Historical background
In the 19th century, with the rapid development of capitalism, capitalists generally exploited workers cruelly by increasing labor time and labor intensity in order to extract more surplus value in pursuit of profits. The workers worked more than 12 hours a day and the working conditions were very bad.
The introduction of the eight-hour working day
After the 19th century, especially through the Chartist movement, the scale of the struggle of the British working class has been expanding. In June 1847, the British Parliament passed the ten-hour Working Day Act. In 1856, gold miners in Melbourne, British Australia, took advantage of labor shortages and fought for an eight-hour day. After the 1870s, British workers in certain industries won the nine-hour day. In September 1866, the First International held its first congress in Geneva, where, on Marx’s proposal, “the legal restriction of the work system is the first step towards the intellectual development, physical strength and final emancipation of the working class,” passed the resolution “to strive for the eight hours of the working day.” Since then, workers in all countries have fought the capitalists for the eight-hour day.
In 1866, the Geneva Conference of the First International proposed the slogan of the eight-hour day. In the struggle of the international proletariat for the eight-hour day, the American working class took the lead. At the end of the American Civil War in the 1860s, American workers clearly put forward the slogan of “fighting for the eight-hour day”. The slogan spread quickly and gained great influence.
Driven by the American labor movement, in 1867, six states passed laws mandating an eight-hour workday. In June 1868, the United States Congress enacted the first federal law on the eight-hour day in American history, making the eight-hour day applicable to government workers. In 1876, the Supreme Court struck down the federal law on the eight-hour day.
1877 There was the first national strike in American history. The working class took to the streets to demonstrate to the government to improve working and living conditions and to demand shorter working hours and the introduction of an eight-hour day. Under intense pressure from the labor movement, the U.S. Congress was forced to enact the eight-hour day law, but the law eventually became a dead letter.
After the 1880s, the struggle for the eight-hour day became a central issue in the American labor movement. In 1882, American workers proposed that the first Monday in September be designated as a day of street demonstrations, and fought tirelessly for this. In 1884, the AFL convention decided that the first Monday in September would be a National Day of rest for workers. Although this decision was not directly related to the struggle for the eight-hour day, it gave impetus to the struggle for the eight-hour day. Congress had to pass a law making the first Monday in September a Labor Day. In December 1884, in order to promote the development of the struggle for the eight-hour day, the AFL also made a historic resolution: “The Organized Trade Unions and Federations of Labour in the United States and Canada have resolved that, as of May 1, 1886, the day of legal Labour shall be eight hours, and recommend to all the Labour organizations in the District that they may modify their practices to conform to this resolution on the said date.”
The continued rise of the labor movement
In October 1884, eight international and national workers’ groups in the United States and Canada held a rally in Chicago, the United States, to fight for the realization of the “eight-hour work day”, and decided to launch a broad struggle, and decided to hold a general strike on May 1, 1886, forcing capitalists to implement the eight-hour work day. The American working class across the country enthusiastically supported and responded, and thousands of workers in many cities joined the struggle.
The AFL’s decision received an enthusiastic response from workers across the United States. Since 1886, the American working class has held demonstrations, strikes, and boycotts to force employers to adopt an eight-hour workday by May 1. The struggle came to a head in May. On May 1, 1886, 350,000 workers in Chicago and other cities in the United States held a general strike and demonstration, demanding the implementation of an 8-hour work day and improving working conditions. The United Workers’ strike notice read, “Rise up, workers of America! May 1st, 1886 lay down your tools, lay down your work, shut down your factories and mines for one day a year. This is a day of rebellion, not leisure! This is not a day when the system of enslaving the world’s Labour is prescribed by a vaunted spokesman. This is a day when workers make their own laws and have the power to put them into effect! … This is the day when I start to enjoy eight hours of work, eight hours of rest, and eight hours of my own control.
Workers went on strike, paralyzing major industries in the United States. Trains stopped running, shops were closed, and all warehouses were sealed.
But the strike was suppressed by the US authorities, many workers were killed and arrested, and the whole country was shaken. With the broad support of progressive public opinion in the world and the persistent struggle of the working class around the world, the US government finally announced the implementation of the eight-hour working day a month later, and the American workers’ movement won an initial victory.
The establishment of the May 1 International Labor Day
In July 1889, the Second International, led by Engels, held a congress in Paris. To commemorate the “May Day” strike of American workers, it shows “Workers of the world, unite!” The great power to promote the struggle of workers in all countries for the eight-hour working day, the meeting passed a resolution, on May 1, 1890, international workers held a parade, and decided to set May 1 as the day of the International Labor Day, that is, now the “May 1 International Labor Day.”
On May 1, 1890, the working class in Europe and the United States took the lead in taking to the streets to hold grand demonstrations and rallies to fight for their legitimate rights and interests. From then on, every time on this day, the working people of all countries in the world will gather and parade to celebrate.
The May Day Labor Movement in Russia and the Soviet Union
After Engels’s death in August 1895, the opportunists within the Second International began to gain dominance, and the workers’ parties belonging to the Second International gradually deformed into bourgeois reformist parties. After the outbreak of the First World War, the leaders of these parties even more openly betrayed the cause of proletarian internationalism and socialism and became social chauvinists in favor of imperialist war. Under the slogan “defence of the fatherland,” they shamelessly incite the workers of all countries to engage in a frenzied slaughter of each other for the benefit of their own bourgeoisie. Thus the organization of the Second International disintegrated and the May Day, a symbol of international proletarian solidarity, was abolished. After the end of the war, due to the upsurge of the proletarian revolutionary movement in the imperialist countries, these traitors, in order to help the bourgeoisie suppress the proletarian revolutionary movement, have once again taken up the banner of the Second International to deceive the working masses, and have used the May Day rallies and demonstrations to spread reformist influence. Since then, on the question of how to commemorate the “May Day”, there has been a sharp struggle between the revolutionary Marxists and the reformists in two ways.
Under the leadership of Lenin, the Russian proletariat first linked the “May Day” commemoration with the revolutionary tasks of various periods, and commemorated the annual “May Day” festival with revolutionary actions, making May 1 truly a festival of the international proletarian revolution. The first commemoration of the May Day by the Russian proletariat was in 1891. On May Day 1900, workers’ rallies and demonstrations were held in Petersburg, Moscow, Kharkiv, Tifris (now Tbilisi), Kiev, Rostov and many other big cities. Following Lenin’s instructions, in 1901 and 1902, the Russian workers’ demonstrations commemorating May Day developed significantly, turning from marches into bloody clashes between workers and the army.
In July 1903, Russia established the first truly fighting Marxist revolutionary party of the international proletariat. At this Congress, a draft resolution on the first of May was drafted by Lenin. Since then, the commemoration of the May Day by the Russian proletariat, with the leadership of the Party, has entered a more revolutionary stage. Since then, May Day celebrations have been held every year in Russia, and the labor movement has continued to rise, involving tens of thousands of workers, and clashes between the masses and the army have occurred.
As a result of the victory of the October Revolution, the Soviet working class began to commemorate the May Day International Labor Day in their own territory from 1918. The proletariat all over the world also embarked on the revolutionary road of struggle for the realization of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the “May Day” festival began to become a truly revolutionary and fighting festival in these countries.
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Post time: May-01-2024