The Time Is Now to Seize the Initiative!
Stop Paying the Rich!
End Aggression, State Terrorism and War!
Step Up the Fight to Create the Alternative!

Workers' Daily Internet Edition : Article Index :

Call of RCPB(ML) on the Occasion of May First, 2002

On May First, workers of all countries celebrate their unity in struggle. It is a time when they declare that there is an alternative to the capitalist system of exploitation and oppression. Not only that, but it is a time when they pledge that they will step up their struggles in defence of their rights and in the course of doing so will step up their fight to put an end to the old order and begin to establish the new.

On the occasion of May First, 2002, our Party, RCPB(ML), in the name of the workers of England, Scotland and Wales, pledges to intensify its work to prepare the subjective conditions for the revolutionary transformation of the old society. It pledges to redouble its work to organise the working class to turn things around, constitute itself the nation, and to empower the people to build socialism.

Events over the past year have confirmed that this is a critical moment in world history. The more US imperialism under George W Bush and the British government under Tony Blair have declared that "globalisation" and the "war against terrorism" are in defence of the highest of ideals, the more have these agendas been exposed as blocking the advance of society and as crimes against humanity and attacks on the rights of the vulnerable, the rights of nations, and the rights of the working class and people world-wide.

To persist in enriching the international financial oligarchy, to persist in carrying out and backing aggression, state terrorism and the imposition of enslaving international relations through force, is a declaration by Tony Blair, George Bush and other big powers that no solutions favouring the people are to be permitted. This declaration must be challenged! The agenda of paying the rich, carrying out aggression, state terrorism and war, and attacking the rights of the vulnerable, cannot be allowed to succeed!

The time is now for the working class to seize the initiative and rally round itself the youth, women, national minorities and all other collectives of the people, in its advance towards a better world, a world in which it is the leader of society, and puts the needs of humanity at the centre of all decision-making.

In ending their marginalisation and seizing the initiative, the workers must take the lead in demanding that the direction of the economy must change.

They must demand that the surplus social product all be applied to investing in the economy and in programmes which centre on the well-being of society, the harmonious development of the national economy, and the needs of the people for health, education, pensions, the protection of the environment and the cultural life of the people. Workers must demand that the government stop handing over the national wealth to private capital under the guise of investing in social programmes, and must oppose the militarisation of the economy and parasitic speculation which removes much-needed funds from the economy. Workers must demand an end to the programme of privatisation in favour of ensuring that the needs of the people are met as of right. They must demand an end to all state intervention and laws which hinder or prevent them from organising in defence of their own interests, and in defence of the general interests of society.

The workers must demand the renewal of the political process and institutions so as to empower the people, give constitutional effect to their rights as citizens, and establish modern sovereign states of England, Scotland and Wales. This is an aim which favours the whole working class in Britain. The workers must oppose the imposition of the "sense of belonging" and "values of citizenship" which make all those who oppose neo-liberal globalisation, the anti-social offensive and the pursuit of Britain's "enlightened self-interest" the "enemies within". They must affirm the watchwords of the working class that "an injury to one is an injury to all", and must take the lead in this respect in the defence of the rights of all.

Workers must demand the end of the nuclear blackmail of the big powers, which these powers pursue through the monopolisation of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Instead workers must call for the complete destruction of all weapons of mass destruction without exception, and an end to the lucrative arms trade for aggressive aims, and the bringing home of all troops of Britain and the big powers on foreign soil. They must also raise their voices against the aggressive NATO military alliance and all such aggressive blocs and alliances, and demand that they be dismantled. The workers must call for Britain to end its policy of political and monetary integration with the European Union, which with other emerging big-power blocs threatens world peace and the sovereignty of peoples, and withdraw from it. Workers must demand the democratisation of international relations, particularly the UN and its Security Council, on the grounds that all countries, whatever their size, must participate in international affairs on the basis of equality.

The independent programme of action of the working class is integrally linked with the struggle for socialism and serves the forward march of the class and the broad masses of the people to a new society. The aim and historic mission of the working class is for vesting sovereignty in the people, ending the exploitation of persons by persons and making sure the exploiters cannot deprive the people of political power.

On behalf of the working class in Britain, on May First 2002, our Party sends its militant and heartfelt revolutionary greetings to the working and oppressed people of all lands fighting for their national and social liberation. It sends those greetings also to peoples who are continuing their struggle for the independence of their countries, including the peoples of the Republic of Cuba and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea who are opposing the US imperialist blockades and continuing the struggle to maintain the socialist systems of their choice.

Hail May Day, Day of Unity in Struggle of the International Working Class!

Plant the Alternative on the Soil of Britain!

Build the Workers' Opposition to the Programme of Globalisation and Privatisation!

The Time Is Now to Seize the Initiative!

Fight for a Socialist Society in which the Claims of All Are Recognised by Virtue of their Being Human!

Workers of All Countries, Unite!