Build solidarity vs. global 1%

What goes around, comes around. The class solidarity that unites workers of different national origins, skin colors, languages, genders, sexualities and abilities, in order to fight for their rights as human beings, is once again rising up.

Workers World especially wants to salute the youth, from Greece to Spain to the Occupy Wall Street movement here in the United States, who are resisting capitalist oppression with a new energy and fearlessness.

It was in this country that May Day started as a special time for workers to show their strength, share their struggles and shout out their aspirations.

May Day demonstrations began in Chicago 125 years ago to commemorate workers martyred by police during a rally at a place called Haymarket Square. Then, in an act of international solidarity, a conference of socialists meeting in France in 1890 declared it the main holiday for workers around the world. May 1 became the day when millions of workers marched in the streets, arm in arm, to say no to exploitation. Socialists and communists were central to these demonstrations.

For too many years, however, it looked as though May Day had been forgotten by workers’ organizations in the U.S. Especially with the beginning of the Cold War against the socialist countries, the 1% percent here did everything they could to bury May Day. They were afraid of its internationalism and its message of class struggle.

But the international day of workers’ solidarity is back! And it was revived largely by African-American and immigrant workers, who have been hit hardest by the capitalist class and its repressive institutions.

Black and Brown workers lead comeback

In 2005, the first significant May Day demonstration in years took place in New York City. The main force was the Million Worker March movement, led by Black labor unionists.

The next year was amazing. A million immigrant workers, mostly Latinos/as and many of them undocumented, bravely took to the streets across the country on May 1 to oppose legislation that would treat them like criminals just for trying to find employment.

Thus, it has been people of color — the most oppressed who suffer every day from racist violence and indignities — who have spearheaded the revival of working-class consciousness in the U.S.

White workers in places like Wisconsin have since then shown they, too, understand that solidarity with their oppressed sisters and brothers is crucial to the fightback against the bosses’ offensive. Youth of all backgrounds are also showing imagination and courage in fighting the rule of the 1%, whose hammerlock on society’s wealth is represented by Wall Street.

This year for the first time, unions, immigrants and militant youth energized by the Occupy Wall Street movement are rallying and marching together on May Day in New York. Other May Day actions across the U.S. will reflect this new alignment of forces.

Such solidarity is needed now more than ever.

Global capitalist crisis

The capitalist system is in a deep crisis with no way out. The highly efficient, global network of high-tech production that now exists cannot serve the needs of the people because it is shackled by the profit motive and private ownership. Instead of making our lives better and our work lighter, the growth of high technology is leading to high unemployment in every capitalist country and a drive by the bosses to force wages and benefits down to the lowest levels possible. This profits-before-people system is also doing great damage to the whole planet.

With production stagnating and tax revenues declining, capitalist governments in the name of “austerity” have unleashed a massive assault on all programs meant to alleviate poverty, homelessness, lack of health care and education, just when workers need them more than ever.

This is accompanied by an assault on Black and Brown youth, highlighted by the Trayvon Martin killing, which in effect is criminalizing their very existence. Thus the youth, burdened with debt and blighted futures under this rotten system, are also in the forefront of the struggle.

It’s a war on the entire working class — and workers are fighting back

Combining theory and practice

Workers World Party has been fighting capitalism for more than five decades. The Party has studied Marx, Lenin and other great revolutionary thinkers and organizers for their keen insight into this system and how to overcome it. There is no blueprint for breaking the bonds of class oppression, but there is a wealth of experience to be gained from studying the revolutionary history of the working class and then applying those lessons to the living struggle.

What we have learned in our half century of organizing a party of revolutionary thinkers/fighters in this country can be briefly summarized as follows:

It is only the independent, militant action of the workers themselves — not the capitalist elections or either of the parties of big business — that can push back the bosses’ offensive.

The working class has the power not only to win concessions but to actually shut down capitalism. To begin to express that power, unity is essential, based on fighting racism, the scapegoating of immigrants, and the oppression of women and lesbian, gay, bi, trans and queer people.

So is international solidarity. Capitalism has grown into a world system that super-exploits the formerly colonized peoples. The violence of imperialist wars and interventions is the most vicious expression of the need of the 1% to crush any resistance to their domination. A strong workers’ movement needs to build solidarity with oppressed countries trying to resist imperialism.

These are necessary conditions to building a movement that not only can smash the grip of corporate capitalism but can replace it with something infinitely better: a socialist society run by the workers that, with today’s high level of productivity, can easily provide everyone with jobs, education, health care, housing and recreation as a human right, and plan production in a way that enriches rather than degrades our planet. It can be done. It will be done.

Long live May Day! The best is yet to come.