Over a million people world-wide celebrated Red Books Day on February 21. The event was inaugurated in 2020 by the International Peoples Assembly to mark the anniversary of the publication of the Communist Manifesto in 1848.

Some highlights of the day include:

Brazil

The Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST) organised reading events for all ages from young children to older adults nation-wide, such as this event in Espirito Santo at an MST school.

Belgium

In Belgium the Workers’ Party held an event featuring the Party president, Peter Mertens and Matt Huber the author of Climate Change as Class War. The panel was facilitated by Tribune staff writer and author of Vulture Capitalism, Grace Blakley.

Cuba

The Casa de las Americas in Havana celebrated both Red Books Day and also the 60^th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X with an emotional reading of excerpts from Malcolm’s speeches, standing front of a mural commemorating his life.

At the Centro Memorial Martin Luther King Jr., which is a Cuban centre for the study of Christian Liberation theology they posted on their Instagram that they participated in order to “take advantage of the day for the reading of texts that are an indispensable part of what we do and think and are also tools for the struggle and empowerment of the workers of the world.”

Pakistan

Members of Pakistan’s Progressive Students Federation gathered in Lahore to study the Khudai Khidmatgar movement that resisted the British occupation of the sub-continent and the legacy of the movement’s great leader, Bacha Khan.

During the British colonial period, Khudai Khidmatgar, despite its non-violence, suffered the greatest repression of all of the Indian independence movements.

India

At Leftword Books in Delhi there was a reading of the Manifesto in 13 of the languages that are spoken in India. This was followed by a performance of the play For Palestine.

This was just one of many hundreds of Red Books Day events across India, which attracted mass participation.

South Africa

Abahlali baseMjondolo, a progressive movement with a mass base of 150,00 shack dwellers in South Africa celebrated Red Books Day with a collective reading of the Communist Manifesto and a presentation of the organisation’s ‘People’s Plan’.