American Party of Labor

The American Party of Labor is an American anti-revisionist Marxist–Leninist communist party founded in 2008. The party aims to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat and a commonly owned publicly planned economy for the future goal of a communist society in the United States.

History

The American Party of Labor traces its origin to the activities of the former leader of the Communist Party USA, William Z. Foster, the American communist Jack Shulman, and the British Marxist–Leninist Bill Bland. Members of the American Party of Labor had previously been active in Alliance Marxist–Leninist and International Struggle Marxist–Leninist, two organizations founded by Shulman and Bland. The party sees itself as continuing the work of Foster, Shulman, and Bland.

The APL maintains friendly relations with many foreign communist parties in the International Conference of Marxist–Leninist Parties and Organizations. In November 2018, the XXIV Plenary of the International Conference of Marxist–Leninist Parties and Organizations granted the APL Observer status in that organization.

Activities

The APL's main lines of activity include:

* Maintaining Community solidarity projects such as Red Aid, through which the party provides workers in need with food, clothing, sanitary masks and other forms of social assistance.
* Organizing and participating in protests, such as the 2013 protest against Golden Dawn in Chicago, the protest against Donald Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention, the 2016 solidarity protest of the Sioux Native Americans who are affected by the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the 2019 protest outside presidential candidate Cory Booker's fundraising event, in which John Lisowski of the APL reportedly " tailed the war criminal background of Elliott Abrams who over saw the U.S. support for death squads in Central American in the 80s and was convicted for criminal contempt of U.S. Congress and is now coordinating the U.S. operations against Venezuela."
* Taking part in emergency community events like the Conference to Refound the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression in Chicago, Illinois, which took place in November 2019.
* Supporting anti-war coalitions such as the "Hands Off Venezuela - N.J." coalition, which calls for an end to the risk of U.S. intervention in Venezuela, signing the 2016 U.S. Hands Off Syria Coalition unity statement, and supporting the 2019 march on wall street.
* Attending and publicizing events such as the 2014 Chicago forum meeting on the United States' role in Ukraine labeled "fascists attempt disruption", and the XXI, XXII, and XXIII International Seminars on the Problems of the Revolution in Latin America in Quito, Ecuador, which were hosted by the Marxist–Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador in 2018 and 2019.
* Supporting worker strikes directly and in articles such as those published by trade union organizer and APL member Bobby Gallagher endorsing worker actions including the Michigan Kellogs's strike and unionization attempts made by workers at 3 Starbucks stores in Buffalo, New York. In a later article from 2022, he condemned the decision by the Youngstown State University to conduct budget cuts, accusing them of causing the loss of 9 full-time faculty and 26 programs, he also cited a statement by Susan Clutter, president of YSUOEA, the union representing the faculty, that implied several faculty members were dismissed due to their key positions in contract negotiations, as well as strikes in 2020. He also endorsed the December 1, 2021 Students and staff protests that followed the decision.
* Participating in labor coalitions like the IWW's "Radical coalition" and taking part in activities like the coalition's 2015 protest, where the APL participated in a protest which included the Chicago Socialist Party, Pilsen Food Not Bombs, Feminist Uprising Resisting Inequality and Exploitation, Chicago Torture Justice Memorial, Black Lives Matter Chicago, Moratorium on Deportations, Semillas Autonomas and the Gay Liberation Network.

Publications

The current party newspaper, ''The Red Phoenix'', publishes articles concerning contemporary political-economic issues alongside theoretical and historical topics. Sometimes, The Red Phoenix exchanges articles with other fraternal organizations, translating their articles to English and publishing them and having its articles translated and published by them as well.

The Red Phoenix allows workers across the country and across political tendency (including non-party members) to send in article submissions, to report on contemporary issues of the working class.

From 2010–2012, the American Party of Labor published the ''Revolutionary Spirit'', a Marxist-Leninist theoretical journal, which contained writings of Marxist classics, translations of contemporary Marxist-Leninist theory, and original essays.

Political platform

The main points of the American Party of Labor's political platform are:

Economic and social demands

* Expropriation of all means of production to the working-class through socialist state ownership, with guaranteed worker's rights to organize, benefits, and free speech in the workplace.
* A universal basic income and an inflation-indexed living wage, with a maximum ratio of 10:1, an increase of pensions to 75% of a person's pay at retirement.
* Ensuring the right of women and LGBTQ+ people to enter any occupation without discrimination with equal pay for equal work, a 30-hour work week, and at least six weeks of annual paid vacation.
* Abolishing the pornography industry, sex trafficking, and copyright laws.
* State funding for construction of public housing, renovations, and remodeling projects while ending home foreclosures, public housing cuts, 'slum-lording'.
* Full reproductive rights for women, ensuring access to a cost-free, harassment-free, and safe abortion with a minimum of 12 months paid leave for new parents and guardians of infants with access to fully-funded and quality childcare centers.
* Establishing a national healthcare system that will cover all Americans, emphasizing preventative care and education.
* Free rehabilitative care for drug addiction through proven medical treatments.
* Full nationalization of the pharmaceutical industry and government research of currently incurable diseases.
* Making all educational institutions available as centers for the exhibition of progressive American culture.
* Ensuring that art reflects the struggles and achievements of the working class.
* Abolishing private education and guaranteeing equal free education at all levels for all people by transferring all education to the hands of the community and state, with student-parent-teacher controlled committees to handle the development of curricula and the election of school administrators, while enforcing Secular and scientific education and the abolition of school religious institutions, anti-socialist agitation, prayer, creationism, and abstinence-only sex education.
Domestic policy demands
* An end to all discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in all spheres of society.
* State-enforced end to violence based on race, ethnicity, religion, age, physical condition, sex or sexual identity and/or orientation.
* Abolition of all emergency powers, mass surveillance programs, the Patriot Act, the Espionage Act, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Agency.
* Ending Deportation and removal from the United States, deportations and amnesty for undocumented workers and the release of all Political prisoner, political prisoners.
* The right of self-determination for all nations within the borders of the U.S., up to and including the right of secession.
* Ending practices such as Penal labour, prison slavery, Solitary confinement in the United States, solitary confinement, legal and physical attacks on activists.

Foreign policy demands

* Withdrawal from North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, Dominican Republic–Central America Free Trade Agreement, DR-CAFTA, and all other free trade agreements alongside withdrawal from the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organization, and NATO.
* Ending the deployment of military forces on the U.S.-Mexican border, the United States embargo against Cuba, U.S. embargo on Cuba, the Guantánamo Bay#U.S. control of Guantánamo Bay, occupation of Guantanamo, and the United States Forces Korea, deployment of forces on the Korean Peninsula, Korean peninsula.
* Cessation of military and financial aid to the governments of the Philippines, Colombia, and what they termed "the Zionism, Zionist entity of Israel", while establishing friendly relationships with countries like Cuba, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, and signing a peace treaty with the North Korea, DPRK.

References

Further reading

Vaughn, Victor. "Category Archives: American Party of Labor" series, Espresso Stalinist

Foster, William Z. History of the Communist Party of the United States. International Publishers, New York. January 1, 1952.

Revolutionary Spirit. Theoretical Journal of the American Party of Labor.

External links

The Red Phoenix, official party newspaper

{{United States political parties

Communism in the United States
William Z. Foster
Anti-revisionist organizations
Stalinist parties
Hoxhaist parties in the United States
International Conference of Marxist–Leninist Parties and Organizations (Unity & Struggle)
Communist parties in the United States
Political parties established in 2008
Political parties in the United States
Hoxhaist parties