BAY AREA—This year’s May Day dinner in the Bay Area was multiracial, multi-generational, and inspired working class unity. Over 70 comrades and friends participated. Some travelled from far distances to continue their tradition of celebrating International Worker’s Day with Progressive Labor Party (PLP). The room was filled with posters, banners, and flags that celebrated the power and revolutionary history of communist workers around world. We had two comrades emcee the event, and they did an amazing job setting the tone by telling the history of May Day, leading us in chants, and guiding our “table talk” discussion.
One of the highlights of the event was the table talk. Each table discussed a question like “how do we fight fascism” or “describe a time when you witnessed immigrant labor under attack”. It was inspiring to see so many people, many who didn’t know each other, get immersed into the process of thinking collectively about how we can strategize on fighting growing threats to our class.
At the end, each table shared the highlights of their conversations, allowing folks to see how we have all faced similar oppressions and exploitations as workers under capitalism.
Welcome New Comrade
One comrade gave a speech about why he joined the Progressive Labor Party, and explained his process of political development. This comrade told his story of being a child laborer because his undocumented single mother couldn’t make ends meet, even though she worked day in and day out. He worked for Latinos for Obama because he “truly believed that by working within the system [he] would be able to bring about change in [his] community.”
He soon became disillusioned by the work he was doing, because he saw that the Democratic Party was the same as the Republican Party, and that both feed false promises to the working class. He realized that revolutionary communism was the only way to worker’s liberation. All of his stories of struggle and resilience were stark reminders of why we must continue to fight, and why the PLP is vital to the triumph of all workers trying to survive this age of decaying capitalism.
Turning Despair into Working-Class Rage
Another young comrade spoke about the importance of turning the sadness, something we often feel when looking at the state of the world, into working-class rage. She explained that it’s okay to be distraught by the fact that half of the Syrian population has been turned into refugees by imperialist war. She described the pain that she feels every time she thinks about all the children who are separated from their parents as they await deportation in private prisons.
Her speech challenged us to turn that pain into class anger. Our class anger propels us to take action against the assaults our brothers and sisters face daily. We will liberate ourselves from our capitalist enemies, and we are confident in the capacity of workers to break their chains once and for all.
Whens we looked around the room, we saw the multiracial, multigender, multigenerational unity. People all around the world are overcoming racist, sexist, and nationalist divisions. For this, we have a reason to be confident and joyous on May Day.
Overall, the dinner brought new and veteran comrades together and inspired a fightback spirit to fuel us for the long-term struggle. Many people walked away feeling like they were energized by seeing so many people being unafraid, unapologetic, and about their commitment to communist revolution.
This May Day celebration was a reminder of how important it is to build community as we struggle for communism, and to reflect on how powerful our class truly is. After this May Day dinner, our Bay Area comrades are feeling more energized to continue the struggle.

“Why I Joined PLP” Speech given at a May Day Dinner:

Today, I will be sharing with you all my journey in becoming a communist.  The people that have been part of this journey are my partner, who introduced me to Marx and helped me rethink nationalism, and my friends who brought the party to me. But mostly I thank my mother, who is not here today.
When I was seven years old, my father abandoned us. As a result, my mother was left with the full responsibility of supporting our family. Unfortunately, as an undocumented immigrant, my mother faced job insecurity and we regularly had to move from apartment to apartment. Mom worked as hard as she could – we would always find her asleep with her work clothes still on. As the oldest of three children, I tried my best to help care for my siblings at home, but I felt inadequate. So at thirteen, I decided to find a job to help contribute financially.
For a thirteen-year-old living in South Central Los Angeles, the only available jobs paid under-the-table and involved menial labor. I started as an errand boy for a local street vendor, selling food in a street corner off MacArthur Park. After that, I sold factory surplus Mary Kay cosmetics door-to-door. In high school, I started working in a garment factory at night. Despite this, the money my mother and I earned was not always enough to feed the family.
Like most children, I grew up largely ignorant about the institutional barriers that have historically marginalized the working class folk of Los Angeles. As I grew older, however, I witnessed this capitalist system constantly bearing down on my family and community. The status quo left me frustrated and at times, hopeless. Despite this, however, I used my frustration to fuel my drive to take political action and empower my community.
When Obama’s presidential campaign geared up for reelection, I worked for Latinos for Obama as an Organizing Fellow. At that time, I truly believed that by working within the system I would be able to bring about change in my community. I did not realize that was far from the truth. As soon as the campaign was over there was complete disinvestment by the Democratic Party in South Los Angeles. Understanding how the Democratic Party operated from within I understood that the current political climate is based on benefiting capitalist interests while feeding false promises to the working class. Being this my first experience with traditional politics I felt frustrated. It was clear to me that this system was not built for the working class and that there was no difference between the Democratic or Republican Party.
It is my personal experience and my organizing with the Democratic Party that have brought me to this point in my political development. I became a communist because I believe that the real social, political, and economic change will come. With a revolutionary communist consciousness we must continue to organize for a working-class led revolution! Our best weapon for revolution is our unity, our organization, and our action.
 The 1st of May is a date for commemoration around the world. It is a date in which the International Working Class expresses its outright denial of oppression and exploitation by this capitalist system and foreshadows our emancipation. Along side them, our Party will lift our banners to reaffirm our commitment to continually strive for a working class revolution in our country that will contribute to the triumph of an International Proletarian Revolution!
Viva la lucha de clase obrera! Viva la lucha de los trabajadores de todo el mundo! Solo la lucha de los pueblos rompera las cadenas de la dominacion y explotacion!

LOS ANGELES—Tens of thousands of workers took to the streets as part of the Resist LA May Day march. It was the most multiracial, multigenerational march the country has seen in a long time. More Black workers came out than they did for the Women’s March in January or the March for Science on April 22.
PLP had a small but lively contingent that led some militant chants like, “the workers united will never be defeated” and “La migra, la policia, la misma porqueria” (immigration cops, police, all the same crap). This chant connects the incarceration of mainly Black, Latin workers and youth to the incarceration of undocumented and migrant families. Whether we are citizens or undocumented, our common enemy is this capitalist state. PLP got out 250 CHALLENGEs along the nearly three-mile march. While turnout was not what it had been in past May Day/immigrants’ rights marches, due to fear of police and ICE repression, the energy was high and there is motivation to make it even bigger next year.

PLP MAY DAY DINNER
The PLP had a rousing dinner, with about 60 comrades and friends in attendance. Accompanied by guitar, djembe and ukuele, our group of teachers, students, health workers, church members, musicians and artistic workers enjoyed a multiracial evening of singing, speeches, interactive games and a video of the history of communist class struggle and the party’s role in it.
We also had lively discussion inspired by one of the games, which was called “pin the nail in the coffin,” of capitalism. The questions, “What have you heard about communism before coming here today either in school, on the news or from people you know?” and “What have you heard about communism here today?” prompted our discussion.
Many friends wrote down the lies that capitalism tells workers and those answers were nailed down on the coffin. These were ideas people wanted to struggle against: the racist, sexist, nationalist, fascist lies oppress the working class.
“To succeed, what features does such a Party need?” That conversation, which could have gone on for much longer, will continue as we work with our comrades and friends in the class struggle.
The PL video presented the Haymarket Affair, the Russian and Chinese Revolutions and the birth of Progressive Labor Party. It was a great way to show how historically that workers have true potential to change the world and how they’ve inspired many ‘til this day. It also brought up the importance of class struggle and how to increase the readership of CHALLENGE. The video ended with having people subscribe to the paper, join the Party, join a study group, and take action. The evening continued with a speech on the state of the world and a call to action. Organizing for a communist society means getting rid of capitalism, a political system that exploits and terrorizes workers worldwide and is leading the dominant imperialists toward a world war that they expect the workers to fight in. We say we will fight for communism! The international working class shall be the human race!

After Syrian President Bashar al-Assad attacked civilians with chemical weapons, Donald Trump bombed a government airbase in Syria with 59 Tomahawk missiles. The U.S. imperialist rulers struck in the name of “humanitarianism,” but their real cause is something else again: a desperate push to maintain U.S. dominance over the Middle East and its vast oil reserves.
Humanitarian Imperialism
In what world does it make sense to bomb the very people you are claiming to defend? The U.S. air strike killed nine civilians, including four children, and will result only in more war, more refugees, more death. The real outrage is that the capitalist bosses have free rein to kill us, the working class, in their wars over profits and power. There are already 11 million Syrian refugees, half the country’s former population. More are created every day. The criminal Trump has the nerve to profess compassion for Syrian workers while doing all he can to ban desperate Syrian refugees from entering the U.S.
Bombing Without a Plan
If Trump didn’t bomb Syria to defend workers there, why did he do it? Why provoke Russia just as Trump and Putin seemed to be building an alliance? The answer lies in geography. Syria is important because its territory is needed for a pipeline to supply the European Union with oil and natural gas.
In 2009, Assad rejected a deal with Qatar that would have run a similar pipeline from Qatar through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, and Turkey. Because of Qatar’s close relationship with U.S. capitalists, the pipeline would have meant billions in profits for U.S. bosses. It also would have threatened the capitalist interests of Russian bosses, the top supplier of natural gas to Europe.
After rejecting the proposal from Qatar, Assad made a $10 billion pipeline deal with Iran, a Russian ally, to supply Europe with gas. The deal was a blow to U.S. bosses, who are increasingly losing military, political, and economic control around the world to their main rivals in Russia and China. This is the real motive for U.S. involvement in Syria: a fight over imperialist spoils.
Workers in Syria have nothing to gain by the “targeted” U.S. attack on Assad’s airfield. U.S. workers must not be fooled by Trump’s fake tears and staged moral outrage over the chemical attack. In fact, Assad’s atrocity helped the U.S. bosses by giving them a pretext to clean up some of the messy infighting and political scandal impeding their ultimate goal: global war.
Syria Crisis Opportunity for U.S. Bosses
Trump’s show of force in Syria sends a message to U.S. allies and enemies alike. In recent years, allies have lost confidence in the U.S. as the world’s most powerful imperialist force. The U.S. military has been unable to win decisively since its debacle in Vietnam in the 1970s.,China’s growing economy offers more opportunities for trading partners than the weakening economy of the U.S. Russia has proven more decisive militarily, leading Turkey—a longtime strategic U.S. ally—to hedge its bets:,
This critical NATO ally [Turkey] has been allying itself with Russia, conducting joint exercises and, in a widely reported move, limiting its opposition to the Assad regime in exchange for being allowed to target Kurds inside Syria...Turkey recently threatened to forbid the United States from using its Incirlik airbase, which is the top staging ground for the war against ISIS (Foreign Affairs, 4/10).
To maintain their global profit flows, the U.S. bosses need a president who can follow orders. Trump campaigned as an independent “outsider,” but he’s now expected to be as loyal to the bosses’ agenda as Barack Obama and George W. Bush before him. The ongoing FBI investigation into ties between Russia and Trump’s campaign team is designed to pressure the new president into falling into line. So is the barrage of criticism from the capitalist media.
The attack on Assad’s airfield gave Trump an opportunity to show the U.S. ruling class that he can be their disciplined servant--to “change the perception of disarray in his administration” (New York Times, 4/7). The bosses won’t be satisfied with one limited attack on a Syrian air base. The Council on Foreign Relations, a leading main-wing capitalist think tank, criticized Trump for not going far enough—and for lacking a bigger plan for war.
Opportunities for Fightback
Although Trump appears to be responding to the bosses’ pressure, big problems remain for U.S. capitalism. As U.S. bosses get more desperate to retain control over Middle East oil and other resources, they will become even more vicious and make more mistakes. As members and friends of Progressive Labor Party, it is our job to use their weaknesses against them.
We must harness the rage we feel every time we see children terrorized in Syria, every time we see a Black or Latin worker murdered mercilessly by the police, every time we see families separated by heartless deportations. We must channel our working-class anger into organizing for a communist world. As the working class struggles through this dark night, we cannot lose confidence in our ability to win a world where drone strikes, famine, and police murder are distant memories. Progressive Labor Party fights for a communism, a system based on egalitarianism. That means destroying racism, sexism, nationalism, and the entire profit system. Communist revolution is the only way to destroy capitalism and all its horrors.
It’s clear that the capitalists have no loyalty to the working class, or even to each other as they fight over profits. All that unites them is their exploitation and oppression of the working class. The calamity in Syria is proof that they are willing to destroy anything and anyone standing in their way.
This May Day, we must unite under the red flag of the international working class. We must carry on the struggle of courageous working-class fighters to defend and liberate our class, once and for all!