Pakistan, May 1—This May Day, cities across Pakistan echoed with the thunder of marching feet, raised fists, and chants for justice. From Lahore’s historic streets to Quetta’s rugged terrain, thousands of workers, students, peasants, and public service employees poured into the streets. Their message was clear: the struggle for liberation continues.
Red flags soared as processions denounced deepening inequality, political repression, and the erosion of labor rights. Amid economic crisis, authoritarian rule, and rising fascism, International Workers’ Day became both a solemn remembrance and a call to revolutionary action.
Progressive Labor Party (PLP) played a pivotal leadership role, aligning with independent unions, dissident worker groups, and grassroots alliances. Chanting against unemployment, inflation, and imperialist interference, PLP members in Pakistan reaffirmed their commitment to communism and revolutionary change.
Workers anger at capitalism reverberates through the streets
Speeches across cities captured the shared anger—and hope—of an awakened working class. A textile worker in Faisalabad declared: “The mills run on our blood and sweat—but we remain disposable. Today, we say: no more. We demand dignity, protection, and power!”
A PL’er said: “Fascism is rising. The ruling class fan the flames of division—sectarianism, nationalism, misogyny—to keep us weak. But today, we marched as one class. We will not be silenced.”
In Karachi, gig workers, home-based women workers, students, clerks, trade unionists, and app-based drivers rallied against liberal imperialist exploitation: “We are treated like data points, not human beings. The system is rigged for profit—not people. We’re here to change that.”
From Sindh’s cotton fields to Sialkot’s factories, workers are trapped in a system that thrives on insecurity and weakens collective bargaining. “This is by design,” shouted a speaker in Islamabad. “Capitalism doesn’t fear elections—it fears worker unity.”
Traditional trade unions faced sharp criticism for compromising rather than confronting. State-aligned entities were accused of settling token deals while suppressing grassroots movements. “They negotiate crumbs while we starve,” said a union dissident in Lahore.
Identity politics is poison for the working class
Religious extremism and state-sponsored nationalism were also condemned for fragmenting the working class. Another PL’er exposed how elites weaponize identity—through issues like Kashmir and blasphemy—to divide and distract. “The coal miner in Baluchistan and the factory worker in Punjab fight the same system,” said a peasant leader in Sindh. “Our solidarity must rise above borders and national identities.”
Anti-imperialist slogans rang out. China’s CPEC projects and U.S. militarization were both condemned as faces of global capitalism. Speakers stressed that imperialism and class struggle are inseparable. “From Palestine to the Philippines, Sudan to Venezuela—we stand in global solidarity,” chanted students in Kashmir.
At the heart of May Day 2025 was PLP’s focus on political education, unity, and class consciousness. Study circles and campaigns are organizing landless peasants in Sindh, students in Kashmir, and gig workers in Lahore. “Revolution starts with clarity,” said a student organizer. “And clarity comes from study, struggle, and solidarity.”
As the processions ended with chants of “One world, one party, one fight: Workers of the World, Unite!” One thing was clear: Pakistan’s working class is rising—not just in resistance, but with revolutionary vision. “This is a historic moment,” that’s when a PL’er said. “Faced with imminent climate collapse and AI-driven exploitation, we stand at a crossroads. We either remain crushed—or we rise, united, to build a new world.”
The struggle continues. Long live the international revolutionary communist PLP!
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MAY DAY 2025 NYC-NJ Speeches: ‘Raise those red flags, raise them high against fascism
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The following are excerpts from a tri-part speech given by young PLP veterans: a teacher and community worker, and a young community worker who joined the Party recently on Saturday May 3rd at the New York/New Jersey May Day celebration.
Greetings, comrades! Happy May Day! We are teachers, community organizers and members of the Progressive Labor Party continuing the fight back against this racist, sexist, capitalist system–from Newark to New York, from Palestine, to Mexico!
Today, May Day, is about the U.S. celebrating OUR legacy, OUR power as the working class, OUR fight for a communist future and raising the red flag against fascism! As we march down Flatbush today, we want everyone to raise those red flags! AND Raise them high!!
From every corner of the globe, the spirit of internationalist fightback lives on — here are just a few powerful moments:
In New York City students at Bronx Community College have been denied access to decent food by a racist administration whose only function is to normalize cutbacks that target Black and Latin working class students. But students are fighting both to demand their own access to food and show their classmates the connection between their own hunger and the hunger felt by workers all over the world, and to see that in all cases it is the bosses who are taking the food from our mouths.
In East Los Angeles, students walked out last year to demand bilingual education and the right to organize without punishment. They stood up against racist deportations and fascist detentions, fighting to protect workers of the entire world!
In Palestine, students are bombed in their classrooms, with entire universities being leveled, just so American imperialism can maintain its outposts in the Middle East. But this does not stop students from organizing protests and civil disobedience against Israeli settlements. In just one example of this bravery, students in Palestine demonstrated to open up Shuhada (Sho-ha-dah) street in Hebron where the racist Israeli rulers have denied them access for two decades.
-Teacher & veteran PL’er
*
When the bosses close our hospitals, cut our jobs, and abandon us to deal with the disastrous results of their murderous system, we in PLP build worker, patient unity to care for one another in and out of the medical rooms. We storm the bosses' public health conferences and affinity groups and show our fellow workers how to fight to make a health system that benefits us–under communism!
When the landlords hike up rent prices three fold and make it impossible for us to secure housing, or sicc the murderous cops on us to evict us or exterminate us during a period of endless mental health crises, we as working class fighters house each other, feed each other, show up to court en masse and set up communities based on mutual aid that show the working class that we CAN build a moneyless, antiracist, antisexist society.
Only building for a communist future will heal the wounds of our class. Having comrades — here and around the world — who have your back and fight alongside you will transform your life.
-Community worker & veteran PL’er
*
In the greater sense mutual aid is just one example of the self-organization of our class; that workers can organize society for each other. We must take this a step further— if we arm ourselves with communist ideas we can build a revolutionary movement to run society.
This is working-class solidarity and an act of resistance against the bosses who want us to believe we need them. We don’t need them—we have each other, always. We engage in building relationships and spreading communist ideas because mutual aid alone will never be enough to free us from capitalism. We must continue to care for our fellow workers, to listen, to build friendships, to defend one another, and to love each other.
It was, in fact, an act of love that brought me into the Party just a year ago. I was at a protest for Palestine, standing in the pouring rain—alone, without an umbrella—just chanting, soaked to the bone. A Party member tapped my shoulder and offered to share their umbrella with me.
We began chanting together, then talking. I met other Party members who showed me kindness, and after the protest, I joined them for my first-ever communist study group.
And now I’m super hyped to be here at my first ever May Day march!
We must share the giant, Earth-sized umbrella of communism with one another—so that, at last, we can all be dry and warm together.
As we march forward into a new day, fight for communism! Now more than ever is the time to up the ante!
- A new PL’er and community worker
Praise of Communism
By Bertolt Brecht
It is reasonable.
You can grasp it. It’s simple.
You’re no exploiter,
so you’ll understand.
It is good for you.
Look into it.
Stupid men call it stupid,
and the dirty call it dirty.
It is against dirt
and against stupidity.
The exploiters call it a crime.
But we know:
It is the end of all crime.
It is not madness but
The end of madness.
It is not chaos,
But order.
It is the simple thing
That’s hard to do.
East Africa
Members of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP), students and some parents at a dinner session will discuss how the capitalist education system affects the lives of the workers as a whole as well as having frequent changes to how education policy is worsening because of a lack of teachers, teaching and learning materials. This system does not prepare a student to be creative and independent but instead becomes a community dependent and unemployed, and while the government pretends that jobs exist and will be provided.
Also, the new education curriculum has not been established based on the need for society but has been established by the impetus for capitalists that want the education policy to have a way that all students in the country can achieve higher education without looking at the environment and the need for society in their areas. The main criterion is that all those who follow this policy will be given low interest loans from the World Bank.
Within the discussion, PLP allows students together with parents to say all the challenges they face as we mentioned above, so through such a situation students and the whole community will continue to suffer professionally and in the lifestyle and even after their training they will remain dependent rather than being saviors in their communities.
PLP will also continue to provide education on how to use the weakness of the capitalist education system throughout the community to use the ideology of the communist system that believes in equality, impartiality to eliminate nationalism, and create one world by smashing the capitalist system with communist revolution.
South Asia
A Message celebrating the International Workers’ Day from the struggling workers of Kolkata, West Bengal, India:On this May Day, when the global imperialist crises are deepening more than ever, we honour the echoes of history - the strikes, the marches, and the unyielding spirit of those who demanded dignity and freedom in the face of exploitation.
From the Haymarket martyrs to today’s gig workers, the fight for revolution pulses through generations.May the chains of inequality shatter, international borders dissolve in solidarity, as global hands unite against exploitation, recognising that no struggle is isolated.
Solidarity forever. The fight continues.
United Kingdom
Comrades, today we gather to celebrate May Day — a day born from the struggle of workers and forever rooted in the ideals of communism. It is a reminder that the working class is the true engine of society. Under capitalism, we are exploited; under communism, we seek a world where labor is honored, wealth is shared, and all stand as equals. Let us carry forward the vision of a classless society, built on solidarity, justice, and collective power.
Workers of the world, unite!
China
Happy May Day Comrades!
Dear Brothers and Sisters in labor. I am a young student from Beijing, China. The International Workers Day is coming. The labor day and May Day is to memorialize the 1886 Chicago Haymarket Strike, which won the eight hour workday for us. But 139 years have passed, and there are still a lot of places that do not follow the eight hour day and will not listen to the worker.
As workers, if we do not act to show our power the capitalists treat us as if we are animals on the farm. My mother for her entire life suffered exploitation and oppression. She was laid off twice. The companies were still not satisfied. They cut the wage substantially so my mother could not take it anymore. She chose to fight and she won. I know it is difficult to fight with the company, but workers united will never be defeated.
Lastly, like Chairman Mao Zedong said: Revolution is not a dinner party nor an essay nor a painting, nor a piece of embroidery. It can not be refined leisurely and gentle, kind, temperate, restrained, and so on.
A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another. Solidarity forever. Hope you can taste success.
Workers in Greece celebrate May Day with protests
The National Herald, 5/1–Greece’s growing economy hasn’t convinced workers they are benefiting as labor unions and associations representing workers went on the streets of the capital and other cities on Labor Day to demand higher pay and better conditions…It also brought a strike that shut down ferries and public transportation systems…The country’s international lenders…required big pay cuts, tax hikes, slashed pensions, worker firings, selling off state enterprises and taking away workers rights…the rallies were “ for the unions and the world of labour that they represent, May Day is a day of strike, a symbol of recognition of rights and the struggle for improved working conditions. The vision of the Chicago workers for a better and more dignified life remains relevant…
Workers in Turkey protest despite warlike crackdown
BBC, 5/1–Hundreds of people have been arrested in Istanbul, with 50,000 police officers deployed to the city as authorities attempt to crack down on May Day protests. Public transport was shut down to stop people reaching Taksim Square, where demonstrations have been banned since 2013. Footage showed clashes between riot police and protesters with demonstrators chanting as police forcefully moved detainees onto buses…On Wednesday, 100 people were detained for allegedly planning to protest in the square.
Workers fight to protest despite police oppression
Inquirer.net, 5/1–The scheduled protest by various labor and progressive groups pushed through along Recto Avenue in Manila. The event rolled even as about a hundred police established barricades on roads leading to Mendiola Street— the area where the protesters originally planned to stage their Labor Day demonstration…As of 10:30 a.m., thousands of youth activists and student-led groups arrived in Recto Avenue, trying to penetrate the barricade formed by the Manila Police District (MPD). Aside from their call for a wage hike, they repeatedly shouted: “Tabi! Tabi! Dadaan kami! (Move aside! Move aside! We will pass through!)
Bosses’ analysts explain why war is coming
Foreign Affairs, 4/22–It is every president’s nightmare. The Chinese military is massing troops in Fujian Province and an armada offshore, just across the strait from Taiwan. According to U.S. intelligence, this buildup is no mere feint—Beijing is really preparing for war…
Chinese President Xi Jinping has made clear that retaking Taiwan is essential to what his government calls “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” and Beijing is rapidly expanding its military. It is also just one of many scenarios that would result in a war involving Washington. China is threatening the United States’ treaty allies. Russia is menacing eastern Europe’s NATO members. Iran has accelerated its nuclear program. The odds that the United States might have to fight in a great-power war are higher today than at any point this century.
Israeli-U.S. expansion into Gaza will require more massacres
Al Jazzera, 5/5–Israel’s political and military leaders have approved plans to expand the Gaza offensive and take over aid deliveries to the devastated and starving enclave, according to reports. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Security Cabinet unanimously approved plans to call up reservists and put the Israeli military in charge of food and other vital supplies to the 2.3 million people suffering under its blockade of the Palestinian territory…Israeli officials suggesting that the plans include the “conquest” and occupation of the entire Gaza Strip. The expanded offensive “could go as far as seizing the entire enclave”...
A racist system drives some to embrace racism and kill
The Guardian, 4/21–The gunman who killed 23 people in a racist attack at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas…Patrick Crusius was automatically sentenced to life in prison without parole for the massacre near the US-Mexico border. The change of plea comes after local prosecutors took the death penalty off the table. The people who were killed ranged in age from a 15-year-old high school athlete to elderly grandparents. They included immigrants, a retired city bus driver, a teacher, tradesmen including a former ironworker, and several Mexican nationals who had crossed the US border on routine shopping trips. Crusius has acknowledged he targeted Hispanics…when he opened fire…
