First Published: Palante, Vol. 4, No. 10, May 12-26, 1972
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The time is coming near for the first Congress of the Puerto Rican Revolutionary Party. From June 30 to July 3 members of the Young Lords Party along with delegates of the Puerto Rican Workers Federation, the Committee to Defend the Community, the Puerto Rican Student Union, the Third World Students League, and the Women’s Union will meet in New York City.
During these four days we will discuss and plan the work of the new Puerto Rican Revolutionary Party. Before this time, all the people in Puerto Rico and the United States will participate in Peoples Assemblies, on the 18 of June in Aguadilla, Santurce, Philadelphia, Bridgeport, and New York.
In all these meetings the discussions will be the same–Why a Puerto Rican Revolutionary Party? What are the Young Lords doing? What is the purpose of this new party?
In the past the government has called us a gang, a bunch of criminals, hoodlums, extremists, etc. They have called us everything but what we are–a political party, a party of a new type–not a PNP [New Progressive Party] or PPD [Popular Democratic Party], the parties of the rich, of the yankees who dominate the people–not like the other political parties composed of lawyers and professors, of the well off, comfortable rich.
We are a party built by the people, with the same sweat of the working people. We are a party of the workers, the sons and daughters of workers, the unemployed, the poor students, the inmates, the housewives of Puerto Rico and the United States.
We are a party determined to end this system of oppression, of suffering, of the misery under which we have lived since the first division of people into rich and poor, especially since the time the United States invaded Puerto Rico and made us all slaves.
Many people say that things can never change, that there will always be the rich and the poor. But we do not believe this. The poor produce all that there is in the world and everything belongs to us. The dirty lazy rich have robbed us for years and this will change.
Our people have always struggled against oppression. But in the past rich “leaders” have sold us out. We need an organization, not an individual, because one individual never knows everything and individuals die, as Don Pedro Albizu Campos did die.
We need an organization of working people, a revolutionary party, a disciplined party, a party that will guide all the people correctly, because it is of the people. A party learns from all the rich experiences of the poor and working people of the world in our common struggle against the rich. A party that will organize in the schools, in the factories, in the country, and in the community.
All over the world the poor are organizing and struggling against this capitalist system to establish new socialist societies, with the working people in power.
We believe that three peoples organizations are needed to insure our victory–
The Puerto Rican Revolutionary Party
A Mass Movement under the leadership of the workers
A Peoples Liberation Army.
This is the form the struggle for the liberation of Puerto Rico will take. This is the form the struggle for a first socialist society will take.
The Peoples Assemblies will be the first step to unite this mass movement. The first Congress will be one step forward for this political party. Standing against the unity of poor and working people; the yankees, Cuban counter revolutionary refugees, and the “puerto rican” puppets have very little time in power.
LONG LIVE FREE AND SOCIALIST PUERTO RICO!!!
WORK PLACES BELONG TO THOSE WHO WORK THEM!!!