Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members joined comrades, family, friends, coworkers and neighbors to celebrate May Day, International Workers’ Day in the San Francisco Bay Area. We attended marches in SF and Oakland, May 1st and had an exciting May Day dinner, May 3rd. We have an ongoing study group about capitalism, dialectics & the struggle for a communist world which expanded the limits of our May Day celebrations. Here are some of the highlights:
The May Day marches
The mass marches were attended by thousands and presented an opportunity to spread our ideas across generations of workers. The political character of the marches ranged from from anti-Trump to a more generalized anti-capitalism. Additionally, the Oakland March started with an indigenous group dancing and many youth groups led chants. There were also delegations from the ILWU, Teachers’ Unions, National Nurses, Day Laborers, and Labor for Palestine.
The tide is turning:
More and more working people are uniting with immigrant workers and are struggling against US Imperialism’s war budget and Israeli capitalists’ genocide in in Gaza. In Oakland, there was a text message that Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) trucks were at the end of the march. Marchers were ready to confront ICE but no one showed up. We led a chant: *Kick ICE in the Ass, Power to the Working Class.”
Our red flags flew high above the march:
We distributed our May Day flyer about the potential for a communist world and lessons learned from previous communist revolutions in the USSR and China. We led chants on the class nature of current struggles: *Workers’ Struggles have no Borders! ¡Las Luchas Obreras, No Tienen Fronteras!
Our May Day Dinner was a collective effort:
PLP members & friends cooked, developed the agenda with table talk questions, brought literature, and developed the cultural expression of communism in poetry & music. One comrade narrated a history of PLP’s years of celebrating May Day; our example of Communist International Workers’ Unity. There was art about international class struggle, class consciousness, and communism. In table talk, we discussed personal experiences that help us to grow in these times. Recognizing the importance of culture, we announced the formation of a movie group to socialize around a communist critique of popular movies or tv shows. Everyone helped with set up and clean up duties.
Presentations about the struggle for communism
A PL’er opened with the international nature of May Day.. He talked about his own personal/family connection to the struggle in Congo and how most people immigrate to the US because of US wars, imperialist competition for natural resources and labor, and capitalist destruction of life where they came from. One report from table talk discussed the history of communal relations in a small town in El Salvador in the 60s-70s in spite of a capitalist system of individual wages and the ruling capitalists’ moves to corporatize local agriculture.
A teacher PL’er spoke about ongoing the struggles at all level of education to teach about the Zionist attack on student learning about US Imperialism, Israeli fascist genocide/mass murder, and the erasure of Palestinian workers struggles. In response in many schools and colleges, teachers, students and parents united against school administrations which try to limit the growth of international class-consciousness among students
A transit worker PL’er addressed the struggle to fight capitalist ideology among coworkers. He said that having a collective was helpful. While encountering coworkers who “just want to make it” & accept capitalism as necessary, he has found unity and sympathy with many passengers.
He said “times are changing”, “what you do counts”. Many coworkers are now coming back to him saying “you are right” when he explains why this system can’t work for us. We ended with an enthusiastic, loud singing of “The International” in English and Spanish.
After the dinner, comrades discussed strengths such as bringing our friends and expanding our circle of influence. We also examined areas that need improvement such as focusing more on why we need a communist party in this period of capitalism.
