Today, May 1st, marks 140 years since hundreds of thousands of American women workers went on strike to fight for the eight-hour workday. They succeeded. The still-young working class, bolstered by the tireless efforts of communist and anarchist activists, forged in decades of struggle, sharpened its weapons and showed the entire world what it was capable of. ---- The bourgeoisie, naturally, was not going to remain silent: three days later, in Chicago, the police would open fire indiscriminately on protesting workers; the bourgeois press would slander the strikers and incite repression; and a rigged trial would result in the execution of anarchist activists. The bourgeoisie responded with everything it had, and it wasn't enough.
Despite the barbarity, despite a capital now unmasked, willing to use every means at its disposal to conquer, devastate, and exterminate, the working class of yesterday demonstrated its power as a social force.
The bourgeoisie could do little against a self-aware class that managed to prevail and impose the eight-hour workday. That victory is our legacy.
Two centuries later, this May Day, we renew the commitment of all those who fought for the dignity of the working class. Today more than ever, with our class in the process of reorganization, searching for its path, we remember and embrace the history of all those who dedicated their efforts, and sometimes even their lives, to the struggle of all.
Because, although the forms change, the oppression against our class continues. We discover it in our lives, increasingly precarious and insecure, forced to exist in a system that jeopardizes the possibility of accessing decent housing, of making ends meet despite having a job. Naming it is the first step in confronting it.
Once again, we denounce labor exploitation, working conditions that make us physically and psychologically ill, wages insufficient to cover basic needs, precarious contracts, and the growing difficulty of balancing work with rest and our personal lives; a situation that particularly affects the most vulnerable sectors of our class.
Against the rise of the far right and against fascism, which infiltrates society through fear, disillusionment, and the feeling that nothing makes sense. It dissolves in the internet and crystallizes in the institutions of the bourgeois state to defend the interests of those who are truly its masters: the capitalists. Against the fear that paralyzes, we oppose the organization that liberates.
Our class is not homogeneous. We live under the weight of various forms of oppression and violence that are intrinsic to and sustain capitalism, such as colonialism, imperialism, racism, sexism, and discrimination against sexual and gender minorities. Unity is not a given; we build it day by day, adding up the struggles and marginalized working-class people. Every addition is a victory.
We are internationalists and, therefore, we have a global understanding of capitalism, which leads to solidarity with oppressed peoples. Borders are nothing more than instruments of class. We reject all the institutions of the bourgeois state created for its defense, from immigration detention centers to Frontex.
We promote a class-based interpretation of environmentalism, denouncing the plundering and destruction of our resources, economic neocolonialism, and the devastation of the land caused by capitalist accumulation and the false theory of infinite growth.
The climate and energy crisis, exacerbated by unequal distribution, must be understood within this framework. It will be the working class, especially those in the Global South, who pay with their blood for the consequences of the struggle for resources and with their livelihoods for the consequences of droughts and storms.
Against imperialist rearmament, war, and genocide, waged to defend the interests of the Western capitalist class, which has been ravaging the Global South for years. Capitalist, imperialist, and criminal wars that claim the lives of the working class in defense of the interests of a few who will never experience the harrowing reality of setting foot in a war zone. Our solidarity knows no borders because neither does our struggle. No war between peoples, no peace between classes.
The working class is going through a period of recomposition. Without a revolutionary political program, it is condemned to a struggle of resistance, where victory is not progress, but rather halting the erosion of the victories we won yesterday. It is held back by unions controlled by and for capital, which limit and betray its struggles.
The end of history has not yet arrived, nor, much less, the end of the history of our class. Sprouts of hope still sprout where others see only silence. Every assembly called, every strike sustained, every comrade who takes a step forward carries within her the potential for a crack that might just bring down the wall.
Today we are given the opportunity to reorganize and build a strong revolutionary and libertarian organization, capable of confronting bureaucracies, opportunistic or authoritarian deviations. An organization that not only resists, but also brings us closer to the world we want: horizontal, based on solidarity, alive.
We are not starting from scratch. We are starting from 140 years of hard-won struggles, from memories that sustain us, from comrades who came before us and believed it was possible, and were right. The only path we have as a class is revolution.
Today, yesterday, and tomorrow, our war is one and the same: the class war.
Batzac - Hedra - Liza - Xesta - Embat
https://regeneracionlibertaria.org/2026/05/01/nuestra-unica-guerra-es-la-guerra-de-clases/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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