Alexander Leo Trachtenberg
Early in his activity in the Russian revolutionary movement Lenin contributed to making May Day known to the Russian workers as a day of demonstration and struggle. While in prison, in 1896, Lenin wrote a May Day leaflet for the St. Petersburg Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class, one of the first Marxist political groups in Russia. The leaflet was smuggled out of prison and 2,000 mimeographed copies distributed among workers in 40 factories. It was very short and written in Lenin’s characteristically simple and direct style, so that the least developed among the workers could understand it. “When a month later the famous textile strikes of 1896 broke out, workers were telling us that the first impetus was given by the little modest May Day leaflet,” wrote a contemporary who helped to issue it.
After telling the workers how they are exploited for the benefit of the owners of the factories in which they work, and how the government persecutes those who demand improvement in their conditions, Lenin proceeds to write about the significance of May Day.
In France, England, Germany and other countries where workers have already been united in powerful unions and have won for themselves many rights, they organized on April 19 (May 1) [the Russian calendar was then 13 days behind the West-European] a general holiday of Labor. Leaving the stifling factories they march with unfurled banners, to the strains of music, along the main streets of the cities, demonstrating to the bosses their continuously growing power. They assemble at great mass demonstrations where speeches are made recounting the victories over the bosses during the preceding year and lay plans for struggle in the future. Under the threat of strike the bosses do not dare to fine the workers for not appearing at the factories on that day. On this day the workers also remind the bosses of their main demand : 8 hours work, 8 hours rest, and 8 hours recreation. This is what the workers of other countries are demanding now.
The Russian revolutionary movement utilized May Day to great advantage. In the preface to a pamphlet, May Days in Kharkov, published in November, 1900, Lenin wrote:
In another six months, the Russian workers will celebrate the first of May of the first year of the new century, and it is time we set to work to make the arrangements for organizing the celebrations in as large a number of centers as possible, and on as imposing a scale as possible, not only by the number that will take part in them, but also by their organized character, by the class-consciousness they will reveal, by the determination that will be shown to commence the irrepressible struggle for the political liberation of the Russian peo-ple, and, consequently, for a free opportunity for the class development of the proletariat and its open struggle for Socialism.
It can be seen how important Lenin considered the May Day demonstrations, since he called attention to them six months ahead of time. To him May Day was a rallying point for “the irrepressible struggle for the political liberation of the Russian people,” for “the class development of the proletariat and its open struggle for Socialism.”
Speaking of how May Day celebrations “can become great political demonstrations,” Lenin asked why the Kharkov May Day celebration in 1900 was “an event of outstanding importance,” and answered, “the mass participation of the workers in the strike, the huge mass meetings in the streets, the unfurling of red flags, the presentation of demands indicated in leaflets and the revolutionary character of these demands was eight-hour day and political liberty.”
Lenin upbraids the Kharkov Party leaders for joining the demands for the 8-hour day with other minor and purely economic demands, for he does not want the political character of May Day in any way beclouded. He writes in this preface:
The first of these demands [8-hour day] is the general demand put forward by the proletariat in all countries. The fact that this demand was put forward indicates that the advanced workers of Kharkov realize their solidarity with the international Socialist labor movement. But precisely for this reason a demand like this should not have been included among minor demands like better treatment by foremen, or a ten percent increase in wages. The demand for an eight-hour day, however, is the demand of the whole proletariat, presented, not to individual employers, but to the government as the representative of the whole of the present-day social and political system, to the capitalist class as a whole, the owners of all the means of production.
A paragraph selected from the book ‘The History Of May Day’
Published from NewYork, 1932 by Union Labour
Image Used in the article is collected from social media, depicting a typical day of the indian proletariat