May Day is perhaps the most popular holiday that is marked internationally. This holiday transcends national borders and is celebrated practically all over the world. There are now only a few countries in which this holiday is illegal.
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This holiday was marked from the ancient times probably as a Spring Festival. During the days of the Roman Empire this holiday was in great honor of the goddess Flora. In later centuries other nations followed this Roman custom and celebrated May 1.
This tradition is maintained now, but it was only 110 years ago that May 1 became the holiday of workers' international solidarity, a worldwide festival of labor.
May day originated from three events at least.
The first of these started with a major strike of the American working class during which the police opened fire on the demonstrators in Chicago; USA. This also includes the tragic events at the Haymarket Square and the bloody execution of many innocent workers, which caused a wave of protests all over the world.
The second event was the decision of the International Socialist Congress, which was held in July 1889 in Paris, France, to hold international demonstrations of working peoples in all countries on May 1 of the next year. The demands were for an 8-hour working day and other measures agreed upon by the Congress.
The third event was the first celebration of May Day in 1890. In many countries the demonstrations were so extremely successful that workers' organizations decided to mark this day every year with mass demonstrations.
At first this was celebrated in a few Western European countries and the United States. The Russian workers then brought a special revolutionary spirit to it. As the working class grew all over the world, May Day became an increasingly broad holiday.
The slogans carried on May Day demonstrations reflected national, regional and international issues.
In today's world, going into the next century, the bourgeoisie, in order to dispel the danger of a united working class, has managed to dilute the meaning of May Day by getting under their wing many of the trade union leaders in order to prevent real solidarity of all the workers, both nationally and also internationally. This unfortunate schism in the working class is detrimental to the unified actions of the workers. Infused into the trade union movement is the question of divide and rule, opportunism, social-democracy, cooperation with the capitalist class.
Imperialism has now practically conquered the world markets for US multinational corporations and through all the economic methods uproots its industries and settles into countries where exploitation becomes rampant, with the non-union cheap labor and horrible working conditions. The main world trade union federations in the USA are working in most cases (there are exceptions to the rule of course) hand in glove with the US corporations. Hardly are there any political demands by the AFL-CIO to curb the powers of the monopolies in their own country or in other countries of the world where this US-inspired Global Economy is rampant.
In many capitalist countries of the world the bourgeoisie has managed to dispense with May Day and instead has relegated it to early September and called it "Labor Day. " The whole meaning of May Day as international solidarity of all the workers is thus brushed aside and thrown out of the minds of the workers. As we said, there ARE exceptions to the rule.
We feel that it is time that the international working class united all of its efforts against the world gendarme in order to help their brothers and sisters to defend themselves from super-exploitation by world imperialism, headed by US/NATO exploiters!
Isn't it time that there existed a genuine pro-labor International Federation willing to struggle and fight against oppression of the workers, not only in their own country but also internationally?
Isn't it time also for the progressive movements to unite their efforts and thus help to lead the working class towards eliminating all exploitation and organize the working class for their liberation from capitalism and onwards towards Socialism?
Since the temporary demise of the Soviet Union there have been held scores of congresses, seminars, meetings, conferences in many parts of the world preaching anti-Imperialism, anti-revisionism, pro-Marxism-Leninism and for socialism… for 10 years now... but unfortunately there is still no UNITY amongst all of the Communist Parties! WHY IS THIS SO?
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