COLOMBIA, April 30—As everywhere else in the world, workers are sufferings amidst the pandemic. Those of us who still have a job do not get any guarantees from the government or the boss, no minimal safety measures or protective equipment. The bosses fire, suspend or lower our wages. Making our already slaving working conditions more precarious.
Crushing unemployment
Workers are facing unemployment. If we don’t have a job, we can’t feed our families, we become isolated from our coworkers. We cannot unite against the bosses’ attacks. Along with these harsh conditions, we are exposed to infection, to sexist and racist attacks and the bosses’ arrogance. The sharpening economic crisis created by the bosses push for war. This has been accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic (see page 2). These conditions are the reality for millions of workers around the world. Unemployment and hunger have increase worldwide. While small businesses fire their workforce, big businesses are doing it too, even with their millions in profits. In the U.S., Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Haiti, and worldwide, millions of workers have been laid off, many are confined to their homes, some are dying without healthcare or money for food.
Long-brewing crisis
Since 1970 we have seen the sharpening of the bosses’ attacks and working conditions. Since then, we have seen the politicians, judges, and bosses’ treachery and theft, under the umbrella of their fascist laws that deny social services, wage raises and pensions. Laws that give us sanctions, fines, firings, and the reduction of salaries, as if the salary we get was enough to cover our basic necessities.
To sum up, the contradictions arising from the pandemic deepens the crisis of the capitalist system, not only the savage capitalism, as the liberals and opportunist want us to believe.  Throughout history, capitalism has never been able to give the working-class stability; it has only given us disasters, death, hunger, unemployment, and misery.  There can be no good capitalism, nor good bosses, they take our labor, because it is the only thing we have to sell.
The victories from past struggles are taken away. Every time capitalism is in crisis, like today, it is the workers who pay the price. That is why PLP is saying that our class can’t keep trying to reform this murderous system of profit. Only a communist revolution can destroy it once and for all.
Danger and opportunity
In Colombia, some cities, towns, groups of women, men, and children of the working class, students, farm workers, indigenous workers, construction workers, health and transportation workers are in a constant struggle, sometimes still isolated and dispersed. They protest, strike, block, and ransack cars and supermarkets. In the face of uncertainty, hunger, and the assassination of social leaders, they are angry, justifiably so.  They see the corruption, the decay of all these ruling-class institutions.
Yet in these hard conditions of the period are opportunities to organize and end the dark night of capitalism. PLP is calling for unity of the international working class, our newspaper CHALLENGE, and to all communists, friend, readers, and members, to keep on fighting, do not get demoralized by the brutal attacks of the bosses or the apparent depoliticization of the masses. Our job is to create a revolutionary communist movement.
The working class produces everything of value that exists in our society, we have to organize as a revolutionary party to enjoy the fruits of our labor, no more misery or crumbs from the bosses.  We must end the dictatorship of the bosses, which will continue to oppress us until an organized working class with our revolutionary Party violently destroy the capitalists and their racist wage slavery. We will build a new society where we will share everything we produce, collectively, to satisfy our own needs.

BALTIMORE, April 6—The West Wednesday weekly protests in Baltimore against police terror are not derailed by Covid-19. Named in honor of Tyrone West, the rallies have moved from the streets to the screens, streaming to Facebook Live. This shows the creative and resilient spirit of the working class in the face of crisis. The struggle also shows the growing anti-racist movement open to communist ideas.
Nationwide protest on Facebook
People on Facebook have created “Watch Parties,” with more than 200 people watching the most recent West Wednesday including people from far away.
Stevante Clark from Sacramento, California talked about the ongoing struggle to win accountability for the police murder of his 23-year-old brother, Stephon, who was murdered in his grandmother’s back yard by cops Terrence Mercadal and Jared Robinet in 2018.
Those cops first claimed they thought Stephon was holding a crowbar. In their re-telling, it morphed into a gun, then a cell phone. The truth: Stephon was killed for nothing less than racism!
Also joining in was David Harrison, cousin of Willie McCoy, who was executed by six cops shortly after he fell asleep in his car while waiting in a drive-thru lane at a Taco Bell in Vallejo, California in February of 2019. Workers who couldn’t wake up Willie called 911 for a wellness check. Instead of medics, seven cops arrived only to execute Willie: another example of deadly systemic racism.
Tawanda Jones was the host. She is the sister of unarmed Tyrone West, a young Black worker beaten to death by up to 15 kkkops in July of 2013.
She contrasted the ruthless killing of Willie McCoy to the soft handling of white supremacist Dylann Roof who, once in police custody, was given a cheeseburger and a bullet-proof vest, right after he murdered nine Black parishioners in cold blood in Charleston.
West Wednesday Live also discussed COVID-19. A member of Progressive Labor Party explained that the government is enforcing quarantines, but none of them are saying, “Call out the capitalists bosses who allowed us to get here.” How could they when the government serves the capitalists.
Capitalism here in the U.S. has less hospital beds—and we’re the richest nation in the world - per person than in 11  other countries, including] South Korea, China, and Italy.”
She talked about how New York closed 20 hospitals that mostly served Black and Latin working class neighborhoods in the past 20 years, based on what’s profitable for the rich, not what’s needed to preserve life.
Capitalism driven by logic of profit
Thirteen years ago in the wake of near-pandemics (SARS, bird flu, swine flu), the U.S. government had launched a project for 70,000 additional ventilators.  However, “because of corporations putting money over mankind,” those ventilators never got manufactured.
A company, which had contracted with the federal government to build smaller, more mobile, less costly ventilators, actually did produce three working prototypes, but that company got bought by a larger company that was already producing and selling ventilators at higher prices (NYT, 3/29).
Like all capitalists, those profit-driven business owners were focused on maintaining the highest possible profits and, not wanting to undercut sales of their more expensive machines, intentionally sidelined and buried the project that would have created an emergency stockpile of 70,000 life-saving ventilators. The result is the racist and criminal loss of lives and disproportionately these are the most exploited, Black, Latin workers.(NYT, 4/8)
Michigan has kept track—in 70 percent of the cases—of the racial background of people who have gotten sick with COVID-19. While Black folks make up just 14 percent of the state’s population, they have accounted for more than 33 percent of the cases, and 40 percent of the deaths.
The PLP speaker then said, “The real enemy is capitalism. It ain’t Donald Trump. It ain’t the corona. It’s capitalism...We can defeat the corona, but we should also dismantle and destroy this sick system because it’s really killing us!”
How to serve the working class
Another speaker was a fighter, here in Baltimore, who talked about how people with low incomes, when picking up food distributed free at sites run by the City, often have to wait in lines without a reliable capability for physical distancing, forcing low-income families to be at higher risk for getting Covid-19.
So he has organized a food pantry where contributing volunteers stock and drive the food directly to the homes of families in need.  
We expect online West Wednesday to grow, and to include more and more of the fighters against racism and against police brutality, in Baltimore, and from all over!

CHALLENGE readers from the Midwest, Minneapolis, Chicago, and Detroit and also NYC and LA joined in mourning the untimely death of Harry Mcallister on April 19, 2020. Harry died of the coronavirus and was on a respirator in Minneapolis. It is especially tragic that he died of the capitalist scourge of Covid-19; it is capitalism that Harry fought against his entire life.
We salute him as we remember his activities in the International Committee Against Racism (INCAR), Minneapolis Chapter, from the ‘70s through ‘90s. INCAR was then a mass organization of the Progressive Labor Party. Together we rallied, marched, had panels, and partied. Harry was a great dancer. Harry was in the action when the temperature was sub-zero and we protested the University’s involvement in South Africa’s Apartheid and we stood on the picket line at Hormel’s meat packing plant supporting the P-9 workers.
Harry’s international historic knowledge was immense. When we produced a South Africa Apartheid pamphlet, we didn’t need Google, because he knew every notable person and date of every country in Africa. Rest in power, Harry!

April 28 is the 75th anniversary of the execution of Benito Mussolini, the fascist Italian dictator, by communist partisans. As World War II ended the Italian communists rid the world of one fascist, but they allowed capitalism to continue just with a ‘democratic’ façade. It’s not just Mussolini or Donald Trump or Joe Biden, we have to get rid of the whole damn capitalist system, to paraphrase some of the young Black rebels who fought against racist police murder in Ferguson, Missouri. Let’s rebuild a communist movement that will finally put the working class in power all over the world and put all the capitalists and their racist system in the rash heap of history!
At first a socialist, Mussolini was expelled from the Italian Socialist Party for supporting Italian participation in imperialist World War I. When the war ended, Italy appeared ripe for a communist revolution. But the young Italian Communist Party (PCI), though large, was not prepared. It was not a tightly organized, democratic centralist party like the Russian Bolsheviks had formed under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin. And it was geared more toward reformist politics than violent revolution.
Italian capitalists install fascist, imperialist Mussolini
Meanwhile Italian capitalists rushed to support Mussolini, who formed a nationalist dictatorship. His fascist party outlawed strikes and any independent labor movement, and killed or imprisoned communists. Communist leader Antonio Gramsci was arrested and spent the rest of his life in prison. Mussolini’s fascist dictatorship arrested, tortured, and executed opponents. His uniformed thugs, the “Blackshirts,” roamed the streets, beating and killing.
Unopposed by the imperialist Allies, Mussolini directed the brutal colonization of Libya, ultimately killing one third of its population. After 1936, he directed the imperialist conquest of Ethiopia, Somalia (then called Italian Somaliland), and Eritrea – again unopposed by the Western imperialists, who loved him for his anticommunism. The New York Times reporter in Italy, Arnaldo Cortesi, openly supported Mussolini’s policies.
Along with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler of Germany, Mussolini sent huge numbers of soldiers, military equipment, and airplanes to support fascist Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War. The Spanish Republic was strongly supported by Stalin and the Soviet Union, which the Allies feared. The Allies blockaded the Spanish Republic, thus guaranteeing that the fascist Franco would win.
Mussolini allies with Hitler
In June 1940, Mussolini sided with Hitler in the Second World War. Fascist Italian troops occupied Greece, Albania, parts of France and Northern Africa. When Hitler invaded the then-socialist Soviet Union (USSR) on June 22, 1941, Mussolini sent troops to fight against the USSR alongside the German army. After some initial victories, the Italian army was decimated at the Battle of Stalingrad, December 1942-February 1943.
In July 1943, the Grand Council of Fascism overthrew Mussolini and the Italian King appointed a new leader. The new capitalist government tried to side with the Allies. Meanwhile Mussolini was rescued by a German commando raid and taken to Northern Italy, where he was made head of a puppet Italian state.
Communists lead resistance to fascism; kill Mussolini
The communists refused to support the new capitalist government formed by the King. They intensified their guerrilla war against both German and Italian fascist troops. Communist fighting units had political commissars, who promoted communist political consciousness among the volunteers. Many were organizing workers in the cities, while others fought in the countryside. Throughout World War II the Italian Communist Party led the underground opposition to fascism. The communist “Garibaldi Brigades” were the most numerous anti- fascist fighters and also suffered the most casualties in the anti-fascist war.
On April 25, 1945, the heavily communist National Liberation Committee of Northern Italy ordered a general insurrection in all territories still occupied by the Nazi fascists. They directed all partisan forces in Northern Italy to attack fascists and Germans, and demand their surrender. The watchword was “Surrender or Die!” Mussolini and dozens of other fascist leaders fled, heading for neutral Switzerland.
Mussolini and 52 fascist leaders were arrested on April 27. Communist-led partisans shot Mussolini the next day. His body and that of his mistress, Clara Petacci, were driven to Milan and hanged by the heels in a local square, the Piazzale Loreto, along with the bodies of other fascist leaders.
Reformist politics allow capitalists to maintain power
The partisans had wanted to seize power in Italy before the Allied troops arrived to put capitalist figures back into power. However, this proved impossible with the huge American army present. In May, 1945, the Allies and the capitalist Italian government ordered the partisans to disarm. But only about 60 percent of the weapons were turned in. Many communists did not trust the new government, and kept weapons and other military equipment. Throughout the 1950s, many partisans expected a return to guerrilla warfare in the mountains against the capitalist Italian State.
But the PCI adopted the sellout “peaceful co-existence” line, expecting to gain “socialism through the ballot box.” This rotten policy, ordered by the revisionist (phony communist) Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, led to defeat after defeat.
Fight for communism
We in the Progressive Labor Party salute and respect the great achievements, victories, and sacrifices of our forebears in the Italian communist movement. We are also determined not to repeat their mistakes – especially, the error of trusting the capitalists. Communist revolution is the only way to working-class power.