Revolutionary Worker #907, May 18, 1997
May 1st, 1997. Thousands of special May 1st issues of the RW went out--featuring statements from the RCP Central Committee on "May 1st and the World Revolution" and from RCP Chairman Bob Avakian on the 5th anniversary of the Los Angeles revellion, "Long live the Spirit of the '92 Rebellion--Forward from Rebellion to Revolution." Celebrations--from intimate gatherings to public programs--were held in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Houston, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, New York and elsewhere. People from all over the world attended, and in several cities this year the RCP,USA was pleased to unite with supporters of the people's war in the Philippines to celebrate this important day for the international proletariat.
It was a bright afternoon as 200 people came together on Saturday, May 3 to celebrate May Day 1997 at the Campus Center of Southwest College, a junior college just a couple of miles east of Watts.
Entering the hall, people were warmly greeted by revolutionaries. Outside was Watts, Compton and South Central--traffic and cops, poverty and desperation. Inside it was like a whole different world, a place where people related to one another on a different vibe--with a shared purpose and a hope and vision of a much better future. Many people commented that they could feel the love for the people that filled the room. A poet who performed at the event said later that two things really stood out to him at the program--the feeling of inclusion of all the oppressed against the oppressors and the truth that oppression breeds resistance.
A banner read "Long Live the Spirit of the '92 Rebellion! Forward from Rebellion to Revolution!" This banner had been taken into neighborhoods in Watts, South Central and Pico Union and it was covered with signatures from people in these neighborhoods who wanted to take their stand with L.A.Rebellion. "Damián García Esta Presente, Damián García is Present" honored the RCP comrade who was murdered by the LAPD while organizing for May Day 1980. Another banner read "Long Live Red 1st of May, Symbol of World Proletarian Revolution! Break the Chains! Unleash the Fury of Women as Mighty Force for Revolution!" Proletarian internationalism and support for the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement was a major theme in the banners and photo displays in support of the People's War in Peru, Nepal and the Philippines. Pesante, a peasant support network, and Bayan New Patriotic Alliance, from the revolutionary movement in the Philippines, contributed banners to the holiday decorations.
The afternoon was non-stop revolution. After an opening statement by RCP spokesperson Joe Veale, a singing group from the Phillipines performed revolutionary songs in Tagalog. Representatives of the All African Peoples' Revolutionary Party (AAPRP) and the chairman of the May 1st Movement, the largest trade union organization in the Philippines, made powerful solidarity statements and statements were sent to the event from a proletarian immigrant, a domestic worker and poet/performance artist Keith Antar Mason.
The centerpiece of the program was a talk by RCP National Spokesperson Carl Dix that clearly laid out the cause of all the suffering people live under today as well as the revolutionary solution. Carl saluted the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, the people's wars in Peru and Nepal led by participating parties of the RIM, and the people's war in the Philippines. In line with the vision of May Day, Carl gave people a concrete vision of what life could be and will be like once capitalism is overthrown and the proletariat runs society.
Artists and audience nurtured each other with revolutionary vibes. Jerry Quickley, a writer/poet/performance artist and member of the Los Angeles National Poetry Slam Team, performed three poems, including an untitled poem he wrote that morning and dedicated especially to May Day. Other poets who contributed to the program included AK Toney and Paul Calderon, two poets from the Ananzi Writers Workshop at the World Stage in Leimert Park, Disturbing Silence--a performance poetry group of two women from UCLA--and Angelic Vagrants, a multinational group out of the Peace and Justice Center in L.A. Medusa, a well-known hip-hop artist out of Leimert Park and Project Blowed, also contributed a very powerful piece.
As the program ended, it was an inspiring thing to hear all these different people--from the projects in Watts, the poetry workshops in Leimert Park, hip-hop artists, college and high school students, men and women, activists from other countries, middle class people, proletarians of all nationalities, immigrants, young and old--raising their voices to sing the Internationale in Spanish, Tagalog, and English.
Organized by a mass committee including the Bay Area Branch of RCP,USA, the Philippine Information Network Services (PINS) and the Committee to Support the Revolution in Peru, the "by-invitation" May 1st celebration in San Francisco's Mission District brought a diverse group of 90 together to feast on food from around the world, hear revolutionary poetry and music, and watch videos from revolutionary struggles in China, the Philippines and Peru.
Highlights of the evening were talks from the RCP,USA; PINS and the CSRP. One of the first out of his seat in a standing ovation for the speaker from the Bay Area Branch of the RCP was an Asian youth who told the RW that it sent chills down his spine to find out that there was an organization serious about preparing for the time when there could be armed struggle in the belly of the beast.
The talk by the representative of the PINS was an eye-opening experience. He laid out the true history of the Philippines--a history of imperialist plunder and rebellion. He outlined how the Communist Party of the Philippines was reborn in the context of the world revolutionary upsurge of the 1960s, and especially the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China. The speaker emphasized that the struggle suffered from disorientation when the party "loosened its firm grasp of Mao Tsetung Thought," and how crucial it was that the Party unfurled the "Second Great Rectification Movement to reaffirm its belief in Maoism" and "repudiate modern revisionism."
Heriberto Ocasio, national spokesperson for the Committee to Support the Revolution in Peru, denounced the massacre of the MRTA rebels at the Japanese Ambassador's residence and exposed the history of U.S.-supported massacres in Peru. Heriberto broke down the life-and-death stakes of the two-line struggle in the Communist Party of Peru (PCP)--refuting those who want to seek a peace accord to end the People's War. Ocasio said that to give up the People's War would "throw out the window one of Chairman Mao Tsetung's most profound teachings, that `without a People's Army, the people have nothing."
Joined by several comrades from the U.S., students from the League of Filipino Students sang "Ang Masa," which means "The Masses" --a marching song of the New People's Army. A revolutionary activist from Colombia read her poems and other readings included "Ode to the Eighth Company," by Mao Tsetung; "The Guerrilla is Like a Poet," by Jose Maria Sison, founding Chairman of the CPP; "A La Brigada Vendedores del Periódico," written in Spanish to the RW sellers; and "Damián García is Dead, But in His Death I Came Alive."
As the Internationale concluded in English, Spanish and Tagalog, immigrants from Latin America, folks from the projects, students who had been in the middle of the battle against Prop 209, participants in the October 22nd National Day to Stop Police Brutality, and Filipino activists stepped out into the night air of the Mission--transformed and refreshed for the struggle ahead.
On May Day night, Mary Lou Greenberg, NYC spokesperson for the RCP, had a special greeting to "all the people here today who have been driven here by imperialism from your homelands around the world. If you want to get rid of imperialism, you have really found your second home here." Mary Lou drew on her personal experiences visiting China during the Cultural Revolution to paint a picture of peasants and proletarians wielding power, building a new society, and transforming relations among the people. On this May Day night, she reaffirmed that our class has the theory and practice to change the whole world, as more than 100 proletarians, students, immigrants, and activists from many struggles, filled Revolution Books, New York for a thoroughly internationalist event.
Potri, an ex-political prisoner from the Philippines, brought a tribal war song from the Moro people in Mindanao--from the days when Moro scouts alerted the people that ships of the Spanish colonizers were arriving--followed by a favorite tune of the guerrillas in the Maoist New People's Army of the Philippines.
A brother from the Dominican Republic delivered a poem saluting the People's War in Peru, and statements were shared from revolutionaries in South Asia and Latin America.
Poems were read by Sister Sheba, from the Black Panther Committee for Social Justice and an activist with the October 22nd National Coalition Against Police Brutality. Poet and novelist Darius James read from his book, That's Blaxploitation, a stirring excerpt describing his excitement as a teenager when he discovered the Black Panther Party.
Omawale Clay brought greetings from the December 12th Movement. He spoke about the FBI attempt to frame up Abdul Haqq and how "the people need the leadership of revolutionaries...for the masses of people, the contradictions still exist and they want them resolved. Our task is to integrate ourselves into that process and give them leadership."
Yuri Kochiyama--a longtime activist in the people's struggles who was a member of the first international delegation to Peru to investigate and protest the imprisonment of Chairman Gonzalo in 1993 and who toured the Philippines and Japan on behalf of the International Emergency Committee to Defend the Life of Chairman Gonzalo--sent a message: "Let us rededicate ourselves not only to support those unheralded, nameless, faceless courageous warriors that uphold the best in the spirit of humankind, but also see what we ourselves can do right here in the warped heart and mind of imperialism. Let us unite to fight to change tomorrow."
A Peruvian brother performed Andean folk music; Sabac, from the band Non-Phixion did a rap for the holiday; and a father-and-daughter duo performed original tunes. One song talked of many contradictions among the people and ended with the refrain, "People don't get crushed under their own weight. There's a mountain of tradition that masquerades as fate." The Internationale was sung in many languages, as Haitians, African-Americans, Puerto Ricans, Asians, European Americans, Dominicans, and Native Americans exchanged greetings and conversation with young revolutionaries of the RCYB and families of police murder victims.
On May 2, the RCYB led a spirited march to celebrate May Day in Washington Heights--a Dominican community with a section of Black people from the Caribbean where, several weeks ago, a 16-year-old Trinidadian youth, Kevin Cedeno, was shot in the back and killed by the police.
As the youth called out "Live for the People! Die for the People! Fight for the People! Power to the People," there was a warm response from the people in the neighborhood--many of whom were familiar with May Day and Mao Tsetung from the Maoist movement in their home country. "Finally, something about May Day!" said a Greek woman as she bought the RW. Others shouted out, "MAO!" as the march went by.
Whenever the marchers stopped, impromptu rallies took shape--with people joining the chants--and over 1,000 May Day issues of the RW changed hands. Cops swaggered up and attempted their normal routine of forcing people off the street. But not today. The revolutionaries and the people stood their ground and soon calls of "Que Viva el Primero de Mayo revolucionario!" were met with roars of "Que Viva!" by the people as many clenched fists shot into the air. "Que Viva la revolución!" "Que Viva!" "Que Viva Mao Tsetung!" "Que Viva el Día Internacional del Trabajador!" "Que Viva el espíritu de la Rebelión de Los Angeles!" "Que Viva la Guerra Popular en el Peru!" "Que Viva la Guerra Popular en el Nepal!" "Que Viva el Movimiento Revolucionario Internacionalista!" "Que Viva el Partido Comunista Revolucionario de los Estados Unidos!" "Avancemos de la rebelión a la revolución!" The people's voices resounded powerfully as everyone laughed at the cops who were forced to back down and leave the scene.
This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker Online
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