SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO — Puerto Rico’s capital was the site of massive scenes of brutal repression as police clamped down on an International Workers Day march using overwhelming violent force, scattering thousands of protesters who gathered to resist austerity measures and anti-worker attacks on the people of the U.S colonial territory.
Workers take part in a May Day march to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange building on Monday, May 1, 2017. A speech by President Jacob Zuma to workers at a rally was cancelled in Bloemfontein as Zuma was heckled by some members during the gathering singing that he should step down. (AP/Denis Farrell)
Workers and activists marked May Day around the world Monday with defiant rallies and marches for better pay and working conditions.
Like all political systems formed on an ideological rather than a pragmatic basis, communism is flawed. Liberalism for example, is flawed for many of the same reasons that communism is, in spite of the fact that it sets itself against communism. Both share an unhealthy fanaticism that is difficult to successfully oppose.
But on this International Workers Day, I would like to celebrate the most important achievement of socialism and communism. This achievement happened as much by accident as by design.
Donald Trump has issued a statement encouraging American’s to celebrate Loyalty Day on the 1st of May. Globally and particularly in countries with strong socialist movements or Communist pasts, the day is best known as International Workers Day, May Day or Labour Day.
In contemporary Russia, the day is known as The Day of Spring and Labour.
In the United States, the First of May is Loyalty Day and was first officially proclaimed by Congress in 1955, although its roots date back to the 1920s.
