From ‘Revolt!’, May 1, 1939, London, UK
May Day was inaugurated in 1887 during the Chicago strike for the eight hour day, a strike led by Anarchists, a number of whom were framed up and executed for their heroic stand.
The Anarchists address the workers once again, and urge the only revolutionary road, anarcho-syndicalism, in the spirit of ’87.
Magnified a thousandfold, that spirit has been shown by the Anarchist workers in Spain. The struggle there goes on, and the same struggle is continued by Anarchists all over the world.
In Britain the ruling class drive towards fascism intensifies. The official Labour Party does nothing. The Communist Party, loud in its attacks on fascism through Peace Blocs and United Fronts, plays into the hands of reaction. But the Fascist drive — rooted in the tyrannical requirements of decaying capitalism — continues at home and abroad. In the colonies of the British Empire fascism is already established. The subject peoples of the British Empire experience even worse tyranny than the subject peoples of Central Europe.
Seeing foreign fascism only as the evil, the Left is swung into the War Front in the belief that it will be fighting fascism, and sees democracy undermined and sabotaged by the same ruling class with whom it would ally itself for fighting fascism — abroad.
Naval ratings at the command of the Admiralty are used in strikes. A.R.P. [Air Raid Precautions] is supported, despite its potential use as a strike-breaking organisation. Youth is conscripted. Behind the cloak of “National Service” National Servitude advances, and is the same tyranny as the fascism against which the Left declares war.
The politicians continue with their policies of open treachery or false manoeuvring against aggression. The industrial boycott and the embargo, all forms of Direct Action against the advance of fascism, are conveniently ignored.
The Anarchist movement warns the workers that it is they who are the object of the ruling class’s attack. They are its enemy because as the decay of capitalism advances and their conditions inevitably worsen, they will rise against the rule of their exploiters.
The militarisation of the people will not be used to weaken fascism abroad; it will be used to strengthen it at home.
Between the ruling class and the workers there must always be enmity. Nationalism, whatever its form, is a diversion of the struggle and a betrayal of its principles.
We urge the workers to organise themselves at the point of production, to prepare to take over the machinery of production and distribution from the capitalists, and to defend themselves against the intervention of the State. The State opposes the working-class whatever may be its pretensions and claims.
Anarcho-Syndicalism must supersede bankrupt State Socialism and Reformism. Workers’ Committees in shops and in factories — Direct Action by the workers themselves — strikes which will fight towards Workers’ Control. These are the working-class needs of the day.
Note
The authors of the Manifesto appear to have confused 1887, the year of the execution of the Haymarket anarchists, or perhaps the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, with the Chicago May Day strike of 1886.
-Ed.
Also
Anti-War Manifesto, by the Anarchist International (1915)
Manifesto of the Anarchist Federation on War (1943)
