More than a hundred years have passed since Errico Malatesta lamented in these pages that May Day demonstrations no longer aroused the enthusiasm of so many years ago. ---- May Day remains a great international day. Even its balls, its parties, its concerts have an intrinsically revolutionary character, because they are the result of desertion from military service in the service of capitalist competitiveness and productivity. ---- Desertion must be the watchword of this May Day. Desertion from the production and transportation of weapons, desertion from every government and their wars. Therefore, solidarity with deserters and the fight against militarism: these are the themes for a contemporary interpretation of the internationalist character of May Day.
In the article published in Umanità Nova in 1920, Malatesta summarized the criticisms that a more "intransigent" segment of the anarchist movement, already leveled at the beginning of the last century, regarding the "degeneration" of May Day. Pietro Gori also protested against these criticisms in his time.
The reasons for these criticisms were manifold: regret for the loss of its revolutionary character was compounded, for some, by the refusal to prepare for an internationally agreed-upon event. Movements are spontaneous, it was said, and cannot be summoned on command, according to predetermined deadlines; still others expressed contempt for mass participation, which diluted the revolutionary character of minorities and individuals. Overshadowing all this, however, loomed one of the main obstacles to the anarchist movement's action: the belief that even May Day was not revolutionary enough for anarchists.
Errico Malatesta takes up these criticisms and turns them on their head: it is not the character of the masses that weakens the revolutionary character of May Day, but the insufficient involvement of the anarchist movement. It is up to anarchists, Malatesta argues, to characterize May Day as revolutionary and enrich it with content, without allowing themselves to be influenced by the process of weakening. What would good old Errico say, now that May Day is a national holiday? Even the Church, concerned about the exploited classes' support for the occasion, decided to intervene by dedicating the first day of May to Saint Joseph the Worker.
Yet even today, May Day, with its swarm of picnics, songs, dances, parties, and concerts, casts a threatening shadow over the privileged classes and governments, who do everything they can to nullify it and empty it of meaning.
And May Day remains a major international event. The idea of an affirmation of will by the exploited classes and the revolutionary forces of all countries on a specific, not random, day; the gesture by which, on the same day, workers around the world quit their jobs and deserted their workplaces. All of this still represents a threat to those who would chain us to the mirage of capitalist competitiveness and productivity. The celebration of the labor movement's achievements, through celebrations as well as rallies, is a testament to the growing awareness of society's class divisions and the solidarity of the proletariat beyond the boundaries drawn on paper.
Moreover, the revolutionary nature of the celebration should not be underestimated.
Governments envision a future of scarcity and catastrophe, in which war once again becomes the instrument for resolving international disputes. A bleak future of subjugation to capital's chariot, under the guise of co-participation and national solidarity. Modern production is unthinkable without the discipline of those who provide labor capacity. All energies must be directed toward increasing productivity, disciplining and repressing vital instincts and regulating the consumption of food, beverages, and any substance that could impair the labor force's ability to function. At the same time, the body and mind of those who provide the workforce become the field in which discipline techniques are tested, along with the administration of substances capable of increasing work performance and making individuals more disciplined with respect to corporate hierarchy.
Thus, even a party, which interrupts this mechanism of submission to production at all costs, takes on a subversive character, and the same picnic, which frees people from the concrete of dormitory neighborhoods for a day, ends up being more effective than a rally in exemplifying the character of the society we want to build.
It is up to the anarchist movement to instill in these moments of liberation from the yoke of capitalist exploitation the elements of revolutionary intransigence that characterized May Day from the beginning.
Remembering the origins of May Day means remembering the Chicago Martyrs. August Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer, and George Engel were hanged for organizing a strike on May 1, 1886, demanding the implementation of the eight-hour law. Louis Lingg committed suicide in prison the day before his hanging.
Remembering May Day means remembering the universal, cosmopolitan solidarity, transcending all homelands, of every person oppressed by work and driven by the desire for emancipation.
May Day offers us the example of great days of struggle, built on the unity of forces that call themselves the workers' movement. The anarchist movement alone would not have been able to bring this experience to life. We must therefore be able to build relationships with other components, while always remaining ourselves. The history of May Day itself demonstrates that thanks to the commitment of part of the anarchist movement, this date was successfully defined. Another segment of the movement, in the name of a misguided purism, preferred not to participate in decision-making. If the entire anarchist movement had followed this path, the Social Democratic leaders would have had the path paved to transform May Day into a simple propaganda opportunity for their electoral aims, to be held on the first Sunday in May. As they wanted to do, and as was not done.
"Desert, phalanxes of slaves," exhorts Pietro Gori's May Day anthem. Desertion from work is a central element of May Day. Today, desertion takes on a more general meaning, given the progressive transformation of the economy into a war economy. And alongside the more general desertion from work, we must also demand desertion from the production and trafficking of weapons, which fuels wars around the world. It's not just an individual choice to ease our conscience. Desertion is the first step in building a mass movement to influence production and distribution, so that the production of death can be transformed into the production of goods and services designed to alleviate the misery of the majority of humanity.
Above all, desertion from all wars. To those who say there is an aggressor and an aggressed, we repeat that all governments, all capitalists, are the aggressors. We must desert all wars, we must support deserters, opening our borders and organizing all possible forms of support.
This is what May Day 2026 calls us to do.
Enough with militarism! The march toward war can only be stopped by grassroots action.
Long live May Day! Long live the international unity of the working class! Long live anarchy!
Tiziano Antonelli
https://umanitanova.org/primo-maggio-internazionale/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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