The year 2021 affirmed how workers worldwide are fed up with this diseased system. Capitalism functions on this logic: capitalists profit from exploitation and division, thus mangling or killing us, then use reforms to strangle any rising working-class consciousness. When we recollect that 281 million workers have been infected by Covid-19 and 5 million are dead, we realize just how deadly reforms are for our class. Nothing short of communism will immunize workers and youth from the horrors of this profit system.
U.S. President Joe Biden is giving war-mongering vibes; he signed his intentions for the New Year with a $768 billion military bill, the largest since World War II (NYT, 12/21). Goodbye 20-year war in Afghanistan, hello World War III preparation. As the U.S., China, and Russia bosses prepare to nuke it out, it will be at the expense of the working class. Haven’t workers experienced enough? Could it be that our lives only matter when bosses say they do?
The despicable ruling class pushes for us to go “back to business as usual” (see page 2) while in our schools and jobs, we are getting sick en masse, hospitals are filling up with Covid-19 infected children, evictions are coming, with police enforcement.
If we learned anything from 2021, it is that if one section of our class is under attack, that attack will soon spread to another. That is the way the infectious system of capitalism works. In order to smash Covid-19 and this racist, sexist system for good, we must think and act collectively across borders. That is what Progressive Labor Party (PLP) fights for – an international, communist world where the needs of ALL workers are primary.
Awaken ye workers—strike, rise, revolt!
As bosses are demanding  more productivity during the pandemic, workers declared NO MAS (no more) and striked against killer working conditions, turning their workplaces into schools for communism.
Colombia: PL’ers protested beside workers and students in the midst of capitalist crisis and are going underground to build communist fightback. Our class led national strikes on the ground against pandemic death, unemployment, tax hikes that line the pockets of President Iván Duque Márquez. We rebelled against the electoral circuses while pushing workers to fight for a worker-led revolution.
Alabama: Workers in Washington D.C., New York City, and New Jersey responded to PLP’s call to join in solidarity with Black warehouse workers unionizing in Bessemer, AL and made trips to unite with Black and white miners right up the road from the Amazon warehouse.
A delegation of students and City University of New York (CUNY) faculty met with striking Warrior Met Coal miners. Since April of last year, miners have been striking for higher wages, benefits and time off after the company broke off negotiations with their local union. One of Warrior Met Coal’s owners is Black Rock, a major investor in ICE detention centers and an honored guest at a CUNY college event.  Same enemy, same fight! Students traveled down and learned from their efforts, building confidence in workers ability to  feed and care for each other in the midst of struggle (see page 8).
New York City: CUNY students and faculty members marched to remove the Klan in Blue from John Jay college and the carceral state altogether.
 After the assassination then-president Jovenel Moise PL’ers in Brooklyn showed solidarity with workers in Haiti and the raging issues of mass unemployment, hunger, need for clean water, decent housing, medical care and education on the island.
Haiti: After another devastating earthquake, PL’ers led mutual aid efforts with food, water, surveying of damage and an exchange of communist ideas.
Chicago: 2,000 workers protested against Chicago’s Democratic and Black leadership led by Mayor Lori Lightfoot and State Attorney Kim Foxx for their hand in the police murder of 13-year-old Adam Toledo and state terror against Black and Latin workers.
Thousands of health care workers, majority of them Black and Latin women, in Cook County striked against racist service cuts and hospital closings.
Newark, NJ: New and veteran comrades are building with and offering communist leadership to Black and Latin working class familes fighting back against police terror and deteriorating housing conditions. This past summer PL’ers led a summer project with study action groups based around these struggles, calling out the liberal misleadership of Mayor Ras Baraka.
Only solution is communist revolution
Although this is a period of mass death and detriment, it’s been a time of responsibility for communists to maintain ties and unity with workers, lead dialectical study groups, and turn reform fights into schools for communism. Workers CAN run a communist society; we’re putting that potential into practice already but we need to struggle with each other against selfish, individualist ideas that say workers are to blame for our conditions. Nothing will ever change if we rely on capitalist, self serving politicians.
For some, January 2021 was filled with wary relief that U.S. President Biden would steer away from Covid-19, erase student loan debt, and workers, documented or undocumented, would receive some protection and support in the pandemic. Yet, each day we wake, the more capitalist bosses' profit intentions and disarray are exposed (see page 5).
With this realization, paired with collective leadership, workers must continue to rise up and strike for better wages, worker protections and provide a glimpse of how we can turn an impending world war into a class war, a class war for a communist future. A communist world where international, collective thought, building, and strategy is the only way to break this heavy, racist, sexist ball and chain! Join PLP to make it happen!