The Young Communist League of Britain sends greetings to the working people of Britain and the world on May Day 2019!
For well over a century International Workers’ Day has been celebrated across the planet by workers and the revolutionary youth.
It is a time celebrate the proud history of the international working class and communist movement and everything it has achieved. It is also a time to reflect on the failures of the movement, to ensure they are never repeated in the future.
We remember those have given their all in the fight for socialism and for peace.
Most importantly it is a time to steel ourselves for the struggles ahead. This May Day we call on the youth of Britain to join or rededicate themselves to the struggle for socialism.
The world has changed much during even our brief lifetimes. New methods of communication and technological revolution have changed our world dramatically. Working people are capable of being united closer than ever before over national borders.
In this spirit, May Day is a celebration of working people, their unity and their unique role in human history.
Much has changed about British society and our world. In the 1990s the ruling class and their hangers-on gloated over ‘the end of history’ and the historic victory of capitalism. The 2008 Financial Crisis and the continuing political and economic turmoil since then have proven this to be incorrect.
While society remains riven by class division, while wealth and power is controlled by a tiny minority, there can be no stability or progress. Capitalism is a outdated and decaying system.
Despite changes we have seen in the last century, class struggle remains the engine of history. Working class state power and the construction of socialism represent the next stage in human development.
Increasingly the youth of Britain are coming to this realisation. Cold War propaganda is losing its potency. The arguments of liberal, conservative and social democrat politicians are found to be bankrupt.
Socialism is firmly back on the agenda. But socialism won’t simply come into being because it is morally superior. There are powerful forces working against it.
It is the task of the Young Communists to win the youth of today to the disciplined struggle for socialism.
This struggle takes on a new urgency in 2019.
Across the imperialist EU bloc far right and neo fascist forces are on the rise. This is a direct result of the policies promoted by the EU which have lead to poverty, unemployment and declining living standards for working people. The failure of the left across Europe to lay the blame squarely at the door of Brussels has allowed this development. The Communists call on all socialists, trade unionists and democrats to join the struggle to break the EU bosses club.
In Britain this means campaigning to respect the referendum result and win a Workers’ Brexit. A complete break with the EU on the terms most favourable to working people. We must also demand a People’s Boycott of the coming European Elections. This cynical attempt to keep Britain involved in the institutions of the EU is the groundwork of a sinister plot to subvert democracy and the vote.
The total collapse of UKIP was one of the major successes of the Brexit vote. However, subverting Brexit will allow the far right to return in force.
Even more pressingly, human civilisation today faces an existential crisis.
Capitalism has proven itself unable and unwilling to halt, let alone reverse, the destruction of the environment and the planet’s ability to sustain human life. In the coming years an irrevocable climate catastrophe will be set in motion. By contrast, Communists and the socialist countries, including Cuba, China and Vietnam, have provided radical policies and practice which can save the planet. Increasingly the choice for humanity is no longer socialism or barbarism, but socialism or extinction.
Today’s struggle is waged in difficult circumstances, against tall odds, with limited time to save humanity. But the youth of Britain and the youth of the world will not shrink from this struggle. The youth have always exemplified the best of humanity’s optimism and self-sacrifice.
Socialism is not simply desirable, or an improvement on capitalism, it is essential for the future of our generation and humanity. It’s time is now.
Today, May Day, the world shakes with the power of working people everywhere, their untapped potential. We stand on the shoulders of giants.
To the youth of Britain we say –
Join the struggle for peace and socialism in our lifetime!
The youth are the future! The only future there can be is socialism!
Lenin! Party! YCL!
Executive Committee
Young Communist League
1 May 2018
London, Britain
