On the night of 1 May 1921, the Jewish Communist Party (precursor of the Palestine Communist Party) distributed Arabic and Yiddish fliers calling for the toppling of British rule and the establishment of a "Soviet Palestine". The party announced its intention to parade from Jaffa to neighbouring Tel Aviv to commemorate May Day. On the morning of the parade, despite a warning to the 60 members present from one of Jaffa's most senior police officers, Toufiq Bey al-Said, who visited the party's headquarters, the march headed from Jaffa to Tel Aviv through the mixed Jewish-Arab border neighbourhood of Manshiyya.