On May Day, in South-Central Los Angeles,  Progressive Labor Party (PLP) comrades gathered to celebrate working-class unity, internationalism, and revolutionary struggle. Held in a small, neglected park within a predominantly Latin working class neighborhood, the event reflected both the hardship and the resilience of the working class.

Workers will govern ourselves

The park, long abandoned by city authorities, exemplifies capitalist failure. So before the celebration could begin, comrades of all ages rolled up their sleeves—cleaning trash, scrubbing playground equipment, and reclaiming the space for the community. The act of restoring the park was not just practical—it was political. It demonstrated that only the working class, not the bosses or their politicians, has the collective power and will to build a better world.

With the space prepared, tables and chairs were set up, and the smell of home-cooked food began to fill the air. About fifty workers and their families joined in the celebration—multiracial, multi-generational, and brimming with solidarity. The energy escalated as participants lined up in march formation and took to the streets. The destination: a nearby police station, where the killer cop who murdered Alex Flores  was assigned. 

Chanting “Justice for Alex!” and “Workers united will never be defeated,”we exposed the racist terror inflicted by the police. 
The community’s response was powerful. Drivers honked in support, and bus riders raised their fists and shouted encouragement. Chants like “Freedom, freedom, we need freedom, freedom. All the racist killer cops, we don’t need them, need them!” and “La migra, La policia, La misma porqueria,” all led by new Party members, resonated deeply with those watching. At least 200 copies of CHALLENGE were distributed along the route, and a few residents were so inspired by the march that they took dozens of copies to share with friends and neighbors.

After the march, we returned to the park, where we sang “Bella Ciao” and “Deportees,” a haunting song about immigrant workers whose lives were discarded as nameless deportees. Newer members read revolutionary poems, while others led the group in songs of resistance.
A seasoned comrade recounted experiences from the 1975 Boston Summer Project, when PLP organized against racist school segregation. That history set the stage for our next step: a new Summer Project this year, where PLP will lead the fight against racist deportations, police brutality, and capitalism itself. In this speech the comrade reminded participants that it’s always a great day to join the Party.

A long time base member whose loved one was murdered by the police answered his call with a resounding “Yes!” The keynote speech came from a leading comrade who brought students from her school. She spoke about Lyudmila Pavlichenko, the legendary 25-year-old Soviet sniper who defied pressure to become a nurse and instead fought fascism on the front lines—credited with 309 kills of Nazi scum. Her example was clear: every generation plays a role in the struggle for communism. We ended the day singing “The International” in both Spanish and English, voices raised in unity and determination. Our message was clear: we fight not just for reform, but for a communist world free of racism, exploitation, and borders.

See you in Boston!

Fight for Kilmar continues

The struggle to free Kilmar Garcia continues with another court ruling and protest. (See CHALLENGE  5/21/25). The court continues to investigate the “evidence” that led to Trump’s deportation of Kilmar to El Salvador. Workers continue to demand action, and Progressive Labor Party continues to join the struggle and sharpen the analysis by sharing CHALLENGE to protestors at the courthouse. This week we added information about our campaign to remove ads in the transit system that are recruiting for Border Patrol Agents ( this letter will appear in our next issue). In addition, we joined a rally against fascism in the neighborhood led by a friend who led the march to the overpass on the Baltimore Parkway with signs that received overwhelming support from the drivers honking as they drove under the bridge. We are extending our connections in Maryland by stepping up after a great May Day event here.
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No exception to fightback 

Organizing in the community I moved to offers different opportunities and different challenges from those I encountered living in a big city. We moved to a small city a couple of hours from New York City. I was surprised to find lots of organizing going on and had no trouble finding two mass organizations to join, both focused on combating the Gaza genocide. Last weekend one of the organizations screened “The Palestine Exception.” About 80 people showed up to watch the 2024 documentary film that vividly describes the unfolding conflict on campuses across the U.S. In dozens of campuses, students, professors and campus workers demanded a halt to the vicious extermination of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the West Bank; and university administrations, politicians and police responded by attacking the protestors, insisting that anything Israel did was justified, and criticism of their policies was “antisemitic.” Students have been expelled and professors fired.

After the screening we broke up into small groups to discuss what we had just seen. Despite the non-stop pro-Israel propaganda on TV and in the New York Times, no one I spoke to had any doubts about the “New McCarthyism” described in the film. In my group one person said the Gaza genocide, the attacks on immigrants in the U.S., and the increasing economic difficulty people are having are all connected to capitalism. There seemed to be general agreement with this comment.

I asked one young woman who had expressed similar views to describe her political outlook. She said, “I’m a communist.” I asked what group she might be part of and she said she had no affiliation. We decided to start a study group with some others we know, with the first meeting next week. Seems like, despite what I may have thought about small town life, despite seeing the occasional Trump bumper sticker, there are communists out there looking for leadership. We have a lot of work to do!
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Kentucky to Chicago: all out for May Day 

Comrades from Kentucky spent our first May Day with the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) on Saturday, May 3rd. Four of us traveled by bus from Kentucky to Chicago on the Friday before the march. We had spent the months before deciding what we wanted to do for May Day, and it was between going to Chicago or going to a city in Kentucky that was having a May Day. We decided to go to Chicago because we wanted to get the experience of being in a march held by the PLP, especially since we had never been in a May Day march before. It turned out to be a very rewarding experience! As our first May Day march, we were glad that it was spent with the PLP, where our communist ideas weren’t watered down or the march focused on a specific issue, but aimed towards all the workers of the world. One thing we’ve noticed about the May Day events that were going on around the country, including in the state of Kentucky, is they were all directed towards Trump, with other issues such as Palestine sprinkled in, but without clear unity between these issues. This is the importance of having a communist march, where the root of all these problems, capitalism, is laid bare. 

Something we appreciated about the march in Chicago is that it was done through a working-class, predominantly Latin neighborhood, where our march received much support. Comrades from Chicago made comments about how this differed from liberal marches, which usually only march through the Chicago Loop. Although there are workers in every part of the city, it is important that we spend our energy where it is most effective, and  that is what was done during this May Day! It was very inspiring to see workers of all generations supporting us as we marched through, and some even joining the march. One moment that stuck with me was when an older woman came out on her porch with a little girl and they both raised their fists in solidarity. 

We hope to be able to grow the party in Kentucky enough to the point where we can start having our own May Day marches here. We can do this by continuing to be involved in mass movements and growing our base here. We plan to bring back the strategies we learned from comrades in Chicago and how they carried out this May Day. We plan to use their strategy of doing CHALLENGE sales in a specific area over a long period of time in order to build support in this area and build excitement for events. We were also inspired by our comrades’ energy handing out CHALLENGE right before the march, making sure to cover every street corner nearby. 

Across the U.S., nationalist misleaders tried to capitalize on the internationalist energy of May Day, primarily using it as an opposition to Trump, but not at our PLP March! This May Day showed us the importance of honoring the internationalist, communist history of the holiday and reminding workers of this history. March with the PLP! 
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MD May Day memories: food & solidarity 

I was part of the committee to set up for this event. We came up with numerous ideas where we would share poetry and information about our Party, the Progressive Labor Party, for what we wanted accomplished. Of course, we had a great dinner along with plenty of desserts and good people with plenty of discussions about the current state of the world. Articles from past CHALLENGE newspapers were decorated in a fellow PLP member’s home, spreading informative true stories that I wasn’t aware of, along with  posters of different protests that PLP was a part of. And I believe that we had some people who were signing up to join the cause. It was a nice day and I believe that it turned out well for us. 
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My first time planning May Day 

As someone who never helped plan a May Day dinner, it was something to get used to. Everybody involved in the planning offered valuable input and advice to save  time. There were three poems and six presentations at the event. Personally, I spoke on behalf of an organizer in Baltimore who fights for accountability for victims of police brutality. The program was received positively, with one comrade saying he enjoyed my section.
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Expose Baraka’s ICE photo-op 

Whenever the ruling class gives us an opportunity to expose them,  we should use it.  On Friday,  May 9,  ICE agents arrested Ras Baraka,  Mayor of Newark,  NJ,  for “trespassing” at an ICE facility under construction.  A few hours later he was released, unlike the Tufts student who spent several weeks in jail.  This entire episode was clearly pre-planned and rehearsed as part of Baraka’s hope to become NJ’s next governor (and most likely a try at the U.S. Senate)!!!  But the worst part of this sordid story is what Baraka said about ICE on CNN a few days after his quick release.  Even before the CNN interviewer asked Baraka a single question,  Baraka went into a l-o-n-g description of “how nicely” the ICE agents had treated him.  By the time he ended,  he could have distributed invitations so that other people could experience the “wonderful hospitality” of being arrested by ICE.
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Dutch workers sickened by racist annihilation of Palestinians 

Al Jazeera, 5/18–Tens of thousands of red-clad protesters marched through the Dutch capital to demand their government do more to halt Israel’s war on Gaza in what organizers called the country’s biggest demonstration in two decades. Human rights groups and aid agencies…estimated the peaceful crowd at more than 100,000 people on the streets of The Hague. “We are calling on the Dutch government: stop political, economic and military support to Israel as long as it blocks access to aid supplies and while it is guilty of genocide, war crimes and structural human rights violations in Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territories”... 

Workers sickened by black lung gain legal support

In These Times, 5/15–In a rare occasion of good news for the nation’s coal miners, a decision this week in a lawsuit brought by one of their own will reverse at least some of the damage done when the Trump administration eviscerated the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) offices…hundreds of those workers had suddenly found themselves out of a job…As a result, the NIOSH Respiratory Health Division and the Coal Workers Health Surveillance Program (CWHSP), whose ongoing research and health screenings are critically important in addressing the black lung epidemic stalking Appalachia’s coal miners, were left unable to function.  

Georgia prosecutors continue legal hunt of KKKop City protesters

The Guardian, 5/18–Nearly two years into the largest Rico, or conspiracy, prosecution against a protest movement in US history, the case is mired in delays and defence claims that proceedings are politically motivated and ruining the lives of the 61 activists and protesters who face trial. Rico cases are usually brought against organized crime, and are associated with the mafia, but in Georgia a sprawling prosecution has been brought against dozens of people opposed to a police training center near Atlanta known as Cop City. 

Think-tank warning about potential for U.S.--China war

Foreign Affairs, 5/15–Tensions in the Taiwan Strait are growing. Even before Taiwan elected William Lai as its president, in January 2024, China voiced strong opposition to him, calling him a “separatist” and an “instigator of war.” In recent months, Beijing has ramped up its broadsides: in mid-March, the spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office labeled Lai a “destroyer of cross-Straits peace” and accused him of pushing Taiwan toward “the perilous brink of war”...Since Lai became president, Beijing has demonstrated growing willingness to use military might to intimidate and punish the island. And it is far more prepared to use force against Taiwan today than it was 20 years ago.

Migrants, escaping capitalist terror, die in large numbers

Infomigrants, 5/5–A new report from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reveals that most people who die while migrating are not taking dangerous journeys purely out of choice, but out of desperation -- fleeing insecurity, conflict, disaster, and other humanitarian crises.  Since 2014, more than 52,000 people have died while trying to escape crisis-affected countries…More than half (54 percent) of all recorded migrant deaths since 2014 occurred in or near countries affected by conflict or disaster…the central Mediterranean remains the deadliest single migration route worldwide, with nearly 25,000 people lost at sea…

Capitalism fails even to feed Haitian children

ScrippsNews, 5/14–In a sterile, solar-powered facility in northern Haiti, workers suit up like surgeons. But they aren’t performing operations, they’re producing medicine in the form of peanut paste. And in a country teetering on the edge of collapse, it’s a rare symbol of hope. Inside this factory run by the nonprofit Meds & Food for Kids, Haitian workers meticulously measure, mix and pack a therapeutic peanut paste that’s used to treat severe childhood malnutrition. The paste, enriched with vitamins and micronutrients, has become a lifeline for children pushed to the brink by starvation…The numbers are stark: over one million children in Haiti — one in four — are now facing life-threatening malnutrition. 

The first hundred days of President Donald Trump’s return to office have doubled down on the racist policies of Joe Biden, from anti-immigrant state terrorism to the embrace of slaughter and ethnic cleansing in Gaza. The brutal reality of capitalist rule under rising fascism has been laid bare. For the international working class, this moment marks a dramatic escalation of class war. 

By exposing the contradictions of the profit system, Trump is pushing many workers to see that it can never serve their needs. The task of Progressive Labor Party is to lead those workers–and millions more–to smash capitalism with communist revolution. The large and militant turnout of workers and students on May Day renews our confidence that our future can be bright with a growing PLP

A system in crisis

Under capitalism, a tiny billionaire class rules over a world of misery–not because they are smarter or more deserving, but because they have state power. They control the military, the police, and the media. These exploiters ruin human and natural life for profit. Regardless of which faction is in power, they are driven by the harsh reality of their system: grow or die, no matter the cost to the workers of the world. From sweatshops in Bangladesh to the slavery of mass incarceration in the U.S., capitalism relies on coercion and violence on an everyday basis.

Fascism is capitalism in crisis, stripped of its mask of liberal democracy. Today’s global disaster is the product of slowing economic growth, rampant speculation, and exorbitant debt. from national treasuries to credit cards and college loans. When pushed to the wall, bosses sharpen their knives. To intimidate an impoverished working class and prepare to fight their imperialist competition, they’re forced to scrap their democratic charade. “Due process,” “the rule of law,” “free and fair” elections, constitutional “freedoms”--all are being kicked to the curb. This fascist trend is playing out worldwide–not just in Turkey and India and Israel, but also in the U.S. and its junior partners in Europe. 

A rotting empire

Trump is the vicious creature of a rotting United States empire. Faced with a rising China that makes more than a third of the world’s goods and has a stranglehold on critical industries, Trump has crudely responded with a trade war. The tariffs aren’t likely to restore U.S. manufacturing supremacy, but they are sure to drive workers into deeper misery by inflating the cost of living.  

The shock-and-awe assault of Trump’s first hundred days–and the Democrats’ passivity in enabling it–reflects the bosses’ desperation. The defunding of social welfare, the use of soldiers as border cops, the green light to poison our air and water, the anti-immigrant violence and abductions–none of this is entirely new. Trump’s Democratic predecessors, from Clinton to Obama to Biden, helped set the stage for these ruthless attacks. But Trump’s open cruelty and racism, cheered on by a significant minority of deluded workers, mark a transition to more open fascism–unless and until a communist-led mass movement stops it in its tracks. 

The rulers are helpless to solve the problems of their system. Pressed to shovel money into their war machine, they can no longer afford reforms to make workers’ lives even a little better for even a little while. In this decayed phase of capitalism, they can no longer build–they can only destroy. Trump serves his wing of the ruling class with scapegoats and wrecking balls. Today the bosses are shredding what’s left of the U.S. social safety net and disappearing “legal” immigrant workers to El Salvador. Sooner than later, they’ll be forced into the mass destruction of world war, the temporary fix to what Karl Marx called the crisis of overproduction–the inability of workers to buy enough of what’s produced. But there is only one permanent solution to the contradictions of capitalism. That’s communism, a world without money or wages, a society built around serving workers’ needs.

No borders in a communist world 

In a world run by the working class, there will be no borders, no “citizens” or “aliens,” no imperialist wars. From the apartheid wall in Palestine to the militarized line between the U.S. and Mexico, borders are designed to protect capitalist profits, divide workers, and super-exploit immigrants. In a communist world, the nationalist divisions that tear our class apart  will be abolished. Workers will be united in their shared struggle to construct a world free of racism, sexism, and exploitation. As we’re seeing today in the bosses’ bloodsoaked atrocities in Ukraine, in Sudan, in India and Pakistan, nationalism is poison for the international working class. Communism is the cure!  

Build the Party, build the future 

Workers fight back. The history of class war and revolution is one of heroic resilience. From the communist-led defeat of the Nazis in World War Two to the multiracial cadre that founded PLP and picked up the red flag, we have never stopped fighting. We can see our future in the growing worldwide solidarity of workers and students who’ve joined the fight against genocide in Palestine, who demand climate action, who reject nationalism and fascism. These are not isolated fightbacks. They are the sparks of a global fire. 

Again, fascism isn't merely an option for the domestic capitalists who back Trump or the finance capitalists behind the Democrats–it's a matter of necessity. Workers too have but one choice: communist revolution. We must break from the illusions of reformism and expose the liberal misleaders who betray us. We must reject all war but class war and choose life and working-class liberation. Most of all, we must build an international revolutionary party to end capitalism for all time.The future belongs to a communist-led working class–but only if we fight for it. Down with the bosses! Join PLP!