25.04.1996

May Day means mass behind the miners

From The Workers’ Weekly, paper of the Communist Party of Great Britain, April 30 1926

The Communist Party of Great Britain (in the name of the Communist International) issues the stirring call to the workers of Britain given below.

It faces the fact that May Day this year is Miners’ Day; and that upon the fate of the miners that of every worker sooner or later depends.

May Day - the day annually dedicated to the affirmation of international working class solidarity - falls this year with tragic opportuneness. The eyes of every worker in the world will be fixed upon the British miners - seeing in their bearing and their fate a forecast of their own.

The process of economic collapse, general through Europe since the war, has driven the British capitalist class to further and more drastic lowering of the life standards of the British workers, and they have chosen once again the miners as the first section upon whom their onslaught will fall ...

Never before was international solidarity so much a matter of life and death as today, when the British workers face the outcome of months of capitalist preparation for battle all along the lines ... The British workers on this May Day must give them a firm warning that, faced with the threat of physical coercion, they will take every necessary step to defend themselves, their leaders and their organisations ...

Against all the plans and schemes of capitalist ‘reconstruction’ ... we must set our programme of workers’ reconstruction - the establishment of the rule of the workers in every land.

... The leaders who in 1914 deserted the flag of proletarian solidarity to follow those of their kings and kaisers are still with us as a drag and a hamper.

The workers must repudiate all their lying talk of reconciliation between classes, of social and industrial peace, and boldly affirm the watchword: The emancipation of the workers must be the work of the workers themselves.

... In every way May Day 1926, with its call to immediate and general action, must be made the starting point of a new era.

Every man behind the miners

All together for a general advance

No toleration for traitor-leaders

A united front against the united foe

All power to the workers!