140 years ago, in May 1886, there were the strikers in Chicago... 90 years ago, in May 1936, the striking tobacco workers in Thessaloniki... Eight years later, on May Day 1944, the 200 communists in Kaisariani...
The history of Labor Day is the history of the working class and the people. The history of the struggle against capitalist exploitation. The history of the struggle to build a society of equality and freedom, a socialist society. And at the same time, it is a living call to the struggles of our time, the struggles we must build today.
Today, the lives of the people are being crushed by capital’s insatiable thirst for more profits. Today, as the tangle of contradictions, rivalries, and dead-ends of the capitalist-imperialist system grows and becomes increasingly entangled, trapping countries and peoples who are paying a heavy price. It is the price already being paid by the peoples of Iran, Lebanon, and Palestine, the peoples of the entire Middle East, and alongside them the people of Ukraine, on the other major war front that has remained wide open for more than four years. It is the price paid by the people of Cuba, suffocating under the blockade of U.S. imperialism. It is the price that the peoples and the working class as a whole are called upon to pay in order to continue fueling imperialism’s war plans.
The fire that American imperialists set ablaze in the Middle East not only shows no signs of dying down, but is constantly reigniting, with greater intensity and becoming more dangerous. This is not some “oddity” of Trump’s, but rather the need of U.S. imperialism to regain lost ground, to continue dominating the other imperialist powers, and especially Russia and China. It is the nature of the capitalist-imperialist system that breeds destruction and war. And what we are experiencing today is nothing more than the preparation of the conditions for the next widespread carnage.
In this nightmarish trajectory, imperialism uses the working class and the peoples as “fuel.” Those who are sacrificed daily on the altar of capitalist profit are now being called upon to suffer even harsher consequences. The broad masses of the people must regard the dismantling of their rights (labor, social, and political) and their subjugation to the demands of the “war economy” as “normal” and “self-evident.” We must accept the sacrifices imposed by the war-driven expression of the crisis of the capitalist-imperialist system.
It’s not enough that the 8-hour workday has become a 13-hour one. It’s not enough that wages and pensions have been slashed, that the right to social security and healthcare has been eroded, and that people are forced to work well into old age. It is not enough that workplaces are being turned into hellholes and death traps for workers. It is not enough that a barrage of laws is being passed to crush unions and strikes. The Capital wants it all. It wants to take back everything the working class has won through struggle and hard-fought battles. And above all, it wants to erase from the consciousness of workers and the people the prospect of overthrowing this system and building a society of equality and freedom—in other words, everything that May Day symbolizes.
That is why the bourgeoisie and their government were terrified by the deep emotion with which the people received the photographs of the 200 communists executed in Kaisariani. That is why the “civilized” West outlaws communist ideas. Because they know that only these ideas can arm the masses, giving their struggles—which are erupting on an ever-larger scale—sustainability and a way forward. To the millions who demonstrated their solidarity with Palestine around the world. To the rebellious youth in Nepal. To the sea of people who demonstrated in our country for Tempi, but also to the farmers who fought for “no more of the same.”
No matter how much they want to discredit them, no matter how much they want to “erase” them, these ideas will be embraced once again by the masses and will become their guide and inspiration. Against the bourgeois politics of dependency, poverty, and repression. Against the hollow rhetoric and all kinds of “saviors.” Against parliamentary illusions. Against the phony struggles and the submissive left. Against the “unionism” of the living rooms and profiteering. But also against the far right and fascism.
This is the path of the working class and the masses; this was and continues to be the class-based message of Labor Day.
The International Bureau of CPG(m-l)
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