Under capitalism the education system is driven by individualism, identity politics, and a fractured way of learning. Once a year during International Women’s Month, students learn about women artists, scientists, politicians and millionaires. International Working Women’s Day (March 8) is a holiday originally born from the working class as an antisexist celebration of women in the class struggle.
Yet, without communist analysis or leadershipthis holiday has been reduced to celebrating our oppressors of a different gender—women who are a part of and a proponent of the ruling class and their sexist ideas.
The Black communist Angela Davis says to be radical simply means “grasping at the root” and at the root of every worker’s struggle, especially a woman’s struggle, is capitalism. In other words, a network of global bosses committing crimes against workers for the sake of ridiculous amounts of profit. To keep this profit flowing, capitalist-driven schools are designed to train the next generation to be obedient  workers or join the ranks of militaries to fight overseas in imperialist wars. Under capitalism students will never learn what it means to be a revolutionary—it is only through confidence in the working class and struggle that our Party will grow.
One of the pillars of capitalism is the sexist ideology that family and household responsibilities are “women’s work.” For many women workers around the world this work is unpaid and is expected ON TOP OF the work that is required at a paying job. Women workers internationally  experience the contradiction of a system that tells workers it’s designed to be equal while simultaneously robbing or hiding their labor value from them. Capitalist bosses pump sexist ideology into mass media, schooling and laws to successfully isolate mothers and women caregivers from other workers and their potential to build working-class power.
This same system perpetuates the lie that women’s power is attained by becoming a better capitalist, maybe a manager or boss or by voting for a woman  politician who will somehow represent their collective interests.
Progressive Labor Party declares that in a fight for a world where sexism, racism and exploitation is completely SMASHED, workers need to unite—of all genders— to reject sexist and liberal ideas and resolve these contradictions through communism. A boss—regardless of gender—is still a boss. It is only as a united working-class that we will break our chains.
A woman's place is in the class struggle
Revolutionary women grow through  struggle and the contradictions that working-class women learn become sharper when they unite with other workers around the world. For example, housekeeping for hotels and business offices is one of the hardest jobs in any industry (they have more injuries than coal miners). In 2018, to demand better working conditions, thousands of housekeepers from 26 hotels throughout Chicago went on strike for a whole year! One woman worker stated that while she worked at the Hyatt Regency, out of the 200 housekeepers there, a third  were Mexican, a third  were Chinese, and most of the women with the highest seniority were Black. Bosses began to divide the department by race, paying the Chinese women to clean extra rooms above the cleaning quote of $5 per room. At first the Black and Mexican women were angry toward the Chinese women but instead of turning on each other, the women organized against the bosses!
“We could win a lower room quota with an hourly raise for everyone if we stayed together” (CPUSA, 3/20). The more workers fight back, the more we learn that we need all workers - Black, Latin, Asian, indigenous and white to win.
In the 1960s, women of the Young Lords, a Puerto Rican revolutionary group, sought to challenge sexist ideologies and practices within Latin American culture and demanded that their male leaders make smashing sexism a priority. Members, such as Connie Cruz and Gloria Rodriguez understood that ‘machismo’ (overly aggressive masculinity) was a result of capitalism and emphasized that to fight it, this capitalist system must be destroyed.
In 1917, Latin workers were ordered to accept toxic “baths” as they crossed the Mexican-American border. Inspectors attempted to pull women off of a trolley on their way to work but the brave fighters refused, knowing some of the workers were photographed nude or previously set on fire. 17-year old Carmelita Torres led the fight with other women domestic workers, demanding a refund of their trolley fare and convinced hundreds more women and men to protest the racist, sexist terror.
All of these women workers were catapulted into their revolutionary potential by making a decision to build a base and fight-back against their rotten living and working conditions.  Their leadership shows that sustainable change cannot be done alone but manifests when workers organize with other workers who agree that ‘enough is enough.’
Women will lead an international communist revolution
Women workers should be communists because mainstream feminism often fails to consider class analysis and race. PLP is anti-sexist and recognizes that in our fight for communist revolution it is the most super-exploited members of our class that have the sharpest analysis and ability to lead. Women workers internationally who have fought racism, sexism, and capitalism are at the front lines of our fight, united with every member of our class.
The Progressive Labor Party is, and has always been committed to communist revolution and struggling with men and women to fight against deceitful bosses around racism, sexism and all forms of exploitation. PLP understands that sexism is one of the exploitative tools utilized by the bosses to divide men and women workers, and to justify assaults, verbal attacks or paying women less.
Organizing with all workers, especially Black and Latin women workers who see these contradictions the sharpest is paramount to smash this system that has us all in a wretched bind. The more hands we can turn into fists in favor of an international working class, the more we can work towards a society free of exploitation and terror. Fight for communism!

PLP and friends gathered virtually for our annual
Black and Red Celebration, giving tribute to the leadership
of Black communists. CHALLENGE readers are invited
to view the event by clicking here.

CHICAGO, February 23—Members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) joined with Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) workers for a multiracial “Hour of Power” rally today at the 95 Street transit station to protest the sellout union leaders. These misleaders work hand in hand with the transit bosses, helping them stay in control. Transit, when run in the interest of profit, can never function to sustain the working-class necessities. PLP members call for communism, working-class power, where transit workers will not only keep move the city but also steer the world.
Commuters and drivers passing by honked their horns in support while we held signs and picketed the bus/rail terminal, denouncing the union misleaders. Workers from Locals 241 and 308 who drive the buses and the trains in Chicago are spreading the word on how they have been shut out of negotiations for a new contract with the city.
Speakers on the bullhorn demanded hazard pay, sanitized facilities and vehicles, two-person crews, more full-time jobs and job security, paid sick time for all employees, and member control of their unions. These demands are ripe for struggle class where workers and communists can push the limits of these reforms to fight the whole system.
Workers were receptive to PLP members who distributed 50 copies of CHALLENGE while helping lead chants against racism, for worker unity, and for communist revolution.
Under capitalism, especially one in decline like the U.S.’s, public transit operations are chronically underfunded to the point of physical collapse. They routinely put workers in mortal danger. Their role is to shuttle us to and from our jobs in order to make profits for this racist profit system.
Communist control of transportation means always having the proper resources and safety protocols in place to protect our class. Smashing the bosses’ state dictatorship and erecting a working-class dictatorship through an international PLP is the only route that will guarantee safe mass transit.
CTA and union attack – Workers unite, fight back
CTA is the second largest transit system in the country, and has a mostly Black workforce. Whenever there are contract negotiations, the bosses attack the workers in an effort to keep wages down and to try to turn public sentiment against them. By failing to address dangers during the pandemic, the racist CTA bosses and their union hacks are responsible for at least eight deaths and 900 workers having contracted the Covid-19 virus (Chicago Sun-Times, 12/20/20).
The union misleadership has worked for decades to alienate transit workers from meetings and contract discussions. Although boasting 3,000  members, it is rare to have 50  workers attend a general meeting. Now, in a period of virtual calls, worker input about job conditions has become even more limited.
In spite of these attempts to shut them out, workers have bravely pushed back against the racist working conditions. Many have organized meetings to address concerns, defying CTA and the union’s attempts to retaliate against them for doing so (see CHALLENGE letters, 4/16/20). PLP have supported these efforts to build multiracial, rank-and-file solidarity as the way for our class to grasp our potential power outside the limits of the bosses’ institutions.
A route to workers’ power
The power of a militant and united transit workforce can hardly be understated. If more workers were to reject both the bosses and their collaborating unions and organize on behalf of our class interest, we could shut both the rails and the roads down and bring the capitalist system to its knees. As conditions become evermore untenable and communist ideas grip our class, this level of class struggle will rise again.
But in PLP, we’re not just about shutting the profit system down; we’re about wiping it out entirely. A worker-run communist society would make our class’s needs as the determining factor of all decisions. With that, we will rebuild and expand mass transit in a way that meets our collective needs and that operates in the most environmentally healthy ways possible.
The finance capital wing of the U.S. ruling class is more and more worried about their worldwide imperialist empire. Represented by President Joe Biden, they are ramping up their calls to rebuild a failing U.S. infrastructure (see editorial, page 2), but only to better prepare their country and the working class for future imperialist war.
PLP calls on workers to reject both wings of the U.S. bosses and fight for a future where our power and safety always comes first. That’s communism. Join us!

On February 25 U.S. President Joe Biden bombed Syria taking only 36 days to join the list of U.S. Presidents whose blood-soaked hands have killed workers across the Middle East. The airstrike on a base in Syria used by an Iranian backed militia to launch rocket attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq came out of the increasing weakness of the U.S. ruling class. Across the Middle East the U.S. bosses are in retreat. The latest bombings, which killed at least 17 people and wounded dozens more (NY Times, 2/26), highlights how, as the U.S. ruling class grows weaker, direct war between the imperialists becomes more and more likely.
This latest bombing, like all the wars between the capitalists, was an example of workers killing workers. The bosses continually pit us against our sisters and brothers in the working class. The bosses use racism and nationalism to turn us against each other. Workers in one country are ordered to kill workers in another. Whether we live in the U.S., Iran, Syria or anywhere else, we have to reject siding with any bosses. Our task is to build internationalism among the workers of the world as one class united. The future for the working class lies in turning the bosses' war into a class war against the bosses for communist revolution and building a society that serves the needs of the international working class.
U.S. bosses are no longer calling the shots in the Middle East
Biden dropped the bombs out of weakness. Over the last 10 years the U.S. has been losing in the Middle East. The U.S. military was forced out of Iraq and is on the verge of leaving Afghanistan, which would give the Taliban nearly complete control of that country. Then, just this week, Biden declared the U.S. was not in a position to punish Saudi Arabian ruler Prince Mohammed bin Salman for killing the U.S. reporter Jamal Khashoggi, who was dismembered on the orders of the Prince (The Hill, 2/27).
Biden and company are trying to portray themselves as somehow being in control of the back and forth between the U.S. war machine and the Iranian backed militias. Nothing could be further from the truth. The U.S. bosses have no more ability to control the tides of war rumbling across the globe than they could control the spread of Covid-19. Capitalism can only go from crisis and war to crisis and war leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.
Volatility in the Middle East increases as U.S. bosses position weakens
For the last 60 years, since the 1958 Marine invasion of Lebanon, post World War II (WWII) U.S. ruling class strategy has revolved around military control of the Middle East. For the last 30 years the U.S. has been in almost continual war in Iraq and going on 20 years now in Afghanistan, wars the U.S. bosses have lost (Brooking Institute, 7/27/20). In this period the U.S. ruling class has gone from a growing dominant imperialist power to a declining empire being challenged in every corner of the globe it once dominated.   
Prior to losing in Iraq and Afghanistan the U.S. bosses, backed by their gigantic military, controlled the region. That is no longer the situation and has created a free for all between the various ruling classes trying to take control. The increasing volatility driven by the decline of the U.S. empire and the rise of competing capitalists has created an extremely unpredictable and volatile situation.
As the U.S. ruling class has weakened, Iran and Russia are asserting themselves across the Middle East. Biden is faced with trying to reinstall U.S. power. This latest rain of death was the U.S. bosses trying to contain the Iranian bosses who have taken advantage of the U.S. defeat in Iraq to become the largest power there, with Turkey and Syria also vying for control (Middle East Institute, 3/12/20).
Specifics are unpredictable, big picture is clear
The specifics of how all this will play out are hard to predict. The U.S. ruling class is being challenged by Russia and Iran in the Middle East and by China in virtually every other corner of the globe, including Latin America, the U.S. bosses’ backyard. Other ruling classes, like Turkey, seeing the upheaval are taking their own shots at asserting power. That’s a lot of bombs and tanks and fighter jets scrambling to grab pieces of the world.
What is clear is that big wars are on the horizon and the bosses of all these countries are planning to use the working class to fight and die in them. World War I (WWI) and WWII were both driven by the desperation of capitalism in crisis (Internationalism). Millions of workers were killed by the bosses' bombs. At the same time the communist movement united workers in the midst of capitalist war and when the smoke cleared the working class had fought to victory for our class. In Russia during WWI and in China during WWII the working class under the leadership of the communist movement built internationalism and turned the bosses' wars into revolution for workers power. Our hope for the future depends on building the PLP and the communist movement today.