#1stofmay

Historically May the 1st is the day of year where we remember the past of the workers movement. Typically this looks like a history of defeat. The history of the proletariat is a history of hard fought battles frequently let down by internal betrayal and the shifting of capital. In the communist and socialist movement its much more common to celebrate martyrs than it is victories.

A hundred years after the events of 1917, and the wave of great battles that that revolution inspired. We would do much better to see the last hundred years as a history of combat and not just defeats and martyrdom. The 20th century was a century of strikes and militancy, where the image of struggle was workers discovering their voices for first time in shop floor committees and councils. It was a century where the proletarian started to come into formation, not just in the factories of Europe but globally. 1917, 1919, 1936, 1956, 1968, 1969, 1976, 1977, 1984 are all dates that instantly summon images of a rich history of militancy. Of red flags and barricades. Of workers and their families, fighting against not just the boss but the union and the decaying husks communist parties would become.

This history is international, the history of Africa, Asia and the Middle east is usually reduced to a history of “national liberation” and civil war. Instead we should remember the struggles in the factories, farms and mines of a newborn proletarian - as capable and combative as that in Europe, which fought for itself not merely for changes in government.

As we begin the century of the global proletarian, with the production process crossing the entire globe. We should be reminded that for Marxists the proletarian and its continued resistance to capital, its conditions and symptoms is the prime mover of history - and for the first time in history we are clearly seeing the proletarian on a global scale. In some ways we would be better off considering the struggles of the past up to today as a dress rehearsal of jealous understudies of what is soon to come.

Today looks hopeful, the workers movement is in disary - largely this is a good thing. The traditional saboteurs of the union and party hack are long gone, and we have an opportunity to build a future outside of narrow frameworks such as work or the nation. We should ditch the baggage of the old workers movement and separate ourselves from squalid leftism. We’re fighting for ourselves, and ourselves only and we shouldnt be afraid to say that. We want everything for everyone AND everything for ourselves. We want luxury and we want communism, there is no contradiction between the two. The working class goes to heaven so they say.

As has been demonstrated in the mass waves of strikes in China, South East Asia and Latin America and riots from Paris to Ferguson the future is very much one of fire and fighting. We should realise our mistakes, the great spectacles of the past, from 1917 to 1968 were flawed. We need to ask ourselves why they didn’t win and what we can do better. The world today looks very different to the world that surrounded communists in 1917, and yet holds many more opportunities and terrains of struggle to be discovered and resistance built on than a hundred years ago.

The communist movement today is disoriented, it has retreated to the academy in lieu of the shop floor, much of it has traded class for politics of individual identity, it has forgotten where it has come from and where it can go. In same ways however it is pushing new ground, it has opened new fronts - we are weak as a movement but it in some ways the class is at its strongest potentially ever in our history. We shouldn’t fall into the trap of continually comparing ourselves to our ancestors when history is dead and buried and everything has, can and will change.

The present is ours as well, struggle is not an abstract thing that happens in the past and future. The present appears bitter and uncertain, but so has all of history, every defence and restructure of capital and every attack by us is an accelerant. Fuel poured on the fire of what might be. I’m writing this message from Kobane, Rojava where I never imagined I would find myself. If nothing else the struggle of the Federation of Northern Syria should remind us that it is still possible to tear down and transform the existing conditions, no matter how daunting or vile the opposition. And that revolution, the act of shaping the world to our will is still very much possible.

The past is ours, we should be proud of it for what it is not necrophilic for what might of or could never have been. The future too is ours and we should never forget that. In fact it is worth repeating, for on days like mayday we look too much into what we have lost and too much into the struggles of those who threw their hopes as bricks at the old enemy when we can should be looking for ways to induce or own struggles into labour.

Its worth repeating because it should be a reminder against distraction and opportunism within our movement. Its worth repeating because it should serve as a warning to those who would seek to see us subjugated and ruined. Its worth repeating because we carry our past with us, must learn from their mistakes and push forward history with haste and tact.