LOS ANGELES, CA, MAY 2—In a pocket park in South Los Angeles, dozens of comrades and friends gathered to celebrate May Day as a playlist of militant songs filled the air. We decorated the space with red flags, banners, signs, and posters depicting the history of May Day. Everyone brought something for our potluck dinner but we began with a rousing march.

Workers are waking up

Together we marched to the local police station, the homebase of the KKKops who murdered Alex Flores in 2019. We hyped up the neighborhood for about a month before with Saturday rallies every other week leading up to May Day. This, along with our seven years of struggle alongside the Flores family, has built our reputation in the area. As we marched, cars honked, pedestrians and bus riders raised their fists, and a couple hundred CHALLENGEs were distributed. Chants of “Asian, Latin, Black, and white, workers of the world unite!” and “La migra, la policia, la misma porqueria” accompanied by cowbells echoed along the route with passersby joining in. At the police station, a new comrade gave a rousing speech about our ongoing struggles against police violence.

By the time we returned to the park, our ranks had grown to over 50. Before the rest of the program we participated in a “get to know you” activity. We discussed what we hated most about capitalism, why we came to May Day, and what roles we might play in the revolution. This led to lively discussions about how to combat mental illness, the emerging militancy of young people, and the importance of a long-term outlook on organizing.

Another highlight of the program was an updated rendition of “Masters of War” and a young comrade’s personal speech about their family’s connection to another song, “Deportees.” This bookended another speech on base building during growing fascism which was humorous but also emphasized the importance of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and its line on discipline, commitment, and having confidence in yourself and the working class.

The keynote speaker led with a quote “When people talk about traveling to the past, they worry about radically changing the present by doing something small, but barely anyone in the present really thinks that they can change the future by doing something small.” They went on to talk about how small actions can add up and the importance of collective, organized actions to building a communist, revolutionary movement that can change the world. We ended the day singing “The International” in both Spanish and English. Our message was clear: we fight not just for reform, but for a communist world free of racism, sexism, exploitation, and borders.

2026 is the fourth International Workers Day also known as May Day that I will call myself a Progressive Labor Party member. Every year I see new changes in myself and in this very special community. I really trust this Party to lead the revolution. All of my comrades here in the Party are understandably impatient for this day. I include myself in that category.

If I could give one piece of advice I would say look internationally, to the international Party and to the international working class. We have all been in the position of experiencing a local triumph. We overcame the resistance of reformists to lead a militant and ambitious struggle and won the admiration of the working class and oftentimes a reform. But the revolution still seems so far off.

Look to the international working class. Talk to them about your criticism and self-criticism. Talk to them about their experiences. Ask for their advice, ask "What should I be doing? What do you think of what I am doing?" Like we say: build a base in the working class. 

If you don't know anyone personally, read about the situation and when you meet someone from a place you read about, be sensitive to how they might be personally affected but then talk about politics with them. I grew a lot this way. Every area should have international connections, and every member should be involved in international work. 

- With Revolutionary Sincerity

On May 20 we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Milt Rosen, founding chairperson of the Progressive Labor Party, who was born on May 20, 1926. Milt Rosen not only helped found the Progressive Labor Movement (PLM), which then became the Progressive Labor Party — he charted a new path away from the dead-end reformism of the old movement and the Communist Party (CPUSA). Most significantly, in 1982 he led the adoption of “Road to Revolution IV,” which formulated the Party’s line to fight directly for communism instead of socialism — a massive and historic shift from the two-stage theory that had defined the international communist movement since Marx. He is the author of the foundational Party text Build a Base in the Working Class.

The words below are excerpted from the tribute in Challenge of August 3, 2011, which can be read here: https://tinyurl.com/miltobit

Milt Rosen, one of the founders and the first chairman of the Progressive Labor Party, was born one hundred years ago, on May 20, 1926.

In the fall of 1961, Milt Rosen convened a small collective that would soon leave the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) to form the Progressive Labor Movement. Four years later, Comrade Milt became the founding chair of the Progressive Labor Party. He served our organization and the working class in that capacity until 1995.

On July 13, 2011, Milt died of Parkinson’s Disease at the age of 85. He is survived by family, friends, and thousands of comrades — and by a revolutionary communist party deeply rooted in the international working class.

After serving in World War II, Milt became a Communist Party organizer in a steel plant in Buffalo, NY. In 1956 Nikita Khrushchev attacked Joseph Stalin. By the late 1950s, in retreat from McCarthyism, the CPUSA had abandoned any effort to organize the working class for revolution. It hid its most advanced ideas from workers and plunged into the sewer of electoral politics, running its own candidates and supporting “lesser-evil” liberals for office. Socialism, the CPUSA leaders declared, could be achieved by reforming capitalism. On the international stage, they joined with fellow revisionists in the Soviet Union in calling for “peaceful coexistence” with the U.S. and its capitalist bloc — an impossible strategy, given the fight-to-the-death reality of imperialism.

Doing away with reformists in the ranks 

By contrast, Milt (by then the CP’s industrial organizer for New York State) defied the old Party’s directives and openly called for communism and the need for mass, violent revolution to achieve it. He and his comrades saw that the future of communism lay in negating the old movement — in preserving its progressive elements while discarding what had become outworn or harmful. In January 1962, they published the first issue of a monthly magazine called “Progressive Labor.” In June 1964, PLM began publishing CHALLENGE- DESAFIO. At a time when bilingual publications were unheard of, and despite our organization’s small size and limited funds, Milt fought for a paper in both English and Spanish. We had no choice, he said. We had to make communism available to the many New York workers from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and elsewhere who spoke mainly Spanish.

Milt was chosen as the first chairperson of PL because he was unafraid of struggle. He led the internal fight that transformed the Buffalo CP into a red force, in sharp contrast to the CP’s national leadership and its accommodation to capitalism. PLM was born out of that internal struggle, as was Milt’s analysis in “Road to Revolution.” Milt himself had been steeled in class struggle, from his experiences in World War II to his vanguard communist work in Buffalo’s steel industry.

At our 1968 Party convention, Milt gave a speech that was subsequently published as one of the Party’s most durably important statements. “Build a Base in the Working Class” advanced the necessity to develop close ties with industrial workers, on and off the job, and to immerse ourselves in their lives.

In 1982, after a year of discussion within PLP and its base, Milt led the struggle to adopt “Road to Revolution IV” as the political line of the Party. RRIV analyzed the return to capitalism in the Soviet Union and China. It concluded that fighting for socialism as a preliminary stage before communism — a core principle of the international communist movement since Karl Marx — was fatally incorrect. This theory had led inexorably to a reversal of all the gains from the heroic struggles of millions of workers. RRIV, by contrast, called for winning the working class to fight directly for a communist society. This was a qualitative leap for PL and for the international working class.

Leading the fight against racism & sexism

Milt believed that the only way our Party could grow was to constantly train new leaders, especially Black, Latin, and women comrades. Milt believed that fighting both racism and sexism was an integral part of the class struggle, and he ensured that much of the Party leadership would be in the hands of women. One of the Party’s early militant struggles grew out of its organization of mothers on welfare, who united with welfare workers to demand services for their children. As the Party immersed itself in class struggles in the garment districts of New York and Los Angeles, in the grape fields of the San Joaquin Valley, and in the Stella D’oro cookie factory in the Bronx, we learned that unity between men and women workers was essential to building our movement.

After stepping down as Party chair and before becoming too ill to function, Milt continued to make vital contributions to PLP and the international movement. Among his most significant lessons was the need to understand the character of our historical period. Shortly after the events of 9/11, he spoke of how he’d underestimated the impact of the old communist movement’s demise, and how far it has set back the class struggle. This failure, he pointed out, could lead to one of two devastating errors: false optimism or despair over the formidable difficulties in building a mass communist party. Milt’s self-criticism reminded us that the old movement’s defeat may have left us in a “dark night,” but the working class has lived and fought through dark nights before.

With words and by example, Milt taught the vital importance of a long-term outlook. More clearly than most, he knew there were no shortcuts to revolution. He embraced it as the commitment of a lifetime. More than anything, he taught us never to give up.

The following is a speech given by a PL’er in Kentucky at the first ever May Day action.

Comrades

Today is International Workers’ Day—a global holiday of struggle, born from the blood of workers in the U.S. and carried across borders, turning one struggle into an international movement of rebellion.

A day to remember the martyrs of the Haymarket affair, murdered by the bosses’ state for daring to fight for the 8-hour day. Railroaded by bogus sham trials in the bosses’ courts. Their crime - daring to fight back. Their legacy: struggle

Declared a global day of action by the Second International, its history extends to every corner of the globe. From Chicago to Berlin, from the Russian and German revolutions to the 1968 uprisings in France. From the fight against fascism in Italy and Spain to the U.S. anti-war movement 

- May Day proves one thing: the workers’ fight has no borders

Remember 1890 

The first International May Day saw coordinated general strikes across Europe and beyond—millions of workers acting together across borders as one class birthed modern proletarian internationalism in practice.
The next year was the May Day massacre of 1891, when French troops opened fire on striking workers demanding the 8-hour day. Early proof: the bosses’ state answers worker unity with bullets.

We remember 1917—the Soviets taking power. The first state made truly by and for the working class turned May Day into a weapon of revolution.

Hell, we’ll remember Appalachia. Not just the battles, but all the May Days where miners organized, linked up with the world, and built the force that exploded against coal bosses in the largest labor uprising in the country’s history. 

Where the first Civil War between states confronted chattel slavery, this second one between the social classes confronted wage slavery with unity between former slaves, immigrant, and white workers
(1933)

After allowing a state-controlled May Day, the Nazis immediately smashed unions the next day. Shows how seriously fascists fear independent working-class organization—and how they try to co-opt it before destroying it.
(Rings a bell don’t it?)

Remember Spain 1936—workers arming themselves, fighting fascism, and running factories.

How could we forget May Days shaped by the Cultural Revolution in China—millions of workers and youth rising to challenge old revisionist ideas and a new rising bourgeoisie. Fighting for mass participation inspired by the spirit of the Paris Commune.

Remember 1967 in Hong Kong, where workers rebelled against colonial rule—linking anti-imperialist struggle and class struggle and igniting a wave of uprisings in May 1968 France, where millions of workers walked off the job and shook the foundations of capitalism.

Under apartheid South Africa, May Day became a site of illegal strikes and multiracial worker resistance—directly linking class struggle and the fight against racist rule.

Remember the 70’s - the Progressive Labor Party being a major force behind the revival of militant May Day mobilizations through the broader anti–Vietnam War struggle and worker–student–soldier unity

In the 80’s workers used it to organize against Augusto Pinochet—mass protests, strikes, and repression. Even under terror, workers regrouped and fought back.

Remember 2006- 

Immigrant worker May Day

Millions of immigrant workers shut it down in the U.S. and showed the power of multiracial working-class unity

On this day, Soviet workers and soldiers raised the red flag over Berlin in the final days of the Battle of Berlin. 

A reminder of the necessity, courage, and strength of workers organized under communist politics and practice fascism and world war were crushed by revolutionary movements rooted in the working class—guided by a commitment to ending exploitation & inequality, to smashing this rotten profit system built on racism, imperialism, and war.

That lesson is urgent today as capitalism continues to produce war, fascism, and genocide. The same system that starves and displaces millions - bombs workers abroad.

The same bosses who preach “democracy” build prisons, deport immigrant workers, and divide us with racism, sexism, nationalism. 

May Day is about rejecting those divisions.

They don’t just crush resistance—they domesticate it.

They smother struggle in their institutions & NGO’s, try to misdirect anger into ballots,

To maintain rule they fund and channel the fight into fragmented, issue-by-issue struggles—separating each battle from the whole.

Today the Progressive Labor Party continues to bring May Day back to the working class in the United States as a day of struggle. In the streets, in schools, on the job. Organizing to fight racism, and to build a mass communist movement connected to workers worldwide.

Because ultimately this system cannot be reformed to serve our class as a whole, nor can it be smashed alone. May Day reminds us that we have a communist world to win and we can join together with our class brothers and sisters to fight to achieve that goal.

One struggle, many fronts—one working class, worldwide