Every first of May we commemorate the Chicago Strike of 1886 that culminated in
the so called Haymarket Riots. The strike ended with thousands of workers beingfired and many injured, the vast majority of them immigrants from Europe. Thismass mobilisation was fought extremely hard by the authorities, who subsequentlyexecuted the five "Chicago Martyrs", trade unionists and anarchists militants.---- Chicago was the starting point of a worldwide movement to win the 8-hourworking day that lasted for decades. The working class achieved this goal thanksto the struggle, not thanks to the decisions of parliaments. Most of our rightsare won through the offensive of the popular forces. It is when the strugglestops, that the correlation of forces changes, and the ruling class starts to cutrights.For decades the ruling class of Europe as part of the imperialist core was ableto secure basic standards of living for 'their' working class by colonial andimperialist exploitation of the global south with the aim to undermine resistancein their own backyard. Although this exploitation and oppression continues toexist, we can see that even those standards of living are more and more underattack: Having to work more and more to get the same pay, seeing our livingstandards decrease through inflation or seeing our pensions cut or the retirementage increased. For some years now, we have been experiencing a process ofdispossession of the working class that is accelerating due to the various crisesthat feed back on each other.We have the post-pandemic production crisis, the energy crisis, the housingcrisis, the crisis of increasing resource scarcity and the climate crisis. All ofthem will mark a time of change towards another kind of civilisation and all ofthem bring us new conflicts that can develop in the field of geopolitics. In thissense, we do not want to forget the terrible war in Ukraine, where the greatworld powers have been at each others throats for more than a year, producingdeath and devastation en masse.Social anarchism understands that empowered peoples cannot expect substantialimprovements in their lives through parliamentary struggle. On the contrary, intimes of scarcity authoritarian monsters grow. Right-wing ideology pretends touse the diversity of the working class to single out groups to hate: immigrants,the LGTBI community, Romani and Sinto people or even feminism or environmentalism.We cannot fail to point out that the libertarian communists will always be withoppressed people and social groups and that we believe that collectiveself-defence against authoritarianism is a means of building a better world,which necessarily involves diversity, fraternity between peoples and theconstruction of a free and socialist society. Anarchism is a permanent effort togenerate emancipation from mass direct action, from diverse but federated andcohesive social struggles, building the correlation of forces that allows theradical changes we need.We, the European anarchist organisations signing this communiqué, wish all theworking class of Europe and the world a happy and militant May Day.For the construction of popular powerLong live anarchyLong live libertarian communismLong live May Day- Anarchist Communist Group (ACG) - Great Britain- Alternativa Libertaria/FdCA (AL/FdCA) - Italy- Die Platform - Germany- Embat, Organització Llibertaria de Catalunya - Catalonia- Organization Socialiste Libertaire (OSL) - Switzerland- Union Communiste Libertaire ( UCL) - France, Belgium and Switzerlandhttps://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2023/05/01/communique-of-european-organisations-of-the-anarkismo-network-for-may-day-2023/_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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