CHICAGO, APRIL 30 –“Communist revolution – not capitalist war!” This revolutionary message rang through the air as over 60 multiracial Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members and friends of the Party  celebrated International Workers’ Day on the City’s South Side. Driving wind and rain could not dampen our spirit as we rallied around the communist red flag and our international fight for a world free of racism, sexism, borders, and exploitation.
Every May Day is important to our Party and the working class, but with an impending inter-imperialist war,  the stakes are even higher. Competing imperialist blocs of the United States and Western Europe squaring off against their ruling class rivals in China and Russia threaten to engulf the planet in another world war over power and profits. This year, we wanted our class to know wide and clear that there is only one path out of this capitalist nightmare - communist revolution.
What makes May Day so inspiring is that it provides a powerful glimpse of the communist future that we are fighting for. Workers united in common purpose, rejecting the bosses’ poisonous divisions, and boldly demonstrating that the international working class shall be the human race!
Workers unite for communist revolution
This year’s May Day took place in the Bronzeville neighborhood, an area home to thousands of Black workers and with a deeply radical history. The area was a hub of communist organizing throughout the early 20th century, with Black and white workers united in  struggle against racist terror, segregation, evictions and unemployment.
Today we were proud to not only carry on that revolutionary legacy, but  advance it. PL’ers and friends traded off leading chants on the bullhorn, such as “The workers united, will never be defeated!” and “Whose day? Our day! What day? May Day!” With our ranks fired up, we lined up to begin our march down 35th Street. Workers along the route raised their fists and honked their horns on sight. Many were eager to receive copies of CHALLENGE, of which we easily distributed 400 copies. With our Party having fought against racist police terror in this neighborhood for many years, we were primed to receive a warm welcome!
Target capitalist contradictions and take state power
Our first target on our march route was the headquarters building of the racist and fascist Chicago Police Department (CPD). These vicious attack dogs for the capitalist class hardly need any introduction when it comes to their racist terror committed against working people of the city, particularly Black and Latin workers.
A veteran PLP member gave a fiery speech at the front door, blasting the racist thugs in blue for their history of state-sponsored terror and ongoing role in maintaining the capitalist status quo:
“Cops provide the bosses’ security and control of workers as we labor for their profits locally. The military is used to enforce those same racist and anti-worker interests internationally through imperialism… We have to compare these actions to show that our fights for revolutionary communism must be as international as the capitalists’ attempts to crush and silence workers who fight back!”
Our next target was an immigrant worker concentration camp hidden in plain sight. This jail for workers and youth represents just one of the many facilities locally and across the country that are profiting handsomely off contracts with the bosses to detain and oppress our class. Those profits drive racist criminilization against undocumented workers.
A PLP high school teacher and a student both gave powerful speeches that called on workers everywhere to fight back and build the Party. The student detailed the brutal experience of her family at the hands of the racist bosses’ deportation machine, and in both English and Spanish, called us to action:
“The kids that are in this damn detention center, their parents, their loved ones -- none of these stories are unique! We are at war. Bosses have always been waging war against us. I have not come across a group or party that is willing to actively fight back other than PLP… If there are bosses, there will be a war against our class. People will be imprisoned, killed, and deprived of the necessities to live. PLP is fighting for revolution. If you are not fighting for revolution, you are not fighting to end this war!”
Build for a communist future TODAY
We concluded our day’s action in a nearby park. After some tasty lunch and socializing, we heard more speeches, including a report back from one of the workers involved in the University of Illinois Chicago Graduate Employees Organization strike (see CHALLENGE, 5/11). The inspiring keynote speech from another PLP leader reminded us that under the gathering storms of imperialist war, the time for our class to fight for communist revolution is NOW. Finally, we were entertained by some class conscious stand-up comedy from a young worker and finished by smashing a piñata in the shape of a capitalist boss!
The time is indeed now for the international working class to double down on our commitment to build the Party and fight for communism. Here’s to another successful May Day, and the long fight ahead!

April 30, Brooklyn— A stream of red Progressive Labor Party (PLP) flags flowed down Flatbush Avenue once again to celebrate this year’s May Day and the millions of workers worldwide that led the working class fightback for the 8-hour workday. In Chicago in 1886, 350,000 workers took to the streets to resist the ruling class’ demands for the "sunup to sundown" workday and demanded an end to worker’s lethal working conditions. The Chicago workers’ fight against capitalist exploitation sparked an uprising in Haymarket Square, during which cops murdered four workers and wounded hundreds more.
In 1889, the International Workers Association demanded the eight-hour  workday across borders. This push for internationalism aligns with our Party’s line. One class. The international working class. The Progressive Labor Party proudly carried the torch, marching in Brooklyn, New York, with bold, communist fightback, carrying the words written on the Haymarket  Monument in our hearts: THE DAY WILL COME WHEN OUR SILENCE WILL BE MORE POWERFUL THAN THE VOICES YOU ARE THROTTLING TODAY.
Fannng flames of revolution with class rage and optimism
Our class rage fueled our march, from the ruling classes’ callous acceptance of mass COVID deaths to reckless U.S. and Russian imperialists’ flirtation with nuclear war in Ukraine. In the year since our last May Day march, the ruling class worldwide continues to cheapen and destroy working class lives internationally. Nevertheless, our march was fueled by revolutionary optimism. While the ruling class ramps up its preparation for World War III, using Ukraine as a pawn in their inter-imperialist rivalry, dozens of workers boldly took over the streets, proclaiming we will smash racist borders and imperialist war with communist revolution.  
As we passed the Kings Theater marquee that advertised his foul name, we chanted, “Eric Adams, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!” denouncing the lies and deceptions he recently spewed there regarding his first 100 days in office.  Recently, Adams  gamed workers that lost family members to gun violence on stage and vowed to ‘fight crime by unleashing his racist kkkops.As the crisis of capitalism deepens and the splits between the Big Fascist capitalists, fronted by Biden, and the Small Fascist America First capitalists, once represented by Donald Trump, intensifies the bosses will continue to intensify their attacks on workers.
For the Big Fascists, the main finance capital wing, the current play is to appoint members of historically oppressed groups to manage our class’s oppression. Black liberal misleaders Adams are managing local New York bosses’ fascist housing and wage theft crisis by criminalizing workers. His answer to making streets safe is  to ramp up racist policing and broken windows policies to crack down on Black and Latin youth,and homeless workers on trains and pitting Asian workers against Black workers.
With Adam’s plan for terror, we are witnessing the fascist disciplining of our class in real time. PLP’s response to this volatile system is to unite with workers and families in antiracist struggles and build a communist movement that smash the fascist bosses once and for all.
Honoring May Day with international worker solidarity
The entire day was a celebration of international working class unity through our collective struggles to overthrow the capitalist dictatorship. Hundreds of multiracial, multi-gendered, intergenerational workers combined forces for an international celebration of working class power. Our speeches presented political clarity on why workers fight for communism. “The working class will determine society’s future. Our Black, Latin, Asian, white and immigrant sisters and brothers will rise to end imperialist wars that send our youth to kill their class brothers and sisters worldwide, all for the bosses’ profits.”
Messages of solidarity sprouted from comrades in Haiti: “We face a government that cannot govern. We have a working class that cannot live as it once did: see the strikes and demonstrations of tens of thousands of workers demanding an increase in the minimum wage (despite the threat of police and gangs). The only thing we lack is a revolutionary party with a deep base within the working class: this is the task of Progressive Labor Party in Haiti today and tomorrow. We are ready to accept it.”
We heard messages from Colombia and Mexico: ”This capitalist democracy does not work for the benefit of the working class and cannot be reformed. It must be destroyed by workers' power,” further fueling an already energized working class crowd in Brooklyn. Provisions were made for translation of all proceedings into Spanish, and chants resonated in English, Spanish, and Haitian Kreyol.
In an inspiring moment of solidarity, construction workers interrupted their toil to hail our march. Amidst the foundation of yet another residential tower sure to contribute to racist gentrification, they held CHALLENGE newspaper high and offered a phone number to remain in touch with the communists marching by their job site.
Marching alongside PLP were transit workers, immigrants’ rights organizations, organizers struggling against displacement and police terror, and anti-racist young people from teacher education programs. All of these attendees represent  working-class potential. Under communist leadership, workers will run all aspects of society. We need these workers and many more, as well as students and youth, to join our movement. On May Day our objective is clear. We fight for workers' power through communism.  Join us!

OAKLAND, April 29 – Progressive Labor Party participated in several May Day events on Friday April 29 and Sunday May 1. Though small, PLers in the Bay Area  were able to spread communist ideas via our chants and newspaper, which were openly accepted by protesters at the demonstration. Workers are always open to communist politics.
Oakland: racist attack on students and workers
In Oakland, a primarily Black and Latin city, PLP attended protests at three schools over threatened closures.  The teachers and students connected the closure of schools to the closure of the port in Alameda (next to Oakland) to build a baseball stadium. Teachers and port workers united against privatization, a process that disproportionately hurts Black, Latin, and immigrant students and families. “The vast majority of students at the targeted schools — some 93% — are considered either lower-income, English learners or foster youth. Black students…[are] more than 40% of the student body…” (KQED, 4/29). The bosses will continue to make the working class pay for a crisis their system created.
Charter schools have a tighter control of both its students and workers.  At the Oakland rally, PLP distributed CHALLENGE and leaflets describing the way privatization further streamlines the process of producing students who have been taught not to think for themselves but rather to obey orders and conform to the bosses’ demands, training our students to become obedient workers who passively accept their exploitation. Public schools, like all schools under capitalism, are no better in their willingness to indoctrinate students with ideas that normalize racism, sexism and class exploitation. A system that treats some students as expendable does not deserve to exist!
San Francisco: workers have no borders!
On May Day Sunday, PLP attended the immigrant rights march calling for legalization for millions of undocumented workers and restoration of the asylum process at the border. These are just two of Biden’s broken campaign promises. A crowd of 400 mostly Spanish speakers heard PLP’s communist chants. “La Migra, Cochina, Racista y Asesina” (ICE, Pigs, Racists and Murderers) was well-liked. “Este puño si se ve,  Los obreros al poder” (this fist that you can see, workers to power) was new to the crowd. We promoted international working-class unity and discussed the idea of “¡Aplastar! las Fronteras” (Smash all Borders!). Relying  on the liberal bosses to lead these fights for undocumented workers will lead us into fighting in their inter-imperialist wars or in a cycle of being sifted through empty reforms (see editorial).  
PLP distributed 77 CHALLENGEs, mainly to those interested in our communist headline about May Day, some of the international reports, transit struggles, and student actions. We made one contact and gave literature to MUNI bus drivers.  
Meanwhile, other PLP members attended the May Day march called by the AFL-CIO union where we also distributed literature and met people.
We plan to follow up with our friends to discuss the role of borders and the basis of immigration policies in the capitalists’ need for a divided labor force, especially in this time of war. Slowly but surely, we are politically sharpening our forces and building the party. It was an exciting weekend!

A communist education
Sometimes, the Party’s ideas can reach people, and have a wonderful impact, in unexpected ways.
Three days ago, I participated in the PLP-organized May Day march in Brooklyn, New York. Then yesterday, I sent videos of the keynote speech to friends who didn’t make it to the march.
One friend, who now lives in another state, wrote back saying, “Thanks. I enjoyed that. It is a good reminder of the essence of community.”
Another friend, who is a teacher, sent this especially heart-warming note:
“Thank you for sharing this! She educated me soooooooo much just now! Some things I was aware of, but much of what she stated, I did not know! This is powerful! Do you mind if I share this with my students in class tomorrow?... I think it would be powerful to show this and discuss . . . and scrap what my original lesson was going to be.”
We never know, in advance, what the consequences will be, when we do a bit of extra Party work. In this case, the lesson is we should be bold in sharing communist ideas, even more broadly than we may have thought possible!
*****
Workers will be safe under communism
The May Day March was great despite the rain, and the chaos trying to get on a commuter train from Indiana to Chicago. It was great to see comrades I have known for years. The best part of the march was taking the Party’s message that our only way forward is for the workers to take state power straight to the agents of the racist bosses, the fascist cops at the ‘Public Safety’ Center in the Bronzeville neighborhood. They now  know that we’ll be coming for them someday during the communist revolution led by workers under Progressive Labor Party (PLP) leadership. The chants condemning the imperialist Ukraine-Russian war were great. May Day inspired all of us to do BETTER to build this antiracist, anti imperialist, revolutionary communist movement!
*****
Tale of two May Days
There were two New York May Day marches, a communist PLP march in Brooklyn and a reformist (socialist, anarchist) sponsored march from Union Square to Jeff Bezos’ headquarters in Manhattan to support the Amazon union movement. Due to physical limitations I wasn’t able to participate in either march but was able to get to the May Day Union Square rally to sell CHALLENGE and talk to some laundry, restaurant and transit workers about their labor struggles. I am a retired transit worker who participated in the 1964 Transit Strike that shut the city down for 11 days and forced the city to give a pension after 20 years, which all the workers I talked to have lost.
The young workers knew about the strike. I explained that the benefits were won because the union leadership at that time received only the average pay of the rest of the workers and not the six figure salaries of today’s union misleaders, much like today’s politicians who are bought and sold by anonymous unlimited contributions. The revisionists tried to sell me their socialist propaganda which I refused, explaining it was just state capitalism.
Some workers however seemed favorable to my communist ideas by buying all the CHALLENGE issues I had and taking many pictures of my sign which read, “Capitalists worldwide need you to fight other workers for power and profits…communists want to turn profit wars into revolution for workers’ power – read CHALLENGE”.