Workers Weekly Internet Edition Year 2012 Volume 42 Number 15


Volume 42 Number 15, May 1, 2012	ARCHIVE	HOME	JBCENTRE	SUBSCRIBE

Call of RCPB(ML), May 1, 2012

Line of March Militant revolutionary greetings to the working class of England, Scotland and Wales on May Day 2012; militant revolutionary greetings to the workers of all countries on this day of unity in struggle of the international working class; militant revolutionary greetings to all humanity fighting for the new, fighting to affirm their rights and to assert their own course of development in the face of the international dictate of the owners of capital and the imperialist system of states!

The objective conditions are pointing to the urgent need for the capitalist crisis to be resolved in favour of the new, in favour of the world's peoples, the workers, the women and the youth of the world. More than 17 million people in the eurozone were out of work in February, reaching 10.8%. In Britain unemployment stands at 2.5 million. The value of wages has declined from nearly 65% of GDP in the mid-1970s to 55% today. Over the same period, the rate of corporate profit has increased from 13% to 21%. The government pays £48 billion a year (an estimated 3% of GDP) in interest payments to the financiers. Hundreds of thousands of people have been pushed into part-time working and unpaid work. Pensions, education and the NHS are under attack, and the House of Commons constitutes itself as a pro-war government.

In the circumstances, an effective Workers’ Opposition is necessary, urgent and key. The present direction of the economy has brought only insecurity and the wrecking of the manufacturing base. The government is refusing to take up social responsibility for the fate of society and the public good. It has defended the old class privileges, it is attacking social programmes and privatising public services, it is acting as the political executive of the monopolies, it is brutally exercising the dictate of a monopoly capitalist state.

It falls to the organised working class, the Workers’ Opposition, to take up responsibility to bring into being a new direction in the country's political and economic affairs that genuinely reflects the socialised character of the economy and the modern way of living. A new and alternative direction means that the people must control their own political and economic affairs and exercise the right to make decisions that affect their workplaces and the direction of society as a whole. The deepest aspiration of the working class and people is that they exercise control over their lives. The British state, the EU, the international financial oligarchy all stand as a block to this happening. Using the power of the state and the immense wealth at their disposal, monopolies and private interests are attacking the livelihoods of the majority of the people and their interests.

For the people to have control over their lives means that people wherever they live and work have to be the decision-makers. This in turn entails that the owners of monopoly capital must deprived of the power to disempower the people from being the decision-makers. An alternative direction for society, the fight for a society which is human-centred, means that social product produced by the working class must be reinvested in social programmes, public services and the productive economy, especially manufacturing, so that all can prosper from industrial mass production and not just a privileged few.

The working class and people did not cause the deficit, and the so-called austerity measures far from resolving the crisis are intensifying it. The government has no mandate from the people to impose an austerity agenda that will wreck the social infrastructure even further. The working class must fight for its own independent political programme in order to occupy the space for change and defend its interests against the assault of state monopoly capital.

The working class can rally all of society, bar the rich and powerful, around its own independent programme and politics. Within the framework of creating a new society, lifting society out of the crisis and overcoming the blocks that the monopolies and their representatives are placing in the way of leaving behind this old world, the workers of all countries are fighting their immediate class battles. Only by persisting in these battles with the aim of achieving victory in these struggles can the workers advance along the line of march to a new society. The workers must build their unity in the course of fighting for their programme to Stop Paying the Rich! Increase Investments in Social Programmes! Their watchword is that the banner of the emancipation of the working class is the banner for all of humanity in the forward march to create the new world, the world as it should be. More and more, the working class and people are taking up the struggle for this as the alternative, and are rejecting the capital-centred outlook that spending on social programmes increases the deficit and is not an investment. This outlook is being rejected as irrational, immoral and serving only the rich.

Throughout Europe, the people are rising up against the so-called austerity measures. The same is true in North America. The peoples and countries of Latin America are strengthening their unity in defence of their sovereignty and progress, and against imperialist dictate. The socialist countries such as Cuba and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea are standing firm, charting their own way forward, and are providing an inspiration for the world’s people and are a powerful factor for peace.

May Day 2012 is the time for the working class to pledge anew to leave the old behind, to resist the attacks of those who hold economic and political power who seek to block this advance, and organise to fight for and build the new even in these adverse conditions. It is a time for the working class and its communist leadership to meet the challenge set by history and the objective conditions, and to fight for its own alternative, the alternative of the modern proletariat and all humanity – a socialist society in which the working class emancipates itself, and thereby emancipates all humanity, and ends war, aggression and the exploitation of persons by persons.

Let us go all out to build an effective Workers' Opposition around the alternative, to build its contingents across the country with conscious participation in the struggle to defend the rights of all! Let us go all out in fighting for a new direction for society and to plant the alternative on the soil of Britain! Let us advance along the line of march to a socialist Britain! Let us strengthen our unity with the workers of all lands who are fighting for that new world, for the elimination of class society, for another world fit for human beings!

Fight for the Independent Politics of the Working Class!
Fight for the Empowerment of the People!
Fight for the Alternative – A Socialist Society Which Serves the Public Good and Deprives the Owners of Capital of their Power!
Fight to Turn Things Around and Resolve the Crisis in Favour of the Working Class and People!
Build the Workers’ Opposition!
Hail May Day!
Workers of All Countries, Unite!

Fight for the Alternative – For the
World As It Should Be!

Fight for the Alternative – For the World As It Should Be!

May Day Events 2012