Today is being observed just about everywhere as the international workers’ holiday. Well, everywhere that is except here in the US which ironically gave May Day its birth in 1886 (Chicago, following a successful general strike for the 8 hour day). Instead, Americans were subsequently given Labor Day, in early September, much as the Left in the West were given Earth Day in 1970 in order to dilute enthusiasm for the 100th anniversary of Lenin’s birth. Labor Day of course is no longer really observed except as an extra lingering day at the beach. In our frightfully anaesthetized society, the working class no longer exists, only the Rich and the increasingly affluent Middle Class, who will be Rich tomorrow. Or the Day After. Of course, there are the poor, but no one notices them since they are famously shiftless and insouciant. Of course, they are useful in their profligancy, but because there are so many of them. They help keep wages down and police departments well-funded. Which makes things better for the Rich. And all those who will be Rich tomorrow.
So, where are we this Sunday? I mean, those of us who are working class and, especially, those among us who count themselves as Communist or at least anti-capitalist? Number-wise, we’re not doing that badly. There are this May Day 2005 more members of Communist and Working Class parties worldwide than ever before. Many more, in fact, than in 1989, the year commonly given as that of the apotheosis of Communism’s “collapse”. More than 60 million in China alone. The anti-capitalist movement is proceeding apace throughout the developing world and has even achieved the status of a state religion in Latin America. And Marx-friendly liberation movements are alive and well throughout the developing world, especially in Peru, India, the Philippines, and Colombia, and some — notably in Nepal — hover near the seizure of state power, always a pre-requisite for fundamental change. There even appears to be a stiffening of spine in those Left parties in eastern Europe and Russia, whose peoples have by now experienced the first pangs of the nightmare capitalism that is inexorably descending upon them.
Closer to home, things ain’t so great. There is still that nagging tendency among many in the Left to tail the Democrats, or the Greens, or the Mullahs, or whomever speaks ill of Bush and who draws a crowd. No liberal yet has effectively stood up to the far Right. Collectively, the liberals can hardly staunch the veritable stampede among America’s political and social elite toward fascsim. At best, they will insist on “due process” as Communists are marched off to the gallows; they are more likely to pay the hangman. An orderly, disciplined Communist movement, dedicated to the secular, anti-liberal program of socialism and brooking no “supporting” role for the rights of the workers is needed.
That would make for a really great May Day next year.