, the main wing of capitalism worldwide. Today, it’s a shell of its former self.
The G7 reunion, touted as an opportunity to reassert their top dog status, was really a confirmation of a U.S. empire in imminent decline.
Salvaging the house that former president Donald Trump set ablaze—when he blocked the G7’s climate and trade goals, destroyed the Iran Nuclear deal, and alienated U.S longtime allies—is upsetting the U.S. rulers’ imperialist aims.
Grappling with China’s rising clout
The summit illuminated the many contradictions facing the global ruling classes. Biden’s Build Back Better World (B3W) is a pie-in-the-sky plan to counter China’s imperialist influence by providing an alternative to the decade-old Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) (see box). This shaky plan for global infrastructure development reveals the U.S.’s desperation to match their rival China for top dog position. However, other imperialists are wary of backing an unreliable declining U.S. empire against a rapidly rising China.
Biden’s G7 trip was intended to put the EU at ease. Yet, the bitter split within the U.S. ruling class—Small Fascist “America First’’ and the Big Fascist liberal imperialist wing—continued to sow doubts. How can the U.S. roll out the B3W when it can’t even pass its own infrastructure bill at home?
The EU bosses, also dealing with internal rifts over Brexit, are distrustful of the U.S. ruler’s return to the world stage. Unswayed by Biden’s Big Fascist liberal credentials, the EU bosses were left questioning whether the U.S. can get their act together, and avoid another Little Fascist takeover in the next four years. The U.S. Big Fascists effectively failed to rally its old, trusted allies against China.
The G7 cosigned the B3W project and glibly denounced China’s human rights abuses, but the EU bosses cannot break off their affair with China: “ [France’s President] Emmanuel Macron said…‘I will be very clear: The G7 is not a club hostile to China…’” (CNN, 6/14).  The ruler’s summit brought their weakness into sharper focus.
Moving closer to World War III
The main takeaway from the G7 forum is that an empire in decline is at its deadliest. From the Civil War to World War II, history has shown a falling power does not go quietly. The forces of history are stacked against the U.S. as it struggles to manage its decline, moving the world closer to a U.S.-China war.
Biden’s National security Advisor Jake Sullivan argued that the strategy is “don’t try to push towards confrontation...but be prepared to try to rally allies...toward...tough competition….in the security domain as it is in the economic and technological domains” (NYT, 6/13).
Following the G7 summit, China increased military aggression against Taiwan (Newsweek, 6/15). Nevertheless, the U.S. ruler’s find themselves wholly unprepared to win a war with China. The U.S. empire’s battle readiness depends on their ability to build the fascist movement they desperately need. Jim Crow Joe Biden’s passing of Juneteenth as an official holiday (see backpage) and his calls against police murder and anti-Asian violence are superficial attempts to win loyalty needed to build a multiracial military willing to fight and die for U.S. imperialism. Trusting the rulers is a march to our certain death. These are the same rulers who disregarded millions of workers’ lives throughout the pandemic and deprived us of life-saving vaccines in the name of profit.
Capitalism’s future is bleak, but not all is doom and gloom for our class. Every crisis reveals our potential power. At the height of the pandemic, we waged war on the rulers’ profitdemic and organized to serve our class.
From striking amazon workers to healthcare workers around the world fighting for safe patient and working conditions—
From Los Angeles to Brooklyn workers fighting landlords and the courts from evictions—
From Haiti to the Bronx workers setting up mutual aid networks to provide for unemployed, disabled, and elderly workers—
From Colombia to Minnesota workers rebelling against the ruler’s fascist police forces—
Our fightback amid the crisis reveals that the working class is the class fit to run society. As the U.S. ruler’s decay accelerates the ruler’s are prepared to sacrifice millions in their next global crises in the march up to World War III, the Progressive Labor Party calls on the international working class to turn the ruler’s impending world war into a class war to overthrow their crisis-ridden system. The future belongs to us, and only communism can guarantee it. Join the PLP. Fight for communism.

Upper Marlboro, MD, June 14—Over 40 people rallied at the Upper Marlboro courthouse with the Archie Elliott III Coalition for Justice to fight racist police terror and fire corrupt cops. Many protesters correctly realize that the police are enforcers of the exploitative racist capitalist system. The cops can’t be reformed short of smashing the entire capitalist system with communist revolution. All of us antiracist fighters are determined to continue to mobilize workers and students against the brutal police.
Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members are longstanding partners in the fight against racist police brutality. We were there as usual to help establish the picket line and share CHALLENGE with many of the protesters. We also got contacts from passersby to grow the Coalition and the fight for communist revolution. This rally is a kickoff for monthly “Moral Monday'' actions.
The Brady List
In the 1963 Supreme Court case of Brady v. Maryland, the justices ruled that Maryland had violated Brady’s constitutional right to due process by failing to disclose all the evidence it had to the defense. Since then, prosecutors throughout the country have often declined to use compromised cops on the stand.
The Prince George’s County States Attorney Aisha Braveboy, a Black woman, said publicly that she has developed a “Brady list” of 39 cops, 17 of whom she won’t use in a trial because of their “misconduct,” possibly including falsifying reports, fabricating or tampering with evidence, lying on the witness stand, coercing witnesses, and/or blatant racism. The other 22 can be used to testify but the disciplinary actions taken against them would have to be reported at any trial in which they would be involved.
The Coalition is angry with this coddling of the cops. It is demanding the public release of the list of these corrupt cops and their associated crimes, their firing and prosecution for criminal activity, and the appointment of a special prosecutor for such cases.
A speaker at the rally declared, “With this state of affairs, we can’t trust Prince George’s County policing or its prosecutors . . . We refuse to allow elected officials like Ms. Braveboy to protect police who break the law.”
But actually that’s the job of all politicians. They protect the capitalist system for the billionaire capitalists and that means protecting the cops. And sometimes it means disciplining a few cops to make it seem like the system works for everyone. It bears repeating – the whole system has to go.
 No justice for Archie Elliott III, killed in 1993
Racist murders and corruption by Prince George’s County cops is legendary. It is likely that some defendants sitting in jail have been falsely convicted based on the testimony of corrupt, lying cops. These mainly Black men could be exonerated if the list is brought to light. Fighters against racist police brutality have been struggling mightily for decades, case after case, often reported in CHALLENGE. We have to keep fighting, but the final victory will only come when we take power from the capitalists and their politicians and the working class runs society. That’s communism.
One of the most egregious cases was that of Archie  Elliott, a young Black man who was pulled over in June 1993 for suspected DUI, detained, handcuffed behind his back and placed in the front seat of a police car. He had been searched, was wearing shorts and no shirt, and was suddenly and wrongfully murdered in a hail of bullets, 14 of which hit Archie. The cops manufactured a story that he had a gun and pointed it at them – from behind his back while handcuffed! Officials have blown off this heinous racist crime for almost 30 years, but his family has persevered through numerous legal efforts, speaking on his behalf, and rallying fighters including many PLP members for years.
States Attorney Aisha Braveboy, a Black elected official, declared during her campaign for office that she would reopen the case if elected. She was elected, and now…nothing. She has the nerve to say that the files cannot be found, so she can do nothing. Liberal racists are clearly dangerous for our class. The protection of racist and corrupt police continues, but the demand for re-opening the case has been intensifying.
Communism: Workers rule no cops necessary
The capitalists and their politicians, whether Black or white, conservative or “progressive”, will always support the enforcers of the capitalist system. The bosses need the working class to be divided, intimidated, and where necessary, killed brutally to ensure the smooth working of capitalist “law and order”, an order based on the exploitation of the working class. We can and will continuously protest, but nothing short of a revolution to overthrow the entire class of racist exploiters and their politicians and bureaucrats will enable us to make each other safe – especially from the cops.
A communist world of equality and collectivity has no use for racist killer cops and their violence against the working class because the working class would rule and the capitalist class would be destroyed! Money, the basis for most crime, would be eliminated. And we would solve any problems we have with each other through collective discussion and struggle. Communism is the system that can ensure our safety—and punish racists and capitalists who try to come back to power.
Achieving communism is a long road of ever-intensifying class struggle against racism and exploitation. Let’s continue down this road until revolutionary victory!

One year ago, at the height of 2020’s summer of struggle, celebrations of Juneteenth were embraced amidst an unprecedented global antiracist uprising in the wake of the killing of George Floyd. From New York City (NYC) to California integrated protests erupted, and members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) joined workers chanting “the only solution is a communist revolution.”
While the U.S. ruling class was reeling from this spontaneous, but coordinated and powerful movement, they were also plotting ways to keep the working class in chains. Fast forward to June, 2021 and U.S. President Joe Biden has called to make Juneteenth the first federal holiday since Martin Luther King, Jr. day was added in 1983.
Juneteenth, a reform worth remembering
While breaking their chains from slavery was by no means the final fightback for Black workers in the U.S., Juneteenth remains a celebration of worker power and radical social change.
Prior to the end of the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, the U.S. experienced over 350 organized uprisings, led by enslaved workers, some of which (NY Plot of 1741, Gabriel’s Plot of 1800) involved a multiracial cast of conspirators. This culminated most famously in John Brown’s 1859 raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, becoming the spark igniting the Civil War.  
On June 19, 1865, now known as Juneteenth, a Union Army arrived in Galveston, Texas with the belated news that slavery and the Civil War were over.
The arrival of these troops came two months after the end of the Civil War and a full two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, which in reality didn’t free any workers from slavery (History.com).
The Civil War in many ways is the blueprint for splits in the U.S. ruling class and exemplifies that Republican or Democrat—Northerner or Southerner—the bosses will only ever prioritize profit and capital. Lincoln was not looking to end slavery becuase he was antiracist, but rather slavery no longer served the needs of the northern, financial and industrial ruling class. The northern rulers needed a united country to pursue their worldwide imperialist ambitions.
It is this same thinking that has led Biden and his liberal fascist lackeys to celebrate Juneteenth.
Following emancipation there was a brief period known as Reconstruction, a veiled reckoning of the last 250 years of racist enslavement. These “efforts” however, lasted only until the Northern ruling class was certain that hostile southern rivals would never again seize hold of federal power.
Once Reconstruction was no longer useful to maintain momentary “peace” for the ruling class and multi-racial unity amongst poor farmers Black and white was budding, (Steven Hahn, Roots of Southern Populism) Jim Crow was fastened on the South and the standard of living there for all Southern workers, Black and white, fell to the lowest levels anywhere in the U.S. where they remain to this day (Heather McGhee, The Sum of Us).
Black capitalism—still capitalism
In addition to championing Juneteenth, many celebrations this year commemorated the state-sponsored genocidal destruction of the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma, also known as the Tulsa Massacre.
The bosses’ media conveniently under-emphasized the central role the Tulsa police played in orchestrating the horror that wiped out uncounted hundreds of Black workers and instead  placed front and center the destruction of a Black business district called ‘Black Wall Street.’ Black capitalism and Black Excellence are ways the ruling class aims to not only segregate workers across race lines but also suck us into thinking capitalism can work for the working class.
Bemoaning the loss of ‘Black Wall Street’ above and beyond the loss of Black lives is just another way the ruling class is twisting the history of U.S. racism to divert the rebellious and egalitarian spirit of antiracist workers and youth.
When the working class called to abolish police and racist murder, the ruling class gave them Black owned businesses, murals, and Juneteenth.The best Black capitalism can offer Black workers or any worker is a Black exploiter in place of a white one.  
Don’t let imperialists co-opt and pervert antiracism
Between the remembrance of the Tulsa Massacre, mourning Black Wall Street, and Juneteenth preparations, the racist U.S. ruling class’ media frenzy peaked when the NYT’s main Black opinion columnist, Charles Blow, published a piece on June 16: “The World’s Dictators Exploit America’s Racism.” Blow’s dishonesty and cynicism knows no bounds. Amidst a bumbling Biden’s G-7 effort to bring the rotting cadaver of U.S. imperialism back to life (see editorial), Blow lamented the fact that U.S. ‘leadership’ is eroded and left unable to fight global “dictators” for… “no matter how bad these dictators act on the world stage ...they are not completely wrong in their condemnation of American racism” (NYT 6/21).
Blow grieves that despite the havoc U.S. competitors wreak on the workers of their own nations they will always be able to leverage U.S. racism to shut down criticism of human rights abuses as rank hypocrisy. But don’t be fooled.  His calls for antiracism are not in service of the working class, but rather, are in service of a U.S. empire he promotes despite it’s murderous and racist agenda.
Blow calls for the U.S. to show just enough remorse to resuscitate global superpower status. With that status he and the entire U.S. ruling class will betray and devour the Black working class in imperialist carnage, as surely as the Northern industrial ruling class betrayed antiracist abolitionism and terrorized Black workers even as it left most white workers in grinding poverty after Reconstruction.  
Revolutionary emancipation—finish the job, Join PLP
As seen through social media and conversations on the streets, workers are not fooled by the thin veil of a Juneteenth holiday supported by the likes of senators Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell who have led the charge in promoting racism.   
Yes, some sworn enemies of Juneteenth are gutter and open racists, but that does not mean the working class should walk blindly into the open arms of liberal fascists like Biden, Kamala Harris, and their army waiting to reinforce our chains. Juneteenth, as a vision of emancipation, is worth remembering but the imperialists can only betray the cause of emancipation.   
A Red Army guided by communist ideas is the only force that can finish the job Juneteenth, and Black worker uprisings during slavery started. This time we will emancipate all labor from capitalist wage slavery.
Our critique of Juneteenth, the holiday, does not take away one bit from the bravery of the multi-racial fighters, men and women, who fought and died for a vision of freedom. And it does not disrespect those who fought for the right to vote by saying that we will never vote our way out of capitalism and its horrors.  
We must hold on to the lesson that defeat of a ruling class through armed struggle is the only way freedom has ever been won. The full victory of communism means we will have recognized this class enemy in all the varied forms it presents itself and smash its grip on our class one struggle after another until this enemy is no more.  
This is Progressive Labor Party’s road to revolution. Join us!