On May 1, the virtual rally of the International Socialist League was held, below we reproduce the interventions of the comrades who participated on behalf of the different organizations that make up our International.
Argentina, Alejandro Bodart MST leader and ISL coordinator
Welcome to the rally of the International Socialist League. Today we commemorate a new anniversary of the international day of the working class, of our class.
We salute the workers and young people who are watching us. And especially all the comrades from the different countries who have sent their greetings to this internationalist rally.
May Day is not a holiday, as the capitalists and their lackeys have tried to distort and trivialize it. It is a day of struggle and reaffirmation of our own interests as workers. A day to vindicate our strategic objectives to end the exploitation that we suffer from the moment we are born and to defend each of our rights as human beings.
We are witnessing the greatest crisis of the capitalist system since the Second World War and a pandemic that, under the administration of the bourgeoisies and imperialism, is leading millions of workers to death.
While pharmaceuticals get rich and governments refuse to expropriate their patents and freely manufacture the vaccines we need, infections are growing uncontrollably.
While banks and corporations increase their profits, brutal austerity policies are unloaded on the popular majorities and layoffs, job insecurity, low wages and misery grow.
And while friction and disputes increase between the superpowers to see who will get the largest slice of the wealth that we collectively produce, the deterioration of governments and regimes and disappointment with the leaderships that deceive and betray grows.
We are living in historic moments. The post-pandemic moment will reveal, as never before, the economic, social, environmental and health debacle to which capitalist barbarism has led us.
The anger that already exists will turn into uncontrollable rage and we will see new uprisings and rebellions across the planet.
All this will put us before enormous challenges and opportunities to advance in overcoming the historical crisis of leadership that our class has suffered for decades.
It is for this task that we are building each of our parties and our international organization, the ISL, the International Socialist League.
We call on those who are already part of our organizations to redouble their efforts to strengthen the revolutionary alternative that the working class and the youth need.
And for those who are getting to know us, we invite you to join us so that together we can put all our energy into ending this rotten system and paving the way for a new society, without classes, without privileges, without oppression of any kind, where life is worth living and we can fully enjoy it.
Long live May Day!
The working class is one and without borders!
Long live the International Socialist League!
Turkey, Güneş Gümüş Leader of SEP
This May Day comes at a time when the crisis of capitalism is combined with the devastating effects of the pandemic. The decay of capitalism has become clear for billions of people who were unable to get the vaccine due to patents, and the poor people who were abandoned on their own under conditions of lockdown. This year, we are welcoming May 1, the day of international unity, solidarity and struggle of the working people under the shadow of lockdowns in most of the world. But everywhere in the world, anger is growing against the system and the governments that drive it. It is our duty as internationalist revolutionaries to organize this anger.
With this determination and enthusiasm;
* Long live our international organization, the ISL
* Long live May Day
* Long Live Revolution and Socialism
Pakistan, Hameed Khan (President Baluchistan Professors and Lecturers Association – BPLA, Central Leader Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign – PTUDC & The Struggle)
This time we are going to commemorating the May Day in a very unusual and unprecedented period of the human history.
On the one hand we are in the throes of Covid pandemic and on the other hand instead of massive free vaccinations to fight Covid, the capitalist states are using this pandemic politically and socially to isolate and divide the masses. The find solution in haphazard lockdowns.
We are witnessing a colossal economic crisis globally. After the great recession of 2008 another deeper recession is haunting the world.
The Covid pandemic has further deepened the economic crisis and the neo-liberal capitalism has reached a dead end.
As the organic crisis is getting severe, the imperialists through their neo liberal model are further intensifying massive austerity measures and packages against workers and labourers.
From Europe to America and the third world countries, the imperialist institutions of IMF and World Bank are dictating the states’ economic policies and implementing anti worker policies.
Inflation and unemployment are spiraling.
In these conditions of continuous attacks on the working class the role of workers’ organizations and specially the role of Marxist revolutionaries have become ever more important to prepare for a workers’ revolution.
Brazil, Ítalo Freitas – Alternativa Socialista
Comrades, it is with great pride that Alternativa Socialista, Brazilian section of the ISL, participates today in this celebration of the international day of struggle of the working class.
We are in the second year of the pandemic and the situation of workers’ lives is only getting worse. Hunger is already an explicit reality in our country. And thousands of working class lives are lost every day.
Today Brazilian workers are cornered between facing the virus and leaving home with the need to work to have something to eat.
On this May 1, we need to reaffirm a socialist alternative, an alternative to fight against the capitalists and the governments of hunger and death.
Long live May Day! Long live the International Socialist League! Bolsonaro out!
Brazil, Silvia Leticia Luta Socialista
My name is Silvia Leticia, I am a member of Luta Socialista of the PSOL here in Brazil and a national leader of the CSP-Conlutas.
I want to wish a strong May Day to the fighters of the International Socialist League around the world.
Workers who fight every day against Covid, for the vaccine, for social distancing and for their rights.
Here in Brazil we live with a genocidal government that denies the vaccine, social distancing and the rights of workers.
We already have more than 400 thousand dead.
For this reason, on May 1, we are going to demand Bolsonaro Out and invite the workers of the world to take a position against this government.
With rallies in the Brazilian embassies of their countries, with solidarity with the struggles here in Brazil, demanding Bolsonaro Out and strengthening the struggle of the workers.
For the vaccine, for the release of patents, for an emergency subsidy, for the right to life.
Long live the workers’ struggle on this May 1st!
Chile, Maura Fajardo Gálvez – Movimiento Anticapitalista
We are living in a world in crisis that demonstrates the decadence of capitalism, a system that has nothing to offer us.
The logic of accumulation of a minority that concentrates power exposes the incomplete capabality of governments throughout the world, as managers of capital, to confront the pandemic putting our lives at the center.
But also, the pandemic has shown that only one force is capable of putting the world to work on its feet, an implacable force, without borders: the working class.
We know it, and we are preparing for that, because in a world where instability is growing, normality is going to resemble the Chilean rebellion that we lived on October 18, 2019. And a lesson is evident: the working class and the peoples struggle, what is needed is to advance in building revolutionary parties to storm the skies. It is more important than ever to take on that challenge and with the red thread of the experience of the struggles of the working class, we build the International Socialist League .
Long live the socialist and revolutionary May Day!
Venezuela, Zuleika Matamoros – Marea Socialista
I am Zuleika Matamoros, teacher and member of Marea Socialista and the International Socialist League.
From here we send a revolutionary and internationalist salute on this worker´s day.
In the world, workers are resisting in the context of the crisis and the pandemic, a severe blow and a brutal attack against the working class by world capitalism. That is why the unity of the workers and their organization is very important. So, from here go our strong greetings. Long live the workers of the world! Long live the International Socialist League!
Colombia, Luisa Giraldo – Impulso Socialista
May 1st is the international day of the working class, that is why Impulso Socialista, together with the International Socialist League, has been working on an alternative for our class, a revolutionary and internationalist alternative.
We know that our task as revolutionaries is to build a leadership that influences the mass movement and thus helps us take the reins to finally shape our future.
That is why from Impulso Socialista we wish that this May 1st be red, revolutionary and internationalist.
Peru, Flor Nolasco – MNP
I am Flor Nolasco, greetings from Peru, fraternal greetings to all the socialist workers of the working class who make great sacrifices at work, socially and in the struggle against imperialism.
Nicaragua, Mohamed Pacheco – Alternativa Anticapitalista
Almost 135 years after the events in Chicago, which marked in the history of the working-class a new step in the struggle for a life with dignity. We honor the words of Auguste Spies who, as an epitaph before being hanged on the gallows, said: “The voice that you are going to stifle will be more powerful than the words that I could say now.”
Well, we are in a new stage, where the accumulated experiences allow us to stand up in the struggle around the world with our comrades of the International Socialist League, being part of the vanguard of a new revolutionary ascent, building parties for the leadership of the masses against the hegemony of the bourgeois order.
This is how we honor and send a revolutionary salute to those who have loved and to those who continue to love the workers’ cause.
From Nicaragua we say to you: comrades, let’s fight, let’s win, workers to power!
Paraguay, Juan Pablo Benítez – Alternativa Socialista
Comrades, on behalf of Alternativa Socialista of Paraguay we want to send a warm greeting of struggle to all the workers of the different organizations of the International Socialist League throughout the world.
From Paraguay, a country that during several weeks in 2021 experienced intense days of mobilizations against the criminal health policy, and the social economic disaster of the capitalist government of the Colorado Party. Mobilizations forced the resignation of more than 7 ministers, defeated the repression on different occasions and provided important lessons to the working class and the youth.
That is why today our young organization Alternativa Socialista, which was forged in these rebellions, is betting more than ever on growing and building itself to raise an alternative hand in hand with the workers, the peasants, together with the youth and the people.
So those who have never ruled, rule!
United States, Natalia Tilym – Tempest
Hi! I’m sending May Day greetings from the United States to the International Socialist League. Alot has changed since the first May Day, but we still live in a world where workers are in a fight for dignity and basic living standards, and for justice for our immigrant brothers and sisters, and for our Black brothers and sisters who are being killed by the police. So we still have the task of organizing as an international working class, to confront the brutality of this system, and May Day is the perfect day to redouble those efforts.¡
Uckaine, Oleg Vernik – Ukranian Socialist League
Dear brothers of ours! Our dear sisters! Dear members of the International Socialist League! Today we have organized the Socialist League of Ukraine. We would like to congratulate you on the coming May 1, International Workers’ Solidarity Day. Warm greetings from Ukraine. We love you all. They shall not pass!
Belarus, Anatoy Matvienko
Dear friends, dear comrades!
This May 1 we are in conditions of extreme aggravation of the class struggle throughout the world.
The systemic crisis of capitalism is developing rapidly, affecting the vital interests of all countries and peoples, threatening each one of us.
In response to the just protests of the workers, the authorities are falling into blatant fascism, inciting social and national conflicts and provoking international wars.
Only the working people united in a single proletarian organization can stop the ruling elites, hungry for power and money!
For the International Socialist League!
For the international solidarity of the workers!
Greetings from Belarus for May 1st!
France, Isabelle Foucher – The Commune
Good morning!
Dear proletarian comrades from all countries:
From Paris, on behalf of the comrades of La Commune, the French section of the International Socialist League, I send you our greetings of revolutionary friendship on this May 1, 2021.
The pandemic that we are experiencing at present is exacerbating the economic and social crisis. But tomorrow, all over the world, the masses in revolution will rise up and bring down governments.
So, long live socialism!
Long live the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune!
And long live the ISL!
Spanish State, Flor Salgueiro – SOL
The capitalist crisis and the pandemic have once again shown the true face of capitalism marked by exploitation, oppression and social inequalities.
Those in power are not interested in our lives, they are only interested in increasing their profits.
On this international workers’ day, from Socialismo y Libertad, SOL in the Spanish State, we want to say: Long live the mobilization, the general strike and the fraternity of all the peoples of the world!
United Kingdom, Ronney Turus
Comrades, I send my greetings to your May Day celebration. It has been a hell of a year, we have seen the ugly and barbaric face of the capitalist system. Although it has been tough, nevertheless it is a year full of hope. We did see the Black Lives Matter movement, we did see Ni Una Menos. Although May Day is an anniversary to celebrate our traditions, our gains, nevertheless it is an opportunity to take the fight further. Greetings and solidarity to all of you.
Western Sahara, Chaia Ahmed Baba
My name is Chaia, I am from Western Sahara. On this international workers day I send my greetings to all the workers who are fighting for their social and democratic rights, as we are struggling in Western Sahara for our right to freedom and independence. And I say: Long live the workers! Long live the international workers day!
Algeria, Khaled Gue
Good Morning.
May Day this year is marked by a true war by the imperialist governments and their subordinates against the fundamental achievements of the working class, in the name of this health crisis, precisely to question all the conquests of the workers.
Down with imperialism, down with the wars of exploitation! Power to the workers! Stop the dismantling of public services. For professional equality between women and men. We say: that we must mobilize without a doubt.
The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the workers themselves. Long live the Socialist Workers’ League! Greetings to all comrades.
Lebanon, Rim Trad – Youth Movement for Change
In Lebanon, May 1 is called Labor Day, not Workers Day.
We have a long battle against this system that discriminates against us daily and takes away our rights, so that we can build a system for workers.
Greetings from the youth movement for change to all the workers of Lebanon and the world.
We want our relationship with the International Socialist League to bring us closer to the workers of the world so that we can exchange our experiences and unite our struggles, to be an international working class force against capitalism.