The following is an excerpt of the speech that’ll be given on May Day in Flatbush, Brooklyn on April 29.
Happy May Day to the international working class!
May Day is that day! The working class’s international holiday. It’s the day when workers from across the globe commemorate our triumphs, propelled by a vision of a world without capitalist exploitation and borders, run by the working class.
On May Day Progressive Labor Party (PLP) gathers its forces under one flag, the red flag, of communist revolution.
A communist society means one that is run by the working class and serves the working class–free of money, wages, bosses, and exploitation.
May Day is that day! The day in the year when we remember, celebrate, re-dedicate and affirm our determination to fight for a world full of potential. A world where our children can grow up and bask in creativity and curiosity, but most of all to be fighters in a world where they look out for each other. A world where workers are fed, housed, challenged, and loved, that world is communism.
This rotten, decaying, vile system of capitalism that we currently live under does its very best to pit workers against each other. Ultimately leading us to choose sides in their wars for profit. We can’t let the bosses win. We must unite to smash imperialist war with communist revolution. May Day is that day!
Capitalism in crisis
Since last May Day, it’s been another year of mass attacks on our class. The imperialists ruling the U.S, Russia and China are firing what could be the opening shots of World War III, and preparing our working class youth to be food for their missiles.
If you’re in Ukraine, the bosses tell you workers in Russia are responsible for the war. If you’re in Russia, the bosses tell you workers in Ukraine are responsible for the war.
All while the U.S. Media ignores the thousands of Black and Brown children slaughtered in Yemen and Africa during recent wars. As in all imperialist wars, workers have no side in these conflicts. We have no class interest in fighting and dying for the capitalist rulers.
As these imperialist rulers hoard resources to prepare for their next global conflict, workers’ health and safety will suffer. To get workers to passively accept more disasters like the floods in Pakistan and Mississippi, and agree to fight in World War III, the capitalist bosses will need increasing fascist repression.
Fascism is capitalism in crisis in preparation for world war. When the bosses’ profit system starts breaking down, they become desperate to keep it afloat—at all costs.
It’s capitalism that’s driving the rise in homelessness and the epidemic of mental health problems. It’s capitalism that’s forcing millions around the world to flee their homes in the face of war and deadly poverty. The liberal rulers can’t reform their way out of these disasters; their system creates them in the first place.
Liberal politicians use the fear of Trump to scare the working class into looking the other way as migrant workers and the homeless are terrorized. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and her fake-left Squad railed against Trump for ripping children from their parents’ arms and putting them in cages in Texas. Now these so-called progressives sit on their hands as Biden does the same as Trump and worse. If we let them get away with these outrages today, tomorrow they’ll be targeting the rest of our class.
“Lesser evilism,” the idea that some bosses are less racist, less sexist, or less profit-driven than others, is a literal “dead end.” It’s under a democratic president and a Black mayor that 16 year old Ralph Yarl was shot for ringing the wrong doorbell.
Under the leadership of Progressive Labor Party, the international working class must turn the guns around and seize state power. Only then can we guarantee that the work that we do, let me say that again, only then can we guarantee that the work that WE DO serves workers’ needs.
Celebrate!
We salute workers across the U.S. who took to the streets to fight back against the police murder of Tyre Nichols in Memphis. We stand in solidarity with Tyre’s family and countless names of workers slain by this murderous system. Another heartbreaking death in a city with a Black-led democratic ruling class. Proving once again the shallowness of identity politics that bosses use as a tool to divide us and that reforms don’t work. We don’t need more Black cops, mayors, or governors, we need a world run by workers!
Over and again, we see workers saving workers. In Pakistan, workers risked their lives by wading through toxic, deadly flood waters to distribute vital donations.
In Turkey and Syria, thousands of workers and youth are breaking through the border to help other workers after the earthquakes.
Fight for communism
All of these efforts are courageous and essential. But ultimately, they will be futile if we fail to understand that we can save ourselves and our class only by smashing capitalism, the root of all these problems.
Earthquakes will keep happening under communism. But when the working class gains state power, and enforces strict rules for development and building safety, the human toll of these disasters will be far less.
By working together and sharing resources, liberated from the divisions of private property and wage slavery, workers will create a safer, freer world.
We salute comrades fighting back!
Fight like our comrades at Kingsborough Community College who after being attacked by racist campus police bravely led many militant multi-racial marchers through campus forcing those very same cops to shut the campus down.
Fight like our comrades who are fed up with NYC bosses' attempts to cut retired workers' health care benefits.
Fight like transit workers in D.C and Virginia against cuts to benefits and unequal wages.
Fight like our comrade-teacher in Jersey who was fired for encouraging his students to be militant in the face of racism.
Fight like Carolyn, a lifelong party member who dedicated her life to serving the working class—fighting the KKK in Tupelo, spending the last week of her life volunteering at a soup kitchen, showing up at the courthouse to support the family of Raymond Chaluisant, a young worker murdered by a NYC corrections kkkop.
These fightbacks are the bright spots we look to because here, the Progressive Labor Party is active! Here, workers and youth are being won to the only answer to the attacks of capitalism—communism.
Rededicate & Affirm
Today’s struggles where the party is active and winning our class to the fight for communism are the seed-bed for tomorrow’s participation in mass struggles.
Under capitalism, buildings sit empty while millions are homeless. Food is thrown away as people starve.
The education, healthcare, and transportation systems are failing. A system that cannot feed, shelter, educate, or cure does not deserve to exist.
Under communism, all production will be organized through a communist party to serve the needs of the working class. There will be no profits, no money— and no bloodsucking bosses. Without money to warp our priorities, everybody will be valued. Everyone will be helped to find ways to contribute. The time has come for the working class to say “Enough!” The time to fight for communism is now.
PLP is growing and developing the next generation of leadership. Our international working class needs to build the Red Army that will destroy this entire capitalist hellscape once and for all! We want all of you to join us! May Day is that day! Today is that day!
