We salute the workers, youth, women and pensioners of Europe and the world. We honour the bloody uprising in Chicago and the heroic struggles of our class and draw inspiration from them for our struggle today.
With clear intensity, the last year has shown the full brutality and savagery of the imperialist system. Wars, famines and poverty haunt the working people of the world, making their situation all the more precarious. With their own eyes, the workers can observe the dangerous development and sharpening contradictions that constitute real threats to their lives and livelihoods. The barbarity of capitalism is laid bare for all to see.
Within the imperialist system, contradictions are sharpening, as all capitalist powers vie for more profits for their own monopolies at the expense of their rivals. Their old alliances, which were thought of as permanent, are shown to be fragile as powerful countries reposition themselves. Under capitalism, no bond is stronger than the potential profit that is to be made.
The logical conclusion, to which the increased competition will lead, is war. When all other means fail, force is used in the capitalist competition to gain advantages and strike against competitors. The outbreak of a new capitalist crisis and the risk of a generalized capitalist war loom on the horizon, threatening the lives of millions and millions of working people all over the world.
In answer to this development, the capitalist countries of the world are arming themselves to the teeth, readying themselves for a struggle. To justify this, the ideology of nationalism is utilized among other things, giving the workers the illusion that they share interests with the capitalists of their own nationality.
Parallel to this development, political repression mounts. In country after country, political rights are repealed with the purpose of obstructing the political and trade union activity of the working class. In country after country, funds are redirected from the needs of the people to the repressive apparatus of the capitalist state, which is then unleashed upon those who refuse to accept this development.
In this situation, the role of social democracy remains a particularly deceptive enemy. Throughout the history of the labor movement, social democracy has acted to guarantee capitalism the social support it needs, and as communists, one of our most important tasks remains to unmask the role that social democracy has played historically, as well as today.
All obstacles seem great, until they are surmounted. This is true of capitalism as well. Over a century ago, the working people of Russia broke the ice and showed the way forward, the socialist society. Exactly 80 years ago, the Soviet and European peoples stopped what briefly seemed unstoppable and, through their struggle, achieved victory over fascism. Again and again, the working people have defied the developments of capitalism, and it has shown that it carries the new world on its shoulders.
The way forward is clear to us and we do not stop at remedying some of the ills created by capitalism, but we aim to remove the ill that is capitalism. Carried forward by the strength and activity of the working people of the world, we are certain that we will and that we must bring the new world, the socialist world, to fruition.
In the form of a generalized imperialist war and the impoverishment of the peoples, darkness looms menacingly on the horizon, but remembering that darkness is nothing but stolen light, we continue forwards, honouring those that came before us and laying the groundwork for those who will come after us.
Long live the 1st of May!
Long live the struggle of the people!
Long live socialism!
