May 1st – International Labour Day

(Patria) - Labour Day, May 1st, is being celebrated worldwide today. On this day in 1886, workers' demonstrations were held in Chicago, during which several workers were killed in clashes with the police, and five were sentenced to death.

The 19th century was marked by the exploitation of workers. Low wages and long working hours, from 12, and even 18 hours a day, for both adults and children, exhausted people who, in all developed capitalist countries, demanded more dignified working and living conditions through strikes. Strike movements gained the greatest momentum in the USA.

Around 40,000 workers protested in Chicago on May 1, 1886, demanding the three eights: 8 hours of work, 8 hours of rest, and 8 hours of cultural education. The police intervened on May 3rd and killed several demonstrators, injuring about 50 workers. Numerous demonstrators were arrested, and leaders were brought to court. Five were sentenced to death, and three to long-term imprisonment.

Three years later, in 1889, at the first congress of the Second International, it was decided that demonstrations would be held every May 1st until workers won the right to a dignified life and work. From the following year, this day has been celebrated as the international day of general labour solidarity.

After the Bolshevik Revolution, May 1st became a state holiday in the USSR, and then in other newly formed one-party states. In one-party regimes and underdeveloped countries, the labour movement was protected only declaratively, while in reality, it was directed and controlled for the benefit of the bureaucratic elite.

Due to later associations with the one-party system and Bolshevik communism, the United States moved the celebration of May 1st to September.

After the fall of the bloc of one-party regimes, May 1st gained new affirmation as a day of struggle for labour and human rights with the development of trade unionism and the emergence of the new left, which is democratic and opposes authoritarianism.

International Labour Day is celebrated with large marches, actions, and demonstrations organized by various members and sympathizers of the labour, trade union, and broad anti-capitalist movements.