The Executive Committee of the Young Communist League has released a statement to mark International Workers Day 2021.
The Young Communist League sends comradely greetings to the workers and youth of the world on May Day 2021!
Even in the depths of this COVID-19 pandemic, it is the struggle of working people against oppression and our solidarity with each other that have been a bright light in a bleak world.
This year’s May Day comes as we slowly emerge from lockdowns and restrictions. Now is the time to energise and rededicate ourselves to the struggle for peace, democracy and socialism.
International Workers’ Day is a day born out of the struggle against the capitalist class. It is a day when workers of the world join together to celebrate that historic struggle. We come together to remember the achievements of the working class. The eight hour working day, an end to child labour, trade union rights – these are but a few and there is still a lot more to fight for. The past we inherit – the future we build!
Change happens when working people join together collectively, and the same is true today. Working people have never been gifted our gains, we have had to fight for them and today we remember the sacrifices those who have gave their all in the fight for Socialism. They should never be forgotten. We remember the dead, but more importantly we fight for the living.
On 1 May 2021 working people in Britain stand at a crossroads.
As if more evidence were needed, COVID-19 has demonstrated that capitalism is an economically, ideologically and morally bankrupt system. It is a system with nothing to offer the youth and working people other than exploitation, oppression and uncertainty.
Throughout the pandemic, Britain’s capitalist class has prioritised private profit, keeping the economy open for as long a possible and handing public money to incompetent private firms. Well over 130,000 people have died, the vast majority of these deaths were preventable. Millions have been thrown into poverty, uncertainty and misery through lack of support.
Capitalism in Britain is unwilling and unable to protect the lives and livelihoods of working people.
By contrast, the Socialist countries continue to show why we need a planned economy which prioritises working people above all else. The Socialist camp have led the way in containing and defeating the virus, minimising infections and deaths, while ensuring working people continue to have a dignified life.
Britain’s ruling class can’t be allowed to gamble with our lives. We won’t pay for their criminal negligence.
We can’t tolerate a return to their ‘normal’ after the pandemic. Their ‘normal’ wasn’t working for working people. We can’t allow the ruling class or their Tory Party to use the crisis as a further excuse to attack worker’s rights and living standards and to transfer hundreds of millions more of our money to privateers.
The Tories and Britain’s ruling class must be held to account. A mass movement is needed to fight for a real strategy to beat COVID-19 now and once and for all – and to deliver a dignified life for working people after the pandemic. For this it is essential we build strong trade unions, a strong Communist Party and a strong YCL to defend and empower the working class.
In 2021, our fight is waged in difficult circumstances, against tall odds, with limited time to save humanity. But there can be no accommodation reached with the ruling class and the capitalist system, no path of conciliation.
The choice for Britain’s youth is socialism or barbarism – socialism or extinction.
Comradely greetings on May Day to the youth and working people of Britain and the world, your struggle is our struggle!
Join the struggle for peace and Socialism in our lifetime!
Lenin! Party! YCL!
Executive Committee
Young Communist League
1 May 2021
London, Britain
