OUR HISTORY:
WORKING AND POOR PEOPLE'S HISTORY:
ANARCHO-SYNDICALISM AND THE REAL ORIGINS OF MAYDAY
The time will
come when our silence is more powerful than the voices you strangle
today.
Louis Lingg, working class fighter, Anarcho-syndicalist
militant, one of four hung in 1887 by the bosses and rulers in
retaliation for the FIRST MAY DAY.
One hundred years ago, workers rose up and created a day that
millions now cherish. May Day originated to mark the sacrifices of
the Anarcho-syndicalist movement in that great revolt.
May Day is the day of international working class solidarity,
which reminds us of our common struggle across the world for a decent
life, democracy and socialism. The first May Day was held in South
Africa in 1902. In 1984, Black workers in South Africa took up a
successful campaign to have May Day recognised as a public holiday.
THE FIRST MAY DAY
The origins of May Day lie in the struggles of the
Anarcho-syndicalist movement. This fact is conveniently hidden by the
history books.
In the USA, the Anarcho-syndicalists established an organisation
called the International Working Peoples Association (IWPA) in the
early 1880s. The IWPA fought against racism, against the class system
and for a stateless socialist society. Centring around large cities
like Chicago, the IWPA wielded a large working class influence,
promoting workers culture and revolutionary politics. In Chicago
alone, the IWPA had 5 newspapers and political leadership in the huge
Central Labour Union.
In 1886, the IWPA threw its support behind the call for a General
Strike for an 8 hour day on Saturday, May 1. At least 340,000
workers, Black, White, and immigrant, joined this strike across the
country. In Chicago, up to 50,000 struck and 80,000 attended a march
organised by the IWPA and the Central Labour Union.
"Pittsburgh Manifesto"
These are the beliefs they died for...The "Pittsburgh Manifesto"
of the anarcho-syndicalist International Working People's Association
Adopted 1883
By force our ancestors liberated themselves from political
oppression, by force their children will have to liberate themselves
from economic bondage... What we would achieve is, therefore, plainly
and simply
FIRST- Destruction of the existing class rule, by all
means, i.e. , by energetic, relentless, revolutionary and
international action.
SECOND- Establishment of a free society based upon co-operative
labour organisation of production.
THIRD- Free exchange of equivalent products by and between the
productive organisations without commerce and profit-mongery.
FOURTH- Organisation of education in a secular, scientific and
equal basis for both sexes.
FIFTH- Equal rights for all without distinction of sex or race.
SIXTH- Regulation of all public affairs by free contracts between
the autonomous (independent) communes and associations, resting on a
federalistic basis...
The day has come for solidarity. Join our ranks! Let the drum beat
defiantly the roll of battle: "Workmen of all countries unite! You
have nothing to lose but your chains, you have a world to win!"
Tremble, oppressors of the world! Not far beyond your sight there
dawns the red and black lights of the JUDGEMENT DAY!
{Main article contd}
THE BOSSES ATTACK
This support for struggle alarmed the racist ruling class of the
USA. It became determined to smash the workers movement.
On Monday, May 3, events came to a head at the McCormick Machine
Company in Chicago, where the struggle for an 8 hour day coincided
with a several months long lockout of union members. That afternoon,
strikers clashed with scabs at the plant. The cops then opened fire,
killing and injuring an unknown number of workers.
This massacre outraged the IWPA and the workers movement. The
anarcho- syndicalists organised a mass protest in the Haymarket
Square in Chicago on May 4. As the meeting ended, 200 police attacked
the crowd. An unidentified person (probably an agent provocateur)
threw a bomb into the middle of the police, injuring several and
killing one. Under the order "Fire and kill as many as you can!" the
police shot into the crowd, killing and wounding more than a 100.
MILITANTS MURDERED
The capitalist press and the Church started a howling outcry
against the anarcho-syndicalists, blaming them for the violence!
Across the country, mass arrests, raids, and bannings of radicals
followed.
8 leading anarcho-syndicalist militants from the IWPA and the
Central Labour Union were arrested and falsely convicted for throwing
the bomb. Despite world wide protest, and the obvious bias of the
trial all were given the death sentence for murder. Four were hung in
November 1887; 1 committed suicide before the execution.
200,000 people lined the funeral procession in Chicago, and 20,000
crowded into the cemetery. Later the State admitted what all workers
knew: that these men had nothing to do with the bombing. The truth
was that the bosses were using the hysteria around the bomb to attack
the working class movement.
In 1889, the American delegation to the International Socialist
Congress in Paris proposed that May 1st be adopted as a workers'
holiday to commemorate the struggle for an 8 hour day and the
execution of the "Chicago Eight".
Since then May Day has became a day for international solidarity.
We should honour the memories of these great working class fighters
by fighting for the ideas for which they sacrificed everything: the
ideas of Anarcho-syndicalism. It is a disgrace to do otherwise.
Standing on the gallows with his comrades Albert Parsons, Adolph
Fisher, and George Engel, Louis Lingg shouted to the capitalist
hangmen: "The time will come when our silence is more powerful than
the voices you strangle today". That time is now.
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