Revolutionaries Hold Red March for International Working Women’s Day in Seattle

The Worker Volunteers

On Saturday March 8, workers and revolutionaries gathered in a red march held in Seattle to celebrate International Working Women’s Day. The march was organized by Puget Sound Red Front and brought together several local organizations with others from throughout the country. Based on the volunteers’ estimates, attendees numbered over 100. The march was well-received by the masses in Seattle, with several onlookers expressing support and joining the march as it progressed.

Those participating in the march raised posters and banners calling for the emancipation of women through the abolition of class society and honoring revolutionary women such as the founding leader of the Communist Party of Germany Rosa Luxemburg and German Communist Clara Zetkin, American journalist Anna Louise Strong, Chinese Communist leader Jiang Qing, Black Liberation Army fighter Assata Shakur, Palestinian freedom fighter and PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) member Leila Khaled, Filipino Communist leader Wilma Tiamzon, and Peruvian Communist leader Comrade Norah.

Prior to the march, attendees gathered to listen to speakers who discussed the contributions of revolutionary women to the proletarian movement throughout history, working women’s struggle under imperialism, and the role played by working-class women in the US revolutionary movement today.

At the end of the march, multiple Seattle Police Department vehicles swarmed the demonstrators in an act of intimidation. Those participating in the march held strong until the end, collectively chanting “SPD, KKK, IDF they’re all the same!” No arrests were made.

After the demonstration, The Worker conducted interviews with the comrades who organized and directed the march. When asked what the significance of International Working Women’s Day was, an organizer for Puget Sound Red Front replied:

“The significance of International Working Women’s Day is that in the decomposing imperialist system that we currently live under there is no guarantee that the rights women have conquered in the past won’t be taken away by the imperialist bourgeoisie ruling over this country. Women can come from any class background and can thus be revolutionaries, centrists, or reactionaries, and so we need to focus on working women. They are the ones who hold up half the sky in our society, they work alongside the rest of the proletariat and produce everything that we have. So, we need to focus on working women, especially on this day. There needs to be a class-based aspect to this holiday. We need to make sure people understand that when we talk about women’s rights, the oppression of women, it is working women who get hit the hardest by the oppression maintained by the imperialist system.”

Workshops were held on the importance of organizing working women in the labor, youth, and women’s movements; the role of these fronts in the struggle for power was emphasized. Other workshops highlighted the dangers of postmodernism to the women’s question. These workshops began with a warm welcome to the women of Barro Branco, Brazil organized in the MFP (Popular Women’s Movement) who fought against the landlords and their gunmen courageously. A speech honoring the recently deceased founder of Brazilian revolutionary-democratic newspaper A Nova Democracia, Fausto Arruda, was delivered.

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