For an internationalist May Day under the banner of the Arab spring!

After more than 120 years, May Day has lost neither its meaning nor its necessity as the international day of struggle of the working class. The world economic crisis that came to light with the collapse of the bank “Lehman Brothers” in September 2008 is now in its third year. While the capitalists are again making record profits, austerity packages are smashing the wages, pensions and jobs of the working class worldwide.

Rising prices of raw materials led to an increase of food prices. This was the cause of uprisings and revolutionary processes in the Arab world which led to the fall of hated dictators in Tunisia and Egypt. Millions of workers and youth confronted the dictatorships in open struggle. Ben Ali and Mubarak were toppled and the fire of revolution is spreading across the entire Arab world. In Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Libya and other countries, the rulers – and, behind them, the Western puppet masters – tremble. The imperialists, grouped in NATO, are attempting to stop these revolutionary processes with dishonest and hypocritical talk about “humanitarian intervention.”

Despite the democratic illusions of many people, it is becoming increasingly apparent that bourgeois democracy cannot solve the most urgent problems of the masses. Thus, the “democratic” military junta of Egypt is banning strikes and protests and blocking the freedom to organize. Only a program that wrests the wealth of the Arab world from the imperialist great powers and hands it over to the working population can fulfill the demands for freedom, jobs and better living conditions. In short: only a program which empowers the working class to develop the democratic revolt into a social revolution – only a program of permanent revolution – can lead to victory.

In Germany as well, the capitalist class is trying to pass the costs of the economic crisis on to the workers. Temporary work is spreading rapidly. Every fourth wage-earner lives off a so called “mini-job”. Inflation eats up the measly wage increases negotiated by the trade union bureaucracy. Even the collective bargaining agreements of this year will not raise the purchasing power of the workers, and this in the middle of an economic upswing.

In many parts of the world – but also in Germany of the 21st century – millions of employees are forced to work more than those eight hours a day for which the martyrs of Chicago died after May 1, 1886. Therefore, it is more necessary than ever that the working class once more develops an internationalist strategy of class struggle.

Historical experience shows that the working class will not give in to the attempts of capital to force the crisis onto its shoulders without resistance. However, it also shows us that the energy of the masses will evaporate if the working class does not have a revolutionary leadership because its leadership lies in the hands of those who seek class conciliation with capital.

Therefore, a strong revolutionary Marxist organization is necessary, one which opposes the attacks of capital with class struggle, one which counters the union leaderships’ strategy of “social partnership” with a revolutionary-Marixt program. We do not need to invent this program from scratch. It already exists in the Transitional Program of the Fourth International, which forged the most important experiences of the workers’ movement together into a strategy for its victory. We revolutionary workers and youth now face the task of connecting the lessons of past victories and defeats with the struggles of today.

This task can never be carried out on a national level, but must be done internationally. This is the purpose of the fight for a world party of social revolution, that was already promoted by Leon Trotsky with the foundation of the Fourth International. We of RIO and the group Internationaler Klassenkampf (FT-CI) want to contribute to the creation of such an organization. We call on all revolutionary workers and youth to wage this struggle together!

• For permanent revolution in the Arab countries and worldwide!
• For the reconstruction of the Fourth International!

Revolutionary Internationalist Organization, RIO (German section)
Internationaler Klassenkampf (Trotskyist Fraction – Fourth International, FT-CI)

April 30, 2011 (Translation: Victor Jalava, RIO, Berlin)