CHICAGO, October 3 — “This is what a communist society will look like!” remarked one comrade after observing our international and multi-generational, working-class gathering. The occasion was our city collective’s second annual October Revolution Celebration Dinner, hosted at a banquet hall on Chicago’s south side. More than fifty comrades and friends, hailing from Oakland, Guyana, Mexico and the Philippines, came together.
After everyone had eaten their fill of international cuisine, the program kicked off with a fiery speech from a comrade who blasted the racist and sexist failures of capitalism and emphasized the need to organize for communist revolution. Next came an interactive, bilingual presentation that summarized the history of the first days of the Russian Revolution, and also highlighted past and present struggles of Progressive Labor Party’s first fifty years. Communist songs were sung, and the evening wrapped up with dancing.
Having a DJ made the event livelier, but a number of comrades were upset that some of the songs played contained openly sexist language. This underlined the importance of infusing culture with communist, egalitarian ideas and replacing abusive and degrading themes with powerful, pro-working-class messages. Cultural events are just some of the many steps needed to build the class struggle to the level achieved by the Russian and Chinese revolutionaries. They wielded working-class culture as a powerful weapon in the fight to violently overthrow the rotten capitalist class and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. We’re committed to making this event twice as big next year, and to win more workers to the Party and the fight for a communist world!