Los Angeles May Day Dinner: Developing New Leaders for Communist Class Struggle

LOS ANGELES, April 22—Our ICWP dinner, in which about one hundred people participated, was a very successful, inspiring event. New comrades gave leadership. Everyone participated, singing our communist songs and practicing our slogans. Many participated bringing food and everything needed for the dinner.

However, we made some mistakes. We could have prepared our young leaders better. The speeches could have been better prepared. With more effort we could have brought more people. We have to strive to correct these errors, especially when more and more people are open to our communist ideas.

A young comrade spoke of the attacks internationally and the need for more youth to join our Party and for them to go into the army to organize men and women soldiers for communism. An MTA transit worker comrade spoke of how they carry out communist work inside workplaces and how proud they feel to be members of ICWP.

Another veteran spoke of her own life experiences. The following is her speech:

When they asked me to give this speech, I thought that I couldn’t give a communist political speech because I wouldn’t know what to say.

But after analyzing the situation, I thought, “Aren’t we the working class? The ones who produce everything and who deserve everything? Aren’t we the ones who suffer all the abuses and attacks of this capitalist system?”

Haven’t I seen relatives and friends fall, shot by the murderous bullets of the bourgeoisie for the simple fact of wanting to improve their living conditions? These dreams and aspirations of millions of people around the world for a better life have been cut short. For them, I decided I had to raise my voice and give this speech.

I grew up in a very humble community with no electricity. The water that we drank was from wells, rivers, lakes, wherever we could get it. We didn’t have access to medical care. Many children, youth, adults, and older people died and their families never even knew what they died from. The wages were miserable and whole families didn’t have enough to eat.

That is my own experience, but there are tens of thousands of families around the world who live in horrible conditions, worse than those that I just mentioned.

I ask myself if we lived in a communist system, isn’t it true that we would not have had to suffer all these atrocities?

I came to this country exhausted from the civil war in El Salvador, thinking I would live the American dream. Soon I realized that for most of us it was a nightmare. Exploitation, deportation, discrimination, wage slavery, homelessness, many who are killed by the police, etc, etc.

I could spend all night talking about all the evils of capitalism. And I think that each one of you have your own experience with this racist system.

That’s why today more than anything I want to talk to you about our fight for a new communist society, a new society where people like you and like me decide the future of our lives.

The International Communist Workers’ Party isn’t only those of us here. In many other countries, people read Red Flag and in some of those countries there are now also members of ICWP. Among them are South Africa, India, Spain, Mexico and El Salvador, Honduras and others.

Our political line of fighting directly for communism is spreading because the international working class is now tired and is willing to fight for a society where money does not exist, where there are no borders, or wage slavery, a communist society where racism, sexism, and other capitalist evils are abolished forever.

A society where food, housing, clothing, medical services, education, and fun are guaranteed, because production will be for the collective well-being and not to fatten the bank accounts of the capitalist thieves.

But to be able to achieve this society, we all have to contribute according to our commitment, especially today when we find ourselves under a constant threat of a Third World War. The danger also brings opportunities: many more workers are open to communist ideas.

Recently I had a very good experience. I was asked to be in charge of going with a group of comrades to a pro-immigrant march to distribute our newspaper Red Flag. Most of us who went were women. When we got there I could see how willing people were to get our communist newspaper.

Some of them came up to us to ask for the paper. We had some discussions about communism. We distributed 400 newspapers, plus another 200 that a group of youth distributed.

We could see that the people are more open to communist ideas because they are tired of the capitalist system. That’s why I invite those who are not yet members of ICWP to become members and those who are already members to redouble their efforts to continue organizing. Because only by organizing the International Communist Workers’ Party can we put an end to all the suffering of the working class and win the communist world that we so deserve and yearn for.

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