Against all governments in defence of the socialist revolution!
One hundred and thirty years ago, the US bourgeoisie killed and sentenced workers to death who were demanding an 8 hour day. The 1 May came out of that struggle as an international day of struggle against the bourgeoisie.
International Workers League
Liverpool May day 2018
Labour-union bureaucracies and reformist parties seek to turn this day into a day of celebration with the bourgeoisie and governments.
We say NO! Because wages are being lowered in real terms all over the world. There is growing precarity of work and attacks on our rights like holiday and retirement. Public health and education are being dismantled.
Immigrants suffer from xenophobic oppression by governments and terrible labour conditions. They are the majority in many industries in imperialist countries. Stop governments dividing workers. Immigrants are not responsible for unemployment, the capitalists are.
The Growth in female killing, brutal police violence against the black youth, murder of LGBTQI people, have become a daily routine in all the cities of the world. National oppression continues to deepen as Catalonia and Kashmir show, among others.
Repression of struggles grows and social movements are criminalised while leaders are persecuted such as the execution of Marielle (Franco), Brazil and the persecution of Sebastián Romero, Argentina.
The great multinationals try to impose a setback on workers’ achievements gained over 150 years in order that workers pay for the economic crisis that opened in 2007-2009. Bourgeois right and “left” wing governments implement harsher adjustment plans and increase repression.
But all over the world there are examples of important and general strikes, major street demonstrations and even popular insurrections.
There is a true social war of multinationals against workers. But reformist parties and union bureaucracies, allies of the bourgeois government, help to dampen the struggles.
Make 1 May a day of affirmation of workers’ struggles and independence from the bourgeoisie.
Trump, the true face of imperialism!
Trump, who is xenophobic, racist, male-chauvinist, LGBTQI-phobic, extreme-right, attacks immigrants, aims to destroy US unions, and supports the transfer of Israel’s capital to Jerusalem, a clear provocation to Palestinians.
Trump carried out a military attack against Assad’s dictatorship in Syria but warned Putin and Assad of the planned attack. We repudiate imperialist attack. Nothing good will come from imperialism. Trump only plays this military game “for the cameras” to negotiate better conditions with Assad. It is Syrians who must overthrow Assad’s genocide dictatorship.
But imperialist power also comes from the European Union, another pillar of world imperialism, that aims to present itself as a “democratic” version when it is the base for German imperialism that imposes its policies on the European people and the world.
Imperialist policy of austerity is imposed by every government in order to serve the multinationals. The world is going through a shocking intensification of exploitation by international monopolies as poverty grows at unprecedented levels.
No trust in bourgeois government right or “left” wing
The world polarisation of class struggle is expressed in right-wing parties’ governments like Trump, Macron (France), May (England), Rajoy (Spanish State), Macri (Argentina), Temer (Brazil), Santos (Colombia), Juan Orlando Hernández (Honduras), Modi (India), Abbasi (Pakistan), and many others. These are governments identified by workers as their enemies, because of their harsh attacks.
Workers must not be deceived by “left” governments that implement the same neo-liberal plans of imperialism. This is the case of the PT (Workers Party) governments (Brazil), Maduro (Venezuela), Evo Morales (Bolivia), Cerém (Farabundo Martí, from El Salvador), Ramaphosa (ANC, South Africa), Costa (SP, Portugal). They use the influence they have on workers to impede struggles and implement neo-liberal plans.
The Ortega government, in Nicaragua, tried to impose a Social Security reform similar to other bourgeois governments and through the same brutal repression which killed 25 people.
The Maduro government, in Venezuela, supported by a great part of reformist parties all over the world, is a symbol of this decadent “left”. It is a corrupt bourgeois dictatorship that only confronts imperialism verbally but helps multinationals exploit the oil industry. In Venezuela there is a brutal economic crisis after almost 20 years of Chavism in power. A new bourgeoisie emerged from Chavism – the Boli-bourgeoisie – that enjoys a luxurious life while workers earn a minimum wage worth a dollar per month.
Workers must not be deceived by the false polarisation of “left vs right”. The polarisation is between imperialist attacks, supported by governments all over the world, and workers’ struggle. We want to unite these struggles against bourgeois governments, and not to make blocks with bourgeois sectors.
The polarisation of class struggle is also causing attacks by fascist groups, as in Charlottesville and Berkeley, US; Dalits, India; and in several European countries. Fascists are different from the extreme-right because they defend the use of civil war repression methods against workers and the prohibition of labour-union organisations and workers’ parties. Fascism must be opposed with direct confrontation on the streets to prevent their growth, as in Charlottesville and Berkeley.
This is why we cannot accept the old Stalinist manoeuvre (today accepted by most of the global “left”) of calling an “Anti-Fascist Front” against the right-wing governments to justify an electoral front with the same reformist parties that were, or are, part of “left” bourgeois governments, with the same tendencies of authoritarianism and corruption.
On 1 May, we call for a broad unity of action, but in direct struggle of workers against all bourgeois governments’ attacks, of the “left” or right-wing. And, at the same time, for workers’ struggles to move forward, we want to unmask the reformist and union defenders of political unity with bourgeois sectors. They try to divide those who want to struggle.
We must build a new leadership
Paris May Day 2018 Solidaire Union Federation
Union bureaucracies, corrupt and allied to the bosses, play the same role. They stall the workers’ mobilisation. To fight against the bourgeoisie and its governments, we need to mobilize the rank and file to rise against bureaucracies as is already happening in several places.
Struggles are giving birth to new union leaderships and new struggle bodies, like the CSP-Conlutas (Brazil), that has around 200 unions. In Paraguay, there is the Union and Social Front (FSS) that organises combative unions like the electricity workers and popular movements. In Argentina, struggles committees are developing in several regions against the reforms. In Costa Rica, there is the Sitrasep, the only private sector workers’ union, with a combative and class outlook. In El Salvador, the Coordination brings together 12 unions. No Austerity, in Italy, is a reference for current struggles like the great rank-and-file teachers’ strike. In the Spanish State, CoBas Madrid brings together unionism against the UGT and CCOO bureaucracies. There are similar processes in France (Social Front), in the US (WSAN), and other places. The International Labour Network of Solidarity and Struggles is a pole to attract alternative unionism the world over.
Reformist parties only present the usual formulas that seek small (and smaller each time) reforms, to save capitalism and channel everything through bourgeois elections. The Social-Democracy parties in Europe helped to implement neo-liberal plans as governments or in opposition. Now, Syriza’s new reformism does the same in Greece.
Enough! It is necessary to fight for a socialist revolution. It is the only way out because of the economic crisis, the polarisation of class struggle, and the crisis of reformism. Some will say this is a utopia. But Utopia is to think that it is possible to enhance workers’ lives under capitalism.
To move towards a socialist revolution, it is necessary to build revolutionary parties in every country and a revolutionary International across the world
Long live Workers’ International Day of Struggle! Down with economic austerity plans!
Workers of the world, unite! In defence of the Socialist Revolution!
For more information contact Facebook: International Socialist League or email islinfo@talktalk.net
P&P ISL, c/o News From Nowhere, 96 Bold Street Liverpool L1 4HY
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