Britain – Red-Flag News: Long live a Red Anti-Imperialist International Workers Day
We hereby share a statement issued on the 1st of May by Red-Flag News from Britain.
This year will mark the 136th May 1st since it was first born out of the struggle for the eight-hour work day at Haymarket Square. Since then, it has become a key date for billions of workers around the world to unite and struggle for a better world, one free from imperialism, fascism and capitalist exploitation.
In the 136 years since the announcement of May 1 as International workers day by the Second International, we have seen the international proletariat make several monumental strides from Russia in 1917, China in 1949, the Cultural Revolution and the international turn against revisionism in 1966 and most recently the People’s Wars in the Philippines, India, Turkey and Peru. What this demonstrates to us is that the proletariat is a class that has the ability to assert itself as the rulers of not just their own destiny but assert themselves as the final class before true liberation for humanity in Communism.
We know this because the proletariat is the class that has nothing else to lose but its chains, where the romantic revolutions of old were cemented by the destruction of feudal society, they were replaced by a despotic capitalist class, whose means of reproducing themselves comes through the accumulation of capital, the manifestation of dead labour now used to exploit new, existing labour. This fact is why we are the last class in history.
However, the terrain of struggle has shifted greatly, also in the 136 years since the first Mayday, we have seen capital shift in how it manifests globally and locally. More specifically, the international proletariat has bared witness to the rise of imperialism and fascism as two means of defending the dictatorship of capital over not just the working masses here in the imperialist heartlands but also for going abroad to find new markets, land, labour and resources in order to save capitalism from capitalism’s constant crises. These are two enemies every communist and beyond that every worker and oppressed person the world over must struggle against for the benefit of the revolution, against isolation and the cementation of their class as that which has won the battle for democracy.
We are now in an age where that system which came about to save capitalism from its initial crises is now in an even deeper crisis in its new form. In particular, we see imperialism just like it did before, especially in the lead-up to the first world war have to sustain itself through war and the building of an entire economy based around production for war as the only way out. This crisis is one which has found all facets of the current political order from our legal system, our imperialist political parties, our already fascistic border-regime marching in lock-step with these preparations. However, we know that there is an alternative available for those who fight, that being socialist revolution as the primary way to defeat imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism.
We see the primary imperialist hegemon as being the United States. Now, with the Genocidal Trump at its helm, West Asia will be drenched in the blood of all those who seek to resist the United States’ hegemony built on reactionary violence and the accumulation, consolidation and export of capital, the most glaring example of which being the ongoing war on Iran alongside the Zionist Entity, where they have shown that will bomb all those who resist the presence of their military bases, economic sanctions and intelligence agencies in their region, and when they do resist, the US unleashes their naval fleets and phony diplomatic leverage just like the imperialist powers of old. The continuity of tactics shows us that imperialism is not an economic policy but rather a logical development of capital. All this being said, we would be remiss not to mention the rise of social-imperialist China and the reactionary Russian imperialists. The world has seen the return of inter-imperialist conflict, both in open and ‘under-the-table’ forms, through things such as Russia’s imperialist invasion of Ukraine and expansion into West Africa, and China’s expansion of the power of its economic hegemony into places like the African states, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. The struggle against world imperialism by the masses oppressed by imperialism is the primary contradiction on the world stage, while class struggle remains the primary contradiction within many countries – including Britain.
In the Middle East, we see the fruits of this inter-imperialist conflict, with the settler-colonial and genocidal Zionist Entity continuing its ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people and the continuance of resistance against that genocide, and through its expansion into Iran via the attacks by the United States, the Zionist Entity and the Arab comprador regimes (such as the Kingdom of ‘Saudi’ Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar) on that country, which has brought the region into an inevitable clash. Both the murderous genocide in Palestine and the violent and criminal attacks on Iran are attempts by the US imperialist bloc to crush the resistance of the people of the Middle East, establish hegemony over the Middle East region, and to expand the power of US imperialist finance capital over the region through the incorporation of Iran as a semi-colony of the United States as was done in Iraq when the US invaded it twenty-three years ago. It is the duty of anti-imperialists in Britain and the world over to oppose this attempt at genocidal expansion and the crushing of the resistance of the people. It is in this spirit that we salute all those in the dungeons of the imperialist nations who strived to materially impact the assault on the peoples of West Asia by attacking the transfer and manufacture of arms which will be used to fight all those who oppose the domination of US imperialist finance capital over their lives.
This International Workers’ Day, we salute all those who have taken up the fight against Austerity at home. In particular, all workers who have taken up the withdrawal of their labour in the struggle against imperialism and its impact on work, from the bin-strikers in Birmingham, to teachers, train drivers and workers in the healthcare sector. The struggle remains alive and well, because the conditions compel us to keep going, to remain organised and to understand that we are capable of taking on enemies far bigger than ourselves. At our current moment, we are faced less and less with the question of reform or revolution, the contradictions of imperialism and its impacts on the state mean that there is no space to try and engage with it, we must heed Marx’s comments on the Paris Commune of 1871 that the proletariat mustn’t lay hold of the old state apparatus, but smash the old state entirely. As the local elections come closer, we must do everything in our ability to push back against the revisionist and reactionary currents which say that change can come via the ballot box. So-called left-populism will never be a good enough gauge of the proletariat’s self-activity and readiness for revolution, when there is no program or analysis of the class forces in our society to which the fight can be led, we are left to tail the masses behind their militancy and desire for real change. This is the impact of revisionism at our current conjuncture- an absolute disrespect of the working class’ time and capacity. The path to power will not be swift, rather our job is to build up the means of waging a protracted struggle, laying siege to our enemy rather than claiming to be able to storm the enemy all at once.
We see the value of the protracted path to power and the importance of causing political crisis via the armed struggle in India. The People’s War has faced various bends in the road, with the genocidal violence of the various offensives of the reactionary Indian state against them, defections and surrenders of leading cadre who have fallen into liquidationist revisionism such as Sonu, Tarakka, Ashanna and Devuji, the betrayal of Comrades who are withdrawing or being treated in hospitals, the murder of revolutionaries like General Secretary Basvaraju, Politburo Member Madvi Hidma, and the current attempts to encircle and murder Politburo member Misir Besra, Aseem Mandal and their Comrades in the Saranda forest. We must remember the words of Gonzalo when he was imprisoned and displayed to the world in a cage in an attempt to humiliate him. “We are here in these circumstances. Some think this is a great defeat. They are dreaming and we tell them to keep on dreaming! It is simply a bend, nothing more, a bend in the road. The road is long and we shall arrive. We shall triumph. You shall see it. You shall see it.” The Indian New Democratic revolutionaries in the urban and rural areas are conducting revolutionary mass organizing and working on rebuilding the lost areas of struggle. It is the duty of anti-imperialists worldwide to support the Indian People’s War, demand the release of the prisoners of the Indian New Democratic Movement such as the Hidma 23 arrested in New Delhi, who called for justice for Comrade Madvi Hidma after his brutal murder in a false encounter in Andhra Pradesh. The People’s War in India will be victorious, we shall see it.
The only way for workers, both from inside Britain and from other countries, to bring an end to the exploitation of not only the proletarian class and the murderous and bloody instincts of imperialism, but the entire class system, is to unite under Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, to engage in intense and militant class struggle, to unite and organize the revolutionary segments of society, in Britain mainly the working class but also progressive students and other such forces, under the command of the working class and its ideological and political vanguard, a militarized Communist Party under the correct leadership and the correct political line brought about by relentless two-line struggle, and to carry out People’s War to bring about revolution, in Britain and across the world.
May this May Day, next May Day and all May Days to come be days of intense class struggle!
Long Live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!
Long Live the International Proletariat!
Long Live the Resistance of the People of the World to Imperialism and Reaction!
Death to Imperialism!
It is Right to Rebel against the Reactionaries!
Long Live the Red May Day of the Working Class!
