Vera Buch Weisbord

May Day 1931


Published: CLASS STRUGGLE, Official Monthly Organ of the COMMUNIST LEAGUE OF STRUGGLE, May, 1931;
Source: The Albert & Vera Weisbord Archives;
HTML: for marxists.org in March, 2002.


May Day 1931 -- A call to action for the Communists to take of the Banner of Struggle for International Revolution.

The capitalist world sinks ever deeper into the crisis. It heaps misery upon misery upon backs of the toiling masses. For countless millions of human beings life today is a torture house of hunger, unbearable toil and black anxiety. In China, and India, in other colonial countries, revolution presses forward. Everywhere the capitalist rulers look anxiously for remedies. But they can find no way out of the blind alley. War looms as the only solution they will choose.

Amidst all the chaos and suffering the Soviet Union, the Workers' Republic, stands firm and strong. No intrigues of Stalin, no blunders of the Communist International have yet dimmed this hope of the workers of the world.

For our new-born Communist organization, the way in America lies clear. This country is drawn further and further into the whirlpool of the world crisis. There is no separate course for us. Only the international Communist revolution will give any permanent solution to the anxious problems of the masses.

Ten Million Now Jobless

Ten million unemployed suffer the pangs of hunger and cold. And in the factories with new speed-ups and wages cut to the bone there is a hell just as bad. On the farms, gaunt starvation stares the producers of food in the face.

The government runs from this relief measure to that but no real help is forthcoming. The profits of the big corporations pile bigger than ever. And to curb the discontent and restiveness of the masses, to crush the rebellion that is brooding in the cities and in the country, anti-foreign and anti-red measures are being carried out. The Fish Committee recommendations will strike a heavy blow at the radical movement. Lynching, aiming to crush the rebellious spirit of the Negroes is increasing to a terrible extent. The latest legal lynching planned in Alabama of eight Negro youths is a dastardly crime which the whole working class must rise to prevent.

We are not fooled, either by the phrases of the Communist Party that the whole working class is in a "revolutionary upsurge" or by the Lovestone idea of the "docility" of the workers. The masses are not revolutionists yet, but they will respond quickly to any real Communist leadership. That they are not docile is proved overwhelmingly by the big wave of strikes in recent months. The textile strikes of Danville, Va.; Philadelphia, Pa.; Lawrence, Mass.; Shelton, Conn.; the longshoremen's strike of New Orleans, the strikes of the anthracite and West Virginia miners, all these are but forerunners of bitter if short strike battles in which the workers will strike back for some of the terrible worsening of their living conditions.

The trade union movement is in chaos and disintegration. The Communist movement is no better. The Trade Union United League has miserably fallen down in its important tasks. But amidst this chaos the appearance of the Communist League of Struggle with its clear cut theses comes as a fresh message of hope.

Must Not Forget Past Struggles

On May 1931 we raise the call to action. We base ourselves upon the best traditions of the American working class. We do not forget that in the eight hour day struggles of the workers of this country was the origin of the first May Day as Labor Day. We do not forget the bitter workers' struggles of the past in this country; we do not forget the Knights of Labor, the Western Federation of Miners, the I.W.W. in its militant days. We carry forward the traditions of Passaic, of New Bedford and Gastonia in which battles we ourselves fought at the head of the workers. We are armed with the science of Marx and Lenin, not with cablegrams from Moscow.

For this coming May Day we call upon the American workers to take their place in the ranks of the revolutionary workers. We join in a united front with the Communist Parties demonstrating the world over. We call upon our members and followers and upon workers everywhere to join in the demonstration called by the Communist Party, to leave their machines, bring out the workers from their shops, to come forth upon the streets in a mighty demonstration against capitalist starvation and unemployment and for Communism.

Men and women workers, young and old, Negro and white, join with us in the struggle.

Sharpen the struggle against the exploiters!

Join the Communist League of Struggle!

All power to the Working Class!

-- Vera Buch