Long live May Day, International Working Class Day!

Onward with the struggle against the capitalist system!

Call of the Central Committee of the Communist Ghadar Party of India, 1 May, 2023

Comrade workers,

On the occasion of May Day, International Working Class Day, the Communist Ghadar Party salutes the workers of all lands! We salute all those who are fighting against the ferocious onslaught on their hard-won rights and legitimate claims by the governments of the capitalist class.

The world capitalist system is embroiled in an extremely deep crisis. Zero growth is being predicted for the economies of Europe and North America in 2023.

In their frenzied drive to keep pocketing maximum profits in spite of the economic crisis, the monopoly capitalists and the governments in their service have been resorting to one anti-people measure after another. They are cutting back on social spending. Public services like health care and education are being wrecked. Public assets and essential services are being handed over to private capitalist companies, to be run for maximum profits. Prices of fuel, foodgrains, and other essential commodities have steadily risen. Real wages of workers have been steadily falling over the past two decades. Rights realized through decades of struggle, such as pension and other forms of social security, are under intense attack. The right to an 8-hour working day is being violated blatantly. Many workers are forced to work 12 to 16 hours a day.

To smash the unity of workers, the ruling classes in capitalist countries have been deploying the time-tested weapons of racism, communalism, the targeting of migrants, etc. The British state has passed an extremely harsh law against migrant workers. Racist attacks are widespread in the US and many European countries. In India, the ruling class has been systematically exacerbating divisions based on religion and caste.

US imperialism is on an extremely aggressive course, in its drive to establish its unquestioned domination over the whole world. It has unleashed civil wars in numerous countries of Asia and Africa. It has mobilized its NATO allies to launch a war with Russia over Ukraine. This war is aimed at encircling and destroying Russia, and weakening Germany. In collusion and contention with other imperialist powers, it is carrying out the rapacious plunder of Africa. In Asia, US imperialism is organizing continuous provocations against China and North Korea. It has encouraged the militarization of Japan, and is building an Asian NATO to encircle China and dominate Asia. In sum, the US imperialists are threatening to drag humanity into a new world war.

The aggressive American imperialist drive is being opposed by masses of people in Europe as well as in Asia, Africa and Latin America. There are mass protests in many European countries, with people demanding that their country must get out of the warmongering NATO alliance. Opposition to war and to the attacks on their livelihood and rights have brought masses of workers on to the streets in France, Britain, Germany, Greece, Italy, and other countries of Europe. Those engaged in mass street protests and strikes include rail workers, airlines workers, road transport workers, postal workers, doctors and nurses, school teachers, industrial workers and government employees. Europe has not witnessed such massive participation of workers in strikes in the past 30 years.

Big strike struggles are taking place in the US and other capitalist counties as well. Japanese and South Korean workers are carryings out mass protests against militarization and war mongering.

Worldwide, workers are opposing the savage onslaught on their livelihood and rights launched by the capitalist governments. They are demanding wage increases to compensate for the rising cost of living. They are demanding reversal of the cutbacks on pension and social security. They are opposing privatisation and job cuts. They are opposing racist laws attacking migrant workers.

In India, workers are waging many struggles in defence of their rights and the rights of the peasantry. Workers are fighting for repeal of laws that attack their right to form unions of their own choice. They are fighting against privatization of public assets and essential services. They are fighting against increasing use of contract labour, for regularization of jobs, and for social security. Government employees are protesting against cutbacks in pension, and demanding filling of job vacancies. Workers in the auto industry, in IT services, leather industry, garment industry and other sectors of the economy are fighting against layoffs and closures. Anganwadi and Asha workers are demanding their rights as workers with guaranteed living wages. Gig workers are demanding their rights as workers.

Under the banner of “Make in India”, the ruling bourgeois class wants to make our country the favoured place for imperialists to invest their capital. The Tatas, Ambanis, Birlas, Adanis and other Indian monopoly capitalists want to utilise the contradictions between US and Russia, and between the US and China, to expand their own markets and spheres of influence. The course being pursued by the Government of India not only means intensifying the exploitation of workers and peasants. It is increasing the danger of Indian people getting embroiled in a reactionary war in this region.

Comrade workers,

Capitalism is leading society from one disaster to another. The fundamental law of capitalism, at its present monopolistic imperialist stage, is the securing of maximum capitalist profit through the exploitation, ruin and impoverishment of the majority of the population of a given country, through the enslavement and systematic robbery of the peoples of other countries, especially less developed countries, and through wars and militarization of the national economy.

There is an alternative to capitalism. It is scientific socialism.

It is perfectly possible to establish a system in which the orientation of the economy will be to secure maximum satisfaction of the constantly rising material and cultural requirements of the whole of society.

The socialist system came into being and flourished for many decades in the 20th century, following the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia in 1917. Following the end of the Second World War, the peoples of newly independent countries were inspired by the socialist system, which had demonstrated its superiority over capitalism. Numerous nations and peoples of Europe, Asia, and Latin America embarked on the road of building socialism.

The imperialists, headed by the US bourgeoisie, spared no efforts to destroy socialism. When military means failed, they resorted to the organizing of internal subversion by cultivating their agents within the communist parties.

After having brought about the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, the imperialist bourgeoisie declared that socialism is dead and there is no alternative to capitalism. However, they have not been able to get rid of the aspiration of people to find an alternative to this inhuman system.

The past 32 years have affirmed again and again that capitalism can only heap disasters on humankind. The gap between the conditions of the toiling majority and the exploiting minority has enormously increased. The bourgeoisie’s promise of a world without wars has been proven to be false. All illusions about the possibility of looking after the wellbeing of workers within the capitalist system, through so-called pro-people government policies, have been shattered.

The working class and oppressed peoples of the world continue to aspire for a world free from the exploitation of some persons by others, and from the oppression of some nations by others, a world free from imperialist wars. The times are calling on the working class to take the struggle against the anti-social offensive of the bourgeoisie to its logical conclusion — the overthrow of capitalism and the building of socialism through the revolution.

Comrade workers,

The Indian bourgeoisie and all its parties keep dinning into our heads that there is no better alternative to the existing system of parliamentary democracy. They claim that this system serves all classes. They hide the reality that this is actually a system through which the bourgeoisie exercises its dictatorship over workers and peasants.

The Communist Party of India recognised in 1951 that the post-colonial Indian state was an organ of bourgeois dictatorship. However the communist movement did not adhere to this position in subsequent years. It fell prey to the illusion that parliamentary democracy was a system through which the working class could advance towards its goal of socialism. This has assisted the bourgeoisie in keeping alive illusions about this system.

This is a system whose fundamental premise is that we workers and peasants are unfit to govern ourselves; and that we need someone standing above us, to rule over us.

The existing system deprives us of decision-making power. Decision-making power is concentrated in the hands of the Cabinet constituted by the party having a majority in parliament. The bourgeoisie ensures that only parties that will loyally implement its agenda are allowed to form the government. At the time of elections, it chooses from amongst such parties, that party which can best fool the toiling masses. Elections are used to legitimize the rule of the bourgeoisie. It is a democracy only for the bourgeoisie.

There is a superior alternative to bourgeois democracy, which is proletarian democracy. Proletarian democracy is a system in which we, the workers and peasants, will govern ourselves. We will be able to select and elect those we trust. We will be able to exercise control over those we elect and be able to recall them whenever they act against our interests. We must demand that all political parties that claim to represent our interests must unite and fight for such a system.

Comrade workers,

All available facts show that the BJP government headed by Narendra Modi is committed to fulfil the greed of Indian and foreign monopoly capitalists, at the expense of the livelihood and rights of workers and peasants. Life experience has also shown that the Congress Party, Aam Aadmi Party and other parties that have managed governments in various states are also committed to serve the interests of the capitalist class. A recent example is the law passed by the state assemblies of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to increase the length of the working day from 8 to 12 hours.

As we approach the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the ruling class is stepping up its propaganda aimed at lining us up behind one or the other of its parties. We must not believe in these fraudulent alternatives. We need to build and further strengthen our fighting unity around our own program for the Navnirman of India, the only real alternative. Our program is to establish workers’ and peasants’ rule, and reorient the economy to fulfil people’s needs instead of fulfilling capitalist greed.

Our cause is just. We are fighting for the interests of the overwhelming majority of our people. We will certainly win!

Inquilab Zindabad!

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