Occupy movement strengthened May Day 2012

Gutierrez is a member of the Secretariat of Workers World Party. This article is based on her talk on the occasion of Karl Marx’s birthday on May 5 in New York. To view her entire talk, go to http://tinyurl.com/6oxg2j3.

It is a tremendous step forward for the workers and the oppressed that May Day, International Workers Day, has been revived in the country of its origin. But is it widely known that it was the second congress of the Second International gathering of revolutionary communists and avowed socialists in 1891 that resolved to declare May 1 the day of international working-class commemoration of the 1886 martyrs in Chicago?

I am afraid not.

In 2006 it was a thoroughly progressive step forward for the overall class struggle that an immigrant resurgence revived May Day in the United States. And now the Occupied Wall Street movement has taken May Day to a whole other level.

When the OWS movement chose May Day to send a message to the 1% that despite repression, despite succeeding in shutting down Zuccotti Park, this movement has not gone away, it was a tremendous flex of muscle.

While a complicated and contradictory process, OWS participation in May Day was a step forward in the struggle to defend not only immigrant rights but all workers’ rights.

OWS decisive on May Day

OWS was in fact decisive in pulling out the huge number of 50,000 people here in New York City.

How does Marxism relate to the next steps in this important movement?

New York is the center of imperialist finance. It’s where the demonstrations were the largest in the country. In the wake of a successful mass May Day especially here, we ask: What does Marxism have to do with May Day and the emergence of this new OWS youth movement?

Marxism is a guide, a revolutionary tool to help illuminate the road to liberation. It is not an academic or abstract exercise. It is decisive if a movement aims to sustain itself, stay on track and, most importantly, win against the 1%.

One of the most revered revolutionary leaders of our times, Che Guevara, studied Marx intensely. At an early age Che wrote this about Marx: “Now St. Karl is paramount, the axis, as he will be for all the years I remain on the face of the earth.”

Che also wrote about Marx: “Such a humane man whose capacity for affection extended to all those suffering throughout the world, offering a message of committed struggle and determined optimism, he has been distorted by history and turned into a stone idol.”

But Marx is far from a stone idol to us and to hundreds of millions around the world.

Marxism alive & well

Make no mistake about it. Marxism is alive and well: on the West Bank; on the beaches of Vieques, Puerto Rico; in Tahrir Square in Egypt; the Zocalo in Mexico; in union halls in the Philippines; in Venezuela, India and everywhere, including here in the U.S. For many in this room, Marxism turned us as progressive activists into dedicated revolutionaries, steeled in struggle. It prepared us for the long road to liberation. It is Marxism that kept us afloat in rocky waters while others drowned in the tide of bourgeois onslaught. Marxism and the teachings of Workers World Party’s founder, Sam Marcy, helped keep our boat afloat with the banner held high for the dictatorship of the proletariat with the demise of the socialist camp in 1989-1991.

There must be many in the OWS movement who are thinking today about going beyond the slogan “We are the 99%.” This is a great slogan, and it is important especially in mass, popular consciousness because it draws the line between the overwhelming majority of people who work for a living and the tiny ruling elite who exploit these workers.

This is a major contribution that the OWS movement has made. Popularizing the disparity of wealth is a huge contribution given the current economic climate.

But can it take this slogan further? When can we chant, “We are the 99%, let’s abolish the damn 1%”? I am not implying that this should necessarily be the main slogan, as it may not help to unite broad, mass layers, but this should be the perspective that guides the movement. This will only happen if communists and socialists can continue to get the ear of this new movement and reach the most revolutionary elements within it.

The most important contribution that class-conscious communists and revolutionary leaders can make at this time is to help build this movement and help move it in a Marxist direction, help give it a revolutionary and class-conscious flavor. Only Marxism can illuminate the nature of the system this movement hates so much.

It is great that this new movement is a radical movement and hates capitalism. It is not likely to go into the Democratic Party elections, for example, or at least not most of it. But will this movement understand that in order to succeed it must abolish the system altogether?

Solidarity with the most oppressed

Marxism and Leninism as well show in the most scientific way that the exploitation of workers and the super-exploitation of people of color are inherent in the system. Marxism shows that we cannot survive side by side with the capitalist system. As long as the system stands — Wall Street, the Pentagon, the government, the media — every institution will continue to defend the profits of the 1% and continue to wreak havoc on society.

It has been pointed out that while many in this movement are burdened with student debt, low paying or no jobs, they are nonetheless more privileged than oppressed workers. In organizing for May Day, these youth overall, to their credit, tried to keep the attitudes generated by this privilege in check.

Also, this movement does have oppressed people in its midst and in leadership. Like Fidel Castro, Marx could see the road far ahead and even around the corner. Marx wrote about a similar phenomenon in his time that is very applicable to the OWS movement. Marx urged the privileged workers in the center of what was then world capitalism, England, to be cognizant of solidarity with less privileged workers in other parts of world.

Marx’s suggestion could also be directed at the OWS movement. As I have said to many OWS activists, history was made on Sept. 17, 2011, but history did not begin on Sept. 17. Many workers’ struggles are rich in lessons for the OWS movement. One is that a movement must be clear on what it wants, that it must be the opposite of amorphous if it is to prevail against the capitalist state. There is no other way.

Another important lesson is that while participation of the masses is primary in order to succeed, leaders and organizers are important as long as they are not corrupted. Leaders should be intertwined with the masses, as in revolutionary Cuba. Participatory democracy is very important to the OWS movement. The Cuban experience should be the standard of participatory democracy. The unity of the Revolutions leaders with the people has been decisive in standing up to U.S. imperialism.

There are phases and steps on the road to liberation. For the movement in defense of immigrants, for example, the first steps in the coming period must be to win legalization for the undocumented. They have earned this right. We must stop the massive deportations; we must win a massive jobs program and end the foreclosures. We must jail the vigilantes and win justice for their victims.

The OWS movement can contribute to help win these fights. Imagine forming OWS brigades that can occupy foreclosed homes and stop as many sheriffs as possible from seizing homes for the banks! That would be awesome!

These demands do not abolish the system. But they do punch holes in it. They bring in workers in a massive way, workers who are not now organized, but who must be organized and they must be organized now. They must be exposed to class-consciousness and revolutionary Marxist thinking.

But we cannot end hunger or unemployment or resolve the climate change crisis without a well-organized machine that can abolish the capitalist system altogether. Marxism can help the OWS movement understand what it will take to end the capitalist system. Lenin, Fidel, Amilcar Cabral and many other leaders who have come before Sept. 17, 2011, can inform this movement.

Finally, we are confident that the OWS movement will rise to the task. In this movement are the seeds of a revolutionary mass upsurge. We will do our part to help build this movement. The deepening economic crisis, the growing racism and repression are fueling a train that cannot stop.

That train must head right on to smash the capitalist system once and for all. Let’s get more people on that train with us now.

Organize the working class!

Justice for Trayvon Martin & Anastacio Hernandez Rojas!

Long live socialism!

Long live May Day!

Abolish capitalism!

Si se puede!