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.
*****