KKE (m-l): May 1st – The Working Class and the Peoples Resist and Protest! They Carve Their Own Path!
We hereby share an unofficial translation of the call for the 1st of May published by the Communist Party of Greece (marxist-leninist) [KKE (m-l)].
EVERYONE TO THE STRIKE RALLIES
ATHENS: 10:30 a.m. PROPYLAEA
THESSALONIKI: 10:30 a.m. KAMARA
International Workers’ Day has been etched in history and in the consciousness of the working class and the peoples as the day when, with the blood of the workers of Chicago, the 8-hour workday was won. At the same time, it signifies the overall struggle of the working class against capital and exploitation. It means that the working class can only achieve rights in the present and pave the way for the revolutionary overthrow of this rotten exploitative society and the construction of its own society, socialism, through its struggles and organization as a class for itself.
And today, this message is more relevant than ever!
- Because the present and the future that the capitalist-imperialist system holds for the working class and the peoples is a nightmare of poverty, hunger, and war.
- Because the great claims about the capabilities of the capitalist economy have proven to be empty rhetoric and have given way to an insurmountable and comprehensive crisis.
- Because the triumphalism about a “globalized” economy has been replaced by ruthless imperialist competition and war. The hundreds of thousands of dead in the slaughterhouse of Ukraine and the ongoing genocide of the heroic Palestinian people are just the beginning of the widespread bloodshed they are preparing.
- Because the sermons about the triumph of the forces of “progress” and “freedom” have given way to the revival of the darkest and most reactionary ideas, the most retrogressive and obscurantist beliefs. Fascism, racism, nationalism, religious fanaticism, and sexism have become official political discourse from the mouths of the central apparatuses of this system. Discourse that essentially paves the way for the dark future of war.
In this reality that is imposed upon us, there is no place for workers’ and people’s rights, for workers’ achievements, for political and union freedoms—everything that the working and people’s movements have won, was won through its struggles and fights.
The 8-hour workday, the 5-day workweek, permanent and stable jobs, collective agreements, insurance, healthcare, and public free education are considered “burdens” for the capitalist system, “obstacles” to its tendency for greater profitability. Wages and pensions must be further slashed, sacrificed for the new war plans that the imperialists have already devised to consolidate their dominance. Every social expenditure is deemed a “luxury” in the face of the need to serve the monstrous military programs required by the frenzied preparation for the generalization of war. Every workers’ and popular demand, every struggle that goes against this destructive course, must be suppressed.
They want the peoples subjugated, ready to be sacrificed in the new slaughters of the wars. Because they are the only ones who can put a stop to their blood-soaked plans.
They want the working class weakened and ideologically, politically, and organizationally disorganized. Because it is the only one that can carve the path and lead the way for revolutionary overthrow and socialist construction.
Our path! Our perspective!
Only the peoples and the working class are already seeking their own perspective. Despite the relentless systemic propaganda and the weight of the defeat of the workers’ revolutionary communist movement and the popular movements that flared up in the last century, the masses of the oppressed around the world are once again taking to the streets massively. They are fighting, resisting, and protesting. They stand against the policies that disregard them, that consider them expendable, that sacrifice them without hesitation. They rise up for wages, for healthcare, for education, for democratic rights. They are forming unions and organizing their struggle under the most adverse conditions. They confront the policies of brutal repression while defending the right to a decent life. They also express their solidarity massively with the heroic Palestinian people and their struggle against the genocide perpetrated by the Nazi-Zionists.
This search and these concerns were highlighted by the magnificent, historic mobilizations on January 26 and February 28 in our country. Mobilizations that shook the bourgeois political system. Mobilizations that demonstrated the power of mass struggle and showed new paths, against disappointment and fatalism. But also against the new parliamentary illusions being cultivated by various sides (both right and “left”) aimed at trapping the people and neutralizing their fighting spirit.
By walking these new paths, the working class and the peoples will find the ideas that inspired the workers of Chicago, the proletarians of the October Revolution, the revolutionaries in China, and everywhere. They will find the ideas that motivated the strikers of May 1936 in Thessaloniki, the ideas that armed the 200 communists of Kaisariani who stood up against fascism in May 1944. They will find THEIR OWN IDEAS, for THEIR OWN INTERESTS. For the re-establishment of the workers’ revolutionary communist movement. For the rights of all those who produce the wealth of this society. For revolution and socialism!
- LONG LIVE INTERNATIONAL WORKERS’ DAY!
- LONG LIVE THE STRUGGLES OF THE WORKING CLASS AND THE PEOPLES!
- DOWN WITH THE POLICIES OF POVERTY, REPRESSION, AND WAR!
- FORWARD THE FRONT OF THE PEOPLES AGAINST CAPITALIST AND IMPERIALIST BARBARISM!
