True enough, in the era of capitalism, when the masses of the workers are subjected to constant exploitation and cannot develop their human capacities, the most characteristic feature of working-class political parties is that they can involve only a minority of their class. A political party can comprise only a minority of a class, in the same way as the really class-conscious workers in any capitalist society constitute only a minority of all workers. We are therefore obliged to recognise that it is only this class-conscious minority that can direct and lead the broad masses of the workers. And if Comrade Tanner says that he is opposed to parties, but at the same time is in favour of a minority that represents the best organised and most revolutionary workers showing the way to the entire proletariat, then I say that there is really no difference between us. What is this organised minority? If this minority is really class-conscious, if it is able to lead the masses, if it is able to reply to every question that appears on the order of the day, then it is a party in reality. But if comrades like Tanner, to whom we pay special heed as representatives of a mass movement—which cannot, without a certain exaggeration, be said of the representatives of the British Socialist Party—if these comrades are in favour of there being a minority that will fight resolutely for the dictatorship of the proletariat and will educate the masses of the workers along these lines, then this minority is in reality nothing but a party.

V. I. Lenin
The Second Congress Of The Communist International
July 19-August 7, 1920

The Russian social-chauvinists (headed by Plekhanov), refer to Marx’s tactics in the war of 1870; the German (of the type of Lensch, David and Co.) to Engels’ statement in 1891 that in the event of war against Russia and France together, it would be the duty of the German Socialists to defend their fatherland; and lastly, the social-chauvinists of the Kautsky type, who want to reconcile and legitimatise international chauvinism, refer to the fact that Marx and Engels, while condemning war, nevertheless, constantly, from to 1870-1871 and 1876-1877, took the side of one or another belligerent state once war had broken out.

All these references are outrageous distortions of the views of Marx and Engels in the interest of the bourgeoisie and the opportunists, in just the same way as the writings of the Anarchists Guillaume and Co. distort the views of Marx and Engels in justification of anarchism. The war of 1870-1871 was a historically progressive war on the part of Germany until Napoleon III was defeated; for the latter, together with the tsar, had oppressed Germany for many years, keeping her in a state of feudal disintegration. But as soon as the war developed into the plunder of France (the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine), Marx and Engels emphatically condemned the Germans. And even at the beginning of that war Marx and Engels approved of the refusal of Bebel and Liebknecht to vote for credits and advised the Social-Democrats not to merge with the bourgeoisie, but to uphold the independent class interests of the proletariat. To apply the appraisal of this bourgeois-progressive and national-liberating war to the present imperialist war means mocking at truth. The same applies with still greater force to the war of 1854-1855, and to all the wars of the nineteenth century, when there was no modern imperialism, no ripe objective conditions for Socialism, and no mass Socialist parties in any of the belligerent countries, i.e., none of the conditions from which the Basle Manifesto deduced the tactics of “proletarian revolution” in connection with a war between the great powers.

Whoever refers today to Marx’s attitude towards the wars of the epoch of the progressive bourgeoisie and forgets Man’s statement that “the workers have no fatherland,” a statement that applies precisely to the epoch of the reactionary, obsolete bourgeoisie, to the epoch of the socialist revolution, shamelessly distorts Marx and substitutes the bourgeois for the socialist point of view.

V. I. Lenin
Socialism and War

The Democratic Republic of Congo — the richest yet most exploited country on Earth — is inching toward a peace deal between its military and the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels. But many in Congo view the US-supported negotiations with deep skepticism, having seen similar efforts collapse time and again.

How did it come to this — a country overflowing with natural resources, trapped in endless conflict? In an interview with red. media, a Congolese activist, speaking under conditions of anonymity for security reasons, explains how foreign powers continue to drive violence and exploitation in the region.

theredstream

On May 1, 1933, the Communist Party led a powerful demonstration in Boston, standing shoulder to shoulder with the oppressed workers of America. In the midst of the Great Depression, they raised their voices against the cruelty of capitalism and vowed to fight both the exploitation at home and the rise of fascist tyranny abroad.

International Workers Day 1. May 1943

🟡 HAPPENING NOW: Red flags are rising in Berlin—and the state is already panicking. On the eve of International Workers' Day, hundreds filled the streets to denounce NATO militarism, the cost-of-living crisis, and the capitalist system driving both. Palestinian flags flew alongside red ones, confronting the political order.

Protesters chanted for the expropriation of capitalists—landlords included—“We will expropriate you all.” Police, mainstream media, and politicians are already framing the protests as violent threats—laying the groundwork to justify repression.

theredstream

First, the fact that labor is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his intrinsic nature; that in his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself. He feels at home when he is not working, and when he is working he does not feel at home. His labor is therefore not voluntary, but coerced; it is forced labor. It is therefore not the satisfaction of a need; it is merely a means to satisfy needs external to it. Its alien character emerges clearly in the fact that as soon as no physical or other compulsion exists, labor is shunned like the plague. External labor, labor in which man alienates himself, is a labor of self-sacrifice, of mortification.

Karl Marx
The Philosophical and Economic Manuscripts of 1844

On one side stand the handful of rich blood-suckers. They have seized the factories and mills, the tools and machinery, have turned millions of acres of land and mountains of money into their private property. They have made the government and the army their servants, faithful watchdogs of the wealth they have amassed.

On the other side stand the millions of the disinherited. They are forced to beg the moneybags for permission to work for them. By their labour they create all wealth; yet all their lives long they have to struggle for a crust of bread, beg for work as for charity, sap their strength and health by back-breaking toil, and starve in hovels in the villages or in the cellars and garrets of the big cities.

V. I. Lenin
May Day
Written in April 1904

Clashes erupted outside Indonesia’s parliament on May Day. Workers, feminist groups, and student organizations gathered for a mass rally, defying relocation orders and a heavy police presence.

Banners declaring “May Day is not a holiday. This is the day to fight back” were seen outside the gates of the legislature. Protesters condemned state repression and neoliberal labor policies.

Student groups accused the Prabowo-Gibran government of serving foreign—especially US—interests, rather than protecting workers and the poor.

theredstream

Protesters tore down police barricades in Manila on May Day. Clashes erupted near Recto Avenue, where demonstrators burned effigies of Xi Jinping and Donald Trump to protest foreign influence and imperialism in the Philippines.

theredstream

May Day mural seen in San Francisco