Young masses reject liberal fascist ideas
The Cease-fire Teach-In hosted by the Newark Water Coalition last Friday reveals at once the intelligence of a fighting working class and the constant pitfalls that nationalism and liberalism present for mass consciousness in our class. Organizations representing the Democratic Socialists and also local college-based Palestinian organizers gave presentations that demonstrated how tactics for combatting imperialist genocide can be derived from workers who are not in our base directly.

The working class's knowledge from experience fighting local Zionist reactionaries in the streets of New Jersey reveals that we in the Progressive Labor Party must continue to learn from the militancy of our class brothers and sisters and spread this collective wisdom with those in our base. At the same time, our political participation in the teach-in and the strategic points that we made about widening imperialist world war–regardless of a cease-fire–and our larger critique of capitalism, strengthened our understanding of the need for a mass communist party as the basic historical necessity for our class to move forward. And the Newark Water Coalition will never host a meeting where we can make this plain. 

Several very smart young people who attended this teach-in validated our idea that a mass party for communism is necessary and possible. One young woman who has attended study groups in the past indicated that reform is limited based on her experience and that the need for a wider revolutionary commitment is necessary for true change. Others responded very favorably to our calls for an anti-capitalist worldview and the need to put forward internationalism rather than nationalism. 

Finally, we addressed observations about “white moderate” complacency and support for Zonist genocide made by the Palestinian youth from the college community. We pointed out that this “white moderate” agenda is led and put forward most viciously by the Black and Latin political class, or as we like to call them liberal fascists. And this point, too, was not rejected. So the bottom line is that it was heartening to see folks come out in large numbers to a Newark-based mass event and that our line was embraced. It shows that more and more we need to insist on the idea that workers do embrace our line and that it is up to us to put it forward and give them that chance to do so because these ideas DO NOT come about spontaneously or organically in a world that smothers our brains with nationalism and liberalism of all kinds. 

Patience guided by steady honest criticism, self-criticism, and effort, is how we will win folks in the ones and twos to our mass line. There are no shortcuts. 

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A communist’s valentine’s day
Some comrades and I recently hosted “A Communist’s Valentine’s Day,” which we hope to make an annual event. The idea was to collectively express love for the international working class. We had more than 20 PLP members and base members attend. For some, it was their first time hearing about the Party. 

At the beginning, we ate brunch and did ice breakers. We asked participants to write down questions to spark discussion. Questions included “What does success mean to you? Is success possible?” and “In a perfect world, what would you be doing tomorrow?”, which may not seem political at first glance, but quickly resulted in political discussion that prompted many of us to raise the Party’s line. 

One quote that resonated for me was “Success (in this system) means that you are meeting every one of capitalism’s demands, and that’s not possible.” We discussed how no worker can truly be successful individually and that “success” we may feel under capitalism can be taken by the bosses suddenly and without any remorse. Only by building a communist world can we achieve collective “success.”

After the discussion, we offered the paper and people readily took it and expressed interest in our upcoming study group. One friend took a copy and exclaimed in awe, “This is real?!” Yes, the fight for communism under the leadership of the PLP is real, and it’s growing! 

We closed out the night (the event lasted several hours!) with a candle vigil for workers who are under attack and for comrades and loved ones we’ve lost in recent years. We lit candles for migrant workers who are being denied adequate housing in NYC, for workers and children being bombed in Gaza, for students facing racist schooling, for loved ones lost to the capitalism-caused crises of COVID, suicide, and drug overdoses, for the late comrades Carolyn and Fernando, and for others. The vigil was a bonding experience that tied us closer together and served as a reminder of all those we will keep fighting for. 

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Origin fails to trace the origins of racism to capitalism
Watching the new docudrama by Eva DuVernay, Origin, a few things stand out. It is a movie showcasing systems of oppression in three places in the world: the contemporary U.S., Nazi Germany, and contemporary India. However, I don’t believe I heard the word capitalism or the phrase “working class” used even once in the movie. The word“racism” is submerged into the emphasis of the movie, the concept of “caste.”  The film is based on the best-selling book “Caste” by the former New York Times feature writer, Isabel Wilkerson (who also wrote “The Warmth of Other Suns’’ about the U.S. Great Migration from the South). The fact is that if you stay for the full credits, the movie’s production was supported by several capitalist foundations. The film has been promoted in a big way (with interviews by the director on television) and several newspaper reviews (e.g. the liberal bosses want this film to be seen).

The story correctly considers the fact that the ideology of Jim Crow, miscegenation laws, and racist pseudoscience of a century ago in the U.S. was very useful to Nazi Germany in creating concentration camps against Jews (but also against Roma people and many others). It also portrays the gross indignities that the Dalits (formerly called “untouchables”) are continuing to be subjected to in India. The glossing over of the origin (pun intended) of these divisions (that were exacerbated by British colonialism and imperialism) despite the movie’s name is frustrating. DuVernay may mean well but completely ignores the class divisions that largely define the various castes of each country. Without considering the class nature of these capitalist systems, the horrible conditions cannot be truly understood. Solutions to the question of ‘caste” were not provided probably because they do not exist under racist capitalist systems. Only an egalitarian communist society can conquer caste as well as class divisions that the bosses rely on.

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