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International Communist Workers Party

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Our Cry This May Day:

FOR WORKERS' COMMUNIST POWER!

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"The brilliant basic idea of May Day," wrote Rosa Luxemburg in 1913, "is the independent, immediate stepping forward of the proletarian masses, who usually can give expression to their own will only through the ballot."
This May Day 2013, we salute the workers who have stepped forward from the mines of South Africa, the factories of Egypt's Nile Delta, the fields of Honduras, the schools of Mexico, and more.
These militant fighters have broken out of the ballot box. They have rejected parties like the African National Congress and the fmln in El Salvador that rode to power on their backs. They have unmasked those who "raised the red flag to hide the red flag." But breaking out is not enough. We must also build. We must build one International Communist Workers' Party to mobilize the masses for communism.
Only communism can tear down the walls that divide our international working class into the bosses' "nations." Working people have no nation! In communist society we will travel widely and be welcomed home everywhere.
Only communism can end wage slavery, mass unemployment, hunger and homelessness. Communism will unleash the vast creative potential of the masses to plan, produce, and distribute everything we need so that nobody, anywhere, will live better or worse than others.
Only communism will unite life-long education and work to serve the masses instead of the great capitalist god of profits. All, from childhood to old age, will contribute to our common well-being and enjoy life to the fullest.
Communism will have no class distinctions. Everyone will work in industry and agriculture. Everyone will nurture the young and share the work of daily life. Everyone together will make the decisions that shape our collective future.

May Day: For Communist Revolution, Not Reform
May Day is the holiday of the masses of toilers, born in Chicago in 1886 in the struggle for the shorter workday and embraced by the first communist International in 1891. May Day reflects the profound contradiction between revolution and reform wherever the masses are in motion.
May Day has been celebrated openly in Egypt since the fall of the Mubarak regime. In 2012, reformers calling themselves "communists" and "revolutionary socialists" marched for a new trade-union law and higher wages.
Now the masses are rising up against the new government of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood in strikes and militant rebellions, mainly of industrial workers. Close to 100 have been killed, but the protests still grow. In Mansoura last May Day, some chanted against military rule and capitalism. Their cry must become: for communist workers' power and abolition of the wage system!
In South Africa, as the ANC prepares to "honor trade unions" on May Day, its police commissioner Riah Phiyega refuses to admit that cops massacred 34 Marikana Lonmin platinum miners last August. This March the Lonmin miners struck against the official trade unions. Hundreds of Limpopo coal miners walked. Their May Day cry must become: for communist workers' power and abolition of the wage system!
In Chicago, Los Angeles, and other US cities, Democratic Party-controlled unions and community groups march on May Day for "comprehensive immigration reform." Leading US imperialists need this to guarantee a large, loyal, and cheap workforce as they prepare for wider wars, eventually world war.
In these May Day marches, our cry will be: smash all borders, for communist workers' power and abolition of the wage system!


Raise the Red Flag for Communism, Nothing Less
On May Day 1913, leaflets secretly written and distributed by a few hundred communist workers mobilized strikes of 250,000 in St. Petersburg, Russia. But, wrote Lenin, "much more impressive were the revolutionary street demonstrations:
"Everywhere, crowds of workers singing revolutionary songs, calling loudly for revolution and carrying red flags fought for several hours against police and security forces."

"This year's May Day strike," wrote Lenin, "was revolutionary in character as distinguished not only from the usual economic strikes but from demonstration strikes and from political strikes demanding constitutional reforms."
But raising revolutionary red flags wasn't enough.
Russian communists called for a "republic." They – like many today — thought the masses "weren't ready" for communism. So the heroic mass struggle that seized power in Russia four short years later built "socialism." Tragically, communists in power kept money, wages, banks, and markets: key elements of capitalist social relations. It wasn't long before they became the new capitalist class.
This May Day, grasping the lessons of that monumental tragedy, we raise the red flag to mobilize the masses for communism.


Workers, Soldiers and Youth: Communism Is in Your Hands
The 1913 St. Petersburg Party Committee consisted "entirely of workers, and we write the leaflets ourselves," said the railway worker A. Badayev. His comrade S.V. Malyshev described how difficult it was for unschooled workers to "organize and manage a working-class newspaper." Many became literate only when imprisoned for revolutionary activities.
Comrades, grasp the International Communist Workers' Party as your own! Write for Red Flag! Don't wait for instructions, don't ask for permission. Gather your friends, family, coworkers and begin to put communist ideas into practice wherever you are!
As in the past, hundreds will mobilize thousands, and thousands will become millions. As we see today, in Europe and Africa and Asia and the Americas, the masses cannot be stopped by repression or diverted forever by reform. We truly have nothing to lose but our chains. We have a communist world to win.