MAY DAY ... NY/NJ: rain or shine, it’s workers’ time!

Brooklyn, April 29– In the midst of steady rain, Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and friends marched through Brooklyn to commemorate the day that calls for workers to take power around the world: May Day. This year’s theme was a call for the international working class to unite to smash inter-imperialist war in a time of rising capitalist crisis around the world. Rather than die in the bosses’ wars, PLP fights to bring together the strengths of the working class to organize for a world worth fighting for, a communist world. May Day is an expression of our collective efforts to build that egalitarian, just world in which workers will make sure that our entire class is fed, educated, sheltered, and taken care of communally.

Smash racist borders
For this reason, the fight for communism knows no borders. Regardless of where you are, you are a member of the working class—our May Day march is for all of us! This affirmation of unity was front and center at our march. International greetings from Colombia, Pakistan and Haiti helped inspire marchers with the class struggle waged by the Party around the globe. Speeches before the march echoed this call for workers to organize and join PLP so that the working class can seize state power. In the face of the bosses’ rising fascism, our class must turn the guns around and build towards revolution. In line with the party’s internationalism, each speech was translated into Haitian Creole, Spanish, and English, reflecting PLP’s multiracial fight for a communist future. Though many were wet and cold, 200 marchers from numerous places along the East Coast of the United States showed up to express their commitment to the international working class.

Communist optimism drowns out the rain!
Wearing red ponchos to match red flags, we raised our fists to show the unity of workers marching down Flatbush Avenue. Demonstrating that workers have what it takes to adapt to any situation, members of the PLP carefully wrapped CHALLENGE newspapers in plastic grocery bags to keep them dry and to sell. Hundreds of copies of CHALLENGE were distributed to supportive working-class Brooklynites in this way. When chanters on the front truck could not use the onboard sound system because of the rain, comrades took turns making a beat with an umbrella, which energized those at the front of the march to maintain a passionate chanting spirit. Marchers showed their indomitable strength chanting together, “We don’t care about the rain! Flush these bosses down the drain!”

Many workers dared to be soaked as they walked towards the doors of shops, paused to listen, dance, put their fists up, and smile, commemorating the moment by putting their phones up or waving to their class marching by. A lot of others opened their windows and watched with awe and joy from high story buildings and encouraged us when we noticed them. One worker waved two red roses out of her window in a show of solidarity with the march.

Fascism means… Build communist leadership
At the close of May Day, onlookers cheered on as they heard the speech of a new Haitian comrade who spoke about how the party’s dedication to internationalism and antiracist class struggle won her over to communist revolution and to join PLP. Young comrades from Kingsborough Community College also spoke of PLP’s fight against racist police violence within education. They exposed the liberal bosses’ attempts to split the working class by appointing a Black college president to arrest and harass Black students. Though the liberal misleaders attempt to make us treat the openly fascist white supremacists like Trump as the main danger, PLP understands that it is the multicultural face of liberal fascists that is most venomous to our class. We call these liberal capitalists Big Fascists (see Glossary) because they are more capable of building support for imperialist war and convincing our class to make sacrifices to preserve their profit system in crisis. Against the Big and Small fascist bosses’ efforts to divide and conquer, PLP fights to unify all members of the working class towards a communist horizon.

Against the bosses’ dreary, gray world of capitalist exploitation, marchers left with a renewed optimism of revolutionary potential—that though the night is dark, we can be the sun that breaks through. Ending with a recitation of the Internationale, marchers sang with resounding conviction even as rain tore through paper sheets with lyrics. Because rainy days mean… we got to fight back! 

Our event shows PLP’s continued commitment to fostering new leadership within our organization. Most of this year’s May Day planning committee was new to the committee and confronted unforeseen challenges. We want to develop millions of students and workers to become leaders of the international working class in the fight for communism. Join PLP!