BOSTON, MA—Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and friends organized three rallies and a car caravan to celebrate May Day and bring the revolutionary communist line of PLP to the workers of Mattapan and Dorchester.
Solidarity with workers from Haiti
The first rally in Mattapan square, an area where many Haitian immigrant workers live and have suffered extreme oppression and violence from ICE agents over the past few years, which has been ramped up by the Biden administration. Passer-by heard chants of, "Working people have no nation, stop racist deportation!" and "The cops, the courts, the Klu Klux Klan, all part of the bosses' plan!"
Many dozens of workers accepted May Day leaflets  in English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole, and copies of CHALLENGE, and some stopped to speak with PL members about our work.
smash capitalist exploitation
One comrade gave a speech on the fundamentally exploitative nature of capitalism and the need for all working people to come together to replace the whole system with communism, a system without wages and where all workers share in the wealth we produce. Another spoke of the nurses of the Boston Teachers' Union's frontline struggle in the fight against the deadly coronavirus, in which they succeeded in winning many of the safety measures that the local politicians wanted to deny our teachers and students. A guest speaker and local leader spoke of the U.S. imperialists and their reactionary activities in Haiti, and the monumental harm caused there by the U.S. bosses' never ending search for profits.
Next the PL’ers decorated their cars with red flags and revolutionary slogans and paraded through the highly segregated neighborhoods of Dorchester, first to Fields corner and then Grove Hall, where more flyers and Challenges were distributed and speeches were made about the importance of rejecting the lies of liberal misleaders and joining with workers around the world to overthrow capitalism.
One PL’er gave a speech to underscore the historical importance of May Day, the militant struggle for the eight  hour day in Chicago and around the world, and to expose the vicious repression of the Capitalist bosses and their killer cops and hired thugs. Another spoke about the role of police terror in maintaining the capitalist order and dividing the working class along racial lines, and the need to smash racism with multiracial unity.
At the end, members and friends gathered in Franklin Park to share food and experiences on bringing the revolutionary line of PLP to the workers here. Many drew inspiration at the warm reception of the PLP. Two new friends expressed joy that communism was on the lips of so many workers, and were grateful for the experience.

ISRAEL-PALESTINE, MAY 12—As we go to press, war in Israel-Palestine is quickly expanding. In the last three days dozens of people have been killed including at least 14 children and hundreds wounded in the apartheid state of Israel-Palestine. The situation for the working class there is dire as our sisters and brothers are caught between the terrorism of the Israeli ruling class and the self-serving nationalist leadership of the Palestinian movement. The situation cries out for the unity of all workers to turn this war between the bosses factions into a movement for communist revolution and liberation of our class from capitalism.
The latest uprising by young workers and the massive attacks by the Israeli ruling class on Palestinian workers was set off by the attempted eviction of Palestinian workers from several neighborhoods in Jerusalem. The situation where Palestinian workers have been kept in extreme oppression has led to many years of rebellion by young workers since the Israeli ruling class was put into power by the British and U.S. bosses. The Palestinian leadership has used the anger of young workers against the racist apartheid condition to build their own power and wealth at the expense of the working class.
The current escalation of the war in Israel-Palestine is caught up in the combination of crisis in the Israeli ruling class which has been fighting among themselves, the needs of Iran which is backing the Hamas wing of the Palestinian ruling class and the bigger inter-imperialist rivalry involving the weakening U.S. bosses. This convergence of the capitalist crisis is threatening to not just escalate war in that part of the world but bring in bosses from other countries such as Turkey, Iran, and Russia.
The current overall volatility of the world situation where the U.S. ruling class is weakening and competing imperialists are moving into the U.S. bosses former sphere of influence make the situation in Israel-Palestine a possible start point for a much wider war (see more next issue).

This May Day comes at a time when  working class all over the world is groaning in pain and suffering from a global pandemic which is a result of capitalist competition and scheming for control of the world. The corporate elite stands to reap huge profits from the vaccine now being pushed worldwide (see editorial, page 2) and also from the inability of workers to organize as a result of lockdowns and quarantines to control the virus. The working class is therefore suffering great hardship in silence.
The working class in Nigeria is in a specially difficult situation suffering not just from the pandemic but also from an unprecedented insecurity due to ethnic intolerance which is leading to another fratricidal ethnic war. The ethnic elites of the major ethnic groupings in Nigeria do not seem to have learned anything from the last civil war, nor from Rwanda, nor from Libya, nor currently from the Central African Republic. The results of ethnic nationalism are mass slaughter. Young people must reject this path and the path of religion which equally sets them up. They need to study and use the invincible tool of Marxism - Leninism to build a better society.
Arise ye wretched of the earth! Arise ye starving masses of Nigeria! A new egalitarian Nigeria is possible. Working people of Nigeria and the world unite!

COLOMBIA, May 9—The ruling class here is in crisis and workers are fed up. Comrades  from Colombia, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. met virtually for a first-hand account of the resistance and work of the party's colleagues in Colombia who were involved in the National Strike. These comrades have been battling the already known repressive measures of the fascists who govern Colombia. Then we brought together  20 people from different collectives, and produced the following report:
In the last week, Colombia has experienced the most violent moments in its recent history. The criminal government of Ivan Duque, sponsored by the paramilitary Álvaro Uribe Vélez, has murdered at least 37 people and has disappeared 89. This has resulted in nearly a thousand wounded workers by the systematic brutality of ESMAD (anti-riot police) as a policy of state repression.
There is fear generated on the streets by the homicidal response of the police and other defenders of the dictatorial regime prevailing in Colombia in the face of marches and rallies against a new tax reform bill and other forms of government exploitation. Yet, thousands of students, workers, young people, and indigenous people, among others, have taken the streets  since April 28 to openly protest. They are rejecting the hunger policies imposed from the state, which proposed to tax multiple items essential to the survival of a working-class family up to 19 percent. Moreover, the incomes of millions in poverty, struggling daily for their survival would be able to afford even less.
Faced with protest—where singing, drumming, performance, and other artistic expressions predominate as a form of resistance—the police have opted for excessive brutality. They are using tear gas, stunners, and bullets indiscriminately against protesters. They have murdered those who called in unison for a dignified life for their families before the stunned but passive gaze of the international community. In addition, the use of unconventional weapons such as knives and hand-made guns by police and state-service paramilitary groups has been recorded by the protesters’ phone cameras. Workers have not only been beaten and repressed, but they are also forced to witness the massacre of unarmed people who cry out for justice.
Workers reject crumbs
Due to pressure from a people resisting, Ivan Duque withdrew his abusive reform proposal to propose a "new" one that is still not finished. However, faced with this strategy aimed at appeasing the crowds enraged in dignity, thousands of Colombians tired of the deceptions of politicians and warlords, decided to stay on the streets. They have declared themselves Anti-Uribist as a clear anti-fascist expression in the face of the recalcitrant fascism that has spread in the country. Which has made violence and hunger the law. Health reform, the systematic killing of social leaders in the countryside and the city, cuts to education, and state corruption have become the flag of struggle for thousands of people, besieged by the inequality of savage capitalism.
First they loot us, then they blame us
The marches and meetings have been infiltrated by policemen without uniforms and paramilitaries, who have looted shops, housing, and state entities, among others, seeking to delegitimize  the demands  of the oppressed masses. Useless pacifism spread through the media mouth-piece condemns the beaten and gasped population. Instead, their executioners are defended and are said to be covered by retrograde law and the corrupt establishment. They repeatedly say phrases such as “that is not the way to protest." At no time is the excessive use by  ESMAD (the anti-riot police) that attacks civilians with  firing bullets criticized. The defenseless population use sticks and stones as their only tools.
 In response to the servile media, owned by the big capitalists in Colombia, the cameras of the protesters' cell phones have become a weapon of resistance. Massacres in cities such as Cali, Bogota, Neiva, Medellin, and Pereira are being broadcast live to millions around the world. This is an X-ray of the archaic and dictatorial methods used to extinguish the voice of protest of oppressed  people in urban and rural areas. Homicides committed in the countryside have easily been hidden due to the absolute control exercised by paramilitarism and the absence of agencies defending the fallacy of human rights.
The false argument that workers’ protests are being “radicalized”  is used to divide the people from their struggle for decent living conditions. In this way, the police are made out to be the victims. So, while the protesters are beaten and shot, pacifism is presented as the correct path.
Faced with the force of the protests, Ivan Duque has contemplated the militarization of cities facing criticism from agencies such as the UN, whose response has been null. Decree a state of "inner shock," which gives the president unlimited power has become an option to apply to return to the calm that favors capital.  
Politicians have tried to seize the force of the strike, meeting with senior government officials to negotiate a way out. However, protest groups have shown they are not represented by these opportunists looking to sell out the fight in exchange for seats in parliament. A youth full of nonconformism have  tried to restore dignity to a country looted by archaic elites.
The protest and violent events that have been labelled as anarchist. However, in PLP, we consider that the revolutionary ideas of young and old and everything that makes them question capitalist exploitation should be valued as the first flame of a communist revolution.