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The Young Communist League of South Africa (uFasimba) wishes to join all the left and worker organisations in celebration of the Workers’ Day alternatively known as May Day.
A historical glance
The first of May symbolises the historical dedication of revolutionary workers’ unions in Chicago under the leadership of the Federation of Organised Trades and Labour Unions which passed a resolution that declared eight hours as a legal day’s work from and after the 1st May 1886. Despite resistance from the government of the United States of America, Canada and South Africa, by April 1886, 250,000 workers were involved in the May Day Movement. It was only in 1889 that the Second International Socialist Congress resolved on the designation of the May 1 as a workers day under the leadership of Wilhelm Liebknecht, the founder on one of the founders of German social democracy.
But what are the significant factors of May Day at this current conjecture and in the South African political context.
The fact that this day came into being as the result of workers’ victorious struggles against supper exploitation by business leaders of the time does not mean that such a victory was an end in itself. It was just the beginning, the beginning of the working class struggle against capitalist exploitation which persistently continued beyond this eight hour victory. Today, capitalists continue to exploit the labour of the working class whose labour is divided into two aspects, namely, necessary labour and surplus labour. In this regard the aspect of necessary labour constitutes the wages of the working class with the other aspect, surplus labour, constituting the profit of the capitalist within the same period of what is called a working day. In essence, this demonstrates that the struggle for the emancipation of the working class from exploitation by the capitalists remains important as ever. This reality calls upon all serious revolutionaries from all walks of life to take it upon themselves in making the class struggle a struggle above all struggles at a strategic level. The everyday labour of the working class which continues to produce huge profits towards the idle capitalists should serve as a principal source of conviction in advancing the struggle for socialism. For if it was not for the African cheap labour exploited for centuries by European mining conglomerates, South Africa would been bare of the bridges and roads, of big hotels, the railway lines, malls and all other forms of infrastructural landscapes including schools and universities. If today we are to look back and draw our memory towards these centuries we would be embraced by a mammoth irony: that the bridges that we built, the big hotels, railway lines, harbors, malls and things bear no significance or solution to the life of squalor that the poor of this country face.
Unity in the alliance is our weapon
As we join COSATU in celebration of this august Workers’ Day we must continue to elevate the class content of our National Democratic Revolution not only in the ANC but even within the trade union movement under the leadership and guidance of the South African Communist Party as the vanguard of the working class. It is our duty as YCLSA to do not only reaffirm our position as a Marxist school of young workers and the youth in general but also to ensure that the struggle to build socialism is made fashionable, in all areas of human existence. It is our duty as YCLSA to preserve unity within and between the SACP and COSATU for if we do not do so, our detractors will seize the moment and torment this relationship for their own interests and at the expense of the working class. We strongly believe that the relationship between these two organisations is the only asset and arsenal of the workers and the poor of this country and beyond. It is a relationship that is of fundamental importance in our struggle for socialism in our country. It is a relationship, we must not take for granted but continuously and consciously cultivate. A relationship based on taking up common struggles on the ground. It is a relationship, within the context of our broader alliance that has made an enormous impact in the direction of the country is taking today. It is a relationship for the future of our country, and for the workers and the poor of our land.
As we celebrate May Day this year, we must be able to connect with political developments and realities faced by the South African working class. Given the fact that South Africa remains purely a capitalist state after 17 years of democracy with business having hugely benefited throughout these years, it is time we realise that the case for socialism continues to be relevant even more than before. We must dispel those who, like sewer-pipe revolutionaries, continue to sow divisions in the alliance by supporting and creating factional allies within our structures for purposes of derailing our course to build socialism. To those who proclaim to be part of us yet they are not ready to advance and defend our programs as YCLSA and SACP, we must precisely subject their actions to the whims of our organisational principles.
The irony of capitalism is unfashionable.
All noble and able men and women, young and old across racial lines, the working class in a nutshell should intensify the fight against the irony of capitalism; it is an irony that all must be prepared to fearlessly smash. It is an irony that cannot be dissuaded by ‘Safety-First’ revolutionaries. Capitalism is an irony to the capitalists themselves. It is an irony that breeds hunger to hundreds of millions and wealth and the riches to the few. Bu it is an irony that can only be defeated by those who are its integral part, the working class. It is an irony that only socialism will exterminate. Let it be said that as we were able to defeat the political hegemonic confluence of the apartheid regime, what on earth will impede us from abolishing this irony, the irony of capitalism.