SPRINGFIELD, OH, October 14 - "This was great! I'm ready to come back.” “I'm glad you invited me, and I'm ready to meet whenever you set it up. Just let me know and I will be there." That’s how two Black workers from Detroit responded after making the trip to Springfield with Progressive Labor Party (PLP) today. A carload of us went to Springfield to meet with workers and protest the racist attacks against workers from Haiti by Donald Trump and JD Vance. The workers in Springfield gave us a warm welcome. They were impressed with us trying to respond and to reach out to workers in Springfield to build support.

We met some friends from Columbus at a Haitian restaurant in a multiracial working-class area. White workers told us they were coming to the restaurant to support the community and enjoy a good Haitian meal. We distributed CHALLENGE newspapers, and workers eagerly took our fliers home, even though some only read Creole. We had many good discussions with Black and white workers about racism and communism. Notably, many white workers denounced Trump and Vance for their racist garbage. This experience built our confidence in the working class as the class that can and will run the world in a communist future.

Smash racism, the bosses’ tool

As the capitalist system deteriorates and the billionaires battle over who will control the U.S. economy, they inevitably turn to racism to scapegoat some workers and deflect attention away from themselves. This is their primary weapon to attack all workers and provide cover for their failing system. The immigrants from Haiti are in Springfield legally and have integrated into the community and built their lives here. They contribute to the local economy after 35 years of the auto and steel bosses moving factories overseas. Workers from Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and many industrial cities in the Midwest are suffering as the capitalists prioritize cheaper labor and maximum profits over workers’ lives.

Donald Trump’s vulgar, racist attacks have emboldened the fascist Proud Boys and Neo-Nazis to march in Springfield and distribute racist literature, forcing many workers from Haiti to temporarily pull their kids out of school and disrupting their daily lives. These are some of the reasons it was so important for our small group to go to Springfield and show solidarity and support for the Haitian community. At the same time, liberals are also no friends to our immigrant brothers and sisters. Big Fascist Kamala Harris has mentioned strengthening border security in response to the charge that democrats have exacerbated the “border crisis,” doubling down on the fascist declaration she made in 2021 when she warned migrant workers: “Do not come.” (Associated Press, 9/28 ).

Maybe more importantly, our small action inspired the workers who came with us from Detroit. It was their first action with PLP. They felt it was important to respond to the anti-Haitian gutter racism and after the trip they both took fliers to distribute in their neighborhood. They want to join our study group and learn more about the Party. Our experience shows that even with small numbers, if we are bold, we can make a difference and influence people to fight back against racism and build the Progressive Labor Party.

In 1956, I shall not go to the polls. I have not registered.. There is but one evil party with two names, and it will be elected despite all I can do or say. If a voter organizes or advocates a real third-party movement, he may be accused of seeking to overthrow this government by “force and violence.” Anything he advocates by way of significant reform will be called “Communist” and will of necessity be Communist in the sense that it must advocate such things as government ownership of the means of production; government in business; the limitation of private profit; social medicine, government housing and federal aid to education; the total abolition of race bias; and the welfare state. These things are on every Communist program… 

-W.E.B. Du Bois from “Why I Won’t Vote” (1956)

This article is an excerpt from Voting the Big Con, a pamphlet written in 1996 during the Clinton and Dole presidential campaign. Today in 2024, the ruling class is holding another one of  its every four years election circuses. This time their system is buried deeper in crisis and Holocaust Harris is being presented as the lesser evil fascist option next to revoltingly racist Trump.

Democracy - Heads they win, tails we lose!

Under capitalism, the government and elections are controlled by the capitalist class, the rich rulers who control the factories, mines, mills, and offices. They use all electoral parties, Democratic, Republican and other parties, to maintain their profit system. Their interests are directly opposed to our interests, the well being of the working class. Our labor produces all goods and services, all value, and creates the profit they steal. No matter who we vote for, they still own everything and control what we produce. To change this we need communist revolution, then we make these decisions. It's either us or them.

Who's really in charge?

If the elected officials are just front men for the ruling class, who is really in charge? The richest and most powerful industrialists and bankers run capitalist countries. In the U.S. they rule through two powerful committees, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Trilateral Commission (TLC). The CFR is headed by a billionaire Zionist named David Rubenstein. The CFR makes major decisions on the use of the U.S. military and economic power. They set policy on the U.S. entry into World War II, Vietnam and other conflicts. They decide U.S. policy on the Middle East, China, Europe, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Sharp differences may very well break out in the CFR, but eventually one group of capitalists and their henchmen dominate. Right now the main wing rulers that dominate the CFR are facing a challenge by domestic capitalists that back Donald Trump and by China and Russia. 
Why do capitalists hold elections?

If the bosses control both parties and the whole election process, why do they have them? Why spend millions and even billions on elections when the outcome is predictable: bosses win, workers lose? There are two main reasons. 1) Elections are held to distract us and make us think we have a say in what goes on, that we can reform capitalism or improve our lives by voting. 2) The bosses use elections to settle their own disagreements.

Elections push the illusion that Capitalism can be reformed

Elections are a diversion for workers who desperately want to fight for a better world. Instead of taking militant or armed action against the system, workers are suckered into trying to reform capitalism by voting for "better" candidates. They try to convince workers that the Democratic party or black, latin, or other politicians from marginalized groups will save them. If we recruit just 10% of these workers to the communist Progressive Labor Party, the world will be a very different place.

Democratic party - not the lesser of two evils, the greater evil

In the U.S., the bosses advertise the Democratic Party as the workers' representatives and contrast them to the ultra-right Republicans. Many think they are the lesser of two evils, but democrats the greater evil and danger to the working class (see editorial page 2). One only has to look at the last 4 years to see that their only accomplishment has been enabling and bankrolling a genocide.  

Black and Latin politicians serve bosses, not workers

Historically, Black politicians, virtually all Democrats, have supported policies which increased the jailing and police murder of young black men. This is the job of all elected officials under capitalism. In New York City, Top Cop and current NYC Mayor Eric Adams gave $11 billion to his killer kkkops in the New York Police Department (NYPD).

Fascist Dictatorship is born from the womb of capitalist democracy

Many of the economic problems which exist in the U.S. today prevailed in 1933 Germany. A "free election" was held. Over 13 million voted for the communists and social democrats. Eleven million voted for Hitler. The German president von Hindenburg then handed over the government to Hitler and his "minority" Nazi party. You know the rest; the Nazis established the most terrorist bosses' dictatorship the world had seen up until that time.

When it appears that workers have elected an anti-capitalist or anti-imperialist government, the bosses simply nullify the elections with armed force and install fascism. In Iran in 1953, in Guatemala in 1954 and in Chile in 1973, the U.S. CIA directed the violent overthrow of elected governments and helped install fascist dictatorship.

Finally, when workers ignore their elected officials and take direct action, the bosses combine the force of the police and army with elections to divert their struggle back within capitalism's rules. In France in 1968, ten million industrial and government workers organized a general strike and shut down the country. After appealing to the German bosses to prepare to send in the German tank corps, the bosses' president DeGaulle made a deal with the fake Communist Party to convince the workers to end the strike in favor of a new election.

PLP has never and will never encourage workers to vote for the lesser of two evils. We have confidence in the working class and we know that the leaders of communist society will come from those ranks. 

All capitalist parties lead to war

The bosses are always having peace talks but when their profits are threatened they will resort to war. When workers refuse to make sacrifices for profits the bosses use cops, scabs, injunctions, the National Guard and the Army to whip the working class back into line. They also use force to force weaker bosses to go along with the most powerful. 

World Wars I and II were both caused by different capitalists who wanted a bigger piece of world markets. In Vietnam, first the French and later the U.S. wanted to maintain Southeast Asia as their turf. In Panama, the Gulf War and in Somalia, U.S. rulers wanted to maintain control over a strategic area or resource like oil.

The revolutionary communist PLP, the only party the workers need

Workers don't need a "two-party" system which serves only the bosses. Workers need only one party, the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party which serves the needs and aspirations of our class, the working class. PLP is organizing in ten countries on four continents to destroy the bosses and their profit system. We will establish a communist society, led by our class's communist party - composed of hundreds of millions of workers, students, soldiers and sailors - eventually everyone on the planet.

Communist revolution means that the working class, led by its communist party, takes power from the capitalist class. We will run society for the benefit of all workers.  The working class will own everything and decide through its communist party what and how much to produce and distribute it according to need. The needs of the working class around the world will be the basis for these decisions. We will end racism, sexism, and imperialist war which the bosses create and use to divide and control us to maximize their profits. In communist society there won't be elections to choose leaders. There will be only one party, because workers everywhere (unlike the bosses) all have a common interest. This party will make and carry out all policy decisions collectively, in a centralized way. 

Build PLP and fight for communist revolution

The bosses will tell us that they are all-powerful; that capitalism is "human nature"; that they can't be overthrown. Every worker and youth who becomes a communist, who joins the PLP , proves that this is a lie. When you join and build PLP you are planting the seeds of our communist future. The more seeds, the sooner the flower of revolution will destroy the rotting profit system and encircle the globe with communist liberation.

LENNOX, CA, October 25—Tonight, fifteen tenant organizers, led by the Lennox-Inglewood Tenants’ Union (LITU), confronted a racist and abusive landlord at her house. With the mostly Latin immigrant tenants backing him up, a LITU member handed the owner a letter demanding that her harassment of the five tenants who live on the property stop immediately. The letter also listed the repairs that she has failed to make and told her that, from now on, LITU will be monitoring everything that happens between her and the tenants.

CHALLENGE readers will remember that Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members have been actively working within LITU. We have consistently raised the need for solidarity between workers— locally, nationally and internationally. At a recent tenants’ meeting, a PLP member talked about and distributed an article from CHALLENGE describing the struggle led by our comrades in Kentucky against slumlords and the criminalization of homelessness. Our member pointed out that working class people facing displacement around the world have the same interests- to be rid of all these racist and abusive landlords. This can only happen when we build an international working class movement for communism to build a world where housing, no longer being a commodity bought, rented, and sold to make someone rich, will be safe, plenty, and free for all because we will abolish the profit system that creates housing crises.

Working class tenants on the move 

This action was organized on short notice. It came out of the continuing work that LITU has done to organize a separate 40-apartment complex in Lennox. With LITU’s assistance, tenants there have formed a Tenants’ Association (TA) that has regular meetings, collects dues, plans united actions against the scumlord at that building, organizes court support for tenants who face eviction, and plans and holds socials. Several of the active tenants there have told their friends, who don’t live at the complex, about LITU’s militancy and consistency. A number of those friends have attended the regular TA meetings and have spoken about their own struggles where they live. The TA has heard these tenants out and agreed to back them up. That is what led to this action.

Racist housing conditions

The atrocious conditions that the tenants we supported tonight have been subjected to are typical of what LITU sees in apartments where Black and Latin immigrant workers live. Mold in the bathroom, toilet and bathtub leaks, holes in the walls and floor, and roach and mouse infestation are only some of those conditions. When one of the tenants reported a gas leak to the Fire Department, the racist landlord appeared at the tenant’s work site, yelling at her in front of her customers.   

When LITU confronted the landlord, she first refused to accept the letter and went inside her house at the rear of the property. A few minutes later, she came outside, took the letter but did not read it, accusing the tenants who live there of lying about how she treats them. She then repeatedly denied that she was still the property owner but insisted that the tenants continue paying rent to her. We told her she had no right to any rent money. As her husband pulled her inside the house, we loudly chanted “los inquilinos unidos, jamás seran vencidos” (“The tenants, united, will never be defeated”). 

The struggle continues 

Afterwards, we celebrated this victory for solidarity in the front yard of one tenant’s apartment. As expected, the landlord called the cops. However, we had a plan on how to deal with that eventuality, and our police liaison, backed up by the tenants, made it clear to the cops that there was no basis to detain or arrest anyone. The cops returned later, after most of us had left. However, the tenants told the cops that they know what their rights are. The cops told the tenants that, in the future, they would personally deliver any letter they had for the landlord!! Of course, this was total BS, and the cops knew it.

Under capitalism, working class tenants pay huge rents for rattrap apartments. Bourgeois law protects private property, the profits of the owners and the banks who are behind them. Homelessness stalks the working class as rents squeeze our low wages. Under communism, rents would be abolished. Housing would be shared according to need. That is a world worth fighting for. Join PLP to bring that world about.

EAST ORANGE, NJ October 21-23- “We declare justice to keep all teachers, social workers, and counselors. We need to take a stand to avoid cutting the staff that truly care about us everyday. We do not deserve to experience this. We are the future of East Orange…We must unite all together. Just imagine all of us taking a stand,” these are the words three courageous 4th graders delivered to a room with hundreds of multiracial students and parents fighting back against the East Orange Board of Education’s firing of 93 Black and Latin education workers a mere few months into the school year. This is on top of education workers having their salary level frozen for the past three years. Members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) spoke out at  the recent school board and town council meetings, fighting within these meetings to show the connection between this local fight and looming war and fascism. 

Linking the cutbacks to the war budget is an important lesson, but we as communists must win workers and students to see that the ultimate goal is to eliminate capitalism and replace it with a world run by the working class - communism. This reform struggle is also an opening for the working class to realize their power when fighting collectively, as well as teach us the roles that the politicians and union leaders play in trying to keep us passive.

Greater war and fascism means money for genocide - not for students

These cutbacks are just part of a growing attack on workers to accept less as the U.S. ruling class prepares for World War III. Using a $25 million deficit as an excuse for the layoffs, East Orange’s newly hired Superintendent, Dr. Christopher Irving, has used the threat of a “state takeover” of the district if education workers don’t play along. It is the state of N.J. consistently underfunding the East Orange school district that put them in this mess to begin with!  

At  the recent Board of Education meeting, one teacher boldly pointed out  that there's money being given to Israel’s genocide, while not funding education. Since October 7 of last year the U.S. has sent at least $17.9 billion to Israel, not even taking into consideration additional U.S. military spending considered “essential” (PBS, 10/7). This teacher continued, “manipulating staff that is already overworked and children who already need more resources to sacrifice more, and do more with less because the budget money has disappeared, shows us you are the local foot soldiers of a national government who continues to fund genocide from Palestine to Haiti instead of funding our schools.” The room erupted in applause. 

Grounded in the knowledge that money will always be there when it comes to protecting the interests of the capitalists, workers refused to buy into excuses and proposed “solutions.” Instead, workers are beginning to understand that for capitalists funding a genocidal war to protect oil profits is more important than educating working class children.

They want us pacified? We say fight back!

After the cutbacks were announced, the union leadership sent a memo to tell workers to keep working, trying to suppress the rage felt by workers and students. These union hacks want to stop an organized mass movement that wins workers and students to save workers and students. Their fear mongering was an attempt to keep workers disorganized and keep them from seeing that they can fight back against the bosses’ laws. That was how an illegal three-day strike by teachers in Massachusetts got a 60 percent wage jump for lower-paid instructional assistants (EdWeek, March 16, 2023).

Despite the union and local leaders' attempts, many workers organized a mass sick-out and protested at the board meetings. This response from a worker embodied the instinct of the masses toward these cowards, 

I have come to the sobering fact that there is no help on the way…There is no help to calm my anxiety and fear about whether my job is suddenly going to change overnight. Unless we save ourselves, I will continue to work 3 jobs and suffer from stress-inducing insomnia for 10 months out of every year. You play with our emotions, guilting us at times to continue to come to work without a contract [for 3 years] , day in and day out for the sake of the children…but it can no longer be at the expense of our mental health, our children, and our families.

From the masses to the masses: Communist leadership blossoms

When a worker became aware of this attack, they decided to look to a friend for support. The comrade, and member of PLP,  saw this as an opportunity to strengthen their bond and fight alongside the district worker. 

During the initial school board meeting, racist police tried to invoke fear by escorting the comrade out of the meeting after their speech, and asked questions because they distributed CHALLENGE.

This attack did not stop members of the PLP.  We saw this as a key moment to bring more comrades and members of our base to the next city council meeting .We distributed CHALLENGE, and worked collectively to create a leaflet connecting the attacks to sharpening war and fascism. Workers attending the board meeting eagerly took our leaflets. It was clear that many of them were being exposed to communist politics for the first time. We look forward to joining them as future actions are being planned.

Even though this struggle is in its early phases, we  were able to win the confidence of our base by showing that there is safety in  numbers and that we fight back like our lives depend on it.