11.05.1995

Communist optimism

While paying lip service to Bolshevism, the British left boycotts London's May Day march

ONCE AGAIN, London saw a spirited, disciplined and militant May Day demonstration, as its streets reverberated to the sound of revolutionary chants and slogans.

As usual, the Communist Party provided the most impressive ‘British’ contingent. True to our reputation and tradition, we gave the clearest expression of communist optimism, which is so sadly lacking within the bedraggled ranks of the ‘revolutionary’ left in Britain.

Also true to their own tradition, organisations like the SWP, Militant Labour, WRP, etc, were conspicuous by their absence.

For all their vainglorious proclamations about “world revolution” and the evils of “socialism in one country”, our friends have a peculiarly insular, almost isolationist, approach to internationalist solidarity. The SWP even holds its own separate May Day jamboree!

Our Party attracted many to its banner, including a comrade from New Zealand, who thought that we “looked the best”. We sold nearly 200 copies of our May Day special edition of the Weekly Worker - an impressive figure, especially if you remember that the vast majority of people who attended the May Day demonstration were Turkish or Kurdish.

Even though the numbers at May Day have been steadily declining over the last few years, we are absolutely confident that in the near future hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of workers will once again join the demonstration and point the way forward for the whole of humanity.

Danny Hammill