Rosa Luxemburg what are the origins of may day?
The happy idea of using a proletarian holiday celebration as a means to
attain the eight-hour day was first born in Australia. The workers there
decided in 1856 to organize a day of complete stoppage together with
meetings and entertainment as a demonstration in favor of the eight-hour
day. The day of this celebration was to be April 21. At first, the
Australian workers intended this only for the year 1856. But this first
celebration had such a strong effect on the proletarian masses of
Australia, enlivening them and leading to new agitation, that it was
decided to repeat the celebration every year.
In fact, what could give the workers greater courage and faith in their
own strength than a mass work stoppage which they had decided themselves?
What could give more courage to the eternal slaves of the factories and
the workshops than the mustering of their own troops? Thus, the idea of a
proletarian celebration was quickly accepted and, from Australia, began to
spread to other countries until finally it had conquered the whole
proletarian world.
The first to follow the example of the Australian workers were the
Americans. In 1886 they decided that May 1 should be the day of universal
work stoppage. On this day 200,000 of them left their work and demanded
the eight-hour day. Later, police and legal harassment prevented the
workers for many years from repeating this [size] demonstration. However
in 1888 they renewed their decision and decided that the next celebration
would be May 1, 1890.
In the meanwhile, the workers' movement in Europe had grown strong and
animated. The most powerful expression of this movement occurred at the
International Workers' Congress in 1889. At this Congress, attended by
four hundred delegates, it was decided that the eight-hour day must be the
first demand. Whereupon the delegate of the French unions, the worker
Lavigne from Bordeaux, moved that this demand be expressed in all
countries through a universal work stoppage. The delegate of the American
workers called attention to the decision of his comrades to strike on May
1, 1890, and the Congress decided on this date for the universal
proletarian celebration.
In this case, as thirty years before in Australia, the workers really
thought only of a one-time demonstration. The Congress decided that the
workers of all lands would demonstrate together for the eight-hour day on
May 1, 1890. No one spoke of a repetition of the holiday for the next
years. Naturally no one could predict the lightninglike way in which this
idea would succeed and how quickly it would be adopted by the working
classes. However, it was enough to celebrate the May Day simply one time
in order that everyone understand and feel that May Day must be a yearly
and continuing institution [. . .].
The first of May demanded the introduction of the eight-hour day. But even
after this goal was reached, May Day was not given up. As long as the
struggle of the workers against the bourgeoisie and the ruling class
continues, as long as all demands are not met, May Day will be the yearly
expression of these demands. And, when better days dawn, when the working
class of the world has won its deliverance then too humanity will
probably celebrate May Day in honor of the bitter struggles and the many
sufferings of the past.
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>From Selected Political Writings of Rosa Luxemburg, tr. Dick Howard (NY:
Monthly Review Press, 1971), pp. 315-16.
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