Our Message For May Day, 1948 (1948)

From the May 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

This time a hundred years ago the European world was immersed in conflicts that were bom out of the struggle of Capitalist industry to smear its murky thumb across the pages of history. Since then it has spread across the world, carrying war, ruin and misery in its wake.

Although the wounds of the last war are still open, millions still fret over the loss of their loved ones, and hunger and disease are ravaging a large part of the population of Europe and the East, the leading powers of the world are preparing to engage in another war tragedy with means of torment and destruction more terrible than mankind has ever known in even the most murderous epochs of its history. With cynical hypocrisy, after so recently exchanging vows of eternal peace and mutual congratulations about the final destruction of the dragon of autocracy which, they claimed, had for so long threatened the peace of the world, our masters, again bring forward, as an imperative justification for a new period of slaughter, the worn out claim of a battle to safeguard democracy. Thus in a world still suffering and torn by the dissensions thrown up by the last useless holocaust of slaughter, the war clouds are fast gathering again.

This new war that is foreshadowed is a struggle between the Eastern and the Western imperialistic powers, the old brigands and the new. In this country the Labour Party are in the seat of power and their attitude to the problem of war is the same as that of their predecessors in power—the defence of the interests of the British section of the capitalist class. The Communists, in their blind worship of Russia under the Bolsheviks, are defending the imperialistic policy of Russia in language that is a repetition of the familiar pleas put forward on behalf of the older imperialistic powers.

In these circumstances it is necessary to call attention once again to the following facts:

• That the wealth of the world is produced by the labour of the working class of the world, who receive in return wages that are barely enough to provide a poor existence for themselves and their families;
• That the wealth so produced takes the form of commodities, which are sold on the markets of the world on behalf of the capitalist class, the owners of the means of production, for the sole purpose of providing a profit for that class in order to enable its members to live in luxury without the necessity of working;
• That this profit represents the difference between the value of what the worker produces and the value of what he gets, in the form of wages or salaries, to provide him and his family with means of subsistence;
• That the pursuit of this profit, the result of the exploitation of the workers, is the fundamental cause of all modern wars which are quarrels between sections of the master class over the division of the spoil arising out of the robbery of the working class;

That, therefore, the workers of the world should unite across the false barriers of territory, race, colour and creeds into one world-wide combination of their class for the purpose of putting an end to their exploitation by abolishing the present system of capitalist production; in its place they should establish a socialist system, in which the means of production will he owned in common by the whole of mankind and used for the sole purpose of fulfilling equally the needs of each member of society, thus removing the profit motive as a social incentive and replacing it by the socialist principle of “from each according to his capacities, to each according to his needs.”

As the establishment of this socialist system of society is the only means to prevent wars we call upon the workers of all lands to join together to accomplish this end and we point out the need for haste if the world is to be saved from a devastation that might well involve all in a common ruin and put an end to humanity’s progress for hundreds of years to come.

We further affirm our determination, whatever the immediate future may bring, to continue our policy of opposition to war and our advocacy of Socialism as the only solution to the problems that beset the working class, no matter on what part of the world’s surface sections of that class may be employed.

This is our message for May Day, and it is the only message of hope in a world that appears to be on the verge of catastrophe.

Gilmac.