Bogotá, Colombia, May 1st — In Bogota, International Working Class Day — was commemorated with strong participation from workers across many sectors: union members, peasants, women’s organizations, community groups, folkloric and sports groups, students, the unemployed, and the opportunist political groupings of the so-called “left.”
Planning for May Day
Over the course of two months, we organized planning meetings to coordinate our participation in the march. We formed four collectives responsible for logistics and outreach — inviting more people, preparing our flags and banners, and developing the slogans for our Progressive Labor Party (PLP) contingent. Our contingent was composed of 63 people, including 24 working women, students, supporters, family members, and readers of our press — all part of our social base, each at a different level of commitment to our Party.
PLP brings true workers’ energy
From early in the morning, we were present, energetically waving our flags and chanting communist slogans, marking our political difference — our revolutionary line — at a communist holiday that has increasingly been reduced to an electoral spectacle: reformist, manipulated by opportunists who turn it into a carnival of whistles, nationalist pageantry, and support for the candidates of the fake left. In sharp contrast, the PLP chanted with enthusiasm and conviction: “The history of the workers’ struggle is not found at the ballot box! Those who put their faith in elections will reap only disappointment!”
Our multiracial collective raised revolutionary chants denouncing the imperialist genocide,
the crisis, and the ideology of capitalism, putting communism forward as the only solution — including: “Against fascist deportations unity and communist struggle!
We also spoke with many workers who still place their faith in democratic change, challenging them to see that the capitalists’ rotating puppets seek only to enrich themselves at the expense of our class — which is why we chanted: “Against deadly capitalism — a communist workers’ state!” and No more reformism — long live communism! “Peace is a tool of the state while they murder the proletariat! and peace between classes serves criminal bosses!”
We moved through the march waving our red flags and chanting slogans that drew curiosity and admiration for their revolutionary content — including: Fight against racism, sexism, and wage slavery scourge the international working class! We distributed one thousand leaflets carrying our Party’s communist line, and sold more than 80 copies of our newspaper CHALLENGE-DESAFIO.
People came up to be photographed alongside our banner and flags, and to receive our literature. Upon reaching Plaza de Bolívar, we made contact with several sympathizers whom we will follow up with to continue advancing politically.
Post May Day
In the afternoon, 29 of us held a lively evaluation meeting, assessing our participation in the march, analyzing the electoral conjuncture, and mapping out next steps. We concluded that we must deepen ideological debate — building on our strengths, correcting our weaknesses, and continuing the struggle and organizing work. We reaffirmed our commitment to winning more of these workers and supporters to the unity of our class: organizing CHALLENGE reading circles, raising the potential of our base, and transforming these peaceful marches into combative struggles for communist ideas.
Newark, May 1—On May Day, the Cosecha Movement — a national organization fighting for the protection and dignity of 11 million undocumented workers — mobilized 200 families in a 1.5-mile march against ICE’s racist terror. The march was more than a protest. It was a call for immigrant workers to organize and resist fascist deportations in our communities.
Comrades from the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) provided communist solidarity, hammering home the necessity of antiracist, multiracial unity.
We encouraged an analysis of how the assault on immigrants flows directly from the needs of capitalism and imperialist war. We immersed ourselves with many others in preparing and leading chants. We opened our homes for banner-making, secured donations for a communal meal at the end of the march, and shared our megaphones to amplify the voices of our working class immigrant sisters and brothers.
Only the lifelong deep bonding of communists with workers trying to organize workers to create fightback will create genuine political struggle. This is the only way to win millions to understand why smashing capitalism is necessary,and why the fight for workers’ power everywhere - communism - is the only solution.
The masses fire up the masses
The march rang with the testimonies of women and children who endure the sharp edge of U.S. state terror. Their words serve as a manual for class war against capitalism:
A young boy whose father was kidnapped by ICE asked: “Why are there so many cops here? They are not on our side. Most side with ICE.”
A cleaning worker and mother thundered: “We believe in the power of the masses—the collective power that smashes walls and tears down racist chains of exploitation. This system divides us because it knows that united, we are powerful. We transform our fear into fightback, empathy, and mass strength. Let borders crumble and the oppressive capitalist system fall!”
A wife of a worker snatched by ICE in Avenel, NJ shared the trauma of state-sponsored kidnapping: “My husband was freed through organizing, but many of his coworkers were deported for the ‘crime’ of surviving. I saw children left alone, crying at night because ICE stole their parents. Chinga la migra!”
A mother of five and Cosecha volunteer exposed the electoral lie: “Politicians promise everything to get elected, but then favor only themselves. We cannot depend on them. These institutions exist to enrich the bosses through our kidnapped labor. We demand the abolition of ICE.”
A mother and factory worker living for 29 years in the U.S. reminded the crowd of the global nature of the struggle: “The oppression in our birth countries is the same oppression we find here in the U.S. I am a worker, and I am dignified. The fight of the workers has no racist borders.”
Embracing militancy and class consciousness
This year, workers embraced more militant chants that linked the police to ICE as “the same piece of garbage,” asserted that “the fight of the workers has no racist borders,” and condemned the system for calling workers illegal when “your laws are illegal.” Passersby responded with joy—honking, waving, and recording the defiance. Over 50 marchers and onlookers took copies of the revolutionary communist newspaper, CHALLENGE.
PLP comrades delivered a bilingual address, clarifying the limitations of “papers” within a dying system marching us to war. We warned that while citizenship provides immediate relief, the profit system constantly rolls back the rights of those with citizenship. We pointed to the experience of Black workers in the U.S., whose citizenship has never shielded them from anti-Black racism or poverty. As long as capitalism persists, workers—with or without papers—are condemned to cages and violence.
We invoked the legacy of Harriet Tubman: a Black working-class woman who didn’t stop at seeking “freedom papers” but conspired to destroy the entire system of exploitation. She built multiracial unity with fighters like John Brown to wage war on the ruling class. We urged the crowd to follow her lead: build class solidarity across every border and fight for the only step that matters—the abolition of capitalism.
Building a bright red future
While many workers responded enthusiastically to the call for multiracial unity, we also identified a need for deeper collective work. We noticed a difference between how workers who heard the speech in English responded more enthusiastically versus workers who heard it in Spanish.
Some immigrant workers still feel disconnected from the struggles of Black workers due to persistent anti-working-class ideas pushed by the bosses. Many immigrants coming around Cosecha feel disconnected from multiracial unity and from linking their struggle more strongly to that of Black workers in particular.
However, the tide is turning. Black, Latin, and white workers approached us to affirm the need to link these struggles and challenge capitalism as a whole. An immigrant friend from Cosecha who used to receive CHALLENGE in the mail even asked if he could provide his new address to receive it again. Most inspiringly, a young worker approached us long after the speeches ended, asking a vital question: “How can I get involved with the PLP?”
We leave this May Day more committed than ever. We do not just march.We organize for the day the working class realizes its own power and sweeps the bosses, their borders, and their terror into the dustbin of history.
Progressive Labor Party (PLP) had a fantastic International Workers Day Dinner one week before May Day. There were about 65 people from many areas of Northern California. Multi-generations, Asian Latin, Black and white, men, women and many other of our class siblings in the struggle were there. There were long-time comrades and new friends looking for a path away from capitalism to a world of community, not yet identified as communism.
We had a great program of speakers and cultural presentations. The facilitator stressed that PLP is growing and learning from strengths and weaknesses of our fight for communism. We learn from the past and evaluate the present. Speakers in transit and education addressed how we in PLP are united around class solidarity and building community to destroy capitalism and build a share-and-share alike communist world.
From transit to education
The bus driver discussed a long history of creating community and how this helps to overcome the divisions between riders and drivers. The educator reported on the recent fight for ethnic studies in the curriculum and the recent strike of certificated and classified staff a couple of months ago which had some victories of their common good demands. One of the aspects of the strike and a major victory was the unity of lower-paid paraprofessionals, mostly women of color, with the certificated educators.
On the cultural side, it was great that younger and newer people to PLP joined the singing and helped plan and present some of the poetry. Our unity and power were illustrated when everyone sang “Bella Ciao” and “The Internationale.”
A few comments: one friend commented that the spirit of the dinner was good and suggested that we have an open mic to encourage contribution from attendees. Our new comrades from the north coast who designed the new PLP “break the chains logo” brought a few dozen t-shirts, polos and hoodies adorned with the new logo as a fund-raiser. The shirts were donated by a second-hand store in their area at little to no cost so all the funds went to support Party activities. Furthermore, everyone was able to contribute according to their abilities!
The future is bright as two people joined PLP at the end of the dinner. One remarked, “It was a lovely event; everyone was so thoughtful and welcoming. We need to go beyond “socialism” to real “communism.”. A long-time friend of a PLP member said, “The Dinner was inspirational/affirming/heart-felt, validating. It felt good to be around other comrades who believe in and care about equality and the working class.”
A long-term friend who has been a member joined the day after the dinner when one speaker said to him, “You are not in the Party unless you are in a collective.” So, he agreed to join a Bay Area club! We’re in the process of solidifying these new members.
All-in-all, it was a fantastic event celebrating our working-class holiday, our best in a very long time!!! Onward, comrades!!!
The communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) in Mexico participated in the May Day march organized by the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE) in Mexico City and Oaxaca. Around 40 members and supporters marched with our red flags, chanted communist slogans and songs, and distributed approximately 3,000 leaflets
In Oaxaca, our group of 12 comrades joined the massive march in which thousands of teachers took part. We carried a banner with the slogans: “DESTROY CAPITALISM AND ITS OFFSPRING, NAZI-FASCISM!” and “END IMPERIALIST WARS WITH THE COMMUNIST REVOLUTION!” We carried the red flags of the International Communist PLP, distributed 500 leaflets, chanted revolutionary slogans, and later held a follow-up assembly. A number of our teacher-comrades marched with their union contingents, where they also helped distribute leaflets.
In Mexico City, we marched alongside representatives from the CNTE from different states across the country, primarily from Oaxaca. Our contingent consisted of 27 supporters and organizers who carried a banner calling for the CRUSHING OF THE IMPERIALIST WAR FOR PROFIT WITH THE POWER OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKING CLASS AND COMMUNIST REVOLUTION! Another banner called for the fight for communism and for meeting workers’ basic needs — including access to water, which employers have turned into a commodity accessible only to those who can afford it. We distributed 1,500 leaflets against imperialist war and in favor of communist revolution.
In the days leading up to the march, we held three organizing meetings with our members and organizers. At these meetings, we emphasized the importance of organizing within a revolutionary communist party like the PLP to confront the current period of crisis, the rise of fascism, and imperialist war. The majority of our invited contacts joined us on May Day.
We are now preparing to support the day of action planned by the teachers of the CNTE, which includes a National Strike and a boycott of the World Cup of Plunder.
Salvador, Brazil— This May Day, in the face of attacks on the working class and the sell out politics from the socialists shilling to get current President Lula re-elected, Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members in Brazil brought communist politics to the May Day march.
Every May 1st, it seems to be a tradition for workers’ unions and the mayor’s office to unite to organize large parades instead of militant demonstrations to highlight workers’ protests against the system. But this year, the mayor refused to give the unions access to the usual locations, arguing that the city was losing money by blocking off the waterfront, a major tourist attraction. City Hall organized a “fair” instead. This was a real slap in the face for even the yellow sellout unions who support the government.
However, groups of students from several public universities, community organizers and some workers disregarded the mayor’s decision and, early in the morning of May 1, took to the streets to demand that the State, as a “socialist” state, change course. How can it accept that on May Day, workers are in capitalist enterprises giving their blood to enrich the bosses’ profit system?
Re-electing Lula won’t win the fight
The workers’ demands, since last year, remain the reduction of the work week from 6 days (what they call the ‘6x1” scale) to 5 days (the “5x2” scale). However, when you ask the workers what they want, they say clearly that they want a 36-hour work week, not just fewer days. During the demonstration, government supporters tried to spread propaganda for President Lula, saying that if the workers want the six-day work scale to end, they must vote for Lula this year. Others followed with the same tired old speeches, adding that only socialism can save the workers and rid the country of capitalism.
When a student and Progressive Labor Party (PLP) representative in the march was given the microphone, he made two sharp points about the current situation: first, the struggle is really about reducing the number of hours per week—with no loss in pay—to fight unemployment as well as improve the lives of workers.
Secondly, and more importantly, on the question of socialism: socialism maintains the inequalities of capitalism—racism, sexism, exploitation, and the overall immiseration of the entire working class. While fighting for a shorter work week can unite our class, it will, in the short or long run, be turned into its opposite as the capitalist system sinks further into decline. No where in the world has the so-called two-stage theory led from socialism to communism, the only system that serves the best interests of the international working class. If we want to win as a class, we need to have our eyes now on the goal of real workers’ power. That is what PLP fights for, on this May Day and every day.
One flag and one struggle
In this sense, we tried to demonstrate that only the unity of workers worldwide can consolidate the struggle of our class, and that the struggle doesn’t need multiple flags nor certainly not the support of politicians. The struggle here in Brazil needs an ideological framework to move beyond the discourse on socialism centered on Lula’s election. During the march, we distributed the newspaper “El Defisur” (The Challenge), specifically the April 26th editorial, to highlight that it is the power of workers, not elections, that will change things.
The PLP has a great deal of ground to cover in order to win workers and students to join the struggle for communism. We encourage you to join the PLP.
