LOS ANGELES, CA, March 17—“We are going to turn our pain into power” shouted one of the daughters of Marco Vasquez Jr.
This impassioned sentiment was met with cheers and raised fists from about 100 protest supporters. As the struggle against police murder moves forward in Los Angeles, more and more people, especially the families who are closest to this form of racist oppression, recognize the need for systemic change. Through being immersed in the class struggle and intertwining our lives with our base, members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) are showing that communism is the only system that will meet those aspirations for workers’ power and PLP is the vehicle to achieve it.
We spent back-to-back weekends saying the names of those killed by police. On February 26 and 27, we focused on the family of Cesar Rodriguez. On August 29, 2017, he was thrown in front of an oncoming train by Long Beach PD for allegedly not paying $1.75 for the train fare. His family has set up multiple altars for Cesar at the Wardlow Station only to have them removed, probably by police, in less than a day. So we hosted a 24 hour vigil to ensure some remained for at least one full day.
Volunteers brought food and snacks. Many committed to spending the night at the train station to keep watch. As families gathered around the fire pit, we were able to deepen our ties with each other. One of the most empowering aspects of this long term struggle has been how committed the families are to fighting together.
They also deeply value the commitment members of PLP have shown to this fight. A common remark is that  although they have lost one family member, they have gained so many more.  
On March 6, we took the fight to Whittier, CA. About 100 protesters took over the streets, marching from the home where Marco Vasquez Jr. was murdered in front of his entire family to the Sheriff's station where the KKKops hideout. The families of seven different people murdered by the police were present along with a couple of other organizations.
The line of PLP shined through with the chants we led, the dozens of CHALLENGEs we distributed, and the conversations we had with families and friends throughout the event.  
Outside of attending regular protests against police terror, we have made a conscious effort to integrate these families into our lives. We speak daily with multiple families even if it’s just to check in or share a quick joke. We celebrate birthdays and other momentous events together. If someone is looking for housing or needs help finding a vaccine, the whole committee is ready to support.
This base of struggle and support gives a glimpse of the communist future we know we will someday win.
We have built trust with these families and other “regulars” at the protests over time. It is clear to all that PLP plays a vastly different role than other organizations entrenched in anti-police brutality work. While many groups put families of victims on a platform to “tell their story”, it is simply to boost credibility and visibility of their organization. PLP on the other hand, views these families as leaders in this struggle and prioritizes their political development and education.
Killer viruses mean we got fight back
Some family members have also been integrated into some of the healthcare fights in LA.  Last month, members of four families joined a healthcare mass organization in protesting the closing of Olympia Hospital that has been critical in treating the mostly Black, Latin and immigrant working-class folks impacted by Covid-19.
These families along with our political leadership made the connection to 65 healthcare workers how racist police terrorize our communities just like this virus does.  One chant was, “Killer cops mean” and “Killer viruses mean,” “We got to fight back!”  
PLP has long held the line that the most oppressed sections of the working class, particularly Black workers, are key to revolution. We are putting that line into practice in Los Angeles and learning a ton along the way.
Our next step is encouraging more family members to join our study group. One young Latin woman in particular is especially hungry to understand “the system” we talk so frequently about. She wants to change it. As we continue to spread the fight for communism, one thing is certain, these fiery families will be leading the way!

(This is the final part of our three-part series. For the previous parts, see www.plp.org)

Langston Hughes, a major 20th-century literary figure, moved significantly to the left in the mid-1930s—as a poet, playwright, and journalist. At a time when imperialist fascism in Italy and Germany brought on the invasion of Ethiopia (1935-37) the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), and eventually World War II (1939-1945), Hughes became one of the world’s leading communist and antiracist voices.
In 1933, after more than a year in the Soviet Union, Hughes returned to California and probably his favorite subject: the U.S. working class. He joined a group of writers and artists active in the local CPUSA-affiliated John Reed Club, named after the communist journalist and activist who covered the Bolsheviks’ October Revolution in 1917.  Still involved in protests to free the Scottsboro Eight (see CHALLENGE, 3/17), he composed “One More ‘S’ in the USA,” a song for a CP fund-raiser for the Scottsboro victims of the capitalists’ criminal injustice system. He also co-wrote a play, never produced, called “Blood on the Fields,” about a strike by agricultural workers in the San Joaquin Valley.
Beyond his local activities, Hughes joined national organizations to foster multiracial unity by bringing leading Black writers and intellectuals into dialogue and actions with communists.  He became president of the League of Struggle for Negro Rights, which evolved into the National Negro Congress and involved such famous cultural figures as Richard Wright, Paul Robeson, and Elizabeth Catlett. Though Hughes always worked collectively, he was singled out for racist criticism and red-baiting, not to mention surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
In the mid-1930s, Hughes wrote and produced plays about Black working-class life and the importance of multiracial unity, such as When the Jack Hollers. But the invasion of Ethiopia by Mussolini in 1935—a pure act of racist aggression—turned the attention of Black workers to worldwide racism and fascism, the phase of capitalism when the bosses discard their charade of liberal democracy (see Glossary, p. 6).   Black newspapers like the Amsterdam News reported weekly on Ethiopia.   
Then, in 1936, came the Spanish Civil War, when General Francisco Franco and his armies rebelled against the leftist Popular Front government, supported by communists, socialists, and anarchists.  Nazi Germany and fascist Italy sent arms and planes to help Franco.   The Spanish “Republican” government appealed to the U.S., France, and Great Britain for aid.  But not surprisingly, the capitalist bosses wanted nothing to do with it.  By contrast, the Soviet Union sent aid and established International Brigades for workers of all nations to join.  Thousands of workers from the U.S., Black and white, many of them communists, enlisted in the famous Abraham Lincoln Brigade.  Within the U.S., communists raised funds for the war effort. Hughes helped organize the American Writers and Artists Ambulance Corps, which bought an ambulance for the bloody campaign.  
The International Workers Order, another communist-organized organization, sent Hughes on a 12-city tour to raise more aid for the anti-fascists in Spain.  The IWO published a A New Song, a booklet of 17 political poems by Hughes, including “Let America Be America Again,” “Justice,” “Chant for Tom Mooney,” “Chant for May Day,” “Ballads of Lenin,” and “Open Letter to the South” [see CHALLENGE, 3/17). In “Song of Spain,” Hughes moves from images of bullfights and flamenco guitarists to the grim realities of war:

A bombing plane
The song of Spain.
Bullets like rain’s
The song of Spain.
Poison gas is Spain.
A knife in the back
And its terror and pain is Spain.
…
The people are Spain
The people beneath that bombing plane….
…
Workers, make no bombs again!
Workers, mine no gold again!
Workers, lift no hand again
To build up profits for the rape of Spain!
Workers, see yourselves as Spain!
…
I must drive the bombers out of Spain!
I must drive the bombers out of the world!
I must take the world for my own again—
A workers’ world
Is the song of Spain.

Hughes subsequently went to Spain himself to send back wartime dispatches to the Baltimore Afro-American and other Black news agencies. En route he stopped in Paris to deliver a rousing speech, “Too Much of Race,” to the International Writers Congress.  It included these communist ideas: “We represent the end of race.  And the Fascists know that when there is no more race, there will be no more capitalism, and no more war, and no more money for the munition makers, because the workers of the world will have triumphed” (Brian Dolinar, The Black Cultural Front: Black Writers and Artists of the Depression Generation, p. 90).  Hughes understood that capitalism absolutely requires racism to exploit and divide the working class.
In July 1937, Hughes crossed over the French Pryenees into northern Spain and then to Barcelona and Valencia.  By August he was in Madrid, where he joined CPUSA members in the Lincoln Brigade and interviewed Black volunteers for his dispatches.  When he traveled outside the city, communists helped arrange his tours.  During his four months in Madrid, Hughes circulated among other writers hunkered down in the besieged city, including Ernest Hemingway, Malcolm Cowley, and Lillian Hellman.  The great singer and communist Paul Robeson also came to give concerts for the anti-fascist cause.  
As historian Brian Dolinar has observed, “Hughes explained to black readers how the fight against fascism was connected to the fight against racism at home” (Dolinar, p. 87).  His essays “Laughter in Madrid,” (published in The Nation, January 29, 1938), voiced admiration for workers’ courage and their resistance to fascist rule:  “Yes, people still laugh in Madrid.  In this astonishing city of bravery and death, where the houses run right up to the trenches and some of the street-car lines stop only at the barricades, people still laugh, children play in the streets. . . . Madrid, dressed in bravery and laughter; knowing death and the sound of guns by day and night, but resolved to live, not die!”  
Back in the U.S., Hughes advocated for the Double V campaign,  the connected struggles against racism in the U.S. and fascism in Europe.  
In his journalism, poetry, plays, and essays, Hughes brilliantly conveyed the experiences of ordinary workers who strived to unite as a force for history.  Progressive Labor Party can carry on Hughes’ legacy when we lead the way toward multiracial unity and communist revolution.

(Biographical information is drawn from Arnold Rampersad, The Life of Langston Hughes, 2 vols. 2nd edition, New York: Oxford, 2002; and Brian Dolinar, The Black Cultural Front:  Black Writers and Artists of the Depression Generation, Jackson, MS:  University Press of Mississippi, 2012.)

‘Identity politics workshop: ‘very enlightening’
I have been interested in learning more about Progressive Labor Party and had heard from my friend that her sister is involved in a communist discussion group. I contacted her sister and she informed me of an education workshop that was taking place over zoom about communism in the classroom. I was intrigued, and decided to attend. I also just want to state that I am a queer, white woman and a recent STEM college graduate. Around 55 people attended the forum, which was surprising to me. An opening speech was given about how, through communism,U.S. workers can defeat capitalism and the  negative effects (racism, sexism, etc.) it has on our society. I ended up attending one workshop about identity politics. It was very enlightening because I honestly wasn’t too familiar with identity politics before this. I consider myself a huge feminist and am part of the LGBTQ+ community.
It was interesting to learn that it’s better not to identify with people who are similar to you in terms of race or gender or sexuality, but rather with class. I’ve always automatically aligned myself with people that are within those two categories I mentioned above. I was actually also surprised to hear that racism can affect everyone in the workforce who isn’t on the top, not just nonwhite workers.
While I didn’t actively participate in the forum because I felt I was too uneducated, I enjoyed listening to what people had to say and learned a lot. This event has inspired the activist within me and I want to push through my comfort zone to do more.
I want to take action and do my part to fight capitalism. Thank you for the educational forum!
*****
Angela Davis, not a communist
The otherwise excellent article, “Only Communism Can Eradicate Sexism” (CHALLENGE, 3/17), was marred by some confusion over communist history and what it means to be a revolutionary.
Exhibit A: While Angela Davis was a longtime member and leader of the Communist Party USA, it would be incorrect to call her a “Black communist.” In the 1930s, a time when workers still held state power in the Soviet Union, the CPUSA was part of the vanguard of the international revolutionary communist movement. The party had political weaknesses, notably in joining an anti-fascist “popular front” with liberal Democrats.
But as the Langston Hughes article in the same issue of CHALLENGE pointed out, the CPUSA took a leading role in the most militant working-class and anti-racist struggles of the day, including leading the defense of the Scottsboro Boys.
With the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, the Soviet Union accelerated its decay into state capitalism. Under the leadership of arch-revisionists (fake leftists) Earl Browder and then Gus Hall, the CPUSA followed the USSR’s tragic lead, abandoned revolution, and dove into reformist trade unionism. In 1962, the founders of Progressive Labor Party (then the Progressive Labor Movement) were kicked out—a badge of honor. By 1980, when Angela Davis ran for U.S. vice president on the CPUSA ticket with Gus Hall, she’d become another sell-out, lesser-evil capitalist reformer, no more and no less.
In 2019, in a statement celebrating the 100th anniversary of the CPUSA, this self-proclaimed socialist feminist wrote: “At the very least we must defeat the Trump administration in 2020!” Davis openly backed Joe Biden, the chief architect of racist mass incarceration. She said the choice of Top Cop Kamala Harris as Biden’s running mate made the ticket “more palatable”—a corrupt nod to reactionary, lesser-evil identity politics.
Davis was right about one thing, however. Biden and Harris are indeed “the very least” the working class could get.
*****
Overcome liberal illusions
We must beware of liberal police reforms that might lull us into thinking the police state we live in can be reformed. Perhaps the biggest response – by liberal politicians – to our summer of sharp struggle, has been in Ithaca, New York. Mayor Myrick’s new proposal would replace the city’s existing police department with a “Department of Community Solutions and Public Safety.” Some tasks that don’t necessitate armed cops are slated to be turned over to unarmed “community solution workers” who will report to a civilian director of public safety, instead of a police chief. Perhaps that will save upstate capitalists some city payroll money.
However, armed “public safety workers” will also exist, as before. Undoubtedly, those cops will remain prepared to carry out organized violence in a determined effort to suppress any workers’ strikes; suppress any large-scale, bold student protests fighting for progressive demands; and suppress any powerful movements which seriously challenge the racial inequities that lie at the heart of capitalism.
The capitalist rulers need racist police brutality, intimidation, and terror to maintain their power over us. The system works just like it has been developed to do. So instead of begging the rulers to change their ways, we must overthrow them.
To do this, we need to build a revolutionary, antiracist, working class party that takes aim at the entire structure and system of capitalism. A broad movement led by such a party can make a revolution to replace the existing racist capitalist system with a communist system of working class equality, antisexism and antiracism. Then we can creatively work to meet our class’s needs rather than slaving to make big profits for capitalists. Overcoming liberal illusions about the capitalist system, by millions of workers and youth, can open the way for a better future!
*****
Where are you, Joe?
I was listening to a talk show about jobless Washington hotel workers seeking help and not getting it from their union. At the beginning of the show the moderator called for comments from people, “ with union experience like Joe” (I had been on the show a few times already). I called in to comment but was on hold. With five minutes to the program’s end, the moderator said, “Joe, where are you? Are you out there?” and suddenly my phone was connected to the show.
With only a minute to go I said the problem was that the labor movement had become business unionism and labor leaders had become capitalists with six figure salaries. I said when communists were in the unions, the leaders received only the average pay of union workers and reluctant leaders were instantly replaced.
Later I tried to understand why the moderator had called on me and I recalled previous shows like one on union organizing where I said that before communists were barred from union leadership, there were lunch-time discussions on world events and local strikes that workers could join after work. On another show I related the recent New York City Teamsters strike to the 1964 Transit workers strike that won because bosses said, “You’ve got a gun to our heads” which revealed the power of a united working class.
All these recollections made me realize that the moderator was calling for on the job, working-class tactics and strategies to fight capitalist oppression even when they are communist ideas.
Our Party needs to use every opportunity to relate our historical and current struggle experiences with workers to help them realize that communism is them running society in their interests.
*****

BALTIMORE, March 6—Two days before the trial of Derek Chavin for robbing the life of George Floyd, antiracists and six families whose loved ones were murdered by the kkkops here  rallied to denounce capitalist state terrorism. The West Coalition, with Progressive Labor Party (PLP), organized a demonstration for the prosecution of killer-kkkop Derek Chauvin, the reopening of all local cases of murder-by-police, and the jailing of those cops too! As the masses here fight racist police terror and demand more accountability, it’s becoming more common to hear—even if the speaker is not a member of PLP—that communist revolution is the only solution!
‘They are killing us’
Since the murder of Tyrone West in July 2013, antiracists protested in what became the West Wednesday rallies every week, which since the pandemic have been live-streamed to between 150 and 600 viewers. In fact, the 400th protest will be held as this issue of CHALLENGE goes to press.
Today, about 20 cars, decorated with antiracist posters, caravanned down Greenmount Avenue for two-and-a-half miles. Lyrics of our throbbing music trumpeted the need to stand up against racist police.
The whole way, Tawanda Jones, sister of Tyrone, stood up through the car's moonroof. Her fist was in the air, inspiring enthusiastic onlookers on the sidewalks.
Arriving at City Hall for a high energy, two-hour rally, joining the West family were women and men, representing five more families, each of whom had a loved one murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in blue.
“I imagine what my brother was screaming,” sister Tawanda Jones grieved, referring to when her brother Tyrone West was repeatedly tased, maced, and beaten to death by 11 to 15 cops.
She went on to say, about the early days of the struggle for accountability, “Everyone thought my family was crazy. Now you see! They are killing us!”
‘They brought the war to me’
Jarrel Gray’s uncle performed a spoken-word poem, condemning the criminal in-justice system, in which he tells of his nephew’s death, caused by the electric noose of 50,000 volts from repeated tasings.
Many reformers tout tasers as a reasonable weapon for law enforcement. However, we know that more than 1,000 people in the U.S. have died, during the last two decades, after police shocked them with tasers. The stun gun was ruled to be a cause, or contributing factor, in 153 of those deaths. Nine in ten who died after being tased were unarmed (Reuters).
Leonard Shand’s sister, Tracy, boldly condemned the imperialist roots of U.S. history. Then, Nicole Pettiford spoke. Her family was doubly terrorized, having her father-in-law, Anthony Anderson, and 16-year-old-daughter fall to police and police-instigated violence. In response to cop killings, committed with no consequences, she warned, “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander!”
Now raising their four children on her own, Marah O’Neal spoke about the horrendous police killing of her former husband, Jamaal Taylor. She explained, “They brought the war to me. They’re going to stop killing our Black men… our children… our Black women… our Latino people… our white people too. Trust and believe they’re going to get this work. It’s all of us versus them!”
‘We need a revolution’
A speaker for Progressive Labor Party unwaveringly declared, “We need a revolution. We need to destroy this capitalist system, and create a brotherly and sisterly world of equality,” a point greeted with enthusiastic cheers, though of course not from everyone.
The Party speaker also explained that fellow workers on the job taught him how racism really works: “It’s a trick by the capitalist class to divide and conquer the working class.”
During applause in response, another speaker shouted out, “Say it again!”
The multiracial crowd of about 50 hissed at the mention of Maryland’s Law Enforcement Officer’s Bill of (Killer) Rights, and roared “Shame!” at cops nearby when they were pointed out.
Antiracist learn from LA struggle
Leading up to this event, ever since November of 2018, Progressive Labor Party has led a late-evening CHALLENGE discussion group, once a month, for interested antiracist in the West Wednesday struggle. The affectionate name for this gathering is C-DAWWG, meaning CHALLENGE Discussion After West Wednesday Group. In those sessions, we recently completed the third and final discussion about lessons to be learned from a great report by comrades in Los Angeles (see struggle, page 1).
It tells the exciting story of their bold organizing work: in the fight against police brutality, against evictions, to widely share the important understanding that communism is the only solution, and to recruit new members, thereby expanding the strength of PLP. As communists do, the LA comrades also honestly discussed strengths and weaknesses in their work, and we learned from that too.
Antiracist struggle bears communist fruit
PLP here also recently launched a new study group for folks who are seriously thinking about joining PLP. Our expectation is that this new collective will likely morph into a Party club, which is the basic local organizational unit of Progressive Labor Party.
At this caravan and rally, however, no CHALLENGE newspapers could be distributed, because they were already gone, having all been taken by participants at the rally in Annapolis, two days earlier. We will increase our numbers.
So even if Chauvin’s trial leads to a cellblock, tiny specks of justice will not easily quench the flame towards greater action.
The victory here is antiracist fighters seeing the need and having the commitment to begin the long fight towards building a new society without racist police terror. That system is communism. By growing the Party in numbers and strength, communist influence and leadership can reach more of the working class until one day we are powerful enough to seize state power with communist revolution.