On Sunday, March 31, 2024, the American Party of Labor successfully concluded its Fifth General Congress. Delegates from all around the country as well as local activists gathered in a union hall in Orlando, Florida, draped in red flags with images of the Party’s grain and gear symbol, to vote on measures to improve the Party’s internal structure and external organization and to revise the Party’s guiding documents.

On April 1, Israeli warplanes bombed the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, Syria, killing seven Iranian diplomatic and military personnel. This attack was a blatant violation of Iran’s national sovereignty, and under international law constitutes an act of war. Twelve days later, Iran launched retaliatory drone strikes against Israeli targets.

The official “theme” of the UN for this year’s IWWD is titled, “Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress,” which is not only brazenly capitalistic but also shamefully ignores what is arguably the most pressing and immediate concern for women internationally at this time: the ongoing genocide of Palestinians at the hands of Israel and its imperialist allies. The UN itself has acknowledged that two-thirds of the people killed in Palestine since Oct. 7 have been women and children. The most recent reported toll of the approximately 30,000 confirmed deaths includes at least 12,660 children and 8,570 women.

The American Party of Labor calls on all members of the US military, in Bushnell’s memory, to stand up against the atrocities being committed in Palestine and around the world by refusing to be part of the imperialist war machine. To be conscientious objectors, to launch a soldier’s strike, to put down your guns, and to prevent arms shipments are the best ways to honor and respect our comrade’s pain and sacrifice.

The Resist US-Led War Movement is an international network of democratic, progressive, and anti-war organizations and individuals committed to opposing US imperialism and its ward of aggression. The Resist US-Led War Movement combats militarism and imperialist war; demands an end to Zionism, apartheid, and all forms of systemic racism; and supports the rights of all peoples to self-determination, sovereignty, and peace.

On the centenary of his death, we continue to strive for revolution and socialism in our respective countries, because today as yesterday the general crisis of the capitalist system confirms the validity of the October Revolution, Lenin, and his legacy.

The bloody conflicts all over the world re-emphasize every day the importance and urgency of raising the flags of struggle against imperialism. The working class and peoples of the world must shoulder this struggle, because the imperialists are directly attacking the working class and peoples in order to plunder the underground and above-ground riches.

Resistance against Israeli apartheid and the aggression against Palestine and the Palestinian people can only be supported. Condemning Israel and its aggression and massacres, CIPOML supports the just resistance of the Palestinian people to the end.

There is one more subject concerning firearms that we as a Party would like to address at this time: a specific quote from Karl Marx which many people within US socialist and communist circles use to justify lax gun regulations across the country. If you have been around the socialist and communist movement for some time you have probably seen or heard people use the phrase “under no pretext” in opposition to the idea of instituting regulations on the sales and purchases of firearms within the US. This slogan, “under no pretext,” which is itself not an analysis of the firearm crisis faced in the US, is a shorthand version of an excerpt from Karl Marx’s Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League, written in 1850.

Any attempt to identify a single gender dynamic from any point in the history of human societies as a universal and immutable definition of gender is a metaphysical and anti-dialectical notion, the most covert of denials to the Marxist-Leninist world outlook. As social relations continue to develop so will our understanding and conceptions of ourselves in relation to our engagement with each other and the material world. The opportunism of queer-antagonistic revisionism is an open betrayal to the working class of all backgrounds.

The United States, which has gun culture intertwined within it, is going through a turbulent period of economic instability which has led to the intensification of the alienation people experience and feel within American society. This same alienation as well as the reactionary fervor of certain segments within the American capitalist class has led to an increase and growth in far-right politics within the US. This growth in the far-right mixed with the current gun culture has led to an increase in right-wing violence, including mass shootings like the one that recently occurred in Allen, Texas.

By the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations (CIPOML) Coordinating Committee. Only the proletarian revolution will put an end to capitalist exploitation! Only workers’ power will emancipate all humanity!

The American Party of Labor sees these efforts by reactionary and growing fascist forces within the US as posing an ongoing and direct danger to the health and livelihood of the transgender and gender-nonconforming communities as well as others in the LGBTQIA+ community.

Unlike the Democratic Party, the working class is not resting on its laurels, and activists and organizations must not let up. The meager, regional gains of individual states and the meek promises of the political players of the “Democratic” party cannot meaningfully repair the foundation of exploitation that props up the United States’ sociopolitical-economic edifice.

"'Patriotic Socialism' and 'MAGA Communism' serve the most backward and authoritarian elements of the ruling class"

We look to our emerging working class leaders in our locals and nationally. In the face of increasing attacks on immigrants and our unions, we say emphatically that, in the words of David C. Coates, radical union labor organizer: “An Injury to One is an Injury to All.”

The LGBTQIA+ Commission of the American Party of Labor finds it necessary to promote scientific and factual information concerning the Monkeypox virus and by doing so break down the negative stigma that is being constructed against the LGBTQIA+ community in this time of crisis.

Those who have dragged Sri Lanka into an economic and political quagmire cannot save the country. The programmes they will present as prescriptions for "salvation" can only further impoverish the people and condemn them to hunger, and consolidate the political domination of the bourgeoisie.

The following was a speech given by members of the Pacific Northwest Division of the American Party of Labor at the 6/24 demonstration in defense of abortion rights in Seattle. To organize with them, contact them on facebook, twitter, or instagram.