May Day Leaflet

For five years international capitalism has been unable to drag itself out of the depths of the most severe economic recession since the Second World War. Soon after September 11th 2001 the international bourgeoisie declared that the world economy's problems could be blamed completely on the terrorist attacks of Al Qaeda on the USA and on the political instability which followed. But as usual the ruling class was consciously lying.

In reality the present recession began well before September 11th with the collapse of the speculative bubble of the new economy in March 2000, and the real causes are to be found only and exclusively, in the contradictions of the capitalist mode of production. The recession originated in the in the heart of the international capitalist system (the USA, the EU and Japan) and made itself felt all over the planet in trade conflicts, in permanent war and in the dramatic decline in the standard of living of the proletariat.

Since the start of the millennium wars have been fought which have neither come to an end nor solved anything. This is no accident. US imperialism first invaded Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban government. Only a few years earlier it had been the US' faithful ally. Then, using the export of democracy and the destruction of weapons of mass destruction held by Saddam Hussein as excuses, it unleashed a "preventative" war on Iraq. These are wars for control of the oil market, fought by the US and its allies in order, at the end of the day, to defend the oil and financial revenues that derive from the hegemonic role of its own currency and from the fact that the price of oil is expressed in dollars.

Ever-widening poverty, increases in exploitation of the labour force, the lengthening of the working day, the insecurity of employees; all these have suddenly accelerated with the present economic recession which, in its turn is a consequence of the more general crisis of the capitalist system. The governments of every state, whether of the left or right, have cut pensions, and the budgets for education, health and public transport: in short the aim has been to cut, wherever possible state social spending. The capitalist crisis is international and as such the international working class is going to pay a dear price for it.

The radical reformist proposal to give everyone a citizen's income or a guaranteed basic minimum wage only serves to blow more smoke in workers' eyes. Capitalism is in crisis. In order to sustain its own cycle of accumulation it is forced to attack the working class, impose lower wages and increase work rates rather than guarantee wages.

Workers of the whole world, the issue is not to struggle for a charitable but impossible citizen's income, or for wages that will never ever be guaranteed, but to struggle to overthrow this society based on the exploitation of wage labour. Against the international attacks of the bourgeoisie the entire working class needs to know how to defend itself internationally, breaking with all bourgeois political forces and with the logic of the trades unions, whether that of joint management - a device for the exclusive defence of the bosses' interests - or the vain attempt to create alternative unions.

We need to relaunch the struggles of ordinary workers, organising themselves without union interference, struggles which start from real workers' demands and which have the capacity to widen to other sectors of the working class.

But the simple revival of working class struggle is not enough to overthrow the capitalist system. It requires also the rebuilding of the international and internationalist party of the proletariat. A political party which, having critically settled accounts with Stalinism and its various heirs knows how to lead the international proletariat in defence of its class interests and in preparing for the alternative to the capitalist system, communism.

Against imperialist war and the logic of profit for the revival of the class struggle and the rebuilding of the working class' international party.