The march to celebrate this year’s International Workers Day was well attended, with many workers joining the march to support a variety of organizations (trade unions, left parties, workers’ centers, environmentalist  and community organizations to defend human rights, and feminists groups, amongst many others). Workers expressed their opposition to racism, sexism, forced displacement, and the devastating impact of the capitalist system. It was common to see here the general support for Palestine and against the ongoing genocide, which is now a central axis of the class struggle and the current global political debates, in the context of the new multi-polar reality.

With this in mind, on this great day, we celebrated one more year of struggle, with our sights set on the unity of the international working class under the banners and leadership of our communist party, Progressive Labor Party (PLP). We denounced the parasitic capitalist class domination and its racist wage system, its endless wars, its sexism that divides us and weakens us, and its fascism and increased violence against our class. We celebrated one more year of struggle, protests, work stoppages, blockades, and mobilizations that sustain our commitment to our communist ideal, as the only way to build a better world.

PLP, as a revolutionary necessity, was an early presence at the meeting place in downtown Bogota, talking to workers, defending our line, and exchanging information to plan later meetings. We distributed our paper, CHALLENGE, and 2,000 flyers, calling for a communist revolution and class solidarity with our Palestinian and Haitian sisters and brothers, who are facing bloody and systematic imperialist genocide and repression. 

Our militant contingent marched behind a large sign featuring our newspaper. We were a dynamic and enthusiastic group of workers and students, members and friends of the Party. The whole event took place in the context of the current support for President Gustavo Petro’s reforms, which responds to a previous march called last April by right-wing followers of former president Alvaro Uribe. President Petro, in a populist and opportunistic fashion, gave a speech at Bolivar Plaza, proclaiming himself the heart of the march and all participants allies to his government.

In spite of that, PLP raising the communist red flag and chanting our slogans generated sympathy and was well-received by participants and people passing by, including men and women from a variety of ages who joined us to add around a hundred new enthusiastic participants to our group, notably many women and young people, who seemed attracted to our anti-sexist position and slogans.

Our daily work has been focused on advancing class struggles, learning from our practice to struggle against capitalists collectively, understanding that the struggle for reforms is insufficient, given the huge needs of our international working class. For that reason, our slogans had strong resonance, including, “No more reformism, long live communism!”, “Peace between social classes serves criminal bosses!” “Israel, racist and fascist murderer, smash capitalism! “Counterattacks in Gaza, Haiti, Ukraine or Venezuela, Workers’ communist revolution!” “Long live International Communist May Day!” These slogans, as well as thirty others, outlining PLP’s revolutionary line, were cheerfully and militantly chanted by our friends and onlookers, who requested printed copies to chant along.

We reached Bolivar Plaza, where the president took the stage to give his speech defending liberal reforms, silencing revolutionary voices, which was traditionally done by the sell-out trade unions. Generally, and in spite of the cynical will of this “government of change” to co-opt the march, there was a feeling of an overall rejection of the capitalists’ onslaught, which nevertheless, would be an opportunity for the reformists, democrathieves, and opportunists to continue providing cover for this corrupt capitalist system. Our task is to steadily work with those workers sympathetic to our line, and hundreds more, discussing and elaborating strategies based on our political understanding, forged by PLP, to smash the bosses’ dictatorship, growing in quantity and quality, and looking to turn these peaceful marches into militant struggles guided by communist ideas and practices.