A-Infos (en) UK, AnarCom: May Day, as always, Our Day! (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

As opposed to the electoral bourgeois farce on 7th May, the 1st of May 
and any ensuing weekend has for nearly a century and a half been a time 
for working class celebration.  This encompassing organising, actions, 
catch ups with friends and comrades, community events and remembering 
the past with a determined optimistic look to the future.  This is 
particularly the case for us as anarchists. ---- For those who don't 
know, the modern incarnation of May Day began as a day of remembrance in 
the 1880s.  This is the case from the start for fallen anarchist 
comrades and then over the years, more generally, for workers facing the 
wrath of the capitalist system.

For in 1887, in reaction to an explosion at an event in Chicago's 
Haymarket Square the year before, attended by an enormous number of 
(40,000) striking workers during an increasingly mass bitter struggle 
for an eight-hour day, the state used the event as the pretext to 
sentence comrades of ours to death in cold blood.  This was despite no 
evidence whatsoever having proven a link to the bomb's manufacture or 
consequent explosion.  The consequent killings which shook the world, 
took 5 of our comrades' lives, including 4 who had the death penalty 
enacted upon them and 1 who committed suicide before they could be 
hanged.  3 more were convicted before being later pardoned.  The funeral 
procession of the slain was followed by thousands upon thousands of 
workers.  They became known as the "Haymarket Martyrs".

"There will come a time when our silence will be more powerful than the 
voices you strangle today." (August Spies   often cited as his final and 
bravely defiant words on the scaffold.)
There have been attempts by some political party and trade union 
officials in the West to muddy the reasons for celebrating May Day as 
International Workers' Day.  There have been entire May Day 
cancellations by governments, including in Spain (particularly 
Barcelona) in 1937 in order to crush anarchist inspired workers 
resisting an onslaught upon them in street battles.  There have been 
hideous parades of military might in state capitalist Soviet Eastern 
Europe on May Day until the 1990s, which continue on to this day in 
Stalinist states.

In the face of all this, we continue to remember the real origins of 
this day and look to a time of serious potential challenges to and then 
emancipation from state and capital.  This, a time of resistance and 
joy.  A time when we can really begin to live in harmony with the planet 
and the incredible other species that inhabit it.  A time to end 
conflicts over resources.  A time for internationalism and real 
solidarity.  A time to gain control over our own lives.  A time when 
this system can finally be flushed down the toilet.  A time for history 
to finally begin.

Class struggle anarchists have often taken to the streets and attended 
events on this important day and weekend for us over the years   at both 
official labour movement events, where we have ducked and dived the dull 
stultified atmosphere and ludicrous Mao and Stalin banners, to bring our 
revolutionary message of emancipation for all.  And at unofficial 
events, where we have danced, celebrated, shared literature, marched and 
directly challenged those who defend the current, yet in reality, 
obsolete system of capital and state.

This year as a group, though small in number, following a stall at the 
Hull Radical Bookfair on 25th April, we will be at events in South 
Yorkshire (Barnsley, 2nd May) and the Northeast (Gateshead, 4th May) as 
well as Manchester and Salford.  We may yet be at further events too 
over the May Day weekend?!  We will be chatting, celebrating and trying 
to learn lessons from the past, whilst talking to others about our 
potential futures.

It is the centenary of the General Strike of 1926 in the UK.  Many 
leftists will be showing degrees of simplistic nostalgia over this.  For 
us, whilst noting some impressive local examples of determined working 
class unity and direct action at that time; we will point out that this 
event revealed the hopeless nature of official, capital friendly, trade 
union perspectives and of those claiming to represent us (the Labour 
Party and so-called Communist Party at that time but not restricted to 
them).  For in reality, any early enthusiasm or claims of workers 
potentially having any real power through this event quickly abated as 
its limited nature became apparent and as it failed to shake the base of 
the society and profit system in each we live.  We need to be honest 
about this but not despondent.

For our class can still challenge and potentially overcome the present 
system.  Be it through, for example, autonomous networked direct action, 
strike and community committees, popular assemblies and workers' 
councils, or / and novel new bodies that display a development of 
genuine revolutionary content.

Emancipation and liberation are not guaranteed or in any way inevitable. 
 There is also much despondency currently, many recent defeats, a 
horrendous international conflict situation and a quietism too often 
displayed by our class in the social war.  However, despite all this, 
with the mass of resources available to humankind now and for us to 
thrive (moreover, as well as survive?), they need now be closer than ever.

As such, we wish to convey with hope and a determination based upon real 
potentials, revolutionary May Day greetings to all friends, comrades and 
workers throughout the world.

"I am an anarchist: I have no apology to make to a single man, woman or 
child, because I am an anarchist, because anarchism carries the very 
germ of liberty in its womb" (Lucy Parsons, anarchist organiser   on 
both anarchism and on our fallen comrades, murdered in 1887 by the state).

"Does this rising generation know that those who inaugurated the 
eight-hour day were put to death at the command of capital?"

https://anarcomuk.uk/2026/04/24/may-day-as-always-our-day/
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