On Thursday, June 18, Freedom Road Socialist Organization will be hosting a webinar recapping its recent 10th Congress, which marked a genuine advance in our efforts to build a serious revolutionary communist organization in the United States.

“FRSO Congresses are the highest body of our organization,” explained FRSO Standing Committee member Chrisley Carpio, “It’s the place where we make a concrete analysis of concrete conditions and use that as a basis for our plans and tactics in the coming period.”

Each FRSO Congress produces a Main Political Report, which contains sections on the U.S. Economy, the domestic political landscape, and the international situation. Those documents are available at frso.org/congress.

Speakers will include Political Secretary Mick Kelly, Organizational Secretary Tom Burke, and Standing Committee members Syd Loving, Chrisley Carpio, and Masao Suzuki about the organization’s recent work, its extraordinary growth, and its tasks for the coming period.

The webinar will take place on Thursday, June 18 at 5pm Pacific, 6pm Mountain, 7pm Central, and 8pm Eastern.

Register here: https://www.tinyurl.com/frso626

#RevolutionaryTheory #FRSO #Congress #10thCongress #Feature

This morning, June 16th, there were multiple coordinated raids on immigrant rights activists in the Twin Cities. At least 15 people have been indicted, with the U.S. Grand Jury charging “conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer,” alongside a number of other trumped-up charges.

The fact is, people here in the Twin Cities correctly and courageously stood up to Operation Metro Surge and built an outpouring of militant resistance to ICE terror. People from all walks of life were in the streets to oppose deportations and ICE agents. Now the government is cracking back. These kinds of bogus charges are part of framing community defense and activism as terrorism, and they want to intimidate and repress the immigrant rights movement by criminalizing protest.

This isn’t the first go-round with the feds retaliating against anti-ICE activists since the beginning of the year, with attempts to scare the immigrant rights movement into submission. It didn’t work before, and it wont work this time, either. This is a serious attack, and we are going to stand with these activists. We should be prepared to defend all those who are being targeted and persecuted, and to fight the charges.

Stop deportations!

Protesting ICE is not a crime!

#ImmigrantRights #FRSO #PoliticalRepression #ICE

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following greetings from communist and workers parties to the 10th Congress of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

Workers Party of Belgium (PTB)

Your Congress convenes at a critical juncture in the development of the people’s struggle and the accelerating decline of U.S. Imperialism. The U.S. war machine has become ever more aggressive under the second Trump administration, yet this aggression signals not strength, but desperation as it faces rising competition and intensifying resistance at home and abroad.

Notably, the U.S.-Israeli genocide on Palestine failed to exterminate the Palestinian people, and their military forces did not succeed in defeating Iran.

Meanwhile, the American people have demonstrated the power of organized struggle against monopoly capitalism. From the resistance against mass deportations and ICE violence to demonstrations in solidarity with Palestine and opposition to the war on Iran, the movement is growing. The mobilization of a record eight million people in the streets during the recent “No King’s Day” protest illustrates how these protests are expanding among the broad public, proving that the system is losing its grip.

We recognize the role FRSO has played in these battles. Your leadership in the fight against mass deportations, your solidarity with Palestine, and your active participation in the trade union, African American, and Chicano liberation movements represent vital organizing work within the broader coalition of the oppressed.

As you gather during a period of significant organizational growth—attested by the recent purchase of a national office to house your operations—we wish your delegates productive deliberations. May your congress strengthen the united forces necessary to take on monopoly capitalism and advance on the road to socialism.

Solidarity,

Bert De Belder

Department of International Relations

PVDA-PTB

Mouvement National Congolais – Lumumba (MNC/L)

Dear Comrades Delegates to the 10th Congress of the FRSO,

On behalf of the C.P.C. of the MNC/Lumumba and on behalf of all the Lumumbist sympathizers of our country, allow us to present to you our warm greetings and our best wishes of solidarity on the occasion of the Tenth Congress of your organization.

Through your socialist organization, we cordially greet all the workers of the United States of America. We salute the American people and express support and solidarity to them as they confront the crisis of a panicked imperialist system in their struggle against the austerity measures of the American administration.

We also take the opportunity of the FRSO’s 10th Congress to present the situation of our country, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), as well as that of our organization, the MNC/Lumumba.

This Congress is being held at a very important moment in the international situation and our struggle. Yes (!) at a very important time.

The unipolar world, dominated by the United States of America and its NATO allies, is giving way to the multipolar world, which we all support around the world. Despite this, US imperialism, the Zionists, and their European vassals refuse this change. They are stoking wars in the Caribbean, Africa, Ukraine, and the Middle East in the hope of delaying this shift in the balance of power. Our country, the D.R.C., is facing a vast conspiracy by imperialism and the Zionists.

Since the coup d’état that interrupted the national liberation process on September 14, 1960, and throughout the various regimes that took power, nothing has led to any change of quality in favor of the Congolese people. The so-called “free” elections and the alternating multiparty system have not brought peace to the Democratic Republic of Congo, nor to the rest of Africa. All those who speak of peace, life and freedom cannot, of course, remain indifferent to the negative process that is taking place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, including in the African Great Lakes region, the AES area, the Caribbean, Ukraine and the Middle East.

Against the fundamental interests of the African peoples, our continent is being transformed before our eyes into a battlefield between the Western imperial powers and the forces of national liberation.

The ruling circles of the Western imperialist powers, especially the United States of America and the European Union, are stirring up distrust and animosity among the African populations, using: ethnic and religious divisions; inequality of social, economic and cultural development; and national peculiarities, among others.

The African continent, which experienced the slave trade and colonization, still lives today under a neo-colonial system of imperialism, and remains an arena of fratricidal conflicts that take hundreds of thousands of human lives and cause immense material damage.

Dear Comrade Delegates,

Any oppressive power, wherever it comes from, from outside or within, cannot reign without a powerful network of collaborators among the population. Similarly, the demise of a tyrannical regime can only be ensured by the political death of all its leaders and key collaborators.

In Congo, our country, from the overthrow of Lumumba’s Congolese Central Government to the present day, the general tendency in the democratic movement has been and is towards conciliation with the leaders and enforcers of the neo-colonialist regimes. If this tendency is not overthrown, the Congo will never experience a radical change in quality, because it will be the collaborators of the prior oppressive regimes who will be at the head of the Congo.

The attitude to be taken towards the Congolese oligarchs by the MNC/Lumumba is very clear. We have always spoken since October 1958 on behalf of the majority of Congolese. It is our principled position that distinguishes us from those who fish in troubled waters [opportunists]. It’s clear that the fifth column is not disarming. It becoming active and intensifying the confusion. Their objective is to maintain themselves by trying to be seen as saviors. The dispersion of the Congolese oligarchs between the sacred union of the presidential majority, the legal opposition, and the AFC/M23 “rebellion” does not affect the system in any way.

The Congolese National Movement/Lumumba is reorganizing itself on a new basis with a very clear political program on the political, ideological, economic, social, cultural and military levels to mobilize and organize the Congolese popular masses in the struggle against the Congolese imperialists and oligarchs. Infact, the CPC of the MNC/Lumumba takes this opportunity to launch an appeal for the solidarity of Friendly organizations in order to support us morally, materially and diplomatically in the accomplishment of our weighty mission.

Long live the FRSO!

Long live the 10th Congress!

Oppressed people of the world, unite!

The MNC/Lumumba: UNITY – STRUGGLE – INDEPENDENCE!

Homeland or Death!

Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD)

Dear Comrades of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, USA!

The Central Committee of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD) extends warm and revolutionary greetings to your 10th Congress, and wishes the Congress great success.

Your Congress is taking place at a time when organized, active mass resistance against the fascist course of the Trump administration is growing steadily. This is becoming a serious obstacle to Trump’s plans for a fascist restructuring of the U.S. state. The development of resistance in the USA, especially the connection between the working class in the factories and the active mass resistance in residential areas, is a great source of encouragement for people worldwide who are confronted with a growing fascist trend. Imperialism is incapable of solving even a single one of humanity’s problems. It can only bring fascism, war and environmental destruction. Revolutionaries have a great responsibility to utilize the potential of this development to strengthen the anti-fascist united front, to propagate the necessity of revolutionary change and a socialist future, and to build revolutionary parties with strong roots in the working class. As a member of the International Coordination of Revolutionary Parties and Organizations (ICOR) and the International Anti-Imperialist United Front against Fascism, War and Environmental Destruction, we are committed to worldwide unification in this spirit. We can learn a great deal from one another among the revolutionary and anti-imperialist forces around the world.

We know that you play a very active role in the struggles in the USA, and we have often reported on this in our media. Your struggle requires determination and courage. We are very happy to hear that you are strengthening your ranks in this process. The establishment of a house for your national office will certainly enrich your work. The MLPD assesses that we are experiencing a worldwide pre-revolutionary ferment, which does not yet constitute a revolutionary situation, but the development is clearly moving in that direction. This also requires a higher quality of international cooperation and proletarian internationalism.

In the past, our organizations have often conducted mutual visits and discussions in friendship and solidarity, which we gladly remember. We look forward to closer practical cooperation in the future in the struggle against fascism and war, and to further discussion of the ideological and political questions that arise today, such as the role—according to our analysis—of neo-imperialist countries like Iran.

Please keep us informed about the results of your important Congress and further developments in the USA.

In this spirit, we wish your Congress great success!

Long live socialism!

Gabi Fechtner

Chairwoman of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany

Communist Construction (Kommunistischer Aufbau)

Dear Comrades,

We send our warmest greetings to your 10th Congress and all its delegates.

From our own history, we know the special significance a congress holds for a Marxist-Leninist organization. Especially in these dynamic times of class struggle and as our organization continues to grow, the congress serves as a vital means of strengthening and unifying the organization.

As a relatively new organization, we are eagerly following your development and look forward to learning more about you—about your role in the protest movements against U.S. imperialism, its wars, and its reactionary policies both abroad and at home.

In the coming period, as Marxist-Leninists, we want and must urgently increase and expand contact and exchange between revolutionary and communist organizations. Let us learn from one another and wage a common struggle, across all national borders, together against imperialism, its wars, and the exploitation and oppression of the working class worldwide.

Once again, we wish your organization and all delegates a successful convention, productive discussions, and groundbreaking resolutions to address the challenges ahead.

Revolutionary and red greetings

Kommunistischer Aufbau / Communist Construction

CARC Party

Greeting to the FRSO 10th Congress

When the workers of the capitalist countries have gained confidence in their own strength and the awareness that they are capable of getting along without the bourgeoisie—and not only of demolishing the old, but also of building the new (socialism)—this will mark the beginning of the end of capitalism and the surest sign of the victory of the proletarian revolution (I. Stalin, Political Report of the Central Committee – December 18, 1925)

Dear comrades,

the CARC Party wishes your 10th Congress every success; we are following it with the utmost attention.

The imperialists of your country are the first, along with the Zionists, to drag the world into world war. It is not only and not so much your task to oppose the imperialist bourgeoisie of your country and prevent it from devastating the world with its infamous attacks, but above all, you are offered the opportunity to overthrow it. On the eve of World War I, Lenin predicted that either the socialist revolution would prevent the war or the communists would turn the war into a revolution. This is what happened in the countries where the working class, led by its Communist Party, succeeded in winning, building the first socialist countries, foremost among them the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. But it has not yet succeeded in doing so in any imperialist country; that is why we are once again embroiled in a world war. Today, for communists, the situation is such that either we bring about a decisive leap forward in the socialist revolution in the imperialist countries—the conflagration that will liberate the world from the imperialist system and thereby halt the spread of World War III—or the destructive spiral into which the rule of the imperialist bourgeoisie is dragging the masses of most of the world will continue to worsen.

You confirm to us that times are changing. Your Secretary writes in the preface to the book on The Revolutionary Science of Marxism-Leninism by J. Sykes that we are at a turning point, that a new communist movement is rising in the U.S. and a mobilization of the masses is taking place the likes of which have not been seen since the 1960s and 1970s. We have seen, after those years, the communist movement retreat, up to the fall of the Soviet Union, and the beginning of the period of dark reaction that that fall would generate, as Stalin foresaw. Now that period is coming to an end and the resurgence is beginning—a leap into the new wave of the proletarian revolution.

The qualitative leap of the new wave of the proletarian revolution and the rebirth of the communist movement is the conquest of power in one or more imperialist countries, foremost among them the U.S., which acts as the world’s policeman, and Italy, where the Vatican is headquartered. It is up to the communist movement in the U.S. to eliminate imperialism in their country, just as it is up to the communist movement in Italy to eliminate the Vatican, but the elimination of both concerns the entire world communist movement.

Our main commitment lies in advancing the socialist revolution in Italy, but at the same time we are paying increasing attention to the communist movement in the U.S., of which you are a part. The commitment, in this case, is to forge ties in three areas.

One area is the development of mutual understanding and joint action. The retreat of the communist movement has led to a weakening of relations among the various organizations that compose it at the international level, to the extent that communists in one country know very little about the conscious and organized communist movement in other parts of the world, and joint action remains at an embryonic stage or is confined to one or another of the international coordinating bodies that do not communicate with one another. Overcoming this limitation is an aspect of the ongoing rebirth of the communist movement.

A second area is mutual solidarity against repression. The imperialist bourgeoisie, in this terminal phase of the economic, political, social, and cultural crisis, is displaying all its ferocity, and repression is a weapon it resorts to with increasing frequency and intensity. The CARC Party is a component of the Caravan of the (New) Italian Communist Party, the collective of organizations and individuals following the (New) Italian Communist Party toward the goal of making Italy a new socialist country, and this Caravan has always faced repression, since its founding more than forty years ago—the same period when the FRSO was founded. It faces it today as well, with the repressive action against the CARC Party on April 21, searches, seizures of materials based on a charge that is the same one with which the fascist regime imprisoned Antonio Gramsci and led him to his death, and with fines of thousands of euros for demonstrations against fascists and Zionists. We would like to thank FRSO here, which was among the first communist organizations—among many—to express their solidarity with us at the international and national levels. Mutual cooperation in confronting repression is open.

A third arena is frank and open debate. The course of the revolutionary process in the U.S. differs from that in Italy in many specific ways, but the two processes also share universal, common aspects regarding which debate is essential. Above all, we share the fact that FRSO and P.CARC operate in imperialist countries—countries where the socialist revolution has not yet triumphed, where the ground is therefore new and unexplored. For this reason, exchange is essential—sharing what we discover, discussing the assessment of the communist movement, the analysis of the ongoing crisis, the regimes the bourgeoisie adopts in imperialist countries, and the strategy for seizing power. Therefore, we have begun studying your theoretical works, and we will present you with a summary of ours.

Among the various themes, the first is that of party building. In Italy, we have succeeded in this endeavor with the founding of the (new) Italian Communist Party—a party established clandestinely, just as Lenin and Stalin’s Bolshevik Party taught a communist party must be in order to operate continuously toward the conquest of power and carry out its activities of recruitment, planning, training, guidance, organization, propaganda, mobilization, and leadership despite all the efforts the bourgeoisie makes to obstruct it, isolate it from the masses, and destroy it. The best wish we can offer your Congress is that it be a decisive step in the establishment of a new communist party in the U.S. The time is ripe for this to happen, and when it does, it will be an indelible sign of the rebirth of the communist movement worldwide.

Long live the rebirth of the international communist movement!

Long live the mobilization of the masses in the United States of America!

Long live the Freedom Road Socialist Organization!

CARC Party

International Working Group

Revolusi Indonesia

Statement of Solidarity

At the 10th Congress

Freedom Road Socialist Organization

The power of the 1% of the big American international monopoly bourgeoisie is not only responsible for the crisis and suffering of the working class in the United States. Since replacing Britain as the world’s largest imperialist state and power, the most powerful reactionary class in the United States has been responsible for the crisis and suffering of billions of oppressed and exploited people in various countries maintained as its colonies and semi-colonies.

The people of the United States face one of the most difficult periods in the history of their class struggle. The drastic decline of U.S. dominance in industry, agriculture, and foreign trade has given rise to various forms of oppression against the working class within the United States as well as against the peoples of colonies and semi-colonies, and even weaker capitalist nations. Competition among financial oligarchies has become far more intense and fierce. The move by many nations to restrict the use of the Dollar to avoid the burden of the crisis has accelerated this decline. The struggle for energy and natural resources is becoming increasingly difficult for the United States to win through conventional politics.

The economic decline has had a significant impact on the decline of the liberal democratic system that has long been revered and promoted throughout the country. Currently, in the eyes of people from various nations, the United States is nearly on par with non-industrialized nations in terms of protecting the basic rights of its people. President Donald J. Trump’s use of police actions backed by the military to enforce federal government policies and programs—including immigration policies and anti-LGBT policies—has drawn opposition not only from the oppressed and exploited people of America but from the entire world. Although fascism is recognized as the most reactionary offspring of the capitalist system, people in many countries are still shocked to witness the blatant suppression of freedom of speech on college campuses during the campaign against Israeli Zionist aggression against Gaza-Palestine. Also, whether they believe it or not, they witness the brutality of the Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in every operation.

Alongside the intensive anti-war campaign by the FRSO and other revolutionary movements, it is clear that the war of aggression against Venezuela, the war of aggression against Iran, the unlimited support for Zionist Israel in the war of aggression in Gaza-Palestine, the interventionist war in Nigeria and several African nations, and the U.S.-NATO proxy war through Ukraine against Russia are merely a reflection of America’s frustration in maintaining its dominance. Even the re-election of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States is proof in itself that the crisis is extremely acute and requires a war-mongering president to resolve it!

The 10th FRSO Congress holds special subjective significance amidst highly favorable objective national and international conditions for the growth and development of the revolutionary movement in both imperialist and semi-colonial countries. The subjective state of the FRSO is shaped by the objective reality of oppression and exploitation by the 1% reactionary class in the United States, in Latin America, and throughout the world. In addition to its intense class struggle in the United States, the FRSO has demonstrated proletarian international solidarity with national and class struggles in various semi-colonial and weaker capitalist countries, grounded in the powerful teachings of Marxism-Leninism. The FRSO takes Karl Marx’s thesis as its guiding principle: that “a country cannot be free while simultaneously oppressing another country,” and that “Labor in white skin cannot emancipate itself where the black skin is branded.”

The American people, just like the people in other countries, have long demanded the birth of a Proletarian Party that is truly conscious of its historical role in leading the class struggle through violence. Especially in a crisis situation like the present. The resolutions of the 10th FRSO Congress, therefore, are eagerly awaited not only by the working class and the oppressed and exploited people of the United States—who need a proletarian socialist revolution—but also by national and class struggles in semi-colonial and semi-feudal countries like Indonesia.

Victory to the American Proletarian Socialist Revolution!

Long live the FRSO!

Oppressed and Exploited People of the World, Unite!

Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP)

Revolutionary greetings, comrades!

The Communist Party of the Philippines extends a militant salute to our comrades in the Freedom Road Socialist Organization on the occasion of your 10th Congress. Your gathering represents a significant victory for the working class and all other exploited and oppressed peoples here within the belly of the imperialist beast. It comes at no better a critical time, as contradictions within the United States and around the world are intensifying at an unprecedented rate.

Everywhere around us, the assault of imperialist US continues to squeeze people dry and exploit people to death. In the United States, imperialism’s assault on the working class has deepened hunger, poverty, and misery among the masses. Capitalists have increasingly made contractual work the norm, stripping workers of regular jobs and benefits, and making conditions harder for collective organizing and action. Trump has continued cracking down on trade unions on the one hand, while on the other co-opting union leadership into a labor aristocracy subservient to the bourgeoisie interests, especially through the illusion of his “America First” policy that promises to bring back industry and jobs to the country. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has slashed budgets for basic social services, especially healthcare, while providing no relief for people beset with the high inflation crisis spurred by his own tariff policies and the imperialist war on Iran.

Under particular threat is the huge reserve army of migrant labor that U.S. imperialism has consciously amassed. ICE, corporate-run detention centers, big tech companies, and others agents have formed an unholy partnership that simultaneously tears families apart, scapegoats migrants for the problems created by the capitalist class, and extracts super profits from their suffering. Meanwhile, violent state repression toward African Americans, Chicanos, and other oppressed nationalities continues unabated, as does the state’s desperate attempt to dampen the flames of the pro-Palestine solidarity movement. This domestic turmoil is unfolding in the context of heightened U.S. military aggression and intensifying increasingly aggressive U.S. imperialist intervention abroad, including in Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Palestine, and the Philippines.

But rather than signaling that the U.S. imperialists may appear to be strong and powerful, in fact, these are all signs of its desperate attempt to maintain power and global hegemony amid strategic decline. The military aggression against Venezuela and Iran and threats against other sovereign nations, show signs of the imperialist beast backed into a corner, clawing and claiming larger territories lashing out in order to survive. The work FRSO has done to unmask and fight back against this beast—especially in the midst of extreme economic and political crisis—serves as an inspiration to us all.

We have witnessed your determination in building a militant labor movement driven by mass struggles on the shop floor. We have learned from how you stand up to political repression—whether from the police, FBI, or ICE—and inspire the masses to stand with you and organize for their collective rights. We have stood alongside each other in re-enlivening an anti-war movement with a clear position on opposing imperialist wars while supporting people’s wars for national liberation in their own countries.

Your bravery in the face of the capitalists — whether in the workplace, in the halls of government, or in the dens of the war hawks — has won you concrete gains and victories for working and oppressed people around the country. We are overjoyed to hear that FRSO has experienced extraordinary growth in the course of these struggles, recognizing the crucial task you are carrying out in equipping these broad movements with the weapon of Marxism-Leninism to strike at the heart of the enemy.

At the same time, we are humbled and deeply appreciative of your dedication to proletarian internationalism, as demonstrated by your unrelenting solidarity with national liberation movements, including the People’s Democratic Revolution being waged in the Philippines under the leadership of the CPP. Your support is needed more now than ever. As a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country dominated by the joint class dictatorship of the big comprador bourgeoisie, and big landlord class and bureaucrat capitalists—all under the direction of U.S. imperialism—the Filipino people feel acutely the worsening contradictions of the current order. The deadly hunger already experienced by the toiling masses has been exacerbated by the sharp economic crash deterioration following the U.S.’ war on Iran, coupled with the refusal of the reactionary Philippine state to heed the people’s demands to repeal burdensome taxes and other anti-people and anti-poor policies and measures, that would mean lowering their profit margin or angering their U.S. corporate patrons. The self-serving nature of those in power was thoroughly unmasked in massive corruption scandals made public last year, as well as in the current political circus between the Marcos and Duterte dynasties playing out ahead of the 2028 Philippine presidential elections.

Beyond acting in their own interests, however, the reactionary classes of Philippine society are wholly subservient to their imperialist masters. With dizzying speed, the entire country is being made into the U.S.’ forward base in its campaign to encircle and contain China and assert dominance in the Asia-Pacific region. More de facto and secret U.S. military bases are being built across the country, which house both U.S. weapons and troops under the guise of “rotational” presence. Just this month, the U.S. military “assisted” by Philippine militaries — the Armed Forces of the Philippines — fired a Tomahawk missile from a civilian airport into a civilian community more than 600 kilometers away, endangering the lives of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos who were in the path of the low-flying missile, in a clear act of war provocation against China. The firing was part of the Balikatan war games—just one of over 500 joint military exercises set to happen this year that all aim to project power and heighten tensions with China. Even the Philippine economy is being transformed to serve the U.S.’ war economy, with the push to establish a US-controlled “economic security zone,” along with plans of building an ammunition factory, refueling hub for warships, and other infrastructure already under way.

The biggest obstacle to the complete transformation of the Philippines into a launching pad for U.S. imperialist war is the Filipino people’s democratic revolution being waged through protracted people’s war. For 57 years, the Communist Party of the Philippines has led this struggle for national and social liberation, and has spread the fire of revolution across the archipelago. It has thwarted every attempt of every reactionary U.S.-backed regime to destroy it, making a fool of presidents and generals who promise every year to end it by some arbitrary deadline.

Still, the state’s fascist terror unleashed against revolutionary forces and the broad masses of people struggling for change is very much a reality, especially in the Philippine countryside. Last month, the Filipino people suffered a loss that continues to weigh heavily on us all. On April 19, the butchers of the Philippine military committed a massacre—a war crime—by indiscriminately firing upon communities in Toboso, Negros Occidental. Nineteen people were martyred that day: ten Red fighters of the New People’s Army and nine civilians, including people local to the area as well as a student leader, journalists, peasant organizers, and community researchers who went to Negros to learn from among the peasant masses. Among them were Lyle Prijoles and Kai Sorem, two Filipino-American activists who were leaders in the Filipino community in the US, leaders who chose to sacrifice their comforts living in the U.S. to serve the toiling masses back home.

The enemy would like to portray this massacre as a strategic victory against communism. It is the opposite. In a statement following the Toboso massacre, the New People’s Army-Northern Negros under the Roselyn Jean Pelle Command reminds us that the very reason the U.S.-Marcos regime targeted and continues to target Negros is because of the strength of the revolution there. They state that in 2025 alone, “Party membership grew 30 percent” and “new branches were formed in broad areas.” Further, “membership in secret mass organizations grew nearly 50 percent, while the number of individuals reached by the revolution tripled. The NPA in Northern Negros also doubled the range of its area of operations and launched at least 19 guerrilla offensive and counter-offensive actions. It conducted these operations up to towns near the provincial capital and populated areas.”

What is happening in Negros shows us that the U.S.-Marcos regime is fighting a losing battle, because, as our founding chairperson Jose Maria Sison declared in his last statement before passing, “the Filipino people’s democratic revolution is invincible.” As long as the toiling masses’ aspirations for land, for sovereignty, and for a future crafted by our own hands continue to exist, so will the people’s revolution. The martyrdom of the Negros 19 has only fueled and fanned the flames of struggle across the country, and among the Filipino diaspora and our allies overseas. In their wake, thousands more will raise high the red flag of people’s war.

Comrades, the enemy is frightened because of the success of our people’s movements the world over, from the U.S., to Palestine, to Iran, to the Philippines. Each victory in one of our countries represents a victory for all. And with our weapon of proletarian internationalism wielded by the broad anti-imperialist united front, we know that no tactical setback can prevent the inevitability of peoples’ victories against the yoke of imperialism, fascism, and all reaction.

On the occasion of your 10th Congress and beyond, we look forward to continuing to learn and struggle alongside each other, to fight for more victories for the people, and to march side- by- side with one another in the pursuit for freedom, justice, a bright socialist tomorrow, and even brighter communist future.

Mabuhay ang Freedom Road Socialist Organization! Long live Freedom Road Socialist Organization!

Long live proletarian internationalism!

Long live the toiling masses struggling for liberation!

Communist Party, Sweden

To the upcoming congress of Freedom Road Socialist Organisation

We from Communist Party, Sweden, wish you all success with your political and organisational work regarding your congress. We are well aware of your enormous tasks you have working in the belly of the of the most aggressive and reactionary state we have seen since nazism. Sweden today is both an imperialist country as well as a tool under European Union as well under American Imperialism. Some days ago our party organised thousands of demostraters against Nato-summit in Helsingborg. At May Day we had meetings and rallies at 27 places in Sweden and we raised 20 thousand dollars to solarpanels at a hospital in western Cuba. All in collaboration with Cuba Embassy in Sweden.

Down with US imperialism! Down with Nato! Long live proletarian internationalism!

Povel Johansson Partychairman

Erik Anderson Internationally Secretary

United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV)

Estimada compañera:

I write to you to extend a fraternal and revolutionary greeting on behalf of the workers of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela — men and women alike — the land of Simón Bolívar and Hugo Chávez, where the working class continues to resist and produce despite the criminal blockade.

I take this opportunity to warmly congratulate you on the celebration of your 10th National Congress, an event that, without a doubt, reaffirms the vitality of Marxism-Leninism at the heart of the empire.

On behalf of our working class and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), I recognize the consistent leadership that the FRSO has exercised over the years. We know that you maintain a real and combative presence in the U.S. labor movement, in the liberation struggle of African American communities, and in internationalist solidarity beyond the borders of the United States.

We want to express our most sincere gratitude for the constant support you have always given to the Venezuelan people and to the Bolivarian revolution. And very especially, we thank you for your militant solidarity with our brother Nicolás Maduro Moros, Constitutional President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and working-class leader who guides the emancipatory process of our people.

Comrade Nicolás Maduro Moros today remains a prisoner of war in a federal jail in New York City, since he was vilely kidnapped on January 3, 2026, in Venezuelan territory. That the FRSO has raised its voice for him fills us with pride and hope.

Finally, I emphasize a deep conviction of the Venezuelan working class: the people of Venezuela recognize themselves as friends of the U.S. people, whose gallantry has inspired us ever since May 1, 1886. We do not confuse the working people with the rapacious governments, from which you also suffer as victims. Our hand is extended to the workers, to the dispossessed, to African Americans, to Indigenous peoples, and to all those who, like the FRSO, fight for a world without exploiters.

Confident that your 10th National Congress will be a victorious trench, we reiterate our proletarian embrace and our willingness to continue building internationalist solidarity.

¡Venceremos!

Sincerely,

Francisco A. Torrealba Vice President of the Working Class United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV)

Workers World Party

Workers World Party sends our warmest greetings and our deep solidarity to the Freedom Road Socialist Organization’s 10th Congress, which is taking place in the developing stage of a severe crisis in the class struggle.

This crisis manifests in the decline in U.S. imperialism’s ability to dominate the world through the dollar and the Pentagon. It is exacerbated by the racist, misogynist, anti-foreign and utterly corrupt MAGA administration’s attempts to reverse the decline by undisguised military aggression abroad and increased exploitation at home.

Those of us who agree that a Marxist-Leninist party that organizes of and for the working class and all oppressed peoples is necessary, wish the 10th Congress of FRSO success in building an organization that can be much stronger than the sum of its individuals in order to obstruct the war plans of the imperialist ruling class, as well as their designs to squeeze more profits out of working people in the U.S. and worldwide.

We salute the steady working class organizing that Freedom Road Socialist Organization has continued during this tumultuous period, while maintaining a firm anti imperialist and internationalist view.

Freedom Road Socialist Organization has distinguished itself in the past year, especially regarding two important areas of struggle in which Workers World Party has also participated.

One is the fight to stop ICE thugs from persecuting the large migrant working-class community. Your work all over the country and especially in Los Angeles, Chicago, in Florida and in Minneapolis (the epicenter of the struggle in January) has been vitally important.

Another has been the ongoing struggle against imperialist war. Our organizations have often been together at rallies and marches in an attempt to create a revolutionary pole for the millions of people who oppose U.S. wars. Whether against Palestine, Lebanon, or Iran in West Asia, against Venezuela or now Cuba in Latin America, whether against NATO in Europe, it has been important that organizations who agree that “the enemy of humanity is at home” should work together to succeed.

Unless anger and frustration in today’s worsening conditions is consciously focused on U.S. imperialism’s crimes, it always goes toward attacking the shortcomings of our own movements. That only leads to demoralization, infighting, and empty polemical debates.

Our joint collaboration on many issues can hopefully create a new approach to the struggle in the U.S. Rather than competing, contending political formations, far more can be gained by learning from each other and building a unity of action with other emerging forces.

US imperialism, in this stage of decay, is highly unstable, racked by unwinnable wars and prone to reckless and unpredictable repression. We know that having each other’s back is the best insurance. An injury to one is an injury to all is the oldest lesson in the class struggle.

Long live the solidarity of FRSO and WWP!

Down with U.S. imperialism!

Struggle for Socialism Party / Struggle – La Lucha

Dear Comrade Mick Kelly and Delegates of the 10th Congress,

On behalf of the Struggle for Socialism Party and our publication Struggle-La Lucha, we extend our warmest and fraternal greetings to each delegate, member, and leader of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization as you convene your 10th Congress.

We have followed with admiration and solidarity your organization’s principled and militant work in the recent period. Your role in the struggle against mass deportations stands as a vital defense of immigrant and working-class communities under attack. Likewise, your consistent and courageous mobilization for Palestine and against the U.S. war drive on Iran reflects the highest internationalist traditions of our movement, challenging imperialism at its core. Your active engagement in the trade union, African American liberation, and Chicano liberation movements further demonstrates your commitment to building a united, multinational, anti-capitalist front capable of winning real power for the oppressed.

That your 10th Congress arrives at a moment of extraordinary growth — which includes securing a national office — is a testament to your perseverance and rootedness in struggle. This material and organizational progress strengthens the foundation for advancing revolutionary work.

We send these greetings in the spirit of working class internationalism and genuine revolutionary solidarity. May your Congress strengthen your unity, and prepare your membership for the intensified class battles ahead.

With respect and revolutionary fervor,

Fraternally,

Sharon Black and John Parker,

Coordinators, Struggle for Socialism Party and Struggle-La Lucha

#RevolutionaryTheory #FRSO #International #10thCongress #Congress

The following is a keynote speech delivered by the Freedom Road Socialist Organization Political Secretary Mick Kelly, May 31, at the International League of Peoples Struggle/U.S. Political Conference.

Comrades and friends

Let me start by thanking and congratulating the organizers of this genuinely important event, the Third National Assembly of the International League of Peoples Struggle/U.S. What a powerful gathering! This is truly a room full of militants. Many of us have worked together for years and all of us are consistent anti-imperialists.

In the words of the outstanding revolutionary Jose Maria Sison, the late chairman of the ILPS, “imperialism is the last way out for the monopoly capitalists to postpone their revolutionary overthrow. It means the extension of the class oppression and exploitation within the United States into the oppression and exploitation of other nations and people abroad through the export of surplus products and surplus capital.”

The implications of this are clear enough. Working and oppressed people in the U.S. and abroad have a common interest in ending imperialism. We want this to happen as soon as possible. The decline of U.S. monopoly capitalism, or imperialism, the two terms can be used interchangeably, is accelerating. The decline is picking up speed and we welcome its demise. And we intend to throw gasoline on the fire.

I will be talking today about strengthening and broadening the people’s movement, especially the workers movement in the United States, as well as the key role of workers in the fight for democracy and the struggle to achieve socialism.

Also to be addressed is the state of the labor movement and what we need to do to move the level of struggle of the working class to a higher level. Finally, I will be looking at the issue of international solidarity.

Need for a mass line approach

To be successful as anti-imperialists, as revolutionaries, as people who want to and will change the world, we need to apply the mass line. While there is a lot that could be said about that, at the heart of it is “from the masses, to the masses.”

Or to quote the great Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong, “In all the practical work of our Party, all correct leadership is necessarily ‘from the masses, to the masses.’ This means: take the ideas of the masses (scattered and unsystematic ideas) and concentrate them (through study turn them into concentrated and systematic ideas), then go to the masses and propagate and explain these ideas until the masses embrace them as their own, hold fast to them and translate them into action, and test the correctness of these ideas in action.”

To put this another way, we sum up where people are at. Basing ourselves on what people are concerned about, on what folks want, we develop slogans, policies, plans, that people will take up as their own. It is in this way that revolutionary theory becomes a material force.

All of us who do organizing can appreciate the point that Mao was making. The starting point of our organizing needs to be where people are at – what their actual level of political development is. We are not organizing people in books or people who are the way we imagine they should be – we need to connect with people where they are at and systematically lead them forward.

One thing about capitalism is that it is an excellent teacher. For anyone who thinks that this system is fair, reasonable, or just, the capitalists, really the system itself, is always ready to teach you otherwise. It’s an endless disappointment, a Christmas that never comes. Capitalism is a failed system, but to help people gain that understanding – and understand who is the enemy and what is to be done – we have to be standing right next to them summing things up.

The accelerating decline of U.S. imperialism

The decline of U.S. imperialism is picking up speed. The U.S. share of world trade in goods has declined about 40% since 1970. The U.S. share of world GDP is about half of what in the aftermath of World War II. The U.S. has retreated from the economic architecture that underpinned the so called, “American Century.”

In recent years, management of the declining U.S. empire has been bipartisan. Both Trump and Biden disengaged from the WTO and adopted measures to “delink” the economy from China. While there are significant differences between the industrial policies of Trump and Biden, neither embraced a “let the market decide”, laissez-faire approach that’s touted by neoliberals

The decline of U.S. imperialism is sharpening all of the basic contradictions present in society: the contradiction between the monopoly capitalists and the multinational working class; between the ruling class and oppressed nationalities; and between the monopoly capitalism and women and LGBTQ people. This provides the material basis for the intensification of polarization, and the phenomenon of different states or even cities having different legal systems which accord people varying democratic rights.

The sharpening of the contradictions is in sharp relief in the fight for immigrant rights. Our organization views the attacks on immigrants as a function of national oppression, which means that the U.S. is a jailhouse of oppressed peoples, of oppressed nationalities.

Militarized ice raids and troop deployments to major cities is serving to pull U.S. society apart, and this can be seen in mass protests and rebellions (LA and Minneapolis), divergent court rulings, a degree of non-compliance by some state and local authorities (Chicago).

One aside here. After the murder of Renee Good in Minneapolis, I arrived on the scene about 15 minutes after the killing took place. The car she was killed in was still there. And sure, there was sadness. But there was also anger. Repression gives rise to more resistance – so there were many clashes with the ICE agents.

But back to the decline of U.S imperialism and sharpening contradictions.

On a different level, and more reflective of contradictions in the enemy camp, are the government shutdowns that are becoming more frequent and larger with the passage of time. Then there are the impeachment attempts. And then there are the things that are not normal in modern U.S. politics, such as the “weaponization” of the Department of Justice and the prosecution of Trump’s bourgeois political opponents. One feature of the Trump administration is a willingness to push up to – and beyond – the limits of bourgeoisie legality.

Any major economic downturn or crisis will sharpen the aforementioned contradictions. The capitalists will act the way they always do – try to shift the burden of the crisis onto the backs of the working class. Most state governments (and many local ones) will experience budget crises, resulting in attempts to push austerity measures.

A scientific analysis of changes in society grasps the fact that changes in the economic base (productive forces and relations of production) will result in the superstructure (politics, government, religion, etc.) changing. And that the superstructure will alter the economic base, meaning that there is a dialectical relationship between the two. This is not a one-way thing either; certain changes in the superstructures can play a crucial role in the economic base.

Lenin made the point that monopoly capitalism was moribund – capitalism in the period of terminal decline and decay. As such, monopoly capitalism has challenges utilizing advances in science and deploying more advanced productive forces in general.

Taken as a whole, these objective conditions provide extremely favorable conditions for revolutionaries, progressives, and anti- imperialists to greatly expand our mass base and organizational capacity.

Building the workers and other popular movements

The working class is a class in itself; its existence is objective, and developing class consciousness means the working class becomes a class that is for itself. While it is true that the task of developing the workers movement in the U.S. is not identical with revitalizing the trade union movement, organized labor has a critical role.

The fact of the matter is that many of our trade unions, most really, are not only bureaucratic, they’re conservative and they often have a “go along to get along” approach when it comes to dealing with employers. This needs to change. So work needs to be done to put trade unions on a class-struggle basis. Practically, this means building up militant minorities in the form of caucuses or reform slates and contending for leadership.

We need more serious confrontations with the employers, such as the strike by 1,500 Teamsters last year at the University of Minnesota or the strike of packinghouse workers in Greely, Colorado.

The center of gravity for work in the labor needs to be wages and working conditions. Given that the working class is multinational and has more than one gender – there is also the fight against discrimination and inequity in our workplaces. To strengthen and broaden the working class movement. The starting point needs to be the “felt” needs of workers.

If we fail to do that, our efforts to raise the level of class struggle with fail. But starting points are not ending points and we cannot say that we must confine ourselves to immediate needs – our class is multifaceted and we need to address political issues as well.

A stellar example of this was the labor-initiated anti-ICE protest in Minneapolis, where nearly 100,000 people took to the streets on January 23. Some people say it was a general strike – it was not – but it is a wonderful example of what is possible when labor movement chooses to act. Actions such as this, in a very nascent or beginning form, give life to the concept of “Workers unite to lead the fight against all oppression.”

Strengthening and broadening the people’s movements

Mao Zedong once remarked there is “Great disorder under heaven – the situation is excellent,” That is a spot-on description of how revolutionaries should view the situation in our country today. It in no way implies indifference to real suffering that is the day-to-day experience of our class, of working and oppressed people at home and abroad. Instead, Mao’s statement gives correct stress to favorable conditions we find ourselves in to build large mass struggles.

It’s been said before and it can be said again – the U.S. is a prison house of oppressed nations, and the oppression visited upon African Americans, Chicanos and others is in fact national oppression.

The struggle against national oppression is a struggle against imperialism, against monopoly capitalism… so let me give a shout out to the members of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression who present here today. Your efforts to stop police terror, for community control of the police and in defense of voting rights are inspiring. Same goes for those of you in Centro CSO Chapters who are resisting ICE and have faced real repression. And an additional point on that – there is a grand jury meeting in Santa Ana, California – we reason to believe that it may well be targeting immigrant rights activists. If that proves to be the case, we will be certainly calling on all of you for support and solidarity.

Here we are, five years after the George Floyd Rebellion, the greatest wave of urban upbringings since the 1960s and early 70s. In those weeks in late May and early June 2020, nearly 25 million people took to the streets.

That powerful mass motion against police crimes and systematic inequality – national oppression – gave lie to the idea that conditions in the U.S. were immutable, that nothing changes. Anyone present at the burning of the Third Precinct building in Minneapolis can tell you this. Late in the evening of May 28, 2020, the last police, who had been firing rubber bullets and tear gas rounds, disappeared. There were thousands of people in the streets. Then the building went up in flames, Things do not have to stay the way they are. And they will not.

United front against imperialism

The U.S. working class is multinational; it is like a mosaic. There are also the movements of the oppressed nationalities. Real change in the U.S. requires a united front against imperialism, against monopoly capitalism. At the core of this united front needs to be a strategic alliance of the multinational working class and of the oppressed nationalities. Around this will be an alignment of other classes in conflict with capitalism, other sectors with particular importance, like women and LGBTQ folk, and social movements such as those who resist U.S. wars.

Together we will be unstoppable!

Democracy and democratic rights

Democracy does not exist in the abstract, its mode of existence, and how it is practiced in the real world is always in the context of the existing class relations.

Every discussion of the topic should start with the recognition that a capitalist democracy is a cash register democracy where the amount of rights one has and the amount of power one has is directly linked to one’s class position. And that Lenin was entirely correct to say that a capitalist democracy is a democracy for slaveholders at the expense of the enslaved.

That truth no way negates the fact the struggle for consistent democracy and democratic rights is extremely important in the U.S. today. For purposes of exposition, I am going to treat these topics as two categories, but they are two aspects of the same thing.

The absence or limitations on consistent democracy is an important feature of racist national oppression, and it needs to be combated with all energy we can muster. For example, the attacks on voting rights are disenfranchising millions of African Americans. Consistent democracy is the equal treatment of languages, especially on matters of government. On the national level the U.S. is adopting a chauvinist “English only” model. These are examples and further examples could fill volumes, everyone here knows that. But here is another point: by being frontline fighters in the fight for democracy we can rally millions to the fight for revolutionary change.

Travel around this country and you can see that the legal superstructure is moving in different directions. You have different democratic rights (say, reproductive rights and the rights of LBGTQ people) in different places. As political polarization sharpens, this country is fracturing. And that is not a bad things from the standpoint of revolutionaries – because we intend to take it apart and put an end to U.S. monopoly capitalism once and for all.

There is also the aspect of defending democratic rights and civil liberties. We all get that the U.S. is a repressive place. Arguably it always has been – lynch terror in the Black Belt South to buttress semi feudal property relations (sharecropping), the concentration camps for Japanese Americans during World War II, and communists jailed or deported in the 1950s. This is, and always has been, a repressive place.

That said, it is clear that a major assault our rights to organize, associate and demonstrate is underway. It is a danger that needs to be confronted. The state of Florida is criminalizing Palestine protests. Conor Cauley, an organizer for Palestine and member of the International Longshoremen’s Association, is sitting in jail today – serving a 60-day sentence for a felony that did not happen. Over the past year, hundreds have been charged with felonies in the anti-ICE protests around the country. And all sorts of reactionary and repressive legislation is moving forward in Congress, states, and cities.

In all cases we need to push back against the assault on democratic rights, but there is one attack on those rights which dates from the Clinton era – the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. This bill borrowed a page from apartheid South Africa and put the tag of “terrorist” on those fighting for national liberation. These “material support for terrorism” laws are reactionary, should be abolished and should be opposed by every person who stands for progress.

Working class internationalism

All of us, every, single one of us here, believe that working class internationalism and international solidarity are important. Every blow against U.S. imperialism ,be it in Palestine, the Philippines, or for that matter, Philadelphia ,weakens our common enemy benefiting the people at home and abroad.

We are all in this together and none of us can be free, while oppressing others.

We always must make sure that international solidarity is not just things we say, but it is alive in the things that we do. Right now, the U.S. empire is waging a war on Iran. Paper tiger that it is, the U.S. Trump administration is being defeated, humiliated in fact. Our task here is to unite all who can be united to oppose the war, and in cities around the country many of you have been doing exactly that.

There are other forms of international solidarity. Many have traveled on exposure trips to occupied Palestine and have been about to report back on the efforts of the national democratic force. We can work to promote solidarity between labor unions in this country and those under the boot of U.S. imperialism. Same goes for solidarity organized by sectors. All these methods can be employed and others too.

“Workers and oppressed people of the world unite,” is something all of us take seriously.

Socialist future

Mao once said that only socialism can save China. You know what? Only socialism can save the U.S. Monopoly capitalism is a failed, sick system that evokes alienation and anger.

The multinational working class has a material interest in bringing this system to an end, but hard work is needed to develop the understanding, political clarity, and capacity to do this.

In my view we will need to establish a new communist party that is capable of contending for power. I understand fully that this is a gathering of mass organizations, but I also know that questions of “How do we end imperialism?” or “How do we abolish the existing order of things?” are on the minds of many of you here.

So, in closing, I have been active in people’s struggle for more than 50 years. Never have I been as hopeful as I am now. Capitalism is a vicious blood-sucking system that drains the life blood out of the working class. Marx compared the big capitalists to vampires. He was right about that. And what do we do when we encounter a vampire? We drive a stake through its heart.

And on that note, comrades, thank you. Our future is bright and we have a world to win.

Long live international solidarity!

#ILPS #FRSO #Speech #PeoplesStruggles

The successful conclusion of the 10th Congress of Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) marked a genuine advance in our efforts to build a serious revolutionary communist organization in the United States. The Congress took place in the context of extraordinary growth, we have far more members in far more cities and towns. Over the past several years we have helped lead protests involving hundreds of thousands and have become a real force in the people’s movements. We are advancing towards the goal of building a new communist party that can contend for power.

As the call to the 10th Congress stated, “We have done great things. We have developed our work in the labor movement. We played a significant role in the George Floyd rebellion and are actively building the national movements. We have done much to push back against Trump’s reactionary attacks. We are proletarian internationalists, who stand with the oppressed from Palestine to the Philippines.”

Beneath a large banner reading, “Freedom Road Socialist Organization 10th Congress: We have nothing to lose but our chains!” a packed hall of 185 delegates and 101 alternate delegates came together to set goals and make plans for strengthening organization, and to elect leadership. This was our first congress where all in attendance were elected by their districts.

Delegates hailed from all regions of the country. Reflecting the rapid growth of FRSO over the last four years, this was the first congress for most attendees. While some of the participants were veterans of the communist movement with many decades of experience, the overwhelming majority were under 35 years old. Many attending were leaders and activists in the labor movement. Over 40 percent of those present were oppressed nationalities. About half of those present were women and LGBTQ people.

The 10th Congress of FRSO came at a critical juncture in the development of the people’s struggle and the accelerating decline of monopoly capitalism in the U.S.

The congress adopted political resolutions on the economy, the political situation, and the international situation that provide materialist analyses of the conditions we are facing, and that help us understand the terrain of struggle ahead. Participants both new and old navigated the democratic process to reach unity on our line.

The congress elected a new central committee to lead our organization. The central committee elected longtime communist Mick Kelly to serve as the organization’s political secretary.

Messages of greetings from communist and workers’ parties, national liberation movements, and anti-imperialist organizations were read to the delegates, including messages from the Workers Party of Belgium, Mouvement National Congolais – Lumumba (MNC/L), Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD), Communist Construction (Germany), CARC Party (Italy), Communist League of Indonesia, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), Communist Party, Sweden, and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.

Messages from revolutionary organizations in the U.S., including the Workers World Party and the Struggle for Socialism Party / Struggle – La Lucha, were read to the delegates.

A message greeting the congress from the Communist Party of the Philippines states, “The Communist Party of the Philippines extends a militant salute to our comrades in the Freedom Road Socialist Organization on the occasion of your 10th Congress. Your gathering represents a significant victory for the working class and all other exploited and oppressed peoples here within the belly of the imperialist beast. It comes at no better a critical time, as contradictions within the United States and around the world are intensifying at an unprecedented rate.”

See all FRSO 10th Congress documents

See all Greetings from Communist and Workers Parties to the 10th Congress of the FRSO

#RevolutionaryTheory #FRSO #Congress #Featured

Minneapolis, MN – El viernes, 1 de mayo, una coalición encabezada por el Comité de Derechos de Inmigrantes de Minnesota y el Movimiento de Protectores Indígenas y respaldado por más de 60 sindicatos, grupos de derechos de inmigrantes, y otras organizaciones progresivas salieron a las calles para conmemorar el 20ª marcha annual el Día Internacional de los Obreros.

La coalición exigió que ICE se saque de Minnesota y la legalización para todos, puesto que la marcha siguió meses de lucha intensa contra la ocupación federal de la ciudad por los policías de inmigracion y confrontaciones militantes entre la gente y ICE. 10,000 manifestantes marcharon, cantaron, mostraron pancartas y celebraron durante la marcha del Día Internacional de los Obreros este año.

La marcha llenó la Calle Lako, el corazón de la comunidad inmigrante en Minneapolis del Sur, con grandes banderas, y contingentes de varios sindicatos, grupos de derechos de inmigrantes, grupos contra-guerra, grupos de estudiantes y otros movimientos progresivos. Como tradición para las marchas de MIRAC de 1 de mayo, la bandera principal fue sostenida por jóvenes, este año un grupo de estudiantes del colegio. La enorme marcha tuvo tres camiones de sonido, cada uno con su propio programa de discurso. La gente y las familias bordearon las aceras de la calle Lake para dar elogio a los eslóganes y brindar la marcha, saliendo de los varios negocios de inmigrantes para mostrar su apoyo.

Justo antes del inicio del programa, Consejeros de la Ciudad de Minneapolis progresivos tuvieron una rueda de prensa para leer la resolución del consejo municipal para nombrar al 1 de mayo como Día Internacional de los Obreros, seguido por una interpretación de baile por Danza Unida.

En la congregación inicial, las multitudes escucharon a Diego Guaman de Operación Vuelo Sagrado, un grupo comunitario de las bases que fue creado como respuesta directa a la campana en aumento a los inmigrantes en Minnesota y la necesidad de protegerlos, educar y apoyar a las familias inmigrantes.

“Ser inmigrante no es un crimen, pelear por tus derechos no es un crimen y hacer oír tu voz no es un crimen!” proclamó Diego Guaman.

Manuel Pascual, participante de MIRAC, les contó a las multitudes un poco de la historia de May Day y la importancia de salir a las calles en la 20ª marcha de 1 de mayo de la ciudad, “Cada año estamos aquí el 1 de mayo y cada año queremos decir la misma cosa: este es el dia del obrero. ¡El día de los obreros inmigrantes! El único día de fiesta del mundo que nos pertenece a nosotros!” Concluyó su discurso diciéndoles a las multitudes sobre la campaña actual de MIRAC para convertir Minnesota en Estado Santuario y un fin a toda la colaboración local y en el estado con ICE. “Estamos organizando, estamos presentándonos, y estamos retrocediendo a nuestros vecinos cuando ICE intenta llevarlos. Hoy es la práctica, mañana seguimos adelante!

La marcha se detuvo en la Calle Lake y la Avenida Bloomington, sitio de una gran operación federal en la cual policías de inmigracion estaban presentes el junio de 2025. Las multitudes escucharon a Isavela Lopez, activista que fue brutalizada por policías federales aquel día y ahora enfrenta cargos federales sin validez.

“Yo se que no estoy sola,” dijo Lopez, “En el momento se trata de más que me, y se trata de los niños en Palestina, se trate de la gente de Venezuela, y se trata de la gente que quedan encarcelada en los centros de detención ahora mismo!

Benji Gomez, miembro de las bases de Teamsters Local 638, quien también organizó una despensa comunitaria para las familias inmigrantes ubicado en su garaje durante la Operacion Metro Surge con la ayuda de los otros Teamsters de su sindicato, le dijo a las multitudes, “Soy inmigrante. También soy el primero de mi familia que me inscribí a un sindicato y me ha dado verdadero poder. Los sindicatos existen porque los obreros se presentaron juntos y exigieron dignidad, sueldos justos, condiciones sanas y respeto, y muchas veces esos obreros eran inmigrantes, ¡gente con la menor protección pero con el coraje de organizarse de todos modos! Eso sí es verdad hoy en día.”

En la marcha también aparecieron habladores incluyendo Presidente de AFL-CIO Minnesota Bernie Burnham, Presidenta de Local 59 de MFE MArcia Howard, miembros de Asamblea de Derechos Civiles, MN8, Monique Cullors-Doty con los Honrados 39, el Comité Anti-Guerra de MN, y muchos mas que representaban sus sindicatos y otras organizaciones de las bases.

La Organización Socialista Camino de la Libertad también tuvo un contingente grande y visible en la marcha.

La marcha terminó en una tienda Target al otro lado de la calle de la 3ª Delegación anterior (quemada) con un teatro criticando Target y la avaricia corporativa, y también más discursos inspirando a la gente que siga tomando acción. Al final de la marcha, los organizadores pidieron a los manifestantes que coman en los negocios que tienen como dueños inmigrantes en la calle Lake y que asistan a la posfiesta en el Mercado Central para concluir el día.

#MinneapolisMN #MN #Trabajo #DerechosdeInmigrantes #1ºdemayo #MIRAC #OSCL #ImmigrantRights #Labor #MayDay #FRSO

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the FRSO Salt Lake City District.

The Freedom Road Socialist Organization has been reestablished in Utah, emerging stronger with two vibrant new districts.

The rebirth of our district in Salt Lake City was catalyzed by a renewed engagement in the anti-imperialist struggle. The spark came after we participated in the Utah Anti-War Committee's letter-writing campaign in support of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who is currently unlawfully being held as a hostage in U.S. prison. This act of solidarity reinvigorated our revolutionary organization in Utah and coincided with the commencement of Freedom Road organizing in Orem, 40 miles south of Salt Lake.

Today, our districts now strive to be beacons of progress and revolutionary drive in Utah, having summed up the many successes of the past and made concrete plans to address challenges. New cadres recruited from the mass movements are fighting to win a deeper fusion with Utah’s working and oppressed people.

Our renewed district in Salt Lake City collaborates with a variety of progressive forces, including Armed Queers of Salt Lake City, the Utah Workers Center, Healthcare Workers for Palestine, and Utahns for Peace and Justice in the Holy Land. In Orem, our new comrades support powerful partnerships with Students for a Democratic Society at Utah Valley University, alongside the Whistle Committee and the Civil Disobedience Club, bringing Freedom Road to the heart of Utah County for the first time.

Since January 2026, our district membership has quadrupled in size, a surge that speaks to the hunger for genuine revolutionary struggle in Utah. Our recent activities have focused on the anti-war movement, providing support to the UAWC’s actions against U.S. aggression in Iran, Cuba, Lebanon, Venezuela, and Palestine. Our district celebrated International Women's Day with a massive rally at the state Capitol alongside MMIR Utah and UAWC, which we followed by a well-attended May Day panel that drew dozens of Utahns eager for change and for an end to ICE terror in their community.

Our district welcomes all revolutionaries in the Salt Lake area looking for a community of organizers where they can serve the people's movements, rebuild the communist party and study Marxism-Leninism. A new generation of cadres has taken up the call to land blows on the monopoly capitalist class.

The message from Utah is clear: opposing forces failed to break us. Instead, these experiences only served to forge a harder, more disciplined, and more dedicated organization. In Utah, FRSO is quickly evolving into a force to be reckoned with, dedicated to the long-term goals of the labor movement, student activism, immigrant rights, LGBTQ liberation, and gender justice, all while building the anti-war movement and laying the groundwork for a socialist society.

The fight carries on.

#SaltLakeCityUT #OremUT #UT #PeoplesStruggles #AntiWarMovement #FRSO

Orlando, FL – On Friday, May 1, dozens of community members gathered at BookBurn Cafe and Social in Orlando's Milk District to celebrate International Workers' Day. The interactive, educational event was presented by Freedom Road Socialist Organization Orlando, and included discussions led by rank-and-file union members from the public and private sector.

The four different presenters spoke about their firsthand experiences organizing union drives and strikes, fighting for decent contracts, resisting anti-union policies from the Florida legislature, and the ever-growing need for communist and militant union members to engage in class struggle unionism.

“The strike has always been the greatest weapon that the working class can wield against the greedy bosses,” said FRSO Orlando member and public high school teacher Edmund Anglero. “And throughout history, there are numerous instances of union workers wielding that power to win fair contracts. That is what we should be building toward today and is why FRSO members make our home in the organized working class.”

After a lively Q and A session, the educational portion of the event ended and was followed by a social for those in attendance to celebrate the holiday together.

#OrlandoFL #FL #Labor #ImmigrantRights #Labor #FRSO

Directed by Christopher Martin and John Pilger, The War on Democracy (2007) is a sobering and critical examination of the United States’ deadly imperialism in the Americas.

Examining the history from the mid-20th century going to the 2000s, Pilger examines the bipartisan attacks against Latin America, especially on the socialist countries and those that are not aligned with the interests of U.S. imperialists. Special focus is given to the 2002 failed coup d'etat attempt in Venezuela, featuring interviews with Hugo Chávez.

After the documentary, Angel Naranjos, a member of FRSO, led a discussion on what the audience learned, the historical development of American imperialism, the decline of imperialism, the fight for national liberation and how the working class and people of oppressed nations must unite against capitalism and use socialism to crush their enemies.

As imperialism continues to more depraved actions, the conflict between the oppressed nations of the world and the monopoly capitalists sharpens. All over the world, we are seeing examples of freedom fighters defeating and leaving the monopoly capitalists embarrassed and confused. In Iran the U.S.’s imperialist war has backfired spectacularly; Palestinian resistance continues to hold firm against Israel and the U.S., and here in the belly of the beast, the American working class is striking blows against Trump's attacks. If these fights have shown one thing, it has shown that when the people unite against the imperialists, they can win!

#ChicagoIL #IL #StudentMovement #SDS #FRSO #International #Venezuela

Milwaukee, WI – On a brisk May 1st morning, the Milwaukee community gathered in the thousands to stand up for immigrants’ and workers’ rights. The rally began on the city’s Southside at the Voces de la Frontera (VDLF) office, a leading organization that gathers students, workers, and residents annually to march since 2006. 22 years later, el Día sin Inmigrantes continues to demand justice for workers of all legal status and a path to legalization for all.

The day started with words from student organizers in Youth Empowered in the Struggle (YES), urging solidarity and collective action under the second Trump administration. The three-mile march then began with a large coalition carrying banners and pickets, chanting “Money for jobs and education, not for war and deportation!”

As marchers arrived at the end point, VDLF director Christine Neumann-Ortiz summed up the theme of this year's demonstration: “Immigrants are not the problem; they are the solution. The problem is the billionaire class.”

The crowd then heard from Kareem Sarsour, the eldest son of Salah Sarsour, a Palestinian and president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee. Sarsour was kidnapped over a month ago by ICE and remains in custody for bogus charges because he is a fierce advocate for Palestine. Sarsour assured the crowd that his father, along with his family, remain committed to fighting for a free Palestine and will fight until he is released.

In a fiery speech, the head of the city’s Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA), José Ramirez, told the crowd, “Elected officials try to explain to the working class that they understand and know our struggles. They don’t know what it’s like to pour concrete all damn day, to be bent over tying rebar, to wake up early and work a double shift.” Ramirez then pointed to the strength of grassroots organizations and community, calling for continued solidarity among workers beyond May Day because “this is what the clowns and cowards in Madison fear.”

The day’s march wrapped up midday with mariachi, but the festivities continued.

Freedom Road Socialist Organization held a program later that evening at Villa Arco, a community space which also hosts ESL classes for immigrant laborers. Here, FRSO national leader Syd Loving spoke about the erasure of May Day in the U.S. as an international socialist holiday. Loving said, “It sounds lofty and far away, but we [FRSO] fight for the overthrow of capitalism because we see that socialism is a real thing in other countries,” as seen in her recent visit to the People’s Republic of China.

Local FRSO leader Alan Chavoya offered a background on Dia Sin Inmigrantes, highlighting labor and oppressed nationality movements as the key to striking blows against the enemy. Chavoya stated, “In every struggle historically, it’s the working class. That’s where we need to go with the immigrant rights struggle; withholding labor is what shakes the capitalist class.”

To close, Tracey Schwerdtfeger offered her perspective as an emergency room nurse, Milwaukee resident and labor organizer. Her neighborhood has seen the effects of companies like Allis Chalmers, Harley-Davidson, and AO Smith moving plants to other countries, leaving working families to face home foreclosures and healthcare cuts. Now, local hospitals knowingly understaff wards despite the real, proven cost of human life.

Schwerdtfeger then encouraged those attending to get involved and take up the struggle for socialism. “Today is our holiday and our struggle for a better life continues.” She said of the capitalist class, “Their survival depends on our suffering.”

#MilwaukeeWI #WI #Labor #ImmigrantRights #MayDay #FRSO #VDLF

Chicago, IL – Over 8000 people gathered in Union Park on May 1 to celebrate International Workers’ Day and march demanding protection for workers and immigrant rights.

Since May Day last year, Trump sent ICE and Customs and Border Patrol to Chicago for months of terror, with over 3000 members of immigrant communities arrested and taken away. The large contingents marching from immigrant communities in Union Park was a statement of courage.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said during his speech, “We are not going to stop fighting for every single worker and every single working family in this city and in this country and in this world,” and demanded that “we get our fair share of the equitable distribution of the wealth. Are you with me workers?”

Some of the principal organizers of this May Day protest included the Chicago Teacher Union (CTU), Service Employees International Union Health Care Illinois/Indiana, the Coalition Against the Trump Agenda (CATA), and the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR).

CTU President Stacy Davis Gates said, “Workers united with communities, across cultures, across industries, win the fight every time. Do not give up your power to assemble and do not give up your power to organize. Workers over billionaires!”

This year CTU organized to make May Day a day of civic action in Chicago. Together with families, they brought out over 800 high school students to participate in the protest. Hundreds of university students and graduate employees were also in attendance.

Nadia Alyafai spoke at the rally for the U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) and CATA. She said, “Our city is home to one of the largest Palestinian communities in the United States, alongside a broader Arab immigrant population that has long been at the frontlines of the immigrant rights and other movements in this city. We were there alongside many of you when we put almost a million people in the streets to defeat the Sensenbrenner bill in 2006, and now 20 years later we still are fighting strong for justice for our communities.”

CATA marched with a banner demanding “Legalization for all. Defend voting rights. Stop all U.S. wars!” They marched together with the immigrant rights contingent organized by ICIRR.

Chicago has played a crucial role in the labor and immigrant rights movements. May Day was born in Chicago, the center of the nationwide1886 strike for the eight-hour workday. The resulting repression of the labor movement led to workers around the world declaring May 1 to be International Workers’ Day. On March 10, 2006, Chicago held the first mega march of the immigrant rights movement. That movement then called for nationwide marches on May 1. Over 2 million immigrants and their supporters took to the streets that day, which also brought May Day back to the labor movement in the U.S.

#ChicagoIL #IL #Labor #ImmigrantRights #MayDay #FRSO #CATA #Trump #CTU

Philadelphia, PA – Around 100 people gathered in Love Park on May 1, before joining a rally of thousands organized by the Philadelphia AFL-CIO at City Hall. Among these groups were Philadelphia Anti War (PAW), Philadelphia Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression (PAARPR), Anakbayan, Marxist Education Group, Industrial Workers of the World, Workers World Party and Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

At the rally, speakers condemned Trump’s actions, U.S. wars, ICE detention and the continued exploitation of workers. A brass band provided entertainment and volunteers offered pretzels and water to those standing in the sun along the crowded John F Kennedy Boulevard.

Around 6 p.m., demonstrators marched northwest, stopping at hotels and other businesses, where union groups demanded higher wages and improved working conditions.

Demonstrators with megaphones led constant chants during this contingent's march. Despite traffic and police flanking the roads, demonstrators showed their commitment to liberation movements with such chants as, “El pueblo unido jamás será vencido,” “From Palestine to Mexico, all the walls have got to go,” “Luchando, creando poder popular,” “Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, brick by brick, wall by wall” and “La migra, la policia, la misma porquería.”

The revolutionary contingent left the march and went to the offices of Day and Zimmerman, the weapons company that produced the munitions that killed Palestinian child Hind Rajab. Members of these progressive groups stood firm as police gathered at either end of the crowd. There, a speaker denounced the imperial violence of U.S. military contractors. The contingent then rejoined the main march, which ended at 7 p.m.

May 1 is an international holiday. It is important that progressive and socialist movements build internationalism. Since the 19th century, the day has celebrated the working class. The day honors their fight against the capitalist systems and their desire to end the oppression of all peoples.

#PhiladelphiaPA #PA #Labor #ImmigrantRights #MayDay #FRSO

Los Angeles, CA – On Friday, May 1, 500 Chicano community members and activists gathered at Mariachi Plaza to rally and march for the 11th annual May Day protest in Boyle Heights. More than 50 different community organizations, unions and local businesses helped put on the event, and were joined by students who walked out of Roosevelt, Garfield and Ed Roybal high schools.

The organizations urged workers fight back, demanding legalization for all, an end to war and police brutality, and to fund public education.

This year’s May Day marks 20 years since the 2006 protests, La Gran Marcha, where millions of immigrants marched against the Sensenbrenner Bill (HR 4437), which aimed to criminalize undocumented immigrants.

“This is the 20-year anniversary to the 2006 mega-marches where Raza and a lot of working class immigrants walked off the job, didn’t go to school and shut the city down by taking the streets in downtown LA,” said Centro CSO immigration co-chair Verita Topete.

The event began with a blessing from Father Brendan from the Dolores Mission church, followed by a rally which included speakers from Centro CSO, Legalization for All, Proyecto Pastoral, About Face, Union De Vecinos, the People’s Care Collective, Immigo and Teamsters Local 396.

Sara Venegas, an Amazon driver who recently unionized with Teamsters Local 396 and then went on an unfair labor practice strike after Amazon retaliated against their union said, “They thought they could kill the fire in our hearts, but they’ve strengthened the flame, and now we’re on a ULP strike. Let’s hold big corporations like Amazon accountable.”

The group took to the streets to march across 1st Street Bridge, chanting “¡Se ve, se siente, el pueblo está presente!” and demands for legalization for all and an end to U.S. wars. As speakers from Black Lives Matter LA and Freedom Road Socialist Organization addressed the crowd, LAPD helicopters hovered above, telling the group to disperse and stop blocking traffic. The police also sent out an Amber Alert to everyone in the area stating that people should avoid the area because an “Unlawful assembly declared.”

Gabriel Quiroz Jr. from the Freedom Road Socialist Organization commented on the ongoing police violence against May Day protests from the Haymarket riots in Chicago, to the streets of Los Angeles today, “The first protest I ever attended was May Day in 2007 at MacArthur Park. I got to see the power of organized Raza. I also got to see political repression by LAPD.”

As the march turned back towards Boyle Heights, speakers from the Palestinian Youth Movement, ILPS, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, and Gabriela LA spoke on the how U.S. imperialism affects other countries and the need for working and oppressed people of the world to come together to fight back against it.

“The corrupt Philippine government sold out our country to the United States and the imperialists. They are responsible for the displacement and migration of our people. We are here in solidarity with the working class here in Los Angeles and abroad. Many migrate here for better opportunities, promised the American dream and yet they struggle,” said a member of Gabriela LA.

As the sun set over the march, the crowd danced back into Mariachi Plaza. Throughout the program the speakers encouraged the crowd to join an organization to build the fight against Trump and for an even bigger and more united May Day protest next year.

#LosAngelesCA #CA #Labor #ImmigrantRights #MayDay #FRSO #CentroCSO

Bozeman, MT – On Friday, May 1, Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) Bozeman and Montana State University's chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) held a rally in support of workers and immigrants’ rights.

The rally featured FRSO Bozeman member Homa Masood, a spokeswoman from Gallatin County’s Community Rapid Response organization (CRR-GC), and SDS member Evan Minadakis, who spoke to 70 enthusiastic protesters, who held signs that proclaimed, “Immigrants built America” and “Trump is a fraud!” A large banner read “No war, no ICE, no billionaires!”

Masood told the crowd, “May Day isn't just about naming oppression. It's about recognizing power, challenging it, and forcing it back into our hands! Every victory in the history of working people came from organization, solidarity and struggle, and that remains true today!”

CRR-GC's spokeswoman attacked the dangerous 287(g) agreement between Gallatin County and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which allows individuals in Gallatin County’s Detention Center who are eligible for release to be held for an additional 48 hours and ultimately be turned over into ICE custody.

FRSO Bozeman’s Julian Staggs spoke to draw attention to the Gallatin High School walkout held earlier that day. About 50 students walked out of class and gathered outside to protest the nationwide ICE raids of terror unleashed by the federal government against the immigrant communities of the United States and stand in solidarity with those communities.

Evan Minadakis brought forward their SDS chapter's recent victory in kicking Customs and Border Protection out of the university's spring Career Fair, focusing on exemplifying for all that the change created by the organized people may truly move mountains.

“Do not let them convince you that you are weak. do not let them convince you that you have no power,” Minadakis said. “Every single person out here today has the ability to shift the tides, to make waves so massive that they take down any forces that try to stand in their way. Progress isn't something we wish for, it is something we fight for! And until every single corrupt, oppressive billionaire is wiped from this earth, we will continue to fight for progress, and we will continue to win!”

The protest’s final chant was one of “Revolution! Revolution! Revolution! Revolution!” International Worker’s Day is a day for celebration of the worker and the oppressed nationalities of the world, and it is a day to intensify the struggle. Bozeman has begun to walk the road to liberation!

#BozemanMT #MT #Labor #ImmigrantRights #MayDay #FRSO #SDS #StudentMovement

New Orleans, LA – On Friday evening, May 1, a crowd of about 50 community members marched from a statue of Benito Juarez to the New Orleans City Hall for International Workers’ Day. Despite the pouring rain and strong winds, the energy was high.

The action was put on by the immigrants’ rights organization Unión Migrante in coalition with several other organizations and unions. The focus of this year’s march was on ending police and ICE collaboration, defending labor rights, and legalization for all.

Protesters chanted slogans such as “¡No somos criminales, somos esenciales!” (“We're not criminals, we’re essential!”); “¡Chinga la migra!” (“Fuck ICE”); and “Money for jobs and education, not for mass deportation!”

New Orleans has long been a center for ICE operations, with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services Southern field office – formerly located in the heart of its Central Business District. In February of this year, New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno told reporters that the New Orleans Police Department would not sign a formal cooperation agreement with ICE, but they would still “follow the law.” Under Louisiana Act 399, it is illegal for law enforcement to not alert ICE if they released someone who “either illegally entered or unlawfully remained in the United States.”

“It’s not that he [Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry] doesn’t like immigrants, he loves immigrants when it comes to his wallet,” said Alfredo Salazar, a member of Unión Migrante and a first generation Mexican immigrant. “He sends us to be locked up in private prisons that enrich themselves on human suffering.”

After hearing speeches from immigrant speakers about fighting back against Trump’s racist ICE attacks, the determined crowd took the street and marched to City Hall to hear from unions and their struggles against their bosses for better working conditions. Tulane Workers United celebrated their first tentative agreement with Tulane University after 2 years of negotiations. Nurses United members at University Medical Center kicked off a 5-day strike to pressure admin to sign their contract.

“The bankruptcy of this capitalist system has demonstrated itself again and again. The enemy is getting weaker, and we are getting stronger,” said Cristine Farah of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. Closing out the program, she added, “The future is bright, we just have to take it!”

#NewOrleansLA #LA #Labor #ImmigrantRights #MayDay #FRSO

Minneapolis, MN – On Friday, May 1, a coalition led by the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC) and the Indigenous Protectors Movement (IPM) and endorsed by more than 60 unions, immigrant rights groups, and other progressive organizations took to the streets in Minneapolis to commemorate their 20th annual march on International Workers’ Day.

The coalition demanded ICE out of Minnesota and legalization for all, as the march came after months of heightened struggle against a federal occupation of the city by immigration agents and militant clashes between the people and ICE. 10,000 protesters marched, chanted, held signs and celebrated at this year’s International Workers’ Day march.

The march flooded Lake Street, the heart of the immigrant community in South Minneapolis, with large banners and flags, and contingents of various unions, immigrant rights groups, anti-war groups, student groups and other progressive movements. As is tradition for MIRAC May 1 marches, the lead banner was held by youth, this year a group of high school students. The massive march had three sound trucks, each with their own speaker programs. People and families lined the sidewalks on Lake street to join in on chants and cheer the march on, coming out of the various immigrant businesses to show their support.

Just before the program began, progressive Minneapolis City Council members held a brief press conference to read the city council’s resolution recognizing May 1 as International Workers Day, followed by a performance by Danza Unida.

At the starting rally, the crowd heard from Diego Guaman from Operación Vuelo Sagrado, a grassroots community group that was created as a direct response to the growing crackdown on immigrants in Minnesota and the need to protect, inform and support immigrant families.

“Being an immigrant is not a crime, fighting for your rights is not a crime and speaking up is not a crime!” said Diego Guaman.

Manuel Pascual, a member of MIRAC, told the crowd some May Day history and the importance of taking the streets on the city’s 20th annual May 1 march, “Every year we are out here on May 1 and every year we mean the same thing: this is the workers’ day. The immigrant workers’ day! The only holiday in the world that belongs to us!” He ended his speech by telling the crowd about MIRAC’s current campaign for a Sanctuary State in Minnesota and an end to all state and local collaboration with ICE. “We are organizing, we are showing up, we are pulling our neighbors back when ICE tries to take them. Today is the rehearsal, tomorrow we keep going!”

The march stopped at Lake Street and Bloomington Avenue, the site of a large federal operation where immigration agents were present in June of 2025. The crowd heard from Isavela López, an activist who was brutalized by federal agents that day and now faces bogus federal charges.

“I know that I am not alone,” said López, “Right now it’s more than about me, it’s about the kids in Palestine, it’s about the people in Venezuela, and it’s about the people that are still in detention centers right now!”

Benji Gomez, a rank-and-file member of Teamsters Local 638 who also organized a pantry for immigrant families out of his garage during Operation Metro Surge with the help of other Teamsters from his local, told the crowd, “I am an immigrant. I am also the first in my family to join a union and it's given me real power. Unions exist because workers stood together and demanded dignity, fair wages, safe conditions and respect, and so often those workers were immigrants, people with the least protection but the courage to organize anyway! That’s still true today.”

The march also featured speakers from Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham, MFE Local 59 President Marcia Howard, members of Asamblea de Derechos Civiles, MN8, Monique Cullors-Doty with the Righteous 39, the MN Anti-War Committee, and many others representing their unions and other grassroots organizations.

The Freedom Road Socialist Organization had a large and visible contingent in the march.

The march ended at a Target store across the street from the former (burned down) 3rd Precinct with a theater performance calling out Target and corporate greed, as well as more speeches inspiring the crowd to continue to take action. At the end of the march, organizers encouraged participants to eat at the immigrant businesses on Lake Street and attend an after-party at Mercado Central to finish up the day.

#MinneapolisMN #MN #Labor #ImmigrantRights #MayDay #MIRAC #FRSO

On International Workers’ Day, we uplift the past and present global struggles for a better world. We commit to carrying the torches of liberation forward, because there’s much to fight against, and much to fight for. Monopoly capitalism is built on exploitation, and it hands down needless suffering, environmental ruin and endless wars. The decay is obvious. Prices soar, families are bankrupted by medical costs, millions are saddled with crushing debt and working people who were already on the brink are being pushed into ruin. The system delivers obscene profits to the ones on top who are relentless in pursing profits. We should be even more relentless in building the united forces of workers and oppressed people that can take them down.

May Day is a reminder that the people organized can land blows against this system. It cuts right through the lie that nothing will change, or we can’t do any better.

The history of May Day itself is rooted in a great upsurge in the class struggle. It began in Chicago in 1886, where workers in the factories bore brutal working conditions and extreme hours. They said enough is enough and flooded the streets, clashing with the hired guns of the robber barons. The state then executed four of the strike leaders. The martyred working-class heroes became a rallying point for people power, and May 1 became the day for working people to advance our demands.

Under the banner of struggle, huge May Day demonstrations take place around the world every year. This year is the 20-year anniversary of the mega-marches – the immigrant rights struggle against the racist Sensenbrenner bill that brought May Day back to the forefront as a day of mass protest in the U.S.

Across the country, the great upsurge against ICE thuggery and the fight against mass deportation created a force that has pulled forward all the people’s struggles. These are the first major battles fought against the Trump agenda, bringing out a broad grouping of people and forging new fighters. From Los Angeles to Chicago, people rebelled with massive demonstrations and a show of force to push back Trump’s attacks.

ICE agents, emboldened and violent, have murdered members of the community, immigrants as well as the people standing up for them, in cold blood. In Minneapolis, a three weeks after the murder of Renee Good, Alex Pretti was killed, just blocks from where George Floyd was executed, in a community where a history of broad resistance to state violence reverberates. These crimes activated people in the tens of thousands to take to the streets. Trump and his ICE goons tried to swallow Minneapolis whole, but they ended up choking.

These battles became a “whose side are you on” moment. Whole sections of people were activated for the first time. In each upsurge, the outpouring of people who want to fight back shows that we’re living in different times than past decades. More and more people see that this system, monopoly capitalism, has no future. It’s a system sitting on a rotten and cracked foundation failing to meet the needs of the many while enriching the few.

In the era of imperialism, we stand in solidarity with workers and oppressed people everywhere. The U.S.-Israel war on Iran is indefensible. They want to destroy the camp of resistance that has been at the forefront of the fight for Palestine. We’re glad if Iran succeeds, not only because the war is wrong, but because we share a common enemy: the monopoly capitalists at the helm of the war machine.

U.S. imperialism is on the decline, and the rate at which things are coming apart in this country is picking up speed. The growth of the revolutionary movement is on the rise as well. We want to take every opportunity to bring more people into the fight.

Our movements are going to come out of this era stronger than they went in. People are changed forever by participating in these battles: their outlook, their views on what’s possible and their understanding of what it’s going to take to bring this system down. We’re not looking to keep things steady. We want to fan the flames.

On International Workers Day:

Fight for Workers & Immigrants’ Rights!

ICE Out! Stop the Deportations!

Down with Trump & the Billionaires!

No to War on Iran, Lebanon & Palestine!

#Statement #FRSO #Labor #ImmigrantRights #PeoplesStruggles #Featured

En el Día Internacional de los Trabajadores, honramos las luchas globales pasadas y presentes por un mundo mejor. Nos comprometemos a seguir adelante con las antorchas de la liberación, porque hay mucho contra lo que luchar y mucho por lo que luchar. El capitalismo monopolista está construido sobre la explotación y nos hereda sufrimiento innecesario, destrucción ambiental y guerras interminables. La decadencia es evidente. Los precios suben fuera de control, las familias caen en bancarrota por los gastos médicos, millones enfrentan deudas insoportables y la gente trabajadora que ya estaba al borde del abismo está siendo empujada a la ruina. El sistema les entrega ganancias obscenas a los de arriba, quienes son implacables en su búsqueda de ganancias. Nosotros deberíamos ser aún más implacables para construir las fuerzas unidas de los trabajadores y los pueblos oprimidos que puedan derrocarlos.

El Primero de Mayo nos recuerda que el pueblo organizado puede dar golpes contra este sistema. Atraviesa la mentira de que nada va a cambiar, o de que no podemos hacerlo mejor.

La historia del Primero de Mayo tiene sus raíces en un gran levantamiento de la lucha de clases. Comenzó en Chicago en 1886, cuando los obreros de las fábricas sufrían condiciones brutales y jornadas extremas. Dijeron ya basta e inundaron las calles, enfrentándose a los pistoleros a sueldo de los barones ladrones. El Estado ejecutó a cuatro de los líderes de la huelga. Estos héroes mártires de la clase trabajadora se convirtieron en un punto de unión del poder popular, y el 1 de mayo se convirtió en el día para que la gente trabajadora avanzara en nuestras demandas.

Bajo la bandera de la lucha, cada año se realizan enormes manifestaciones del Primero de Mayo en todo el mundo. Este año es el 20 aniversario de las megamarchas – la lucha por los derechos de los inmigrantes contra el proyecto de ley racista de Sensenbrenner que trajo de vuelta el Primero de Mayo al frente como un día de protesta masiva en Estados Unidos.

En todo el país, el gran levantamiento contra la brutalidad de ICE y la lucha contra la deportación masiva crearon una fuerza que ha impulsado todas las luchas populares. Estas son las primeras batallas importantes contra la agenda de Trump, que convocaron a una amplia diversidad de personas y forjaron nuevos luchadores. Desde Los Ángeles hasta Chicago, la gente se rebeló con manifestaciones masivas y una muestra de fuerza para echar para atrás los ataques de Trump.

Los agentes de ICE, descarados y violentos, han asesinado a sangre fría a miembros de la comunidad, tanto inmigrantes como quienes los defienden. En Minneapolis, tres semanas después del asesinato de Renee Good, mataron a Alex Pretti, a solo unas cuadras de donde ejecutaron a George Floyd, en una comunidad donde resuena una historia de amplia resistencia a la violencia estatal. Estos crímenes movilizaron a decenas de miles de personas a las calles. Trump y sus secuaces de ICE intentaron tragarse a Minneapolis entera, pero terminaron ahogándose.

Estas batallas se convirtieron en un momento de “¿de qué lado estás?”. Sectores enteros de la población se activaron por primera vez. En cada levantamiento, la gran cantidad de gente que quiere luchar demuestra que vivimos en tiempos distintos a los de décadas pasadas. Cada vez más personas ven que este sistema, el capitalismo monopolista, no tiene futuro. Es un sistema asentado sobre una base podrida y agrietada, que no satisface las necesidades de los muchos mientras enriquece a unos pocos.

En la era del imperialismo, nos solidarizamos con los trabajadores y los pueblos oprimidos de todo el mundo. La guerra de Estados Unidos e Israel contra Irán es indefendible. Quieren destruir el campo de resistencia que ha estado al frente de la lucha por Palestina. Nos alegra si Irán tiene éxito, no solo porque la guerra es injusta, sino porque compartimos un enemigo común: los capitalistas monopolistas al mando de la maquinaria de guerra.

El imperialismo estadounidense está en decadencia, y el ritmo al que las cosas se están desmoronando en este país está acelerando. El crecimiento del movimiento revolucionario también está aumentando. Queremos aprovechar cada oportunidad para sumar más gente a la lucha.

Nuestros movimientos saldrán de esta era más fuertes de lo que entraron. La gente cambia para siempre al participar en estas batallas: su perspectiva, sus ideas sobre lo que es posible y su comprensión de lo que se necesita para derrocar este sistema. No buscamos mantener las cosas estables. Queremos avivar las llamas.

En el Día Internacional de los Trabajadores:

¡Lucha por los derechos de los trabajadores e inmigrantes!

¡Fuera ICE! ¡Alto a las deportaciones!

¡Abajo Trump y los multimillonarios!

¡No a la guerra contra Irán, Líbano y Palestina!

#Labor #ImmigrantRights #DerechosDeLosInmigrantes #MayDay #PrimeroDeMayo #FRSO #OSCL

Freedom Road Socialist Organization condemns the Italian authorities for the raids on the homes of members of CARC (Committees of Support for Resistance – for Communism) Party. It is an attack on the democratic rights of Italian revolutionaries, who we stand in solidarity with.

On April 21, Italy’s political police searched the homes of six comrades associated with the CARC Party, five in Naples and one in Florence. Three of the homes raided were those of members of the CARC Party’s National Executive Committee: Paolo Babini, Igor Papaleo and Marco Coppola. The government is lying and trying to put the tag of “terrorism” on them.

Members of FRSO know about repression firsthand, and we stand with those who are experiencing repression. The decline of imperialism is accelerating, and the capitalists are using repression to preserve the existing order of things. They will certainly fail.

The Italian working class has a proud history of struggle that is an inspiration to workers everywhere. We are confident that the CARC Party will defeat these attacks.

End the repression against the CARC Party!

Long live international solidarity!

#FRSO #International #CARC #Italy #PoliticalRepression

Chicago, IL -Chicago is preparing for May Day, which is again a national day of protest against Trump’s racist agenda. A broad coalition of immigrant rights, Black liberation, workers, youth and student organizations are preparing to rally and march on May 1, International Workers Day.

Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) is going all out to build for May Day. One part of FRSO’s contribution is our annual Working Class Awards Dinner. Again, this year, it was held in the hall of the Chicago Teachers Union on Saturday, April 18.

The purpose of the event is to recognize individuals and organizations that have made contributions to the struggle of workers and the oppressed over the past year, celebrate some victories, and recognize the people who made them possible. It is also FRSO Chicago’s main annual fundraiser.

The event was very successful, with almost 300 people in the hall and over $20,000 raised.

A year of resistance to ICE: Four awards presented

Chicago was one of the first targets of ICE occupation, beginning in September 2025. ICE and Customs and Border Patrol officers terrorized immigrant communities, arresting 3000. They even staged a raid with 300 agents at 3 a.m. in the Black community of South Shore, with agents rappelling from helicopters onto an apartment building where Venezuelan refugees lived.

The Rapid Response teams, Migra Watch, and emergency response protests began before Trump surged agents here.

The awards dinner recognized four activists for contributions to resistance to Trump and ICE. Kathryn Zamarrón is an elementary school music teacher at the Walt Disney Magnet School, and a rank-and-file leader in the Chicago Teachers Union. She serves on the CTU Latinx Caucus and Elementary Education Committee. Zamarron played a crucial role in organizing sanctuary teams to protect students not only in her own school, but across the city. She was presented with an award named for Karen Lewis, the legendary president of the Chicago Teachers Union.

Corina Pedraza, a worker at the Chicago public library, played a leading role in helping the community provide services to the tens of thousands of migrant laborers bused here by the governor of Texas starting in 2022. She was also recognized for her leading role as an organizer of both Southwest and Southeast Side rapid response teams in 2025. Her award was in the name of Silverio Villegas González, murdered by ICE in a Chicago suburb at the outset of the ICE/CBP occupation.

Reverend Ciera Bates-Chamberlain received the Angela Davis Award for organizing faith leaders in opposition to ICE. As executive director of Live Free Illinois, when ICE threatened Chicago, she organized a multifaith, multiracial coalition including Black ministers and churches on Chicago’s South and West Sides. The network held a press conference, a protest in the pulpits, and rallied with the immigrant rights movement to defend our communities.

Finally, the Mexican Students de Aztlán (MeSA) at UIC received an award named for Rigo Padilla Pérez. A member of the Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance at UIC, Rigo was a leader in the Dreamers movement, which compelled passage of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals legislation. He died of cancer three years ago.

MeSA was honored because in October, ICE agents arrested two women near campus. Students protested, and ICE released the women, but the UIC administration failed to respond. MeSA then led a mobilization of over 200 students to oppose ICE on campus and demand a sanctuary campus.

Award for Palestine solidarity

Gabriella Martinez is a Special Education Certified Assistant in the Chicago Public Schools and a rank-and-file leader in SEIU Local 73. She organized coworkers to file ethics complaints against Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs for the purchase of Israel Bonds. Frerichs even purchased more bonds during the ongoing genocide in Gaza. For her work, Martinez received the Assata Shakur award. Together with several members and retirees from SEIU Local 73, Gabi’s family joined her for the event.

Lifetime Achievement Awards: Pete Camarata Award to Jim Fennerty for movement legal defense

Jim Fennerty has been a fixture at protests in Chicago for decades, wearing the lime green cap of the National Lawyers Guild. Jim is a people’s lawyer who has consistently defended our movement from attacks by the ruling class. Jim and his wife, Janet have been politically active in the movement for over 50 years. Jim represented Rasmea Odeh and the Anti-War 23, and he helped win a historic civil settlement representing 800 protesters arrested at the start of the Iraq War.

Fennerty’s award was named after the late Pete Camarata. Pete was a founder of the Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU). In his fight against the criminals that took control of the union, Pete was one of the first to combine rank and file power with legal action.

Fennerty was introduced by family friend Hatem Abudayyeh of the Arab American Action Network and US Palestinian Community Network. Many tables were filled with Jim and Janet’s friends and family, including son Nate, daughter Dina, her husband Daniel Contreras, and grandson Quinn Contreras.

In addition, the family of Pete Camarata was there with the Fennertys, including his wife, Robin Potter, stepson Jackson and his wife, Joan; stepdaughter Aimee, and granddaughter Phoebe.

William L. Patterson Award to Frank Chapman

The night’s biggest moment was the lifetime achievement award for Frank Chapman. It came with recorded greetings from CTU President Stacy Davis Gates and Vice President Jackson Potter.

The William L. Patterson Award was introduced by Anthony Quesada, 35th Ward alderman:

“Through his leadership with the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Frank has helped lead campaigns that have shaped Chicago. He has been central to the fight for justice for the wrongfully convicted and for community control of the police. His work helped push forward the movement that won elected police district councils, giving people a real voice in public safety. And today, Frank continues to advance this struggle through our fight for the Community Power Over Policing referendum.

“He has also mentored generations of organizers, many of whom are in the room tonight. Across Chicago and beyond, people have learned from him how to stay grounded, how to build collective power, and how to keep going through every phase of struggle. His impact lives in the people he has shaped and the movements that continue to grow.”

There were other elected officials present, including 33rd Ward Alderwoman Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez, 35th Ward Democratic Committeeperson Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, 25th Ward Alderman Byron Sigcho Lopez, and State Senator Graciela Guzman.

The award is named after William L. Patterson, the Communist Party USA attorney who led the International Labor Defense (ILD), and who organized the mass defense of the Scottsboro Boys in the 1930s. Later he headed up the Civil Rights Congress, and together with Paul Robeson took the We Charge Genocide petition to the United Nations. The formation of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression was based on the model of the ILD.

Chapman: “We’re part of a better world in birth”

Chapman is the executive director of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression; field organizer and education director of the Chicago Alliance; and a Central Committee member of FRSO. In his remarks, he shared some perspective on the Trump regime and on change in this country from his vantage point having been born in 1942.

Referring to people who see Trumpism as an aberration when they say, “That’s not us,” meaning not what the U.S. stands for, Chapman responded, “The hell it ain’t. What they’re doing to the immigrants happened to me and my people…6200 children have been held in detention since Trump came in,” adding, “And shooting people on the streets execution style.”

“But we’ve seen this: we saw Laquan McDonald shot 16 times. And a few days ago, the state police shot a man 15 times, not far from my house,” and “Quit telling me this is something you haven’t seen before.”

“We’re demanding an end to Trumpism, but we’re going further than that. We’re part of a better world in birth!” Going on with the lyrics of The International, Chapman said, “Arise you prisoners of starvation. Arise you wretched of the earth. For justice thunders condemnation. A better world’s in birth.”

“Are you ready to get this done? Are you ready for the revolution?” he asked, to thunderous applause.

#ChicagoIL #IL #ImmigrantRights #OppressedNationalities #AfricanAmerican #FRSO #NAARPR #FrankChapman #Trump #PeoplesStruggles