BOGOTA, COLOMBIA, May 1 — Over 60,000 people participated in the May Day march, commemorating the day of the International working class. There were courageous youth who hissed and ridiculed harassing cops and politicians claiming to be the saviors of the working class. There were trade union misleaders demanding more crumbs from the capitalist system, and groups of peasants and indigenous communities, displaced by violence, denouncing state and paramilitary crimes.

There were relatives of the disappeared demanding justice, workers in low-paying jobs denouncing their abusive bosses, groups of teachers and students rejecting the privatization of public education. Doctors and nurses denounced the enormous theft of healthcare resources. Opportunists of every shade and color sabotaged the event with loud whistles and without any slogans, dancing as if in a carnival.

Members of PLP began the distribution of more than 3,000 revolutionary fliers and the selling of CHALLENGE very early. Comrades and friends, women and men, arrived in small groups to avoid police harassment. We organized ourselves behind our signs and proudly raised the red flag with the distinctive symbols of our Party.

We all, workers and students, enthusiastically chanted:

 “Changing presidents, kings or dictators do not free us from the yoke!”

“Democracy is a capitalist farce, organize communist revolution”

“Reject every capitalist option, Always lead with communism!”

“One working class, one communist world, and one Progressive Labor Party!”

“Against capitalist usury, a communist worker state!”

“Take advantage of capitalist wars to organize communist revolution!”

Several groups participating in the march chanted along and joined our contingent, which grew to almost a hundred strong. A group of workers insisted on sharing their lunch with us to express support for the revolutionary politics of PLP.

During the march, we advanced as far as Plaza Bolivar, where we sang the Internationale, but soon after, as is often the case, we had to face police brutality in the form of tear gas, stunt explosions and water cannons.

We made many contacts with the workers and students we had met. We plan to take advantage of this capitalist crisis to politicize workers’ struggles and direct them towards an international communist revolution.

The New York Times (NYT) reported on May 31st that housing prices fell for the eighth straight month and hit the lowest level since the current depression began. According to ShadowStats, the actual unemployment rate has crept back up to 22.3%, despite a brief dip down to 22% in March as seasonal employment began to pick back up. Consumer spending has remained flat as wages continue to fall, despite a small spike due to rising gas and food prices.

The April index of pending deals (a measurement of anticipated home sales) dropped well below a predicted 1% dip to a collapse of 11.6%. With continuing high unemployment and mass wage-cuts, workers are in no position to buy a house in a market flooded with foreclosed homes.

According to the NYT (5/22), banks currently own 872,000 foreclosed properties and in are in the process of foreclosing on one million more. As long as this massive shadow inventory of homes exists, housing prices will continue to fall.

In his blog, economist and NYT columnist Paul Krugman (5/25) proposed that the U.S. is entering a third great depression, less like the Great Depression of the 1930s and more like the Long Depression that dragged on for four decades, from 1873 to the start of World War One. Workers should be warned that both the Long Depression and the Great Depression were worldwide crises in the capitalist imperialist economic system, and that they were “alleviated “ only by world wars.

A blogger writing on the continuing depression comments, “Congress just doesn’t seem to ‘get it.’ They don’t understand what people are going through” (Mike Whitney, Counterpunch, 5/27). Yet the facts are so obvious and the government’s effort to confuse it is so thorough that one would be hard-pressed to conclude that the capitalist class and their political minions don’t “get it.”

Capitalists Use Crisis to
Attack Workers

Capitalists are predictably using this crisis as an excuse to launch an attack on workers in the U.S. that is unprecedented in the modern era. Using national and state debt as an excuse, legislators have begun to undo the last vestiges of the social safety net that capitalists reluctantly put into place under the New Deal. These 1930s reforms were aimed to deflect the anger of workers who were organizing mass protests and industrial unions with Communist Party leadership.

Unemployment and welfare benefits are being cut when they are needed most. The recent attacks on government workers’ unions have largely finished off what remained of the right of workers to organize. At the same time, banks have been granted unprecedented power over workers’ financial livelihoods and bosses given huge leeway in their right and ability to abuse and exploit their workers.Capitalism survives on workers’ blood. This parasitic system will continue to breed sexism, racism, poverty and imperialist wars.

The working class can only combat this blatant capitalist attack by organizing for a class war of our own. Multi-billionaire Warren Buffet was correct when he said, “There’s class warfare, alright, but it’s my class that’s making war, and we’re winning” (NYT 11/26/06).

PLP urges workers to join with us in organizing a mass, revolutionary communist party. Only such a party, with a communist analysis of the capitalist system, can lead the fight to smash capitalist exploitation once and for all.

A recently released report from the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (Every Thirty Minutes, 2011) revealed that farmers in India are committing suicide at a rate of one every thirty minutes. During the past sixteen years, more than a quarter of a million farmers in India have committed suicide: a tragedy due to the ever-growing cycle of debt that U.S. agro-companies like Monsanto force on Indian farmers.

The IMF and World Bank, institutions controlled by U.S. and European imperialists, have forced market liberalization on India which means the elimination of government subsidies and government-backed loans to farmers. The introduction of U.S. agribusiness, particularly Monsanto, into the region has strong-armed many farmers to being dependent on seeds and fertilizers that are far more expensive than local varieties.

This economic imperialism has thrown agriculture in India into crushing poverty with most farmers making only $250 for an entire year of labor. Many of those who have committed suicide have done so by consuming the very pesticides that put them into so much debt. These victims of capitalism have left heart-wrenching suicide notes addressed to the Indian Prime Minister begging for assistance.

History of Imperialism

But as all capitalists are loyal only to profits, the Indian government has continued to pursue these murderous reforms. This story mirrors the history of Western imperialism in India that is soaked in the blood of the working class.

When British imperialists first visited India in the 18th century they commented on the country’s immense wealth. In 1757 one Briton described Dacca in Bengal as being as “extensive, populous, and rich as the city of London.” Another observer described the region as “a wonderful land, whose richness and abundance neither war, pestilence, nor oppression could destroy.” A 1918 report of the British Royal Industrial Commission remarked that “the industries of India were far more advanced than those of the West up to the advent of the industrial revolution.”

With Britain’s official declaration of dominance over India in 1793, all that changed. Indian industry was systematically destroyed, much of it carted off back to Britain. By 1840 the population of Dacca had fallen from 150,000 to 30,000. Writing in 1835 a British official wrote of India, “The misery hardly finds a parallel in the history of commerce. The bones of the cotton-weavers are bleaching the plains of India.” In the final years of British imperial control conditions worsened. Between 1881 and 1939 life expectancy dropped in India from 30 years to a mere 23 years.

This history of imperialist murder has called out for workers there to join the communist movement and indeed many great communist leaders such as Rajani Palme Dutt came from India.

Workers in India have a great legacy of fighting imperialism, but if they ever hope to smash the imperialist menace that has haunted them for more than 200 years they need to link arms with the international revolutionary communist party, PLP. Only workers uniting together under the banner of communism can smash capitalism and its racist murderous imperial system once and for all.

Members of the recently-reorganized Culture Committee of PL continue to struggle over ideas for presentations to counter the bourgeois culture that surrounds us with the hatreds and anti-working-class propaganda of the ruling class and their mass media.  Our discussion reviewed the pre-May Day event we organized in April. 

We conceived of the idea of a No Borders event to counter the vicious attacks upon undocumented immigrants called “illegal” or “alien” by the bosses’ press. As was pointed out at a demonstration in Staten Island, “How could anyone from the Earth be an alien?”  If anyone is alien, it’s the bosses who don’t care if workers live or die. They use us like pawns, an important cultural understanding. We produced the show, touching on the many facets of anti-immigrant propaganda that are becoming prevalent through media outlets and popular culture in the United States.

We opened the show with a little musical presentation that spoke to the need to smash all borders. Our poetry and song reflected the common humanity of ordinary people struggling in the face of the enormous obstacles that the rulers create to stop us from uniting. The show went on with excerpts from Paul Robeson’s speech made at the Peace Bridge on the Canadian border because Robeson was not allowed to leave the U.S. 

There was a great rendition of the Langston Hughes poem “Good Morning Revolution,” spoken by many voices from the audience.  An original poem from Haiti was read in both Kreyol and English.  Our historical PL photo exhibit was also on display.  The evening was a resounding success.

Next Event: The Fight Against Sexism

We are now moving on to organize another event with a theme of anti-sexism, and want to expand the committee to reflect the diversity of the Party. We are also developing a youth chorus to perform popular and revolutionary songs.

We are all positive about the possibility of developing the cultural work in the Progressive Labor Party. The tasks ahead are not easy, but the joy that the No Borders evening brought to the audience, the performers, and the organizers was evident. Since our reorganization, the committee has presented a variety music show as a fundraiser against racist police violence. It included a photographic exhibition of historical PL, anti-racist, and pro-communist struggle, along with a revue of song and poetry on the theme of No Borders.

Join with us to develop the youth chorus and expand the cultural work that can inspire workers to smash the racist, sexist, and individualistic culture that capitalist rulers try to use to keep workers divided and passive.  Our communist voices will be heard!J (Anyone interested in joining the committee should contact us through plp.org.)