[Nyclocal] Happy May Day from the SP-USA-NYC Local

[William Wharton]

---Please Read and Forward---

Happy May Day to all (or most) from the SP-USA-NYC Local...

May Day Returns     
May Day celebrations in the United States (US) have been resuscitated.  Notes on May Day’s demise proliferated following the collapse of Soviet bloc in the late 80s and 90s.  Commemorations in the US limped along held together only by the noble yet not particularly effective efforts of anarchists and socialists.  Workers mostly disregarded the day, while trade union leaders remained married to the Macarthyite inspired September Labor Day. 

This situation was transformed rapidly, and perhaps permanently, in 2006 as immigrant workers moved onto the national scene through mass rallies in cities throughout the U.S.  This new May Day celebration was dubbed “A Day Without Immigrants” and amounted to a mass strike of millions of immigrant workers operating outside of the structures of organized labor.

With May Day back on the political map, socialists have a duty to attempt to synthesize the experiences of the past and the present.  The writings of early socialists are particularly helpful since they capture the manner in which May Day served to focus the rising militancy of the working class. 
Particularly noteworthy is a letter penned by Socialist Joseph Coldwell and published in the Daily Worker in May 1924.  After experiencing numerous May Day’s as a “class-war prisoner,” in U.S. jails he understood the day as the highest expression of “…the power of class solidarity.”

Coldwell argued that the commemorations provided workers with a sense of commonality in the global struggle against capitalism.  For one day each year, the typical fomented by capitalism based upon “land and language,” “on land or on the seas, sick or well, imprisoned or at liberty,” were replaced by a collectively shared desire for liberation.  Despite attempts of varying severity to eliminate May Day celebrations by what Coldwell described as the “master class,” wage-laborers emptied their worksites for parades, meetings, picnics and dances.

May Day celebrations were portable; any venue small or large would do, and                                                                        were open, as any worker could spontaneously participate.  Coldwell and his                                                             imprisoned comrades, including Eugene Debs, did not need celebrations “…in gaily decorated halls.”  One year, when Coldwell was the only radical in jail the wearing of a red ribbon sufficed as a commemoration.  In another, a smuggled violin allowed for a performance of “The Internationale” and “The Red Flag.”  A revolutionary slogan written in the sand in the prison courtyard, along with the music, alerted other prisoners to the meaning of the day.       

Finally, Coldwell argued that May Day managed to freeze historical time.  Writing about May Day reminded Coldwell that all of his fellow prisoners had been released from jail less anarchist Nick Zogg (released in July 1924).  He further recognized the importance of supporting the new class-war prisoners including Mooney and Billings and Sacco and Vanzetti.  The day linked the heroes of the past, with the actors in the present who were determined to transform the future.

Now in 2008, both Joseph Coldwell and the immigrant workers who engineered the recovery of May Day offer important lessons to the left in the US.  For the day to thrive we must find ways to encourage a sense of common purpose across capitalist borders, to increase the number and, locations of commemorations and to unite our collective past and present to build a progressive future.  To accomplish this, we would do well to recognize that May Day was created, “not by the grace of God, or by act of parliament, but by the power of class solidarity.”

Socialist Party USA - NYC Local
339 Lafayette Street Room 303
NYC, NY 10012
socialistpartynyc at gmail.com
www.spnyc.org
www.myspace.com/socialistpartyusa_nyc




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