Fight to Learn, Learn to Fight! A look at PLP’s Communist May Day History

BROOKLYN, NY, March 11–As part of our monthly series preparing for May Day 2023, a multiracial group of over 30 students, parents, teachers, and workers engaged in a sampling of historic May Day events led by Progressive Labor Party (PLP) since our party resurrected the holiday in the U.S. in 1971.
The common threads of revolutionary communist boldness, creativity, militant class struggle, confidence in the working class, and our ever-evolving line of dictatorship of the proletariat and fighting directly for communism, and our uncompromising antiracism and multiracial workers’ unity, was all in full display over a series of events we studied.

See-Think-Wonder about May Day!
After an icebreaker, we took a gallery walk in groups around the room, looking at images over several decades of May Day marches and demonstrations, each person commenting on what they “see, think, and wonder” on chart paper (see photo). Here are some initial reactions of participants:
     “Seems very militant and organized,”
    “I love the bold/ambitious vision: building a worldwide movement,”
    “They are brave!”
    “What is martial law?”
    “Workers on the streets waving their fists in support,”
    “They must have been so disciplined and organized in the days before cell phones,”
    “How did they plan this?”
    “We need this in every city!”

May Day through the decades
Then, each group sat down to investigate one of the May Day events depicted in the photos—as one comrade observed—reflecting larger struggles PLP had been involved in for quite some time.

1974 – PLP organized a nationwide motorcade (including workers from Canada) that originated in almost a dozen cities, traveling to over a dozen more, organizing scores of rallies and demonstrations around factories, universities, and communities where the Party was actively organizing, and converging in Washington, D.C. for a grand May Day march. Marchers represented 30 U.S. cities and almost 30 different countries.

1975 – As part of a long campaign to smash a rising fascist group called ROAR (Restore Our Alienated Rights) in Boston, PLP mounted a valiant and victorious defense of our May Day march against a physical attack by racist ROAR thugs, backing up our revolutionary communist ideas with disciplined and organized physical force en route to destroying ROAR as an organization forever.

1979 – PLP went on the offensive to rout Nazis from Marquette Park in Chicago, which had outlawed Black/non-white workers from as far back as anyone could remember. Following a military-style antiracist/communist-led raid on Nazi headquarters just a month before, PLP’s bold contingent led hundreds of multiracial workers to actively integrate the park once and for all, breaking the back of Nazi organizing efforts.

1992–Amidst open antiracist rebellion by Black, Latin, and white workers in response to the sham Rodney King verdict (a Black man brutalized by a gang of racist LAPD thugs), the rulers declared martial law in Los Angeles, banning all demonstrations. But PLP didn’t let that stop us from boldly carrying out a May Day caravan through Los Angeles, defying the law, outwitting cops, and engaging hundreds of workers, youth, and National Guard soldiers with communism and militant antiracism.

2002–In the wake of the 9/11 attacks and Patriot Act crackdowns on protests and in the throes of rising fascism and imperialist war in Afghanistan, PLP boldly and creatively planned spirited May Day marches and dinners in multiple locations to confidently put forward our communist line and allow workers to participate in our international holiday.

Group participants actively debated our line and our practice to more deeply understand each event, its time period, and lessons for building the communist movement today.

In our share-out, commenting on the prominent multiracial character of our demonstrations and vital Black and Latin leadership throughout our Party’s history, one young participant made the point that these events obliterate the ruling class’s racist anti-communist lie that the communist movement is “white” or that communism is for “whites only.” One of the large banners highlighted in one of the marches punctuated the point by proclaiming “Racism Hurts All Workers.”

The presence of some high school students with their parents reflected PLP’s dedication to building a student-parent-teacher alliance in the schools.

Confidence in our class
These historic events on the whole also showed the development of PLP’s line through the years, advancing from advocating for “Socialism” in the ‘60s, ’70s, and ‘80s to fighting directly for communism over the last 35 years. Our long experience leading class struggle proved to us that workers are open to communist ideas.

In fact, studying these events, one can see how when we have confidence in the working class—that they would defend their homes from the fascists, that they would take the offensive against racist and sexist divisions, that they would travel across the country for communism, defy the bosses’ laws, even defend our party’s line with revolutionary violence when necessary—we grew as an organization capable of leading the working class to victory.

Indeed, the only way to guarantee the dictatorship of the proletariat (working class) in the long run is to fight directly for communism now.

BIG, BOLD COMMUNIST MAY DAY 2023!
After our share-out, participants shared their ideas for a May Day theme for this year’s NYC march. Some of our ideas included “Capitalism Divides Workers—Fight Back with Revolutionary Communist Optimism!” “Resilient Rebels on the Road to Revolution,” “Getting Ready for Revolt/Revolution,” and “Fight Capitalist Divisions with Communist Internationalism.”

People left the forum inspired! Now we must use our newfound understanding to inspire our friends to learn and participate in this proud communist, anti-racist, working-class heritage, for we—all of us—are making history, and EVERYTHING we do counts.