Comrades ! As far back as last century, the workers of all countries resolved to celebrate annually this day, the First of May. That was in 1889, when, at the Paris Congress of the Socialists of all countries, the workers resolved to proclaim, precisely on this day, the First of May, when nature is awakening from her winter sleep, when the woods and hills are donning their green mantles and the fields and meadows are adorning themselves with flowers, when the sun shines more warmly, the joy of revival fills the air and nature gives herself up to dancing and rejoicing—they resolved to proclaim loudly and openly to the whole world, precisely on this day, that the workers are bringing spring to mankind and deliverance from the shackles of capitalism, that it is the mission of the workers to renovate the world on the basis of freedom and socialism. Every class has its own favourite festivals. The nobility introduced their festivals, and on them they proclaim their right to rob the peasants. The bourgeoisie have their festivals and on them they justify their right to exploit the workers. The clergy, too, have their festivals, and on them they eulogise the existing system under which the toilers die in poverty while the idlers wallow in luxury. The workers, too, must have their festival, and on it they must proclaim: universal labour, universal freedom, universal equality of all men. That festival is the festival of the First of May. That is what the workers resolved as far back as 1889. Since then the battle-cry of workers socialism has rung out louder and louder at meetings and demonstrations on the First of May. The ocean of the labour movement is expanding more and more, spreading to new countries and states, from Europe and America to Asia, Africa and Australia. In the course of only a few decades the formerly weak international workers association has grown into a mighty international brotherhood, which holds regular congresses and unites millions of workers in all parts of the world. The sea of proletarian wrath is rising in towering waves, and is more and more menacingly advancing against the tottering citadels of capitalism. The great coal miners strike which recently flared up in Great Britain, Germany, Belgium, America, etc., a strike which struck fear into the hearts of the exploiters and rulers all over the world, is a clear sign that the socialist revolution is not far off. . . . We do not worship the golden calf! We do not want the kingdom of the bourgeoisie and the oppressors! Damnation and death to capitalism and its horrors of poverty and bloodshed! Long live the kingdom of labour, long live socialism! That is what the class-conscious workers of all countries proclaim on this day. And confident of victory, calm and strong, they are marching proudly along the road to the promised land, towards glorious socialism, step by step carrying out Karl Marxs great call: Workers of all countries, unite! That is how the workers in free countries celebrate the First of May. The Russian workers, ever since they began to realise their position, and not wishing to lag behind their comrades, have always joined the general chorus of their foreign comrades and, jointly with them, have celebrated the First of May in spite of everything, in spite of the brutal acts of repression of the tsarist government. True, for the past two or three years, during the period of counter-revolutionary bacchanalia and disorganisation of the Party, industrial depression and the deadening political indifference of the broad masses, the Russian workers have been unable to celebrate their glorious workers festival in the old way. But the revival that has started in the country recently; the economic strikes and the political protests of the workers in connection, say, with the rehearing of the case of the Social-Democratic deputies in the Second Duma; the growing discontent among broad strata of the peasants because of the famine which has affected over twenty gubernias, and the protests of hundreds of thousands of shop assistants against the renovated system of the Russian diehards—all go to show that the deadening torpor is passing off, giving place to a political revival in the country, primarily among the proletariat. That is why this year the Russian workers can and must on this day extend a hand to their foreign comrades. That is why they must celebrate the First of May in one way or another together with them. They must declare today that they are at one with their comrades in the free countries—they do not and will not worship the golden calf. JV Stalin: Collected Works Volume II - Long Live the First of May ! - Pages 225--227
Posted on: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 08:24:41 +0000
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