It is soon the 1st of May, the day of unity, solidarity, and struggle of workers and laborers of all countries.
Our day of solidarity and struggle, when we will test our strength to unite against the exploitation, impositions, and attacks of the international bourgeoisie and imperialism…
Since the 1st of May 2023, we have raised our flags of struggle higher by growing our unity and strengthening our solidarity in our strikes and acts of resistance in almost all countries.
We come from the automotive strike in the USA. We shook the UK with the strikes of the workers in the docks, railways, education, and health sectors. After the energy workers, we went on strike in France against the raising of the retirement age; we built barricades together with teachers and young people; we took to the streets as farmers. In Burkina Faso, we were on the streets against the coup d’état. Barely two years have passed since the uprisings in Kazakhstan and Sri Lanka. In India, we were on a general strike for two years in a row with hundreds of millions of people; as peasants, we occupied the squares of the capital. In Iran, the reactionary regime forcibly suppressed the demonstrations that broke out over the murder of Mahsa Amini when they tended to turn into an uprising. In Latin America, the dissatisfaction of the workers and youth against the imperialist exploitation and oppression of the local oligarchies is growing. In Argentina, mass actions are developing in the streets in opposition to the reactionary Milei government. Workers in Turkey continue their local strikes, one after another, demanding trade union rights and wage increases under the attack of gendarmerie and police.
What choice do we have but to unite? How can we not be in solidarity? How can we not fight?
Inflation is high in the world. All prices, especially food, are going up and up! The only thing that is not increasing is wages. Real wages have been falling for years. While the flexibility of work is increased, exploitation intensifies, working conditions worsen, and lax safety measures cause many deaths, especially in dependent countries, capitalists refuse to increase wages. The governments, which transfer billions to the capitalists through incentives and tax cuts, oppose wage increases. All they do is pursue a tight monetary policy, implement austerity, impose low wages, and cut public spending. We have to fight for a decent living wage and for our social and trade union rights. That is why we come together, join forces, and go on strike.
The capitalists and their governments refuse to grant wage increases with the excuse that it would deteriorate inflation, but they cut public spending and allocate less and less money to education and health. However, when it comes to armaments, they spend generously. They know no limits in armament and increase their military budgets. The rivalry between the imperialists gathering around blocs is intensifying, and the conflicts for hegemony, for example, in Ukraine, have been going on for more than two years and with weapons. Ostensibly Ukraine is fighting, but the real war is between the USA and NATO on the one hand, and Russia, backed by China, on the other. The imperialists, who fight with each other to share the underground and above-ground riches of the peoples and drag the world into a new extensive war, also put the war expenditures on the backs of the working peoples. The missiles, tanks, and planes that enrich their producers, the monopolies, are produced with our taxes. As in the case of the war in Ukraine, the war drives up energy and grain prices. Millions of laborers are forced to migrate because of war, hunger, and poverty. In the Middle East, Israel has launched a brutal attack against the Palestinian people, which has claimed the lives of more than 34,000 people, including women, children, and the elderly. This genocide is condemned by the workers and peoples of the world.
The international bourgeoisie and imperialism, which worsen working and living conditions, disregard social justice and impose war on the workers and peoples of the world, escalate reactionary forces to maintain their rule. There are examples of the opposite, such as the decline of fascism in Bolivia. However, the bourgeoisie, imperialist, and collaborator governments feed reactionaries in all areas of life. They conspire against bourgeois democracy and seek to replace it with a police state. Laws restricting freedoms are being enacted in almost every country every day. For example, in Britain, the so-called “cradle of democracy,” new laws are passed to make strikes almost impossible.
We have to unite and fight not only for wages and social rights but also for peace and our freedoms such as union and political organizations, meetings, strikes, and demonstrations against reactionary forces and fascism.
The bourgeoisie and imperialism know no other freedom than the freedom to exploit and enslave workers and laborers.
It is up to us to unite and fight to win our freedoms and to get rid of exploitation and being a part of machines.
We have nothing to lose but our chains! Wehave a whole world to win!
On the 1st of May, let us unite in the streets and squares:
- to put an end to the cost of living crisis, exploitation, poverty, oppression, and attacks,
- to work and live humanely,
- for trade union and political freedom,
- for equal pay for equal work and decent wages to live humanely; for justice in income and in taxation, and
- for peace against the war imposed on the peoples.
Long live the 1st of May!
Long live the unity of workers and the fraternity of peoples!
Long live freedom, long live socialism!
International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations (CIPOML)