NEWARK, NJ, November 21—As the housing crisis intensifies worldwide, Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members met with neighbors of North Newark’s Stephen Crane Village, a 354-unit public housing complex. We organized to heighten the struggle for better living conditions under capitalism and build a revolutionary communist movement led by PLP. Each year, Black liberal misleader, Mayor Ras Baraka hosts a “State of the City” symposium to quell the rage of Black and Latin workers in this area. As a way to strengthen the morale of new comrades and all workers in Newark, PLP decided to host our own communist speak-out at the Crane.
We’ve been teaming-up with a comrade who lives in the area to sell CHALLENGE and connect with workers. It's been a slow build but we continue to meet people who are interested in communist ideas and fighting back. Two comrades, a healthcare worker and an educator, grabbed the bullhorn and spoke about fighting back for better housing and fighting for communist revolution.
As workers listened from their homes, PL’ers walked over to offer them CHALLENGE. A group of children playing on the basketball court stopped to listen and joined in when we chanted “Asian, Latin, Black and white, workers of the world unite!”
Workers knock the rotten foundation of capitalist housing
When PLP passed the mic, a neighbor voiced her anger about the property manager's mistreatment and failure to address the issues of the workers that live there. “I'm so tired and I know many of you all are annoyed having to go down to the leasing office to repeat complaints about the same situation they have documented on their computers and no one comes out to fix the problems. They tell us the same story every time: there’s not enough workers to fix the problems in the complex. Why do I have mold in the apartment? Why is the plumbing terrible? And why can't I stop coughing?” Capitalism's failures have increased the privatization of housing in areas like Newark, allowing slum lords to neglect and manipulate workers. A few months ago, the building managers sold the public housing facility to private developers and have left the residents with deathly conditions to deal with alone.
Big Fascist“Build Back Better capitalism” will fail workers
In line with President Joe Biden’s day-late-dollar-short Build Back Better bill, Newark’s Mayor Ras Baraka made public promises to create and preserve 6,600 affordable housing units in Newark by 2026. Workers can’t afford to wait that long for better housing. And even still, the city would need 16,000 units to meet the needs of all workers in this area (NJ.com, 6/21). While bosses in the White House argue over how many bones to toss down to workers, the health of our class suffers at the hands of managers and landlords who are lining their pockets in the midst of a pandemic.  An infrastructure bill will never be enough to resolve the mounting crisis of housing, education, health and police violence that work in tandem to ruin workers’ lives and communities.
Fight for better housing, fight for communism!
PLP affirms that only an internationalist communist future, where workers take state power, will vanquish the grueling cycle of capitalism. To put communism in action, PLP stands side by side with workers FIGHTING BACK and building a movement for communist revolution to win a world for workers in the long run!
One neighbor suggested we survey each family in the complex about the conditions of their unit and report it back to the city, especially after the disastrous Hurricane Ida. We agreed  and added the idea of including the senior building next door. We will also distribute CHALLENGE. One woman worker reported her roof was leaking during the storm and showed us the ceiling cracks and mold in the apartment. She has been complaining about this decay for weeks, while the landlords still left a rent notice in her mailbox. Under communism and PLP’s leadership, a profit system will  not exist and housing structures will  be designed to keep workers' needs and participation in decision-making primary. To get there, we need as many of our working class brothers and sisters as possible sharpening the struggle between the ruling class and the workers. Stand up and demand that enough is enough!! It’s time for the united international working class to fight back!! Join PLP in the fight!

Brooklyn, NY—Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of murder charges on a Friday and in the days leading up to that verdict I discussed the importance of this case with co-workers and my students.  State-sanctioned political assassination of antiracist leaders by right-wing vigilante elements was on trial, and is as old as U.S. racism and capitalism.  The decision to acquit came as a surprise to some, not to others, but groundwork for some sort of a response was laid.
In the coming days two more court cases that put racist killers on trial were decided.  It is widely acknowledged that the decision ruling against the killers of Ahmaud Aubrey only happened because damning video evidence surfaced.  The court ruling against the organizers of the 2017 Charlottesville fascist ‘Unite the Right’ rally where another protester, Heather Heyer, was killed is manifestation of a Big Fascist effort to drive its Small Fascist (see Glossary, see page 6) rivals out of political relevance.  Big Fascism is a push for the widest possible extension of social control in preparation for wider conflict with imperialist rivals China and Russia.
Liberal fascists turn their guns on antiracist fighters
Big Fascist Joe Biden’s response that our jury system works and that protest must not destroy property shows us that it is a dangerous illusion to see in liberalism any protection for dedicated antiracists. With his response to the Rittenhouse verdict, Biden has told us ‘if you want to fight racism and you get shot and killed you’re on your own.’  This was the same message liberal New York City  mayor Bill de Blasio voiced as he blamed protesters in the most cynical and craven terms possible when his mad dog cops rammed their trucks into crowds of protesters in the wake of the killing of George Floyd.  
Working class students leadwhere liberal politicians won’t
Monday, on the job, a multiracial group of young people went to visit our school’s Black Students Union to send the message that we embrace the spirit of multi-racial unity and solidarity against racism that Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber showed and paid for with their lives.  Spirited struggle between the strategy of multiracial unity and of ‘Black spaces’ in the fight against racism ensued among faculty and between students.  
A social gathering over Thanksgiving weekend expanded from a small dinner with neighbors to a larger event drawing together former students, current co-workers and family and was transformed into a part of our Progressive Labor Party response to the Rittenhouse verdict.  Our message and commitment to each other is simple—if you want to fight racism you are not, in fact, on your own.  The workers movement for an armed communist revolution is with you all the way.  This offensive strategy is our best defense.  Today’s racist killers and their liberal protectors will cower before the might of a new and antiracist state power.  
Kyle Rittenhouse is indeed a young man, little more than a boy who was led far astray by open racism and has now been protected by liberal fascism. He may well live to see communist state power.

For readers of CHALLENGE it is not uncommon to read reports of super exploitation and crisis in Haiti. Workers in Haiti have been faced with the daily violence of capitalism, mishandled natural disasters that keep them fighting for their lives, and mostly recently have been front page news as the latest target of racist border attacks. These reports, time and again, show a working class in Haiti and internationally amidst a continuous life-and-death struggle. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) is on the ground in Haiti and taking leadership from Black workers as we build class consciousness and a revolutionary spirit!
The government in Haiti is unable and unwilling to do anything to stop this current reign of terror. First,it is facing its own crisis: after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, political parties are in dissaray, vying for power and control. Second, and perhaps most important, this is how they’ve designed the system - one in which workers are  suppressed by a limited job market and skyrocketing price of living. Gasoline prices are off the charts, the pumps go dry from time to time, and truck drivers stage intermittent strikes in protest, effectively shutting everything down.
The primary goal of the capitalist system is to extract as much value as possible from the workers and the natural resources. Today, one of Haiti’s primary resources is its workers. They are forced to flee untenable conditions and become low-wage workers in surrounding countries in the Caribbean, or further afield in  Latin America, the U.S., Canada, and Europe. They become part of the migrant journey, perhaps the greatest migration of workers from the global south to the global north, fleeing war between capitalist rivals. They are fleeing unsustainable economies from the ravages of climate change and political instability, as various capitalist leaders exploit the migrants for their own political benefit.
Our Party in Haiti is immersing itself in the daily struggles of workers and students to try to make ends meet in an increasingly fragile situation.  As revolutionary communists we understand more and more that liberation from the ravages of capitalist exploitation demands an international working class army, in which Black worker leadership is key! Through our daily interactions, study groups and struggles, our comrades discuss with fellow workers  why these conditions exist, why there is such widespread inequality not only in Haiti, but in the region and the world as a whole, and the role of racism and sexism in keeping our class divided and disarmed.
We know that this disgusting system can be smashed!   That workers and students, under the leadership of PLP can change the world. Not for the few, but for the many. Our comrades always talk about building the masses’ confidence in the Party, and the Party’s confidence in the working class. This is not idle thought, but the basis of struggle and advancement in our strength as a class.
Our comrades’ commitment to struggle and building the Party is exemplary. Not that we do everything correctly all the time, but we are willing to analyze our situation as a “noyau” (core) of revolutionary organizing, evaluate the successes and mistakes, and always try to move forward. Workers’  lives in Haiti are as difficult as their neighbors but we are determined to fight and win. As comrades always say, “Join us!”

COLOMBIA—Buenaventura is a city on the shores of the Pacific Ocean with 400,000 inhabitants, of which 90% are Afro Colombians, 82% are in poverty (according to DANE data) and 42% in misery. It is the most important port in the country that generated in 2020, 14,356 million dollars of income. It is through this port that 70% of Colombia’s exports leave the country.
Before 1957, when this port belonged to the state, it had more than 10,000 dock workers, most of them Black workers. It is worth mentioning that in turn, in most of the coal mines on the Atlantic coast, in the salt mines throughout the country and in the sugar cane plantations, 100% of their workers are Black. After the privatization of the port, there are no more than 5,000 workers, despite the fact that the port terminals have been increased from one to thirteen. Through this port, all kinds of merchandise are imported and exported, from cocaine, arms, bananas and coffee, to trafficking displaced workers and children from different parts of the world.
Despite the fact that Buenaventura is irrigated by many rivers and is on the shore of the Pacific Ocean, more than 42% do not have drinking water. The paramilitary gangs and drug traffickers fight over the land, the landowners want to plant African palm and coca, and the owners of the ports say that “as long as the merchandise leaves and enters the port smoothly, the Black [workers] are worth nothing.” The mega cultivation of palm has become an alarming problem not only for Buenaventura but also for the rest of the Colombian territory. These mega-palm crops, apart from being cultivated by workers under terrible working conditions, imply the loss of tropical forests and their richness in biodiversity. They create large forest fires such as those generated in Indonesia in 1997. In addition, palm cultivation turns the territory into a “green desert”, drying up natural water tributaries and wetlands. Previous deforestation, together with the massive use of fertilizers and insecticides, cause serious pollution and a huge loss of biodiversity. Faced with this situation, workers in different cities have protested, denounced and boycotted companies that promote this criminal practice.
Capitalist try to strangle workers fightback with racist terror
Port workers had social benefits, health, pensions, study aid and vacations. Today they do not have any indefinite term contracts. They are paid for services, that is, they do not have any of the benefits they previously had. In Buenaventura, Black workers are deeply mistreated, murdered and disappeared, making this area one where displacement is daily. The workers have to go with their families to Cali, another nearby city where wealth is disputed between paramilitaries and arms and coca smugglers.
The dock workers have been an example of struggle and have inspired the rest of the social movement in the country. The last strikes that occurred in 2017, 2019, 2020 and the latter in 2021 (which was one of the longest and most massive) have been led by Black and indigenous workers. Despite more than 680 disappearances and the countless dismembered bodies that appear daily down the Cauca River, these workers continue to fight. Their enthusiasm will be lost if we do not organize them with the ideas of the Progressive Labor Party.
If we do not intertwine and understand the importance of Black workers in the working class and how they have been the basis for capitalist exploitation and oppression, we will continue to suffer these atrocities as we carry out struggles that will not offer us true liberation.
Black and indigenous workers are the ones who have suffered the consequences in the most stark and open way, since they are the ones who have the greatest disappearances and murders. Systematic racism is seen both in the United States and in Colombia and although mestizos also suffer the consequences of capitalism, it is Black workers who have fewer opportunities for study, work, and lower life rates compared to white Colombian workers.
We must fight to emphasize our political line by leading and bringing the CHALLENGE, organizing and offering the only possible hope for Black workers, indigenous, and the workers of the world. There may be a lot of struggle but as long as we do not organize with our line for the communist revolution, we will be delaying the struggle of the workers.