In July of 1877, workers in the United States, led by railroad strikers in Pittsburgh, showed the power of a militant, armed working class. That year, the U.S. was shaken by massive rebellions sparked when the railroad bosses cut the rail workers’ wages by 10 percent for the fourth time since 1873. The Panic of 1873 had started a depression that was devastating workers all across the country. That’s capitalism at work. It’s a constant stream of depressions, recessions, wars, climate disasters, and now a worldwide pandemic. Truly we have to get rid of this system that only benefits the capitalists.
With the fourth cut in their wages, workers in major rail centers in 16 of the then 38 states went on strike, first in West Virginia, then spreading through the country like wildfire. In Pittsburgh, the fightback took a new turn. The workers took up arms against the bosses’ troops. The local militia refused to fire upon the workers and even the local cops refused. Many other workers joined the striking and protesting railroad workers. Men from the local militia and even some cops joined the protests.
When the workers in Pittsburgh first struck, they took possession of all the main rail switches leading in and out of Pittsburgh. Rail traffic, except for passenger and mail service, was shut tight. When the Pennsylvania Railroad bosses realized that the Pittsburgh police could not do anything to stop this, and that the militia would not do anything, they decided to bring in “crack” troops from Philadelphia, at the other end of the state of Pennsylvania.
The troops from Philadelphia came to Pittsburgh and within a matter of hours they shot down 20 workers, some at the 28th Street crossing, where thousands of men, women, and children were gathered.
With this, the anger of the working class increased. Thousands of workers from all major industries in the city joined the rail workers and together they formed an army of 4,000 armed workers. This army included white workers, Black workers, and workers from dozens of countries. They were young and old, men and women. They trapped the Philadelphia troops in the locomotive roundhouse and held them there all night. Then by setting the building on fire, they smoked them out and ran them 20 miles out of the city.
For four days afterwards, the working class fought the bosses, controlling many parts of the city. They took over the telegraph station and ran passenger and mail trains. They destroyed over 100 locomotives, about 50 passenger cars and over 1,200 freight cars. They ransacked gun shops and a gun factory for weapons. Eventually, the U.S. government sent over 10,000 state and federal troops to regain control of the city.
This strike and insurrection led to more militant strikes that won some reforms for workers. In particular, by the end of the 19th century many workers had won the eight hour day, instead of working 10 to 12 hours six days a week. Yet here we are in 2021 and many workers are again working long hours for little pay. And racism, sexism, wars for profit, gross inequality and now a worldwide pandemic ravage the world. We have to keep fighting.
In Progressive Labor Party (PLP), we say that what the working class needs to rid ourselves of this bosses’ system is revolution. The PLP marched in Pittsburgh on July 23, 1977, the 100th anniversary of the Pittsburgh Commune. We did so not only to commemorate that valiant struggle, but to tell the workers of Pittsburgh that what they did in 1877 must be done again and again and again, until the bosses and their system of death is destroyed, and a system of communism is built.
Next time, we must not stop at taking a few of the bosses’ cities, but we must fight to smash their whole damn system and establish communism—a society run by and for the working class.J
Sources:Challenge-Desafio, May 19, 1977, p. 5; Walter Linder, “The National Railroad Strikes of 1877,’ 3 parts. SOC Newsletter; PLP, The Pittsburgh Insurrection and Railroad Strike of 1877, June 1977. This booklet has a bibliography of 17 entries.

July 13, 2021 was the 10th anniversary of the death of Milt Rosen, founding chairperson of Progressive Labor Party (PLP or PL). He served our organization and the working class in that capacity until 1995. The following is excerpted from the obituary that appeared in CHALLENGE August 3, 2011.

Sparked by Milt early on, PL exposed both counter-revolutionary revisionism and “revolutionary” nationalism as death traps of worker-boss unity. It indicted the state capitalists of the Soviet Union as far back as 1966, and then broke with the ones ruling the People’s Republic of China. Those failed revolutions led PL to advance beyond Marx’s two-stage theory that socialism was a first step toward communism; history had shown that socialism inevitably led back to the exploitation of capitalism. And unlike any other group on the landscape, the Party emphasized the importance of the fight against racism as a basic communist principle, not a mere tactic.
Milt’s first brush with the enormous power of communist ideas came as a 17-year-old soldier (he had lied about his age) in Italy in World War II.
In one of its first mass activities, PLM (Progressive Labor Movement - precursor to PLP) stood behind 500 wildcatting, armed coal miners in Hazard, Kentucky, who were locked in an all-out war with the coal barons to win decent conditions and wages.
On May 2, 1964, under PLM’s leadership, the first major demonstrations against the Vietnam War were staged in cities around the country.
Following the massive Washington anti-war rally in the spring of 1965, Milt saw that Students for A Democratic Society (SDS) had grown into the center of radical student politics. From 1966 to 1968, PL would do its largest-scale political organizing among students.
After stepping down as Party chair and before becoming too ill to function, Milt continued to make vital contributions to PL and the international movement. Among his most significant lessons was the need to understand the character of our historical period. Shortly after the events of 9/11, he spoke of how he’d underestimated the impact of the old communist movement’s demise, and how far it has set back the class struggle. This failing, he pointed out, could lead to one of two devastating errors: false optimism or despair over the formidable difficulties in building a mass communist party. Milt’s self-criticism reminded us that the old movement’s defeat may have left us in a “dark night,” but the working class has lived and fought through dark nights before.
While the end of the old movement was the worst setback we’ve ever suffered, it isn’t the end of history. It’s not the end of class struggle. Our Party exists all over the world, and small though it may be, it is growing. With words and by example, Milt taught the vital importance of a long-term outlook. More clearly than most, he knew there were no shortcuts to revolution. He embraced it as the commitment of a lifetime.
 More than anything, he taught us never to give up.

Sandy was a winner
I was saddened to read about the death of comrade Sandy Spiers. Unfortunately I didn't manage to contribute to the recent Zoom memorial in her honor. I first met Sandy when she lived in Minneapolis where she joined Progressive Labor Party and I was helping to organize for the Party in the Midwest some 40 odd years ago. It was mid-winter and Sandy took me out to the university campus to sell CHALLENGE.
Being a Brooklynite, I was not exactly used to sub-zero temperature but Sandy told me it was standard operating procedure for the Minneapolis comrades. She instructed me how to snip off three of the ends of our gloves to be able to grasp the paper and still keep the rest of our hands "warm" as we hawked CHALLENGE.
Sandy was a winner! A truly inspiring comrade, fighting for communism.
*****
Radio red tackles state capitalists and “communists”
On a radio talk show with guest speakers talking about the protests in Cuba and Haiti I expressed a view that the latest capitalist crisis was behind the numerous worker revolts worldwide. I also said the so-called “communist” countries like Cuba which spends billions on luxury tourist hotels while workers suffer lack of housing, apartheid vaccines and poverty and China which has the most billionaires and unreported worker rebellions are not unlike Haiti where workers are unemployed and starving because of capitalism. I concluded that workers need a real communist revolution to end capitalist inequality, poverty, racism, sexism and endless wars.
Then one of the speakers referred to me saying, “Comrade Joe should realize that criticizing the Cuban government lumps him with U.S. imperialists who are trying to destroy the Cuban revolution.” That same speaker’s counter-revolutionary criticism could be brought against comrades who criticize the Palestine Liberation Organization as really supporters of Israel in Palestine or brought against criticizing the billionaire class in “communist” China. All of these criticisms are part of historic capitalist attacks on real communists who first opposed capitalist wage differentials and privileges in the Soviet Union which eventually destroyed their attempt to end the capitalist profit system.
Comrades need to continue to expose phony socialist state capitalists and “communists” who put profits before people's lives. Workers must educate and advocate for real communism that can destroy capitalism’s profit horrors.
*****
Response: excellent, but don’t use “riot”
The two articles on the Newark Summer Project in CHALLENGE (7/21 and 8/4) were excellent,  especially the second article on pages 1 and 8 of CHALLENGE of 8/4) . On page 8 of the 2nd article under the subhead “Criticism as Opportunity for Progress,” the article points to several aspects of the Summer Project that need improvement.  This is excellent!
This is how we will prevent ourselves and our Party from becoming the "loyal opposition" as opposed to the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) that we have been since 1965.  Our newer members are the ones who will carry on the struggle in the near and distant future.  It is crucial that our newer comrades understand the difficulties that they will face AND that the only way to NOT fall prey to capitalist ideas and practices is through criticism and self-criticism ALONG WITH revolutionary practice with our co-workers and our base.
One small point:  In the first article there is a quote from a speaker who said that the: "Main legacy of the civil rights movement and those riots ... " [emphasis added]  The Black rebellions during the1960s were rebellions,  NOT riots.  It is important to explain to workers the significance of the difference.  In fact,  the Progressive Labor Movement  in 1964 [which became the PLP] was the ONLY organization using the word rebellion to describe these fightbacks.

The July 7 assassination of Jovenel Moise ended his contested term as Haitian president and escalated an open battle for power—and riches—among Haiti’s capitalist bosses. Meanwhile, the U.S. and its allies are dictating who will be in charge as they compete with rival Chinese imperialists for future control over the Caribbean region, the historical U.S. “backyard.”
Haiti is a clear example of the fraud of “democracy” under the profit system. The country’s centuries of misrule and misleadership expose the fact that all forms of capitalist government—military dictatorships, “democratically” elected politicians, coups d’etat by the latest faction of insurgents—are dictatorships of the capitalist ruling class. Every government in the world today is built to serve the bosses’ need for maximum profit. The lives of workers mean nothing to them; we are brutalized and exploited in every nation on Earth. There is only one alternative that will change basic conditions for our class: a communist revolution to smash capitalism and create a new society run by and for the international working class.
The first great blow against slavery
In 1791, Haiti showed the way with a mass insurrection that ended slavery and struck fear in the heart of the bourgeoisie around the globe. Ever since, workers in Haiti have been under severe attack by local bosses and U.S. imperialists who saw their interests threatened. And ever since, those workers have kept fighting back! (see Haiti timeline, page 4)
The reality of Haiti today is that workers are struggling to eat and breathe while under the thumb of the capitalists. While Haitian politicians live the good life in their mansions in suburban Petionville, more than 80 percent of the impoverished working class lives on less than two dollars (U.S.) per day. Hundreds of thousands of people left homeless by the 2010 earthquake still lack safe drinking water (In These Times, 1/12/20).
The decaying U.S. ruling class and the rotting liberal world order have played major roles in these atrocities, notably under the blood-soaked Clintons and the Obama-Biden administration. In 1994, after decades of U.S. support for the criminal Duvalier gang, Bill Clinton ordered an invasion of Haiti to save the presidency of the pro-U.S. Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Although Aristide promised a kinder gentler capitalism–lifting workers out of poverty with labor and education reforms and bringing corrupt businesses to heel–she proved ineffective and was ousted.(Boston Globe, 1/12/04). By the end of Aristide’s presidency in 2004, he left a trail of misery and corruption (The Week, 2/8/15), further enriching Haiti’s ruling class, and lining his own pockets with hundreds of millions dollars earned through bribes from cocaine trafficking (Associated Press, 2/25/04). Then, after an earthquake struck Haiti in 2010, the Obama-Biden administration and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation exploited the deaths of over 200,000 people to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars into the hands of U.S. corporations and the military while the working class starved (In These Times, 1/12/20). If anything, the situation for the working class in Haiti is worse than in 1994 (Time, 9/24/19).
Democracy is capitalist dictatorship
The competition to succeed Moise is a fight among different sets of bosses for the opportunity to exploit the working class for their own gain. Democracy offers the false promise that workers can have some control over society, but under capitalism there can be no such thing. Democracy has been a continual disaster for the working class around the world. Ultimately democracy  is a tool the bosses use to settle their differences, legitamize the brutality of their system, and dupe workers into believing they are choosing leaders to represent them.
The horrific material conditions for workers in Haiti are the direct impact of imperialist exploitation by the two original modern democracies, France and the U.S. The elections, the courts, and the entire political structure in Haiti is controlled by a small group of wealthy business people who use gun-wielding gangs to contest for dominance (Just Security, 7/9).
Workers of Haiti also have a long and proud history of bold, class-conscious fightback. In 1956, workers in Haiti staged a general strike that forced the removal of a U.S.-backed general, Paul Eugène Magloire. The U.S. then installed the mass-murdering Duvaliers, Papa Doc and Baby Doc, until Baby Doc was ousted by a mass rebellion in 1986. General strikes followed in 1997 and 2004.
The Haitian and U.S. ruling classes have joined to attack any uprising and to crush communist movements in Haiti. But they haven’t won, because the fightback continues! Progressive Labor Party keeps growing in Haiti, attracting workers who reject the dead ends of reformism and nationalism and have come to see revolution as the only solution.
Imperialist fighting in the Caribbean
Though Haiti has been mostly run by the U.S. ruling class for the last 100 years, the Chinese bosses recently have made inroads in the region: “China has poured billions of dollars of investment into the Caribbean while signing tax and trade deals in an attempt to wrest the region out of the West's sphere of influence and bring it under the sway of Beijing” (Daily Mail, 9/23/20).
In 2018, the Chinese ruling class persuaded the capitalist bosses in the Dominican Republic to go against the U.S. rulers and drop their recognition of Taiwan in favor of relations with the Chinese rulers. The U.S. had stuck with the unpopular Moise even as the country broke down because his ruling clique had generally advanced U.S. interests (New York Times, 7/19). Not long before Moise was killed, his administration acted as a U.S. proxy in attacking Venezuela at the United Nations (El Pais, 7/8).
While it is still unclear what forces were behind the assassination, it is clear that the current chaos has surfaced in the context of the U.S. bosses’ desperate struggle to hold onto control of the country and the region.
Communism is the only way forward
In recent years, the militant fightback of the working class in Haiti has been mostly diverted by the bosses into support of various capitalist opposition groups. But the fact remains that capitalism, whether it’s installed by elections or a junta, has been devastating for workers. The working class in Haiti has been an inspiration for 230 years. Their militancy and refusal to stop fighting has set an example for our entire class.
At the same time, the lesson of liberal class traitors like Aristide is that we must move beyond the limits of capitalism and fight for workers’ power with communist revolution. Replacing one capitalist for another will get us nowhere. We have no need for bosses of any kind. We have nothing to lose but our chains!

*****

U.S. and European imperialists exploit workers in Haiti for 500 years

The extreme poverty faced by workers in Haiti and the instability of the country as a whole is not coincidental. Chattel slavery and imperialism have made sure of it (see editorial on page 2):
1492 — Columbus lands and claims the whole island of Hispaniola for Spain. In the ensuing years, the indigenous population was nearly completely wiped out by disease, enslavement, and murder.
1664 — France takes control of the western part of the island and starts importing slaves in 1670. Slave insurrections were frequent. Some slaves escaped to the mountains and joined the few remaining indigenous people.
1791 — A slave revolt sets off the inspirational Haitian Revolution, the first time slaves overthrew slaveholders and took power. These former slaves establish a government, and U.S. and European imperialist powers are terrified of the potential spread of slave revolts and revolutions.
1802 — Napoleon sends a massive invasion force, including 40,000 troops from other European countries. France gains control of part of Haiti and tries to reestablish slavery, but is defeated after a brutal war that killed tens of thousands of workers in Haiti and ended with over 30,000 French and European troops dead. Poland’s military force refused to fight; about 100 joined the workers of Haiti. Afterwards, the Polish workers were the only Europeans allowed to remain in the country.
1804-1825 — France, Britain, and the U.S. impose a crippling embargo, destroying Haiti’s economy and forcing Haiti’s government to pay 90 million gold francs to France as compensation for “lost property,”—the freed slaves. The government is forced to take out high-interest loans from U.S. banks, hobbling the country with debt until 1947.
1915-1934 — At the request of U.S. banks holding Haiti’s debt U.S., Marines invade to prevent Germany from establishing a naval base. The Marines dissolve Haiti’s government. The U.S. State Department writes a new constitution, eliminating the prohibition on foreign ownership of land. When Haiti’s parliament refuses to ratify the new constitution, the Marines dissolve the parliament and enact the State Department’s constitution through a rigged election limited to five percent of the population.
1934-1947 — The Marines leave but the U.S. retains control of Haiti’s finances.
1956-1986 — The Duvalier dictatorships are backed by the U.S. to defeat a strong communist movement.
1991-1994 — A military coup removing Jean-Bertrand Aristide from power triggers sanctions by the U.S. and the Organization of American States. U.S. and UN troops then invade and occupy Haiti, initially to reinstall Aristide.
2010 — A devastating earthquake destroys much of Port-au-Prince and kills 300,000. This is used as an excuse for the UN, the U.S., and the Clinton Foundation to resume control over the country in the name of “security” and “rebuilding.”
2012 —  Hundreds protest against the high cost of living and call for the resignation of President Martelly. They accuse the president of corruption and failure to deliver on his promises to alleviate poverty.
2017 — The Provisional Electoral Council declares Jovenel Moise the winner of the November 2016 presidential election ending a political crisis which began in October 2015 over allegations of electoral fraud.
2019 —At least four people are killed and dozens injured in nationwide anti-corruption protests against President Moise and other officials (see page 6).

*****

Brooklyn: solidarity with workers in Haiti
Brooklyn, NY, July 16—“What you are saying is right, we don’t need more of the same bloodsuckers in Haiti anymore!” These were some of the responses as people stopped to chat with Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members and friends today in the center of the working-class Haitian community here as we rallied in support of the struggle of workers and students in Haiti. Selling CHALLENGE  to passersby, we held signs in Haitian Creole, distributed leaflets in Creole and English, and spoke on the bullhorn in English and Creole about the struggle that has been going on against the misery and corruption created by the racist capitalist system (see editorial, page 2 ). And we linked the struggle in Haiti to the struggle of workers and students from Palestine to Colombia to Brooklyn.
We noted that the assassination of the Haitian president will not bring about any changes to the daily life of workers. All the usual criminals are vying for power, and the U.S. bosses are directing the show. The conditions of mass unemployment, hunger, need for clean water and decent housing and medical care, not to mention education—all these attacks on workers will not end until capitalism is overthrown and an egalitarian communist society is born, in Haiti and everywhere around the world.
We invite the workers in this Brooklyn neighborhood to join the struggle of the international working class. In fact, our PLP comrades in Haiti, when they learned about this small act of solidarity, and read the leaflet and the signs, said, “This is not a small action, it is big because it shows us that we are not alone in the struggle. It inspires us to continue the fight, to grow and recruit to PLP.”