Some links to May Day History by Norman Markowitz

by: Thursday 1 May 2014

The history of May Day is linked irrevocably to the struggle for working class liberation and for socialism.  In 1889, a meeting in Paris of working class and socialist organizations from many nations on the 100th Anniversary of the French Revolution called for demonstrations through the world on May 1, 1890, for the eight hour work day, specifically demanding that the eight hour day be established by law through the world, not be bargaining between unions and employers.  May first was chosen because of events which took place in Chicago in the first days of May, 1886, events which saw  the beginning of a national campaign for the eight hour day called for by the Knights of Labor in the U.S. and ended with a police riot in Haymarket Square  and the execution of labor anarchists in a political trial which shocked and outraged democratic forces in the U.S. and everywhere

Rather than tell the story of those events, I have presented below three powerful you tube clips which recreate the story.

From the first May Day demonstrations in 1890, May Day spread throughout the world as a day of workers marches, parades and struggle, taking up by both socialists and communists, advanced also by all partisans labor.  Dictatorships sought to ban it, police in many countries acted to break up demonstrations, sometimes rival groups held competitive demonstrations, but it continues.  Happy May Day, but, given events in the world, not too happy, for May Day began as a time for political thought and action, and today there is tremendous need in the U.S. and through the world for both political thought and political action in the working class movement

Norman Markowitz

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OQxncb2ihQ&list=PL37FA8AC59B12C160

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w-z8ud_9QU&list=PL37FA8AC59B12C160

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKkEl9XzjFc&list=PL37FA8AC59B12C160

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  • Speaking of links-our own Thomas Paine had very interesting links to the French Revolution, and the dastardly, stealthy activities of our own president George Washington(Paine accused slave master Washington of betrayal, of setting him up for a prison term in Europe's Luxembourg, where Paine enjoyed much political and social support from the revolutionary French government), it seems, were not limited to Washington being owner of human labor, property, black skinned, body and soul.
    Paine of course, was one of the most progressive patriots of the American Revolution-Paine did not own slaves, along with Franklin, Rush, and Henry-all of whom opposed slavery, but did own slaves.
    One hundred years after the French Revolution, there were links with the international working class and the U. S. working class and May Day, as pointed out in your piece, the great Thomas Paine, who penned, both our Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of Rights, saying, "The Cause of America is the Cause of France and the cause of all Mankind."

    Posted by E.E.W. Clay, 05/09/2014 12:27pm (11 years ago)

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