Washington, DC, June 8 — “ARAB, JEWISH, BLACK AND WHITE! WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!” chanted several dozen Progressive Labor Party (PLP) comrades and friends marching around the White House. We joined thousands of workers and students from around the U.S. gathering to form a “red line” demanding an end to genocide in Palestine. A busload of almost 40 PL’ers, students and friends from New York City joined comrades in Washington, DC and both raised internationalist communist politics and learned valuable lessons to carry the anti-imperialist class war forward.

With the confirmed death toll in Gaza exceeding 37,000, and the estimated numbers missing many tens of thousands higher, Israel, the  rabid, mad-dog, fascist, puppet state of the U.S., has stirred masses of youth and workers into action. The revolutionary communist PLP salutes the brave masses facing down riot police in daily protests against genocide, and we fight to unite the entire international working class to smash this entire imperialist system once and for all!

Learning to fight, fighting to learn

For the bus ride down, young Party comrades planned and led a study group on nationalism vs internationalism, based on the 1968 PLP text, Revolutionaries Must Fight Nationalism, whose lessons are just as relevant today. Millions of youth and workers are appalled at the Israeli fascist genocide. Meanwhile opportunist groups uncritically praise the armed resistance led by Hamas, attacking any criticism as “dividing the resistance.” As communists, theory and practice are inseparable — and it’s the opportunists who divide the working class by hiding capitalist ideas in nationalist and religious dressing.

The study group discussion was vigorous and disagreements were sharp, with every person participating and sharing their views. While there were mixed views on nationalism, sharp points about how nationalism has not actually liberated the working class came from several workers/students from Puerto Rico, Lebanon, Ireland, and the Dominican Republic among others. And, despite some disagreements on the question of nationalism, one student joined PLP and will continue struggling with us. Others agreed to join or consider joining regular Party study groups. Our fight to unite the working class for an armed revolution for workers’ dictatorship from NYC to Gaza continues!
PLP brings red line to “red line”

We arrived in D.C. to what was more of a festival than an actual protest. There were discussions about the massacres in Palestine and a people’s court. Hundreds of youth and workers held a symbolic “red line” made from fabric around the White House’s gates which had the names of workers murdered by Israel. We soon found out that police presence was low because march organizers had a permit for the action and there was a pride parade happening nearby (in fact anti-Genocide LGBTQ+ protestors who rallied next to the parade were some of the only protesters attaked by police that day). The main “red line” action seemed like a performance that complied with the capitalists' laws despite the angry mood of thousands willing to break them! Some of the organizers of the march even walked around asking people to sign a sheet to get candidates elected in the presidential campaign. 

After evaluating the situation, we decided to turn up the energy and bring our own political red line to the protestors. We led a march around the White House, which a crowd of protestors joined, encouraging those holding the red cloth to yell red chants. Throughout the day, we distributed 1,000 CHALLENGEs and over 1,100 leaflets calling to smash the genocide in Palestine with communist revolutions that will burn this system to the ground.

Comrades and friends debriefed on the day before departing back to NYC, and the consensus was our Party-led injection of militancy and energy into the protest was both necessary and well-received against the sedated, election-oriented event organizers. It also became clear that political disagreements on nationalism were unresolved among some of our friends. In particular, some students questioned if focusing on internationalism and anti-imperialism “de-centers” the legitimate aspirations of workers in Palestine for freedom. Essentially, their question was: how are we as communists engaging in the struggle against Israeli genocide?

“From the masses, to the masses”

Part of how the disagreement on the bus was handled reflects our task to sharpen our political skills and build a mass base for PLP. Self-critically, one of the things we could’ve done better was to first invite the students who came from the encampments to share their experiences fighting back in sharp antiracist struggle. These courageous students exemplify the militant student-worker unity that our Party fights for.  much to learn from. And we should emulate their bold struggles. We could’ve also presented our chants earlier on, discussed and provided clarity about why we do the chants that we do. 

At the same time, our Party’s line, shaped by six decades of sharp struggle, is an invincible revolutionary weapon in the hands of these students and the masses. PLP fights for internationalism because there is a class basis in international, working class solidarity. We oppose nationalism because we have the history proving that despite tremendous struggles like in Vietnam and South Africa, it’s a dead-end solution for the working class. Vietnam today is a global center for sweatshop factories, while South Africa’s African National Congress is in alliance with the same apartheid fascists the international working class waged a decades-long armed struggle against.

Communism is liberation

If we know that nationalism leads back to capitalism — and racism, sexism, and imperialism —  we must fight for liberation by opposing it! Capitalism is our enemy no matter the gender, skin color or religion of whatever politicians are the face of it.  than ever the working class is looking for actual solutions - not another fake “progressive” form of capitalism. 

That same day of the march, Israel committed another massacre killing 274 more of our class siblings at a refugee camp. Our task is to crush imperialism or it will keep crushing us. The imperialists are preparing to plunge the international working class into another World War for their profits. PLP’s solution is to organize the international working class to fight for a communist world that is run by and for the working class, where there are no genocides, wars or nations that divide us. PLP is a party for ALL youth and workers with antiracist, anti-sexist and anti-imperialist ideas — JOIN US!

Worldwide, the summer months are a time of training for Progressive Labor Party (PLP). As we gear up for a summer of learning, it’s helpful to reflect on past Summer Projects. The following article is a reprint from CHALLENGE in 1979.  

This issue, we look at the Tupelo Project of ’79.

Lessons include:

In the face of the KKK, neo-Nazis and racist capitalist government, we must be bold and have confidence in the working class to take the lead of communists.

Multiracial unity is our class’s weapon, and the bosses’ greatest fear.

To sustain our gains, we must grow the Party and train more Black, Latin, Asian, and white young people in leadership.

Significance of Mississippi

To many who remember the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, Mississippi symbolizes the most extreme racism, the most brutal murders of Black workers and antiracists, and the stronghold of the Ku Klux Klan.

For Progressive Labor Party, Mississippi signified a base for revolution among Black and white workers, spreading the ideas of multiracial unity and the fight for communist ideas in the South. Today, we celebrate the heroic struggle of the Tupelo Summer Project of ’79. About 100 communists and friends—Black, Latin, Asian, and white—took part in this struggle.

Though relatively small (population of 20,000), Tupelo was an industrial center with over 14,000 workers. The South was important to the U.S. ruling class as an industrial area because its carefully nurtured tradition of racism made it the citadel of low-wage, non-union labor, where the bosses could keep the working class divided and weak to extract extra profits.

The project showed that masses of white workers and students in Tupelo and throughout the South are winnable to antiracism.

Below is an edited excerpt from PL Magazine (Fall 1979) analyzing an aspect of the Tupelo Summer Project:

The great July demonstration

Sixty-five antiracist marchers, organized by Progressive Labor Party and its [then-mass organization] International Committee Against Racism (InCAR), were marching through the streets in Tupelo, Mississippi chanting, “Death to the Klan.”  
Shots rang through the air.

As the bullets grazed two marchers, a disciplined group of people, Black and white, rushed out of line, isolated the racist who wielded the gun, and beat him to the ground. In the fight that ensued with this Klansman, or Klan supporter, the antiracists broke his neck. While this was happening, the marchers, maintaining a tight discipline that won them the respect of Tupelo’s working class, continued the march. The marchers, encouraged by the friendly faces that lined the streets and by the workers who joined the march, were able to withstand the menacing threat of the Tupelo police, who aimed their cocked guns at them.

From the start, it was clear that the racist local rulers wanted to stop this march. A new ordinance was created by the city government banning sound devices (in response to successful PLP-led rallies in the past). The police and their flunkies systematically tore down posters in the housing projects, and a permit for the march was not granted until the very last minute.

As the march gathered in front of the courthouse, the bosses’ seat of power, a militant rally began, attracting a lot of people in the area who joined in chanting, “The cops, the courts, the Ku Klux Klan, all a part of the bosses’ plan.”

‘Before I was scared, now I’m mad’

Many militant workers in Tupelo have come to see InCAR as the main mass organization that can lead workers in the fight against racism and the resurgence of fascist groups like the Klan. One Black woman worker said, “Before I was scared, but now I’m mad.” This represents the feeling of many people here, that there is no longer the luxury to sit back and watch the ruling class and its flunkies hold power, that they have to get active and build a movement that has as its goal the destruction of the ruling class ideas of racism and fascism, and in the final analysis, the ruling class itself.

The political climate is changing rapidly in the South, and only groups like PLP are prepared to respond to the changes, give leadership, and organize the multiracial, antiracist fightback that is necessary to move workers to the left.

The United League, a Black reformist group, recently canceled a march scheduled for Okolona (a town not far from Tupelo) because its leader, Skip Robinson, essentially chickened out of the struggle. More and more people are realizing that UL's leadership cannot stand up to the rigors of the class struggle.

Workers put themselves on the line

Respect for PLP was growing in Tupelo. Two residents of Tupelo put up their houses as collateral so that our comrade could be bailed out of jail. When the two marchers who had been wounded were treated in the hospital, they were warmly received and treated by white doctors and other hospital workers. After the march stopped to rally, hundreds of Black workers surrounded the marchers to protect them from the cops (who would have been only too glad to be trigger happy).

This was the first time a racist had been beaten by an antiracist march in Tupelo. The leadership of the UL had always guaranteed the safety of the KKK and the cops by holding back the anger and hatred of Black workers in the fight to liberate themselves from the racism they faced every day. The bosses always think that they can destroy a workers’ movement by getting its leaders, but little do they know that leaders always spring up in the midst of struggle. There were many, many people right in Tupelo, and other cities North and South, and there still are today, who can develop as working-class leaders in the fight against racism and fascism, and they were and are being trained by Progressive Labor Party.
This was readily proven by the response not only of the marchers, in their determination to continue the march without being intimidated by the cops’ harassment, but also by the tremendous support of the local people. Over 200 copies of InCAR Arrow and CHALLENGE were sold, and four people joined InCAR on the spot. Another demonstration was planned on the spot.

The main lesson PLP learned in Tupelo, as everywhere, is to be bold. The bolder we were, the more seriously people took us and the more willing they were to respond to us. Workers understand that the system will come down hard when you try to fight it. They are also ready to understand that you only win on the offensive.

The struggle continues

Forty-five years later, workers are sharpening class struggle against both ultra-right racists and liberal centrists of our time. Even with disagreements over neo-Nazism and multicultural capitalism, both sides of the ruling class agree on the concept of capitalist dictatorship over us workers and working-class students. We cannot wait or vote for the bosses to hand us revolution. We must take and build the egalitarian world that our class needs, with the same militancy and unity as the multiracial fighters in Tupelo. 

To put our most recent practice of building against the genocide in Gaza, especially under fascist repression, to the test, we are taking the streets of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, July 15-19 during the Republican National Convention (RNC). Following this week of fightback, we will march with our left fists raised to the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago, Illinois, August 19-23. Until the ruling class’ ideas of racism and fascism are smashed to dust, we will not stop, we will not rest. Join us this summer to build the Progressive Labor Party in our fight for One World, One Party. Contact your local PL’er or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for more info!

Over 1,000 New York City high school students walked out of school to protest the U.S.-backed, Israeli genocide in Gaza. Composed of students from every borough in New York City, hundreds of young people rallied at the headquarters of the Department of Education to demand justice for their class siblings in Palestine. Brave high school students spoke out, connecting the fact that NYC has the largest, most segregated school district in the nation, the same anti-Muslim, racist system of apartheid that fuels mass murder in Palestine.

From Gaza to NYC worker-student fightback is key

A student from the Columbia University encampment also spoke of the police terror and rising fascism that young people are facing for their protests. From suspension and expulsion to brute police force, youth understand that the veneer of liberal democracy is crumbling. The ruling class has run out of arguments and reasonings—Joe Biden and his clique are falling back on naked violence to silence dissent. But it is despite this ruling-class terror that young people continue to risk and sacrifice in the name of multiracial and internationalist solidarity. Indeed, young people see themselves in the cause of Palestine: the genocidal destruction of worker’s futures in Gaza echoes the receding future that young people everywhere are experiencing as climate change, poverty, and escalating war rack the planet.

As courageous students put everything on the line in these protests, it is critical that they do not  succumb to cynicism. Nationalist misleaders are already attempting to hijack youth energy, diverting it into supporting the Palestinian ruling class. These nationalist elements are ready to sell out workers, to silence calls for revolution, and to accommodate a future occupation of Gaza on terms acceptable to Israel.

To liberate Palestine, nationalism must go

Against nationalist misleaders, Progressive Labor Party (PLP) was also at the high school rally fighting for internationalism. Educators of the Party stood with their students, distributed CHALLENGE, and continued to build a base for nothing less than communist revolution. The working class needs a party that unifies the entire working class and sustains revolutionary optimism. From all the rivers to all the seas—you too should join PLP to keep the fire of class struggle burning brightly from the Department of Education to Palestine, to Sudan, to Congo, to Haiti, to the ends of the earth.

Newark, NJ, June 5 - The Rutgers-Newark encampment was squashed by liberal university bosses in cahoots with Black nationalist misleader Mayor Ras Baraka. Although students and workers did not win their demands after 40 days of demonstrating, winning workers closer to the Party is a victory. To steel our minds and morale for inevitable fascist attacks, NJ school teachers within Progressive Labor Party (PLP) held a fiery teach-in on fascism at the encampment days before. 

With many workers and students one emergency away from homelessness and one ruling class conflict away from genocide, liberal misleaders are struggling to sell the idea of keeping capitalist democracy alive. Despite well-intentioned words and reforms,  liberal misleaders are marching our class into the hands of fascism and World War III. To reverse and smash this plan, workers, students, and soldiers must channel mass fightback into a single internationalist fight for communism. Only a united multiracial, multi-gendered, multigenerational working class of millions organized under the red banner of a communist Party—PLP—can smash this genocidal system for all time.

From the masses to the masses: learning to identify fascism to smash it

The PLP-led teach-in began with questions from two dozen multiracial, working class fighters. How is fascism connected to Newark? What does fascism look like in schools? Afterward, we read a May Day speech from a Brooklyn-based PLer who was reprimanded by the school administration for encouraging his students to fightback against the genocide in Gaza. PLers mobilized students and teachers against the bosses who violently forced him to stop teaching. He won his job back.

The shared working class wisdom revealed the following: What we associate with fascism, be it violent racist, sexist, or anti-working class tendencies within our families, neighborhoods, or workplaces, is always linked with the competition of ruling bosses across nations. For example, a principal firing a teacher for encouraging students to take a stance against the genocide in Gaza is acting on behalf of U.S. bosses. We discussed how the popular conception of fascism as attacks from the far-right on progressives is just the tip of the iceberg. Fascism involves a larger process of class warfare responding to the changing conditions of capitalism. 

Our collective conclusions were put to the test in determining Mayor Ras Baraka’s roles. Two older workers argued Baraka was not fascist because he implemented reformist initiatives, including temporary shelters for some unhoused workers. In response, a Black community member revealed those small deeds didn’t change Newark’s economic apartheid. Baraka is allowing a division to grow between Black and Latin workers facing evictions and the more stable base of multicultural workers for capital being used to replace and isolate them. A high school student brought the teach-in home by declaring: “Ras and these people are still participants in a fascist system and cannot ultimately avoid having to play their role in developing fascism when it is needed.”

Fascist Baraka shows himself

Days later, antiracist fighters woke up to a blaring bullhorn, warning demonstrators to clear the encampment or face arrest. While most of the city was home asleep, Newark PD mobilized to close off all traffic surrounding the encampment so that the Rutgers PD could move in. PLers met campers at nearby Harriet Tubman Park, where many young people started to see the role that Baraka plays for the ruling class. Some took to social media to blast the Mayor. Baraka distanced himself and the Newark PD from the incident, but the fighting workers and students shot back with photos and videos of Newark PD on the encampment clearing them out. 

As the Black community worker expressed in the teach-in, this isn’t about one person. If it isn’t Baraka, it would be someone else. These encampments are teaching the working class lessons about internationalism and multiracial unity as anecdotes against fascism, be it from a liberal or outright racist. The danger of the Trump-led racist and sexist movement is real, but the attacks from the liberal wing of the U.S. ruling class (the Big Fascists) exposed their willingness to be servants to ruling class bosses when capital is on the line. 

As comrades reflect on this teach-in and the end of the Rutgers encampment, we are reminded that what we do counts. Only by fighting alongside the students and workers at the encampment and within our schools were we able to have a great turnout and enthusiasm at the teach-in. Several of our friends advanced their political understanding as a result of not only seeing the need for internationalism and multiracial unity but also a communist, internationalist party to keep up the fight. The quantity of these efforts qualitatively advances the fight for communism.