May the first is International Workers Day , a day when the working class pledges to fight exploitation and imperialism in general.
1st of May 2024: Strengthen the anti-imperialist struggle
in service of the Proletarian World Revolution!
The International Communist League (ICL) sends its flaming proletarian class salutes
to the workers and oppressed peoples and nations of the world on the occasion of 1st
of May 2024. While the imperialists are intensifying their attacks on the masses and
ever more orient themselves towards solving their problems with more war of
aggression, the peoples are combating and resisting, and also achieve to carry out
counter-offensives. With revolutionary pride we salute on this great occasion the
People's Wars which are waged today in Peru, India, Turkey and the Philippines under
the leadership of Communist Parties, representing the most advanced form of struggle
against imperialism and being the shining light of the Proletarian World Revolution.
We also strongly salute the heroic struggle of the national resistance movement in
Palestine, bravely combating the brutal and genocidal aggression of the Zionist Israeli
State, which gets support from a huge part of the imperialists, mainly US-imperialism,
and with that is an example for all oppressed and exploited peoples, that a small
country can combat a seemingly overwhelming enemy. The International Communist
League calls the revolutionary forces, on this May Day 2024, to raise and develop the
struggle for fulfilling the great tasks in the revolutionary struggle. The 1st of May 2024,
the international day of struggle of the proletariat, must express the unity of
communists under Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in their efforts to fully take up their
role as the “most advanced of the class” - combined with the firm goal of strengthening
and further constructing of the international organization of the proletariat!
The general crisis of imperialism sharpens all the fundamental
contradictions in the world
The 1st of May 2024 takes place in the context of further intensification of the
fundamental contradictions in the current world, especially the principal
contradiction between oppressed peoples and nations and imperialism. The
deepening of the general crisis of imperialism is increasingly revealing its real nature,
which has nothing to offer the people’s masses but misery, impoverishment, death and
decline. While the five richest people in the world have doubled their plunder since
2020, almost five billion people have become poorer in the same period. The increase
in imperialist wars and conflicts, the enormous rise in food and energy prices and the
continuing rampant unemployment have increased the number of those forced into
acute hunger by a further 117 million in 2022 alone. This is shown in the most
concentrated form in India, with 70 percent of the global increase in poverty and
hunger. Recently imperialism shows once again its murderous face in Gaza, where
more than 34 thousand people were killed and more than 1.2 million are forced into
acute hunger already for six months. The concentration of markets has reached an alltime high, and today we see even more clearly what the "power of the monopoly
combined with state power" means. In the aggro-industry, two monopoly groups
(Monsanto and Dupont) now control 40 percent of the global seed market. It is even
more concentrated in "Big Tech" where Meta, Alphabet and Amazon have divided 75
percent of the global market among themselves, followed by investment monopolies
such as BlackRock, which, in conjunction with the imperialist states, are buying up
whole territories and regions in the oppressed countries.
The revolutionary situation develops unevenly in the whole world
In contrast to the pessimist mood, which the rulers of this reactionary and antipeoples system of exploitation and plundering, and those who are doubtful about the
demolishing and constructive force of the masses, try to generate, we as communists
have today more reasons looking to the future with optimism. In correspondence to
the intensification of the structural crisis of the imperialist system, we find in every
part of the world huge resistance and uprisings against the worsening aggression of
the imperialists and their lackeys towards the working class, the peasantry, the poor,
the oppressed peoples and the oppressed nations. The general crisis of capital in its
imperialist stage has developed itself to a further peak, and eruptions and upheavals
of major proportions are shaking the imperialists worldwide and prompting them to
launch even more aggressive attacks against the international proletariat, oppressed
peoples and nations. The imperialists and their lackeys are not able to even hold the
aggravating contradictions of the system on a “controllable” level. This system is that
rotten and the contradictions have developed to such an extent, that the period, in
which they were able to reach results with “usual solutions” in form of deepened
exploitation of the working class and the oppressed peoples and nations, is over. They
want to overcome the crisis of the imperialist system by expanding unjust wars and to
transform the deepening contradictions on the axis and in service of their own
interests. The imperialist “crisis rescue programs” are far from being able to represent
a solution for the crisis of the system, instead they deepen the existing contradictions
and lead to a further intensification of the general crisis.
In the oppressed countries, storm centers of the Proletarian World Revolution, the
crisis of bureaucratic capitalism is deepening unevenly, which is generating political
crises of enormous proportions in large parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Great
explosions and upheavals of mass’ struggles in Bangladesh, Senegal, Ecuador and
Colombia developed. As well, peasant movements continue to develop on a significant
scale, like we have seen in India, Mexico or Brazil, favoring the conditions for the
agrarian revolution as part of the new-democratic revolution and proving wherever
the peasantry is under proletarian leadership, their role as the main force of the new
democratic revolution against imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism
becomes clear. National liberation movements like in Manipur, Ireland and Kurdistan,
just to name a few, develop despite hard attacks of the enemy and also develop
counter-offensives and achieve victories, like in Afghanistan against US-imperialism,
in Mali mainly against French imperialism, and now with a new stage in the struggle
for the liberation of Palestine against US (and other imperialists) backed Zionist
aggression.
Inflation and massive increases in the costs of basic necessities not only lead to great
struggles in the oppressed countries, but also intensified the struggles of the working
class and other popular masses in the imperialist countries, such as the long-lasting
strikes in the transportation sector in Great Britain and Germany or the impressive
upheavals of the French proletariat. In the US the year of 2023 marked the biggest
number of large work stoppages in more than 20 years and the recent student’s
uprising in the North American universities in defense of the Palestinian cause and
against the aid from Biden’s government to the Zionist genocide. Further
monopolization of the markets, cuts in public services with simultaneous increases in
interest rates and energy prices are also increasingly stirring up the petty-bourgeois
intermediate strata, which represent – under a correct leadership – an important
reserve and alliance force for the proletariat. Additionally, also the farmers’
movement in many European countries, which continues to this day, has not only
managed to repel individual attacks, but also reflects the increasing loss of influence
of the ruling classes on the petty-bourgeois strata of the people. The far-reaching
deepening of the general crisis accumulated in a deepening political crisis, where the
rulers are less and less able to continue as before and the oppressed are less and less
willing to continue until then. Militarization, fascization and increased repression are
becoming a common tendency of the imperialists, who are trying to replace
fundamental achievements and basic democratic rights such as freedom of expression
with increasing legal censorship and popular protest bans. The spectacles which are
prepared this year by the ruling classes in a row of elections (US, EU, India, etc.) trying
to put up a “democratic mask”, will even deepen their political crisis and the
communists and revolutionary forces have to use these occasions for waging out
campaigns of active election boycott to strengthen and lead the masses in their
spontaneous strive against the oppression and exploitation. We clearly see that the
sharpening of all the antagonistic contradictions in the objective world situation are
driven forward mainly because of the principal contradiction today, the contradiction
between oppressed peoples and nations and imperialism, maturing the conditions for
the development of revolutions, which is the main tendency in the world today.
The inter-imperialist contradictions beat the drums of world war
The general crisis is particularly evident in the tendency of decline of US-imperialism,
whose status as the worldwide hegemonic superpower continues to crumble. This
change in the international balance of powers, which finds its roots mainly in the
contradiction to the oppressed peoples and nations, raises also the inter-imperialist
contradictions significantly in the current period and increases the tendency towards
larger and more direct military aggression for re-partition between the imperialists.
The war in Ukraine, the conflicts in Taiwan and the South Pacific as well as the Middle
East are clear premonitions of the tendency of the imperialists towards a new world
war, even if this is not imminent at present. The imperialist militarization and
armament has reached an extent not seen since the Second World War, forwarded
mainly by US-imperialism, followed by imperialist Russia and social-imperialist China.
US-imperialism is at the forefront of this, and with the help of NATO, which it leads,
and new military alliances in particular, is attempting to align its alliance forces more
closely with its own strategic interests – to further encircle Russia and contain and
encircle its competitor, social-imperialist China. The blowing up of North Stream 2 (in
the Baltic Sea) or sanctions against “partner states”, show that every imperialist
alliance is only an alliance among predators and competitors. Again the imperialists
show in front of the oppressed peoples and masses in the world their rotten nature,
and they learn once more that the “imperialists will never lay down their butcher
knives, that they will never become Buddhas, till their doom.” (Chairman Mao Tse-tung)
The communists have to denounce and unmask the imperialist rearmament and
militarization as their preparation of a new imperialist world war, and support and
develop the mobilizations, activities and strikes of the masses as a strength for
preparation of the revolutionary war. However, the saber-rattling of the imperialists
must not cloud the communists’ vision, it must be understood, that the spontaneous
struggle of the peoples’ masses against the imperialist war preparations must be
firmly directed against imperialism, as a force of combat, because the imperialist war
can only be prevented by the revolution, or rather the imperialist war will continue to
fuel the main tendency of the revolution. Communists must therefore firmly rely on
the teaching of Comrade Stalin: “To eliminate the inevitability of wars, imperialism
must be destroyed.” The upheavals and eruptions in the imperialist world system are
expressions of the period of its decline and downfall, although the communists must
firmly fight against illusions and theories of the automatic “collapse” of imperialism,
and persistently continue on the path of reconstitution or further strengthening the
Communist Parties as the decisive instrument for the conquest of political power,
applying the principle that “everything reactionary is the same; if you don't hit it, it
won't fall”.
Favorable situation to impulse the anti-imperialist struggles
The sharpening contradictions have led to a new upsurge of the anti-imperialist
movements and struggles on the side of the international proletariat and the
oppressed peoples and nations, which are on a new level in terms of frequency, scope
and size. The counter-offensive of the heroic national liberation movement in
Palestine has not only opened a new period in the struggle for the liberation of
Palestine but also improved the conditions for the anti-imperialist movement
worldwide, which once again shows that the national liberation movements are an
essential part of the World Proletarian Revolution. The so-called Middle East has once
again become a powder keg, where the current genocide of the Zionist apartheid State
in Gaza, with the help of its US sponsors, is only adding fuel to the fire of national
resistance movements throughout the region, which not only significantly limits the
implementation of the plans of the imperialists, especially the USA, but also puts the
bureaucratic-capitalist rulers of these countries in a tight spot, and dismantled them
as puppets of imperialist interests. Starting in the Arab region, a worldwide, mass
solidarity movement has developed, which continues to this day and whose
composition and orientation are strongly influenced by national conditions. For
months, hundreds of millions of people in more than eighty countries worldwide have
taken part in these demonstrations, and in some countries demonstrations have been
held with over a million people. Communists have the crucial task of supporting this
upsurge of the national and anti-imperialist movement, and of fighting for orientation
and leadership. The communists have to lead these movements, to apply the universal
teaching, that the liberation of the oppressed nations from imperialist domination is
only possible under proletarian leadership as part of the new-democratic revolution,
the main form of revolution today. The People's Wars in Peru, India, Turkey and the
Philippines, which are led by Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Parties, are a shining light in
this process, as they are the harbingers of the new power, proving the universal
validity of revolutionary violence under the leadership of the Communist Party, today
in the form of People’s Wars, and thus are also a hard blow against revisionism.
The need for the Three instruments and the leadership of the Communist
Party
In the midst of the growth of the anti-imperialist and mass movement, it is clearly
demonstrated to us that the communists can only take a leading role within these
struggles, can only build themselves up in the midst of these struggles, if they know
how to correctly apply and develop the three strategic instruments of the proletariat:
The Party, the Army and the United Front, among which the Party is the axis and
leadership. The reconstitution or the further construction of the Communist Parties is
the decisive task for the progress of the Proletarian Revolution, for the construction of
Socialism, through the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, which again is established
through the Socialist Revolution, and in perspective – Proletarian Cultural Revolutions
until Communism. Reconstituting or further strengthening the Communist Party as
the axis, the communists also have to struggle for the leadership of the proletariat in
the anti-imperialist, democratic or economic struggles of the broad masses, organizing
or preparing the masses for the great and complex tasks of revolution. The United
Front, whose highest understanding was developed within the third stage of Marxism,
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, is one of the “three principal magic weapons for defeating
the enemy”, a tactical and strategic necessity for the development of the revolution, the
leading force of which must be the proletariat: “In the light of Lenin’s ideas, it can be
seen that the concrete tactics of proletarian parties all have as their aim the
organization of the masses by the millions, the maximum mobilization of allies, and the
maximum isolation of the enemies of the people, the imperialists and their running dogs,
so as to attain the general strategic goal of the emancipation of the proletariat and the
people.” A correct application of the United Front, will allow the communists to make
leaps and bounds within this situation and decisively broaden their base among the
masses – on the condition of a firm struggle against right-wing and “left-wing”
deviations, which either adhere to the mass movement and undermine the leading
role of the proletariat or treat the United Front as a mere proclamation, as a
“maneuver”. “The leading role of the Communist Party in the struggles of the working
class must be won. For this purpose it is necessary, not to rant about the leading role of
the Communists, but to earn and win the confidence of the working masses by everyday
mass work and a correct policy”, teaches Comrade Dimitrov, who made decisive
contributions in the struggle for a correct application of the United Front within the
Communist International. Comrade Dimitrov also warned that a common
international strategy and tactics of an anti-imperialist United Front cannot simply be
transferred to the national situation like a template, but can only be correctly applied
by taking into account the respective conditions: “In forming a broad anti-imperialist
united front of struggle (...) it is necessary above all to recognize the variety of conditions
in which the anti-imperialist struggle of the masses is proceeding, the varying degree of
maturity of the national liberation movement, the role of the proletariat within it and the
influence of the Communist party over the masses.” The creation or further
development of an anti-imperialist United Front must be firmly tackled in the service
of the conquest of political power in each country and the development of the
Proletarian World Revolution!
An international Marxist-Leninist-Maoist center is key
In the current world situation of eruptions and upheavals within the imperialist
world system, in midst of the spontaneous mass movements of different levels and
character, like anti-imperialist movements, struggles for democratic rights of the
people or the actual developing peace-movements against imperialist war, combating
pacifism and chauvinism, the responsibility of the communists to struggle for taking
up a major or leading role in these struggles becomes an urgent necessity for
expanding the hegemony of the proletariat within the peoples’- and national
movements. Towards the International Communist Movement this situation calls
today for a stronger common international orientation of the anti-imperialist struggle
under proletarian leadership, which is why we, the International Communist League
explicitly, firmly welcome all efforts and endeavors that serve and promote an
international tactical and strategic union of anti-imperialist forces and movements
under proletarian leadership, whereby the oppressed peoples and nations as centers
of the Proletarian World Revolution must assume special responsibility for the
development of such activities. The development of anti-imperialist activities, the axis
of which must be the defense and support of the People’s Wars, the struggle against
imperialist wars and aggression as well as the defense of the people's rights, is
currently of decisive importance in order to expand the ranks of the ICL and broaden
the base of the Communist Parties and Organizations.
The communists in the world celebrate and carry out the 1st of May 2024 within the
130th year of the birth of Chairman Mao Tse-tung. With Chairman Mao Tse-tung, the
proletarian movement has developed its most powerful and invincible weapon, its
ideology, into the third, new stage of Marxism; Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the
weapon with which the proletariat and the peoples of the world will sweep away
imperialism and the reaction from the face of the earth. The 130th anniversary of the
birth of Chairman Mao Tse-tung also represents the 1st anniversary of the foundation
of the International Communist League and therefore symbolizes the great task of the
communists today to reunify the International Communist Movement on the basis of
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the ideology of the international proletariat, all-powerful,
because true. The International Communist League represents a great achievement,
highlighting a long and complex struggle for reunification of the communists on a
world scale. Therefore we have to clearly understand the great significance of the
existence of the ICL, favoring the conditions for the reunification of communists
worldwide: “In the UMIC, parties and organizations with different points of view could
reach – through two line struggle, practicing unity, criticism, unity in an honest and
comradely way – the highest ideological and political unity of the last four decades. This
is a thorough example that the true communists want to unite under Maoism! The
division of the international proletariat is only in the interest of revisionism and the
reaction. The Political Declaration and the Principles of the ICL expresses the unity that
was solidly reached by 15 Parties and Organizations across the world, it is a great step
forward and it is the basis and reference point to unify the whole ICM.”
We can clearly see that the conditions for the reunification of the International
Communist Movement on this 1st of May 2024 have become different from what they
were a few years ago. The foundation of the International Communist League in
December 2022 opened the door to a new period of struggle for reunification, in
which the tendency of dispersion was transformed into a tendency of unification of
communists. The establishment of the ICL has not completed the struggle for unity, on
the contrary, it has opened a new stage in the “organized struggle for the reconstitution
of the Communist International, under the command and leadership of Maoism”. We
want to welcome all activities and contributions of Communist Parties and
organizations worldwide that serve to further unite and deepen the two-line struggle.
Over the past year, dozens of campaigns, events, seminars and discussions have been
held that have taken an honest and firm stand for the need for the international
unification of communists and we therefore want to renew our call: “The International
Communist League will spare no efforts towards establishing a direct relation with all
the M-L-M Parties and Organizations that want to work toward unity and not splitting
and that defend the three basic principles: 1. the defense of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism,
2. struggle against revisionism, and 3. to be for the World Proletarian Revolution.”
The 1st of May itself is a product of the struggle for the unification of the most
advanced forces of the international proletariat, which was led in that period by one
of the founders of scientific socialism, Engels. It was to be a “measuring stick” for the
degree of unification and strength of the international proletariat, a day on which the
international proletariat is mobilized as “one army, under one flag, for one immediate
goal”. Let us represent the all powerful force of the proletariat as the most advanced
and last class of history, embodied by its organization, the Communist Parties, led
under its most advanced ideology, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
LONG LIVE MAY DAY, THE INTERNATIONAL DAY OF UNITY, OF STRUGGLE AND
SOLIDARITY OF THE PROLETARIAT!
LONG LIVE THE HEROIC NATIONAL RESISTANCE OF PALESTINE!
GENOCIDAL ZIONISTS, RUNNING DOGS OF YANKEE IMPERIALISM, OUT OF GAZA
AND ALL PALESTINE!
LONG LIVE THE 130TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF CHAIRMAN MAO TSETUNG!
LONG LIVE MARXISM-LENINISM-MAOISM! DOWN WITH REVISIONISM AND ALL
OPPORTUNISM!
LONG LIVE THE PEOPLE'S WARS IN PERU, INDIA, TURKEY AND THE
PHILIPPINES!
DOWN WITH THE IMPERIALIST WAR!
LONG LIVE THE PROLETARIAN WORLD REVOLUTION!
International Communist League
1
st of May 2024
