For a fighting International Worker’s Day!

In 1884 the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, demanded an eight-hour workday to come into effect as of May 1, 1886; the lack of resolution to the workers demands resulted in a general strike and in what is now known as the U.S. Haymarket Riot of 1886, when the laborers who demonstrated against their conditions of exploitation were attacked by the police. The state had sent agent provocateurs to start disturbances giving the cops the needed pretext to attack and repress the demonstration. This is ended in the frame-up and execution of several worker leaders who became the Haymarket martyrs.
Today, at the beginning of the 21st century, when the development of productive forces is more than enough to make possible that the world population lives comfortably, we find instead, more than ever, a world divided among exploited and exploiters; where the largest part of the population lives in poverty, and we find ourselves in a planet where the plundering and subjugation of whole peoples to the actions of imperialism is an every day occurrence. May Day should mark the day when the workers of the world organize and unite in struggle against their class enemies, against those that now hold political and economic power, to achieve a world where those who labor rule.



Invitation to the first National Workers Encounter

To the workers who have adhered to the Sixth declaration and to The Other Campaign
To the workers who struggle and to all of those who are exploited:

We, who participate in The Other Campaign that develops throughout the country of Mexico invite you to the first National Workers Encounter that will take place the coming Saturday April 29, in Uniroyal National Workers Union hall, located in Lago Plava # 95, Huichapan, Mexico City. We will gather to discuss the objectives of:

1.- Preparing our participation in the International Workers Day commemoration, on May 1st, throughout Mexico during the action known as “The Other May Day”.
2.- To discuss democratically a plan of struggle and action to defeat the sell-out leadership (charros) in all of our union organizations.
3.- To promote throughout The Other Campaign the formation of a democratic organization which is dedicated to internationalist class struggle, that will permit us to confront and struggle against the capitalists and their government, the one that is in place right now and the one that will be in power after the presidential elections of July 2nd.
4.- To strengthen struggles, through the formation of currents and groups within unions, to take back our organizations from the agents of the capitalists and the old and new sell-out leaderships (charros and neocharros).
5.- To rescue the fundamental principles of the working class, and our participation in the political life of the country.
6.- To discuss a platform of struggle that will permit us to reestablish the true role of workers within society, independently and through struggle, with clear objectives, where class independence prevails to develop their political participation.
7.- To strengthen our unity with the poor peasantry, the indigenous people, the popular sectors, women, youth and the exploited and oppressed sectors that exist within Mexican capitalist society, which are the only allies that we can count on.
8.- To envelop with solidarity the different struggles that many of our comrades develop throughout the entire country and the necessary links with workers of other countries.
This invitation is totally open to workers in general and to those who are interested in this initiative, but the workers will be the ones that will count with a space to reflect and reach agreements.

Sincerely

Sindicato Nacional Revolucionario de Trabajadores de la Compañía Hulera Euzkadi
Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de Uniroyal S.A.
Grupo de obreros del Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de General Tire
Grupo de trabajadores de la Compañía Hulera Tornel
Grupo de trabajadores despedidos de IBM, el Salto
Frente Solidario en Defensa de los Derechos laborales de San Luís Potosí
Sindicato del Personal Academico de la Universidad de Guadalajara
Frente Único Nacional de Trabajadores Activos, Jubilados y Pensionados del IMSS
Colectivo de Sindicalistas con la Sexta
Central Unitaria de Trabajadores
Partido Obrero Socialista
Ejercito Zapatista de Liberación Nacional

All of those who are interested in the encounter call 5591-0168 and 5703-2244 in México City, or write to: posmex@prodigy.net.mx or agnmex@yahoo.com.mx

In this era of bourgeois reaction, in a time when the ruling class feels most emboldened because of the lack of organized opposition to their power, it is necessary to look at the example of the revolutionary working class heroes, those that showed us that it is not only possible to swim against the current, but that constant struggle is necessary until the liberation of humanity from class exploitation is achieved.

ROSA LUXEMBURG

Rosa Luxemburg was born in Zamosc Poland in 1871. She joined a revolutionary party called Proletariat at the age of 16. Because most of the leadership was executed or incarcerated, and repression fell on the entire organization she was forced into exile. She soon became the theoretical leader of the revolutionary Socialist Party of Poland. Her long struggle against deviations from Marxism and revolution began with her polemics against the program of the Polish Socialist Party, which emphasized on the nationalist struggle against the predations of Czarist Russia. For Luxemburg nationalism distracted the working class from its internationalist struggles against the class rulers, to her a Polish exploiter was not much different from a Russian, and true liberation could be achieved only through international socialist revolution. But what brought attention to her in the international socialist movement was her fight against the reformism of a sector of German Social Democracy which was then headed by Eduard Bernstein. She had just recently joined the German Party, then the center of socialist thought, when she rose against the revisionists who dreaded revolution and sought to fight only against the “excesses” of capitalism, and who were looking to create a theoretical justification for their betrayal; Bernstein wrote that capitalism was becoming more and more organized and just for the general population, and that therefore socialists should work towards bettering the conditions of the workers through union work and within bourgeois legality. Luxemburg responded to this by pointing out that the contradictions “between the rising productive forces and the relations of production” were constantly growing, creating the conditions for the further exploitation of the working class, future economic crises and inter-imperialist war. As a Marxist she understood that the existing legality is a product of class rule and that the state and their organizations are not neutral but serves to protect the rights of the bourgeoisie. For Luxemburg, the search for the amelioration of exploitation did not lead to the abolition of the wage system and private property which are the foundations of the capitalist system and therefore of all exploitation because historically all social, economic and political foundations were created through a social revolution that overturned the previously existent forms. To call for an end to violence would mean renouncing to the creation of an egalitarian socialist society, and wrote:
“[P]eople who pronounce themselves in favor of the method of legislative reform in place of and in contradistinction to the conquest of political power and social revolution do not really choose a more tranquil, calmer and slower road to the same goal, but a different goal. Instead of a stand for the establishment of a new society they take a stand for surface modifications of the old society… [it] becomes not the realization of socialism, but the reform of capitalism; not the suppression of the system of wage labor, but the diminution of exploitation, that is, the suppression of the abuses of capitalism instead of the suppression of capitalism itself” (Reform or Revolution).
The First World War, which began in 1914, served to divide international Social Democracy into three different camps. The right wing became social-patriots supporting “their own” exploiters, the domestic bourgeoisie. The centrists stood as the bulwark of …inaction, pronouncing very radical discourses but acting in a reformist manner, helping to perpetuate capitalism. The left stood as a minority against the war, and sought to transform it into civil war against the class rulers of all countries. Luxemburg was one of the leaders of the left, in Germany, Poland and Lithuania, and as such, she worked tirelessly to point out that war is a product of capitalism, and that therefore the only way to end war is through a class struggle that would unite the workers of the world in the creation of a Socialist society. Rosa points out that because of the destructiveness of the capitalist system the alternatives only are Socialism or barbarism, and writes:
“Shamed, dishonored, wading in blood and dripping with filth –thus stands bourgeois society. Not as we usually see it, pretty and chaste, playing the roles of peace and righteousness, of order, of philosophy, ethics and culture. It shows itself in its true, naked form- as a roaring beast, as an orgy of anarchy, as a pestilential breath, devastating culture, and humanity” (Junius Pamphlet).
Rosa Luxemburg visualized the social revolution with the conscious participation of the working masses. She saw in the political mass strike as the mean for the broad participation of the working class, which would have at its apogee the open uprising. Past revolts and revolutions started as spontaneous uprisings and because she was a witness to the ossification of the German party leadership she emphasized on the spontaneous factors that would lead to revolution, fighting against bureaucratic centralism and pyramidal relations within the movement. In this also lies her criticism and understanding of the Bolsheviks and the Russian Revolution. As a Marxist she could not stand by and close her eyes to what she considered to be wrong, but as a historical materialist she also recognized that humans are products of the existing societies and of historical circumstances, unable to make history exactly as they please, and thus she wrote:
“It would be demanding something superhuman from Lenin and his comrades if we should expect from them that under such circumstances they should conjure forth the finest democracy, the most exemplary dictatorship of the proletariat, and a flouring socialist economy. By their determined revolutionary stand, their exemplary strength in action and their unbreakable loyalty to international socialism, they have contributed whatever could possibly be contributed under such devilishly hard conditions…[T]heirs is the immortal historical service of having marched at the head of the international proletariat with the conquest of political power and the practical placing of the problems of the realization of Socialism, and of having advanced mightily the settlement of the score between Capital and Labor in the entire world…And in this sense, the future everywhere belongs to ‘Bolshevism’” (The Russian Revolution).
When Luxemburg, Liebknetch, Mehring and others founded the Spartakusbund (Spartacus League) they wanted to create an organization that would fight side-by-side with the working class against the exploiters, and because of the uneven development of political consciousness due to the ideological domination of the bourgeoisie they still considered it necessary to have a political organization that would put forward the conscious aims of socialism, as she wrote: “This mass movement of the proletariat needs the lead of an organized principled force” (Ausgewählte).
At the end of the First World War the German bourgeoisie sought the services of the reformists; the so-called “socialists” that Luxemburg had fought against for so many years were now administering the capitalist state with a “leftist” facade. She knew that they would disarm the workers and leave the doors open for right-wing reaction, and took up the task of moving the working class towards taking power for their complete liberation. And it was fighting side by side with the workers that she was murdered on January 15, 1919. Through her death the communist movement lost one of its most important leaders, and bulwarks against the Nazi taking of power and against the perpetuation of the capitalist dictatorship, and exploitation of humanity.
Rosa Luxemburg’s legacy is one of unyielding struggle against capitalism, imperialism, and against reformism within the workers movement. She will always be remembered for her merciless criticism of everything existing, as one of the greatest revolutionaries in the history of humanity. At present time the tasks that she putted forwards are more pressing than ever, it is still either Socialism or barbarism, as she pointed out:

“Bourgeois society faces a dilemma, either a transition to Socialism, or a return to barbarism…we face the choice: either the victory of imperialism and the decline of all culture, as in ancient Rome –annihilation, devastation, degeneration, a yawning graveyard; or the victory of Socialism – the victory of the working class consciously assaulting imperialism and its method: war. This is the dilemma of world history, either –or; the die will be cast by the class-conscious proletariat”.