BALTIMORE, May 1—Members and friends of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) held a virtual May Day event. It was streamed live, featuring poetry, music and short videos, along with commentary and discussion on the history of May Day, the ideas of PLP, and the importance of international working class solidarity. In addition, the program dealt with the struggle against police brutality, as killer cops continue to terrorize workers, with virtually no accountability. Yes, Derek Chauvin was found guilty for the racist murder of George Floyd. But, in the face of approximately 1,100 cop killings each and every year in the United States, there have been only seven murder convictions since 2005. That’s a murder conviction rate of about one in 2,500. The capitalist billionaires who control the government need cops to protect them and their profiteering businesses. To get rid of killer cops, the whole capitalist system has to go.
New supporters lead May Day organizing
Members of our newly formed PLP study group spearheaded our streaming May Day this year. This is a significant advance and, when they’re ready, we welcome these antiracist, anti-sexist fighters to join Progressive Labor Party and dedicate their life’s work to the achievement of a truly working class-led world.
Streaming of Baltimore’s May Day began with a documentary video about the pre-pandemic East Coast May Day marches – organized by Progressive Labor Party in 2017, 2018 and 2019 - live, out in the streets! Those powerful marches condemned the predatory capitalist system that harms and exploits all members of the working class. Following that video, Tawanda Jones – who is the co-founder, along with other family members, of the West Wednesday Coalition – discussed the history of May Day. She described the brutal police killings of workers during May Day’s founding, and how those same tactics are used against the working class today. Capitalism will never truly hold racist killer cops accountable. The system requires violence from cops to continue its exploitative existence. We need a revolution for working class power.
Next, a new supporter of the Party performed a spoken-word poem, touching on the history of May Day, how far we have come, and how far we still have to go to eradicate this capitalist system and replace it with communism. After that, a former member of Progressive Labor Party – who remains supportive of our revolutionary work – discussed the main communist ideas that drew him to the Party when he was in high school.
May Day builds international working class solidarity
The capitalist education system strives to keep workers divided and misled against our best interests. On the contrary, PLP builds working class solidarity to combat the capitalist bosses, as they continue to exploit our labor and accumulate stolen wealth. Events like May Day are an opportunity for members of the working class to come together and celebrate our accomplishments as a collective, while not losing sight of the progress we must continue to make.
In accordance with May Day’s core principle – worldwide unity of the working class – a key presentation was about the tremendous struggle in India (see the editorial, page 2) by farmers and farm workers, who make up 50 percent of India’s population. Taking place during seven months in 2020 and 2021, their fight may have been the largest mass movement in all of human history, involving as many as 250 million people in just a single day of the nation-wide protests! As expected, in accord with profitable U.S. business investments in India – where the minimum wage is $2.42 a day – the Joe Biden / Kamala Harris administration has supported the Indian government, led by fascist Prime Minister Modi, as they slaughtered and martyred over 200 of the agricultural protestors.
We played an electrifying, local music video, entitled No Justice, No Peace. It centers around efforts to combat the capitalist injustice system and includes inspiring images of confrontation after confrontation with politicians, police chiefs, lying medical examiners, and the Baltimore state’s attorney. Then a powerful speaker, whose former husband was murdered by police, honored the father of her children, and gave compelling testimony about what we must do, to create the new world we need. Other segments of the program included a revolutionary dance performance, and a visual poem; both creative and beautiful.
Workers of the world unite! Fight for communism!
On May Day, nearly 40 people, mostly young workers, took to the streets, making demands of the murderous state, with slogans of worker fightback. That same day, thousands of people took to the streets in different cities and towns in Colombia as a form of resistance to police brutality, censorship, and hunger.
We delivered the message that workers need a communist future, and that revolution is the only way to combat the sexism, racism and fascism that prevails in a capitalist world. To support our message we distributed CHALLENGE and talked with various people, known and new, about PLP’s political line and encouraged followers to join the Party.
Although the presence of ESMAD (riot police) was threatening, with several people injured and killed in different parts of the country, we boldly marched with our collectives, young and old, carrying the red flag of communism and the chanting the Party’s revolutionaryline as a friendly hand for the proletarian who walks, marches, shouts, and resists!
WORCESTER, MA—The May Day celebrations organized by the Progressive Labor Party (PLP), and co-sponsored by the Massachusetts Human Rights Commission, Tenants and Housing Alliance of Worcester (THAW) and others reflected our on the ground organizing in these groups, and was a protest involving three main issues:
- The fight against the racist police killings of Black workers
- The fight against the increasing racist attacks on Asian workers and the murder of an Asian man in our community
- Supporting the nurses’ strike at St. Vincent’s Hospital for more staff and improved safety ratios for patients.
For this first PLP led May Day in Worcester, we were happy that 70 people came out to fight for justice. Since killer-cop Derek Chauvin was convicted of murdering George Floyd, police have developed new tactics to justify racist murders. With the exception of the PLP, no other group in Worcester has held a public rally against racist police murders this year. Racist attacks and terrorism against Asian workers have increased. We joined with an organizer from the Asian community to oppose openly and in public these racist hate crimes and call them out as a symptom of this racist capitalist system (see page 4).
Capitalism the main virus
One speaker called racist police killing a systemic health issue and he has worked with the Board of Health to set policies for police accountability. Health care is systemically racist. The main strike issue for the nurses at St. Vincent’s is increased staffing and patient safety. These goals are in effect a model for a partial mitigation of racist health care. It is clear why the bosses want to break the nurses’ mostly women worker-led, strike.
The PLP speaker raised the issue that capitalism is the foundation of racism, racist killings by police, and systemic racist/sexist healthcare. Communism and the end of resource inequalities is needed to end racist police killings and an end to systemic racist/sexist healthcare.
International revolution is the only solution
Our PL speaker pointed out that demonstrations are good but not enough. This racist, sexist, capitalist system cannot be reformed and it must be smashed with communist revolution. The inter-imperialist rivalries of the U.S. with China and Russia are beating the war drums over trade issues. Vaccine apartheid/imperialism is laying bare the murderous system of capitalism.
Our literature table with CHALLENGE was well received. Our rally and march were well received, too. Some folks, upon driving by, and seeing our red flags and hearing our chants, stopped to join our rally and march.
Progressive Labor Party then led a spirited march to join the St. Vincent nurses’ picket line. The chants were spirited and our speakers were multiracial. As we marched to the nurses’ picket line, we chanted:
- “Same, enemy, same fight, workers of the world unite! Asian, Latin, Black and white, workers of the world unite!”
- “No justice, no peace! No racist police!”
- “Nurses, yes! Tenet No! Racist healthcare has got to go!”
At the nurses’ line, our PLP member was invited to speak. We walked the picket line in solidarity with the nurses’ antiracist goals of improved patient care.
BOSTON, MA—Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and friends organized three rallies and a car caravan to celebrate May Day and bring the revolutionary communist line of PLP to the workers of Mattapan and Dorchester.
Solidarity with workers from Haiti
The first rally in Mattapan square, an area where many Haitian immigrant workers live and have suffered extreme oppression and violence from ICE agents over the past few years, which has been ramped up by the Biden administration. Passer-by heard chants of, "Working people have no nation, stop racist deportation!" and "The cops, the courts, the Klu Klux Klan, all part of the bosses' plan!"
Many dozens of workers accepted May Day leaflets in English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole, and copies of CHALLENGE, and some stopped to speak with PL members about our work.
smash capitalist exploitation
One comrade gave a speech on the fundamentally exploitative nature of capitalism and the need for all working people to come together to replace the whole system with communism, a system without wages and where all workers share in the wealth we produce. Another spoke of the nurses of the Boston Teachers' Union's frontline struggle in the fight against the deadly coronavirus, in which they succeeded in winning many of the safety measures that the local politicians wanted to deny our teachers and students. A guest speaker and local leader spoke of the U.S. imperialists and their reactionary activities in Haiti, and the monumental harm caused there by the U.S. bosses' never ending search for profits.
Next the PL’ers decorated their cars with red flags and revolutionary slogans and paraded through the highly segregated neighborhoods of Dorchester, first to Fields corner and then Grove Hall, where more flyers and Challenges were distributed and speeches were made about the importance of rejecting the lies of liberal misleaders and joining with workers around the world to overthrow capitalism.
One PL’er gave a speech to underscore the historical importance of May Day, the militant struggle for the eight hour day in Chicago and around the world, and to expose the vicious repression of the Capitalist bosses and their killer cops and hired thugs. Another spoke about the role of police terror in maintaining the capitalist order and dividing the working class along racial lines, and the need to smash racism with multiracial unity.
At the end, members and friends gathered in Franklin Park to share food and experiences on bringing the revolutionary line of PLP to the workers here. Many drew inspiration at the warm reception of the PLP. Two new friends expressed joy that communism was on the lips of so many workers, and were grateful for the experience.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE, MAY 12—As we go to press, war in Israel-Palestine is quickly expanding. In the last three days dozens of people have been killed including at least 14 children and hundreds wounded in the apartheid state of Israel-Palestine. The situation for the working class there is dire as our sisters and brothers are caught between the terrorism of the Israeli ruling class and the self-serving nationalist leadership of the Palestinian movement. The situation cries out for the unity of all workers to turn this war between the bosses factions into a movement for communist revolution and liberation of our class from capitalism.
The latest uprising by young workers and the massive attacks by the Israeli ruling class on Palestinian workers was set off by the attempted eviction of Palestinian workers from several neighborhoods in Jerusalem. The situation where Palestinian workers have been kept in extreme oppression has led to many years of rebellion by young workers since the Israeli ruling class was put into power by the British and U.S. bosses. The Palestinian leadership has used the anger of young workers against the racist apartheid condition to build their own power and wealth at the expense of the working class.
The current escalation of the war in Israel-Palestine is caught up in the combination of crisis in the Israeli ruling class which has been fighting among themselves, the needs of Iran which is backing the Hamas wing of the Palestinian ruling class and the bigger inter-imperialist rivalry involving the weakening U.S. bosses. This convergence of the capitalist crisis is threatening to not just escalate war in that part of the world but bring in bosses from other countries such as Turkey, Iran, and Russia.
The current overall volatility of the world situation where the U.S. ruling class is weakening and competing imperialists are moving into the U.S. bosses former sphere of influence make the situation in Israel-Palestine a possible start point for a much wider war (see more next issue).
