On April 1, Israel’s rulers struck Iran’s embassy compound in Damascus, Syria—equivalent to bombing Iran itself, according to the capitalists’ international law. They killed 11 workers and two Iranian generals tied to the country’s “shadow war” against Israel. The same day, Israel deliberately targeted and bombed three cars in Gaza that carried aid workers with World Central Kitchen(WCK), according to WCK founder Jose Andres. This was no isolated incident. With a blank check for arms and bombs from the U.S., Israel has murdered two hundred aid workers and more than 33,000 Palestinians, the great majority of them noncombatant women and children, according to U.S. “Defense” Secretary Lloyd Austin (alajazeera.com, 3/1). The arms flow and atrocities continue despite Genocide Joe Biden’s phony call for a ceasefire as he slaps his defiant lapdog, Israeli president and mass murderer Benjamin Netanyahu, on the wrist.

Capitalist profits and racist genocide continue to sit at the heart of the one-sided slaughter of workers in Palestine. U.S. imperialists have long relied on Israel as its military proxy in the Middle East, a permanent “aircraft carrier group” for U.S. oil interests. But that arrangement is now under attack. A wider war looms in the Middle East, one that might escalate into an inter-imperialist World War Three. In an all-out global conflict, the devastation of the international working class will intensify exponentially. It is time for all workers to turn these attacks into anti-racist class war against all imperialists and capitalists under the leadership of the international communist Progressive Labor Party.

Many smaller capitalist gangs in the region have allied with imperialist Iran against the U.S. and Israel, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and an array of militias in Syria and Iraq. With funding and weapons from Iran, along with the capitalists’ ideological weapons of nationalism and religion, these groups have gained broad support among workers who are courageously fighting back against the Zionist war machine. But even if the groups’ misleaders succeed, they can offer nothing but more exploitation of the working class under the guise of anti-imperialism. Communism, not a new set of capitalist bosses, is what our class needs for liberation!

Iranian bosses’ leverage

The U.S. bosses have been trying and failing to topple Iran’s bosses since the Iranian “revolution” of 1979 overthrew their lackey, the Shah of Iran. What is stopping the U.S. imperialists and their junior criminal partners in Israel from launching genocidal attacks on Iran itself? Iran’s regional alliances and its deepening economic and political ties with the United States’ arch-rivals make it a more formidable foe than Hamas. Both the Chinese and Russian imperialists are ignoring international sanctions and buying large quantities of oil from Iran (Reuters, 11/10/23). 

Iran has military and geographic leverage, as well. About 17 million barrels of oil, around 20 percent of total global demand, pass through the Strait of Hormuz each day (strausscenter.org). If Iran were to obstruct the strait, it would cause global economic chaos. Iran’s mountainous topography is a natural fortress against invading powers. Finally, Iran has tailored much of its navy to fend off the U.S. imperialists with an armada of speed boats equipped for naval guerilla warfare. 

Israel, racist pariah state

Workers worldwide are showing that they will not take the genocide of Gaza sitting down. Millions have protested against Israel, which has become a pariah state. On April 4, seven Arab workers from Israel and four Palestinians from the West Bank attempted to assassinate Ben Gvir, Israel’s fascist national security head. Unfortunately, Israel’s anti-war movement is still trapped in Zionist ideology and focuses on the hundred or so Israeli hostages in Gaza while largely ignoring the tens of thousands of Palestinian victims of Israel’s vicious ethnic cleansing. A recent call for elections, regardless of how it turns out, will not change Israel’s commitment to apartheid in the West Bank and mass open-air incarceration in Gaza.

The rise of global opposition to the U.S. may seem like a good thing. But we must beware of the motives of these opponents when they belong to the capitalist ruling class. As U.S. imperialism declines, China and Russian and their allies are seeking opportunities for inroads in the Middle East and elsewhere. No matter who comes out on top of the bosses’ next big conflict, workers will lose—unless they turn the guns around to wage class war against our oppressors. Only a united, multiracial working class led by a revolutionary communist party can end the cycle of imperialist wars to re-divide the world for profit. Workers have no dog in this fight! 

The Progressive Labor Party encourages all those outraged by the devastation of Gaza to build a base for communism and PLP among workers of the world. Only communist revolution can put capitalist exploitation, racism, imperialist war, and climate catastrophe in the dustbin of history. Only communism can enable the working class to write our own future! Join us!

NEW YORK, NY, March 30 - A multiracial, multigenerational, and international contingent of 30 members and friends of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) marched to commemorate the 48th anniversary of Land Day, bringing masses of workers our revolutionary communist message. On this day in 1976, masses of workers in Palestine broke with nonviolence and embraced militant rebellion in response to Israeli-launched fascist land seizures and the murder of six unarmed workers. Across the U.S. in 2024, on an almost constant basis, thousands of workers and students are demonstrating against the U.S.-funded genocide in Gaza.

In New York City, PLP, with its dozen red flags and communist ideas and chants, joined the crowds chanting, “Joe Biden, you can’t hide. You’re committing genocide,” and added our own sharper political line, “Capitalism, you can’t hide! We charge you with genocide.” 
We also countered the nationalist chants with internationalist chants of “Asian, Latin, Black and white, workers of the world unite!” and chanted “Fight for communism, now’s the time!” to let the masses now  that communism is the only way the entire planet and working class will be free from violent displacement and genocide. 

From Palestine to Mexico smash ALL capitalist borders

During the march, we distributed more than 700 copies of CHALLENGE-DESAFIO and the same number of flyers written specifically for the event with the help of young Palestinian women workers who taught us a new chant. The chant which  says that “from Palestine it has been decided we will smash the seige” contains the arabic word“hisar” which means seige, but hisar also has a second meaning: border. This chant reveals what workers in Palestine already know: Israel’s fascist blockade of Gaza exposes the inherent racist class violence essential to ALL capitalist borders. Only communism can realize this chant’s full meaning.

Fightback against genocide exposes growing fascism

Prior to the demonstration, PL members reached out to their friends from workplaces, schools and neighborhoods to march with us. One retired faculty member from a college in New Jersey was joined by her friend, also a teacher, who had come under attack by her campus administrators when she posted a political cartoon criticizing the Israeli military and government for its mass killing of Palestinians, including thousands of students. This teacher was targeted by the Zionist gsroup Canary Mission, which trolls the Internet to identify faculty and students who are critical of Israeli policies and then reach out to Zionist community groups and student campus organizations to file complaints. This faculty member was the victim of such a complaint. Her response was to get more involved and to not retreat. 

Aware that at recent demonstrations, police have been aggressively confiscating bullhorns and arresting protestors, PLP kept our contingent tightly organized, allowing us to bring our message of international solidarity and vision of a communist future to the workers surrounding us. Each person had a buddy and phone numbers in the event of police interference. The large crowd also helped provide security to all the protestors. 

The sharpening attack, with the U.S. expanding its aid to Israel for the war abroad and aggressively targeting organizers who are protesting these policies at home, reflect the deepening crisis of U.S. capitalism. According to the civil rights organization, Palestine Legal, more than 2,000 faculty and students have been disciplined or fired for their protests against policies of the U.S. and Israeli governments. The spirited demonstration and our careful planning and organizing left our participants with a new resolve to build for the upcoming May Day march and to reach out to more of our friends and co-workers to win them to the importance of building a mass movement for communism.

Fight for communism for a free Palestine

As communists in the PLP, we understand that only when the working class runs society will workers and the land will be liberated. Neither fake elections nor Palestinian misleaders can do the job. As masses of workers in Palestine chant, “From Gaza, it’s been decided, we will smash the siege!”It is clear that workers there and everywhere deserve nothing less than a communist world without borders. From Gaza to Mexico only communist revolution can break the siege and smash the nationalist borders genociding our class. Join the PLP and let’s make these words a reality.

On April 17 Progressive Labor Party (PLP/PL) will celebrate its 59th year of fighting the cancerous system called capitalism, a system which destroys workers’ lives worldwide. PLP arose in the 1960s splitting from the reformist Communist Party of the United States. We began with barely two dozen members. In 2024 we are an international, fighting party organizing in five continents. 

Workers all over the world are currently in a period of low class consciousness and struggle against the world’s capitalists. We call this period Dark Night. It is characterized by inter-imperialist rivalry between the U.S. imperialists and the alliance of Chinese-Russian imperialists. As this rivalry escalates, the imperialists are resorting to ever-increasing levels of war and fascism to divide, kill and control workers everywhere.The working class desperately needs a fighting, communist party to take us out of this Dark Night and into a victorious fight against the world’s capitalists.

Our line & our vision

Progressive Labor Party struggles for a communist world run by and for workers. Capitalism has caused world wars costing millions of workers’ lives and capitalists are preparing for WorldWar III. In a world run by the working class all goods and resources would be shared according to need. There would be no production for the profit of a few. There would be no need for profiteering wars. The working class need only realize its unlimited potential to fight and rule. PLP has and will continue to struggle alongside fellow workers to help us realize this potential. 

To realize this potential, PL implements a strategy of practice and theory. We get involved in fighting the bosses (practice). We analyze our fightback and the struggles of workers worldwide. We analyze the world situation(theory). Then we implement what we learned in future struggles (practice) and apply it to our line (theory). These lessons and beliefs together make up Progressive Labor Party’s unique political line. Here are some elements of PL’s line gained from 59 years of practice and theory:

Society must be run by and for the working class. That’s communism.

The wage system and money itself must be abolished. Resources must be distributed based on need.

Workers can only gain power through armed struggle. The bosses will not give up peacefully.

We reject the concept of nations; no nationalism, and no borders. We are all workers and a worker in Israel is more like a worker in Gaza than like an Israeli capitalist.  

Multiracial unity: Racism is a product and tool of the ruling capitalist class meant to divide and conquer the working class. A united, multiracial working class is unstoppable. 

Antisexism: The systemic super-exploitation, oppression and objectification of women divides and weakens the working class.

We need to concentrate among industrial workers and soldiers, key to defeating the capitalists.

We struggle to inject these ideas into every struggle and will continue to do so until the working class runs the world. (For more see: Our Fight on page 2)

A legacy of struggle and theory

Ever since its birth in 1965 Progressive Labor Party has been fighting back against the bosses' attacks on workers. We have organized and supported auto workers and striking teachers in Mexico; striking miners in Hazard, Kentucky; fiber workers in India; bank workers in Colombia; sit-down strikers at Detroit’s Mack Avenue Chrysler plant; farm workers in California, and bakery workers at Stella D’Oro in the Bronx. We have stood with evicted workers in Palestine-Israel, earthquake victims in Pakistan, and hurricane victims in Haiti and New Orleans. More recently the Party has organized with tenants fighting abusive slumlords in Lennox, California, stood with students facing racist school policies in Prince George’s County, Maryland, and struggled alongside a family in Newark, New Jersey physically assaulted by racist police. 

Fighting racism has always been a core tenet of PLP. We backed Black workers and youth in the 1964 Harlem Rebellion and fought off racist school segregationists in Boston in 1975. In 1976 we integrated Chicago’s Marquette Park, while smashing the Nazi headquarters there. We have led more than 100,000 protesters against the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis across the United States. We have mobilized against racist killer cops from Brooklyn, to Los Angeles, to Chicago, to Ferguson, Missouri. 

PLP has led intense fightbacks against the bosses’ wars. In the 1960s, we were the first to organize mass demonstrations against the U.S. imperialist war Vietnam. We worked both within the military and on the streets to expose the U.S. rulers’ invasion of Iraq as a mass-murdering oil grab. More recently PL has participated in fightbacks against the bosses’ genocidal occupation of Palestine, saying that this attack on workers in Gaza is about profits and won’t be solved by fighting for a Palestinian state ruled by a new group of capitalists.

These ideas, struggles, and victories came directly out of our Party’s analysis of past class struggles and the achievements of millions of workers. PLP studied and continues to study the strengths and weaknesses of the communist movement throughout history. In 1917 this movement created a revolution in Russia; in 1949, a revolution in China, two of the largest countries in the world under the red banner of communism! But PL also acknowledges the weaknesses of the past movements. Nationalism, allowing wages and money to persist, and allowing elitism to form within party structures are some of the mistakes of the old movements that led to the rebirth of capitalism. We are committed to not repeating those mistakes.

Celebrate the Party on May Day

Next month is May Day, where every year the Party celebrates communism and the working class. We would be honored if you would join us in these celebrations and join our Party in this fight for a communist world. Let’s all chip in and build a united, multiracial working class capable of winning a communist world. Happy birthday PLP!

BROOKLYN —“I shouldn’t fear for my life to come on campus,” stated a halal cart worker to members of Kingsborough Community College’s antiracist club, Common Ground. For months, the halal cart has been the target of racist attacks, including racist anti-Palestinian graffiti (see CHALLENGE, 3/13). While the racists intended to terrorize workers and students at KCC into fear and silence, they and the capitalist bosses they’re serving made a severe miscalculation. Amidst genocide in Gaza, widening imperialist wars, and sharpening fascism, antiracist students and communists in the Progressive Labor Party are hard at work building a mass, multiracial, antiracist fightback!

Fighting to build unity, solidarity, and collectivity

Since our semester started, Common Ground has regularly met to discuss how best to respond to these racist attacks, with our new women students taking leadership and learning from the experiences of our veteran students. Recently, in addition to tightening rules against student organizing, we were surprised and disgusted to discover two brand-new security cameras installed at either end of our meeting room!

Everyone agreed this felt like quite a violation, and one of our new students stated, “This campus feels more and more like a police state and not a college.” Another student asked, “Why would they bother spying on us, do they think we’re breaking the law?” 
The expression “police state” raises an important question – what is the State? What does KCC’s administration have to do with the State? And what should workers’ attitudes toward the State be?

The capitalist state and communist revolution

States arose when, after about 300,000 years of human societies, divisions of society into classes – between exploiter and exploited – appeared. The state emerged as a special group of people occupied with governing, appearing to stand neutral and outside of society. However, they really enforce a dictatorship of the exploiting class through other special groups granted the legal authority to use violence and imprison whoever the ruling class deems an enemy. Under capitalism, this reality is obscured by layers of appearances like the court system and sophisticated propaganda upheld by the capitalist media, schools, movies, music, and most social media. 

The capitalists will always treat antiracist fighters for multiracial unity as criminals. Racism and sexism, along with nationalism, are the pillars that uphold their entire profit system to keep the working class politically divided, differentially oppressed, and economically exploited. Black workers especially are super-exploited and, through racist police terror, the bosses’ cops intentionally terrorize Black and immigrant workers on the streets, in schools, and in their own homes. 

In this way, the student who observed that KCC seems like a police state is righter than they knew! The capitalist state in the U.S. today includes everyone from Joe Biden to the NYPD, to the administration of every CUNY campus. Arming ourselves with communist politics exposes the dead-end false promises of liberal reforms. Communists fight to arm the entire international working class politically to defend against capitalist attacks in the short term and to organize our entire class to smash this entire genocidal, sexist system with communist revolution and a workers’ state of our own! 

WANTED for racist terror: capitalism

Guided by these politics, PL’ers supported Common Ground’s decision to create a “WANTED FOR RACIST HATE CRIME” poster. The NYPD – who had to be pressured into responding to this racist attack in the first place - only posted two “WANTED'' flyers, on a desolate corner outside campus with mostly empty storefronts. After weeks of discussion, we decided instead of relying on the NYPD, we would copy the images of the racist suspect caught on surveillance and create our own! We also created a petition with a list of demands, including calling out KCC’s refusal to acknowledge this hate crime even happened and raising money to cover the damage to the halal cart.  
Since then, Common Ground members and PL’ers have attended prayers and iftar (when Muslim workers break their fast during the month of Ramadan) at a community mosque multiple times, making friends, distributing the WANTED flyer widely, and sparking outrage and willingness to build a mass movement around fighting back. We are organizing for May Day, and plan to continue discussing the students’ sharp observations about capitalism and even sharper questions about communism in our PLP study group. The struggle continues!