Washington, DC, August 4—As the moratorium on evictions in the U.S. was drawing to a close, tenants and organizers including members and friends of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) rallied with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)-affiliated Stomp Out Slumlords (SOS) to protest the evictions of our brothers and sisters that landlords and their political flunkeys are eagerly seeking. Hundreds marched to the White House demanding a halt to evictions. Some camped out overnight in a vigil to protest this attack on the working class.
Stomp out bosses, build red leadership
Class struggle against the bloodsucking landlords—including blocking evictions directly and turning to militant action and support from the rest of the working class—is the way forward. A PLP member also attended the feebly symbolic anti-eviction protest by Cori Bush and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) at the Capitol, but as expected heard nothing about how capitalism plus a pandemic means disaster for workers trying to stay in their homes. These liberal politicians are the main danger for our class because they serve to pacify us, blunt the class struggle, and put our trust into this system.
Class struggle and direct action must stomp out slumlords along with their capitalist brethren through communist revolution. Many participants in this protest, march, and vigil happily received copies of CHALLENGE and pledged to look into the need for a long-term struggle for communism to defeat the racist anti-worker attacks of the bosses.
Protests help organizers and tenants practice their organizing and leadership abilities. Organizers put together graphics, secured food and resources, and spread the word to other organizers and the media. Tenant committees tapped their social networks to activate their neighbors for political actions. For some tenants, these are their first ever political actions. These political actions energized everyone. The main question is under whose leadership is the working class being energized under? PLP affirms the need for communist leadership against evictions, racist housing policies, and this entire profit-system.  
Racist eviction crisis
For organizers, tenants, and onlookers, being surrounded by neighbors with a shared purpose can be radicalizing—people begin to imagine the immense power they could have if they continue to organize and fight. We know the eviction crisis is hitting hard, and we cannot sit idly by while our neighbors are at risk of joining the homeless.
According to a 2020 report by the Aspen Institute, an estimated 30 to 40 million people in the U.S. are at risk of eviction due to the Covid-19 housing crisis. If past trends hold, the upcoming eviction crisis will lead to higher rates of Covid-19 infection, especially as new variants emerge, and the impact will be felt most strongly in communities of Black workers (Brookings, 8/2). The scale of this problem exposes fundamental problems of racist capitalism’s “profit first, people last” character.
Capitalism endlessly erodes communities and will continue to do so until it is gone and replaced by communist revolution, where we workers run society for ourselves.
Community potlucks, BBQs, and parties along with political protests can bolster revolutionary potential by building a sense of community and solidarity. Joining and building a revolutionary organization, the PLP, will ensure a future for the growth of such working class solidarity as we proceed together on the road to communist revolution.