May Day 2018
On May Day, the international
day of working class solidarity, we
convey our revolutionary greetings
to the workers in struggle all over
the world.
This year ’s May Day has
historical significance. It is being
celebrated coinciding with the 200 th
birth anniversary of the great
revolutionary thinker Karl Marx,
who was born on May 5, 1818. The
call he had given in “The
Communist Manifesto” – “Workers
of World, Unite” is resonating in
every country and continues to
inspire the working class struggles.
As Karl Marx proved in his
“Das Capital”, the world capitalist
system is in the morass of
intractable all round crisis, which
forced it to adopt the policy of
globalisation. But it did not abate
the crisis; rather it intensified the
crisis further. The US imperialist
domination over the world capitalist
system after the end of Second
World War has now weakened.
This made the US imperialism more
dangerous resorting to aggressive
wars.
In order to place the burden of
crisis on the backs of toiling
masses, the imperialist countries
worsened the working conditions of
workers in the countries of Asia,
Africa and Latin America with poor
wages, unsafe working conditions
and devoid of any welfare
measures. The livelihoods of the
peasantry in these countries are
being threatened with land
grabbing and food exports from the
highly mechanised and subsidised
production in imperialist countries.
At the same time, the working class
in the imperialist countries is in
increasingly precarious position
with attacks on labour rights,
relatively low wages, out sourcing,
change of work hours etc.
Yet the people are resisting
these attacks. In the US tens of
May - 2018
thousands of teachers throughout
the country are agitating against
declining wages, rising healthcare
costs and austerity measures. In
France, workers are opposing
austerity measures and president
Macron’s decrees restricting the
rights of workers. While workers in
Germany launched many strikes,
the lecturers in UK protested
against austerity. In January, the
workers of Greece shut down
public transport and shipping
protesting austerity measures,
while the same measures led to
strikes in Italy, Spain and Portugal.
Throughout the world protests,
demonstrations and strikes came
up – mass rallies against austerity
measures in Iran, strikes of
teachers in Nigeria, Kenya and
Zimbabwe, mass rallies in Tunisia
and
Mexico
against
the
deteriorating working conditions, a
three week strike by technology
workers in China and so on.
In India the new economic
reforms dictate by the imperialist
masters have ruined the economy
of peasants driving them to
suicides in droves. They are forced
to migrate to cities where many
cannot find jobs and swelling the
s lums with wretched living
conditions. Workers are facing
attack after attack - the latest being
in the form of fixed time
employment – on their rights
forcing them to submit to the
super-exploitation by the monopoly
capital. The Indian ruling classes
are employing religion, caste and
regional disparities to divide the
people in order to weaken the
organised strength of toiling
masses. The rise of neo-fascist
tendencies in Europe, US and
Japan has its repercussion in India.
The fascist type of methods are
being increasingly used to
suppress the people.
Yet the masses of people are
protesting and resisting these
onslaughts unleashed by the ruling
classes. Throughout the country
the peasants are resisting land
grabs by the government. They are
agitating demanding the resolution
of agrarian crisis. The workers are
fighting against the deteriorating
working conditions and erosion of
labour rights including the right to
form a union. Various classes and
sections of people – teachers,
employees, small businessmen,
and small scale industries as well
as women, dalits, adivasis and
students and youth- are expressing
their discontent and anger in
various forms.
The situation has revolutionary
potential as Lenin pointed out; the
ruling classes are unable to rule by
ordinary means and resorting to
ever more dictatorial methods to
continue their rule and the working
class is fighting these attacks. The
class struggles that are being
waged in all countries in their initial
form are now focussing on wages,
working conditions, healthcare,
education in the imperialist
countries and on land grabbing,
deprivation of livelihoods, deterio-
ration of working conditions,
expropriation of natural resources
and so on in the countries of Asia,
Africa and Latin America. Yet these
are not sectional and narrow
demands. They encompass the
issues pertaining to entire class
among the toiling masses.
As Karl Marx repeatedly insisted
every class struggle is a political
struggle. It is the duty of every
communist to bring out this political
content of each class struggle to
the fore and lead them to struggle
for political power.
Karl Marx wrote in 1865:
“The working class ought not
to exaggerate to themselves
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