For the workers’ and communist parties, the 1st of May represents a day of struggle, in remembrance of those who came before us and in honor of those who will continue the struggle.
The working people, not only in the countries of Europe, but in the entire world, have in the past years stood face to face with the inhumanity and brutality of the capitalist system, which has put the entire burden of the increasing prices on the shoulders of the working people. By simultaneously keeping wages down, the situation for the workers and other exploited strata has worsened in every country.
Through its policies, the bourgeois classes have not only achieved a significant cut in the real wages of the majority of workers, but they have succeeded in introducing more flexible forms of employment, abolishing the 8-hour day and in forcing upon the workers more and more unpaid work. The increasing pressure is not only felt in the workplaces, but in all spheres of life, where the commercialization of health, education and social security are all adding to the weight that the working people must carry.
Through its policies directed against small farmers, the bourgeois classes have further intensified the centralization and concentration of agriculture in the hands of a few, forcing small farmers out of business. It has produced hundreds of thousands of new impoverished pensioners, whose meager monthly earnings often do not cover the necessities of life.
But hope lies in the struggle, which the working people have shown. Where oppression and brutality has intensified, so has resistance. All over Europe, workers have striked and struggled to prevent capital from lowering their wages, in some cases winning victories and being able to defend earlier achievements; all over Europe, farmers have protested the impossible conditions under which they have been forced to work and live. In a difficult situation, where the strength of the bourgeois classes is evident, it is necessary to show a coordinated response to state, government and employer repression.
By class solidarity, by linking the different struggles, it is possible to counter the attacks of the bourgeoisie. It is not only possible to struggle for an increase in wages and pensions, for collective labor agreements, for a lowering of the retirement age and for unemployment benefits, but it is also possible to win.
At the same time as —and in conjunction with— the sharpening of the class struggle within each country, we observe a sharpening in the struggle within the imperialist system, and the more fierce struggle of every bourgeois class to expand the operations of its monopolies and companies. In this context, we highlight the necessity of the working people to struggle against this development, to oppose the policies of the EU and NATO and to reject them. The development finds expression in the increasing militarisation in every country, and in the regional wars and conflicts that arise, from the brutal terror unleashed on the Palestinian people to the prolonged imperialist war in the Ukraine.
Faced with the terror of capitalism, and its constant attacks on the peoples of the world, we declare that as it is, it cannot continue - the future under capitalism can hold nothing more than further impoverishment, humiliation and insecurity, and we stress the need for a revolutionary overthrow of capitalist exploitation by the development of the class struggle, and the struggle of the working people for the building of a new, socialist society, characterized by workers’ power.
We, the workers’ and communist parties of the European Communist Action send militant greetings to the struggling workers of the world, and we reaffirm our commitment to lead the struggle of the working people to its conclusion, to socialism.
Long live the 1st of May - Long live socialism!
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