The following is the opening speech delivered at a Progressive Labor Party (PLP) pre-May Day brunch in honor of the 114th celebration of International Working Women’s Day.
Thank you all for joining us today at our annual May Day brunch. This event is a special celebration for many reasons. First and foremost, our pre-May Day gathering coincides with the 114th celebration of International Working Women's Day (IWWD), a day to honor the historical struggle of women against capitalist exploitation and sexist oppression.
This year, it's no accident that our celebration coincides with IWWD. Like May Day, International Working Women's Day is a communist holiday, born from workers’ labor movements. IWWD has its roots in three pivotal strikes. The first, in 1909, was the garment workers' uprising, where 20,000 women demanded better working conditions. By 1911, a million workers across the globe were celebrating the day. However, it wasn’t until later that IWWD became firmly tied to the revolutionary communist movement. On March 8, 1917, women workers in what would later become the Soviet Union organized a mass strike against Russia's involvement in World War I. This strike helped ignite the Bolshevik Revolution.
Today, we observe IWWD against the backdrop of a global capitalist crisis and intensifying imperialist wars. The U.S. ruling class’s competition with China and Russia, internal divisions, and their endless scramble for profits is further exposing the brutal reality of their system. For over a century, liberal rulers have dominated U.S. imperialism, paving the way for fascism and giving rise to a new breed of capitalist gangsters, led by Donald Trump. Under his rule, we’ve seen open racist and sexist attacks, especially targeting women and migrants.
Migrant workers, many of whom are women and children fleeing domestic and state violence, are scapegoated. Attacks on abortion rights, essential government programs for women, and workers' rights—including those of trans workers and youth—are intensifying. From Sudan to Gaza, women make up 40 percent of the casualties in ongoing genocides.
Women workers leadership key to communist revolution
Despite these grim realities, IWWD serves as a reminder of the resilience and fightback of the working women who came before us. As the revolutionary feminist Alexandra Kollontai once said, IWWD is part of the long chain of the women’s proletarian movement. We inherit that tradition today. Across the globe, we see remarkable anti-sexist resistance led by women—whether it’s fighting police brutality, striking nurses, Amazon workers, or standing up against fascist deportations, racist displacement, and genocide.
What is urgently needed is the development of a global communist movement under the banner of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP). In contrast to the bosses’ whitewashed propaganda that celebrates bourgeois women like Hillary Clinton and Oprah Winfrey, the fight against sexism is inherently tied to the broader struggle for class liberation. When women fight for abortion rights, against sexist violence, for childcare, and for higher wages, they are not only fighting for themselves but for all workers and the elimination of gender roles. This fight benefits our entire class.
Our Party views the struggle against sexism as inseparable from the fight against racism. Black women workers are central to the revolution. The bosses' propaganda aims to divide us—separating men and women—but as communists, we believe that to destroy sexism, we must unite men and women. Men too are harmed by sexism, just as white workers suffer from racism.
In spite of this (war and fascism) the women fight
This brings us to the third reason for this year’s May Day theme: “Raising the Red Flag Against Fascism.” Today, we will hear from women workers who continue the fight against imperialism and fascism, drawing inspiration from historical figures like the women who led the underground resistance against the Nazis during World War I, the communist led apartheid movement, and other pro-communist women led underground resistance. The words of Black anti-racist and anti-sexist fighter Williana Borroughs resonate now more than ever: “…the atrocities of war and fascism loom much nearer. The misery, suffering and degree of exploitation under capitalism and in the colonies is very great. In spite of this, the women fight.”
These lessons are crucial as we navigate our own struggles today. Instead of feeling discouraged, let us commemorate the lessons and sacrifices of the brave working women who came before us. From Harriet Tubman to Claudia Jones, Lucy Gonzalez Parsons to Alexandra Kollontai, from the women soldiers in the Haitian Revolution to those who fought in the Paris Commune, and the women who led the Chinese and Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution—women workers have always held up half the sky and raised the banner against fascism. No successful movement for liberation has ever been led without women workers at the forefront.
Together, we can forge another link in the strong chain of women fighters, working to liberate all of humanity. This May Day, let’s raise the red flag against fascism and fight for a communist world free from sexist and racist violence and exploitation.
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