By ALLEN
HUTT

{s the bright ‘afternoon of.Sun-

day,May 4, 1890, a surging
throng of Londoners poured in-
‘o Hyde Park. Bands blared’

lively march music, Bannets
jilowed Overhead. It was the

h of a new day—May Day,
International day of labor.

ixty years later it is appro-
Priate to recall some of the cir-

“Umstances of that first May.

Y demonstration. For in Brit-
‘ beyond all other countries
that day was historic.

© outstanding feature of
i ’y Day from the start was its
Xternationalism. It expressed

cr tect that the working class
Of all Countries had become con-
US of its common interest as
4 Class, irrespective of nationali-
sign et Or color. It was the
ae that the national working-
ah Organizations needed to
Behe. internationally if those
ite interests were to be
ily Served, ;
oe celebpation of May Day
Thte the outcome of the Paris
1 Thational Congress of July,

» Meeting on the centenary

fe fall of the Bastille, sym-
Of the triumph of the French
“Yolution. :

the et Congress, which founded

Oren ond historic international
-Sanization of. the working
ag Called for:

% sreat international de-
Nonstration, so that in all
“untries, on one appointed
ay, the toiling masses shall

end of the State authori-
AN S the legal reduction of the
| orking day to eight hours.”
Y 1, 1890, was duly ap-
» that having already
tra Selected p the American
Action Wions’ as their date for
houp | to secure thé legal eight-
Mark ay, which, it may be re-
lay ae Was then the most popu-
“Tang Progressive general de-
Tn wong the working class.
itain, the movement to
n Eee &% May Day demonstra-
Predeni.y Personally directed by
founds, ck Engels, immortal co-
em q.. With Karl Marx of mod-
op ™munism.
his London house in
S Park Road, Engels in-
4nd instructed the little
rs pe Marxists, headed by
or, Tilliant daughter, Elean-
Ave. 2e? husband, Edward
Bg 2S. Whose work in the East

erBaniy,

for a new mass move-
© aS Preparing the way
Uiy iN ®stablishment of a gen-
~~ S0Cialist Workers’ party,

)

Sreat Movement among the
rt wonkens snd donk
: © simmer of 1889, in
Which Heanor Marx—

; With socialists like
QT). John Burns, and
art, : ett—played a leading
tonism revolutionizing trade

(YEE jay

peeseow Unionism? i
Boats sm,’ as it
bie gic Produced the first
leq lap enzations of the un-
pes man, and it did
ership, *Volutionary socialist

 Britain’s first |

_ May Day

FREDERICK ENGELS
He personally directed the first May Day

Marxists set themselves to or-
ganize May Day—set apart May
4, the first Sunday in May; as
part of their general plan ‘“‘for
the development of a live so-
cialist organization” (to quote
Engels).

They therefore took the lead
in the establishment of a cen-

By CHARLES SIMS

FE used to have some great»

May Day rallies in the West-
ern coa] fields years ago. The
May Day celebrations in the
Crows Nest Pass were something
to remember, The miners apn
their families from Fernie, Mi-
chel, Corbin. Frank, Coleman

- and Hillcrest used to gather in

) ntains
lairmore‘ and the moun

ee to resound with their cheers
for working-class solidarity.

I often recall] some of the early
lessons taught me by great

Working-¢lass fighters such as
Bill Nikiforiak the Drumbeller
miner. Bill used. to say:
“Charlie: you are digging coal
for 58 cents a ton, and don’t
forget you pay for the blasting
powder and fuse and for your
tools, The boss gets $3 a in
when that.coal gets into the
railroad car. No wonder we are
poor, and he is rich!

There were some Seen
May Days in Toronto during t ee
‘thirties. Norman Freed, oy
the Communist party and oe
Ben Spence from the CCF us

tral committee in London rep-
resenting trade unions and the
Radical working men’s clubs.
They invited the London Trades
Council to join them in pre-
paring the demonstration; but
the council at that time was
dominated by its secretary,
George Shipton, who represented

May Days

to do a good job organizing
truly powerful May Day parades

to Queen’s Park. The bandstand -

used to be surrounded with
thousands of workers throbbing
with the spirit of labor unity for
peace, democracy and socialism.

I would say that May Day is
the finest thing that the work-
ers of the U.S. and Canada have
given to the world. Those pion-
eers of the 1880’s were doing
the right thing when they asked
the workers of all lands to make
May 1, 1890 an international
day of demonstration for the
rights of labor and solidarity. On
this the 63rd May Day, is there

any more important word than

solidarity? Solidarity is the
thing that has won every victor.
for the working class. <

I’ remember inspiring May
Days in New York when the

marchers took eight solid hours -

to pass the Union Square review-
ing stand, The 1946 one, I
think, was the last I saw. Thou-
sands of beribboned U.S. Second
World War veterans marched;
there were tremendous cheers
for Bob Thompson and John
Gates and the veterans of the

humanity rejoices aid

the old craft union outlook and
was bitterly opposed to the “new
unionism,”

Shipton, aided by the highly
sectarian Socialist group, the
Social Democratic (Federation,
sought to make the May Day
demonstration their own priy-
ate preserve, and with this in
view booked Hyde Park with-
out consulting the central com-
mittee, ; :

However, the attempt failed
because the central] committee,
in the person of. Edward Aveling,
warned the authorities that
serious trouble could be expected
in the park on May 4 if the de-
monstration was restricted to
the purely trade union affair
planned by the London -Trades
Council,

The authorities, being then
rather nervous of mass demon-
strations, agreed that a double
demonstration would be permit-
ted.

Having secured this, the cen-
tral committee conducted an in-
tensive campaign which com-
pletely floored the trades coun-
cil; many of that body’s affili-

ated unions supported the cen- -

tral committee.

In the end Shipton and his
colleagues had no alternative but
to agree with Aveling the ar-
rangements of what was in ef-
fect a united demonstration,
with the biggest forces on the
side of the central committee
and its Marxist eadership. q

On the very eve of the demon-
stration Engels was able to
write enthusiastically that “this

- is our first great victory in Lon-

don,” adding that if it turned

-out to be “a giant demonstra-

tion, it is only Eleanor and Avel-
ing we will have to thank for it.”
e 2 ’

That first May Day was in-
deed a giant affair. There were
nearly 200,000 people in Hyde
Park. Engels himself was an
eyewitness and summed it up in
this way:

“Round the seven platforms
of the central committee
dense, innumerable crowds.
advancing with music and ban-
ners—over a hundred thous-
and in the procession — in-
creased by almost the same
number who had come: indi-
vidually; everywhere unani-
mity and enthusiasm and yet
order and organization as
well. Round the platform of
the united reactionaries, on

* the other ‘hand, everything
' seemed fiat.”
To Engels this London dem-

| remember

Lincoln Battalion who fought for .

democracy in Spain along with
the Mackenzie- Papineau Bat-
talion,

Most Canadians have seen
movies of May. Day in the Soviet
Union, where the working class
long ago, in 1917, realized the
dream of the pioneers and took
over political power and began
to build a new world free of
bosses, expolitation and wage
slavery. Truly is May Day over
there the universal day of joy
and celebration of the exploits
of all who labor by hand and
brain. It is an unforgettable
experience to be in a Moscow
May Day.

How vast have the changes
been since the Internationa] So-
cialist Congress sent out its
message in 1889 to the workers
of the world to demonstrate on
May Day, 1890! Never has
history moved so fast as in these
62 years! Over one-third of all
labors
joyously in lands of socialism.
And more than half of humanity

onstration outshone all the other _

successful demonstrations in
Europe in its historic signifi-
cance. In an article for the
leading Austrian Socialist paper
he wrote:

“I consider this the grand--
est and most important part of
the whole May Day festival
that on May 4, 1890, the Brit-
ish working class newly awak-
ened from its 40 years’ win-
ter sleep, again entered the
movement of its class. And
that is an epoch making faet.
The grandchildren of the old
Chartists are entering the line
of battle.” ‘ -

©
That great demonstration was
the living sign that the new
working-class tide was at the
flood. z ‘ oy

The Marxists seizeq the op-
portunity of the enormous en-.
thusiasm that was generated to
take the next step towards the
establishment of “an independ- —
ent workers’ party.” This was
one of the main aims of a con-
ference which the central com-
mittee called for June 22, 1890,
to which all London trade un-
ions and working-class -organiz-
ations were invited,

This conference transformed |
the central committee into a
wider and permanent body, call-
ed the Legal Hight Hours and
Internal Labour League,
The league became the
which led the advanced trade
unionists to victory over the
“old gang” at the Trades Union
Congress at Dundee that same
year. And it was ‘the league
which continued the organiza-
tion every year of May Day in
those vital formative years of
the early nineties, t

Those were the days which
led Engels to write that “there -
is no power in the world which
could for a day resist the British
working class organized as a
body.”” And later he was to say: >

“Independent nations go
their own way, and of them
all the English and their off-

. Spring are surely the most

independent. Their insular.
stiff-necked obstinacy annoys
one often enough, but it also
guarantees that once a thing
sets started, what is begun
will be carried out.”

In the spirit of the first May
Day we now have to play our
Part, all of us, in seeing that «
the “thing gets started.”” The
moral of May Day—unity, na-
tional ang international—is the
moral now as it was then.

.

wide movement that struggles to
win enduring péace among the
nations!

The greed and cruelty of the
master class has not gbated.
Here in Canada and in too many
countries they grind the work-
ing. people down. You'll pay
$25 a ton for coal for which the
miner might get a dollar for dig-_
ging out of the earth's bowels.
They’ll waste billions for germ
war in Korea, and refuse te. =
spend a few thousands to give .
a little park where our children
could play in safety. It is still] a

“pitter, unending struggle for the

worker to get enough to feed his
family and pay the rent.

But the tide is rolling up,
mightier than the tides of
Fundy. It won’t be too many
May Days from now when the
workers of Canada and the U.S.
will also march joyously on May
Day, heralding the exploits of
peaceful labor. For the people
are going to win peace, They
are going to curb and subdue
the exploiters and merchants of
death. The slogans of May Day
— peace and solidarity are com-

marches forward in the world- ing true! :
PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MAY 2, 1952 — PAGE 13