We honour Labour Day, the dead workers of Chicago in 1886, all the unyielding fighters of the class struggle that even gave their lives for the rights of their class, for the abolition of the exploitation of man by man, for socialism – communism. We draw strength from the historical experience by organizing the contemporary struggles of the working class, its alliance with the other popular strata, against the attack of the capital, the anti-popular measures of the EU and its governments, against imperialist interventions and the EU-US-NATO wars, in order to meet contemporary needs.

The contradictions of capitalism are sharpening and apparent to all: continuous wars, refugees, crises, mass unemployment, exploitation, inequality, workers’ impoverishment and environmental pollution.

The capital tries to conceal the real causes that generate this reality in order to divert the correct popular indignation towards directions that perpetuate capitalism, hiding the fact that the impoverishment of the working masses internationally and the growing inequalities between rich and poor, as well as between countries with different levels of development, are the result of the division of society into classes and of the process of capitalist accumulation.

The injustice that characterizes capitalism as a system based on exploitation is endeavoured to be justified as a result of the economic conjuncture or as a defect in the management of the system, whereas, instead, it is a characteristic intrinsic to capitalism itself, both in crisis and in its economic recovery phase.

The capital also uses nationalism – racism as a weapon of “mass distraction”. Only the imperialist bourgeoisie benefits from this, thus hiding its enormous responsibilities for wars and the looting of entire countries. The refugees and immigrants who flee from their countries because of imperialist wars, as well as from the imperialist peace which comprises exploitation, diseases and misery, contribute to widening the “reserve army of labour ” that capital uses to further reduce everyone’s wages.

On May 1st, we reiterate once again the solidarity of the communists and the labour movement with immigrant proletarians. The class enemy is not the immigrant, but the capitalist. It is the capitalist who fires, who reduces wages, who imposes inhuman working conditions. The way out can only be found in class unity and equality of rights for all workers, both native and immigrants.

We denounce the opportunism of social-democracy, of the collaborationist trade unionists and their compromised leadership, who act to defuse the people’s discontent and only help to guarantee the survival of a dying system. The bourgeoisie tries to neutralize the popular discontent also by suppressing social protest and by channelling it to movements that, regardless of their “right” and “left” connotation, serve the interests of the capital, its governments and its international imperialist alliances, such as the EU and NATO.

For example, the bourgeoisie is trying to divert the just and widespread indignation against the ecological devastation and the damage to health of workers towards neo-ecological movements that criminalize the individual consumer instead of the big monopolies, omitting to denounce that what threatens the very survival of the planet is the exploitation of natural resources by capitalist monopolies in search of profit maximization and imperialist wars. Hope lies in the class struggle, in the organization and regroupment of the workers’ movement.

This year, May 1st coincides with the beginning of the European election campaign. The peoples know from their experience that the EU is not improving, it can only be worse, more anti-popular and reactionary. This is why we must break the chains that hold us prisoner, we must intensify the struggle against the EU and NATO, the political-military institutions of European imperialism that guarantee the domination of capital to the detriment of workers and peoples.

The Europe of workers and peoples cannot arise by this European Union that perpetuates capitalist oppression and imperialist aggression.

We must concentrate our action against the EU and NATO, starting from this May 1st, a day from which a new season of proletarian struggles must start for the claiming of labour rights, the overthrow of capitalism, for socialism-communism.

On the occasion of this May 1st the Communists greet and express internationalist solidarity with the workers of Europe and all over the world, who are everywhere engaged in the struggle for their rights and their emancipation from the shackles of the capitalist system.

Long live May 1st!

Proletarians of the world, unite!