Day: May 1, 2020
May Day
by V. I. Lenin
Written: Written in April 1904
Published: Published, with alterations, in leaflet form in April 1904. Published according to the manuscript.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Moscow, Volume 7, pages 199-202.
Translated: Fineberg Abraham
Transcription\Markup: R. Cymbala
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive (2002). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source. • README
Comrade workers! May Day is coming, the day when the workers of all lands celebrate Their awakening to a class- conscious life, their solidarity in the struggle against all coercion and oppression of man by man, the struggle to free the toiling millions from hunger, poverty, and humiliation. Two worlds stand facing each other in this great struggle: the world of capital and the world of labour, the world of exploitation and slavery and the world of brotherhood and freedom.
On one side stand the handful of rich blood-suckers. They have seized the factories and mills, the tools and machinery, have turned millions of acres of land and mountains of money into their private property. They have made the government and the army their servants, faithful watchdogs of the wealth they have amassed.Read More »
May Day 2020
by subMedia
https://player.vimeo.com/video/413471142” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>https://player.vimeo.com/video/413471142
This May Day finds us at an important historic crossroads. Amidst a global pandemic, this year the streets will be eerily silent as people forgo the marches, rallies and riots that are the annual rituals of international workers day. But while the streets may be calm, the class war rages on. Wildcat strikes are popping off among ‘essential workers’ who two months ago were seen as some of the lowest, most precarious participants of the gig economy. Prison uprisings are breaking out around the world at an unprecedented rate. And millions of tenants are withholding their rent in what could become the first global rent strike in history.
These are interesting times. Stay safe. Get organized. Fight hard. Happy May Day.
May Day in this pandemic-time
by Farooque Chowdhury
Countercurrents | May 01, 2020
Deaths, pain, starvation and uncertainty overshadow the working people in this May Day. The world’s working classes witness the world capitalist system’s inefficiency and failure as the current pandemic ravages countries.
Reports from every country tell the same story: following deaths, uncertainty and hunger are haunting the working classes. The number of the unemployed is surging in countries. Major economies are no less brutal in their treatment of working people. Capital is shifting its burden of bankruptcy onto the working classes. Not a single theoretician in the camp of capital dares to defend his master.Read More »
Germany: Working Class Protests Against Unemployment in May Day
teleSUR | May 01, 2020
A woman holding a red flag takes part in a protest, Berlin, Germany, May 1, 2020. | Photo: EFE
In April, the unemployment annual rate stood at 5.8 percent, up 0.9 percent from a year earlier.
On International Workers’ Day, Germany’s trade unions protested over the collapse of labor rights and the significant increase of unemployment as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cuban workers honor Lenin and convoke May Day mobilization
On Havana’s Lenin Hill, a small group of trade union leaders, headed by Ulises Guilarte de Nacimiento, Party Political Bureau member and general secretary of the Cuban Workers Federation (CTC), dedicated a floral tribute to the legendary Bolshevik, who played a key role in the Russian Revolution, the greatest lesson in the annals of history of what the emancipated working class can achieve in unity of thought and action, guided by socialist principles.
A new era in world history
On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Ilich Lenin, Granma shares several quotes from the Russian revolutionary’s seminal works
Granma | April 24, 2020
On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Ilich Lenin, Granma shares several quotes from the Russian revolutionary’s seminal works:
We have created a Soviet type of state and by that we have ushered in a new era in world history, the era of the political rule of the proletariat, which is to supersede the era of bourgeois rule. (Notes of a Publicist)
Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement .
This thought cannot be insisted upon too strongly at a time when the fashionable preaching of opportunism goes hand in hand with an infatuation for the narrowest forms of practical activity. (What is to be done?)
Cuba Willing to Help Investigate Attack on Its US Headquarters
teleSUR | April 30, 2020
“I urged the State Department to adopt the necessary measures to fully fulfill the responsibilities attributed to it by the Vienna Convention and guarantee the full security of the Cuban embassy and the permanent mission to the United Nations,” said Cuba’s Foreign Minister
Cuba’s Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodríguez, today expressed the will of his Government to assist in the investigation of the attack against the diplomatic headquarters of the Caribbean island in Washington.
Cold War of Trump/Navarro v. China: More Dangerous than COVID-19
by Andre Vltchek
It is getting ugly, extremely ugly.
It is increasingly looking like a war – at least a new ‘cold’, ideological war.
But in the shadow of COVID-19, it goes almost unnoticed.
The blind horseman, who hates China intuitively, without knowing hardly anything about it, is leading the pack, pushing his president into a confrontation with the most populous country on Earth. His name is Peter Navarro.Read More »
The Exodus of Finance from the Third World
by Prabhat Patnaik
People’s Democracy | April 26, 2020
THERE is an exodus of finance from the third world at present, far exceeding in scale what had occurred in 2008 after the financial crisis. Even more important than the actual outflow is the desire on the part of finance to pull out of the third world, including even the so-called “emerging markets”, and move to US dollars or dollar-denominated assets. This is resulting in a depreciation of a host of third world currencies vis-à-vis the dollar, of which the Indian rupee is an obvious example.
This is paradoxical at first sight. After all, the US is the country at the epicentre of the coronavirus crisis now; why should finance be wanting to flee to the US? But exactly the same thing had happened at the time of the 2008 financial crisis. Even though the US was at the centre of the crisis, and third world countries were scarcely affected in any direct sense by the collapse of the US housing bubble, the dollar appreciated vis-à-vis a host of third world currencies, as finance fled from these countries.
Journal of People 