In Bogota, at one of the biggest May Days in recent years, thousands of workers marched down the main streets shouting their fierce rejection of fascist police, unemployment, low wages, budget cuts to social services, corruption and the rottenness of the whole Uribe government. The vast majority of marchers, while chanting against the genocidal President Uribe Velez, did not identify him as one of the many puppets used by this capitalist system, instead blaming him personally for the misery that Colombian workers endure.

Social democrats, liberals and opportunists, some disguised as communists, offered false promises and took the platform, not to bring a message of working-class solidarity and the need for communist revolution, but for their electoral speeches. Other groups of workers denounced the violation of human rights and the privatization of public institutions like the District University, the National University, and the telephone company.

These workers are honest and earnest in their desire for a better life, but they were missing a key point: the capitalist system is the real cause of all of our problems and only by destroying it can we hope to improve the lives of workers. The PLP supplied this missing ingredient by consistently denouncing capitalism and its degenerate, genocidal, corrupt leaders like Obama, Sarkozy and Uribe and their war policies against the working class in Colombia, Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world.

Workers and students, employed and jobless, men and women, all gave revolutionary leadership protesting militantly with our PLP sign and flags. Before and during the march we enthusiastically distributed 3,000 fliers and sold CHALLENGE, showing communism as the only true solution. “It’s May Day, not a carnival!” and “Paramilitarism and racism hold Capitalism afloat!”; “Long live communism and down with capitalism!” and many other chants were shouted by our forces throughout the day, in a disciplined fashion. Many joined our chants while other passer-bys were astonished and asked for our literature. We explained our revolutionary line and how to stay in touch with us and asked how we could continue to send them CHALLENGE.

As we entered the plaza, singing the Internationale, we were attacked with tear gas by the fascist police. As in most years, this ended the march. Later there were confrontations with the police and several businesses were destroyed. These lasted several hours, and some were hurt while 117 were arrested. Here we have another example of the chaos that capitalism creates for workers.

The international working class urgently needs new revolutionary leadership to unify, organize and prepare the working class for its immediate needs and its future goals to destroy this bosses’ system and build the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is a long, difficult struggle, but opportunities abound. We must take advantage of the economic crisis of this rotten, stinking capitalist system to bring a communist message to our working-class brothers and sisters. Everything we do counts! The future is bright for the working class!